Standing Next To You-Chapter 560: The boat that had sunk II

In the past....

When Fei Chuan left the Fei family and went abroad, the scandals he left behind took a massive toll on the family.

At that time, Fei Min and his father wasn’t exiled like in the present time, but they were protected by the Fei family instead.

However, Fei Chuan left them a parting gift—he exposed their branch’s scandal, causing the Fei family to collapse under the weight of disgrace.

The first branch lost favor with the Head Master Fei due to the scandal. Their only hope lay in their eldest son, the heir—Fei Hua Jiang.

At that time, the only remaining ’clean’ person in the first branch, untainted by any scandal, was Fei Hua Jiang. The entire branch placed their hopes on him.

Determined to restore what his family had lost, Fei Hua Jiang took full responsibility. He worked tirelessly, and with his skills, he managed to help the Fei family regain its footing.

Under his leadership, the disgraced first branch slowly regained its former status. They clung to Fei Hua Jiang’s coattails, flaunting their reclaimed wealth and prestige.

However, despite their recovery, Fei Min remained consumed by anger and a thirst for revenge. When Fei Chuan returned to Country C, Fei Min schemed against him, nearly harming not only Fei Chuan but also Grandma Pei.

Fei Chuan retaliated mercilessly, crushing the first branch once more. This time, he was utterly ruthless, even dragging Fei Hua Jiang down with them—exposing his scandal to the world. After all, Fei Hua Jiang was the pride of the first branch, the reason Fei Min had been so confident.

But Fei Chuan didn’t need to do anything further.

After the scandal broke, it wasn’t public gossip that hurt Fei Hua Jiang the most. It was his own family.

The Fei family could not accept his sexual orientation. Even his own parents believed something was ’wrong’ with him—that he needed to be ’cured.’

Despite proving himself as a dedicated and capable leader, none of it mattered in the face of this revelation.

Head Master Fei and his parents believed they could ’fix’ him through marriage.

Fei Hua Jiang obeyed. He sacrificed his own desires for the family and got married.

But it wasn’t enough.

To completely erase what they saw as his ’mistake,’ his family pressured him further. They pushed him to have a child—to prove to everyone that he wasn’t attracted to men.

But Fei Hua Jiang couldn’t do it.

A year into the marriage, his wife had an affair, and the scandal exploded. She eventually ran away, leaving him to clean up the mess.

The Fei family eventually caught her, but she shifted all the blame onto Fei Hua Jiang, claiming that because he hadn’t fulfilled his duties as a husband, she had sought affection elsewhere.

Fei Hua Jiang accepted the blame.

After all, he had dragged someone else into the miserable arrangement called marriage and ruined their life.

He did not pursue the matter with his ex-wife.

When the family pushed him toward another marriage, Fei Hua Jiang finally spoke up.

"Why?" His voice trembled, his heart hollow. "I’ve done everything to lead this family. Is all my hard work going to be defined by what I am?"

He felt suffocated. No matter how hard he worked, he was still met with disgusted stares.

"Why can’t you accept me? It’s not like I killed a man."

For the first time, he spoke for his feelings, hoping—desperately—that his family would understand and accept him for who he was.

For years, he had lived in constant fear that they would find out. And when the scandal finally broke, he had felt... relieved. The secret was out. He no longer had to spend every day terrified of exposure.

He thought he could bear the ridicule, the disgusted looks—if only his family would accept him in time.

But that time never came.

No matter how much effort he put in to please them, he was never enough.

His parents and brother couldn’t even look at him now. The very people who had once pushed him into marriage were now forcing him into another.

"I was lenient with you. I accepted your flaws and fix your mistakes," he whispered, his voice cracking. "Can’t you be lenient with me as well?"

But his plea for understanding fell on deaf ears.

"It’s not that hard to do," his mother snapped. "Just marry another woman and have a child. We can’t even show up at parties anymore because of you! Do you know how much shame we have to endure? Every time we go out, people whisper about you, about... what you are. Hearing them is like having my heart sliced over and over."

His father followed, speaking of colleagues ridiculing him, employees gossiping behind his back. Him being ashamed of having a ’son’ like him.

Even his brother, whom he had protected, had grown cold.

Fei Min glared at him, unable to conceal the disgust in his eyes. "Brother... do you know what my friends say?" His voice dropped to a whisper. "They even suspected that you and I.." He couldn’t finish the sentence. He covered his mouth in revulsion. "Surely you don’t have such ideas to me... right?"

Fei Hua Jiang stilled.

At that moment, he realized the truth.

No matter what he did, they would never accept him.

His image in their eyes had already been permanently tainted.

He smiled bitterly.

"I can’t drag another person into this and ruin her life as well."

Without another word, he left. He abandoned the first branch. He walked out of the Fei mansion and never looked back.

For months, he disappeared.

And then, one day, he returned—only to take his own life in the very house where he had been born and raised.

In his suicide letter, he wrote of the months he had spent searching for his past lover, the one he had been forced to leave behind.

He had finally found him—far away, in a remote village atop a snowy mountain.

But when he did, he completely fell apart.

His past lover’s tongue had been ripped out—by Fei Min and his parents.

So that their secret would never be exposed.

His family had stripped his lover of everything—his livelihood, his place in the city, even his very future. They had threatened his life until he had no choice but to abandon everything and live among strangers, in exile.

Even without words, Fei Hua Jiang could feel the depth of his lover’s pain.

The resentment. The anger.

There was no love left. Only hatred.

Fei Hua Jiang had spent his entire life bearing the weight of his family’s expectations. But this—this, he could not bear.

He could not live knowing that his love had been mutilated, his life ruined, all because of him.

So, he ended it.

And with his death, the Fei family fell apart—never to rise again.