"Yes." Brian Young gently coaxed, "Think about it. My parents have treated Little Ann like their own daughter since she was little. If our relationship gets exposed because of Little Ann, and Little Ann is ruined and entangled in lawsuits, how do you expect them to accept you?"

Evan Clark hugged his head, curling up into himself.

"…Why." Evan Clark murmured, "Why…"

His dreams, his passion for music, were all destroyed.

And his lover had resolutely chosen to stand with family. If he didn’t agree to take the blame for Ann Young, there would be no future for him and Brian Young.

Love, dreams—how was he supposed to choose?

Evan Clark had always been obedient since childhood, with no hobbies besides music. Brian Young was the first person Evan Clark ever cherished so deeply.

To love someone is to place them carefully in your heart, afraid even that your heart isn’t soft enough.

Brian Young was wonderful, gentle with him, would coax him when his artist’s temper flared, steady, hardworking, and they were perfectly in sync in bed.

Evan Clark couldn’t bear, after surviving a devastating storm, to rip open his chest and forcibly dig out the person he’d loved for three years.

He just couldn’t do it.

Evan Clark clutched at Brian Young’s hem and softly asked, "With this reputation on my back, how can I write songs? Will anyone still want me?"

Hearing him finally relent, Brian Young unconsciously let out a huge sigh of relief.

He pulled Evan Clark into his arms. "I want you."

…This wasn’t the answer Evan Clark wanted.

But it was the only, and best, answer he could get at this point.

Evan Clark’s company quickly issued a statement, sternly condemning such egregious plagiarism, and decisively moved to terminate his contract, demanding he pay a penalty for breach.

At this critical moment, Evan Clark’s older brother Jack Clark stormed in, pointed at his brother’s nose, and unleashed a tirade: "Evan Clark, you think you’re something now? Something this big happens and you don’t contact the family? If you don’t want to be a Clark, you should’ve said so earlier!"

Evan Clark said nothing.

His reputation was already ruined. Since he’d decided to keep it hidden, he had to hide it from his family too.

After scolding him, his brother paid off his debts, spent money to delete posts online, and still wasn’t satisfied—he even went online himself to argue with people.

Netizens, seeing their comments deleted, only pushed back harder. The situation kept escalating. Helen Turner’s company didn’t let the hype go to waste, buying bots and marketing accounts to fan the flames. Among them, a web singer-songwriter with over 500,000 followers was the most aggressive—a famous Helen Turner fan, posting six or seven Weibo updates a day, relentlessly mocking Evan Clark.

One of his posts read: "The plagiarism dog must be cowering under the covers, trembling right now [dog head][dog head][dog head]."

Below, Helen Turner’s fans reveled, spewing filth and obscenities, utterly nauseating.

Evan Clark was truly scared. He turned off his DMs, turned off his phone, shut himself away. No matter how patient Brian Young was, he had just started working and couldn’t be there every day.

Evan Clark thought, it would get better after a while. If he could just get through this, he could start again.

But later, Evan Clark found he couldn’t write songs anymore. He couldn’t even touch the piano. The moment his fingers pressed a key, he’d think of the piano prelude he’d painstakingly composed for "Words from the Heart," his heart pounding with nausea and his hands shaking—he couldn’t play a single complete song.

After trying countless times, he suddenly clenched his fists and slammed them down on the piano.

The piano let out two groans, one high, one low.

Back in college, the genius Evan Clark could carry an entire band by himself—now he couldn’t even play "Ode to Joy."

That day, he broke down and cried for a long time.

When Brian Young came home, he held him and comforted him: "If you can’t write, then don’t. I’ll take care of you."

Brian Young was always this gentle, as if what Evan Clark had gone through wasn’t anything earth-shattering, as if he would shoulder it all with him.

But Evan Clark was getting worse.

He would often sit by the bed all day, not knowing what to do; even a bit of sunlight would frighten him; he lost his appetite for long stretches, then would binge eat; he often forgot where he put his keys and wallet, and the sticky notes on his desk hadn’t been updated in ages.

He knew he was sick, but when he confided in Brian Young, all he got was, "You’re just in a bad mood, go out for a walk and you’ll feel better."

More than three months later, after a huge fight with his brother, Jack Clark couldn’t hold back and secretly came to see him.

Seeing his brother so thin he was almost unrecognizable, Jack Clark was shocked and forcibly dragged him to see a psychologist.

Jack Clark slapped the diagnosis of moderate depression in front of their parents. Their mother burst into tears on the spot.

Their once healthy son had become like this. Their father immediately tried to contact Brian Young’s parents to ask what they thought.

It wasn’t until they met with the utterly shocked Yang family that the Clark parents learned that Brian Young had never once mentioned to his own family that he’d been in a relationship with a man for over three years.

The Clark parents’ attitude was clear: the environment in China wasn’t good, so they planned to move Little Evan to a quiet small town abroad to recover, where there was a hospital specializing in depression treatment.

Little Evan was so ill, he couldn’t be without Brian Young. Brian Young could go with him, and the Clark family would handle the work visa or immigration.