Returning - Chapter 145

Chapter 145: I'll Protect You

Zhao Yu kept thinking that if this world truly operated on the principle of good people ascending to heaven and bad people descending to hell, then after she died, she and Zhuang Yiqing would surely both be condemned to the eighteenth level of Hell.

When they first met, she had never intended to harm Ling Jianwei. Yet in the end, she had deceived and used him time after time, inflicting endless torment upon him, body and soul.

But how did this fool before her treat her after enduring so much hurt?

"Ling Jianwei, can it just end between us?" Pulling free from the wrist he had been gripping tightly, she regarded him with cold detachment. "What I owe you, I can't repay in this lifetime. Just don't hold it against me anymore, and don't keep clinging to me in the future."

He stared directly at her and shook his head. "If you won't tell me, I'll go ask Zhuang Ye directly. If Zhuang Ye doesn't know, someone else in the Zhuang family surely will."

Watching the man who had always been so obedient to her act so stubborn, Zhao Yu let out a soft laugh.

She had been a bad woman for so long; on the rare occasion her conscience stirred, he refused to accept it. Instead, it only made her seem hypocritical and insincere.

Leaning lazily against the headboard, she looked at him. "You really want to know?"

He nodded firmly.

Zhao Yu smiled faintly, then lowered her head, gently stroking her lower abdomen. "Here, there was once a child. Zhuang Ye's."

Ling Jianwei was utterly stunned. It took him a long moment to react. "Wh… when was this?"

"Four years ago. Before I seduced you into bed."

His face drained of color. "Then… then we… we were… at that time, you were still… still pregnant, or…"

"The child was already gone." Subconsciously, she took a cigarette from the nightstand, lit it for herself, and inhaled deeply twice.

Watching her practiced movements, Ling Jianwei asked, "You… when did you learn to smoke?"

She looked at him, smiling. "When you slept with me four years ago, you didn't smell the smoke?"

Back then, he had been so nervous and excited, completely immersed in immense happiness. He hadn't even seen through the simple lies she told him—how could he have noticed something like that?

Ling Jianwei paused, then said quietly, "You should still quit smoking. It's bad for your health."

Zhao Yu exhaled a long plume of smoke. "This body of mine, there's no point talking about good or bad health. You wanted to know what grudge I have against the Zhuang family? It's very simple. Zhuang Yiqing caused my mother's death, caused my best friend's death, and also killed my and Zhuang Ye's child. And also…"

She pointed at her lower abdomen nonchalantly, "My uterus is gone too. Now Zhuang Yiqing can rest easy. A low-class person like me, unworthy of carrying the Zhuang family bloodline, can never, ever conceive their child again."

Ling Jianwei suddenly felt as if he had been transported back to that rainy day four years ago. From head to toe, inside and out, he was riddled with a thousand holes, and the suffocating sense of helplessness was even stronger than it had been four years ago.

Watching her finish speaking with such an unnervingly calm demeanor, then lift the cigarette back to her lips, he suddenly reached out with a trembling hand and grasped hers tightly. "You're… joking with me, right? You're lying to me again. You were lying to me four years ago, and now you're definitely…"

"Yes, I'm lying to you." She looked at him quietly, a faint smile on her face. "I am indeed lying to you."

But seeing her like this, his heart continued to sink, bit by bit, and the hand holding her fingers tightened more and more.

A long while later, he finally snapped out of his dazed and desolate state. "Then you… you were… really in pain at that time…"

Looking at his red-rimmed eyes, Zhao Yu shook her head.

"I didn't know anything, and I still treated you like that. You had just finished surgery—how could I have treated you like that? I didn't know anything. I didn't know you had suffered so much. Over these four years, I've secretly resented you, blamed you for lying to me…"

His choked voice stopped abruptly. He suddenly got up and rushed into the bathroom. The door slammed shut with a loud bang.

Hearing the muffled sobs coming from inside, Zhao Yu paused, then continued smoking one cigarette after another, smiling all the while.

By the time he came out of the bathroom, she had already finished the last few cigarettes. Looking at his red eyes, she said softly, "Go to the convenience store across the street and buy me a pack of cigarettes."

He stood stiffly by the bed, looking at her, not moving.

Zhao Yu smiled. "I know, smoking isn't allowed in the hospital room. What I'm doing is very uncivilized. It's just that, sometimes when the craving hits…"

He sat down on the edge of the bed, holding her hand tightly, still silent.

He must have washed his face before coming out; his bangs were wet and slightly plastered together upwards, exposing a large portion of his forehead, and the still-conspicuous scar upon it.

Zhao Yu stared fixedly at that scar. "Can't it be removed? Or did you keep it on purpose, to constantly remind yourself never to trust others easily again?"

Ling Jianwei hurriedly reached up and tousled his bangs to cover the scar completely.

Zhao Yu smiled and sighed. "I'm sorry, Ling Jianwei. At that time… I had no other choice. Zhuang Yiqing was threatening me using my Godmother and Godfather. I couldn't tell Zhuang Ye anything. Being in the hospital was like being in prison. After I was discharged, I was still being watched. That night we first did it, there was someone in the next room."

Ling Jianwei looked at her in shock.

She chuckled. "Otherwise, how could Zhuang Ye have rushed back the very next day? That person, she was a caretaker Zhuang Yiqing sent to look after me. See how thoughtful she was? She even worried I wouldn't recuperate properly after leaving the hospital and specially had someone watch over me twenty-four hours a day. It's just that when she saw me sleep with you, she was freed from that duty and could rush off to claim credit. Who knows how happy such explosive news made Zhuang Yiqing."

He gripped her hand tighter. "When I woke up in the hospital, you were already gone. No one knew where you went. So was it… at that time that you successfully escaped?"

"Sort of. But I still need to thank you. I know, in front of your eldest brother, you must have done the same as you did with Zhuang Ye—taken all the blame on yourself. Otherwise, your Ling family wouldn't have let me go."

Even though she only learned now, four years later, that he had never managed to fool Ling Jianyuan at all, it was only because his brother doted on him that he didn't pursue the matter.

As for Zhuang Yiqing, after her personally arranged affair-exposure drama achieved great success, after Zhuang Ye was utterly disappointed in Tang Xi, his heart torn between love and hate, she naturally wasn't as afraid of Tang Xi's existence anymore.

Besides, they could still monitor her Godfather's and Godmother's house anytime. That threat was just as effective. Tang Xi, who had always been like an ant before her, how could she possibly be her match?

So during those three years in America, Tang Xi, who had become Zhao Yu, never once came back to visit her Godfather and Godmother. It was partly due to the guilt in her heart, and partly because she wasn't sure if Zhuang Yiqing might still have people watching nearby. Making Tang Xi disappear completely was the best protection for her Godfather and Godmother.

"Tang Xi." He gently pulled her into his arms. "From now on, let me protect you, okay?"

She leaned numbly against his shoulder, not answering.

"I know, I can't compare to Xue Zhan. But I will make myself stronger. I will be able to protect you. Trust me, okay?"

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