"Yu Tang, in the beginning, you were the one who said you wanted me..."
The operating room was very cold, and Yu Tang felt a bit chilly lying on the operating chair. The glaring lights made her turn her face slightly to avoid the glare.
The anesthesiologist was next to her. Yu Tang noticed the syringe in her hand. She said she was a little afraid of pain, really a little afraid, but she wasn't sure if she had said it aloud, or if she had said anything else. Yu Tang couldn't remember. Her eyes seemed a little cold, perhaps because of the air conditioning.
Soon, she felt sleepy, so sleepy that she didn't realize she had closed her eyes. She was afraid of pain, and she still didn't know if she had actually said those words.
Or is she already dead?
Yu Tang seemed to have slept for a very long time. Her dream was filled with a pale white scene, with only the incessant sound of rain. She couldn't find shelter from the rain, and when she looked down again, she realized that what was on the ground wasn't rainwater at all, but a large pool of blood...
Damp and bloody.
She tried to back away, to escape, to escape to a place where there was no rain, to escape until she was exhausted, but she was still in the same spot, in that pool of blood.
She opened her eyes silently and realized that her face was covered in tears.
Even after a long time, Yu Tang never truly emerged from that torrential rain, even though the rain had stopped.
The doctor instructed Yu Chaoxian that the patient needed rest, and that the patient's poor mood and high stress levels were detrimental to recovery. Therefore, extra care should be taken to manage the patient's emotional state, and the diet should be warm and nourishing, avoiding cold foods.
The doctor assumed the couple were newlyweds and comforted them, saying, "You're still young, you'll have the chance to have children. Focus on getting better first, that's the most important thing."
That evening, Yu Chaoxian carried the sleeping Yu Tang onto the plane, and Yu Tang slept soundly through the night.
Yu Tang was not awakened by the sound of a helicopter until morning. Yu Chaoxian took her to a private island, which was equipped with a medical team, star chefs, and butlers and servants.
She found herself in Yu Chaoxian's arms, holding the shark-shaped pillow she used to like. Yu Tang quickly moved away from him, pushing away his hand that was on her lower abdomen.
Yu Chaoxian looked down at her. Yu Tang pressed herself against the window and looked down at the endless blue sea.
The sea meets the blue sky, clouds float in the water and the sea stretches to the horizon, so quiet it's as if the world has stood still. Under the glass floor, you can directly observe tropical fish, sea turtles, and even whale sharks. In the distance are lush banyan and coconut groves, and deep in the forest is a natural freshwater waterfall.
The environment is nice, quiet, and very private, making it perfect for recuperation. Yu Tang really likes it here; if Yu Chaoxian weren't here, she could spend the whole day sunbathing with a book in hand.
But if Yu Chaoxian were here, to avoid running into him, she would stay in bed, and as long as she covered herself with the blanket, she wouldn't see him. It was as if she was comforting herself by thinking that closing her eyes meant it would be dark.
She curled up in a ball on the bed, her back to him. Since the surgery, Yu Tang hadn't spoken a single word to Yu Chaoxian. She wouldn't speak to him, but to everyone else.
He simply called Mickey to ask about Yu Yanting's funeral, and Yu Chaoxian knew everything about it.
Yu Chaoxian sat opposite her, his gaze sweeping over the necklace that had been tossed on the table. The cold white light cast a shadow on his sharply defined face.
His ears kept replaying Yu Tang's words to him before the surgery: "With such a dirty relationship between us, no child would really want to stay. Don't say I didn't know; even if I did, I wouldn't keep it."
Yu Chaoxian knew that Yu Tang hated him. Yu Tang said she would hate him for a lifetime; what difference was there between that and saying she would miss him for a lifetime?
It didn't matter. He indulged her stubbornness, tolerated her resistance, and even appreciated the occasional sharpness she showed—breaking her pride was far more interesting than taming a docile canary.
In Yu Chaoxian's view, love cannot be begged for, nor can it be bought. It can only be seized by force.
He has plenty of time.
The ticking of the wall clock was amplified, and Yu Tang knew that Yu Chaoxian hadn't left yet.
“Stay here for now, it’s not safe outside.” Yu Chaoxian spoke first after the silence. He knew she was asking when Mickey would send her back to Yingzhou, as school was about to start.
As soon as he finished speaking, Yu Tang pulled the blanket over herself, not wanting to listen to him.
Seeing that she was being stubborn again, Yu Chaoxian knew he couldn't reason with her, so he could only use something she was interested in as an exchange: "Is your life more important or going to school? France and England are going to war soon. Do you want to go there and become a target? Be good, and I'll take you to the funeral once you put on the necklace." Back then, France ordered a large number of drones at the bidding conference in preparation for redrawing the boundaries of the Anglo-French Tunnel.
Upon hearing about Yu Yanting's funeral, Yu Tang pulled the blanket down a little. Her brother had raised her for so many years, and she absolutely had to go see him off on his final journey. She reached out from under the blanket, picked up the necklace she had just tossed onto the table, and put it on.
As for what Yu Chaoxian said, it was just his side of the story. She would never believe that she wasn't her mother's child or her brother's sister.
Although she herself couldn't understand it, logically speaking, since she and Yu Chaoxian were not related by blood, her psychological pressure would be reduced or even completely relieved. However, compared to her incestuous relationship with Yu Chaoxian, she was more afraid that she was not related to her mother and brother by blood.
In her view, this was the true meaning of being abandoned.
However… Yu Tang had embellished some of her childhood memories, and she could no longer distinguish whether those memories were her own fantasies or real. The only thing she was sure of was that her mother in the church was really crying, and sometimes she was also hiding from her brother.
If, if her brother really forced her... piecing together hazy fragments of memory, her mother hugged her and asked her if she would ever hate herself and Yu Yanting.
Tears streamed down her face. She didn't know who to hate, nor who to cherish so that she wouldn't live alone in despair in this world.
She wanted to grasp something, she desperately wanted to grasp something. But if even her brother's affection was fake, what could she possibly have left?
Yu Chaoxian brought over a water glass and touched her forehead. In her wet eyes, there was only silent resistance.
Yu Tang looked up at him, and for a moment, she was consumed by hatred for him.
"Yu Tang, what do you want?" Yu Chaoxian knelt on one knee in front of the bed, grabbed her hand, and looked at her. "I'll give you everything."
Yu Tang's lips twitched. After a long silence, her voice became hoarse when she finally spoke. What she wanted was very simple.
"I want freedom, I want to leave you." She pulled her hand away and said, "Can you give it to me?"
The man's silence confirmed to Yu Tang once again that talking to him was a complete waste of breath.
This time, Yu Tang didn't shrink back into the blankets or close her eyes. She could see Yu Chaoxian, but she didn't see him.
There is no emotion more terrifying than being ignored, not even hatred.
"Why did you say you wanted me before?" Yu Chaoxian's voice came from beside the bed.
Yu Tang frowned. When did she say that?
With his hands empty, Yu Chaoxian stroked the scars on his palm with his fingertips. He asked, "On the villa rooftop, facing Gideon, why did you take the initiative to shoot to protect me? Why did you say we were family and no one could hurt me?"
“At the school gate, you were the one who took the initiative to hug me; when we were being chased by Li Xiang, you kept saying you cared about me and cried when you saw me injured; when we went to Fuzhou, you cared about my eyes and made me mulberry tea; and in the church, the person you were thinking of under the angel sculpture was me! If you didn’t care about me at all, why did you care if I was hungry when I came back from Killaria? That night I asked you, what do you want?”
"Yu Tang, you were the one who said you wanted me first!"
Faced with the man's questioning, the girl raised her head, her pale face still streaked with tears, yet her eyes remained as stubborn as ever. For so long, she had made no choice, only forced to make so-called choices under Yu Chaoxian's oppression, and now she had nothing left to lose.
She met the man's imposing gaze directly, her voice soft yet clear: "So, you mean I seduced you into all of this?"
A night breeze blew by, scattering the stray hairs at Yu Tang's temples and revealing her reddened eyes. Since she had already lost everything she didn't want to lose, she might as well throw away everything she didn't want.
“Then I’ll tell you plainly now,” Yu Tang said calmly, looking at him, “I don’t want you, and I don’t love you. I said from the beginning that I could never love you. You killed my brother and tried to hurt everyone I care about. If your death could bring them back, I would kill you without hesitation. But the truth is, even if you die, they won’t come back. You’re the one who made me end up with no family. All this harm was caused by you.”
"I never want to see you again, not even when I die. I want to leave you, forever and ever. Everything about you, everything you thought you gave me, I don't want! And you, I don't want either. Is that clear enough, Yu Chaoxian?"
For Yu Tang, all the complex emotions between her and Yu Chaoxian, even familial affection, have been gradually eroded by these past events, leaving only a tiny place to stay. She and he have always stood on the verge of collapse.
Now even this small edge has crumbled.
Silence fell over the room for a moment; the night was eerily quiet.
Yu Chaoxian's hand, hidden in the shadows, crushed the cup. The shards cut into his palm, sinking into his flesh. His hand didn't hurt much, but his heart felt like it had been shattered with a handful of broken glass, a bloody pain.
“Tell me clearly, Yu Tang, is it that you don’t love me or that you can’t love me? The more you run away from your feelings for me, the clearer they will become.” Yu Chaoxian rubbed the scar on the heart line on his palm with his fingertips, clenched the broken shards of the cup, and deepened the old scar that would never disappear.
Yu Tang sneered. The matter had already been discussed to this extent; what was there left to be unclear, ambiguous, or confusing? Exhausted to the extreme, she silently closed her eyes.
Silence is the best answer.
There are only two kinds of tragic endings.
One scenario is that the righteous side overcomes countless difficulties to achieve victory, but the price they pay is a pile of corpses lying haphazardly. People die, but at least some kind of uplifting spirit lives on.
Another tragedy is quite the opposite: at the end, all that remains in a person's heart is numbness, exhaustion, anxiety, and despair; even breathing feels impossible, yet there is nowhere to escape. The person is still alive, but their heart is already dead.
She and Yu Chaoxian might belong to the second type.
Yu Tang's silence made Yu Chaoxian realize that she didn't care about anything he gave her.
She didn't care about the meals and seasons they spent together, the wishes made under the fireworks, the sudden kiss at the concert, the embrace under the romantic California sunset, or the kisses during every dangerous or even life-threatening situation. Naturally, she didn't care about the passionate, lingering moments they shared at night.
Yu Chaoxian stared at Yu Tang for a long time, but her eyes held only indifference. He understood that there was nothing about him that she didn't hate.
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Author's Note: If Tangtang and Yu Chaoxian had missed any step, they wouldn't have been able to achieve their final, mutually loving, and devoted relationship. This is the only possible ending. Therefore, there are no "what ifs." [Heart]
I'm grateful to the readers who have accompanied Tangtang and Yu Chaoxian along the way. The main story is expected to reach chapter 100, and I plan to write the remaining plot as side stories, mainly focusing on the relationship between the two. The side stories will also be updated daily. There aren't many comments, and I've been reading them. Well… it's not what you're guessing, and I can't say for sure, otherwise it would be a spoiler. I won't change the outline because of anyone's comments; the ending was already decided in my mind. As for Yu Chaoxian's career path, you'll understand at the very end. Yu Chaoxian's only weakness is Yu Tang.
This is roughly the data for this story. I knew it would flop, but I didn't expect it to flop this badly. Over 400,000 words and only a thousand favorites. I was driven to the brink of collapse while writing it. In short, I just want to thank everyone again for being willing to read this story. Without your comments and support, I simply couldn't have kept going. Just as reading is for enjoyment, so is abandoning it. I'm not sure if everyone will like the subsequent developments in the story, so I'm quite anxious.
After the romance side story is finished, I will write a bonus side story to thank the readers who support the official version. If you have any side stories you'd like to see, please let me know. However, I personally don't really accept "what if" scenarios, and the reason is explained in my first sentence, so "what if" scenarios are not being considered for the time being.
Finally, I want to thank all the readers who have followed along! [heart emoji]
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