Chapter 101
◎It's not that I loved the wrong person, it's that I chose the wrong person.◎
"Mental health issues?" Zhan Xinyue's expression turned pale. "That's not a word to be used casually."
Wu Chuni smiled and said, "I'm sorry, that word doesn't sound very nice, but that's what his father said, so I just relayed it. I think 'psychological state' might be a more appropriate word."
"What's the meaning?"
"You could say he has some depression or suicidal tendencies, coupled with severe sleep disorders, and he's been taking large doses of sleeping pills, which has made his overall condition very bad. During the worst period, he did something that scared his father. So his family originally didn't agree to him leaving home to study in Beijing, but he insisted on coming, so his father came to me."
“Disillusioned with life…” Zhan Xinyue’s heart clenched suddenly. “Why?”
“I don’t know about that.” Wu Chuni slowly shook her head, a hint of sympathy flashing in her eyes. “I guess it has something to do with his family? After all, kids from complicated families aren’t always mentally healthy. I don’t know much about his family situation, only that he doesn’t get along well with his father. Apparently, he agreed to a condition from his father for some reason, and afterwards he became very depressed. His biological mother is also quite heartless. She hasn’t been back to China for many years. When Ziqian went to see her that year, she wouldn’t even open the door for him. Add to that some other messy things… I heard that for a while he couldn’t even go to school, he had to drop out and stay home, and he couldn’t see anyone.”
Zhan Xinyue froze completely at these words. She had asked Shi Ziqian about taking a leave of absence, but which of his casual descriptions and Wu Chuni's words today was true?
Seeing her stunned expression for a long time, the other person smiled and said, "He's much better now. I heard that he was in that state for about half a semester before he went back to school. I first saw him after the college entrance exam. He seemed pretty normal then, except he didn't like going out and wasn't talkative..." She frowned slightly as she said this, "But recently he's started acting a little strange again..."
She didn't continue, quickly shook her head, and looked at Zhan Xinyue: "I've said too much, I can't talk to you anymore, I have to go and see."
Zhan Xinyue had once been puzzled as to how she could run into Shi Ziqian so frequently on such a large campus. Recently, she finally realized that the school was indeed very large, and unless it was intentional, the chances of the two of them bumping into each other were actually extremely slim.
So she hasn't seen Shi Ziqian since that night.
From that day on, she started staring blankly at her phone. Her phone screen would linger on the class group chat for long periods. Several times she tapped the darkened cartoon rabbit avatar, her finger hovering over the "add friend" option, but she always let it slip away in the end.
A few days later, even her roommates noticed something was wrong and asked her if something was on her mind.
She was indeed troubled. The dull ache in her heart that lingered after Wu Chuni said those things that day had persisted to this day; she was genuinely heartbroken. In her heart, Shi Ziqian should have a glamorous life and a bright future, not be like this, mentioned only with pity in everyone's eyes.
What pains her even more is that she can't help but wonder if what she did that year was the last straw that broke the camel's back.
On Monday afternoon, Zhan Xinyue had no classes, so she randomly found an empty classroom to study, but found that she couldn't concentrate on anything. So she absentmindedly took out her sketchbook and scribbled.
A few people walked by outside the door. She glanced at them casually, and two seconds later, she suddenly forgot about her schoolbag, grabbing her sketchbook and chasing after them. She saw Wu Chuni walking among the group, chatting and laughing with them, looking very happy.
Zhan Xinyue caught up with her in a few steps and gently patted her shoulder: "Senior, are you free right now? I want to ask you something."
Wu Chuni turned around and saw her, raised an eyebrow, and quickly smiled and said to the people beside her, "You guys go first." Then she turned to her, "What's the matter? Let's find a place to talk."
The two squeezed through the crowd and found a bench under a tree to sit down.
"Are you asking me about Shi Ziqian?" Wu Chuni asked bluntly.
"Yes, how has he been lately?" Zhan Xinyue didn't try to hide anything.
Seeing her smiling face just now, Zhan Xinyue felt a little more at ease.
Unexpectedly, Wu Chuni said, "I'm not too sure about that either."
"How could you not know?" Zhan Xinyue asked anxiously.
"I haven't seen him for the past few days. He's been preparing for his postgraduate entrance exam and has also found two new part-time jobs. He just can't spare any attention for it."
“But…” Zhan Xinyue stared at her for a long time, looking troubled, “You can’t do this, you’ve already taken the money.”
“Theoretically, that’s correct, but you heard it that day, right? He said he would pay me double and told me not to follow him.”
"You agree just because he said that?" Zhan Xinyue asked anxiously for a while, finally saying something that didn't seem very hurtful, "I don't think this is a good idea..."
Wu Chuni laughed: "Just by looking at you, you're obviously from a wealthy family. You don't know the importance of money! It's a bit unfair, but there's nothing I can do. He gave you just too much."
Zhan Xinyue asked instinctively, "Are you short of money?"
"Yes," the other person said quite frankly. "My mother is in poor health, and I have two younger sisters and a younger brother who are still in school. We need money for everything. Although the city and the school gave me a lot of money as a reward after I finished the college entrance examination, it was all because my father was a gambler. No matter how much money I put in, it was still a bottomless pit."
"I'm sorry..." Zhan Xinyue felt guilty. Wu Chuni smiled nonchalantly, "It's nothing, everything's fine now. I've figured it out, there's no saving a gambler, so I won't give him another penny. Now all the money I earn is in my own hands. With that money back, and the fact that I'm going to do my internship at a law firm next semester, I feel like life is full of hope. Once I've saved enough money, I'll bring my mom and my younger siblings to Beijing."
Zhan Xinyue couldn't help but glance at her a few more times. She was smiling generously and calmly, showing no sign of any dissatisfaction with her life. So she sincerely praised her, "You are very capable."
Wu Chuni laughed: "Of course, I'm very capable. You know, from childhood to adulthood, I've never been second in any exam. I've always relied on myself to get to where I am today, helping my family pay off debts, paying for my younger siblings' tuition, and getting my mother medical treatment... Thinking about it now, it's still something to be proud of."
Zhan Xinyue nodded, and after a moment of silence, she said, "But I don't think this is right. You said that day that his father asked you to keep an eye on him because he was worried that something might happen to him. If you just completely ignore him, what if his mental state becomes unstable again?"
Wu Chuni sighed, "Actually, I didn't want it to be like this either. I didn't agree when he first said that. I originally wanted to persuade him, but from that day on, he completely avoided me, so two days later..."
Zhan Xinyue said, "You gave up two days later."
"Yes, I gave up. You know, someone like me has exhausted all my energy just by moving forward, and I don't have the capacity to spare much energy for others. So, junior, please don't blame me."
Zhan Xinyue lowered her head and said, "No one has the right to judge other people's choices. You are very rational."
“Yes.” Wu Chuni looked into the distance. “I don’t need anyone’s opinion. All I can do is seize every opportunity and keep moving forward.”
Zhan Xinyue remained silent for a long time before hearing Wu Chuni's soft voice: "Actually, I'm not always this rational; sometimes I have a lot of unrealistic fantasies."
After a pause, she suddenly turned around excitedly: "Do you usually read novels? Have you ever read those redemption stories? It's about a broken male protagonist who is healed by a warm and cheerful girl, and then the two of them live happily ever after."
“I’ve had dreams like that before,” Wu Chuni’s tone softened again. “But unfortunately, I’m not the female lead. I can’t open his heart, especially lately I’ve noticed that his tolerance for me seems to be decreasing.”
Zhan Xinyue hesitated for a long time: "Your feelings for him..."
Wu Chuni glanced at her and understood: "Of course I have feelings for her."
“Xiao Qian is actually a very good person. He’s a very kind person. He knows I’m short of money, otherwise he wouldn’t tolerate me always following him around…” She smiled sweetly, “But for me right now, my future is the most important thing. Those romantic things aren’t for someone like me who’s always on the move. I can only think about them in my head. If he liked me, maybe I would waver a little. But he doesn’t, so forget it. I won’t waste my time on something that has no future, and I can’t afford to waste it.”
Wu Chuni stared blankly for a moment, then turned her gaze and suddenly noticed the sketchbook on her lap. She casually asked, "Junior, you seem quite interested in drawing?"
"Not really." Zhan Xinyue flipped the paper over. Most of the drawings inside were of various furniture, which she had done while looking at an exhibition. "My family owns a furniture store, so I guess this is a way for me to cultivate my aesthetic sense."
"A home furnishing store, huh?" Wu Chuni seemed quite interested in those words, chewing on them for a moment before finally smiling with relief. "Oh, I see."
"What's wrong?"
“There’s a dining table in his current apartment, which he originally used at home but brought with him when he started school. I asked him once, ‘Beijing has everything, why bother moving? Is there something special about this table?’ He said there was nothing special about it; someone recommended it to him when he was browsing a furniture store, so he bought it and got used to it and didn’t want to change it, so he brought it with him,” Wu Chuni said. “Now I think I suddenly understand. Tell me, is this related to you?”
Zhan Xinyue looked blankly at him and asked with difficulty, "What kind of dining table?"
"It should be made of solid wood. The design is quite stylish, it looks like it's floating."
Seeing her stunned expression, Wu Chuni smiled knowingly, slowly stretched her legs, and looked up at the lush green leaves above her head: "Actually, I've always envied girls like you."
Zhan Xinyue hadn't quite recovered from her daze and unconsciously blurted out, "Me? Why?"
"Although I haven't had much contact with you, I can tell that you must come from a well-off family, have been pampered by your parents, and have a peaceful and kind personality. I often think, if I hadn't grown up in that kind of family, and didn't have to struggle step by step to move forward, what kind of life would I have? If I didn't have to spend so much time in the study room for scholarships, and didn't have to work part-time after part-time, I might have joined a lot of clubs, made many friends, laughed and talked loudly together on campus, and had a few passionate campus romances."
"Campus romance, huh?" Zhan Xinyue looked up at the tree branches above her head, just like her. Sunlight filtered through the leaves, and she raised her hand to shield her eyes. Suddenly, she asked, "Senior, do you believe in love?"
Wu Chuni glanced at her and laughed even harder: "Why do kids these days always have to be so profound? You're only a freshman in college, how come you suddenly have this world-weary look on your face?"
Zhan Xinyue was embarrassed: "I just said it offhand."
“I believe it, of course I believe it,” Wu Chuni said firmly. “If I didn’t believe that such pure and beautiful things exist in life, how could I go on living? Look at me, although I live like an ascetic every day, I always believe that there will be a like-minded lover waiting for me on the road ahead.”
“But love isn’t always pure and beautiful,” Zhan Xinyue murmured. “Sometimes it can be accompanied by betrayal and hurt.”
"Why would you say that? Were you deceived by any boy before?" Wu Chuni tilted her head. "Junior, you're in a relationship too early."
"It's just that I sometimes have random thoughts," Zhan Xinyue explained, offering a rather unconvincing explanation.
Wu Chuni didn't press further, and said with a faint smile, "I've thought about this question too. My mother's family was actually quite well-off. She was a college student, which was quite an achievement in her time. But somehow she fell in love with my father and they got married. My father is a very sweet talker and knows how to charm women, but he always dreamed of getting rich quick without working. Later, he was led astray by others and became addicted to gambling, losing all of our family's wealth."
“After that, my mother was always crying and asking my father if he didn’t love her anymore, otherwise how could he bear to drag the whole family into the abyss?”
"Then one day I suddenly realized. It has nothing to do with whether you love someone or not. Loyalty, devotion, even responsibility and other words associated with love do not belong to love itself, but are qualities of a few people. My dad is such a person. He is a gambler. Whoever he falls in love with is a gambler, and no one who falls in love with him will be happy. Instead of questioning love, my mom should just admit that she loved the wrong person."
“So, junior,” Wu Chuni said earnestly, “sometimes it’s not that you’ve loved the wrong person, it’s that you’ve met the wrong person.”
Zhan Xinyue remained silent, pondering her words. Wu Chuni, however, had already stood up: "Sigh, why did I suddenly say so many sentimental things to you? My teeth are aching. I'm leaving."
She stretched and started to walk away. After a few steps, she turned back and said, "Junior, university is really great. If there's someone you really care about, don't miss out. I'll give you his address. If you want, go see him."
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
