40. I hate you
It’s hard to describe why Yao Ling wanted to see him, but there was silence on both ends of the phone and no one continued talking.
Liang Litang couldn't understand them, and couldn't stand the fact that such ambiguous feelings could still ferment after a formal relationship broke down. He immediately hung up, pushed the phone away, and put his head in his hands. "I'm definitely on Gigi's side."
Yao Ling hummed, and said sincerely, "You are so noble." She also deliberately said, "Brother."
Liang Litang was so frightened by this intimate call that he almost spit out blood, "Forget it, you win, I can't beat you."
Yao Ling wasn't necessarily aiming to be the winner, but rather, she was unconsciously more refined than the others. To be fair, she was simply doing what she considered normal, speaking spontaneously and acting according to her heart, which might have impressed the other person at some point.
After Liang Litang finished his fruit tea, she stood up and took away the teacup and cookie jar, and told him to go home if he was fine.
Liang Litang saw that it was time for dinner, so he didn't stay long. Before leaving, he asked, "Are you okay? Do you want to go to my mom's house for dinner?"
"I'm not hungry." Yao Ling shook her head, opened the door for him, and said, "It's better for you to take care of them."
Liang Litang agreed and considered asking Deng Shilang via WhatsApp if he could still work tomorrow, but then he thought of his tiredness and gave up the idea of sending a message. He shouldn't be so concerned about everything now, as it would just be annoying gossip. He'd know the answer tomorrow anyway, so it was best not to bother him.
He left, leaving her alone to wait for her parents to return.
The living room was empty for a while. She sat on the sofa in a daze before her family came back. She didn't know what Deng Shilang did before the phone call. Maybe he fed Chen Li'er medicine, tucked her in, stroked her forehead, and stayed with her.
Thinking about it, Yao Ling couldn't help but smile. What was so good about him, a false bubble? It was precisely within this bubble, ready to burst, that she understood Chen Li'er's contradictions. She clung to this man's companionship and care, unwilling to give up the relationship she had spent two years with, wanting to stay together despite knowing there were cracks between them, only to ultimately break up over the infidelity.
A WhatsApp message came through, saying Chen Yu had left Yao Ling to eat dinner alone. Yao Ling went to Qizai to get something to eat, and in the refrigerator she saw the Spritz Deng Shilang had mentioned, an orange-yellow alcoholic beverage sold in individual glass bottles.
She took it down and closed the door. In the reflection of the glass, she saw someone behind her. She turned around, not knowing when Deng Shilang had appeared. He opened the door behind her, took the same one, and paid together. She didn't immediately follow him to the cashier. Instead, she glanced at his face and opened the other refrigerator, looking for an ice pack.
The two of them sat down by the window of Qizi. Outside the window, there was a lot of traffic, the lights were just coming on, and the neon lights on the street were reflected.
Yao Ling faced him, applying an ice pack to his face. She lifted his chin, pressed it against the redness and swelling, and then gently rolled the ice pack. Droplets of water dripped down his cheek, sliding down his jaw to his collarbone. She was quiet now, her movements gentle, yet the pain still made him wince slightly.
"Why didn't you reply to me on the phone just now?" Deng Shilang looked at her face.
"Do you want to hear it now?" Yao Ling lowered her eyelashes and stared at the ice pack intently. Their faces were so close that they could feel each other's breathing.
"You say." He responded.
"You are a scumbag, you deserve to be slapped a few times." Yao Ling rolled the ice pack twice. The first roll was light, but the second roll hit his cheekbone.
Deng Shilang didn't reply, but turned his face away. He grabbed her wrist, asking her to restrain her strength, and then she turned her other hand back to her chin and continued to apply the massage.
"Why come here?" She applied the cream gently, bit by bit, to his face.
He felt her touch, "I want to see you, hear your voice, and know what you're doing."
Yao Ling was stunned. She raised her eyes and looked closely into his eyes. "Aren't you heartbroken about the breakup?"
Deng Shilang maintained the same posture as her and confessed, "It's not easy. I'm not as cold as you."
"Then you obviously don't love her." Yao Ling's fingers that were pressing against his chin tightened unconsciously.
Deng Shilang thought about their relationship over the past two years and said, "Before everything happened between you and me, I felt a sense of crisis around her suitors and possessiveness towards her, but that's gone now." Even though he was so exhausted, he couldn't help but be seduced by Yao Ling and wanted to kiss her, but he was very irritable and didn't know what state he was in. He moved her hand from her chin to his chest, letting her feel the guilt and pain. "Do you know how I feel here? I'm still in the inertia of being in a relationship with Gigi. It's very complicated. I've done enough. My brain tells me that I can't come to you right after breaking up. It's very disrespectful to her, but I did it anyway. It can't be worse than this."
After hearing the first half, Yao Ling moved away as if she had touched a hot potato and put the ice pack on the table.
Deng Shilang was deeply moved by her resistance and simply let go of her hand. He opened the two glass bottles, placed one in front of her and held the other in his hand. He turned and faced the window, propped up his head to look at the street scene, and drank her favorite alcoholic beverage.
He was such a jerk, a complete jerk. He'd just broken up and hurt Chen Li'er, so he shouldn't have come to Tsim Sha Tsui to try to find her. But if she'd said a few more words to him on the phone, he'd be satisfied and wouldn't have reacted at all. She'd insisted on asking him if it hurt, wondering if she was trying to care for him or kill him. He had no other motives, just to hear her gentle voice in his exhausted and messy state, even if it felt a little bad right now.
"A nice guy, the worst one, who is so kind." Yao Ling suddenly said while holding the spritz.
Deng Shilang chuckled, not holding out hope. "Is it important to you? If not, then you don't care what happens to me."
She just said, "I hate this. You're annoying."
Deng Shilang turned his head and stared at her. He really shouldn't have had any hope. "I know you're upset about being blamed because of me."
Yao Ling controlled herself, "You don't understand at all."
He put down the glass bottle, his heart gradually breaking. "I never understood, how could you expect me to understand? You never said it, I was always guessing. Now I know you hate me and are annoyed by me, okay?"
Her eyes suddenly soured. "I hate that you always feel guilty and endure it, and you don't act decisively when you should."
Deng Shilang admitted, "I'm not you. I can't be as cruel as you."
Yao Ling shed tears and clenched her fists. "Yes, I am cruel. You don't know how much I have sacrificed to get to that point. I didn't say it because I didn't want to have that thought of letting you go. I cried when I thought of you when I was studying language in Milan. The harder it was, the more I missed you. I had to study and recite constantly to feel better. You think I never liked you. I pushed myself to spend a lot of effort to get to where I am now, but now you have made all my efforts in vain. I hate you, I even hate you."
After hearing her words, Deng Shilang was surprised by what she said. He gripped the bottle tightly, so tightly that he couldn't breathe smoothly.
Yao Ling finished her words in one breath, clutching her heart and doubled over, gasping for breath. Tears patted onto the table, melting with the ice and water. She had never said so much to him before. She tried to breathe more evenly, but the tears kept falling, her chest heaving. She told him everything that had happened in the first year since their breakup, and it still hurt, a cramping pain. She was twenty-four, and she hadn't cried like this in years, and now she was doing it for him again.
Car lights flashed by the window, and she was about to faint, "Deng Shilang... I feel so uncomfortable now, really uncomfortable..."
Deng Shilang immediately hugged her, resting his chin on the top of her head and stroking her back. "It's okay," he said. He felt emotional when he heard her breathing so fast, and his eyes turned red. "Don't be like this, Lingling."
"It's all your fault." She squeezed out a few words.
But he was going to make the mistake. "I don't want you to feel bad, and I don't want you to let me go. Isn't that selfish?"
"But I clearly let it go before..." Yao Ling was confused. She didn't want to go through all this with him again.
She lifted her head from his chest, tear-stained face, and gazed at him, his reflection reflected in her reddened eyes. He reached out to wipe her tears, then tilted his chin to kiss the corner of her lips. She'd been through so much, even after a day of ups and downs, she'd still not let him go, playing both good and bad, not caring if they'd just broken up or not, whether he was showing mercy or not, opening her mouth in response, her tongue entwined with his.
Deng Shilang felt her response, as if he knew what she meant. After a kiss, he hugged her tightly, not wanting to let go.
Yao Ling felt thirsty in his arms. She gently pushed him away and finally took a sip from the glass. She said she wanted to go back to the B&B, leaving Qizi behind and walking side by side with him under the streetlight. When they reached the door, she told him to go back and rest.
By then, she had calmed down.
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