Chapter Sixty-Three
When Zhou Mo stepped into Yu Xi's room, despite her mental preparation, she was still shocked by the decorations. The walls were covered with pink balloons and decorated with gold ribbons, but these decorations were not the main point. The main point was the papers pasted on the walls, each with a calculation formula on it. Zhou Mo could understand some of them, but she had no idea what the others were.
"I'm giving you my most useful part, Zhou Mo."
Yu Xi looked at Zhou Mo with a smile.
If Zhou Mo had opened his room door during that hospitalization, the scene she would have seen would have been much the same as today, but the contents of the paper would have turned Zhou Mo into a clown who would enrage Zhang Xing and Ning Xu.
Today is different.
Everything here today is real.
Zhou Mo remained silent, then began to tear off the sheets one by one. She didn't care about the integrity of the paper, and she wasn't careful when tearing it. Some sheets were torn in half, and some were torn to pieces with all four corners.
Yu Xi stood aside and watched, neither stopping nor speaking out. He had given everything here to Zhou Mo, and it was Zhou Mo's right to take it or not, and in whatever way she wanted it, so he wouldn't interfere.
There was a lot of paper. As Zhou Mo tore it apart, tears fell without warning, staining the paper and darkening a small area.
How long did that fire last? Long enough for Yu Xi to remember all of it.
Are these things important?
Yu Xi: "It might be very important to Yu Songjing."
"And what about you?"
Yu Xi: "I was very young at the time, so these things probably weren't that important to me."
Zhou Mo threw down the paper in her hand, rushed to Yu Xi, grabbed Yu Xi by the collar, and buried her face in Yu Xi's chest without any hesitation. Tears soaked through her thin clothes and reached her heart.
It's hot.
It's cool.
It's warm and cozy.
"Aren't you important to yourself? Yu Xi, after being family with you for so long, what I want you to understand most is that you are also very important, and you should put yourself first."
"Speak up if you're unhappy, speak up if you're happy, speak up if you don't want to, speak up if you feel pain, speak up if you're irritable, speak up if you want peace and quiet, speak up if you don't like something to eat, speak up if you like something to eat, speak up if you like something, speak up if you don't like something. There are so many feelings in the world, you can't stay silent forever."
Yu Xi raised his hand and hugged Zhou Mo back, his face showing an unprecedented tenderness. He gently stroked Zhou Mo's hair from head to toe, saying, "I understand, head of the family."
Zhou Mo went back to school over the weekend, while Yu Xi stayed home to prepare for her exams.
A week passed quickly, and Zhou Mo boarded the train home again. Unlike last time, she dressed up nicely this time, wearing a bright red dress. She was already beautiful, and walking on the tree-lined path of the school, she attracted the attention of many people. She even ran into a classmate from her major.
Seeing Zhou Mo's smug expression, her classmate couldn't help but tease, "Zhou Mo, you seem so happy, are you going to see your boyfriend?"
Zhou Mo just smiled, a smile even brighter than before.
The joyful feeling spread all the way to the entrance of the courtyard.
She took a deep breath, and as her hand touched the door, tears streamed down her face. Helplessly, she squatted on the ground, letting the dust on the ground stain the hem of her red skirt.
She's not stupid; how could she not know that the Civil Affairs Bureau is closed on weekends?
How could Zhou Mo not know that the proposal was just Yu Xi saying goodbye to her? They were the same kind of people, so for them, parting was a knife, naked and cruel.
So Yu Xi disguised the knife, wrapping it in pink balloons and gold ribbons to make it look like a gorgeous knife. That way, when the knife was handed to her, the first feeling was that it was a beautiful knife, and the second feeling was the dull pain of parting.
Zhou Mo hated this unspoken understanding, so she dressed up and still came. She wanted to believe that the proposal was real, and that at that moment, she truly wanted to marry Yu Xi.
What's wrong with that?
Yu Xi showed her through her actions that nothing was good.
You should live your life for yourself; it's not good to drag anyone else down with you.
When Zhou Mo had cried herself out and her legs were numb from squatting, she leaned against the wall and stood up shakily. This time, she placed her palm on the door and pushed hard, and the door opened.
The flowers were still blooming, but some leaves had begun to wilt due to lack of water. Zhou Mo didn't rush to open the inner door, but instead picked up the watering can, filled it with water, and began to water the flowers.
"You are the most delicate. If no one takes care of you, you will die."
As she turned around, her toe bumped into a flowerpot. Zhou Mo stared at the flowerpot for a long time, her vision blurry.
"I was wrong. It's not that you're delicate. With flowerpots, you can't leave."
"Natural products should return to nature. Unfortunately, you are cultivated species. Even if we release you, you will hardly survive."
After watering, the flowers that had been drooping just moments before were now thriving. When the wind blew, the leaves swayed as if greeting Zhou Mo.
"Okay, stop being so cute."
After Zhou Mo finished speaking, she paused for a few seconds, then bent over, put her hands on her knees, and laughed. As she laughed, a bitter and helpless smile appeared at the corner of her mouth.
It really is.
Pushing open the inner door, Zhou Mo found the room empty. She walked to Yu Xi's door, pushed it open, and found the room completely empty. The decorations on the walls had long been removed, and there was almost nothing left in the room. The clothes in the wardrobe were gone, and there wasn't even a four-piece bedding set left on the bed. Everything about Yu Xi in this house no longer existed.
Zhou Mo turned and went to the living room. She sat in the center of the sofa and looked up at the chandelier above.
“Things can be erased, but what about memories? Yu Xi, what if the chandelier suddenly falls on my head while I'm sitting here? Once a person dies, they remember nothing.”
Zhou Mo leaned back on the sofa, her eyes closed.
The bloody scene she had imagined didn't happen, and she felt a little bored. She turned on the TV, but usually the channels she turned on were showing dramas. Today the channel was different; it was a local news channel.
She happened to know the people inside.
"A heinous murder occurred locally today. Behind him is the suspect, Yu Xi, male, who has been arrested by the police..."
Zhou Mo couldn't hear what the reporter said after that.
Her gaze was fixed on Yu Xi, who was being pinned to the ground by the police behind the reporter, her face covered in blood. Zhou Mo moved closer and closer to the television, trying to use the increased distance and clearer view to prove that this person was not Yu Xi.
The news doesn't keep filming the perpetrator's face; soon the victim's face takes up the entire screen.
Two people.
Zhou Mo had never met either of these two people.
But she recognized one of the faces in the photos she was investigating.
Ning Xuzhi.
What about the other person?
The subtitles on the screen quickly provided the answer: Yu Songjing, a fugitive suspect in the July 14 arson case.
As her ringing ears picked up other sounds and her surroundings gradually returned to normal, Zhou Mo realized that she hadn't heard anything at all—not in a physiological sense.
"Both victims were stabbed in the chest, the handle of the knife piercing straight into their hearts. When the knife was pulled out, the arteries ruptured, and the victims showed no vital signs before paramedics arrived..."
Zhou Mo turned off the TV, backed up and fell onto the sofa, her arms blocking her eyes. All she could hear was her own rapid breathing and her increasingly pounding heartbeat.
"Yu Xi, you might as well just smash me to death with this chandelier," Zhou Mo said through gritted teeth.
Zhou Mo's mind was filled with thoughts of why he wouldn't wait for her. She had already promised him she would be free, but she needed time, she needed time...
How long?
Suddenly, a question asked in Yu Xi's voice popped into my head.
"How long?" Zhou Mo sat up straight, her image reflected in the black television screen. "It will take a long time, but I'm already gathering evidence. Once I've gathered enough evidence and I have the identity of a famous reporter, I can expose Ning Xuzhi, and then I can give you your freedom."
It's been too long.
Zhou Mo lowered her head and said, choking back tears, "I'm just an ordinary person, but this is the best solution I can think of. It will take more time, but I won't let you lose your freedom or your life."
That's my life, not yours. Zhou Mo, you should live the life you dream of, and you definitely can.
Zhou Mo suddenly raised her head, tears still clinging to her face.
She stared in disbelief at the camera under the TV cabinet; the sound she had just heard wasn't something she'd imagined, but rather it had come from the camera.
"It seems we've been discovered."
“Zhou Mo, this is my own decision. Thank you for taking care of me during this time. The best food I’ve ever eaten is stewed pear with walnuts. The happiest moment was seeing you smile when you saw my grades. The saddest moment was when you were squatting in the alley crying. I saw you but didn’t help you up. Later I felt like I was a jerk.”
"Stop worrying about others. I've already arranged for Yu Ning to go to an orphanage. There will be people to take care of his studies and daily life. He will live his own life."
"Without Ning Xuzhi, He Ru and Li Zhenliang will be free. They can decide for themselves how to proceed in the future, but they certainly won't bother you anymore."
"As for Zhou Zheng, I will implicate him. Ning Xuzhi is dead, so he can't escape."
"The truth about your father will also come to light. I know that a large part of your reason for becoming a journalist is to clear your father's name. Even though the matter has been suppressed, your uncle's innocence has not been proven. I also know that another part of the reason is for me, but now it is no longer necessary. I am no longer in your sphere of justice."
"That's all for saying goodbye, Zhou Mo. Don't come back. If you ever need money, just sell this place. Consider it compensation for the time I wasted on your life."
The red dot on the camera suddenly went dark. The light wasn't very noticeable; someone who wasn't looking closely wouldn't have noticed it. But Zhou Mo was different.
She knelt in front of the camera, sobbing uncontrollably.
"And what about you, Yu Xi?"
The items that were automatically destroyed were destined not to answer Zhou Mo's question.
Perhaps, even if I came here, I wouldn't be able to answer that question.
Because Yu Xi's life doesn't belong to Yu Xi herself.
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