Chapter 39 Luo Xin 3-Ruthless Betrayal
Like all campus lovers, they secretly held hands in the study room, strolled side by side on the playground track, and hugged each other goodbye at the last minute before lights out. Xiao Yan would write love poems to her, his penmanship clear and powerful, each stroke as if engraved on her heart. He would take her to eat spicy hot pot at the school gate, dumping all the fish balls from his bowl into hers, saying, "I don't like this." When she came home late from work, he would wait for her at her workplace, holding a cup of hot milk tea. Luo Xin felt like she was living in a dream. She began to believe Chen Yao's saying, "After suffering comes happiness." She began practicing smiling in the mirror and began to dare to hold Xiao Yan's hand a little tighter when he held hers. It turned out that I could live happily, too. Thank you, Xiao Yan, for appearing in my life. If possible, I would give you everything I have. The first time they went to a hotel was after the final exams. Xiao Yan booked a room with a balcony, with a view of the entire starry sky from the window. When he came out of the shower, he was only wearing a towel around his waist. Water droplets slid down his collarbone and dripped onto his chest. Luo Xin's face flushed instantly, and she hurriedly lowered her head, twisting the corner of her clothes with her fingers. "Is it okay?" Xiao Yan walked over, squatted in front of her, and looked up into her eyes. His eyes were honest and gentle, like moonlight on the lake. Luo Xin clenched the bed sheet. She remembered Chen Mei pinching her neck and saying "you are such a piece of shit", remembered Xiao Yu's grin when she tore up her homework book, and remembered the countless nights when she cried silently in the bathroom of the welfare home. And now, someone touched the scar on her collarbone with his lips, as if kissing a treasure. "Yeah." She closed her eyes and let Xiao Yan unbutton her shirt. When the last piece of her clothes was taken off, she felt that she was in front of him without any restraint, and she did not cover her private parts with her hands. She trusted him from the beginning to the end and devoted herself to this relationship. Xiao Yan was gentle, but the pain was sudden and sharp, yet it was followed by a strange sense of fulfillment. Xiao Yan's sweaty forehead rested against hers, his body rising and falling, his lips whispering her name over and over. Luo Xin, dazed, clutched his shoulders, her nails digging into her flesh—for the first time, she felt truly alive, needed, and cherished. Afterward, Xiao Yan held her in his arms, wrapping the blanket around her shivering body. "Are you cold?" he asked, his fingers tangling in her hair. Luo Xin shook her head and pressed her face against his chest. Xiao Yan's heartbeat was steady and strong, like the gentle lapping of the sea against the rocks. Outside the window, the snow fell heavier and heavier...
Like all campus lovers, they secretly held hands in the study room, walked side by side on the playground track, and hugged each other goodbye at the last minute before lights out.
Xiao Yan would write love poems for her. His handwriting was clear, powerful, and every stroke seemed to be engraved on her heart.
I would take her to eat spicy hot pot at the school gate, put all the fish balls in my bowl into hers, and say, "I don't like this."
When she comes back late from work, I will go to her workplace to wait for her with a cup of hot milk tea in my hand.
Luo Xin felt like he was living in a dream.
She began to believe what Chen Yao said, "After suffering comes happiness." She began to practice smiling in front of the mirror and began to dare to hold Xiao Yan's hand a little tighter when he held her hand.
It turns out that I can live happily.
Thank you, Xiao Yan, for appearing in my life.
If I could, I would give you everything I have.
The first time Xiao Yan went to a hotel was after the final exams. He booked a room with a balcony, where he could see the entire starry sky from the window.
When he came out of the shower, he only had a towel wrapped around his waist, and water droplets slid down his collarbone and dripped onto his chest.
Luo Xin's face turned red instantly, and he lowered his head in a hurry, twisting the corner of his clothes with his fingers.
"Is it okay?" Xiao Yan came over, squatted in front of her, and looked up into her eyes. His eyes were frank and gentle, like moonlight on the lake.
Luo Xin clutched the bed sheet. She remembered Chen Mei pinching her neck and saying, "You're a piece of shit!" She remembered Xiaoyu's smirk as she tore up her homework, and she remembered the countless nights she cried silently in the orphanage bathroom.
And now, someone touched the scar on her collarbone with his lips, as if kissing a treasure.
"Yeah." She closed her eyes and let Xiao Yan unbutton her shirt.
When her last piece of clothing was removed, she felt completely free before him, without covering her private parts with her hands.
She believed in the other person from the beginning to the end and devoted herself to this relationship wholeheartedly.
Xiao Yan was very gentle, but the pain came suddenly and sharply, but was also followed by a strange sense of fulfillment.
Xiao Yan's sweaty forehead pressed against hers, his body moving up and down, and he murmured her name over and over again.
Luo Xin grabbed his shoulders in a daze, her nails digging into her flesh - this was the first time she felt truly alive, needed and cherished.
Afterwards, Xiao Yan held her in his arms and wrapped her shivering body in the quilt. "Are you cold?" he asked, his fingers entwined with the ends of her hair.
Luo Xin shook her head and put her face against his chest. Xiao Yan's heartbeat was steady and strong, like the gentle lapping of the sea tide on the rocks.
Outside the window, the snow fell heavier and heavier, wrapping the whole world in soft silence.
As Luo Xin lay in his arms, she thought to herself, how nice it would be if time could stop at this moment forever.
After the winter vacation, they began to frequently visit a small hotel near the school.
Xiao Yan would always hug her and chat afterwards, sometimes about the books he had read, sometimes about his childhood stories.
Luo Xin always listened quietly. She liked Xiao Yan at this time - lazy, defenseless, and completely hers.
"You never mentioned your family." One weekend morning, Luo Xin mustered up the courage to ask.
They lay on the narrow single bed in the hotel, and the sunlight filtered through the gaps in the cheap curtains, drawing a golden line on the floor.
Xiao Yan paused for a moment while playing with her hair: "It's an ordinary family, nothing special." He turned over to get the water cup on the bedside, and the topic ended there.
In mid-March, Luo Xin collapsed in a public bathroom. While taking her blood pressure, the school doctor casually asked, "When did your last period come?"
This question struck Luo Xin's mind like a bolt of lightning. She counted the days on her fingers, cold sweat gradually seeping down her back.
The two red lines on the pregnancy test stick stung her eyes. Luo Xin sat on the toilet, her fingers shaking uncontrollably.
She thought of the unmarried pregnant sisters in the welfare home, and the twisted face of Chen Mei when she called them "sluts." But then, Xiao Yan's gentle fingers when he tied the scarf, and his trembling eyelashes when he kissed her for the first time, all these images came back to her, diluting her fear a little.
"He will be happy." Luo Xin said to herself while stroking her flat belly, "We will have a home."
She hid the pregnancy test stick in her book and waited for Xiao Yan to finish class.
The setting sun stretched their shadows very long, and Luo Xin suddenly stopped.
"Xiao Yan, I have something to tell you."
In the cafe, when Luo Xin pushed the pregnancy test stick in front of him, the smile on Xiao Yan's face froze instantly.
He picked up the small plastic stick and turned it over and over, as if he was studying some unfamiliar instrument.
"When did you find out?" His voice was dry, completely devoid of his usual gentleness.
"This morning." Luo Xin's heart was beating fast, "I..."
"Abort it." Xiao Yan interrupted her, his tone so calm that it chilled her heart. "We're still in school, how are we going to raise a child?"
Luo Xin was stunned. She couldn't believe what she heard, "But this is our child..."
"We're still too young!" Xiao Yan's voice suddenly rose, attracting the attention of those around him. "Luo Xin, be rational! Now is not the time to have a child!"
"Reasonable?" Luo Xin laughed, almost crying. "Then why didn't you act rationally?"
The argument that day ended in vain. Xiao Yan slammed the door and left, leaving Luo Xin sitting alone in the cafe until the lights came on to signal closing time.
She touched her lower abdomen, where there was only a tiny embryo, but she could already feel the throbbing of blood.
She didn't want to abort the child.
During those nights in the orphanage, she had fantasized countless times about having a relative, a relative who belonged entirely to her.
But Xiao Yan's attitude became increasingly cold. He no longer held her hand, asked her out for dinner, and even when they met on the street, he would just nod hurriedly.
When Luo Xin went to see him, he always said "I'm busy", and the impatience in his tone was like a needle piercing.
What made her even more desperate was the appearance of Xiao Yan's mother.
The woman in the Chanel suit sat across from her, her red-polished fingers tapping the tabletop as her gaze scanned her from head to toe. "Miss Luo, right? I'm Xiao Yan's mother."
Luo Xin clenched the strap of his schoolbag tightly, his fingertips turning white.
"I know you're pregnant with Xiao Yan's child." The woman picked up her coffee cup, took a sip, and said sarcastically, "Our Xiao Yan is going to study abroad and inherit the family business. Do you think you're worthy of him?"
"I……"
"Here's one hundred thousand yuan." The woman pushed a check over. "Take the money, go and abort the child, and then break up with Xiao Yan. You two are not from the same world."
Her eyes fell on Luo Xin's washed-out canvas shoes, as if she were looking at something dirty. "Don't think you can marry into a wealthy family just because you're pregnant. Our Xiao family isn't so poor that we have to marry a girl from an orphanage."
Luo Xin sneered. Was such a ridiculous plot happening to him? He thought it only happened in TV dramas.
She stood up suddenly, the chair legs scraping against the ground. "I don't want your money!" Her voice trembled, but she straightened her back. "This is between Xiao Yan and me. It has nothing to do with you!"
"It has nothing to do with me?" The woman laughed. "Do you know who Grandpa Xiao Yan is? Do you know how many houses our family owns in the city? Miss Luo, it's important to know yourself."
At this moment, Xiao Yan pushed the door open and came in. He frowned when he saw the scene in front of him, but just stood behind his mother without saying a word.
Luo Xin looked at him, and the last bit of light in his eyes went out.
How she wished Xiao Yan could stand up, or even just say, "Mom, stop talking," but he just lowered his head, like an insignificant bystander.
"Xiao Yan," Luo Xin's voice was soft, yet filled with a resolute calmness, "Do you think so too?"
Xiao Yan's Adam's apple rolled, and he avoided her gaze. "Mom is right, we... are not suitable."
That afternoon, Luo Xin was walking alone on the way back to school. The sky was gloomy and it looked like it was going to rain.
She felt very dizzy and her vision kept going black. When she reached the school gate, she suddenly felt dizzy and fell to the ground.
When she woke up, she was lying on a bed in the school hospital. Chen Yao, her eyes red, was wiping her face. "The doctor said you were anemic and malnourished, which is why you fainted."
"Has Xiao Yan been here?" Luo Xin's voice was hoarse.
Chen Yao turned her face away and said nothing.
Luo Xin smiled, and tears slid down the corners of her eyes into her hair.
It turns out that there are people who can tear apart other people's sincerity so easily, like throwing away a piece of useless waste paper.
In the end, I gave everything in vain.
She lay in the hospital for three days, but Xiao Yan didn't show up once. He only sent her a text message: "I've booked you for surgery next week. I'll transfer the money to your card."
Luo Xin no longer had the mood to reply to his message.
In April, when spring rain continued, Luo Xin's morning sickness became more and more severe. Xiao Yan never appeared in her sight again, nor did he contact her again.
Only once, he stopped her at the corner of the teaching building and asked, "When are you going to get the abortion?"
Luo Xin's hands were shaking as he held the textbook: "I won't go."
"Are you crazy?" Xiao Yan's voice was very low, but every word was like a razor blade. "Do you want to destroy me?"
Luo Xin looked at him coldly and said nothing more.
That night, Luo Xin vomited profusely in the dormitory bathroom. When she lifted her head from the sink, she saw the girl in the mirror with a pale face and dark circles under her eyes.
She gently stroked her belly, which had not yet bulged, and thought of the children who were adopted and then returned from the welfare home - she was very familiar with the abandoned confusion in their eyes.
“No,” she told herself in the mirror, “I won’t be like them.”
The withdrawal process went surprisingly smoothly. The counselor looked at her with a mixture of pity and a hint of disgust: "Do your parents know?"
Luo Xin shook his head and signed his name on the application for withdrawal. The last stroke cut through the paper like a small wound.
As she packed her luggage, she pulled out the ultrasound report from under her pillow. The blurry black-and-white image revealed the image of a small child, and Luo Xin felt a pang of heartache.
Luo Xin thought of her mother and the yellowed photo she treasured - the young woman holding her as a baby, her smile gentle and tired.
"Mom," she whispered, "this time it will be different, don't worry."
The sycamore tree outside the window has sprouted new buds, and the tender green leaves are swaying gently in the wind.
Luo Xin picked up her suitcase and walked towards the school gate. This time, no one asked her if she needed help.
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