17. Children's Paradise
◎Li Xun, I like you◎
May 20th, Wednesday, is Liang Chuling's birthday.
The cast on her foot will be removed in a few days. She hopped on one foot to the restaurant to eat the longevity noodles that Aunt Zhang had prepared for her.
The phone rang; it was Liang's father.
More than a week had passed since Lin Jiani visited him, and he finally called back.
Liang Chuling answered the call expressionlessly.
"Happy birthday, Chuling. Dad has been too busy lately, I'll make up for the gift later."
"Um."
Did someone come to my house looking for me a few days ago?
"Um."
"She was just being immature. Don't take it to heart. Dad has already taken care of it. She won't appear in front of you again."
“She came to my house, and I fell and broke my leg. I called you that day but you didn’t answer. I called you again later but you still didn’t answer.” Liang Chuling spoke calmly, without any accusation, simply stating the facts.
"How could you be so careless? She caused you trouble, didn't you call the police? Didn't you call security? You're a grown man, and you have no ability to handle things at all. Alright, that's over. From now on, kick out any more shady characters like this." Mr. Liang felt like he'd been stepped on.
Liang Chuling remained silent, waiting for him to finish his sentence.
As expected, Mr. Liang belatedly came to defend himself, as if his reputation had been tarnished: "This kind of woman is a lunatic. She's clinging to me, and I can't shake her off. She's shameless. She takes a small thing for a big deal and dreams of reaching the heavens. What kind of person is she, daring to come to my house?"
He went on and on, using harsh words to blame all his mistakes and misdeeds on the woman he may have once treated with gentle words.
He quickly softened his tone, determined to be a good father.
He spoke almost frankly, "You know, Dad gets tired sometimes too. Socializing outside inevitably involves putting on an act. But home is always home, and you'll always be my daughter. These women outside are just things, they'll be forgotten once they're over. You're too young to understand these things."
"I understand. Of course I understand. I know what hypocrisy is, what cowardice is, and what it means to dare to do something but not to admit it." The beautiful and delicate face of Lin Jiani in Liang Chuling's mind quickly turned sallow and tired. She didn't know why she felt uncontrollably angry and wanted to stab the man on the other end of the phone.
There was a pause on the other end of the phone, followed by a fit of rage: "Liang Chuling! How dare you talk to me like that? I'm your father! I provide for you, feed you, clothe you, and send you to piano lessons, so you can talk to me like that? Would you be where you are today without me? Is a piece of trash worth getting angry with me for?"
"Yes, without you, I wouldn't be where I am today." Liang Chuling repeated this sentence. "Trash? Who's trash? Aren't you the worst trash? Aren't your actions enough to prove who you are? Cheating, deceiving, cowardly, daring to do but not daring to admit it, and now you want to rely on insulting women to make yourself seem innocent?"
Father Liang completely dropped his pretense, his voice dripping with vulgarity: "You worthless brat! Who taught you this nonsense? Huh? That bitch? Or your mother? I gave birth to you and raised you, and if I had known you were such a heartless wretch, I shouldn't have—"
“Shouldn’t have said what? And there was no going back.” Liang Chuling interrupted him, feeling a stab to the heart, but not blood. “Do I need to be taught? Haven’t I learned everything just by looking at you? How to be hypocritical, how to shirk responsibility. Sometimes I really want to know, do you ever, even for a second, feel that you are disgusting?”
There was a grinding sound of teeth coming from across the way.
"Good...good...good!" He said "good" three times in a row. "Liang Chuling, you really are my good daughter. I spent money to raise you and gave you the best, and you're the one who's going to stab your old man in the heart with a knife today? What do you think you are? Without me, you are nothing! Your piano, your dream of becoming a genius, all of it was built with my money! You broke your leg? Believe me, I can make you fall from the clouds with just one word, and fall even harder than you have now?"
Liang Chuling listened and said, "Really? Then you'd better hurry up."
"Ha, without my signature and proof of funds, you can't go anywhere. And your mother, those investments of your mother, those businesses that only got started thanks to my connections, can they withstand scrutiny? If you really want to cause trouble, I'll put your mother in jail first! Let's see if you'll be able to visit her in prison while playing the piano then?"
Before he could roar any further, she hung up the phone.
Not sad. Not at all.
Looking down at her chest, nothing was flowing out, but she knew her heart had been replaced with a heart of revenge.
She wanted to pick up the knife. The blade needed to be honed to a sharp edge, its cold light gleaming.
The blade cuts through all the shackles that try to bind her, and cleaves through all the disgusting hypocrisy.
The phone rang again; it was Ms. Ma calling in a panic.
"Honey, what did you say to your dad? He just called and gave me a piece of his mind, saying he'd cancel all my cards and check my accounts! What's wrong with you? You know his temper. Just go along with him a bit, wouldn't that have been better? You can't drive your mother to her death. It's not worth confronting him head-on; you'll only suffer in the end. You know, a small act of impatience can ruin a big plan?"
Seeing her daughter remain silent, her mother sighed, "Chuling, I know you're upset. But he's your father, the pillar of this family. We women sometimes need to know how to show weakness and go along with things. If you confront him head-on and anger him, who will suffer? Listen to me, go call him and apologize. Just say you were in a bad mood and talked nonsense. If you make him happy, everything will be fine. What birthday present do you want? I'll buy it for you."
All she wanted was to sharpen her knife.
Suddenly, a ray of bright sunlight streamed through the living room's French windows. Liang Chuling looked at it in surprise, and the sunlight seemed to grow brighter and brighter in her eyes.
The doorbell rang again.
Liang Chuling paused, "Again?"
Aunt Zhang went to the rooftop to air out the quilts. She hopped to the door on one foot and looked out through the peephole.
She was stunned when she saw it.
The person standing outside the door was Li Xun.
He was dressed simply, travel-worn, and carried the air of someone from afar.
There was a strange backpack at his feet, his hair was a little messy from the wind, and the May sun shone down on his head and body without reservation, as if he were wearing a fluffy coat.
He held a bunch of small red flowers in his hand, clustered together, making them look crowded.
Suddenly, the surroundings transformed into a paper-cut painting, in only black and white. The wind blew merrily, and even the wind itself became paper-cut, with wave-like patterns, the wind as smooth as water.
In the black and white world, only Li Xun is in color. He seems to have broken in, a vibrant young man who has entered this paper-cut world. A piano piece, "Children's Paradise," plays for him. The music itself becomes paper-cut, with each note leaving a visible trace. The dark sun hangs overhead, its sunlight settling like silt, while only he surges with emotion.
Liang Chuling almost thought she was hallucinating.
Shouldn't he be on the other side of the world preparing for class?
He abandoned his own world and ventured into another.
What happens to intruders? Do they all leave?
How to keep him?
Hang up the phone, then yank the door open.
Such wonderful sunlight, yet in photographs, it often only occupies a second-rate position.
Sunlight streamed in from outside, casting Liang Chuling's long, slender shadow, like a knife abandoned on the ground, yet lucid to the ends of the earth.
There was no difference between being in light and in darkness; the eyes needed time to adjust. It was too bright, so she squinted for a while before opening them again, and only then could Liang Chuling sweetly see Li Xun again. The restless wind whipped Li Xun around, making a crackling sound.
The cast on her ankle reminded her of her disheveled state, while the newborn heart in her chest pounded fiercely.
Li Xun couldn't see Liang Chuling's face clearly, so he had to walk in front of her to block the light so that he could see her.
His gaze swept over her from head to toe. Liang Chuling was wearing a short-sleeved shirt, and the pendant around her neck was impossible to hide. He looked a little dejected. Then his gaze fell on the cast on her left foot, but his expression was not too surprised.
His eyes held the weariness of a long flight, but the moment he saw her, they focused and a smile appeared on his face.
As soon as Liang Chuling opened the door, a hand supported her arm with just the right amount of strength, as if she herself was that primal heart, and he was the only one who knew how to hold it.
"Be careful, don't fall again." His voice was a little hoarse from exhaustion.
Li Xun didn't let go of her arm, put the flowers on the ground, and used his other hand to press against her forehead.
The skin felt like it was kissing.
Liang Chuling was stunned by his series of smooth and fluid preemptive moves. His hands were cold, contrasting sharply with her face, which was flushed from her excitement.
He checked her forehead and confirmed that she had no fever, only a flush from the emotional turmoil. Li Xun breathed a sigh of relief.
“I…I’m not…” Liang Chuling started to speak but couldn’t get the words out. She was also a little choked up. She felt ashamed and simply stopped looking at him.
He looked at her and said, "Nothing else matters. Let me see if you're alright first."
"You...how did you get back? How did you know I was home?" Liang Chuling recovered quickly, then pointed to the flowers on the ground, "What kind of flowers are these?"
“I asked someone at your school.” Li Xun said succinctly, clearly having gone to the affiliated high school first, but not finding anyone, he inquired and learned about her fracture and leave of absence. “This is a pomegranate flower, a flower that blooms in May. I saw it when I passed by a flower shop, and it looks a lot like you.”
Liang Chuling didn't let him into the house. Instead, she took a small step forward, holding onto the door frame, almost breathing in his ear.
She tilted her head back, her face radiating a cold, alluring charm—
But Li Xun just happened not to be looking at her.
Li Xun bent down, gesturing for her to look at the backpack beside his feet; something inside was moving.
I opened the backpack completely, and there was a little white tabby cat curled up on the mat. It was the same one from the cardboard box outside the roasted chestnut shop.
The kitten had just woken up, looked up blankly at Liang Chuling, and meowed softly.
Liang Chuling felt incredibly sleepy. The sounds from all directions had a 3D surround effect, enveloping her completely like a cocoon.
She looked at Li Xun, at his calm and gentle face, at how he had specially flown back from a foreign land, still thinking about this little cat he had only met once and almost had nowhere to go, and brought it to her. She looked at the bouquet of flowers; it was a very beautiful bouquet, a bouquet that came at just the right time, a bouquet that was exactly what she needed.
There was a moment of warmth, but also a sudden surge of possessiveness and a desire for control.
At such a moment for her, he appeared with such an almost clumsy tenderness.
He's so good.
It was as good as a carefully designed trap.
Then I remembered, Li Xun, that we once went through the apocalypse together.
Looking at him, all the emotions that had been building up over the past week erupted at this moment, making her feel pathetic and dejected.
Like an EVA whose AT field has been shattered by an Angel, exposing its fragile core.
She desperately needed something to prove that she wasn't alone in this spiritual wasteland.
It happened suddenly, a thought arose, without thinking.
The heart is beating in the chest cavity.
She didn't want to face it alone anymore.
When people are down, they desperately want to grasp at love. Love, what a perfect lifeline.
We cannot escape.
She looked at Li Xun, the sunlight behind him making him look like a hero who had saved her.
She felt she loved him.
But a voice deep inside me asks: Do you really love him? Or do you only love the peace he brings and the salvation he provides in this moment?
But if you don't love him, someone else will.
If he's not with you, he'll be with someone else.
Even without Elena, there would be many other people.
Li Xun cannot have anyone else.
That new heart was beating wildly.
Before Li Xun could speak, Liang Chuling blurted out, like a gambler who had made a desperate gamble: "Li Xun, I love you."
Li Xun clearly hadn't anticipated this opening.
Liang Chuling didn't give him time to react, blurting out everything in one go. Afraid that she would regret it if she was a step too slow, or that he would see through the impure motives behind her confession, she pressed on: "I've decided to go to Curtis. How about you apply this year too? Once we're in school together, we can start dating, okay?"
Liang Chuling could almost feel his breath catch in his throat. "Didn't you ask me if I was alright? I'm not alright, Li Xun. I'm very bad. But if you're here, if you agree, I can get better."
What Liang Chuling actually wanted to ask was: I heard the recording you sent. So you like me, right? So please say yes?
But in the end, she didn't choose to talk about it or say those words.
Because she knew Li Xun's absolute sincerity.
And here's the problem: she knows his sincerity is absolute, but what about her own?
In psychology, there's a concept called emotional debt. When a person is in a vulnerable or confused state, they unconsciously seek emotional support. This support often mixes genuine attraction with instrumental needs.
Liang Chuling is currently in debt.
Her feelings for Li Xun were mixed with too many immediate needs, and these needs made her feel afraid to expose Li Xun's true feelings.
So she used applying to Curtis together as a condition, a buffer, an excuse to rationalize her surging, mixed emotions at that moment.
Setting being together as a shared goal is a game she wants him to join, a game she's in charge of.
She needed him to join her, to calm her chaos with his presence, to dispel her loneliness, and to keep him by her side as an ally against this absurdity.
She did love Li Xun, she really did, Liang Chuling thought horrifiedly.
Does love that is mixed with too much yearning born of despair and dependence born of vulnerability cease to be love?
It is. It is. It is.
Sunlight streamed down, and Li Xun's shadow swayed gently on the ground.
The kitten meowed softly again from inside the backpack.
Li Xun looked at her. Could he see clearly what was in her eyes?
He took a small step forward, reached out his hand, but didn't touch her. He simply brushed a strand of hair from her forehead with a gentle, almost pity-like gesture.
Li Xun smiled, not excitedly, but with a very gentle and indulgent smile: "Okay."
It was as if he had known she would say that all along, as if he had been prepared to accept everything she had said, including her confession.
Upon hearing that one word, Liang Chuling's tense nerves suddenly relaxed.
The strength that had been holding on was released, replaced by a scalding, yet somewhat despicable, sense of relief.
She didn't run away.
She tied down the person she needed most at that moment.
Is this another human instrumentation project-style choice?
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