Chapter 101: Homeland Burns
——After experiencing the rumors and disasters in her hometown, she finally realized that the only way to avoid being burned by the sun was to return to the darkness where he was.
Bangkok Suvarnabhumi International Airport, VIP Lounge.
Su Lixia clutched her ticket to Beijing, her fingertips nervously rubbing the edge of the ticket stub. The planes taking off and landing on the runway outside the window mirrored her wavering heart.
"Senior..." Su Lixia's voice was hoarse, "I..."
"Stop talking. Study, family, and a normal life are the paths you should take." Ruan Xingchen gently held the girl's trembling hand. "You have the right to choose."
When the boarding notice finally sounded, Su Lixia suddenly broke down in tears, her voice full of hesitation: "But I..."
Ruan Xingchen handed over an encrypted satellite phone: "There is only one number in here, which goes directly to the Mo family's internal line."
"Although Xiaohan said that we should completely forget this place after we leave." She wiped her tears and hugged her gently, "I still want to give you a chance to regret. I hope you will never have to use it."
Su Lixia looked down at her reflection on the phone screen. She looked pale and haggard, her eyes bloodshot. Savika's broken breathing in the ICU still lingered in her ears, but the sunshine of her hometown and her parents' embrace seemed like a distant paradise.
“I choose to return home.”
Four hours ago, when she said this to Mo Xiaohan, a hint of disappointment flashed across the man's eyes, but in the end, he only said calmly but without warmth, "As you wish."
Now she's really leaving.
As the plane soared into the sky, Su Lixia watched from the window as Bangkok's golden-domed temple gradually blurred into a hazy halo. She suddenly remembered Savika's face, coughing up blood and laughing before he passed out, and his pale face in the intensive care unit...
She suddenly covered her mouth, tears soaking her palms. The journey home that she had been looking forward to made her realize so clearly for the first time that she seemed to have lost something.
The plane landed at Beijing Airport, and the familiar sound of her hometown, wrapped in an unfamiliar chill, hit her face. Su Lixia thought she had finally returned to the home she longed for, escaping the gloom of northern Myanmar. But she had no idea that this longed-for "homeland" concealed something even more chilling than the darkness of the rainforest.
Beijing, Tsinghua University School of Medicine.
Su Lixia had a hard time returning to school. The laboratories, libraries, and classrooms she once knew well had now become silent execution grounds.
She walked quickly with her head down, holding her textbook, but she could still feel the gazes coming from all directions - curiosity, pity, and more often hidden contempt.
"It's her... the one who went to a wedding in Myanmar and disappeared..."
"The instructor said he was sick and had to take a few months off..."
"I heard he was sold to that place for several months. I'm afraid it's not that kind of 'disease', right?"
"Shh! Stop it, she's looking over here..."
Obviously, the Mohists had erased all traces, but the label of "returning from Myanmar" and those unfounded and dirty speculations were like a transparent brand, forever engraved in the eyes of others.
Her former best friend turned away like she was the plague when she passed her in the hallway. A roommate even asked to switch rooms the same day she returned, and before leaving, she kindly offered a box of test strips: "Xia Xia, you should get checked... I'm doing this for your own good."
Rumors spread like wild vines, quickly spreading across campus forums:
The Story of Medical Students Falling into the Golden Triangle
Beware of Returnees Spreading Diseases
…
Su Lixia tried to produce the embassy's certificate, the Myanmar police's declaration of innocence, photos from the Myanmar wedding, and even a public medical examination report, but all she got in return was even more malicious speculation:
"Everyone knows that you can get a certificate by paying money!"
“How could a normal wedding be delayed for so long?”
“Does anyone know if there was any cheating during the inspection?”
"Xia Xia just went to Myanmar to attend a wedding!" The only roommate who spoke up for her argued with others in the cafeteria, "It's not what you said at all..."
"Why did you take so long to come back from a wedding?" The girl from the next class sneered, "Everyone knows that's a scam over there. Maybe you've been sold several times..."
The rich second-generation man who had once wooed Su Lixia by covering the dormitory with 999 roses drove a sports car and blocked her at the school gate. He slapped his bank card directly in her face and said, "One hundred thousand to spend a night with me?" His voice was not loud, but loud enough for everyone around to hear. "Anyway, everyone who comes back from Myanmar is played with."
The onlookers burst into laughter instantly, and Su Lixia was so angry that she trembled all over: "Please show some respect!"
"Why are you pretending to be so noble?" He suddenly grabbed her wrist and dragged her into the car, his tone frivolous and insulting, "The whole school knows that you came back from that kind of place, and I don't think you're dirty..."
Su Lixia recalled that in the rain forest of northern Myanmar, even though Savika did not hide his desires and imprisoned her in the most brutal way, he never insulted her with words, nor did he use money to destroy her dignity.
Tears blurred her vision. She bit the rich second generation's hand fiercely and ran back to the dormitory amid his screams. But she heard a sneer behind her: "You dare to hit a Burmese whore?"
At the weekend family reunion dinner, the "care" of relatives is more stinging than campus rumors.
At the dinner table, her aunt glanced at her and said to her father earnestly: "Our Xia Xia is also unlucky. After experiencing something like this, don't be picky in the future. Find an honest man to take over."
My cousin leaned close to my relative's ear and lowered her voice, just loud enough for her to hear: "I heard that in places like Myanmar, women who go there are 'driven by the train'..."
After three rounds of drinks, the drunken cousin put his arm around her shoulders and said, "Tell me the truth, have you really been filmed in that kind of video?"
"I was just going to a wedding!" Su Lixia pushed her cousin's hand away and tried to explain, "Then I got lost in the mountains! I wasn't sold, and I didn't..."
"Oh, I understand." The cousin came over quickly and patted her, with a fake look of pity on her face. "I'm glad you came back safely."
Su Lixia could no longer tolerate the malicious speculation and perfunctory comfort. She grabbed the bowl and threw it to the ground, then turned and rushed out the door.
Behind him, he heard his mother's suppressed sobs and his father's roar: "Stop talking! I just hope Xia Xia can come back!"
She thought that her parents were her eternal safe haven, but she never expected that the most deadly knife would come from the people closest to her.
Late at night, she heard sobbing from her parents' bedroom:
"I shouldn't have let her go to Myanmar to attend the wedding..."
"How will you get married with this reputation in the future?"
"You said...our daughter is over there, is she..."
What hurts the most is not the malicious slander from outsiders, but the suspicion and worry that even the closest relatives cannot hide.
Su Lixia huddled in bed, trembling, tears silently streaming down her cheeks. The neon lights of the city outside the window fell into her tears like rotting fruit. Her phone suddenly lit up, pushing news about the conflict in northern Myanmar. She stared at the screen and saw a fact clearly—
It turns out the most terrifying thing isn't the gunfire in northern Myanmar, but the sugar-coated blade of the civilized world. When civilization tears off its mask of hypocrisy, it's more suffocating than naked darkness.
She rummaged through the suitcase like crazy and took out the encrypted satellite phone from the compartment. As her fingertips trembled as she pressed the number, she laughed through her tears.
Darkness and light are never divided by region.
The demon who imprisoned her was a million times cleaner than these glamorous "civilized people." At least, he never concealed his cruelty, and certainly never used "concern" as a guise to rub salt into her wounds.
"beep--"
The moment the satellite phone was connected, she burst into tears into the microphone: "Senior... I want to go home..."
Back to the home that could truly accommodate her, back to Savika.
Even if it is a dark abyss that others are afraid to enter.
There was a slight noise on the other end of the line, the sound of a wheelchair rolling across the ground. Then Savika's weak but smiling voice came through the receiver: "...Stupid cat."
"It's only been a few days and you're already being bullied and crying?"
Those words were like a gentle thorn, gently piercing through her layers of defenses. After experiencing the harm of so-called "civilization," Su Lixia finally saw her true heart. In that land of blood and fire, her truest desire and sense of belonging lay.
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