The rain continued to fall outside the car window. Ye Zhi subconsciously shifted into the corner, hugging herself tighter, a clear sign of insecurity. After a long silence, she finally spoke and asked me, "What else did you hear?"
“Your maternal grandfather was framed and imprisoned by your father. Your father now has a new family and other children, and your mother has moved far away. So, for you, that family you once knew has long been broken apart.”
"Don't believe these rumors from the outside world."
“Apart from your grandfather, all the others are facts that can be verified at any time. Even if I wanted to treat them as rumors, it would be impossible.”
"Who told you this?"
I countered with a soft question, "Are you afraid to show me these wounds?"
"Who exactly told you all this?!"
I could sense a kind of hatred in Ye Zhi's tone; she seemed determined to get an answer from me. I couldn't argue with her, so I replied truthfully, "You might not believe it... Yang Sisi's dad told me all of this."
How did he know?
"He heard about it by chance at a dinner party."
"That's impossible. It happened more than 20 years ago. Who would want to bring that up at a dinner party?"
"Binjiang Group's reputation is so prominent in the industry, and even in the whole of Shanghai; if you ask me, let alone twenty years, as long as this reputation remains, it's normal for people to mention it fifty years from now." (Tank's new book was first published on the WeChat official account "Tank's Bookstall." Remember to follow for protagonist photos and daily interaction with the author.)
Ye Zhi closed her eyes, as if she were recalling that unbearable period of time. After a long while, she said to me in a low voice, "The rumors circulating outside are not all fabricated, but no one has any evidence to prove that my father was responsible for what happened to my grandfather."
"If the evidence were irrefutable, your grandfather would have been exonerated long ago... But emotionally, anyone who knows about this will make a rational judgment, after all, your father is the biggest beneficiary of this incident; his subsequent divorce from your mother further increases the credibility of this speculation... So, you've been living in such family hatred and have never been happy... After all, it's your closest relatives who are hurting each other!"
This time, Ye Zhi didn't deny it. She nodded and replied, "Yes, that's why I live in pain every day... For me, there is no sunshine in this world, because the people who should have given me sunshine the most have drawn the darkest stroke in my life. They showed me the dark side of human nature, boundless and limitless... Just thinking about it makes me feel suffocated..."
She paused briefly, then continued, "So, you know what?... When we're together, the one who truly feels inferior is me. I can't present this family to you... especially when I'm with your parents, this feeling of inferiority is even stronger. They may be ordinary, but they are very responsible parents... because they gave you a complete..."
Your family gave you a life where you weren't constantly gossiped about... But what about me? Whenever I think of my family, I feel like a rootless, stemless leaf, living a drifting life every day!
"So, I'm nowhere near as good as Sisi, or any of the women around you... I'm just richer than most people. Once you take off this mask, what's left of me?"
Ye Zhi's voice grew softer and softer as she lowered her head. At that moment, I truly saw deep inferiority in her. In this carriage, I could no longer connect her with the "President Ye" that others had mentioned. I once thought that the gifts she brought back for me from abroad were the most beautiful blessings, but now it seemed like her most humble attempts to please me!
After a moment of silence, I took off my coat and gently draped it over her shoulders. She trembled slightly…
I sighed and whispered to her, "You think my family is perfect because you lack something... Actually, it's not like that... Since ancient times, it's been difficult for children from poor families to achieve success. After I graduated from university, my parents really couldn't help me much anymore. So after graduation, I had to face a city and a stressful job all by myself... That's not the scary part. What's truly terrifying is that you have to buy a house in that incredibly expensive city before you're even worthy of love... If you want to get married and have children, just having a house isn't enough. You have to prepare a dowry, a car, everything to support your family. But after struggling for over three years, I've only just earned enough..." With a salary of only 7,000 yuan, and the obligation to get married and shoulder the majority of a family's financial responsibility… Can you imagine the despair? …So, whenever I stood alone in the Huangpu River, I had the urge to jump in, because the gap between what I could earn and what I was about to spend was just too, too huge… It was precisely because of this situation that Lu Jia, seeing no hope, chose to break up with me… When I was in school, I always felt that money wasn't that important, that dreams were priceless… But when I actually entered society, I realized that the poor live for money. We need to eat, drink, and relieve ourselves; we need to get married and have children… Without money, we have no choice!
I looked at Ye Zhi, and she finally looked up at me. I smiled and asked her, "Then tell me, when facing a woman like you, don't I feel inferior?... So, in this world, no one can truly understand another person's pain... The only solution is not to keep your thoughts bottled up and make the other person guess!"
Ye Zhi was no longer so assertive, so she didn't refute me... But at this point, talking about these things didn't mean much. Although I felt heartbroken for her, and perhaps she understood my helplessness, it didn't mean anything.
Once you've broken up, that's it.
...
I don't know how I fell asleep that night. When I woke up, it was already morning, and Ye Zhi was leaning against me.
He was fast asleep.
Although it was uncomfortable to stay in the same position, I didn't wake her up so she could sleep a little longer. I leaned against the softer part of the car body and stared blankly at the sky... I didn't know if it was a sunny or cloudy day. It wasn't sunrise yet, so everything looked gray.
Ye Zhi was only awakened by the vibration of my phone.
She left my body, then tidied her hair, and at the same time I took out my phone.
This is a text message from the telecom company saying that I owe two hundred yuan in phone bills...
(End of this chapter) h/>/>
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
