"Miss, you're finally awake!" Xinghua grabbed her arm and shook it gently, her voice choked with emotion. "Are you feeling any better? Would you like some water?"
Xu Zhuohua wanted to respond, but her throat felt like it was filled with scalding cement, both blocked and astringent. The slightest effort caused excruciating pain, so she could only move her lips in vain.
“Young Master,” Doctor Liu stepped forward and said in a deep voice, “you have injured your throat due to anger, and you may not be able to speak.”
She stopped struggling and simply turned her eyes to look at Chen Hede.
There was no hatred or resentment in his eyes, only a stagnant helplessness mixed with an indescribable disappointment.
Chen Hede felt a tightness in his heart when he was looked at, and he felt that he would never forget this moment in his life.
After a moment of silence, Xu Zhuohua raised her hand, her five fingers loosely cupped together, making a gesture as if holding a microphone—a gesture that Hu Moli often made when she went on stage.
Chen Hede immediately understood: "You want to ask about Hu Moli?"
She nodded, then raised her hand and made a few light strokes with her index finger in her palm.
"I'll go get paper and pen right away!" Xinghua reacted quickly, turned around and ran outside, and soon returned with pen, ink, paper and inkstone.
Xu Zhuohua propped herself up to sit up, and Chen Hede quickly reached out to help her by placing a soft pillow behind her back.
She took the pen, but her fingertips trembled uncontrollably, the nib hovering over the paper, unable to fall for a long time.
Xu Zhuohua held up the paper covered in writing in front of Chen Hede, her gaze fixed on him like ice.
The handwriting on the paper trembled slightly from the pressure, and two questions resonated deeply—why frame Hu Moli for opium addiction? Why throw this mud at her when she could have been fatally injured?
Her mind was in a daze at the moment, and she even forgot that she was writing in simplified Chinese characters.
In this era, apart from Cheng Muyun, no one could recognize these straight horizontal and vertical strokes.
Chen Hede leaned closer to look, his brows furrowing more and more. The words looked like unfamiliar symbols, twisted into a jumble in his eyes.
In the end, he could only shake his head apologetically: "Miss Xu, I really can't recognize these characters."
Xu Zhuohua looked down at the paper, and the familiar simplified Chinese characters suddenly stung her eyes.
The cicadas outside the window chirped tirelessly, "Chirp-a-ling—chirp-a-ling—", each sound piercing her ears like needles stabbing into her heart, so annoying that she wanted to grab something and throw it out.
A surge of anger mixed with despair welled up inside her, and she abruptly crumpled the paper into a ball and clenched it tightly in her hand.
Yes, what's the point?
Whatever the reason, Hu Moli's reputation has already been nailed to the pillar of shame; the ending was already written, and asking for the reason is nothing but self-deception.
She suddenly raised her head and gestured for everyone to leave.
Xinghua wanted to say something more, but Chen Hede stopped her.
Doctor Liu sighed and quietly withdrew with Xiaohe.
The door slammed shut, cutting off all outside views.
Xu Zhuohua slid down against the door panel, hugged her knees tightly with both arms, and buried her face in her arms.
The tears that had been suppressed for so long finally burst forth, flowing silently down, soaking my clothes and the unspoken question that no one could understand.
Xu Zhuohua knew perfectly well that the wheels of history were rolling forward, and no one could stop them alone.
From the moment she stepped into this chaotic world, she didn't want to understand, but one thing after another forced her to.
So many times, she even wished that she was the one who died that day—her life had long been worn down and had lost much of its luster, but Hu Moli was different.
Hu Moli's life has only just begun.
Like a flower that has just unfurled its petals in the wind, her eyes are filled with fresh warmth. She has just found her direction and is about to bloom on a bigger stage. There are countless possibilities for her to live a lively and exciting life.
But fate is cruel; just when things should have been at their most brilliant, it extinguished all the flames.
Xu Zhuohua stared at the beams on the roof, feeling a sense of emptiness in her heart.
Hu Moli died saving her, but what was the point of her life that was saved?
She even felt like she was no different from a walking corpse; her heart had long since sunk to the bottom, and all that remained was this empty shell, just wandering aimlessly in the world.
She was alive, yet her existence was more suffocating than her death.
All afternoon, the cicadas outside the window were chirping so loudly it seemed like they were going to turn the sky upside down. The noisy, shrill sound, carrying the heat of summer, rushed in, making Xu Zhuohua's temples throb.
She sat amidst the noise, flipping through the newspapers one page at a time, her movements so slow it was as if she were counting the lines on the paper.
The Cheng Muyun in the newspaper made her feel cold and unfamiliar.
The words may be exaggerated, but the photos don't lie—his jawline was as taut as ice when he held the submachine gun, his knuckles were white as he gripped the pistol, his profile as he held the torch reflected the flickering light, and his eyes were so cold they could crack stone—he was a veritable god of death who had walked out of hell.
This is not the Cheng Muyun that Xu Zhuohua envisions.
He was aloof and distant, but there was a subtle tenderness hidden in his eyes. He was the kind of person who would hand her a handkerchief when she was in a sorry state and shake his head helplessly when she was being stubborn.
How could someone like that have such a disregard for life? As if the blood and cries before him were nothing more than insignificant dust.
Her fingers gently traced his face on the newspaper; the ink felt rough and uncomfortable to the touch.
For a fleeting moment, she suddenly longed to pass through the piece of paper, walk up to him, grab his sleeve as she used to, look into his eyes, and say, "I haven't left."
But the thought was quickly suppressed by the heavy weariness in my heart.
She doesn't want to think about anything anymore.
I don't want to go back to that place of trouble in Xinhai City, I don't want to see Cheng Muyun, I don't want to see Cheng Muyun, and I don't even want to waste my energy on anything anymore.
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