Chapter 27 Lucid Dreaming “You’ve never accepted your own imperfections”…
Chapter. Twenty-seventh
Perhaps it was because of Xu Zhouye's broken body, pitiful pupils and decadent figure, or perhaps it was something else. Chen Qiudu couldn't explain it clearly, but he still chose to follow him silently to see what he wanted to do and what he wanted to explain.
Chen Qiudu originally thought that Xu Zhouye would still use belittling to highlight his self-worth as he did before, or laugh at Chen Qiudu for being delusional and thinking of himself as the protagonist in a domineering CEO novel.
But no, nothing.
In the empty corridor, Xu Zhouye's black clothes made him look like a lost ghost, wandering helplessly in the world, trying to find a place to stay, but he was a ghost, and in this world full of people, there would never be a place for him to survive.
Xu Zhouye said nothing, but just took Chen Qiudu to the third floor.
Chen Qiudu had stayed in the Wen family for so long but had never been here. The door to the third floor was blocked by huge cargo and hidden behind it. It was also locked with a special lock. No one could open it unless it was Xu Zhouye himself.
"This is the space Aunt Wen left for me in the Wen family after Mother passed away. Only I can come up here."
Noticing Shen Qiudu's puzzled expression, Xu Zhouye explained with an expressionless face.
Then he ignored everything else and took Chen Qiudu straight to the door of a room in the corner.
The door opened, and the dust in the room flew towards Chen Qiudu like a swarm of moths. The pungent smell of rust invaded his nasal cavity, causing Chen Qiudu to step back repeatedly and frown subconsciously.
Chen Qiudu dusted off the dust. "Where is this place? What did you bring me here for? Do you want to trap me here and kill me without a word?"
"Trapped you to death?"
Xuzhou also seemed to have heard some ridiculous joke and actually chuckled. However, his usually expressionless face suddenly showed an expression, making it look particularly stiff and creepy.
"I haven't even gotten out myself, how can I possibly trap you?"
Xu Zhouye walked familiarly to the sofa near the window and patted the cushion, motioning for Chen Qiudu to sit over. He then sat down directly on the edge of the bed without any disgust and turned on the table lamp on the side.
"It's too dark in the room. I'd better open the curtains."
"You don't have to be so particular. Besides, it's been raining in Suzhou these days. Even if you open it, there won't be much light."
As soon as he finished speaking, the sound of fine raindrops gently hitting the window became evidence of Xu Zhouye's situation.
Chen Qiudu was too lazy to bother with it, so he let Xu Zhouye go. He looked up and glanced around at the furnishings in the house. The furniture was basically made of high-grade mahogany, and there was a study, a dressing room, and an indoor bathroom.
What concerned Chen Qiudu the most was a huge painting hanging above his bed, which almost took up the entire wall.
The content of the painting also gave Chen Qiudu a shocking feeling—
The background is chaotic raindrops. In the center of the painting, a human figure is painted with black paint, and a heart is deliberately drawn out with red paint. At the same time, a line of jade beads is painted with white paint, like a sharp sword, piercing straight into the heart.
A thought subconsciously flashed through Shen Qiudu's mind.
The person in the painting might be Wen Jiangchu.
The intense panic made Chen Qiudu's breathing rhythm disordered. He tried his best to calm down and was eager to end this discussion as soon as possible, so he took the initiative to change the topic.
"What did you bring me here to talk about? Your high school days?"
"Of course not. I'm just curious. Why don't you ask me why I hate Wen Jiangchu so much? Sometimes when I mention it, you always brush it off."
"I don't want to get involved in what's going on between you. Logically, the person sitting here should be Wen Jiangchu."
Xu Zhuye suppressed his smile, and fiercely rolled his fingers over the wound that had peeled back the skin and exposed the flesh, hiding the ripples in his eyes.
"Then why did you come? And why did you leave quietly instead of waking Wen Jiangchu up?"
"Because I'm worried that you might hurt him. Is that reason enough for you?"
Blood oozed from the wound and dripped onto the ground, mixing with the miscellaneous dust.
Xu Zhuye was breathing heavily and his face completely fell.
"You see, this is why I hate him."
"Why, why can he easily make everyone care about him, worry about him, and love him? And everything I do is wrong. We are clearly the same kind of people!"
"He should be just like me! Bullied, locked in the filthy school toilet until dawn, mocked as a homeless child, only able to survive on the sympathy of others, unable to return home, and being compared to others every day!"
"We should have depended on each other since childhood...supported each other as we grew up...either live together or die together, becoming the most important person in each other's lives! Instead of him being all the brilliance and me being like a rat hiding in a stinking ditch, barely surviving by his light, and still having to thank him for his great kindness!"
Xu Zhouye roared like a madman, glaring at Wen Jiangchu and denouncing his moral corruption. His whole body was trembling with intense emotional outburst, and his straight back slumped again in silence.
Chen Qiudu watched Xu Zhouye go crazy with great calmness. In his eyes, Xu Zhouye was just an unreasonable madman.
He didn't understand why Xu Zhouye was so unsatisfied and why he stopped others from being better than him.
At first, Chen Qiudu wondered if Xu Zhouye's love for Wen Jiangchu was a deformed one, loving her to the point of jealousy and hatred, but it was not the case. He really wanted Wen Jiangchu to die with him.
There was no trace of love in his eyes, only endless resentment. It was as if he had been pushed into hell by his most trusted friend.
"If you want to vent this to me, I advise you to find someone else. I don't have that much time."
"I don't understand your thinking, and I don't agree with you backstabbing your friends just because you're behind them instead of working hard for yourself. You're no different than a rat in the gutter, but at least a rat will find its own garbage to eat. So you're even more ungrateful than a rat."
Hearing Chen Qiudu's words, Xu Zhouye laughed instead of getting angry. "You don't understand. Of course you don't understand. For a low-quality Omega like you who lives in the slums, whose biggest hope every day is to earn a little money to buy food at a street stall, how can you possibly understand?"
"I called you here out of kindness to remind you not to be deceived by people like Wen Jiangchu who pretend to be so hypocritical. I was like that at first. I was attracted by his kind face and believed everything he said. But what happened in the end? Look at me now. He is the devil who sucks human blood!"
Chen Qiudu lowered his eyes and sighed helplessly. He felt that Xu Zhouye was now completely trapped.
In order to deceive himself, he made up a lie that only he knew, but the lie would get bigger and bigger until it completely enveloped his worldview, making it difficult for Xu Zhouye to distinguish what was real and what he had made up.
So in the end, I fell into it completely and refused to listen to any dissuasion.
"Then tell me how Wen Jiangchu sucked your blood bit by bit? And what exactly happened in the beginning?"
The sound of rain outside the window grew louder, and sticky puddles grew wildly, reflecting a chaotic illusion.
Xu Zhuye glanced sideways and picked up a photo frame on the table. He raised his hand and gently wiped off the dust on the surface, revealing the face of a young boy in the photo.
It’s Xu Zhouye.
But Xu Zhouye's hand did not stop.
He opened the photo frame and took out the photo separately, only to find that half of it was hidden, and the boy in the other half was Wen Jiangchu.
"This was taken by Aunt Wen when I first came to the Wen family. It's also the first photo of Wen Jiangchu and I, to commemorate my first day at the Wen family."
"It's only because of my family that many people in the circle don't complain in front of me for the sake of the Wen family. But I know that many people look down on me behind my back, saying that I've ruined the Xu family, caused my mother to leave, and now I'm trying to hurt the Wen family. They say I'm an ungrateful and inconsiderate person."
"Many servants in the Wen family are also so arrogant. Even though they are so poor and lowly, they dare to speak ill of me behind my back and show favoritism to others. They deliberately made me eat leftovers and sleep on a quilt that was not yet dry, which caused a rash all over my back."
"But I know I can't cry. No one can really care about my feelings, so I have been holding it back. I didn't dare to complain. First, I didn't want to worry Aunt Wen and the others, and second, I didn't want to be called a nagging person again."
"Until one day I was so hungry that I secretly ran to the kitchen to get the steamed buns left over from the morning and ate them while hiding on the steps outside the door."
"The bun was so dry that it hurt my teeth, so I cried so hard. Unexpectedly, Wen Jiangchu, who was out for a walk because he couldn't sleep, saw me."
"He knew I had a strong sense of self-esteem, so he pretended nothing had happened and went back home. But when I finished eating my steamed bun and went back home, I saw the light he had left on for me, and the bowl of steaming noodles on the table."
"Later, Wen Jiangchu came to me, took my wrist, and told everyone in the Wen family that I was his good friend, a child brought back by Wen Bo's mother, and a part of the Wen family."
"He didn't tell anyone what happened that day, but since that day, I have regained the dignity that only the young master of the Xu family has."
"But why? Why does he get everything without doing anything? A perfect family, everyone's love, the only heir to the Wen family?"
"And me, my family background is no worse than his, and how are my looks and abilities any less than his? Why do I have to rely on his reputation to achieve what I want to do?"
"He was the one who said we were friends. He was the one who said we were all the same. Why did he change his mind halfway?! Why did he break his promise?! Why did he leave me here again?!"
Xu Zhuye's voice was hoarse as he accused everyone of all the lies, tears welling up in the corners of his eyes.
"I didn't understand it at first, but it soon became clear to me."
"That's because Wen Jiangchu did all this on purpose. He just wanted me to be his background, to show everyone how good he was to me, how kind he was, and how despicable I was! He wanted to use this huge difference and contrast to keep me under his feet forever!"
Chen Qiudu couldn't bear it any longer. He stood up and said sternly, "Xu Zhouye, are you fucking crazy?!"
"You said Wen Jiangchu wanted to put you under his feet. Fine, if he wanted to put you under his feet, shouldn't he have let public opinion develop and let those filthy and disgusting remarks crush you? Or wouldn't it be easier for him to just put on an act in front of outsiders?"
"Then why did it consider your feelings every time we were alone together? Why did it resolutely stand up for you when you were attacked, despite the threats from its mortal enemy? Why did it fill the hole of tens of millions for you when it knew that you ordered others to drug him and betrayed the company to deliver core information to the rival company?"
"And Aunt Wen, why did you go against everyone's will and bring you, someone riddled with scandal, home to take good care of her? And when you discovered that the servants were neglecting you, you dismissed those who had worked at the Wen family for years without hesitation? And why did you set aside an entire floor just for you, knowing you were so sensitive and prone to overthinking?"
"Xu Zhouye, everything you said was just a lie you made up to deceive yourself and avoid looking so embarrassed. You can only deceive yourself, not others."
Xu Zhouye was completely stunned, his mouth opening silently, but no words came out. Tears streamed down his face, leaving a clear, winding tear mark.
The sour taste that pierced his mouth brought Xu Zhouye back to his senses.
"Yeah...why...why...why would he do that?"
"I know why."
Chen Qiudu walked to the curtains. The heavy color was like the mist that had been lingering in Xu Zhouye's heart, covered with wrinkles and thorns, making him dare not look directly at it or step out again and again.
"Because you've never truly accepted everything about yourself, accepting that you're not as perfect as you thought."
"So you start to hate, to hate those who can do it."
"It's a pity that you hate someone who is not hateful."
“Wow—”
A violent pulling sound echoed throughout the house, and Shen Qiudu pulled open the curtains with force, revealing everything outside the window.
The white light was like a copper lamp that had been accumulated for many years, covered in dirt, and finally saw the light of day, madly absorbing all the darkness.
It’s a pity that the lampshade is pitch black and covered with oil stains, and can no longer illuminate anything.
For example, Xu Zhouye was covered by the shadow beside the bed.
It turned out that the rain had stopped at some point.
Xu Zhouye felt like he was covered in magma, his whole body was burning hot, and he wished he could hide in the corner.
"Pull it up...Chen Qiudu! I told you to pull it up!"
At this moment, Xu Zhouye seemed like a clown. He had lost his previous arrogance, and his voice was as thin as a mosquito.
Chen Qiudu just silently watched this farce that belonged to him alone.
Suddenly, there was a faint sound of feet stepping on the ground behind him.
Chen Qiudu looked back and saw Wen Jiangchu wearing the same home clothes as him.
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