Chapter 156 A burnt candle is not necessarily a lover
He used a lot of strength.
It was so large that Zhu Yingning felt her shoulder blades were nearly deformed. Her jaw bumped against his skinny collarbone, sending stars through her eyes. She narrowly avoided biting her tongue. She wondered vaguely if he'd ever been this thin before. Why did it feel like not only his collarbone but even his ribs were more pronounced? She leaned against his shoulder for a moment to catch her breath. She tried to breathe, but found his clothes obstructing her nose, so all she breathed in was his scent.
This time, the sweet scent of the shower gel was much fainter, a tangled mess of hospital disinfectant. It wasn't refreshing, but she didn't shy away. She quietly clung to his embrace, letting his arms tighten, as if to crush her and embed her into his bones.
She cleared her mind and tried not to think about anything.
After an unknown amount of time, so long that Zhu Yingning felt she would suffocate to death if she didn't breathe any longer, Xu Sirui finally let go. When he stood up, he snatched the phone from her palm and walked to a deserted place to make a call.
Because they were far away, she couldn't hear what he said to Xu Zhengkang.
But she knew that Xu Sirui was always injured every time he clashed with Xu Zhengkang.
Xu Zhengkang was like a thorn buried in his body. Every time they clashed, the thorn would be pulled out an inch. One day, it would be completely detached from his body, but in the process, his skin and flesh would inevitably be torn apart, and the rotten blood clots on his body would also be peeled off.
**
Xu Zhengkang arrived late. Before he arrived, Xu Siyang had woken up again and vomited some bile. The doctor held up two fingers and asked him which one they were. He said they were fingers. The doctor then asked him if he remembered his name. He said he was his parents' son. He then began to cry and complain of a headache and dizziness, and soon fell asleep again.
The diagnosis was a severe concussion and head trauma, but fortunately no brain damage. The doctor said he needed to stay in the hospital for observation and receive injections of neurotrophic medications such as citicoline.
Xu Zhengkang arrived alone in the early hours of the morning. Upon arriving at the hospital, he first asked the doctor about Xu Siyang's condition, particularly the aftereffects. The doctor explained that the symptoms varied from person to person, and that short-term memory loss and recurring headaches were possible.
“Will it affect IQ?”
"Not if you recover well." The doctor told him not to worry too much, as most concussion patients can recover to their pre-concussion level, as long as they pay attention to avoid secondary injuries.
But after he finished speaking, Xu Zhengkang still walked towards Xu Sirui with a ferocious look, each step he took was extremely heavy, and his right hand was raised high.
Xu Sirui sat on the chair and didn't hide.
Seeing Xu Zhengkang like a rolling boulder, about to crush Xu Sirui, Zhu Yingning's legs moved uncontrollably. She didn't know what she was thinking, or maybe she wasn't thinking at all.
She stood in front of Xu Sirui.
Xu Zhengkang to her is like Huang Yuliang to Zhu Zhiwei, with a seemingly false favor between them, so they are naturally in a low position in front of them, and they lack the stance to stand up straight in what they say and do.
To fight against them is actually to fight against one's own conscience and guilt.
She stood in front of Xu Sirui, her arms outstretched to block his body. After opening her lips, she paused for a few seconds before gathering her words: "Uncle Xu, if anything happens to Xu Siyang, Xu Sirui is your only child, and you will rely on him for your old age and funeral. If you hit him in front of so many people in the hospital today, the father-son relationship between you will be completely severed."
Of course, Xu Sirui couldn't take care of Xu Zhengkang in his old age, not to mention any damn father-son relationship. It was good enough that he didn't poison him to death. This was just a delaying tactic for Xu Zhengkang to hear.
Of course she wanted to point at Xu Zhengkang's nose and call him worse than a beast, or just stab him a few times, and act like a madman, shouting that it was all his fault, and that it was because of him that everything had turned out like this.
But she couldn't.
This was the only response she could come up with.
Whether it was quarreling or fighting, Xu Sirui couldn't stand it anymore. She wanted to preserve his self-esteem as much as possible in such a public occasion.
Xu Zhengkang smiled, stopped, and said, "You are good at speaking for him."
She thought her words had worked, but the next second, Xu Zhengkang's face turned ferocious, "Take care of me in my old age? Do you think he still sees me as his father? Get out of the way!" He reached out to grab her arm.
His hands were thick and his fingers were covered with flesh. Zhu Yingning knew that if she was grabbed by such a hand, she would definitely get bruised. She wanted to avoid it but it was too late.
However, Xu Zhengkang's hand did not fall smoothly on her arm. Before touching her, Xu Sirui suddenly stood up, pulled her back with one hand, and slapped Xu Zhengkang's palm away with the other hand.
With a snap.
The crisp sound of flesh hitting flesh was mixed with the dull thud of bones colliding. You could tell how painful it was just by listening to the sound.
After he stood up completely, he was much taller than Xu Zhengkang. Although he was thin overall and did not have Xu Zhengkang's dimensions, his longitude was there. In terms of momentum, he was not much weaker than the other party.
"Why don't you try touching her?" he said.
Xu Zhengkang pointed at him and her: "You two are really fucking capable..."
"I pushed Xu Siyang down the stairs." He smiled, but his eyes were expressionless and his voice was calm. "I told you that if you dare let him appear before me again, I will kill your entire family. You feel unhappy? Fine, come on, I'll let you beat me."
He tapped his chest and said, "You'd better beat me to death today. If I don't die, Xu Zhengkang, I tell you, you will be the one to die in the future."
"You! You..." Xu Zhengkang's face turned red, but for some reason, he did not act immediately.
Zhu Yingning felt that it was because Xu Sirui's expression at the moment didn't seem normal. He was too calm. Because of this excessive calmness, it actually gave off a sense of madness and terror, a sense of impending danger.
The medical staff also noticed that the atmosphere here was not right and came over to intervene in time: "The hospital is not a place for making trouble, if you want to make a scene, go outside and make a scene!"
Zhu Yingning quickly took advantage of the situation and grabbed Xu Sirui, saying to him, "Let's go back."
Xu Siyang no longer needs them for subsequent care, so leaving now would avoid getting into trouble.
His body was stiff, like a wooden stake stuck in the ground. Zhu Yingning had to pull him hard several times before he moved. Ignoring Xu Zhengkang's cursing, he pulled Xu Sirui out.
She took a taxi and got into the back seat with Xu Sirui.
The driver gave them a few more glances, his eyes ambiguous, perhaps thinking that they, a young man and a young woman, showing up at the hospital late at night must be bad people. She felt disgusted, but didn't have the energy to care anymore. She closed her eyes and pretended not to see anything, telling the driver their home address.
The car drove calmly on the road, and looking out the window, I could see the hustle and bustle of traffic. The hustle and bustle of Beijing was not affected at all.
All the joys and sorrows found in individuals have nothing to do with the city.
They didn't speak the whole time.
I got out of the car and returned to the empty house.
When Zhu Yingning reached the door of her home, she realized that they had left in such a hurry that they had not even closed the door. No one had cleaned up the bloodstains in the stairwell. The bloodstains were winding and irregular, and had dried up, now appearing a dark red color like soy sauce.
She went to the balcony to find the cleaning tools and planned to go out to clean up. When she reached the door, she was blocked by Xu Sirui. He was tall and had long legs. The door frame was originally narrow, and with him blocking her way, she couldn't even find a gap.
"Are you still not going to ask me what happened?" He lowered his eyes to look at her.
Zhu Yingning shook her head: "If you want to say it, then say it. If you don't want to say it, then don't say it. I've already said that the truth is not important to me."
“It doesn’t matter even if I really kill Xu Siyang?”
She lowered her eyes and looked at him, her tone like a sigh: "You won't."
If he really hated Xu Siyang to the point where he wouldn't mind killing him, then he wouldn't have dodged when Xu Zhengkang charged at him. She knew he was actually prepared to take that slap from Xu Zhengkang.
If he truly had no feelings for other people's lives, then there would be no need for him to shed tears while squatting beside the unconscious Xu Siyang who had lost blood in the stairwell. She knew that he hated Xu Siyang, but no matter how much he hated him, it was far from the extent he described.
He can't do anything cruel.
It was because he couldn't do anything cruel that he gave those people the opportunity to hurt him again and again.
Xu Sirui smiled, a smile uglier than crying. "He came here himself, saying his mother was recently ill and in the hospital, and there was no one at home to take care of him. Xu Zhengkang was going on a business trip tomorrow, so he asked him to come to my place. I originally thought he was lying and must have looked up our address himself, until Xu Zhengkang sent me a text message asking me to take good care of him these few days. Don't you think this is ridiculous? Asking me to take care of him? Asking me - to take care of him?"
He chewed on these words over and over again, as if he didn't recognize the Chinese characters anymore.
"I didn't mean to do anything to him...really. I just wanted to get rid of him. I told him to get out, but he refused. When I tried to pull him away, he started crying. I threw him out of the house, and he kept banging on the door, crying his heart out."
"Later, I couldn't stand it anymore, so I opened the door and dragged him to the elevator. While waiting for the elevator, he hugged my legs and cried like a pig. I was angry and felt that he was very annoying. The elevator was taking a long time to come up, so I dragged him to the stairwell and wanted to take him down the stairs."
"I didn't expect the steps to be so close to the security door, nor did I realize how light and vulnerable he was. After the security door opened, I shoved him inside. When I followed him in, he was lying at the bottom of the steps. I saw blood all over the floor."
"This was an accident," she said. "You didn't want it to happen."
He shook his head with tears in his eyes. "No... I don't know if this is an accident, maybe, but there's always a voice telling me that this is something I've been waiting for. I inherited Xu Zhengkang's genes. I'm a rotten person. Sooner or later, I'll become the next him."
"Don't talk nonsense." She frowned and punched him on the chest. "You not only inherited Xu Zhengkang's genes, you also inherited genes from your mother and her family. Are Xu Zhengkang's genes really that strong? Don't scare yourself to death. Xu Sirui, you are not a bad person."
There was a childlike blankness and confusion in his eyes.
"You believe me."
She looked at his expression. His eyes were dark and his face was transparent. There was not a trace of blood on his face. Even his lips, which could usually be described as red and white, were pale. He looked like a candle that was about to burn out, with only a short wick left.
An indescribable pain spread across her heart, and the resentment and disappointment of the past few days suddenly dissipated.
She realized that Xu Sirui was finding it difficult to even love herself now, and he could only barely maintain his vitality despite his best efforts. In such a difficult situation, how could she still ask him to give her his healthy and only love?
He has none of that.
If you don't have something, you won't have it no matter how much you ask for it.
He is her benefactor, but he doesn't have to be her lover. This requirement is too heavy and cruel for both of them.
She would always support him—no longer as a lover, but as a selfless friend.
"Go to sleep." She curved her eyebrows and said to him softly.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
