Chapter 125
You can't leave me like this.
In the spacious and empty ward, only the rhythmic hoarse sound of the vital signs monitor could be heard. The two stood silently by the bedside.
Lin Jin's explanation was as soft as a whisper, yet it was like a meteorite crashing through the atmosphere with destructive power, striking Cheng Sangluo's desolate mental world and stirring up a storm of astonishment and panic.
Cheng Sangluo stared blankly at Lin Jin, her lips trembling a few times but she couldn't say a word. Her dark eyes trembled uncontrollably, as if she hadn't yet digested this strange and surprising brotherly relationship.
She suddenly realized a problem: the situation was becoming increasingly complicated as more and more secrets were revealed, and this revenge against Lin Sheng was no longer just her own affair.
"How many things have you been hiding from me?" Cheng Sangluo's shoulders slumped with a deep breath, and her eyes dimmed. "In your long-planned revenge scheme, have you considered the safety of others? I have, and so has Sheng He. Or did you foresee that Sheng He would suffer the same fate as me?"
Lin Jin didn't immediately answer her question. She turned to look at the unconscious person on the hospital bed, thinking about the events of the past few years. With a soft sigh, she lowered her proud head. "Perhaps in your eyes I'm someone who's good at manipulating others, so you think I'm hypocritical and only use people when I need them. Actually, Sheng He knew this calamity would come. There's no such thing as absolute victory. To avenge a great wrong, you always have to pay a price. I'm not a god; I can't make everyone live in peace. I can only try to minimize the risks and costs."
Cheng Sangluo didn't criticize her further, since everyone had the same goal, but she still felt extremely uncomfortable and couldn't help but mutter, "I really don't understand how much hatred one must have to be willing to risk their life for a good outcome. Doing so is too easy and not worth it."
"Many years ago, Ruan Jinxian had been secretly asking people to search for her lost illegitimate son. I also spent a lot of manpower and money to find Sheng He by following the clues. Fortunately, I found him first."
Lin Jin explained as she sat down by the hospital bed and tucked the blanket in. Looking at Sheng He's battered and bruised appearance, her eyes dimmed as she couldn't help but recall the past.
"After Sheng He's father fell off the cliff, no one knew exactly what happened. Ruan Jinxian did a very ruthless thing. In order to clear herself of any wrongdoing, she didn't give a single penny of money for raising him or show her face. That's why she lost contact with him."
Sheng He was initially raised by his grandparents, but the elderly couple passed away one after another due to illness after only a few years. The family's relatives occupied the old house but refused to take him in.
He had been fed by many families and had also been a homeless person. He had experienced many days of hardship, sometimes hungry and sometimes full. By a twist of fate, he was adopted by a family and joined the army after reaching adulthood.
When I found him, he had just been discharged from the army and was helping with farming at the family he had been adopted by; he was doing alright.
I told him everything that had happened in the past. Perhaps because he had suffered enough in his childhood, he hated his mother, whom he had never met, to the core.
I paid a sum of money to his adoptive parents as a thank-you fee, which was also a way of buying his life, and then began this long plan of revenge.
You ask me how much I hate you? That only shows that you don't hate me enough.
You lost your time, your freedom, your honor; Shenghe lost his father; I lost my mother; and we lost the wonderful childhood we should have had.
We are the victims; nothing we've lost can be recovered, which is why we harbor such deep hatred and a thirst for revenge.
Sometimes I have this illusion that Sheng He is more like Lin Sheng's brother, who is all show and no substance. He takes good care of me, handles things beautifully, and never disappoints.
He's a good man and will get everything he deserves.
Cheng Sangluo listened attentively. Although she disagreed with Lin Jin's unscrupulous methods, she admired his determination to never turn back for a common goal.
She looked up at the window; the night was so dark that not a single ray of light could be seen. She then suggested, "It's getting late, let me take you home."
“Okay.” Lin Jin readily agreed, stood up, and took Cheng Sangluo’s arm, pleading, “Come with me for a drive or a walk. We don’t have many days left to be alone together.”
These words were so desolate, even more chilling than the mountain air outside the window, that Cheng Sangluo stood there stunned for a long time.
She stared at the person in front of her who had a half-smile, gave a faint "hmm," and took the hand that was resting on her arm. However, unlike before when their fingers were intertwined, all the distance between them was hidden in the details of their wrist-holding.
Lin Jin glanced down at her wrist, a wave of unbearable bitterness rising in her throat, but she could only force a smile and silently process all the negative emotions.
......
Cheng Sangluo drove his Bentley at a leisurely pace on the winding mountain road. The windows were tightly closed, blocking out the howling mountain winds. No music was playing in the car, leaving only the sound of their shallow breathing.
Everything seemed lifeless, just like their suffocating love.
As the car window rolled down, a biting wind rushed into the cabin, its harsh, icy chill causing a slight sting to Lin Jin's face and her hair to fly wildly in disarray. The air was instantly filled with the strong scent of cedar.
Lin Jin raised her chin slightly, closed her eyes, faced the biting wind, and deeply inhaled the scent of freedom and cold. Suddenly, she began to hum an unknown tune.
Cheng Sangluo, with one hand on the steering wheel, glanced at the person half-lying out the window, quickly tapped the brakes, and pulled Lin Jin back, saying, "Danger."
Lin Jin leaned back into her seat, a satisfied smile curving her lips as she asked, "Still worried about me?"
"..." Cheng Sangluo was speechless. She stopped the car completely and said in a low voice with a stern face, "I would worry about anyone. Don't try to find meaningless answers in this way."
After saying that, she pushed open the door and walked straight to the railing at the edge of the cliff.
She felt suffocated; these past few days had been incredibly oppressive, and even deep breaths couldn't relieve the discomfort weighing on her heart.
Lin Jin sat in the car and looked at Cheng Sangluo's pale face through the narrow window. Suddenly, she felt that the person she loved was trapped inside, as if trapped in four walls.
She got out of the car with a sorrowful sigh and walked resolutely toward Cheng Sangluo, as if she were willingly trapped in an invisible prison with her lover.
"Young man, are you alright?" Lin Jin put his hands behind his back, his tone playful in an attempt to dispel the dull atmosphere, but the other party showed no interest in responding.
"I'm not good." Cheng Sangluo stared blankly out of the cliff, muttering to herself, "Not good at all."
The nights in Zhouhai are always brightly lit with neon lights, as if no one can erase the glitz and clamor. Sorrow and suffering huddle in the shadows, while the places where the light shines remain bustling. It is a self-deceiving, false peace.
Lin Jin hesitated for a moment, then silently tugged at her lover's sleeve, following her gaze to the city lights that illuminated half the sky. "I will stay with you. As long as you don't leave, I will always be here."
Ultimately, the topic of conversation will revolve around who stays and who leaves.
Cheng Sangluo swallowed hard, the saliva scraping against her throat and making her nose sting. Her tear ducts joined in the fun, but she stubbornly held back her tears.
She turned and leaned against the railing, her back to the bustling world around her, her face obscured by the shadows. "Don't have any expectations of me. In the future, we'll go our separate ways."
Lin Jin frowned slightly, walked to Cheng Sangluo's side and looked into the distance. "I would rather your heart be like ice, at least it can be melted, than your heart be like stone, too hard for me to break through. I want to make up for my mistakes, but you won't give me a chance. You've blocked me out of your heart, I can't get in and you can't get out."
This beautiful woman rarely showed any signs of sadness or distress; even her tone of voice was soft and lacked any assertiveness.
She fell into the whirlpool of love, tormented to the point of losing her original pride, and her words were filled with pleas for forgiveness.
With a red nose, she turned her head to look at Cheng Sangluo, who remained silent, and stared at her for a long, long time, yearning for a love that would last forever. But there was nothing in the mountain wind, and she could not hear a word of forgiveness.
Cheng Sangluo stared down at her injured palm, her mind filled with images of smashing everything in the dark room.
Her life, which she couldn't control, was in the hands of others, so her rage, roaring, and crying were all so pale and powerless.
But how contradictory!
No one can immediately detach themselves from love, so how could she not love Lin Jin? If she hadn't loved him to the bone, she wouldn't hate him to the bone like this now, and the feeling of being deceived and misled wouldn't be so bitter.
"Could you tell me..." Lin Jin still spoke gently, but after a long pause, she continued her question, "Why did you choose to leave me so resolutely? Isn't it painful? Is our love unable to withstand all difficulties?"
"Pain?" Cheng Sangluo murmured in a trembling voice, her gaze towards Lin Jin so bleak, as if some strange button had been pressed, and the anger that had been suppressed in her heart was completely released at this moment, like a flood bursting its banks and overwhelming all her nerves.
She stiffened her neck and gritted her teeth, and in an instant, a heart-wrenching roar echoed through the mountains: "Tell me, am I in pain or not?!"
"What has this world left me?! My kindness has been trampled on by those wicked bastards. I was just trying to save people and help those in need, and I ended up in jail for no reason."
But the person I love most, who clearly holds the evidence to pardon my crimes, watched helplessly as the judge handed down the final verdict, and watched me frantically try to overturn the case like a headless fly.
In your eyes, am I like a ridiculous and pathetic clown, yet you remain unmoved from beginning to end, using the excuse of not daring to face the truth to brush me off?
How are you going to make it up to me? Can you afford to pay me back? Didn't my three years count as three years?
I was imprisoned behind high walls. The pride I had once felt was matched by the agony I endured in that prison. My life was originally full of promise, but it was just a hair's breadth away from being fulfilled...
Cheng Sangluo covered her face in anguish, sobbing hoarsely, "Just a little bit more... and I could have escaped from that dark and unjust family and realized my little dream."
But what awaited me was an abyss. Bad people framed me, the world laughed at me, my family scorned me, and my lover deceived me.
I am an orphan abandoned by this world. Tell me, how can I forgive you and this world?
Leaving is certainly not the best option, but I have no other choice. How can you expect me to face these facts?
You keep saying you love me, but you're the one who oppresses, humiliates, confines, and hides things from me!
Anyone in this world can lie to me, but not you, because I love you so much that I would give my life for you, so I can't lie to you even once.
But our love is like the moon that never reaches the full moon, imperfect and flawed beyond repair... Hahaha... Hahahaha...
As Cheng Sangluo cried, she suddenly burst into insane laughter. The bitter tears mixed with the heartbroken laughter, weaving together the helplessness of half a lifetime.
She suddenly lost all expression, like a lifeless corpse, abandoning Lin Jin and turning to walk down the mountain, muttering to herself in a bleak tone, "It was wrong from the start... What good can love like this possibly have... Of course it won't have a good ending... None..."
Lin Jin stood there, bewildered, watching the distraught figure walk further and further away, but her feet felt like they were stuck in dry cement, unable to move forward.
"No...no...I may be obsessive about you, but I've never been insincere, never..." she murmured, shaking her head. Suddenly, she turned around and cried out frantically, "Don't go...you can't leave me like this...Cheng Sangluo, come back, come back!"
Cheng Sangluo ignored the urgent shouts behind her and walked down the mountain with her head down.
She finally vented her feelings, but her heart still felt so heavy, and she still couldn't breathe fresh air.
She walked along the deserted mountain road without looking back, her lonely figure stretched long by the streetlights. The road ahead seemed endless, just like a life that could never be brightened again, a dull and suffocating existence.
The mountain winds could not dispel her suffering, and the dim streetlights could not illuminate the way ahead. She didn't know how long she would have to walk this endless road before she could get rid of all the hardships and nightmares.
Cheng Sangluo suddenly stopped, exhausted. This weariness came from a desolate spiritual world, penetrating through her hard bones and seeping into her internal organs, soaking into all her nerves.
The feeling wasn't exactly unpleasant, just a general sense of exhaustion that made her hunch over, bend her knees, and take deep breaths. It took her a long time to recover before she turned her head to look back at the path she had come from.
She knew perfectly well that she couldn't easily let go of Lin Jin. If she could just let it go, there would be no need for any mournful screams or venting, and her heart wouldn't feel so suffocated and uneasy.
Cheng Sangluo returned to a stagnant state. Her outburst was like a boulder that had been thrown down, causing little ripple before returning to a lifeless state.
With a heavy sigh, she started walking back towards the health and wellness center. After the anger came a lingering sense of self-reproach, and she couldn't help but blame herself: she shouldn't have vented her bad mood on her lover; such behavior was so childish and ridiculous.
Suddenly, a black sedan with an illegible logo approached from the opposite lane, its glaring high beams causing Cheng Sangluo to instinctively raise her hand to shield her eyes.
The bright lights made it difficult for her to see the car's shape for a moment, but fortunately, the car was not going fast downhill, and as it passed by, the familiar silhouette of the Bentley caught her attention.
In that instant, Cheng Sangluo's indifferent gaze was gradually replaced by trembling fear, and her calm expression turned into helpless terror.
In the dimly lit back seat of the car, that slender and frail body struggled desperately.
She threw her hands onto the car window and pounded on it. The moment her frightened eyes met Cheng Sangluo's, the man behind her covered her mouth and dragged her into the darkness.
That one look was filled with despair.
[Author's Note]
1. My upcoming novel, "Falling in Love After Marriage," is available for pre-order. Please add it to your favorite
2. I'd like to recommend my good friend, author Yan Yuqing's completed novel, "Let's Go Visit Officer Lu's House." It's finished now, and interested readers can check it out.
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