Chapter 32 Collapse
◎Chen Jingshu will always possess the power to break her at the slightest touch. ◎
As soon as Lin Yujing stepped out of the hospital, she saw Yuan Shu pull up in front of her in his black Rolls-Royce with the license plate number San Di.
Perhaps it was because Chen Jingshu had been driving himself lately, but after she got into the car, she no longer smelled the calm and restrained scent of ebony from the back seat.
It seems that everything they experienced during this period was nothing more than a fleeting dream.
Now that the dream has ended, everything has returned to the beginning of the story.
-
But at the other end of the story, things changed the moment Lin Yujing stepped into the elevator.
The cardiac monitor connected to Chen Jingshu immediately sounded an alarm, and almost all the medical staff in the usually quiet VIP ward were mobilized.
The attending physician, holding a defibrillator, instructed, "Contact the Chen family as soon as possible."
-
That day was the first time Lin Yujing realized how close the school was to the city center.
When the car arrived at Ditang Apartment, she hadn't even finished reading Chen Jingshu's year-end performance report, which was placed in the back seat.
She spoke each word as if she were trying to memorize it.
It turns out that Chen Jingshu was admitted to Tsinghua University that year, but he chose to repeat the year and received an admission letter from MIT in March of the following year.
When I returned to China after graduating with my master's degree, I was unable to enter the headquarters of Huaren Capital due to the obstruction of my first wife, so I had to raise manpower on my own to create JING Capital.
In just two years, JING Capital went from being virtually unknown to surpassing Qunxiu to become Huaren's most representative subsidiary.
Lin Yujing bit her lip, thinking to herself that the eldest son's family was being wary of her, thinking it was to avoid risks, but they didn't expect it to be like letting a tiger return to the mountain.
It was around this time that he developed the habit of secretly preparing everything from behind the scenes.
"Miss Lin, we've arrived..."
Lin Yujing put down the folder and got out of the car, noticing that the sky was already turning a pale white.
On a winter morning, the cold wind has the power to penetrate cotton clothing and strike the skin directly.
She clutched her backpack and ran towards the dormitory building, but then quickly remembered something and turned back. Fortunately, Yuan Shu hadn't left yet.
"Miss Lin, is there anything else?" Yuan Shu asked with a calm smile.
Lin Yujing slung her backpack over her shoulder and took the jade Maitreya pendant off her neck. "Mr. Yuan, could you please return this to... to President Chen?"
Yuan Shu rolled down the car window and took it, saying, "Goodbye, Miss Lin."
Lin Yujing smiled and pursed her lips, said thank you, and turned around, her entire shoulder and back instantly slumping.
I thought to myself: I'm afraid we'll never see each other again.
She walked like a ghost, only forcing herself to perk up when she reached the dormitory entrance.
"You're back?"
"You're still awake?"
Lin Yujing opened the door and saw Qi Woxue sitting at her desk reading documents.
"I was worried after you left." Qi Woxue watched her retreating figure and asked, "How are you?"
The dormitory was well-heated, and Lin Yujing's cheeks immediately felt dry and chapped. With her back to Qi Woxue, she changed her clothes while trying to keep her tone calm as she said, "He's fine."
Qi Woxue: "I asked you how you are?"
Lin Yujing paused for a moment. "I'm fine too. It's just that I need to withdraw in time and cut my losses before things escalate further."
Qi Woxue's heart clenched immediately. She felt both heartache and guilt. "Jingjing, it's all my fault. If you're sad, why don't you have a good cry?"
It would be a hundred times better for her to have a good cry than for her to be like a numb, soulless zombie like she is now.
"Senior sister, this has nothing to do with you." Lin Yujing turned and walked to the bedside. She spoke calmly and indifferently, as if she were talking about something that had nothing to do with her. "Do you know? Every graduation season, my parents look forward to me coming home. That way, they can take advantage of my inattention and 'marry' me off with a high dowry."
"The only way I can save myself is to keep studying and use various scholarships to carve out a path for myself." Lin Yujing squatted down, pulled out a blue plastic box from under the bed, and opened it to find a densely packed collection of honorary certificates. "I know the terror of a bleak future. Everything I have now is the result of my best efforts."
“I long for Ah Shu’s love, but I can’t give up my future for love, nor can I ask Chen Jingshu to give up the empire he has worked so hard to build for me.”
Her brow twitched, and she simply let out a long sigh.
Looking out the dormitory window again, the sky was already bright and clear, without a trace of thick, dark clouds.
"Compared to a mundane, mutually supportive relationship, perhaps a life of forgetting each other in the world, where you rest on a high platform and I dwell in the spring mountains, is more suitable for the two of us." Lin Yujing withdrew her gaze, a faint, helpless smile appearing in her eyes, more like a bitter smile.
"Jingjing, you will definitely be happy in the future," Qi Woxue said, looking at her.
Lin Yujing breathed a sigh of relief and changed the subject, "Senior, I'm applying to handle the alliance's work in the dormitory starting next week. My main goal is to focus on preparing my graduation thesis and doctoral application."
Qi Woxue nodded and agreed, "Okay, anyway, the New Year is coming soon, you should get some rest."
-
When Yuan Shu returned to the hospital, he saw the entire Chen family gathered outside the emergency room.
This is the first time I've seen such a depressing scene.
Even Chen Rongqing, who is usually as still as a mountain, was facing the wall with a worried expression as he answered a phone call.
Upon seeing him, Chu Yan rushed over. "What happened? He's been resuscitated twice in one day. I called Jingjing, but her phone was off."
Yuan Shu was unaware of what had happened between them. He only knew that Chen Jingshu's usually gentle voice on the phone was gone, replaced by a cold and indifferent address to Lin Yujing as Miss Lin.
Several months later, he saw Lin Yujing again, who looked listless and dejected when they first met.
In the dim and unclear sky, she got off the car wearing a thick cotton coat, but it made people sigh at the thin and floating fate that could not be concealed.
It's like everything has returned to the first page of a fairy tale.
"Miss Lin only told me to return this to President Chen."
Chu Yan frowned as he accepted the jade Maitreya Buddha.
He recognized it as something that had been kept in the Chen family museum. Chen Jinyi had asked the old man for it countless times, but he never expected that Chen Jingshu could get it so easily and give it to Lin Yujing.
"Let me keep it for now." Chu Yan sighed, having basically guessed the cause and effect. "Giving it back to Brother Jing now will only really drive him to his death."
Yuan Shu nodded and said, "Miss Lin seemed to be in a lot of pain the whole way."
"She still feels pain?" Chu Yan interrupted impatiently. "She can always abandon Brother Jing with a clear conscience."
In Chu Yan's eyes, whether it was Pengzhen or Yijing, Chen Jingshu wanted to arrange every detail for her perfectly.
I was afraid she would feel too much pressure if she found out, so I kept almost everything from her.
But in the end, she was clear-headed and rational, and only loved herself.
At the slightest setback, he would immediately and gracefully withdraw.
-
After leaving JING Capital, Lin Yujing spent almost every day in the library revising her graduation thesis. Her doctoral application was also basically complete, and she was just waiting for her professor to return to China after the New Year to write her a letter of recommendation.
In addition, I borrowed all the books related to arts management and read almost all the literature and materials related to art museums at home and abroad.
On sunny days, I would carry my camera to the zoo to prepare for photographing Tibetan antelopes in Hoh Xil during the spring.
On cloudy days, I stay in my studio painting commercial works to save up for tuition fees for studying abroad.
She filled almost every day to the brim, from the moment she opened her eyes until she turned off the lights and went to sleep.
She seemed to have lived a peaceful and quiet life for a while. Even the vampire mother and son disappeared after receiving their money every month, no longer suddenly appearing to bother her like before.
Qi Woxue joked, "Should I call you a time management master, or congratulate you on finally living a life like your name suggests—a life of tranquility beyond expectations?"
Lin Yujing was sitting on the bed packing her backpack, forcing a smile.
She only realized later that she had been living a very fulfilling life during this time, which was exactly the kind of college life she had been looking forward to.
But she clearly felt that she was empty and pale, like a tree that had been hollowed out.
Her thoughts and ideas are all commands issued by her brain, which she then carries out on her behalf.
As for the soul, it has always been floating outside the body.
They could see each other, but they couldn't touch each other or talk to each other.
"I was too busy before, and I missed an international art exhibition competition, which was very important for my application for doctoral studies. Now I'm just making up for it." That was when she had the accident in the old building, coupled with Chen Jingshu's sudden change of attitude towards her.
My mind is a jumble of thoughts, with no time for quiet reflection.
So even the competition materials she had prepared were lost somewhere.
"Are you going to the library or the art studio now?" Qi Woxue asked.
"I'm going home." She hadn't heard from those two for so long, and she was a little worried. She was even more afraid that their quiet demeanor might lead them to cause trouble again after her doctoral application was approved.
Qi Woxue told her to be careful and to come back early, then Lin Yujing changed her clothes and went out.
To get from the North Fourth Ring Road to the urban village where they live, it takes nearly two hours by subway and then by bus.
In remote areas, waiting for a bus is difficult, and the journey is also bumpy and crowded.
Lin Yujing got off the bus close to noon, then wandered through a crowded and narrow alleyway between residential buildings, climbed up to the top floor of a building without an elevator, and finally arrived home.
However, despite living here for many years, she still doesn't deserve a key to the house.
I didn't understand it when I was a child, but I've come to terms with it as I've grown up.
For her, life was like a drifting duckweed, and nowhere felt like home.
Lin Yujing knocked on the door a few times, but Li Yan, who usually stayed at home, didn't rush to open the door for her as she usually did.
She knocked a few more times, "Mom, it's me, Lin Yujing."
Just then, the door of the neighbor's house opened, but the person looking at her was very cautious.
"Aunt Liu, did my mom and Lin Yuyan go out?" Lin Yujing asked hurriedly.
Aunt Liu: "Your mother and your brother went back to their hometown, didn't you know?"
"I don't know." Lin Yujing was also quite surprised. "Did something happen?"
"At the end of September, I heard that you offended some big shot in the city, and then a group of thugs would come to your house to cause trouble every day. Your mother and your brother ran away overnight." Aunt Liu and Li Yan were migrant workers who came to Yijing to work together. They had watched Lin Yujing and her brother grow up and had always been disgusted by her parents' behavior.
"Oh, I see." Lin Yujing had a rough idea of who the important person at the end of September was.
She also realized that this was indeed the usual way of doing things for important people: solving all the problems behind her back so that she would passively accept all his favors.
"Ever since your father died, you've been supporting that mother and daughter. It's disheartening that they ran away the moment they heard you'd offended someone," Aunt Liu sighed. "So, have you resolved things with that important person yet?"
Lin Yujing bit her lip, unsure how to answer for a moment.
"Oh, let's not talk about it anymore." Aunt Liu probably thought the matter was difficult to handle. "We'll solve it slowly. You're still young."
Lin Yujing nodded, said goodbye, and left.
She thought it would be good for Li Yan and her son to go back to their hometown; given their timid and cowardly nature, it would allow her to have a period of peace.
This was arguably the best news she had heard during this period.
But fate seemed to be not satisfied with this. Just as she reached the bus stop, she received a call from overseas.
The other party claimed to be the person in charge of an international art exhibition competition. She said that her previous entry, "Angel in a Wheelchair," won the gold medal and was spotted by a well-known entrepreneur at the exhibition last week. He decided to buy her painting as a birthday gift for his daughter who is disabled due to illness.
Of all the things mentioned, Lin Yujing only knew about the painting. It had been abandoned in the old building, and she had assumed it was lost forever.
But he had no idea when he participated in the competition or how he won the gold medal.
"I want to confirm, is it really me?"
The person in charge was taken aback for a moment before replying, "It is you, Ms. Lin Yujing. The assistant who mailed your competition entry is named Chen Jingshu."
Lin Yujing then understood and confirmed the information with the person in charge.
"As per the organizing committee's requirements, this painting will be sold for five million. The money and award certificate will be mailed out before Friday; please check your mail."
After hanging up the phone, Lin Yujing looked up at the sky and took a deep breath.
Her expression was a mixture of laughter and tears, and deep down it felt as if an invisible hand was tightly gripping the blood vessels that connected her entire body.
Just then, the bus stopped.
Without a second thought, she was pushed onto the bus by the crowded people.
After another nearly two hours of bumpy and crowded travel, Lin Yujing no longer felt the peaceful mood she had when she arrived.
My mind is filled with that important person.
That important person who always carried her on his back and did many things for her.
In particular, there is a memory of a bus with an important person.
He would always stand just behind her, ensuring that no one else would bump into her, and that he himself wouldn't bump into her either.
He gave her both ambiguity and a sense of security.
But just as she was lost in thought, the driver suddenly slammed on the brakes.
Lin Yujing fell from the crowd in a daze, and in an instant, countless feet stepped over the back of her hands.
Almost instinctively, she first protected her right hand and head.
Fortunately, someone quickly lifted her from the ground, and a group of people offered her their seats and inquired about her injuries.
Lin Yujing stared blankly at the crowd of people who cared about her, her eyes reddening and her nose stinging with tears.
In a flash, it felt like she was back on that peaceful morning when the boy said to her, "It doesn't matter if it's a paper tiger or a real tiger. If you're willing, stay by my side and be a little fox for the rest of your life."
However, this little fox lost her tiger.
Then, the facade of peace she had maintained for so many days finally crumbled at this moment due to her longing.
The name Chen Jingshu seems to have silently permeated her life.
To forever possess the power to crush her at the slightest touch.
A note from the author:
You lie on a high platform, and I live on a spring mountain.
—Quoted from the internet.
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