Intimate Trial Chapter 38

Chapter 38

The light from the airport fell on Su Yu’s face, and she narrowed her eyes slightly.It’s not because of the glare, but because of habit – every time she comes back from a long-distance flight, her aunt will immediately raise her hand to block the light and say: “Get used to it slowly, don’t open your eyes in a hurry.”

There was no hand this time.

Wu Qi pushed her out of the arrival gate.There were no dolls in Su Yu’s arms, only a thin laptop containing the pre-research paper she had just completed on quantum entanglement.Ye Chang promised to be her first reader.

Fu Xi stood there, dressed in black, like a silhouette.

“Aunt Fu.” Su Yu’s voice was very calm, not as calm as a seventeen-year-old girl. “Where is my aunt?”

Fu Xi knelt down.This action made Su Yu’s heart sink a bit – Aunt Fu was never like this, she always stood upright, like another pillar beside Ye Chang that would not bend.

“Let’s go home first, okay?” Fu Xi’s voice was very soft, as if she was afraid of breaking something.

When getting into the car, Su Yu controlled the wheelchair and slid into the back seat.Ye Chang modified the car so that all the buttons are within her reach.”My Xiaoyu doesn’t need help from others.” She always said this, but every time she would still reach out to protect the top of her head to prevent her from hitting it.

The car started and drove towards the home where they had lived together for more than ten years.

The scenery outside the window was familiar, but Su Yu felt unfamiliar.The world seems to be covered with a layer of mist, and all colors are lighter by three points.She knew this feeling – the last time it happened was when she understood what “death” meant for the first time when she was seven years old. Ye Chang held her in his arms all night and said over and over again: “Don’t be afraid, my aunt is here.”

“Aunt Fu.” Su Yu didn’t look back and looked out the window, “Auntie went to find mother, right?”

The car was quiet for a long time.

“…Yes.”

The door to the house opens.

At the entrance, Ye Chang’s slippers were still placed in the same place – facing slightly outward, as if she just made a temporary move.

Fu Xi and Su Yu were sitting around the coffee table.

The coffee table was made of walnut, Su Yu remembered.Ye Chang chose it herself. She said that dark wood can make people calm.Now, what is spread out on the smooth desktop is not a tea set, but a stack of documents.

Fu Xi sat across from him and opened a dark gray folder.Her movements were slow, as if she needed extra effort to turn each page.

“This is a breakdown of all the properties your aunt left you.” Fu Xi’s voice remained professional and steady, but her fingertips unconsciously rubbed the edge of the page. “The Ye Group has completed liquidation and has no debts. This is… the limit of what she can do.”

Su Yu’s eyes fell on the first page.

It’s not a cold number, but a handwritten list, Ye Chang’s handwriting.The title is: A future for Xiaoyu.

1. Trust fund (already established)

·Purpose: education, medical care, life security

·Manager: Fu Xi (until you are 25 years old)

·Remarks: Xiaoyu, money should be spent on things that make you grow and be happy.Don’t save.

2. Three properties

· (Address A): Current home.Keep it, here are all your memories.

· (Address B): Beach house.You once said you wanted to see the sea, and your aunt bought it.Air is good for the heart.

· (Address C): Apartment near the university.It has been renovated, on the first floor, with a small garden.

3. Portfolio

·Ingredients: Mainly stable, some growth

·Expected rate of return: (a line of complex calculation formula, followed by a smiley face at the end)

·Remarks: It doesn’t matter if you don’t understand, Aunt Fu will take care of it.All you need to know is that it is enough for you to do research without worrying about money.

4. Right to dispose of personal belongings

·All my personal belongings are at your sole discretion.

·Suggestion: Keep what is useful and throw away what is sad.But I know you can’t bear it.

Su Yu turned over page after page.Behind each item, there are “remarks” handwritten by Ye Chang.Some are exhortations, some are explanations, and some are just simple – “This is good”, “Remember to collect your income on time”, “Don’t be cheated”.

This is not a legacy list.

This is a survival guide.It was Ye Chang who used the most pragmatic way to pave the smoothest possible road for her after knowing that he could not accompany her.

“All legal documents have been notarized and effective.” Fu Xi pushed several copies of important contracts towards her, “You need to sign a few words as confirmation of receipt.”

Su Yu picked up the pen.The pen is the Montblanc that Ye Chang often uses, and the body of the pen has been rubbed until it feels moist.She remembered the way Ye Chang looked when signing documents – he frowned slightly, but he wrote decisively, and the last stroke was always slightly longer, with unquestionable strength.

She writes her name in the designated space.Sioux language.The two words were neat, clear, but light, without the strength of Ye Chang that pressed down on the back of the paper.

“And this.” Fu Xi pushed over another small envelope with a clean off-white cover. “This is not a legal document. It was left to you alone by A Chang.”

Su Yu opened the envelope, and there was only one sentence inside.

“I’m sorry, Xiaoyu.”

Just these five words.

No signature, no date, no explanation.

Su Yu held the card.

Paper is very light, almost weightless.But those five words were so heavy that they could collapse the entire coffee table.

She stared.

The word “right” is stretched longer than usual, the word “no” is paused heavily, the last word of “qi” is raised too hastily, and the word “小语” is written particularly neatly, like a primary school teacher teaching a child to write his name, stroke by stroke.

Su Yu said nothing.She turned the card over.

The back is empty.Pure white, like freshly fallen snow, or like the ceiling of a hospital ward.

Su Yu’s fingers stroked the line of words.

The ink has long since dried and is smooth to the touch.But she could almost feel the force of Ye Chang’s pen tip pressing on the paper when he wrote them – the guilt that almost broke the back of the paper and had no place to place it.

“She has nothing to be sorry for.” Su Yu said softly, as if talking to himself.

Fu Xi looked at her.

“She gave me life.” Su Yu continued, still staring at the card. “She gave me a home, gave me love, and taught me how to live. She even arranged things after she left.”

“What is she sorry for?”

Questions are thrown in the air and no one can answer them.

Maybe Ye Chang himself couldn’t tell clearly.She just felt that no matter how much she gave, no matter how thorough the arrangements were, “leaving” itself was a kind of let down.

Su Yu carefully put the card back into the envelope, and then put the envelope back into the folder.Her movements were slow, as if she were performing some kind of ritual.

“Aunt Fu,” she raised her head, her eyes were red but there were no tears, “Where is my aunt’s grave…?”

Fu Xi was stunned for a moment: “Next to your mother, she wants to be with your mother.”

These six words made Su Yu’s breathing stagnant slightly.

She should have thought of it earlier.All the choices Ye Chang made in his life revolved around the center of the circle called Su Mian – this was the case during his life, and it was the same after his death.

Fu Xi observed her reaction and her voice became softer: “Su Mian’s tomb is in Nanshan Cemetery in the west of the city, halfway up the mountain, where you can see the entire pine forest. A Chang bought the land next to it many years ago.”

“She said,” Fu Xi cast her gaze into the void, as if recalling a distant scene, “‘Sister is afraid of the cold, but likes to look at trees. The sun is rising there, and there is sunshine in winter and shade in summer, which is the best.'”

Su Yu closed his eyes.She could almost see the scene – Ye Chang stood in front of two empty tombs side by side, calculating the angle, lighting, and field of view, as if planning for her most important project.

“When did she prepare it?” Su Yu asked in a very soft voice.

“The second year after Su Mian was buried,” Fu Xi said, “Ye’s family hadn’t grown big at that time, and she had spent almost all her savings. I said I could choose a cheaper location, but she said no, I want the best, because my sister deserves the best.”

Typical Ye Chang logic.Give everything you have to the people you care about.

“The funeral…” Su Yu paused, “Has it been done?”

“No.” Fu Xi shook her head, “A Chang said that people like her don’t take up too many resources.”

Su Yu was stunned.

This answer is more like Ye Chang than any explanation – extremely rational, extremely concise, extremely… decisive.

Even farewells should be reduced to a minimum, and even memorials should be simplified to a minimum.It seemed that all the vigor and vigor in her life should eventually fade into silence.

“Then…where is that person?”

Su Yu’s voice was very soft, but the words “that person” fell on the quiet living room like ice.

Fu Xi stopped packing the documents.She raised her head and looked at Su Yu – there was no expression on the girl’s face, and even the restrained sadness before had faded away, leaving only a cold calm.

“Crazy.” Fu Xi said, her voice without any fluctuation, as if she was stating a medical fact, “Now in Nanshan Nursing Home, intensive care area.”

Su Yu’s eyelashes trembled slightly, that’s all.

“When did it happen?”

“On the third day after Ye Chang left.” Fu Xi took out a copy of the brief medical report from the bottom of the document bag, but did not hand it to Su Yu. He just placed it on the coffee table. “When she was found on the rooftop, she had…no complete cognitive ability. She just said two sentences repeatedly.”

Su Yu’s eyes fell on the report, but he didn’t reach out to take it.

“Which two sentences?”

Fu Xi took a deep breath and repeated: “The first sentence: ‘I was wrong.'” “The second sentence: ‘I’m sorry.'”

The living room fell into dead silence.

The sound of wind outside the window suddenly became clear, like some distant whimpering.

Not shirk, not excuse.It is a confession, a repentance.

But, it’s too late.

“The doctor diagnosed acute stress disorder with symptoms of derealization.” Fu Xi’s voice maintained a professional calmness. “She couldn’t recognize people, couldn’t distinguish time and space, and most of the time she just sat quietly and looked out the window. Occasionally she would suddenly break down and say those two sentences.”

Su Yu was silent for a long time.

Her fingers unconsciously rubbed the armrests of the wheelchair, which were covered with soft leather that Ye Chang specially asked people to cover, saying that it would keep her hands cold in the winter.

“The expenses for the nursing home,” Fu Xi continued, “were arranged in advance by Ye Chang. She used some of the remaining assets of the Shen family to set up a trust to pay for Shen Shen Lin’s treatment—until she recovers or dies.”

Su Yu opened his eyes with complicated expressions.

This is Ye Chang’s logic again: I’ll destroy you, but I won’t let you die.I let you live to pay for your sins in madness, and I will pay for your survival.

A kind of extreme cruelty, wrapped in a seemingly “responsible” appearance.

“Si Lin. In the nursing home, will she mention her aunt? Will she want to see her?”

“According to the nursing records, no.” Fu Xi shook his head. “She is in a state of dissociation most of the time, and she doesn’t even know who she is. Only occasionally, in the few fragments of consciousness, she will suddenly ask: ‘Where is Ye Chang?'”

“Then what?”

“The nursing staff told her: ‘Mr. Ye has passed away.’ She would be stunned for a long time, and then repeat that sentence: ‘I’m sorry.'”

Madness may not be an escape, but a kind of self-protection when the truth is too heavy – when reality is more unbearable than madness, the brain chooses to fragment.

“Do you want to see her?” Fu Xi asked softly.

Su Yu didn’t answer immediately.She pushed her wheelchair and slid to the window, looking at the rose bushes in the garden.

When Ye Chang planted them, he said: “Rose has thorns, but the flowers are beautiful. Just like some people, they hurt you, but they also gave you tenderness.”

At that time, Su Yu asked: “Is that aunt Qiangwei?”

Ye Chang smiled, with a rare tenderness in his smile: “My aunt is a rose grower. Be careful not to get stabbed.”

Now, the man who grew the roses is gone.

The “thorn” planted by her was trapped in the nursing home.

And Su Yu, a girl who was carefully cared for and brought up by the rose grower, has to decide whether to see what the “thorn” looks like now.

“Aunt Fu,” she said without looking back, “do you think I want me to go?”

This question made Fu Xi think about it for a long time.

“Probably not expected.”

Fu Xi’s voice was very soft, but it was like a stone thrown into calm water, creating clear ripples in the living room.

“She doesn’t want you to get involved in this.”

Su Yu’s fingers on the armrests of the wheelchair curled up slightly.

yes.

How could she forget this.

Everything about Ye Chang – whether it’s love, hate, revenge, or destruction – strictly isolates her.

Even the final confrontation on the rooftop, Ye Chang chose to complete it while she was traveling – not letting her witness the falling scene with her own eyes.

Ye Chang spent more than ten years building a sterile greenhouse for her.There is only knowledge, warmth, and carefully filtered love.All the hatred, calculations, and bloody past are blocked outside the glass.

“She protected you so well.” Fu Xi continued, with a complicated sigh in her voice, “So good…sometimes I feel that she is protecting the last clean place in her heart by protecting you.”

“So,” Su Yu’s voice was a little astringent, “If I go to see Shen Shenlin now, I will take the initiative to enter the world that my aunt has never allowed me to enter.”

“Yes.” Fu Xi nodded, “And it was the world that she completely closed at the cost of her life.”

The wind came in through the cracks in the window, bringing with it the coolness of night dew.

Su Yu felt a cold awakening – the kind of heavy awakening that comes after finally seeing all the puzzle pieces clearly.

Ye Chang’s revenge is a grand and lonely ceremony.

She used herself as a sacrifice, Shen Silin as an altar, and the past as a memorial.Su Yu was the only pure flame she wanted to preserve from this bloody ritual.

She hoped that this flame would continue to burn and illuminate the future, instead of turning back to illuminate the past that she had buried with her own hands.

“I understand.” Su Yu said softly.

She pushed her wheelchair away from the window and came to the study.

She opened a small wooden box on the top shelf of the bookcase – it was one of the few physical objects related to Su Mian that Ye Chang left to her.

There was nothing special inside: a faded hairpin, a few letters, a high school yearbook.

There is also a carefully folded piece of paper.

Su Yu unfolded it.

It’s Ye Chang’s handwriting from high school. It’s a bit immature, but you can already see how sharp it became later.There is a message written on the paper: “Sister, wait for me.”

There is no date, but judging from the yellowing of the paper, it should have been written many years ago – maybe when Su Yu was born, or maybe earlier.

Su Yu’s fingers touched the handwriting.

She suddenly understood the deepest logic of all Ye Chang’s actions: cutting off the chain of cause and effect.

She compressed all the hatred, all the revenge, and all the darkness in her life.With an ultimate, mutual ending, trying to bury all the grudges in her death.

What is left to Su Yu should be a clean, unburdened world where he can start over.

“Auntie,” Su Yu said softly to the piece of paper, “do you think I can really forget it like this?”

She couldn’t forget it.

These memories have grown into her life, supporting her like bones and reminding her like scars.

“Aunt Fu,” Su Yu turned back to the wheelchair and looked at Fu Xi, who had been standing quietly at the door, “Do you know what my aunt’s biggest mistake is?”

Fu Xi waited for her to continue.

“Her biggest mistake was excluding me, when I knew everything.”

Fu Xi heard herself ask.

“Why didn’t you ask her? Why didn’t you stop her?”

Su Yu turned her head. In the dim light, her eyes were extremely bright.

“Because if I asked, if she knew and I knew, then—”

“The way she looks at me turns into guilt.”

“The tone of her voice when she talks to me is filled with explanations.”

“Every hug she gives me, she hesitates – is she hugging Xiaoyu, or is she hugging ‘Su Mian’s continuation’?”

Su Yu paused, and for the first time there was a slight tremor in his voice:

“I don’t want to ruin the way she looks at me.”

“Even if that method…is based on lies and concealment?” Fu Xi asked, her voice was very soft.

“That’s not a lie, that’s the truth that she needs to believe.” Su Yu corrected, “She needs to believe that she is protecting a pure child, she needs to believe that her darkness has not contaminated me, and she needs to believe that…she has at least succeeded in this matter.”

“So you’ve been acting with her for so many years?”

“It’s not acting.” Su Yu shook his head, “It’s a choice.”

She put the notebook back in the mezzanine, locked the drawer, and turned the key around on her fingertips. Su Yu pushed the wheelchair and returned to the light in the living room. The light illuminated her face. Only then did Fu Xi discover that there was a deep calm on this girl’s face that she had never really understood.

“Aunt Fu, what do you think love is?” Su Yu suddenly asked.

Fu Xi was stunned.

“Auntie taught me that love has many forms.” Su Yu continued talking to herself, “Some love is protection, some love is companionship, and some love is… fulfilling the lie that the other person needs to believe.”

“Does she know that you know?” Fu Xi asked the most critical question.

Su Yu was silent for a long time.

“I think…she knows.” She finally said, her voice as soft as a sigh, “Or, she hopes that I know, but is afraid that I really know. So she hides everything in encrypted files, in safes, behind complicated operations that I thought I couldn’t understand-”

“But she also gave me the skills to crack it all.”

“She was giving me a choice: continue to be a protected child, or… after knowing everything, still choose to be her ‘Xiaoyu’.”

Fu Xi suddenly felt a chill.

If this is true, then Ye Chang’s love for Su Yu is more complicated, more contradictory, and more…desperate than anyone imagined.

She was cultivating Su Yu into a person who could understand all her darkness, while at the same time trying her best to protect her from those darkness.

She was carefully planning a destruction, but she ensured that Su Yu was sent to a safe place before the destruction.

She was inviting Su Yu to understand her, and praying that Su Yu would never truly understand her.

“So,” Fu Xi’s voice was trembling, “you know she will eventually…”

“I know.” Su Yu interrupted her, her voice terrifyingly calm.

“But you still…”

“I still didn’t say anything.” Su Yu took over, “Because if that’s the ending she chose, then the only thing I can do is let her leave with peace of mind.”

She looked out the window, the city lights in the night were bright, like a galaxy that would never go out.

“You know what’s the most ironic thing, Aunt Fu?”

Fu Xi waited.

“My aunt thought she was protecting me by hiding her revenge from me.” Su Yu said, “But she didn’t know that I knew everything by hiding it from her, so I was also protecting her – protecting the thought in her heart that ‘at least Xiaoyu is pure’.”

“We hid from each other, cooperated with each other, and acted for so many years.”

“Until the end, when she jumped, she might still be thinking: ‘Fortunately, Xiaoyu doesn’t know anything, and she can continue her life cleanly.'”

“And now that she’s gone, these secrets are mine.”

Fu Xi felt tears falling.She finally understood – this girl had endured far more than anyone could see.

She is not a well-protected greenhouse flower.

She is a lonely watcher who has stood quietly in the center of the storm for many years, watching her loved ones walk towards the cliff step by step, but can only pretend to know nothing.

“What about now?” Fu Xi wiped away her tears, “Now that she’s gone, you know everything and bear everything…what are you going to do?”

Su Yu turned back to the wheelchair and looked at Fu Xi.Under the light, her eyes were clear and firm.

“Continue to live,” she said, “with my aunt’s love, with her hatred, and with all the secrets I know.”

“Go see Silin, or don’t go. Continue your studies, start research, and live your own life.”

“Then,” her voice softened, “one day in the future, maybe I will write a book. Write down all these stories. Not to defend anyone, not to excuse anyone, but… let these things that happened be remembered.”

“Let my mother be remembered, let my aunt be remembered, let Shen Shenlin be remembered. Let all the love and hate, all the right and wrong, all the sacrifice and destruction… not just dust dissipated in the wind.”

Some knowing, not revealing, is love.

And the deepest understanding is that after seeing through a person’s unhappiness, you still choose to accompany her through her journey in the way she needs.

Su Yu spent many years completing this silent and bottomless companionship.

Now, the companionship is over.

And her journey has just begun.