SWG Chapter 66

Chapter 66

These words were like a stone, not particularly sharp. In ordinary times, perhaps the stone would have landed and stirred up concern and worry, after all, those past stories were painful enough to hear, and the storyteller’s intentions were so pure and lovely, making one feel sorry for her and wanting to hug her close, saying, “Don’t cry, I’ve heard everything.”

Unfortunately, the water surface was already turbulent today, and with her mind so disturbed, an ordinary stone would have been enough to create a huge wave, let alone this sharp-edged stone, which actually cut out a bloody mark and opened up an abyss.

Xiao Wenyu was stunned by these words. Her hand, suspended in mid-air, couldn’t even find its way out. After groping for a long time, she finally grabbed the armrest of the chair beside her, using it to support herself so she wouldn’t fall directly down.

Her eyebrows knitted together. After a long silence, she looked at Ruan Shengyi, bewildered and lost, and stammered, “What… what does that mean?”

Past oddities seemed to be slowly emerging. Those moments of realization after waking from dreams, the vulnerability she had shown her, and the outburst of emotions at the end… it was all for the sake of so-called “good for her,” that Ruan Shengyi had been cutting flesh and letting blood from her own body, even taking out her heart and slicing it up.

Was that what it meant?

She held onto the table and stood up, staggering. “You said… what does that mean?”

Ruan Shengyi was silent for a moment, then said, “It means what you heard. I wanted to help you, I wanted you to trust me, I wanted you to feel…” you are still very useful.

But her remaining rationality stopped her from saying that sentence. Her lips trembled and moved, the veins on her forehead were about to bulge, and her eyes gradually turned from red to dim. In the end, she helplessly let go of her hand, her eyes drooped, and she chuckled to herself.

“Never mind, it’s nothing. Anyway, you’ll never listen, anyway, you’ll never trust me.”

Just like Ruan Qing in her final days, in so much pain that she tossed and turned on the hospital bed every night, leaving deep, unhealing wounds on her lips in order to suppress her cries, because new wounds were superimposed on old ones, and blood dripped down. But even so, she had to force herself to say she was fine, forcing herself to show a bloody smile, and…

She would never wake up her daughter, who slept by her bed in the middle of the night.

They were always a group of extremely self-assured people, who would never listen to her.

Listen or don’t listen, she was really tired.

Ruan Shengyi rubbed her forehead, looked up, and happened to meet the other person’s complex gaze filled with shock, fear, bewilderment, and a hint of tenderness.

She averted her gaze.

If there hadn’t been a hint of tenderness in that gaze, she probably wouldn’t have looked away. But she hated such a gaze to the extreme.

She sighed, as if in compromise, and said, “Let’s eat. If you don’t want to eat, I’ll take you home.”

“Since you still don’t trust me, don’t want to rely on me… then…”

Xiao Wenyu suddenly called out her name, and then said coldly and angrily, “Don’t say words we’ll both regret before you calm down.”

“…” Ruan Shengyi chuckled.

Xiao Wenyu pushed the plate. “How can we eat like this? Explain yourself clearly. Finish what you didn’t say.”

Ruan Shengyi: “Why do I have to say everything? I said it all. That was half a sentence that slipped out when my brain short-circuited. There’s no second half, okay?”

Xiao Wenyu smiled: “Okay, okay… then I’ll speak next.”

“Do you think I can’t see your efforts? I saw it, of course I saw it all. I’m not stupid, let alone blind!”

“But look at what you’ve been doing to yourself lately! Ruan Shengyi, you say I’ve accumulated countless things in my heart, you say my emotions are off, but are yours right?”

“You took out those things in the middle of the argument because your own heart was off. Have you noticed that our efforts are completely unbalanced? You’re taking on almost everything, running like a robot, and you won’t listen to anyone who tells you to stop, not even when I drag you and try to get you to rest. How can I let you participate in my things? Your day already has so little time left for eating and sleeping. Do you want me to take that away too?”

Ruan Shengyi replied loudly, “I’m willing!”

Xiao Wenyu slapped the table. “But I feel sorry for you!”

Instantly, everything was silent.

Perhaps it was the sound of the table that shocked Ruan Shengyi into a complete daze, and she looked straight at the other person, who was also a little dazed at this moment.

She had probably never slammed a table at someone before. Her hand was still trembling at this moment, and even the veins on the back of her hand were clearly visible.

With love as the premise, all quarrels are meaningless.

It was like a basin of cold water pouring down in an instant. Ruan Shengyi sniffed and said, “You… don’t be angry… I…”

“Don’t say you’re wrong.” Xiao Wenyu rubbed her eyebrows wearily. “Don’t say it, hold it back.”

“I’m not angry. I just raised my voice a little to cover yours. Don’t worry.”

“…”

Seeing that she only lowered her head and didn’t speak, Xiao Wenyu tentatively asked, “Why are you in such a hurry? These things can be done slowly. I will definitely solve my problems. We have a long, long future ahead of us. We…”

“Because I’m scared.” Ruan Shengyi said with her head down, “I want to arrange everything before the madness in my bones completely explodes. I want you to be able to handle everything with ease even if you need to take care of two people, at least with financial ease.”

“Wait.” Xiao Wenyu raised her hand to interrupt her. “I must correct one of your ideas.”

“We are in a girlfriend relationship now, and I am not so poor that I need you to support me. Besides, even if we get married in the future, we must do a prenuptial property notarization. What’s yours is yours, okay?”

“…Then let’s just say it’s living expenses that I’m clinging to, okay?”

“Ruan Shengyi, that’s a problem acquired later, not a genetic problem. It won’t be inherited. If genes could be inherited, I wouldn’t have only gone to that kind of university.”

“…” The bar owner fell silent.

This silence was a little strange. Xiao Wenyu kicked her leg under the table. “Say something. Don’t go into your solitary mode right now.”

Ruan Shengyi became even more silent.

What could she say? These words were really too capable of piercing people with holes.

After struggling for a long time, she finally sighed in resignation: “Okay, then I…”

“I told you not to say you’re wrong. Hold it back.”

“…I have nothing to say. I’ll take you home.”

She got up to get her clothes, always facing away from the person behind her, but the faint trembling could not be hidden, and neither could the extremely cold indifference surrounding her.

“Ruan Shengyi, are you really happy?” So, this time the person asking this question had changed.

Ruan Shengyi squatted down to put on her shoes. Hearing this, she stopped and said indifferently, “I’m not happy.”

“I hate people like you. I hate people like you. I hate everyone in this world, but I especially hate people with personalities like yours.”

With a few twists and turns, they could turn the topic away and not find a reason to go back. A quarrel that should have intensified was swaying and extinguished, although half of the reason was that she didn’t want Xiao Wenyu to continue getting agitated, but the other half was due to the cotton-like personalities of her group of people.

Punching them wouldn’t even make a dent, let alone getting to the root of the problem.

These kinds of people will never take the initiative to talk to you unless they are pushed to their limit, until they can’t hold it in anymore. Even if you pry open the tortoise shell they use to hide themselves, they will still cover their heads and pretend for a while until they can’t pretend anymore before they are willing to open up.

Hehe. “I hate people like you the most!”

If Xiao Wenyu heard this series of inferences in the bar owner’s heart, she would really retort, “You’re not much better yourself.” But now, all she could hear were a few “hates,” and she felt even more ridiculous in her heart.

She only wanted to ask Ruan Shengyi what she was trying to do? This didn’t seem like dating a girlfriend; it seemed like trying to use her to atone for sins.

Otherwise, why would she have put in so, so much effort, and she was just hoping she would put in a little less, and she got angry to this point, even with a series of “hates,” using the word “you all.”

So she wanted to use her to atone for sins.

It turned out that she wanted to use her to atone for sins.

This thought made everything contradictory and incomprehensible suddenly become reasonable. Xiao Wenyu went back to her room and casually packed a few pieces of clothing, took a few important things, and one bag was enough to hold everything. She carried it to the entrance and silently changed her shoes.

She shook off Ruan Shengyi’s arm when she tried to help her, and said coldly, “I’m not that delicate.”

“Aren’t you supposed to hate me? Why are you still seeing me off?”

Ruan Shengyi lowered her eyes and said, “You said just now, don’t say words we’ll both regret after we calm down.” She raised her hand again to try to help her.

Xiao Wenyu glared at her and said fiercely, “You’re dead if you take it seriously.”

After saying that, she pushed the door open and closed it in one go, leaving Ruan Shengyi’s stiff hands still in mid-air. After a long while, she coldly laughed: “What an impolite and overbearing woman.”

If she doesn’t want me to see her off, fine. Heh.

*

When the knock on the door rang, Zhao Wen was cleaning the dishes.

When she went to the market in the afternoon, she ran into her former student, who was now thriving in the market. She congratulated him on getting rich, and the student insisted on giving her a cabbage. But the cabbage at home had just been finished not long ago. Looking at the dinner, it was cabbage stewed with tofu again. The big cat at home was unhappy, picking and choosing and leaving half a plate uneaten. There was still some left in the pot. There was no way around it, so she had to clean it up.

She called out to Xiao, telling the big cat to open the door, but after a while she didn’t hear a response. She simply washed her hands and came out, only to see a copy-pasted old and young sitting together, feeling glum.

Zhao Wen laughed.

Seeing her come out, Xiao Yanyue patted the table. “You coax our daughter. I’m going to find that little boss and settle the score.”

“It’s all because I thought she was a good person this afternoon and invited her to eat at home. I should have stuffed that whole pot of cabbage stewed with tofu down her stomach!”

Zhao Wen smiled coldly: “Stand there. Don’t move.”

The big cat was punished to stand, indignant: “Why? Our daughter is so angry that she came home. I’m not happy!”

Zhao Wen ignored her, moved a stool and sat next to Xiao Wenyu, and asked in a gentle voice, “What’s wrong? Did you quarrel?”

“If you broke up, I’ll let our big cat go and make trouble for her.”

Xiao Wenyu was already annoyed. She just didn’t want to talk. Hearing this, she could only rub her eyebrows and say, “No, nothing happened.”

“The fight we had today, now that I think about it, is a bit absurd.”

“Never mind, it’s good too. Now is a troubled time. It’s good for me to come back and stay for a couple of days.”

Zhao Wen brought two fingers together and gently tapped the table: “Sit still. Don’t move.”

“Talk.”

The big cat Xiao stood behind the woman with her hands on her hips, nodding: “Tell us, it’s good to organize your thoughts. Now that you’re back, you should talk.”

Heaven knows how angry she was when she opened the door and saw her daughter coming back exuding resentment, wishing she could immediately pull out that Ruan Shengyi. But thinking about it, sometimes being able to quarrel is a good thing. What she feared was not even knowing how to quarrel.

At least now that they quarreled, she knew to find her mom.

This made the big cat very happy, and she naturally had more confidence standing behind her wife.

Xiao Wenyu looked at Zhao Wen pitifully: “Mom…”

Zhao Wen smiled slightly, “I’m here, but what you say today won’t work.”

“…”

Helpless, Xiao Wenyu had no choice but to bite the bullet and repeat what happened tonight. She didn’t want to talk about Ruan Shengyi’s past, so she lightly touched on the bitterness and moved away, only emphasizing that she had put in a lot and a lot of effort, and she just didn’t say this little thing and made her angry to the extreme. Why!

“Why is she angry?” Xiao Wenyu repeated again. The bit of annoyance that she hadn’t tasted before was now increasing as she spoke.

Xiao Yanyue, standing behind Zhao Wen, was already extremely shocked, “No, you can quarrel about this?”

“Teacher Zhao, we…”

Zhao Wen glared at her: “Dare you?”

The big cat sheathed her claws, “I wouldn’t dare. No, can you quarrel about this?”

Zhao Wen gently held Xiao Wenyu’s hand and said, “Why can’t you?”

“There’s a saying that’s extremely good, called——”

“Love is the constant feeling of owing.”