Chapter 146

Chapter 146

When Huang Yuanrui returned to her place, she collapsed onto the bed without even taking off her shoes and fell into a dead sleep.

In a haze, she dreamed of her mother.

In the dream, her mother sneered at her. “You spend all your energy on men and romance. What could you possibly amount to?”

She rolled her eyes at her mother, then looked pleadingly at her father, hoping he would say something on her behalf.

Her father sighed, shook his head, bent down to pick up a bag of trash, opened the door, and walked out.

Once again, he had left Huang Yuanrui and her mother, who were at odds, alone at home while he went out to find some peace and quiet. Just like before.

Huang Yuanrui felt as if a ball of fire were lodged in her chest. She let out an angry grunt – and grunted herself awake.

At that moment, an idea suddenly surfaced in her mind. If she couldn’t directly make Qin Song and He Qian get divorced, then why not approach it from another angle?

As far as she knew, Qin Song’s parents didn’t like He Qian. He Qian always seemed obedient on the surface, but in her heart she had plenty of ideas of her own. All this time, she had been saying one thing and doing another when it came to Qin Song’s parents. No matter what they said, she would agree, but in reality, she never listened to a word.

Most importantly – she still hadn’t given birth to a single child.

Huang Yuanrui was instantly excited. How had she never thought of such a perfect method before?

Qin Song was extremely filial. Even though he had never been favored as a child, once he grew up, he still contributed money and effort for his parents whenever he could. That proved his parents held an important place in his heart, which meant their opinions would matter to him too.

Then Huang Yuanrui remembered something else important. Qin Song had told her before that his parents were going to move out of his home and go to Qin Bao’s place, and the date had just so happened to be the same day she went to confront He Qian.

They definitely weren’t in City A anymore. Huang Yuanrui was filled with regret. If only she had thought of this sooner, she could have gone straight to Qin Song’s home to find his parents!

The more she thought about it, the more unwilling she felt. She took out her phone and called Qin Song’s driver.

“Hello, ma’am!”

Huang Yuanrui got straight to the point. “Xiao Chen, I wanted to ask you something. Were you the one who drove President Qin’s parents to his younger brother’s place a couple of days ago?”

Xiao Chen said, “Ah, yes, ma’am.”

Huang Yuanrui said, “Send me his brother’s address.”

Xiao Chen hesitated for a moment. “Ma’am, well… I don’t think it’s very convenient for me to directly…”

Huang Yuanrui said, “President Qin has been terribly busy these past few days. He only said he wanted me to help him mail some things back to his hometown, but forgot to tell me the address. I can’t be bothered to ask him again. Your car’s GPS must have the address, right? Just send it to me.”

Xiao Chen said, “Oh, all right, ma’am. Give me a moment. I’ll pull over and send it to you.”

Huang Yuanrui hung up.

The moment she got the address, she set off.

At first, all she had been doing was struggling over how she should bring it up with his parents so she could succeed in one go. What she hadn’t expected was to witness that whole spectacle between Hu Yonglan and Qin Song’s parents firsthand.

Huang Yuanrui had never witnessed a traffic accident so directly before. At the time, she really had been frightened.

She turned around and took another road. After stopping by the roadside, she took a bottle of water from the trunk and drank nearly half of it with trembling hands. Then, without stopping, she drove back to City A.

That very night after returning to City A, she came down with a fever. She tossed and turned in bed, burning up for two or three days.

Qin Song had removed her number from his blacklist, but he still wouldn’t answer her calls.

A few more days passed.

Over those days, Huang Yuanrui tried calling Qin Song on and off eighteen times, but all she heard was the busy tone.

Having just recovered from her fever, she was still weak all over. She truly didn’t have the strength to go wait for him outside Qin Song’s home again.

She guessed that Qin Song had probably gone back to his hometown by now. She wasn’t sure how badly his parents were injured, but judging from what she had seen at the scene, the two of them were probably in grave danger.

She rubbed her legs together and only felt slick all over, so she went into the bathroom to shower. Halfway through, she suddenly heard the sound of a keycard being swiped at the door.

Qin Song was back!

She twisted the shower off at once, slipped into her slippers, and ran straight out.

Her hair was dripping wet, her body was dripping wet, and both slippers were on the wrong feet.

The moment she came out, she froze. Qin Song looked like a completely different person. His face had lost an entire circle of weight, and his hair was a mess, making him look like a vagrant.

A pang of sorrow went through Huang Yuanrui.

But she didn’t want to show it. So she put on a look of disgust instead and snapped, “Where the hell did you die off to? Did you get tricked into going to Northern Myanmar? Why do you look like you’re half-dead?”
Impatience was written all over Qin Song’s face. His eyes kept darting away, as if he couldn’t even bear to look at Huang Yuanrui’s body for one more second.

Flatly, he said, “Put some clothes on.”

Huang Yuanrui suddenly remembered something she had once read while leaning in his arms and playing on her phone.

She couldn’t remember the exact wording anymore, but the gist was: “If a girl is already used to running around naked in your room, then the two of you must be deeply in love.”

It was a completely pointless line, yet after reading it twice, Huang Yuanrui had found it strangely interesting.

Back then, she had lifted her phone right up to Qin Song’s face. “Honey, look at this. Do you think it’s true?”

Qin Song had glanced at it and smiled indulgently. “Isn’t that exactly you, Bare-butt Little Monkey? You love running around like a monkey, no clothes, no shoes, all over the place. I seriously suspect that meme of Sun Wukong hopping around by the seaside was filmed with you.”

Huang Yuanrui had reached out and wrapped an arm around his neck in a chokehold. “You called me a monkey! You’re the monkey!”

Qin Song had laughed as he tickled her under the arms. “I like monkeys, hahaha…”

Times had changed. Now, he had begun to find it indecent for her to speak to him while naked.

Huang Yuanrui felt her cheeks burn. She shot Qin Song a vicious glare, went back into the bathroom, dried the water off her body, and put on a set of pajamas.

It seemed like tears had fallen. She used the towel to wipe them away together with the water on her face, scrubbing at herself messily.

She didn’t want to cry in front of Qin Song, and she didn’t want to lose the upper hand. In the past, crying in front of him had been a way to act spoiled. Now, crying in front of him felt more like wagging her tail and begging for pity.

She forced the tears back, took a deep breath, and the moment she stepped out, she shoved Qin Song hard. “What the hell are you doing, disappearing like that? It’s been over a week. I called you so many times. Are you telling me you didn’t see them?”

Qin Song said bluntly, “Move out. Go back to your own home.”

It was as if a crack split open in Huang Yuanrui’s heart. In disbelief, she asked, “What did you say?”

Qin Song said, “Go home.”

Huang Yuanrui said, “I… Why?”

She truly couldn’t understand. If Qin Song didn’t want to divorce He Qian, then they could just keep things the way they had been before. Why did he have to drive her away?

Qin Song said, “As you wished, He Qian and I got divorced. And now I’ve left with nothing.”

The moment those words came out, Huang Yuanrui felt as if she had come back to life.

Excited, she said, “So what if you left with nothing? It’s not like I’ll look down on you. You still have several companies. You can earn the money back!”

Qin Song said, “I can’t afford to keep you, and I don’t want to keep you. Please, just let me go.”

He crouched down and raked his hands through his hair, looking utterly pained.

Huang Yuanrui thought Qin Song was truly too stupid. Even now, he still believed she was just some simple gold digger.

But in truth, from the moment she had spent her own money to buy him hangover tea and an ashtray, her feelings for him had already stopped having anything to do with money.

Because of her father’s avoidance and silence during her childhood, Huang Yuanrui had never learned how to interact with men in a healthy way.

Deep down, she desperately longed to be loved and spoiled unconditionally. Qin Song had once satisfied every fantasy she had, so in the deepest part of her heart, she saw Qin Song as both her husband and her father.

Unfortunately, she had never realized it, and neither had Qin Song.

The two of them snapped a few more words at each other, and at last, one thing led to another until they were arguing for real.

They had actually fought many times before, but no fight had ever terrified Huang Yuanrui this much. This time, she truly felt that she was going to lose Qin Song.

From what she knew of Qin Song, once he broke up, he never looked back. Once the two of them separated, once she went back south, they would never cross paths again in this lifetime.

The unease and panic in her heart piled up higher and higher. Then, with Qin Song’s weightless words-“Let’s break up. Go home”-she finally snapped.

Huang Yuanrui would rather have a furious, all-out fight with Qin Song than pretend to be calm and rational with him like this, saying things neither of them meant.

She knew that when couples screamed and fought, they usually couldn’t break up. It was the cold treatment that meant a breakup was real.

Qin Song clearly wanted to handle this coldly, while Huang Yuanrui only wanted to escalate the conflict into a huge screaming match. She fantasized that after fighting and struggling, the two of them might still end up crying in each other’s arms. Perhaps, once Qin Song released all the emotions he had been bottling up, he could look at her seriously again.

She slapped Qin Song across the face. Then, grabbing at his hair, she screamed, “Go to hell! Go to hell! You wasted so many years of my life, and now you dare treat me like this!”
Qin Song hurled her against the wall. Huang Yuanrui’s back slammed into it hard, and for a moment she felt as if every bone in her body had been knocked loose.

The pain sent a surge of anger through her. She grabbed the first thing her hand found on the table and threw it at Qin Song.

That “thing” was the ashtray.

She glanced at the table again, snatched up an eyebrow razor, and lunged at Qin Song.

In truth, the eyebrow razor was still sealed in its plastic packaging, the blade completely enclosed inside. She had only meant to scare him with it.

Qin Song nimbly twisted aside and bent down, scooping up the fallen ashtray before smashing it hard against Huang Yuanrui’s head.

The impact jarred her skull. Her upper and lower teeth cracked together with a bang, and a sharp, maddening pain spread across the top of her head. She couldn’t help screaming. Her legs gave way, and she collapsed to the floor, the eyebrow razor still clutched tightly in her hand.

Qin Song moved over from the edge of the bed. She thought he was going to reach out and help her up, but instead, he raised the ashtray again.

Huang Yuanrui no longer knew how to dodge or even scream. In that instant, she remembered something Qin Song had once told her about his past.

Hu Heng had been beaten up by a group of people, and Qin Song had taken a knife to go “avenge” him.

At the time, all she had heard was loyalty and courage. After hearing that story, she had liked him even more.

But she had overlooked one fact: if Qin Song’s mother had not stopped him back then, Qin Song would have already killed someone with that knife.

Some people, when impulsive, would kill. Others, no matter how impulsive they became, would never kill.

That trait had always been buried in his bones. Why hadn’t she noticed it sooner?

She stared blankly at the ashtray in Qin Song’s hand, then blankly into his eyes.

The whites of Qin Song’s eyes had gone murky, laced with red and yellow blood vessels. Suddenly, Huang Yuanrui saw a strange glimmer in them.

Tears spilled from her eyes all at once. She had never imagined that she would die in this place, by his hand.

The ashtray in Qin Song’s hand came down almost immediately.

Once. Twice…

Huang Yuanrui froze.

The first time, the ashtray struck the floor.

The second time, Qin Song smashed the ashtray against his own head.

She stared at him in shock. He clutched his head and rolled around on the floor, crying and shouting, “I killed you! I killed you!”

After shouting a few times, he suddenly stopped and turned back, glaring fixedly at Huang Yuanrui. The room fell into dead silence. Huang Yuanrui was so frightened she did not even dare to breathe.

He crawled over and reached out to check whether Huang Yuanrui was still breathing.

Huang Yuanrui stared at his eyes in terror and heard him mutter to himself, “Not sure…”

He crawled around on the floor for a while longer, then took a lighter from his pocket.

He tried to light it several times, then casually tossed it aside and crawled toward Huang Yuanrui again.

Huang Yuanrui did not dare make the slightest sound. Qin Song seemed as though he had been possessed by a ghost.

Qin Song reached out again and placed his hand above her upper lip. The next second, his whole body shuddered as if he had been electrocuted, and he sprang backward.

Clutching his head with both hands, he cried out in terror, “She’s not breathing anymore…”

He picked up the ashtray, hugged it to his chest, and huddled dazedly in the corner.

Huang Yuanrui clutched her head and painfully sat up, watching him with extreme caution.

Only then did she realize she was still gripping the eyebrow razor, so she casually slipped it into her pocket.

Qin Song took out his lighter and cigarettes again, but after just one drag, he started dry-heaving.

Huang Yuanrui slowly crawled over and tentatively called, “Qin Song?”

Qin Song gave no response at all.

Huang Yuanrui shook his shoulder. “Hey, what’s wrong with you?”

Qin Song still gave no response.

Huang Yuanrui ran to the bathroom and brought out a roll of toilet paper, then gently wiped the blood from Qin Song’s face.

Just then, she suddenly felt her own head throbbing with unbearable pain, the ache pulsing all the way through the skin of her face. Irritated, she reached up and touched the top of her head. In an instant, her entire hand was stained red with blood.

Huang Yuanrui stared at her blood-soaked right hand and sucked in a sharp breath. Then she toppled headfirst to the floor.