Chapter 10
Chapter 10
After finishing our meal, I said my goodbyes to Cen Yuqi.
Half-jokingly, she pointed to her Porsche and asked, “How about I give you a car to make commuting easier? Are you sure you don’t want it?”
I couldn’t help but laugh. “The research institute provided me with a studio apartment just across the street. What would I need a car for?”
She curled her lip. “Fine, then. Call me if you need anything.”
I had only been at the institute for a couple of days when Zhou Jinyan showed up again.
He found me in the cafeteria, took a seat across from me, and stared intently at the outer corner of my right eye for a long time.
After a moment, he asked softly, “Where is your beauty mark?”
“Oh,” I replied casually. “When I fell off the cliff, my face was injured. After the reconstructive surgery, I ended up looking a bit different than before.”
His hands, resting on the table, suddenly began to tremble.
“Did it hurt?” he asked.
It was a truly absurd question.
I put down my chopsticks, looked up, and met his gaze calmly. “Zhou Jinyan, of all people, you have no right to ask that.”
“Perhaps you’ve forgotten what kind of pain I endured during the three years I was with you, but I remember it very clearly.”
Abusers always find it easy to forget, ignoring the harm they once inflicted on others.
Locking eyes with Zhou Jinyan, I very kindly began counting on my fingers for him.
“There was the time I had a fever of 102 degrees. Lu Sisi happened to hang up on you from abroad, and you were angry, so you took it out on me. You even said that because I had a fever, I felt better to hold.”
“I went out with you once, and your friends pressured me into drinking until I was vomiting blood. You told me to take a taxi to the hospital by myself. Since there was no one there to accompany me or sign the forms, I had to undergo a gastroscopy without anesthesia.”
“When Lin Jia bought smear campaigns against Lu Sisi, you claimed I was the mastermind. You called me a third-rate piece of trash and slapped me twice.”
“There were many other times. I got used to it, so the reconstructive surgery didn’t actually hurt that much.”
With every sentence I spoke, his face grew a shade paler.
By the end, the perpetually high-and-mighty, noble, and cold Zhou Jinyan actually shed tears in front of me.
I felt a bit embarrassed for him and glanced around.
Fortunately, there weren’t many people in the cafeteria, and we were sitting in a corner, so no one really noticed.
“I’m sorry, Ah Ning. Back then… I didn’t realize my own feelings,”
He spoke with great difficulty. “Lin Jia and the people who kidnapped you have already been sentenced. My engagement with Lu Sisi will also be dissolved. I know she made things difficult for you on set back then…”
I let out a mocking laugh. “Was the culprit really Lin Jia or Lu Sisi?”
“You know the truth perfectly well, Zhou Jinyan. The distance between home and abroad isn’t an unbridgeable chasm. Given your wealth, it would have been easy for you to travel or even move there to be with her for a few years. If you were truly devoted to Lu Sisi, there were ten thousand ways you could have been together. Instead, you looked for a companion, a substitute, a so-called stand-in.”
“You didn’t love her that much, and you couldn’t stand the loneliness, so you always needed someone by your side. Yet, you think so highly of yourself that you look down on the people who stay with you, so you find every possible way to humiliate them to satisfy your own ego.”
He stared at me blankly, speechless.
In the end, he could only say with bloodshot eyes, “But Ah Ning, I truly love you now.”
“I know I’ve done many things to wrong you. Just give me a chance, and I will love you with all my heart and make it up to you-”
I sighed, feeling that he was truly beyond saving.
“You already have so much, yet you still waste it on fruitless love and hate.”
“Don’t you understand yet? I never liked you. I never invested any emotion in you. I stayed by your side willingly back then only because you did indeed provide the money that helped me.”
“But after being caught in the crossfire and falling into the sea from that cliff, I consider that debt paid in full through that suffering.”
I picked up my tray and stood up. Zhou Jinyan suddenly grabbed my hand.
He spoke incoherently, “What else do you need? Just give me a chance. Research funding, project investment-I’ll even build an independent laboratory for you. You can establish your own venture and not be beholden to anyone, okay?”
He really wouldn’t listen.
“Stop being pathetic, Zhou Jinyan.”
I lost my patience completely and jerked my hand away.
The soup from my tray splashed out, staining his expensive suit.
I pursed my lips and looked at him coldly. “How much is the dry cleaning? Have your assistant bring the receipt to the institute. I’ll pay for it.”
He stood there in a mess, looking like a stray dog, the light in his eyes completely extinguished.
I left him no room for hope.