With the room dark and Father lying on the bed, it felt as if I had stepped into a totally different space altogether.
Lu QingFan said in a lowly voice, “Father doesn’t allow us to draw open the curtains.”
I walked towards his bed.
Seeing me, Father said softly, “You’re here.” He looked relaxed.
Despite him mistaking me for my mother, Mother and I were actually not alike. It was just that he missed her too much.
In this world, there was no one else that would be able to comfort him anymore.
My nose twinged.
“Father, it’s me.” I went over and told him to look clearly.
Finally, his eyes became clear, and he recognized who I was.
I could see the disappointment in his eyes.
As compared to the last time he saw me, his reaction was much better. He didn’t yell at me and told me to get out. He just closed his eyes and stopped looking at me.
I hoped that I would be able to have a good talk with him at least once.
I then moved a chair and sat by my father’s bed, gently holding his hand.
“Father, are you still mad at me?”
Father did not reply.
I continued to say lightly, “When I was a child, Mother said that marrying you was the best thing to happen in her life. Father, I just want to find someone to love and be loved like you.”
Father slowly opened his eyes and looked at me. “I’m just afraid that you will meet someone bad, as you don’t really fully understand the world.”
At that moment, I seemed to see the father I knew when I was young. He and Mother were holding my hands from both sides as we walked on a long path under the sunset.
Mother had said, “JiYu, when you grow up and have someone you like, don’t forget your parents.”
Like this, tears started pouring from my eyes.
Now, they were all leaving me.
And it’s me who didn’t cherish them.
Lu QingFan and I stepped out of the room, and he closed the door gently.
“That year after you left, Father regretted it immediately and sent people to search for you. However, he never heard from you.” Lu QingFan then continued, “We were unable to find you.”
“I kept disappointing him.”
It’s me who was too selfish, only thinking about myself but never my father’s feelings.
As Lu QingFan and I walked side by side down the corridor, he asked, “Do you still refuse to return?”
I shook my head. “I’ll come back tomorrow and try to persuade him to get admitted into a hospital.”
Father didn’t need me to be with him. He just wanted to be alone, to reminisce about Mother quietly in peace.
“Where are you going back to?”
“I’m living with a friend now.”
He asked, “Is it Meng SiQi?”
“How do you know?” I was a little surprised.
“When you were at the Qiao’s, he came here to find you.”
So it was like that. Meng SiQi was probably worried due to my sudden disappearance.
Having thought up until this point, I suddenly felt a little anxious.
“I’m heading back. Meng SiQi still doesn’t know I’ve escaped.”
I was in a hurry to go, but Lu QingFan suddenly pushed me towards the wall. “JiYu, when are you going to stop trying to spite me!”
His sudden lapse of composure caused me to be stunned for a moment.
“You clearly knew that they wouldn’t treat you sincerely. Haven’t you suffered enough from people like Qiao Lang and He Li?” His eyes were dark with unidentifiable emotions. “In order to spite me, do you have to hurt yourself?”
My heart felt as if it was being pierced with needles.
He continued saying slowly, “You shouldn’t hold onto such unrealistic dreams anymore. After all these years, you should know by now.”
Pei JiYu had been dreaming for many years, pursuing what was unattainable in his dreams.
However, I already woke up a long time ago.
The one who was still immersed in his dreams and refused to wake up was Lu QingFan.
I shook my head. “Both of us are already adults, and I’ve stopped being angry at you for a long time. Now, everything is from my own choices and has nothing to do with you.”
Not believing me, Lu QingFan said, “Leave Meng SiQi, he won’t give you happiness.”
“Meng SiQi is good and not that kind of person.”
He became furious. “Pei JiYu, can you stop deceiving yourself! I just wished that you wouldn’t get hurt anymore!”
Raising my head abruptly, I suddenly felt anger in my heart. “I am deceiving myself? Lu QingFan, what right do you have to say that! Don’t act as if you know me very well cause you don’t really know anything about me! So, don’t ever be opinionated and discipline me!”
“What? I don’t know you, and I am opinionated?” Instead of growing angrier, Lu QingFan laughed, “If that’s so, then Pei JiYu, do you know me? Do you understand my feelings? You’re the real young master of the Pei family while I’m just an orphan child adopted by your parents from the welfare home. The Pei family has brought me up for 18 years, and everything I have was from the charity you all gave. Who is Lu QingFan? Lu QingFan is only a slave raised by the Pei family!”
“No one treats you as a slave of the Pei family – neither my parents nor I. Everything is your own imagination!” I was extremely furious at his words. What does he regard the Pei family as, and what does he regard himself as?
“No one? You’re so naive. Do you know what I’ve been facing for so many years? Have you seen the gazes given to me by the Pei family’s servants? Have you heard what my high school classmates comment behind my back? They said that I’m just your attendant the Pei family paid money for. Everyone thought I was lucky when I was adopted by the Pei family, and I need to be grateful – using all of my life to repay your family’s kindness! Any success I obtained was due to the help of the Pei family, while all the efforts I made were taken for granted. Doing anything besides serving the Pei family for my whole life would make me look ungrateful! That’s how I’ve been living for 18 years. Pei JiYu, do you know of all this?”
He glared at me harshly. Such a cold glare was like sharp nails pinning me to the wall as every word was said to me without any trace of emotion.
I was frightened by his eyes. I really didn’t know that he had ever been treated like this.
After a while, I was finally able to speak. “But Lu QingFan, you know that I’ve never viewed you like this.”
“Yes, you like me.” He laughed sarcastically, without any warmth in his eyes. “You like me, so I should be grateful, kneel at your feet, and kiss your toes?”
“You can’t say it like that!” My body trembled. “You know that I wouldn’t be like them.”
“Then, what do you want me to do? To accept you and let those people point their fingers at me for the rest of my life? Saying that for money, Lu QingFan would climb into his brother’s bed. Even more so was that he was a man – so shameless. How would he answer to his adopted parents like this?” As he questioned me, his eyes were as dark as ink, looking at me firmly.
At this moment, I saw the stubborn and gloomy child that stood in front of me more than ten years ago. However, when I stretched out my hand to touch it, he immediately shattered into pieces.
He was just an illusion from my memories.
In the end, his voice suddenly lowered, “JiYu, you are the young master of the Pei family, while I am nothing. I can’t just stand beside you like this.”
His reason for rejecting me was because I was the young master of the Pei family.
The entire time, he had such thoughts. Due to the gazes of other people and irrelevant people’s words, he looked ahead into the future and back into the past, getting further away from me with each step.
Actually, I should have known. I was the young master, while he was the adopted son of the Pei family. His pride would not accept my feelings that may have traces of pity and charity.
Lu QingFan had his own pride and a tightly guarded bottom line. Even if I came closer with each step, he would never step away from his boundaries.
Between us, there was also a chasm. I dared to sacrifice everything, while he didn’t. I was like a man in mid-air, holding out my arms for help, but he won’t even reach out a hand to grab me.
He was afraid of taking a wrong step and falling to the bottom of a cliff forever.
For so many years, I was teetering on the edge of the cliff while he was trying in vain to build a bridge to my side.
He was too cautious. Even if one day he finally obtained a similar standing to me, our relationship may not be possible anymore. I waited too long for a hand to grab me that my heart had already fallen into the dark abyss.
I thought too little, while he thought too much.
I was too naive, while he was too practical.
No one could be blamed for all of this.
For a moment, I thought clearly and said to him, “Lu QingFan, you just dare not to admit that you like me.”
Suddenly, his face changed color, but he just glared at me. He kept his lips sealed, not saying anything, neither refuting nor admitting it.
Even after so many years, he was still like this.
Whereas in my heart, I only felt desolate with no sorrow or joy. “Lu QingFan, you coward. You don’t even dare to say whether you like me or not.”
Actually, it had always been you who hurt me.
In the end, I broke away from him and strode out of the house.
On the way back, my heart suddenly felt relieved, as if a heavy burden had disappeared.
After a long time, the shadow Lu QingFan left in my heart finally dissipated.