What awaited him was a heavy slap from Lu’s mother on his back. After learning the sequence of events, Lu’s mother was clearly very angry.
Lu’s mother turned around and saw Lu Yao and Li Jing return, holding back the curses that were about to escape her lips.
She struggled to hold it in and asked Lu Yao about the situation at the police station.
Lu Yao told her everything.
The two young men were still at the station and would likely be detained until after the New Year. As for what happened after that, she wasn’t sure.
Lu Yao clearly felt this wasn’t enough. She looked at her father’s elevated hand, feeling gloomy.
Lu’s mother sighed, seemingly having expected this, and didn’t want to waste energy saying anything more.
Compared to this matter… there was another thing that concerned Lu’s mother greatly.
She looked up at Lu Yao. Seeing that Lu Yao was still worried about this incident, her mood was particularly complicated.
While paying for her husband’s medical bill, she had seen Luo Yueming.
Sometimes the world feels so small. In this bustling metropolis with so many hospitals, they had ended up in the same one as Luo Yueming.
She wasn’t sure what Luo Yueming was there to check, but she could tell that Luo Yueming’s condition wasn’t very good.
Lu’s mother didn’t dare say anything, fearing that if she did, her daughter would feel sorry for her again.
So she thought, since they had just passed by and it didn’t look like Luo Yueming recognized her anyway, she would just pretend she hadn’t seen her.
Because of Luo Yueming’s appearance, Lu’s mother suppressed all her temper. “We’ll go back after the check-up. If it really doesn’t work out, we’ll find a hotel. If it’s expensive, so be it. We won’t be staying long anyway. Your father and I haven’t enjoyed ourselves once in our lives.”
Unexpectedly, Lu’s father disagreed. “Yao Yao’s flower shop has just opened; there are many places where money is needed. Don’t spend money recklessly.”
When those words came out, Lu Yao’s eyes turned red again.
She wanted to say she had money now, but thinking that the money came from the divorce settlement with Luo Yueming, she felt her words lacked confidence.
If only the money in her hand had been earned from the flower shop.
Lu Yao lowered her head in even greater dejection, listening to her mother and father bicker back and forth.
Luo Yueming sat on a bench in the hospital, her expression listless.
Beside her was a bottle of water and an opened box of medicine. After getting the medicine prescribed by the doctor, she had swallowed it almost impatiently.
She seemed to be feeling a bit drowsy.
Dazed, she seemed to fall asleep and saw Lu Yao there too, but the distance was too far to see clearly.
She thought she had also just seen Lu Yao’s mother…
Luo Yueming put her hand on her forehead, thinking that Lu Yao’s mother probably wouldn’t want to see her.
Even her own biological mother disliked her so much; it was even less necessary to mention other people’s parents. No matter how well Lu Yao treated her, it couldn’t change the dissatisfaction in the eyes of Lu Yao’s parents when they looked at her.
Luo Yueming could understand, and she didn’t care.
She hadn’t thought much of it at the time.
She couldn’t say what her thoughts were when she married Lu Yao; it seemed to be to make her grandmother happy.
Regardless, marriage didn’t hold much meaning for her.
As long as Lu Yao didn’t mind.
But Lu Yao did mind.
She had asked for a divorce.
Luo Yueming opened her eyes, that bit of drowsiness dissipating again, and her brow became restless once more.
She reached out, wanting to swallow a few more pills, but eventually withdrew her hand.
She didn’t leave the hospital either; she just sat there in a daze, thinking about many things.
Her eyes were a bit vacant, not knowing where she was looking.
Just like Lu Yao’s habit of staring into space.
The phone in her pocket had rung countless times and was becoming a bit noisy. Luo Yueming was too lazy to take it out to look; she wasn’t curious at all about who was calling or what the contents of the messages were.
Lu Yao had blacklisted her.
Luo Yueming thought.
The day after the divorce, Luo Yueming habitually clicked on Lu Yao’s social media feed.
Lu Yao loved sharing trivial matters on her feed. Her friend list was very clean, consisting only of familiar people, so her posts were very heartfelt.
Luo Yueming would know what Lu Yao had done and what her future plans were through her posts.
When she had a day off and found that Lu Yao hadn’t posted, she would even remind her.
This was something her grandmother had seemingly asked her to do, and Luo Yueming had persisted for three years.
Three years wasn’t long, yet it was long enough that Luo Yueming had almost forgotten why she was doing it.
She only knew that after working late, her fingers would click on Lu Yao’s feed before she even realized it, only to find that she could no longer see the content.
Thus, Luo Yueming learned that this was what being blacklisted felt like.
She couldn’t see Lu Yao’s feed.
She couldn’t go to see Lu Yao.
She didn’t know what Lu Yao was doing now.
Luo Yueming closed her eyes again. The phone in her coat pocket rang once more, and this time, she pressed to answer.
CEO Li’s tone was full of displeasure. “Miss Zhou said you haven’t replied to her messages. Didn’t I tell you to have more contact with her?”
Luo Yueming didn’t want to speak.
Perhaps she shouldn’t have answered.
“I still have some matters to handle,” Luo Yueming said indifferently, her tone very weak.
CEO Li, on the other end of the phone, seemed to have a flash of conscience upon hearing it.
“Handle it as quickly as possible. Miss Zhou asked when you would be free to take her out. She wants to visit the city’s shopping malls. If she likes anything, you can buy it for her,” CEO Li instructed.
Luo Yueming set the phone aside and drifted into a heavy sleep.
Until someone shook her awake.
A hospital bench was not a place to sleep; it easily made people worry if something was wrong.
Luo Yueming paused, thanked the person, and then stood up from the bench, though she didn’t know where she was going to sleep.
After taking a couple of steps, she heard someone say:
“I heard a patient was brought into emergency surgery; he encountered a robber.”
“What? Someone actually dares to rob people these days?”
“Well, it’s the end of the year…”
Luo Yueming stayed where she was as if possessed, listening to them talk.
Her eyes drifted upstairs, and she saw Lu Yao standing by the stairwell. Lu Yao was supporting her father, walking down the stairs step by step.
Behind her followed the little girl from the shop, who was also supporting Lu’s mother, each step taken with great care.
With such intimacy, they looked like a very close-knit family.
Luo Yueming watched Li Jing look at Lu Yao from time to time, a hint of a smile appearing on her face.
It was a smile she didn’t understand.
It was a smile that she struggled to produce no matter how hard she tried.
Because she couldn’t smile, she had been treated like a monster when she was young. Yet such a smile appeared so easily on another’s face—especially that person standing next to Lu Yao, looking at her and smiling.
It was truly too dazzling.
Luo Yueming watched intently, her mouth twitching into a very unsightly smile.
Soon, she noticed Lu’s mother lower her head, her gaze searching the ground floor, and then her eyes met Luo Yueming’s.
The glance was very brief; Lu’s mother quickly looked away and called out to Lu Yao and the others.
She said something in a low voice, and then they stayed where they were, not continuing down, seemingly waiting for Luo Yueming to sensibly leave, not wanting to be disturbed by an irrelevant person.
It was an emotion Luo Yueming didn’t understand.
But an action she did understand.
She was loathed—including by Lu Yao’s parents. Her marriage to Lu Yao had been met with opposition from them from the start.
Luo Yueming’s smile grew wider, the corners of her mouth curling up uncontrollably. The strange sensation in her heart gradually intensified, and unnecessary emotions robbed Luo Yueming of her control over her body.
Everything was strange and terrifying.