Chen Yu’s fingers were still pressed against his brow. He turned to look at Lin Yuxi and after a moment said, “Read fewer romance novels.”
The way she spoke was so sour and overly sentimental, as if she were living inside a novel and had not come out of it, comfortably acting like she was not an outsider.
Lin Yuxi: “…”
After a moment of silence, she did not take Chen Yu’s ridicule to heart. She continued speaking seriously. “Isn’t that the case? Aren’t you upset because she left you? If you don’t want to break up, then you should try to win her back properly.”
She actually had not known anything about Chen Yu’s situation at first. It was only after Cen Sui left that Wen Ting told her a bit about it.
Of course, Wen Ting mocked Cen Sui the entire time, saying she was brainless and ridiculous, but what Lin Yuxi heard was a completely different story.
Chen Yu lowered his hand and took a deep breath.
He wanted to laugh, yet everything Lin Yuxi said had hit right at the center of what he was feeling.
Since he could not bring himself to laugh, his expression stiffened awkwardly instead.
He lifted his head slightly, looking up at the night sky where a few scattered stars shone.
With Lin Yuxi’s prompting, his alcohol-dulled mind began unconsciously recalling many memories of when he and Cen Sui had been together.
She followed behind him, circling around him, calling his name in all kinds of different tones — Chen Yu, Chen Yu, Chen Yu…
She smiled as she asked him whether he wanted candy. Every day she brought him different breakfasts. Whenever she bought milk tea, she would always get a cup for him too. She knew he could not eat spicy food, so even though she loved spicy food, she never touched it. She patiently persuaded him to drink less alcohol and even tried to change herself into someone she was not suited to be, all for his sake…
She said that after graduation she would marry him, that she wanted to give him enough children to make a football team…
She said she had already bought movie tickets for Saturday, chosen the best seats, and told him they should go watch the movie together…
His throat suddenly tightened, as if something the size of a peach pit had lodged there.
The corners of his eyes instantly grew wet, a faint pain twisting in his chest, and the tip of his nose tingled with sourness.
Lin Yuxi was right. She had not grown bored and decided to break up. She had exhausted all of her expectations and filled herself with disappointment. That was why she left.
She had once loved him desperately. Now she no longer loved him. She wanted to live a life that no longer had him in it.
When he thought about how she would soon fall into another man’s arms, giving someone else all the tenderness that once belonged to him, his chest grew even more stifled and painful.
So suffocating that it felt like his chest might burst open, Chen Yu finally spoke to Lin Yuxi. “Let me borrow your phone.”
Lin Yuxi did not hesitate. She took the phone from her bag, unlocked it, and handed it to him.
As she passed it to him, she added, “Girls are sensitive and fragile. They need to be loved and cherished…”
Chen Yu took her phone and opened the dial screen.
He drew in a quiet breath, then touched the screen to enter eleven digits. The moment he finished typing, he realized belatedly that he could still remember Cen Sui’s phone number.
Without giving himself time to reconsider, he pressed the call button.
Listening to the dial tone in the receiver, his mind filled with scenes from the past, and Lin Yuxi’s words echoed faintly in his ears.
After half a minute of ringing, the person on the other end finally answered the call with a simple, routine greeting. “Hello.”
Chen Yu lowered his eyes slightly. When he spoke, his voice was a little hoarse, carrying a hint of drunkenness as he called Cen Sui by her nickname. “Sui Sui.”
He had barely finished calling her name when the call was immediately cut off.
But he refused to give up and dialed again.
This time, Cen Sui did not hang up. She answered and asked, “What do you want?”
Chen Yu lowered his head and stayed silent for a moment. He no longer had the mind to care about pride or saving face. He simply said what he felt. “I want to see you.”
Cen Sui could tell he had drunk a lot. There was even the sound of wind blowing beside him.
She did not hang up this time purely out of curiosity about what he was trying to pull off again. Hearing him say that, she instinctively froze for a second.
After that brief pause, she rejected him without hesitation. “I’m not free.”
What Chen Yu was saying now were words she could not have obtained in the past even if she had knelt down and begged for them.
Yet now that she no longer clung to him, he was the one coming to her again and again, apologizing, saying he wanted to see her. It was truly amusing.
And what was even more amusing was that as she watched his actions now and listened to these words, she felt absolutely no emotion. Not the slightest bit of being moved, not even the smallest spark of joy. She only wanted to draw a clear line between them as soon as possible.
Cen Sui thought that after she said that, he would hang up.
But unexpectedly, Chen Yu spoke again in a low voice through the phone. “Sui Sui, I know I disappointed you. Can you forgive me one last time? I will learn to treat you well from now on. Please don’t leave me. Let’s not break up, alright?”
Cen Sui’s mind went completely blank, filled with question marks.
She pulled the phone away to look at the screen, then put it back to her ear and asked, “Is this Chen Yu?”
That scumbag of a man, lowering himself to say something like this to her?
Chen Yu was silent for a moment before he spoke again. “It’s me.”
Another pause. “I’m sorry. I really… was wrong.”
If this had been in the past, back when he sent her the first message, she would have run to him happily and eagerly.
And if she had ever heard him say something like this, she would have been so overjoyed she might have flown into the sky, rushed straight toward him, and thrown herself into his arms.
But now, she was no longer who she used to be.
Hearing these words, not even the slightest ripple stirred in her heart. She continued to speak with a cold and resolute tone. “No.”
Chen Yu drew in a breath, his voice turning heavier. “I don’t agree to the breakup.”
Cen Sui remained indifferent and firm. “I don’t need your agreement.”
There was no sound from Chen Yu’s side, only a long silence.
Cen Sui thought he would hang up, but he never did.
She was the one who grew impatient first, planning to hang up and check on Tao Miner and Zhou Erbao.
But just as Cen Sui was about to end the call, she suddenly heard Chen Yu say, “I want to see you.”
Cen Sui forced her tone to remain steady. “Whatever you want to say, just say it over the phone.”
Chen Yu seemed as if he had not heard her. “Where are you?”
Cen Sui took a deep breath and could not hold back. “Big brother, we already broke up. I don’t want to see you again, OK? Don’t tell me you suddenly realized you can’t live without me. That these days without me clinging to you have been unbearable and painful, and you think about seeing me every day. Do you think that makes any sense?”
Chen Yu was surprisingly honest. “Why wouldn’t it make sense?”
Cen Sui inhaled and pressed her lips together, thinking that if he were standing in front of her right now, she would definitely splash a handful of water in his face.
She suppressed her irritation and spoke as calmly as she could. “You’re drunk. Go sober up first.”
After saying that, she did not give him another chance to say anything. Cen Sui hung up immediately and switched her phone to airplane mode.
She truly did not want to waste any of her time on Chen Yu, not even a single second. After putting down her phone, she immediately cast the matter aside and went to the bathroom to help Tao Miner.
Hearing the shutdown tone from the phone, Chen Yu handed the phone back to Lin Yuxi and closed his eyes, taking a deep breath.
Lin Yuxi accepted her phone and spoke softly. “She must be completely heartbroken by you. Completely chilled to the core…”
Chen Yu suddenly opened his eyes and looked at her. “Since you understand so well, then teach me. Tell me how to coax her back.”
Lin Yuxi was stunned and speechless. After a long moment, she stammered, “I… don’t actually know either…”
Chen Yu: “…”
You have got to be kidding me…
So she waited until he was drunk, poked at all his emotions until they erupted, just to watch him call and get rejected all over again??
To see him getting stabbed in the heart, humbled, and tormented?
These people…
Were seriously unbelievable…
One was worse than the other!
A whole group of troublemakers!
Chen Yu stood up from the stone bench. Seeing that Lin Yuxi was about to follow him again, he quickly turned back to stop her. Looking at her, he said, “Please stop following me. Let me find somewhere to be alone for a bit, OK?”
“Do you think I don’t care about my dignity?”
Lin Yuxi stammered, “Then… at least choose somewhere safe…”
Chen Yu closed his eyes, speechless for a moment, then gave her an “OK” hand gesture before turning and walking off.
Lin Yuxi stood in the small square for a while. Just then, she received a call from Wen Ting, so she headed back to the bar to find the others.
When she returned, she only said that Chen Yu had left and did not mention anything else.
Chen Yu took a taxi back to his small villa on the outskirts of the city. After entering the house, he walked in the dark and collapsed directly onto the sofa.
He blinked in the pitch-black night, his mind muddled and hazy, yet he did not feel the slightest bit sleepy.
He did not feel much else either. His head was foggy, and his heart was stifled.
So stifled that he could barely breathe, each breath drawn deeply and heavily.
Cen Sui’s face kept appearing before his eyes. Countless small details he had ignored in the past flashed through his mind one after another. It was pure torture.
Feeling unbearably suffocated, he grabbed his phone and started scrolling, trying to distract himself.
But before long, he somehow opened his photo album in a daze.
He flipped through the photos aimlessly. As he scrolled, he eventually reached a large set of Cen Sui’s selfies.
She must have used his phone at some point and left so many photos inside it.
As he flipped through the photos one by one, the corners of his mouth lifted slightly. Then his mind slowly processed what he was seeing, and once again he felt so stifled that he could hardly breathe.
The feeling grew so unbearable that he squeezed the phone hard and threw it aside in one motion.
He then sat up from the sofa, reached for the cigarette pack and lighter on the coffee table, and began to light a cigarette.
In the darkness, the flame flickered a few times, followed by the glowing tip of a cigarette that blinked on and off.
*