Ci Wenjun lingered in Chu Yu’s embrace for a long time, yet aside from that simple,
“There, there.”
Chu Yu offered no further comfort.
Ci Wenjun knew she could wait no longer for any soothing words from Chu Yu.
For Chu Yu was simply that kind of person, someone full of malice and harboring dark intentions.
Beneath the tailored suit rested a tyrant wrapped in human skin.
She loved watching her prey crawl beneath her feet, begging for mercy on bended knees, and then exposing their soft bellies. Did you think she would stroke them with sudden mercy?
No, she would only twist and torment you with even greater ferocity until you were utterly exhausted and incapable of pleasing her, until she completely lost interest.
She knew precisely how to strike at your weaknesses, and just how to offer the exact right amount of care afterward to leave you craving more, to make you submit heart and soul.
Ci Wenjun was a rose carved by Chu Yu’s own hands; she understood Chu Yu better than anyone and knew all too well the roots of Chu Yu’s malice.
She knew it all, yet she was hopelessly addicted and remained steadfast from beginning to end.
She exposed her vulnerability before the woman, the corners of her eyes flushed with a captivating red, her hibiscus-like face freshly washed by tears, her appearance at its absolute peak.
“Xiao Yu, will you give me your contact information, please?”
Finally, after a night of weeping, the dagger was revealed from its wrapper.
Chu Yu wore a knowing smile.
“Having cried for so long, does your head hurt?”
Ci Wenjun frowned; she was trying to change the subject again.
“Do not try to change the subject! Give me your number!”
She was overbearing and direct this time, refusing to follow Chu Yu’s lead.
Yet Chu Yu merely looked at her and shook her head with a smile.
What did that mean? No?
Ci Wenjun’s face fell into a bitter expression, looking as though she might burst into tears all over again the next second.
“Do not cry.”
Chu Yu commanded coldly, her smile vanishing as her eyes grew tinged with chill, as if she had already grown weary of this side of Ci Wenjun and her patience was running thin.
“Solving this problem is quite simple, is it not?”
Ci Wenjun’s heart skipped a beat as a bad premonition arose.
Chu Yu paused slightly, drawing out the suspense to maximize the tension as her gaze turned sharp.
“Stop coming to see me. Then you won’t need to know my contact information either. Don’t you agree?”
She smiled coldly, her eyes devoid of any warmth.
Ci Wenjun felt a wave of dizziness wash over her. How could this person be so cruel!
“Ci Wenjun, you understand me, do you not?”
With that, the atmosphere dropped to freezing point.
In truth, Chu Yu had no wish to be this cold, nor did she want to treat Ci Wenjun this way. Ci Wenjun was a delicate flower who deserved to be treated with utmost sincerity by everyone.
Yet she could no longer accept this version of her.
She could neither face it nor resist it.
She could only flee. Flight was her only option.
Chu Yu had never been a brave person.
Falling in love with Ci Wenjun was the most daring thing she had ever done, and it had exhausted every ounce of her courage.
Although the ending was far from ideal, she had no regrets and had never harbored any resentment toward the other woman.
It was just that, when she looked back occasionally, a lingering sense of regret always remained.
If she had not taken that step, if she could have offered her a normal relationship, a relationship that could exist under the sun, would they have avoided ending up where they did?
Would they have?
She did not know, nor did she wish to find out anymore.
She let out a long sigh.
“Ci Wenjun, I am thirty years old this year.”
Time flowed like water, silent and unstoppable, impossible to hold back or intercept.
Her eyes were tender yet tolerant, though they held far more weariness and helplessness.
“I no longer have the energy to mend a relationship with you and enter into a brand-new romance.”
Nor did she have the courage to be abandoned by you a second time, nor to spend another eight years healing herself.
It wasn’t that she had never thought of exacting revenge.
If she could, she might even have wanted to bite a piece of flesh straight from her heart just to see whether she actually had a heart and whether her blood ran cold or warm.
Yet right now, as that woman simply shed a few tears before her, she found herself helplessly beginning to ache for her.
She suddenly realized it was all a fool’s errand.
Therefore, set me free, and set yourself free as well.
May we each find peace apart.
“President Ci, you will meet someone better.”
She smiled at her as she spoke words that were utterly heartbreaking.
Ci Wenjun bit down hard on her lips, her gaze stubborn as she stared fixedly at Chu Yu, refusing to give up as she tried to glean even the faintest trace of falsehood.
After confirming it repeatedly, she realized the truth: Chu Yu was not deceiving her; this was genuinely what she thought.
In an instant, her heart seemed to plunge into an endless abyss, countless dark and muddy hands reaching out from the depths to trap her firmly in place.
The heartache was so profound it defied description, leaving her utterly paralyzed.
The air instantly fell into a dead silence.
The warmth of just moments ago stood in stark contrast to the present.
She stood there as if struck by a paralysis spell.
Chu Yu said nothing further; she simply hoped Ci Wenjun would stop entangling herself with her.
What was the point? They had survived eight years of it.
Things would be no different in the future.
After a long while, Ci Wenjun stirred her nearly numb limbs and, moving like a marionette, rubbed her aching eyes.
She pulled herself away from Chu Yu’s embrace.
She knew. She understood it all.
Chu Yu did not want her to remain fixated on her anymore.
If she kept clinging to Chu Yu like this now, it would surely breed annoyance in her heart.
She could not do that; she could not be like this anymore.
She could no longer give Chu Yu reason to dislike her.
She could not risk deepening the bad impression she had left.
She suppressed the grievance swelling inside her and forced herself to maintain her composure.
Little did she know that her trembling hands had already betrayed everything.
Yet Chu Yu saw it all and said nothing.
She was truly exhausted.
She left the living room, leaving the space entirely to Ci Wenjun.
Chu Yu was gone.
Ci Wenjun forced a stiff smile that looked far worse than crying.
A single tear slipped and fell.
Ignoring it, she walked silently back toward the dining table.
She cleared away the bowls and chopsticks, packing the leftovers neatly into the refrigerator.
Opening the door, she caught sight of the refrigerator, previously empty, now packed to the brim. Ci Wenjun froze slightly as she noticed some items marked with notes, representing the ingredients she had previously promised to restupply.
Tears fell uncontrollably, refusing to be stemmed.
Finally, she closed the refrigerator door and stood by the sink.
The faint sound of running water echoed in the kitchen, accompanied by a woman’s softly suppressed sobbing.
Meanwhile, inside the bedroom, Chu Yu leaned against the window frame and quietly lit a cigarette. She did not smoke it, merely holding it between her fingers with her hand resting outside the sill.
A passing breeze carried the faint scent of nicotine.
She had always felt that nicotine was bitter, and at this moment, that feeling was stronger than ever.
The wind outside was biting cold, and the dampness of Shenzhen clung to the skin like a wet blanket, biting into the flesh and drilling into her bones thread by thread.
The hand resting outside was frozen bright red, yet she acted as though she couldn’t feel it at all.
Her gaze remained indifferent and vacant, as if nothing in the world could stir her emotions or cause her to ripple.
The phone lying on the bed lit up with a final message notification.
“Please book a flight to Chu City for me.”
“Understood, President Chu.”
After a long while, she rotated her numb, frozen wrist.
She closed the window, extinguished the cigarette butt, and tossed it into the wastebasket.
Having finished everything, she threw herself heavily onto the soft, large bed.
The next second, she grimaced in pain.
Her lower back had landed squarely against the hard edge of her phone, sending an unexpected jolt of pain through her.
She irritably tossed the phone far away, pouting slightly as a mocking chuckle escaped her lips at some thought. The laughter grew louder and louder, entirely beyond her control.
In the empty room, only the sound of her own laughter remained. Aside from that laughter, the silence was terrifying.
As she laughed, she bit down on her teeth and buried her face deep into the bedding, her body shaking violently.
Through the muffled sounds of her strained breathing, only the occasional gap revealed small patches of fabric stained a deeper, damp shade.
By evening, Chu Yu had still not emerged from her bedroom.
Ci Wenjun could not read her mind, or perhaps she had already figured it out, but simply refused to think down that path.
She dared not disturb her. Sitting alone here for so long, she had begun to notice various details.
Chu Yu’s living room was exceptionally spacious; aside from the master bedroom, the living room was the largest area.
Their apartment layouts were roughly similar, so barring any unexpected changes, they were likely spacious flats of five hundred square meters.
Logically speaking, it should feature four bedrooms, two bathrooms, and a combined Chinese and Western kitchen.
Yet Chu Yu had always lived according to her own wild whims, remodeling the entire place seven or eight times over. Aside from the load-bearing walls, she had probably torn down everything else she possibly could.
Still, Ci Wenjun noted that over the past two days, Chu Yu clearly had no spare rooms available for a guest.
That didn’t seem right.
In fact, over the past two days, Chu Yu’s sphere of activity had been restricted entirely to the living room, the bathroom, and the master bedroom she had sneaked into, with nowhere else.
Chu Yu was never a dull person; she knew how to enjoy life and take good care of herself.
She pursued an extremely high quality of life.
Back when they were living together, Ci Wenjun remembered that Chu Yu’s balcony would always be filled with flowers and plants, and the living room walls were designed with built-in recessed shelving to display her favorite books, films, vinyl records, exquisite greenery, and moss terrariums.
Of course, she had a specially designed study as well, though most of its contents consisted of dry, professional textbooks or materials related to astronomy and aviation.
She loved collecting all sorts of beautiful, delicate, and glittering things, placing them in prominent spots so she could admire them at any moment.
She was also particularly enthusiastic about collecting crystal cups, mugs, and occasionally thermos flasks if they caught her eye, not to mention various kinds of alcohol. Bottles of red wine stacked up one after another, yet she didn’t drink or taste them; she simply liked placing them where she could see them, finding deep satisfaction just in looking.
Because of this, the house had countless display cabinets, yet under her care, everything was always arranged with absolute precision.
Just like her life, everything in her hands remained effortless and in perfect order.
She seemed to carry no worries, always smiling gently like a free and easy breeze.
Yet right now.
The living room, so empty it was virtually devoid of any sign of life, the cold and indifferent bedroom, and even the refrigerator that had only just been filled up.
Chu Yu seemed so terribly lonely these years.
She had changed so much: she no longer smiled easily, had grown much colder, no longer wore her thoughts openly on her face, and was no longer willing to look at her with eyes full of adoration.
At this thought, bitterness spilled from the corners of her mouth.
She had already spoken too many words of regret. Today’s bluntness from Chu Yu had delivered the heaviest blow of all.
During the day, Chu Yu’s words echoed endlessly in her ears.
Indeed, in the blink of an eye, they were both thirty years old.
Neither youthful nor aged.
Yet eight years of time, with all its unbearable and untraceable pain, made it seem as though everything had changed while nothing had changed at all.
It was simply that they had lost their boundless energy, and time had become a luxury.
What was she to do?
Would someone please tell her how she was supposed to act?
Night descended quietly in the stillness, and the dim, warm light enveloped her, failing to generate even a shred of warmth.
Chu Yu’s words left her filled with guilt and plunged her into despair.
Yet was she supposed to let go?
Really, was she going to give up on Chu Yu?
Never to see Chu Yu again.
Not even allowing herself the most basic fantasies, because Chu Yu had explicitly told her that she did not want to be disturbed by her anymore, and that her fantasies were an act of desecration.
Yet that was Chu Yu, her out-of-reach dream, the person she dreamed of holding in her arms night after night.
She truly, truly did not want to give up on Chu Yu.
She hugged her knees tightly, curling her entire body into a helpless ball.