After the rage, there followed a deep sense of powerlessness.
Lin Yuxi was sitting on the table, imprisoned by him, unable to run or hide.
She looked at Zhou Yanjing's deep and dark eyes, his persistence that would not give up until he got the answer, and felt very tired.
It's clear that he loves someone else, but he always makes excuses for his eldest brother, as if she was the one who betrayed her in this relationship.
"Zhou Yanjing, what do you want? Why are you forcing me like this?"
Zhou Yanjing's hand relaxed a bit, his fingertips gently caressed her face, and his pressing tone softened, coaxing her:
"I won't force you. Just be good and answer me, okay?"
Lin Yuxi was indeed a soft-spoken person. She pursed her lips and confronted Zhou Yanjing for a while, and finally replied in frustration: "I treat my eldest brother as my elder brother, just like my grandma, who is a good relative to me, okay?"
Zhou Yanjing's heart seemed to turn into a heavy bell, which was hit slowly and bluntly by the cone of the bell, buzzing and vibrating in the chest.
"Then why did you tell mom that you wanted to marry him? Who would want to marry his brother?"
"Isn't it just for grandma that I got married? I just want to live peacefully for three years. My eldest brother is more reliable than you." Lin Yuxi said in a very soft voice, "He will not bully me."
The buzzing sound of the bell made Zhou Yanjing's chest hurt, and his internal organs were swallowed up by a feeling of suffocation.
The past events flashed by quickly like a rewinding movie, frame by frame, and finally collapsed and split into pieces, which sharply stung every nerve.
"that's all?"
"if not."
"You don't love him?"
Lin Yuxi said: "I never said I loved him."
Zhou Yanjing's hand on her waist tightened involuntarily, and he finally realized that he seemed to have made a mistake.
So wrong, so wrong. Ridiculously wrong.
His Adam's apple rolled, and he continued to ask: "If you don't love eldest brother, then when he took Bai Qingmei home on the day of their engagement, why did you look at him in a daze? After dinner, you went to see him privately, why did you ask him, "You love me?" Don’t you love Bai Qingmei?”
Lin Yuxi thought about it for a while before remembering what he said.
The time when Zhou Sheng'an got engaged was almost after Shi Tang's birthday party.
What Zhou Yanjing said in public that day shattered all her self-esteem, causing her to fall repeatedly into the vortex of self-doubt and personality breakdown.
I feel that people like her really don't deserve to be loved.
How could she think Zhou Yanjing really loved her? It's all because she is too sentimental.
He must think she is ridiculous, right? Cheap and stupid, give her a little sweetness and it's easy to get.
At that moment, it seemed like she had already stepped into the cliff with one foot and was about to fall.
She frequently fell into a daze during the day, and at night she was the only one in the huge wedding room. That kind of empty silence would devour people's souls.
She had insomnia all night long, and the nightmares that she could never escape from when she was a child also came back, and she would wake up even if she finally fell asleep.
The day Zhou Sheng'an brought her fiancée home, she met Zhou Yanjing again.
She sat on the same side of the table as him, further apart than the Milky Way.
She didn't even dare to look in his direction, afraid of seeing his cold and mocking eyes. She had already taken off her protective shell in front of him, so she could be easily hurt.
She couldn't eat the whole dinner and wanted to throw up every bite she took.
Zhou Sheng'an and Miss Bai opposite her were like the control group between her and Zhou Yanjing.
Miss Bai comes from a good family, with a strong family background, and is favored by thousands of people at home. Her marriage to Zhou Sheng'an was also ordered by her parents, a swap of interests without any emotional basis. However, the two treated each other as guests, and Zhou Sheng'an was gentle and considerate to her, and he also respected her.
After dinner, Lin Yuxi sent her grandma back to her room, and met Zhou Shengan in the corridor when she came out.
Miss Bai wanted to go to the bathroom, but she had a bad sense of direction and the layout of the Zhou family's old house was a bit convoluted, so Zhou Sheng'an personally took her there and waited outside the door.
Lin Yuxi called her brother, and when she was about to leave, she couldn't help but ask him: "Brother, do you love Miss Bai?"
Zhou Sheng'an smiled and told her, "In my position, love is not the most important thing."
Lin Yuxi didn't know that Zhou Yanjing heard it at that time.
Just as she was about to say something, Zhou Yanjing continued to ask: "The way you looked at Bai Qingmei that day was full of envy. Why?"
Why?
"Because I'm very envious. She has parents and many people love her. Even if my eldest brother doesn't love her, he can still give her dignity and respect. Unlike me."
"I have nothing. People like me don't even have to pay for bullying me. That's why you can play with my feelings unscrupulously and trample my dignity on the ground."
"It's not like I'm shameless. I can still care less about being humiliated by you in public. On Shi Tang's birthday, you clearly saw me, right?"
Lin Yuxi squeezed her fingers tightly to resist the pain that was reviving in her body and rapidly growing and expanding along the blood vessels like branches.
So good, her tattered and patchy heart made him open up again.
Zhou Yanjing took a deep breath, but the tightness in his chest did not weaken at all.
He put his hands on the table and felt like he had swallowed a thousand needles in his throat, making it difficult for him to even speak.
After a long time, he breathed out with difficulty, his throat was bitter and astringent. He didn't know whether it was self-deprecation or regret: "I thought you envied her being able to marry the eldest brother."
"Shouldn't I be envious?" Lin Yuxi said, "I'm so envious. It would be great if I married the eldest brother, so he wouldn't bully me like you."
"It's me, you bastard." Zhou Yanjing's voice was harsh, and he put his arms around her waist, resting his forehead on her shoulder, and the breath he exhaled from his chest was trembling.
"I'm such a fucking bastard."
Lin Yuxi was silent. She turned her face to the other side, her eyes were on nowhere, and she didn't want to look at him anyway.
She didn't know whether the regret shown by Zhou Yanjing at this moment was false or fake, and she didn't want to know.
"Have you finished asking? Leave after you finish asking. Don't bother me again."
"Xixi, that day I..."
Zhou Yanjing wanted to explain something, but Lin Yuxi exploded without warning: "Don't call me that!"
Her voice was cold and sharp, and the muscles in her body were tense with resistance.
This nickname that Zhou Yanjing once called her when they were most affectionate was a shame engraved on her body and soul. She never wanted to hear it again in this life.
"Okay, I won't bark anymore." Zhou Yanjing held her face in his warm palms, trying to comfort her, "If you don't like it, I won't bark anymore."
Lin Yuxi put her arms between her and his bodies, trying desperately to push him away as if facing some savage beast.
"Don't touch me!"
Zhou Yanjing hugged her struggling body: "Listen to what I have to say."
"What else do you want to say? Haven't you said enough?"
"Yuxi." Suddenly there was a knock on the door, and Tan Yu's voice came from outside the door.
Like a drowning man catching a driftwood falling from the sky, Lin Yuxi looked at the door almost begging for help: "Tan Yu!"
That look hurt Zhou Yanjing deeply.
He pulled Lin Yuxi's face back: "Lin Yuxi, look at me. Don't look at others, look at me and listen to me. There is nothing between Jiang Nan and me."
Lin Yuxi suddenly felt ridiculous.
Now, come and tell her, he and Jiang Nan have nothing?
Do you think she is really that easy to deceive, or do you think she has not been fooled by him enough in the past three years?
"Japan also says that the nuclear sewage it discharges is drinkable. Do you drink it?"
"I mean it."
Zhou Yanjing wanted to explain it to her, but the problems between him and Lin Yuxi were like two tangled knots of wool, with inextricable knots everywhere.
Tan Yu seemed to hear something: "Yuxi? Are you okay?"
Lin Yuxi's thin body suddenly burst out with a force that pushed Zhou Yanjing away.
She immediately jumped off the ground, ran to the door and opened it quickly.
Tan Yu outside the door was full of surprise: "You..."
Then he looked behind her. There was no light in the room, and there seemed to be a lonely figure standing in the dim light.
The light and air outside the door rushed in, and Lin Yuxi seemed to have finally climbed onto the shore.
"It's okay." She relaxed a little and calmed down, "Did you just arrive?"
Tan Yu looked at her slightly messy hair and red eyes, showing nothing: "Xingchen said you want to climb the mountain to watch the sunrise tomorrow, so I brought some equipment, including hiking poles and flashlights, which you can use. "
"Thank you." Lin Yuxi said and walked out, "I'll go find Xiaoxiao, Xingchen and the others."
She didn't want to stay here any longer.
Zhou Yanjing can always open her wounds easily, or in other words, he himself is her wound.
Underneath the blood scab, it turned out that the blurred flesh had never truly healed.
Zhou Yanjing strode to catch up with her. His eyes were dark and obscure, and he wanted to grab her hand: "Lin Yuxi..."
Lin Yuxi hid for a moment.
For the first time, Tan Yu stood in front of her.
