Chapter 50
After the unexpected incident during dinner, neither Jiang Chenyin nor Bo Muyu were in the mood to continue eating.
Jiang Chenyin went directly to the gym on the third floor to work out, while Bo Muyu returned to her room on the second floor to ponder her work.
The core of the matter she had been investigating for several months would be fully revealed by Jiang Chenyin tonight. Bo Muyu was naturally at ease and spared some energy to study her script. Besides completing God of War, she was also reviewing Dust World, which she had written in university and which Su Man had explicitly stated would be the project to start after God of War.
After her workout, Jiang Chenyin saw that she was busy and didn’t disturb her. After her shower, she let her hair down and stood behind her, glancing at her nimble fingers clattering away on the keyboard, and suddenly let out a laugh.
Without turning her head, Bo Muyu asked, “Auntie Yin, are you done with your workout?”
“Mmm, I’ve already showered,” Jiang Chenyin said with a smile, lowering her head to gather her soft black hair into a loose handful, then slightly cupping her hand to let the strands slip through her fingers.
“I’ll be done in a minute,” Bo Muyu’s voice sounded very focused, and her typing speed clearly increased.
“No rush. Take your time,” Jiang Chenyin said, only glancing at the screen before looking down again.
“Done.”
Bo Muyu closed her laptop and turned around. Her long, fine hair immediately slipped from Jiang Chenyin’s fingers, like a transparent stream of water leaving no trace, only a slight tickle in her palm.
The momentary emptiness in her palm made Jiang Chenyin suddenly feel as if something had disappeared along with it. A fleeting sense of discomfort rose in her heart like a cloud of mist, both clear and vague.
“We can start now. It’s…” Bo Muyu looked at her watch. “Eight-thirty. There’s still plenty of time.”
She stood up and pulled Jiang Chenyin to the sofa to sit down together. “Auntie Yin, I’m ready.”
Jiang Chenyin’s eyes quietly watched her. She immediately shook her head to dispel the indescribable feeling from just now and smiled at her. “It might be a bit long. If you get sleepy, just tell me. We can talk about these things anytime.”
“Okay, let’s start,” Bo Muyu said. How could she feel sleepy? Her curiosity made her extremely alert.
Jiang Chenyin leaned back into the sofa, her legs crossed, her gaze casually cast on the wall, but she didn’t let go of Bo Muyu’s hand.
She was silent for a long while, a mixture of emotions in her eyes. “Muyu, do you remember when you were in university and you told me about being pursued by a boy, and that your rejection had no effect at all?”
“I remember,” Bo Muyu nodded.
Jiang Chenyin turned her head to ask her, “What did that feel like?”
“Very annoying,” Bo Muyu replied without hesitation. “It made me wonder if he couldn’t understand Chinese, but even after I answered in English, he still didn’t seem to understand.”
“It’s not that he didn’t understand…” Jiang Chenyin shook her head with a smile and said slowly, “There was such a boy when I was in university. He seemed very lonely, always alone wherever he went. But he wasn’t sloppy. He was tall and thin, and his hair was neatly cut. He stood out a bit among the boys who were very good at teasing girls.”
Bo Muyu had a gut feeling that Jiang Chenyin had gotten to the main point. Without interrupting, she moved a little closer to her, hugging her arm and listening to her story.
Jiang Chenyin paused, as if organizing the images in her memory, and then said, “Nothing had happened between him and everyone else. No one liked to chat with him, no one liked to eat with him. This state of affairs was maintained for a long time. But I don’t know when, rumors started to spread among the students. Everyone was whispering in private, saying that he had a mental illness, and why would the school allow such a person to attend.”
“Did he really have a mental illness?” Bo Muyu looked up and asked.
Jiang Chenyin pressed her lips together and gently stroked Bo Muyu’s head. “At that time, I didn’t know what was going on, but from then on, I would see some students pointing at him when they passed by. It wasn’t that serious at first, at least not in front of him, but a few times, I clearly saw students who had just passed him whispering about him. When he heard it, he would lower his head and quickly walk away.”
Bo Muyu squeezed her hand and chided in a low voice, “Why would they be so cruel? It was a rumor, wasn’t it? Even if it were true, his condition must have been confirmed to be stable.”
“In this world, not everyone is kind-hearted,” Jiang Chenyin said, smiling as she patted her cheek, and continued, “Later, I started to observe these things. Of course, I didn’t deliberately pay attention to him, just planned to be more mindful when I encountered him. After that, I heard that more and more people were unscrupulously mocking him in public. A few boys who were notorious for their bad character even threw leftover snacks at him, until they forced him away, so that he would no longer be under the same roof as everyone else.”
Bo Muyu frowned. “That’s too much.”
Jiang Chenyin tilted her head back and took a deep breath, her chin brushing against Bo Muyu’s brow, her voice lowering. “Such an experience seriously affected his studies and life, and I couldn’t bear to watch it anymore. I happened to run into him during lunch one day. When he was being loudly mocked by his classmates while eating, I went over and stopped them. At that moment, I realized that not everyone despised him, but they just lacked a leader to stand up.
The students who bullied him called him ‘psycho’ to his face. He didn’t dare to say anything, just lowered his head and let them bully him. The students who had gathered later and I surrounded him to prevent others from getting close to him, and then we drove those people away. After that, a few boys walked him back to his dormitory.”
Bo Muyu murmured with her eyes lowered, “I feel like something is a little strange.”
Just then, Jiang Chenyin’s eyes dimmed. The arm that had been casually resting on her lap for Bo Muyu to hug reached out to wrap around her, and she murmured, “The people who stood up to protect him that day all received his thanks afterwards, and he bought milk tea and desserts for everyone. From then on, I treated him differently. Whenever I saw someone pointing at him again, I would pull him away, or I would deliberately chat with him for a bit to let those people see that he was a very normal person.”
Jiang Chenyin paused, the familiar fear beginning to spread in her heart. Although she was in a very warm room, she felt a bone-chilling cold.
She hugged Bo Muyu tightly, forcefully suppressing the restless unease, her voice hoarse. “At that time, the people who bullied him were very good at picking the time and place, and everyone present was on the same side, giving false testimony for each other, so the teachers couldn’t handle it at all. At that time, I couldn’t think of anything else. I just felt that I should help him. I encouraged him not to care about others’ slander, to communicate more with his classmates, and that over time, those rumors would collapse on their own.
He listened to me very well and did as I said. He also explained to me that he really didn’t have a mental illness. Because his actions were all very normal, I believed him and agreed to be his friend.”
Bo Muyu silently wrapped her arms around Jiang Chenyin’s waist, a vague thought in her mind.
“From then on, some of the students who had believed the rumors apologized to him and kept in touch with him. Everything was developing in a better direction. He also became very close to me later, and it was basically him who took the initiative to find me. He would either wait for me downstairs at my dormitory, or ask me to have lunch with him, or ask me out to see a movie. Even when a singer I really liked, whose concerts were almost always sold out, came to hold a concert, he managed to get two tickets by some means. I remember I was very happy, but at the same time, I suddenly thought of another thing, which was that I had never told him that I liked that singer.”
Here it comes, Bo Muyu thought to herself.
This time, Jiang Chenyin paused for a long time. Bo Muyu quickly felt the same emotion as when she had talked about Meng Yi’an last time.
The hand that was holding her was trembling.
She immediately sat up straight and, without thinking, pulled Jiang Chenyin into her arms, hugging her as tightly as she could, and kept whispering in her ear, “Auntie Yin, don’t be afraid. I’m here. If you can’t go on, we can go to sleep first. We can talk about it next time, or it’s okay if we don’t talk about it…”
She had already guessed most of it. That boy was so devoted to Jiang Chenyin because she was the first to stand up for him, so he was grateful and wanted to repay her.
He listened to Jiang Chenyin and communicated with others. To be her friend and to repay her, he inquired about her preferences and spied on her every move in the dark.
His repayment permeated every detail of Jiang Chenyin’s life. He hoped that whenever she spoke, walked, or went out, whatever happened, he would be there.
Bo Muyu felt Jiang Chenyin’s arms tighten around her waist, so tightly that there was not a single gap between them.
Jiang Chenyin rested her head on Bo Muyu’s shoulder, her voice low and trembling. “I rejected him, and from then on, I never went out with him again. But he followed me like a shadow. No matter where I went, I would see him appear before me. He would suddenly pop up on my way back to the dormitory, and he would also appear behind the bookshelves when I was reading in the library. I couldn’t get rid of him.
At first, some people thought that he liked me because he was grateful to me, and they told me to consider it. But not long after, the students around me all noticed his abnormality. At first, he just asked me to consider being with him, which of course I couldn’t agree to. After that, he started to show some signs of threatening me. He said that if I didn’t agree, he would come to see me every day, and he would also go to my roommates and ask them to speak for him.”
Bo Muyu’s face turned grim, and the hand holding Jiang Chenyin clenched into a fist.
“We went to the counselor…” Jiang Chenyin shook her head with a bitter smile, her lips trembling with fear. “But what he said in front of the counselor was very vague. He said that his pursuit would not affect everyone’s studies. Besides, he hadn’t done anything, just waited for me after class to walk me back to the dormitory, and also to find out what I liked. We all knew his madness, but at that time, we couldn’t refute his words, because what he said was indeed true.”
Bo Muyu closed her eyes, knowing that she couldn’t stop Jiang Chenyin from talking. She could only hold her tightly, the sour pain in her heart making her eyes red.
“The last time I had a normal conversation with him was the day before that incident happened.”
Jiang Chenyin desperately suppressed the persistent panic in her heart, her eyes red but holding back her tears. “He stopped me downstairs at my dormitory and asked me if I was really unwilling to be with him. He said he had painted a perfect blueprint for our future, and that I was in every stroke of it. He said that everyone in this world was dirty, and he didn’t want me to be like others, nor did he want there to be other dirty people in my heart.
I was very scared. I thought he was like a madman. He chased after me and wouldn’t let me go, saying that I had hurt him and asking me why I was so heartless. My roommates and I reported it to the school’s security department. When the security guards were dragging him away, I saw from the window that his eyes were fixed on the direction of my dormitory. He was always staring at me…”
Bo Muyu felt as if needles were pricking her heart. She lowered her head and held Jiang Chenyin’s head in her arms, whispering, “Don’t say any more. I know. It’s not your fault. Being kind is not your fault, and rejecting is not your fault either. Nothing is wrong.”
In that dream, Jiang Chenyin had been shouting for the other person not to jump. One could imagine her helplessness back then.
Jiang Chenyin shook her head violently, her trembling hand grabbing Bo Muyu’s collar, her words lacking strength as she spoke close to her ear, “Do you know, I had no choice. He wanted me to be with him, to promise to marry him. I was afraid he would jump, so I agreed. But why… why did he have to gamble with my family! He was afraid I was lying to him, so he made me swear that if I left him, my family would never know peace for my broken promise!”
“It’s not your fault…” Bo Muyu’s heart ached so much she could hardly breathe, her tears falling into Jiang Chenyin’s hair.
What had her Auntie Yin done wrong, to have such a deep scar branded on her otherwise happy life? How could she forget this? Every late night was a sign of an impending nightmare. How could she be happy for the rest of her life? Every time she relived it in a dream, it was as if she had died once.
The hidden pain in Jiang Chenyin’s heart for many years was finally revealed without any concealment, her voice tinged with a sob. “I didn’t dare. I didn’t dare to say those words… I was really scared… I wanted to pull him back. I never wanted to force him to jump. How could I… but I really couldn’t say those words. That was my family…”
“I know. I understand everything,” Bo Muyu’s hands trembled with heartache. She kept stroking Jiang Chenyin’s long hair, trying her best to comfort her.
“So four years ago, when Gao Yan appeared before me in an almost similar way, I had nightmares every day. Every day, I relived the scene from over a decade ago. A very, very tall building. I didn’t catch him… there was blood everywhere… a large pool of blood…”
Jiang Chenyin’s whole body curled up and pressed against Bo Muyu’s embrace, trembling violently. She didn’t cry out, but her tears fell on Bo Muyu’s neck and clothes.
Bo Muyu bit her lip hard, once again hating herself for not being able to be with her through those difficult days.
“Auntie Yin, Auntie Yin, listen to me…”
Bo Muyu sniffled and wiped away her tears. Jiang Chenyin was already very scared. She couldn’t be sad along with her. She had to save Jiang Chenyin. She didn’t want those nightmares to appear again.
She helped Jiang Chenyin up, her forehead against hers, her thumb wiping away the tear stains at the corners of her eyes.
She composed herself and held Jiang Chenyin’s face in her hands. There was still a mist in her eyes, and in Jiang Chenyin’s as well, but her eyes were filled with only Jiang Chenyin, a heartwarming light slowly gathering in her bright pupils.
“Auntie Yin, look at me. Listen to me.”
She spoke softly and gently.
“There are many people in this world who put their own goals above all else. To these people, any disobedience from us becomes a hurt in their mouths. But we are just rejecting what we don’t want. Such a rejection is a protection for ourselves. If we must talk about hurt, then it is the other person’s wrong persistence that has changed its nature. So, Auntie Yin, you are not wrong.”
