Chapter 61: Tearing Out Scales

Forget it. We’re not right for each other.

The tail tip, growing increasingly warm, was incredibly soft. The snake scales weren’t cold or hard; their matte visual texture made them look exceptionally noble.

Xing Yue held it tightly in her grasp, her index finger pressing against the scales and rubbing in a clockwise circle. As if sensing her touch, the tail end, about two fingers wide, wrapped around her wrist, moving gently against the back of her hand.

She didn’t respond to Bu Yao’s question. The bridge of her nose rubbed against the shirt carrying their mingled scents, and she let out a long, deep breath. “Do you really love me that much?”

Xing Yue kept the same posture as before, her voice muffled, impossible to read, much like the sound from an old radio.

Bu Yao hugged the person in her arms tightly, her arms forming a circle. In this position, she pressed the back of Xing Yue’s head more firmly against her body and murmured softly, “Mm-hmm.”

She didn’t know exactly how much, but she just wanted to be with Xing Yue forever, never to be separated. She wanted Xing Yue to stay with her, not to cuddle with other snakes, not to touch other snakes’ tails, to belong only to her.

Getting the answer she had expected, Xing Yue’s tone didn’t change much. She tilted her chin up slightly. “Then come with me. Don’t live at the Bu Residence anymore. Let’s move to another city.”

Even though her tone was flat, sounding like she was stating a simple, everyday matter, her arm around Bu Yao’s upper body unconsciously tightened, betraying her chaotic inner state.

She looked at Bu Yao, her eyes like a sea where no light could reach, deeply melancholic.

Bu Yao was stunned. It took her brain several slow seconds to process what Xing Yue had just said. She asked, bewildered, “Move to another city? Where would we go? And we wouldn’t come back after that?”

“We’d come back. Once every ten years, or twenty.” Xing Yue had mentally prepared herself. Since she couldn’t bring herself to be cruel to Bu Yao, why not just take Bu Yao and leave this place?

Away from this environment, she wouldn’t feel so unbalanced interacting with Bu Yao, wouldn’t be so volatile and moody.

Even if Bu Yao couldn’t do housework, couldn’t take care of people, it didn’t seem like such a big problem. If she loved Bu Yao enough, she could tolerate it all. Anyway, without Bu Yao, she’d be alone and still have to do all those things herself.

Bu Yao could fill her emptiness, her loneliness, her heart holding only her. That wouldn’t be so bad. No one else loved her anyway. Others would all take their love back, but Bu Yao wouldn’t.

Unfortunately, Xing Yue had made a crazy decision, but no one was willing to be crazy with her.

Worry crept onto Bu Yao’s small face. “Come back once every ten or twenty years? My mom would die of heartache…”

She barely even considered it before directly refusing.

Even though she loved Xing Yue very much, she also loved her mom very much. And her father who doted on her, and her grandfather who folded bamboo dragonflies for her when she was upset.

How could she only come back once every ten or twenty years? What would happen to her mom and dad? And her grandpa?

Xing Yue released the woman in her arms. Her expression froze for a moment, then she suddenly laughed. Whether self-mockery or something else, she pressed the heel of her palm against her eyes, rubbing them. “When your mother treats me like that, don’t I feel awful? If you love me so much, why couldn’t you defend me when your mother took me to those high-society banquets specifically to humiliate me? Couldn’t you see that I couldn’t keep up with the conversation, couldn’t understand what those people were talking about? Couldn’t you tell at all that your mother was deliberately making a fool of me? If you love me so much, why did you let her repeatedly compare my age to yours? Am I really that old? If you mind that I’m eight years older than you, then why do you say you love me? If you don’t mind, then why couldn’t you, when she brought up my age, just seriously tell your mother, ‘Yes, I like someone eight years older than me!’? If you love me so much, why couldn’t you protect me, even just a little bit?”

There was so much more. When she had refused the magazine interview, Madam Bu had laughed together with that reporter, with strangers who had nothing to do with it, about her being too unpresentable.

At regular family dinners, at a table full of Bu family members, she’d casually tell her to “sing a couple of lines for us.”

It all seemed like nothing, like just casual remarks. But these “nothings” and “casual remarks” had already caused her severe mental abuse. And when she brought it up, others blamed her for being too sensitive.

Forget other people. Why was Bu Yao the same? Didn’t she love her so, so much? Loved her enough to keep the red double happiness paper-cutting from when they prepared the wedding room ten years ago. Loved her enough that just the mention of breaking up made her cry so uncontrollably she could barely breathe, couldn’t eat, couldn’t sleep.

With that much love, how could she not protect her? Just because the person hurting her was Bu Yao’s own mother, did the hurt not count as hurt?

“Xing Yue…” The string of uncontrolled questions left Bu Yao at a complete loss. Her lips parted as she murmured, finding herself unable to respond.

Ji Wenyan had never once openly expressed support for this marriage between mismatched families. And she loved to indulge Bu Yao, feeding her the idea that she was free to like whoever she wanted.

This had also given Bu Yao the illusion that Ji Wenyan approved of their relationship.

In reality, Ji Wenyan was the one who couldn’t accept them being together the most. She couldn’t bear the slightest unkindness toward Bu Yao, couldn’t bear to say half a harsh word. So she could only vent all her discontent on Xing Yue, undermining her at every turn, making Xing Yue constantly remember that being able to marry Bu Yao was a climb-up for her, that they were not a match. Xing Yue had to lower her posture, low into the very dust, to kneel and receive the love Bu Yao granted.

Facts had proven that Ji Wenyan’s soft-needle attacks were indeed effective, making Xing Yue care even more about her self-esteem. But caring too much turns into inferiority, forming a vicious cycle: the more she cared, the more inferior she felt, the more sensitive she became, the more painful it was…

“Forget it,” Xing Yue lay back on the bed, pulled up the covers. “We should just forget it. We’re not right for each other.”

Thinking about the unrealistic, childish words she had just spoken, Xing Yue wanted to laugh at herself.

What reason did Bu Yao have to go with her? What reason did she have to give up the Bu family for her? What reason did she have to leave her pampered life and endure hardship with her?

Not doing housework meant happiness? No. Bu Yao also needed beautiful clothes, lavish jewelry, one-of-a-kind high heels.

She couldn’t afford to give her any of that. And she had even shamefully proposed such an idea to Bu Yao. She was so naive, so stupid.

The snake tail, beautiful and magnificent as treasure, curled up in Xing Yue’s arms, its excessive warmth pressing against her through their pajamas.

Already irritated by the rejection, Xing Yue directly moved the clinging snake tail aside. She lay looking at Bu Yao. “I’m not asking you to choose between me and your mom. I just don’t understand. Why, when I see you cry, when I see your allergic reaction, my heart aches so much I can’t bear to be mean to you anymore—but you can’t do the same? If you felt even a tiny bit of heartache for me, you wouldn’t let your mother say so many vicious things to me. Got it. My house, my car—to you, they’re just trash too, right? So you think it’s no big deal that I’m forced to sell my house and car. It’s not that you can’t feel sorry for me, it’s that you simply don’t know when I’m suffering. That interpretation seems to fit your status better. See? I’ve even found the excuse to rationalize your behavior for you.”

Finishing, Xing Yue let out a self-deprecating laugh of scorn, turned over, and faced away, not wanting to see anyone.

Bu Yao was a princess; she was a commoner. For a princess to feel sorry for a commoner, she would first have to understand why the commoner was suffering.

But a princess was a princess. How could a princess understand why losing a shabby little house made her so sad? How could she understand how a mere nine hundred thousand—a sum not even enough to cover the spare change for one of the princess’s little formal dresses—could almost cost her half her life?

There was no movement from behind her. As Xing Yue was about to force herself to sleep, Bu Yao suddenly climbed out of bed. She heard the sound of Bu Yao getting off the bed…

“Where are you going?” Xing Yue asked subconsciously.

It wasn’t dawn yet, just past five in the morning. It was still raining outside, pitch black.

Even though she was angry, she wasn’t angry enough to throw Bu Yao out in the middle of the night.

Bu Yao lowered her head and said, “I’m going home. I’ll have Uncle Li come pick me up.”

Xing Yue was angered into laughter. She had only mentioned a couple of things Madam Bu had done—not even criticizing her, just stating facts, stating what Madam Bu had done, things she’d said—and Bu Yao couldn’t stand it and immediately wanted to leave?

Forget it. It wasn’t like she had just met Bu Yao. This woman’s temper had always been huge.

“Suit yourself.” She tossed out those words, turned to face the wall, closed her eyes, and went to sleep.

The sky tore open a massive gash. The torrential rain came down like a burst dam, so fiercely it seemed intent on drowning the entire city. Walking on the roads, the sound of the pouring rain filled her ears, as if she were in the middle of a river, walking not on roads but through currents.

Dark clouds churned furiously; lightning flashed and thunder roared outside the window.

Ji Wenyan and Bu Changqin were sound asleep in their room. Besides the booming thunder, a faint, familiar cry reached them.

“Mom… Mom…”

Ji Wenyan hazily heard Bu Yao calling for her. She opened her eyes. A dark silhouette suddenly appeared right before her—disheveled hair, soaking wet from head to toe.

Her heart lurched in shock. “Why did you suddenly come back? Did Xiao Yue bully you?”

Ji Wenyan was just about to get up from the bed when a flash of lightning outside the window briefly illuminated the dark room for a single second. Immediately following, the entire mansion erupted with the terrified shriek of the madam:

“AHHHHHHHH—”

Bu Yao was barefoot, completely drenched, clutching a pair of pliers dripping with fresh blood. Her tail dragged on the floor, still streaming blood. The cream-white carpet was covered in rainwater and bloodstains, trailing from the doorway all the way to the bedside.

And clamped in the pliers were clumps and clusters of torn-out snake scales. The jaws of the pliers were smeared with them, scattered pieces even on both handles. It was impossible to imagine just how many had been torn out.

Bu Yao just stood there by the bed, tilting her head, looking deeply troubled. “Mom, you keep saying things Xing Yue doesn’t like to hear. I’ve told you so many times to stop, but you still say them.”

She placed the pliers, covered with her own torn scales, onto the blanket covering Ji Wenyan. “Here, take this. Next time you feel like talking to Xing Yue, look at this first. Otherwise, you’ll just keep forgetting.”