Chapter 32: 32 Chapter 32 Part 3

Ji Qingyou paused for a moment, but walked over anyway, sitting down beside her. They stared at their reflected shadows, side by side.

“Compared to mine, your hand is more important. My face isn’t serious. A band-aid would have been enough.”

Qin Shuangchi seemed startled. She came back to her senses, looked at her urgently, examined her for a while, and then choked out, “Are you okay?”

In her current state, Ji Qingyou couldn’t say she was fine.

She just stared silently at her own shadow, holding her upset stomach, and said very, very slowly, “I feel like I swallowed a live fish. It’s very fishy, very disgusting. But I can’t throw it up. I can only let it stay inside my body.”

“I’d rather have eaten that cream cake yesterday.” She managed a weak smile as she said this, maybe because her emotional system was malfunctioning.

Qin Shuangchi’s eyes were red. “I’m sorry.”

Ji Qingyou looked at her. “Why are you saying sorry to me? You’re the victim. You shouldn’t blame yourself. This is all their fault.”

When she said the word “them,” her stomach churned even more.

Qin Shuangchi shook her head, her voice choked with sobs. “No, it’s not. If I hadn’t taken his side back then. If I could have seen him for who he was. If I hadn’t still tried to maintain our families’ relationship as it was. If I hadn’t been so greedy. If I hadn’t tried to find a win-win solution. If I had just let you and Little Jiu be together, instead of trying to make you get along with Yu Muzhou…”

Ji Qingyou looked at her and smiled softly. “There are no ‘ifs.’ If there were, I would have found out before you. And at that time, I couldn’t have been with her anyway.”

“And if it were me, I would have done the same thing.” She added softly, as if everything was already over.

“I never knew Little Jiu was in so much pain…” Qin Shuangchi’s eyes were red. “I always thought it was all in the past. That’s why I… sent the invitation to England…”

She didn’t know then, and she didn’t know now.

When she was drafting the guest list, she happened to get a call from a friend in England, and accidentally heard the name “Yu Qinjiu” during the call. She remembered Yu Qinjiu, who had been abroad for ten years and hadn’t returned. She thought it couldn’t be that much of a coincidence, that it couldn’t be the Yu Qinjiu she knew. But when Yu Qinjiu answered the phone and surprisedly called her “Sister Qin,” she realized just how close the distance between people could be.

They talked for a long time, from recent life to the past. Yu Qinjiu’s tone on the phone was normal. She seemed to be doing well. She seemed to have forgotten all the bad things.

Qin Shuangchi thought it was all over.

When Yu Qinjiu hesitantly asked her if Ji Qingyou was doing well.

She paused for a long time. As she waited for Yu Qinjiu’s long silence, she thought about the answer to that question. Many fragmented images flashed through her mind.

Qin Shuangchi remembered going to Ji Qingyou’s place one day, finding her still repeatedly disassembling and reassembling the models Yu Qinjiu had given her. She noticed that when she cooked, she still habitually added spice, only to throw up after eating. She found that she always slept in the large, empty study. She noticed that Ji Qingyou always paused for a few extra seconds when passing the persimmon tree at the entrance of the residential area…

Qin Shuangchi didn’t hesitate anymore. She directly invited Yu Qinjiu to her wedding.

At least let Ji Qingyou and Yu Qinjiu see each other again.

At least let them talk properly.

At least… this way, she could lessen the guilt she felt when she saw Ji Qingyou eat that strawberry cake.

——That was her simple, naive thought at the time.

“But now I feel…” Qin Shuangchi looked up at Ji Qingyou.

Ji Qingyou was leaning slightly against the hospital corridor wall. Her soft, long hair lay messily scattered around her neck. Her coat was wrinkled. Her neck was bare. There was a gauze pad on her face. Her complexion was exceptionally pale, her dark eyes like dead water.

There was no light. No emotion either.

Her expression looked no different from usual, but she was like a vase full of cracks, silently shattering.

“Feel what?” Ji Qingyou turned to look at her. The wound on her face wasn’t bleeding anymore. She looked very calm.

Qin Shuangchi lowered her eyes, covering them with her bandaged hand. A few dry words escaped from her mouth.

“It feels like it was me. Who stole those ten years from you and Little Jiu.”

The weight of those words was too heavy.

Ji Qingyou closed her eyes.

She knew very well why Qin Shuangchi would say that. But she also knew very well that if she were Qin Shuangchi, assuming Yu Qinjiu was in Yu Muzhou’s current position, she would make the same choice. She wouldn’t give up on Yu Qinjiu, and she wouldn’t give up on Qin Shuangchi. She would strive to maintain a win-win situation for everyone, even if the person getting hurt was Yu Muzhou.

She could care less. She wouldn’t even feel the guilt Qin Shuangchi felt. She could even ignore everyone.

But.

The person getting hurt was Yu Qinjiu. The initiative wasn’t in her hands. Too many things had happened, more than just their four-person relationship. More and more unsolvable problems were involved back then. So she knew clearly it wasn’t like that.

The main contradiction was never Yu Muzhou’s identity.

“No, Sis.”

“Yu Qinjiu was in so much pain back then. I couldn’t keep her here.”

When Qin Shuangchi looked over, she smiled faintly. She clutched the bracelet in her pocket. A faint redness slowly appeared around her eyes.

“The reason we lost contact for ten years was just because I gave up on her.”

—

After separating from Qin Shuangchi.

Ji Qingyou drove the car Yu Qinjiu had left her. She completely lost her sense of direction. In this cruel winter, the gentle female voice on the weather forecast said, “Today will be sunny in our city. High of three degrees Celsius. Low of negative two degrees…”

So it really was cold today. It wasn’t her imagination.

When she passed a 24-hour convenience store, she stopped the car. She went inside and bought the last strawberry cream cake. Then she sat silently on a bench by the roadside.

She lit the candle and stuck it into the cream cake.

As the flame flickered, it brought a faint warmth. Her palm felt warm for a moment. She tried to shield it, not letting the flame go out.

Deep down, she was negotiating with the god who grants wishes:

Today isn’t my birthday. But if I eat this cake, please grant me three wishes. Because you never granted any of my previous birthday wishes. So now you have to give me three. That’s only fair.

Maybe she was really too pitiful today. Even Heaven seemed to agree.

She stared at the flickering flame. She clutched the bracelet in her pocket tightly. This was the one she had made for Yu Zhijiu. She still hadn’t been able to give it away. She didn’t understand why she could never manage to give it away. There had been so many opportunities every day before.

But now, she had no chance.

She could only rely on a power she didn’t possess.

The weather was so cold it felt like she was freezing solid. Yet Ji Qingyou closed her eyelids, put her hands together, and piously made these three wishes.

Her first wish: that before she left, Yu Zhijiu had managed to buy her favorite Ultraman water gun.

Her second wish: that Ji Xiruan would find happiness after her hardships. That she would feel better after everything was over. At least she shouldn’t lose any more opportunities like she had.

Her third wish…

Her joined palms weakly parted. The thought in her heart couldn’t be ignored. She really wanted to see Yu Qinjiu one more time. Maybe she should let Yu Qinjiu know about what happened today. It seemed only Yu Qinjiu could heal her pain. The oppressive feeling of regret enveloped her, but there were so many obstacles in their relationship…

Not just the pain of the past.

The mere 8,962.56 kilometers of distance. The mere identity of “friend.” The completely diverging life paths. All of these could defeat her.

She really didn’t want to separate from Yu Qinjiu like this. She really hoped that her relationship with Yu Qinjiu wouldn’t change at all. But should she make this wish?

Ji Qingyou took out her phone, clicked on Yu Qinjiu’s WeChat avatar, and looked at it. She wanted to tell Yu Qinjiu: Qin Shuangchi and Yu Muzhou didn’t get married. I’m going to cut ties with the Yu family too. I won’t let you hear Yu Muzhou or Yu Cheng’s name from me anymore. Even if you’re in close contact with me, you won’t have any connection to Yu Muzhou or Yu Cheng because of me.

But after typing a few words on her phone, she hesitated for a long time without sending them.

Maybe Yu Qinjiu had already arrived in London, reunited with Lin Yingxiang and Brittany. Or maybe she was busy with the work that had called her back to London… Was it really appropriate to bring up Yu Muzhou’s name right now? Did it mean anything to tell her all this after she had already made up her mind to leave?

Ji Qingyou froze. Suddenly, she felt it really didn’t mean anything anymore. The dust had settled. No matter what she said, it wouldn’t make Yu Qinjiu feel better.

The news of Yu Muzhou’s affair wouldn’t make Yu Qinjiu feel better.

The fact that the woman he had an affair with had appeared at the banquet they attended yesterday, and that Yu Qinjiu had helped her up, wouldn’t make Yu Qinjiu feel better.

The fact that Yu Muzhou had betrayed his and Qin Shuangchi’s time and love wouldn’t make Yu Qinjiu, who shared blood with him, feel better either…

It would only make her suffer too.

And the old pain was already there; escaping from it was the only way.

She couldn’t even tell her that Yu Zhijiu had passed away.

The seven-year-old girl who had given Ji Qingyou a lollipop. The seven-year-old girl whose name was similar to Yu Qinjiu’s. The seven-year-old girl who shared a birthday with Ji Qingyou. The little girl who wore the lucky bracelet Yu Qinjiu had given her and the Ultraman watch Ji Qingyou had given her…

On the same day Yu Qinjiu left, she had left this world too.

The wind grew strong, stinging her face. It hurt so much she could barely open her eyes. Ji Qingyou tightly clutched the bracelet she had made but never given away. Her vision began to blur.

Her fingers trembled violently. She couldn’t control this physiological reaction at all.

Her thoughts even became uncontrollable, repeatedly chewing on the memory of the crushed goldfish and the kitten that was abused until it was barely alive.

Too many things had happened today. She was exhausted. But she couldn’t blame anyone, and she wasn’t qualified to hold onto anything.

Just like the crushed goldfish and the abused kitten.

She could never hold onto the things she loved.

The phone in her hand slipped out of her grasp slowly. Ji Qingyou stared at the red string in her hand. At this moment, she began to hallucinate.

As if she had returned to many years ago. A childish, soft voice suddenly drifted over. A five-year-old Yu Qinjiu and a five-year-old Ji Qingyou appeared beside her, standing shoulder to shoulder with her.

Dividing the time of her unruly behavior, resisting the empty loneliness of ten years.

She saw the five-year-old Yu Qinjiu, in a beautiful princess dress, surrounded by adults, truly like a little princess in a castle, yet to experience collapse and fragmentation.

She heard the five-year-old Yu Qinjiu laugh happily and childishly, speaking earnestly to Ji Qingyou, who at the time had nothing but pain.

/Fairytales exist in this world/

/As long as you clasp your hands together when you make a wish/

/The fairytale will descend, and your wish will come true/

She had already thought of the wishes she should make.

They were the same as every birthday wish she had made over the past ten years.

In the flickering candlelight, Ji Qingyou closed her eyes, put her hands together, and piously counted down three seconds. Before she blew out the candle, she made her third wish with a somewhat forceful tone in her heart:

You must make Yu Qinjiu happier than me from now on.

From now on, I will try very, very hard to be happy myself. But no matter how happy I am, you must make Yu Qinjiu happier than me.

Maybe, at certain times, Heaven really does grant a final glimmer of light to a person who is completely lifeless. This moment usually comes suddenly, catching one off guard.

Like now.

As Ji Qingyou was making her third wish, a shadow fell over her. Someone watched her silently, then took off their warm scarf and wrapped it around her neck, loop by loop.

Holding her in a protective embrace, they called her very, very softly.

“Ji Qingyou.”

Her fairytale had descended once more.