Chapter 35

Mu Cheng stood up and looked back at her. “You’ve misunderstood. I didn’t come here to laugh at you. I don’t mean that…”

Liu Sihui cut her off, gritting her teeth with resentment. “Then what do you mean? You came all the way here specially to show concern for me? Didn’t you just come to see how miserable I am? Is my misery to your satisfaction? Or do you think it still isn’t enough? Do you think I should be even more miserable?”

Mu Cheng tried to explain. “I only knew you were expelled from school. Everything that happened afterward, including the changes in your family, I didn’t know any of it. I’m very sorry for what you’ve gone through. I didn’t come here with any other malicious intentions.”

Liu Sihui laughed twice under her breath. “Zhong Yingzhi stood up for you and made my family’s company go bankrupt, causing my mother to have no money for medical fees and be forced to stop treatment, leaving her to wait for death alive. She caused my father to be hit by a car while hiding from debt collectors and die. She destroyed my entire family. That ‘I didn’t know any of it’ of yours is truly as laughable as it gets.”

Mu Cheng froze, surprise appearing in her eyes.

She had originally thought Zhong Yingzhi had only helped with Liu Sihui’s expulsion. Could it be that everything afterward—the collapse of the Liu family company and the deaths of Liu Sihui’s parents—was also related to Zhong Yingzhi?

Liu Sihui walked over, bent down, and carried the little girl into the house. “Go inside first. Stay properly in the room and don’t come out. Also, didn’t I tell you before? Don’t open the door when a stranger knocks. Why did you open it again?”

The little girl blinked her round eyes. “Sister, is she your friend?”

Liu Sihui did not answer. She rubbed the girl’s head. “Be good. Go in.”

The little girl glanced at Mu Cheng, hesitated for a moment, then obediently nodded and turned to run back into the room.

After settling the little girl, Liu Sihui turned back and looked at Mu Cheng. “I’ve always wanted to ask you two something. Did the things I did really deserve such huge consequences?”

Liu Sihui stepped forward, constantly closing in. “What kind of monstrous evil did I commit? Did I commit murder and arson? ​unauthorized copy​Did I kill your whole family? All I fucking did was kick you a few times.

“Yes, I gathered people around me and bullied others by relying on power. Yes, I acted like a tyrant, bullied the weak, and feared the strong. Whoever I caught, I bullied. I was wrong. I admit that. But those mistakes of mine, those tiny little mistakes of mine, did they need to be repaid with my parents’ lives? Did they need to reach the point where my whole family was destroyed?”

Question after question came at her, and Mu Cheng did not know how to answer for a moment.

Although Liu Sihui’s suffering had not been directly caused by Mu Cheng, it was absolutely indirectly related to her.

Mu Cheng said, “I’m sorry, I…”

Liu Sihui grabbed Mu Cheng by the collar. “Fuck your sorry. You think one apology will settle this? Can your apology bring my parents back to life? If you can bring them back, then I’ll forgive you.”

A light and weightless apology naturally could not solve anything. Mu Cheng knew this very well too. But in this situation, aside from apologizing, what else could she do?

The answer was nothing.

The corner of Liu Sihui’s eye twitched. Enduring it, she loosened her grip on Mu Cheng’s collar and shoved her hard to the ground. “When my dad and I knelt downstairs at the dormitory building to beg Zhong Yingzhi, I made up my mind.”

Mu Cheng fell into the muddy ground, her clothes and pants stained with black mud, cutting a very sorry figure.

“I told you all that one day, I’d return it to you. I’d return all these things to you. Even if I have no strength to fight back right now, who knows about the future? The future me will return all of this to you little by little, so that you can also have a taste of what it feels like for your family to be ruined because of a tiny mistake.” Liu Sihui looked down at her. “Remember to pass those words on to Zhong Yingzhi for me.”

All hatred did not come without reason. Everything that arrived had its cause.

After saying that, Liu Sihui turned to go back inside. Mu Cheng climbed unauthorized copy up from the mud and grabbed her arm. “What do I have to do for you to let me go?”

“Let you go?” Liu Sihui seemed to have heard a joke. “You clearly have all the advantage right now. I’m stepped under your feet and can’t move at all, yet in this situation, you’re putting on a humble appearance and begging me to let you go. Don’t you think that’s hilarious? Are you mocking me?”

Mu Cheng shook her head. “I’m not mocking you. I didn’t know Zhong Yingzhi would take things so far. I do bear an undeniable responsibility for your parents’ deaths. I’m very sorry. I apologize to you. I know an apology can’t solve the problem, but I’m also innocent. I didn’t do anything. I didn’t know anything.”

“You are not innocent,” Liu Sihui sneered. “Everything started because of you. You don’t have the right to talk about innocence.”

Liu Sihui was unwilling to say more. She walked into the house and shut the door with a bang. The window above the door creaked and shook twice, looking as though it might fall at any moment.

Why had things become this terrible? Clearly, at the start, it had only been a small matter. Why had it developed to this point?

Mu Cheng stood outside the door, both hands clenched into fists, sinking into endless panic and unease.

The miserable scenes from nine years later were vivid before her eyes. Mu Cheng did not know exactly what she had experienced, but those experiences had been able to force someone into suicide. No matter what they were, just thinking about it made a chill run down one’s spine.

All of this forced Mu Cheng to humble herself and beg to be let go. No matter what method she used, as long as Liu Sihui could let her go, even kneeling would not matter.

But would kneeling really be useful? No matter how sincere her pleas were, they could not erase Liu Sihui’s hatred from losing her parents. As long as her hatred existed for one day, the events nine years later would definitely repeat themselves.

In the end, perhaps it was still too late. She had wasted so many chances to transmigrate. If she had figured out from the very first transmigration that it was because of Liu Sihui, then everything could have been stopped.

She could have stopped Zhong Yingzhi from attacking Liu Sihui’s family company. Or, in the cafeteria, she could have deliberately avoided Liu Sihui and prevented those conflicts from happening.

Unfortunately, there were no ifs. She had missed the best opportunity to cut things off, so now she had no choice but to face this difficult situation.

The next day, Mu Cheng arrived at Liu Sihui’s door holding a brown bear plushie.

Liu Sihui was not home. She had gone out early in the morning. She worked several jobs at once: delivering milk in the morning, delivering takeout at noon, and washing dishes at a restaurant at night. She used all her time to earn money.

The little girl poked her head out from the window to look. “You should go. Sister told me I’m not allowed to open the door for anyone other than her.”

Mu Cheng lifted the brown bear plushie in her hand. “I bought you a plushie. Do you want it?”

The little girl looked hesitant. She stared at the plushie in Mu Cheng’s hand, wanting it, yet also not wanting to go against Liu Sihui’s instructions.

Mu Cheng did not make things difficult for her and directly placed the plushie on the windowsill. “You don’t need to open the door. Just take it in from here.”

The little girl grinned. She took the plushie through the window, hugged it, rolled onto the bed, and happily talked to the brown bear plushie.

Mu Cheng leaned against the windowsill, looked at the joyful little girl inside, smiled, and asked, “What’s your name?”

The little girl looked at her and replied, “My name is Liu Yulin.”

“Yulin. Rainforest. Very poetic. It’s a beautiful name,” Mu Cheng praised.

Liu Yulin smiled until her little canine teeth showed. “Dad gave me this name, so of course it sounds nice…”

When she mentioned Dad, the smile on Liu Yulin’s face immediately vanished. She said gloomily, “But Dad ​bailiantales.com​is gone. Mom is gone too. Sister said they’ll never come back again.”

Seeing her like this, Mu Cheng did not know how to comfort her. She turned her back, leaned against the windowsill, looked up at the sky, and sighed.

Liu Yulin tilted her head and hesitated. Then she made a decision, hugged the plushie, and jumped down from the bed.

She opened the door and poked out a little head. “Sister said I’m not allowed to open the door for bad people, but I don’t think you’re a bad person, so I can open it.”

Mu Cheng asked, “How do you know I’m not a bad person?”

Liu Yulin shook the plushie in her hands. “You gave me a plushie. Someone who gives me a pretty plushie must be a good person.”

Mu Cheng crouched down and tapped the tip of her nose. “Your sister is right. You can’t randomly open the door for other people. Even if that person gives you a plushie, you still can’t.”

Confusion appeared in Liu Yulin’s eyes. She tilted her head. “Then are you a bad person?”

Mu Cheng smiled and shook her head. “No.”

Liu Yulin happily jumped twice in place. “I knew you weren’t a bad person. Sister, you look so cute. Of course you can’t possibly be a bad person.”

Being praised as cute by a very cute child left Mu Cheng not knowing whether to laugh or cry.

Mu Cheng asked her, “Aside from plushies, what else do you like? I’ll buy it for you next time.”

Liu Yulin blinked and thought for a moment. “Then can you bring me a hamburger? I haven’t eaten one in so long.”

Mu Cheng nodded. “Of course. I’ll bring you two.”

Liu Yulin was so excited that she waved her hands and feet, giving Mu Cheng a big hug. “You’re such a nice person.”

Liu Sihui, who had gone to work, left and then returned. As soon as she came back, she saw the older and younger figures playing on the steps outside the house.

Liu Yulin seemed to like Mu Cheng very much. No one knew what Mu Cheng had said, but she could always make Liu Yulin laugh so hard she doubled over.

Ever since their parents passed away, Liu Yulin had often hidden in the room alone without speaking. Her cheerful personality had become gloomy, and Liu Sihui had not seen her so openly happy for a very long time.

With a cold face, Liu Sihui walked over and pulled Liu Yulin up from the ground. “What is that in your hands?”

Liu Yulin replied, “A plushie. It’s really pretty, right?”

Liu Sihui snatched the plushie and threw it into the muddy ground in front of them.

Liu Yulin looked at the plushie and wanted to pick it up, but Liu Sihui held her back so she could not move. Her mouth curved downward, clearly looking as if she was about to cry.

Mu Cheng wanted to step forward and comfort her, but Liu Sihui shoved her away. “I warned you yesterday. The fact that I endured and didn’t hit you was already my greatest mercy. What are you still doing here? You’re even pretending and bringing this kind of thing used to dismiss beggars. Killing my parents wasn’t enough for you? Now you even want to harm my sister?”

Liu Yulin tugged at Liu Sihui’s arm. “Sister, she isn’t a bad person.”

“She is a bad person.” Liu Sihui enunciated each word. “I’m telling you, she is the person who killed your parents. The reason your dad can never come back is all thanks to her. She is the enemy who killed your father.”

Liu Sihui tried to push all the blame onto Mu Cheng, or perhaps Zhong Yingzhi. Maybe only this way could her heart feel a little more comfortable.