Chapter 44

It wasn’t until Hua Luoyue finally moved from the Yu residence to a place near the hospital that Yu Zhezhi learned her father had spoken to the girl about her mother.

Yu Zhezhi had just extricated herself from company affairs. Seeing that her father hadn’t bombarded her with messages, she assumed everything was normal—until she went to the hospital to visit Hua Luoyue.

Hua Luoyue couldn’t be certain of Father Yu’s intent or if there was a hidden implication. She wasn’t truly dating Yu Zhezhi; Yu Zhezhi was the boss paying her salary. Therefore, when she saw Yu Zhezhi again, she decided to mention it.

They stood in the ward. Aside from the unconscious Mother Hua, there was no one else. Hua Luoyue was simply informing her, not gossiping about Yu Zhezhi’s past; she merely recounted the facts without offering further opinions.

Yu Zhezhi was surprised at first, but then she sensed a different meaning behind the words.

“Are you pitying me?” Yu Zhezhi asked.

“What?” Hua Luoyue was stunned.

Yu Zhezhi didn’t look furious, but she certainly wasn’t pleased. She furrowed her brows, and her question sounded like an interrogation. Hua Luoyue sensed her displeasure but was momentarily dazed herself.

Had she unintentionally shown pity toward Yu Zhezhi?

The denial that should have come without hesitation got stuck in her throat. Hua Luoyue lowered her head and did not respond.

Yu Zhezhi didn’t harp on it. She didn’t want to argue with Hua Luoyue over this. Her father had likely volunteered the information, and even if she were fuming, she couldn’t take it out on Hua Luoyue. read the original at bailiantales.comTo others, it might seem like a trivial matter, and making a scene would only make her look unreasonable.

Moreover, a reaction would only prove how much those past events actually bothered her.

Yu Zhezhi averted her gaze to the person on the hospital bed, thinking to herself: What right does she have to pity me?

Just as Yu Zhezhi turned to check the time, Hua Luoyue spoke up beside her: “Actually, I don’t like her either.”

At first, Yu Zhezhi didn’t realize who the “her” referred to. She instinctively frowned, wanting to say, I don’t need your sympathy. But when she looked at Hua Luoyue, she saw the girl staring toward the hospital bed.

Yu Zhezhi felt a jolt. She quickly realized Hua Luoyue was referring to her own mother.

“My… father has been an irresponsible person since I was little. When the family situation was better and his gambling addiction wasn’t as severe, it was a bit better; he didn’t get physical much. But my mother was neglected and abused. She couldn’t fight back, yet she refused to divorce. She said it was for me—that all her misfortune stemmed from me…”

Hua Luoyue’s tone was calm. Mentioning the past didn’t bring anger or pain, but rather a sense of detached compassion, as if she were talking about someone else.

These were all the things the original host had experienced.

“She would lock me out of the house on winter nights just because I couldn’t memorize a single vocabulary word. I don’t like putting the word ‘love’ on my lips, yet she could hold a knife in front of me and threaten suicide. When I messed up a mock exam and my ranking slipped fifty places below a cousin from the same school, she scolded me until I was worthless, asking why I didn’t just go die…”

Hua Luoyue reached out and touched the back of her neck, tracing up to her cheek. She gave a slightly ironic smile, her voice still airy: “It wasn’t until she entered the hospital that she finally stopped hitting me.”

Sometimes it was because the original host had made a mistake, but more often, it was simply Mother Hua’s way of venting. Even the fact that the girl carried her gambling father’s [read the original at bailiantales.com]blood became a reason for Mother Hua to suddenly strike her daughter.

During the worst periods, the original host would tremble with fear just seeing her mother approach. Then, Mother Hua would sometimes “wake up,” crying as she held her trembling daughter, repeatedly saying “I’m sorry.” She would take time out of her busy work to personally send her daughter to school, kissing her forehead before she entered the gate and saying, “Mama loves you,” “Mama can’t live without you”…

It was almost a posture of atonement.

However, no matter how many times she promised “it won’t happen again,” she would revert to her old ways soon enough. Often, there wasn’t even an “atonement,” because she couldn’t bring herself to apologize to her daughter, or she simply insisted she wasn’t wrong. It was the original host who was forced by various means to admit fault.

It was a constant cycle.

The original host’s initial university choices were schools in City A and City K—completely different directions, but with the commonality of being very far from home. But the silent plan for escape ended abruptly with the family tragedy. Before the final choices were submitted, Mother Hua was in a car accident, followed immediately by her illness.

Hua Luoyue didn’t know what kind of internal conflict or struggle the original host went through; she didn’t have that memory. But the result was that she chose to stay and did everything possible to treat her mother.

Yu Zhezhi listened quietly to her story. She had heard rumors of the complicated relationship between the Hua mother and daughter during the investigation phase, and back then, she had wondered why Hua Luoyue still sought to save her mother without any apparent grudge.

Until this moment, after hearing the first-hand account, she realized the truth was far more cruel than she had known. Mother Hua was someone who valued face, naturally choosing to gloss over things for the outside world. And Hua Luoyue? She had no one to talk to.

But Hua Luoyue didn’t seem to care much. Or perhaps she was just skilled at endurance.

Yu Zhezhi turned her head and saw Hua Luoyue offer her a small smile before calmly uttering those words: “A long, long time ago, I started hating her. To this day, I still hate her.”

“Since you hate her, why save her?” Yu Zhezhi asked.

“I don’t know…” Hua Luoyue shook her head. She saw the look of disbelief on Yu Zhezhi’s face, which almost seemed to say, Are you out of your mind?

Hua Luoyue wanted to laugh, yet felt a trace of desolation. The original host truly didn’t know why she tried so desperately to keep her mother. She hadn’t even thought about the question, never seriously considering if it was worth it. Some things are simply instinctual, a reflection of the subconscious.

“Maybe because, besides Mama, I have nothing else,” Hua Luoyue said slowly. “If I had a choice, I wouldn’t want to be born into such a family, to have such parents…”

But she was unfortunately born into this family, with no chance to start over and no power to change it. At eighteen or nineteen, she was a girl with no money, no house, no one to rely on for help, no ability to remain calm in the face of chaos, and no clear future. Her father brought only pressure, violence, insults, endless debt collectors, and the pointing fingers of relatives and neighbors.

So, only her mother remained—the only family member who had, in a practical sense, accompanied her as she grew up. If her mother was gone, she would have no home at all.

After saying this, Hua Luoyue was silent for a long time before speaking again: “Are you disappointed, President Yu?”

Yu Zhezhi asked, “Why should I be disappointed?”

Hua Luoyue said, “I’m not trying so hard to save her out of ‘filial piety,’ but out of pure selfishness. It doesn’t matter who is lying in that bed; as long as she is my mother, I care less about her recovery and more about not being the one left behind alone. I don’t want people mocking me for being parentless and homeless. I don’t want my life to be different from others, to have something incomplete…”

Yu Zhezhi said, “What difference does that make?”

Hua Luoyue stopped and looked up at her. Yu Zhezhi met her gaze and gave a mock-clapping gesture: “Do you want to hear me express my pity for you?”

Hua Luoyue smiled and shook her head. “No. Thank you for listening to me, President Yu. It feels a bit unauthorized copylighter now that I’ve said it.”

Yu Zhezhi didn’t appear particularly enthusiastic. She gave a non-committal glance and stood up. “Suit yourself. Anyway, the rest is up to the doctors and her own luck. It’s in the hands of fate.”

She had other things to do. Finding a bit of free time to go through the motions was already her limit. Hua Luoyue walked her to the door.

Yu Zhezhi paused, a momentary impulse making her want to say something. But seeing Hua Luoyue’s gentle smile, she couldn’t say it. She felt that Hua Luoyue had exchanged those secrets because she didn’t want Yu Zhezhi to feel embarrassed about her own secret of being abandoned by her mother being revealed.

Compared to what Hua Luoyue had gone through, Yu Zhezhi suddenly felt that the things she held a grudge over weren’t so significant after all. But facing the calm Hua Luoyue, Yu Zhezhi couldn’t bring herself to say those words.

In the end, she simply closed her mouth, said she’d visit again when she had time, and turned away.

At the corner of the corridor, Yu Zhezhi instinctively looked back. Hua Luoyue was still standing at the door watching her leave. Seeing her turn around, she curved her lips into another smile. She always seemed to be the one standing behind, watching others leave.

Yu Zhezhi involuntarily recalled their limited interactions. She hadn’t consciously tried to remember these things, but in the images she did have, Hua Luoyue was never the first one to turn away.

The corner of the wall soon blocked her view. Yu Zhezhi could no longer see Hua Luoyue, but she couldn’t help but wonder: How long will she keep standing there?

But Yu Zhezhi did not turn back to look.

Yu Zhezhi went home as planned and had an argument with her father.

Calling it an argument might be a bit much, but Yu Zhezhi had indeed returned in a fury. No matter how tragic Hua Luoyue’s life was, it wasn’t a reason for Father Yu to casually discuss Yu Zhezhi’s privacy. Moreover, Father Yu surely didn’t know about Hua Luoyue’s past. He knew perfectly well how much Yu Zhezhi avoided those old stories.

“There are so many things to talk about, why did you have to mention those specific things?” Yu Zhezhi found it hard to understand. Having thought about it the whole way, the only link was the status of “mother.” “You weren’t trying to use that as small talk to give Hua Luoyue some kind of ‘psychological comfort,’ were you?”

Father Yu was silent for a moment, either cowed by Yu Zhezhi’s aura or feeling genuinely guilty.

“My situation is completely different from hers.” Yu Zhezhi ran her hand through her hair in frustration and began pacing the living room. “I don’t care how much affection or nostalgia you have for her, but at least in front of me—can’t you just let me forget those things?”

Father Yu opened his mouth: “I thought you…”

Yu Zhezhi suddenly shouted at him: “I don’t need her anymore!”

A dead silence filled the living room. Yu Zhezhi hadn’t lost her composure like this in years. After shouting, seeing Father Yu’s guilty and dazed face, she immediately calmed down. She sat down on the sofa somewhat dejectedly, a look of exhaustion on her face.

“I stopped needing her a long time ago,” Yu Zhezhi murmured, covering her face and repeating herself.

“I’m sorry…” Father Yu took a long time to say. “I thought Little Hua…”

“That’s not the same thing.” Yu Zhezhi rubbed her temples harshly. As her brain cooled down, she was no longer a hair-trigger. She finally remembered what her relationship with Hua Luoyue looked like in her father’s eyes.

A close couple. Even for comfort, it wouldn’t be done through a “misery competition.”

Yu Zhezhi paused for a long time before asking as calmly [unauthorized copy]as possible: “Did you want her to act as a lobbyist?”

If it were a lover’s persuasion, combined with the fact that Hua Luoyue’s mother was critically ill—nearly a matter of life and death—perhaps Yu Zhezhi would be touched, and her resistance and hatred toward her mother would soften.

Father Yu’s expression was awkward, but he didn’t say “yes” or “no.”

“I thought…” Father Yu’s voice grew softer and more hesitant. “I thought you always remembered her, remembered that time…”

Yu Zhezhi was certain she heard something. Her expression went blank. “What?”

“Little Hua…” Father Yu said it more clearly this time. “Otherwise, why would you fall for Little Hua? She looks so much like Little Shen…”