After Rebirth, My Ex-Girlfriend Became Obsessive - Chapter 76

The next day, as the sky darkened, An Yu deliberately changed into an outfit she knew Lin Duxi would like and rode the car full of anticipation to their agreed meeting spot.

Not being able to reach Lin Duxi for the past two days had worried her sick. Her parents had taken her to the hospital for a follow-up examination, and during those two days of being confined there, she couldn’t contact Lin Duxi at all. Her heart had been heavy the entire time.

Even at the hospital, she hadn’t forgotten her grand plan-occasionally dropping hints about Lin Duxi’s virtues. An Huaili and Yu Yingzhen didn’t seem to react much when she mentioned Lin Duxi, only giving her deep, inscrutable looks. She figured it would take more time.

Now, arriving at the place she and Lin Duxi had agreed to meet, she spotted Lin Duxi sitting by the window at a glance.

Lin Duxi’s eyes were slightly lowered, devoid of any emotion, like a beautiful puppet with only an empty shell. A sudden unease rose in An Yu’s heart.

But that flicker of dread vanished the moment Lin Duxi looked up and gave her the same gentle, tender smile as always.

An Yu smiled back. She must have been overthinking things these past few days.

Lin Duxi’s gaze followed An Yu like water, burning as she watched her take her seat.

“You’re here earlier than me. There’s still so much time before we agreed to meet.” An Yu reached out to ruffle her hair, but Lin Duxi dodged to the side. Her hand froze mid-air before awkwardly retracting.

That uneasy feeling surged back into her heart.

Sitting down, An Yu found her favorite pastries and coffee already waiting. She picked up a fork, but her hand trembled slightly.

Lin Duxi stared at her deeply, watching her every move as if trying to carve her image into her heart. Hidden under the table, her clenched hands shook violently, her nails digging in. Her lips parted slightly.

“An Yu, let’s break up.”

An Yu’s hand, holding the fork, froze mid-air. A second later, she mechanically speared her favorite piece of cake and swallowed it, her expression unchanged.

She must have misheard. There was no way Lin Duxi would say such a thing. She must have been sleep-deprived these past few days, hallucinating.

An Yu kept reassuring herself, but when she looked up, she was met with Lin Duxi’s icy gaze.

Her breath hitched.

The wounds on Lin Duxi’s pale hands had reopened, fresh blood oozing out. But it wasn’t her hands that were bleeding-it was her heart, already torn beyond repair.

Her heart felt like it was being crushed, a gaping hole ripped open. This was the only sensation Lin Duxi had been able to feel these past few days. She could vividly feel her heart slowly bleeding out, her consciousness slipping away from her body, her entire being burning up.

She knew exactly what she was doing, but her mind had already been dragged into an abyss of darkness. Though her heart was in unbearable pain, her expression remained indifferent as she repeated calmly,

“Let’s break up. We’re not suited to be together anymore. It’s a burden for both of us.”

Her voice was as gentle as ever, but each word stabbed into An Yu’s heart like needles. She stared at Lin Duxi, searching for any crack in her composure-but there was none.

The eyes that had always curved tenderly when looking at her were now devoid of emotion, cold as if gazing at a stranger.

“Why? Just a few days ago, you said you wanted to stay with me forever.” Her voice trembled, her heart suddenly hollowed out, her entire body numb. Tears fell uncontrollably.

Lin Duxi turned to look out the window. She could no longer hear An Yu clearly. Her mind was in chaos, trapped behind a hazy barrier-she couldn’t even see An Yu properly anymore. She closed her eyes, awaiting her final judgment.

But to An Yu, that movement looked like Lin Duxi avoiding her question.

Emotions churned violently inside her. All her efforts and hopes these past days reflected in Lin Duxi’s cold eyes, making her naivety seem like a cruel joke.

An Yu let out a low laugh, her heart freezing over as if dipped in ice. Her vision blurred. She wiped her tears, her burning cheeks brushing against something cool.

“Here. Take this back.” Her hands shook too much from the emotional turmoil, so she simply slapped the bracelet onto the table.

Taking one last long look at Lin Duxi, memories of their past flooded her mind-now, they only brought pain. Her emotions had already collapsed, and she was barely holding herself together to avoid complete humiliation.

“I never want to see you again.”

An Yu left, severing the last thread between them. The entwined dodder vines had finally been uprooted, leaving both wounded beyond repair.

Lin Duxi sat in the café all afternoon, motionless, staring at the bracelet on the table, its engraved purple rose glaring under the light, burning her eyes.

As closing time approached, a staff member came over to urge her.

“Miss, we’re about to close. Miss-your body is burning up!” Just standing near Lin Duxi, they could feel the scorching heat radiating off her and panicked.

“Do you need me to call an ambulance?” The staff member pulled out their phone, ready to dial.

Sensing someone nearby, Lin Duxi’s body moved faster than her mind-she snatched the bracelet and tucked it into her pocket, carefully zipping it up before standing to leave.

Me too.

In the end, An Yu agreed to go abroad with her parents. Upon hearing the news, An Huaili and Yu Yingzhen showed little reaction, as if they had already anticipated this outcome. An Yu didn’t notice their odd behavior.

After that day, she shut herself in her room for three days and nights. When her parents finally dragged her out, she was completely unresponsive. Yu Yingzhen couldn’t bear to see her like this and decided to move their departure date up by a few days. They would leave the morning after next, hoping a change of scenery might help An Yu heal.

An Yu didn’t care about their plans. She simply nodded along to whatever they said. Her heart had been hollowed out, and nothing could fill the void.

The afternoon before their departure, An Yu went out with the driver to shop for things to bring abroad. When she returned home, the house was eerily quiet.

Assuming her parents had gone out for errands, she waited patiently at home. After all, she had nothing but time now.

But by midnight, there was still no sign of them. The oppressive darkness weighed on her, and for no reason, she found it hard to breathe. A faint unease prickled at her heart.

The next morning, they were set to leave for the airport early, but her parents still hadn’t returned. Growing anxious, she called them, only to hear the unexpected ringtone echoing faintly from nearby, muffled by the walls. She opened her bedroom door and followed the sound.

It led her to her parents’ bedroom. Pushing the door open, the room was pitch black, as if something was obscuring her vision. An Yu flipped on the light.

Two pairs of feet, suspended in mid-air, appeared before her.

That same night, staff at the orphanage broke open the locked door of Lin Duxi’s room and rescued her from inside, where she lay unconscious with a high fever. Clutched tightly in her hand was a silver-white bracelet. No one noticed the old-fashioned phone in the corner, its battery dead and screen dark.

The following evening, a heavy rain fell over Jiangcheng, washing away all the filth and grime. The downpour drowned out the city’s noise, and the chirping of insects gradually faded-autumn was approaching.

“An Yu, An Yu!” Shi Yu shook An Yu’s shoulders vigorously. What was wrong with her? She had dozed off in the passenger seat out of nowhere, tears streaming down her face.

An Yu was trapped in a murky dream, as if tightly bound by threads, before suddenly jolting awake, gasping for air.

“An Yu, you’re finally up! I thought you were having a nightmare or something.” Shi Yu exhaled in relief from the driver’s seat.

“What happened?” An Yu’s mouth was parched, and her mind was flooded with forgotten memories rushing back all at once, leaving her head throbbing.

Shi Yu handed her a bottle of water. “You were crying in your sleep and mumbling something. I was afraid you’d pass out.”

An Yu twisted open the cap and gulped down the water, using the brief moment to organize her thoughts on how to answer Shi Yu.

“The director’s liquor was pretty strong, and she told me some old stories about the orphanage. Just a bad dream,” An Yu said.

Shi Yu wasn’t convinced. “Really? You didn’t look like you were having a nightmare just now. More like… the person you love ran off.”

An Yu nearly spat out her water. Shi Yu had an uncanny way of hitting the mark.

“Alright, if you say you’re fine, then you’re fine. It’s late now-go upstairs. I’ll park the car for you.” Shi Yu didn’t press further.

An Yu thanked her and stepped out of the car, her entire left side numb. Beyond her body, her mind was also foggy.

The memories she had spent years erasing and forgetting had now been forcefully etched back into her mind by this dream.

Her emotions surged inside her, and the scene of her breakup with Lin Duxi seemed to replay before her eyes. The heart-wrenching pain still lingered, and she didn’t dare dwell on it yet.

Taking the elevator up, An Yu instinctively glanced at Lin Duxi’s tightly shut door across the hall, her heart pounding. She was full of questions, things she desperately wanted to ask her.

In the end, she unlocked her own door instead. She hadn’t even sorted through these forgotten memories herself-her mind was a tangled mess.

Back then, in the midst of rage and disbelief, An Yu hadn’t thought much about it. And with the immediate blow of her parents’ deaths, she had no mental space to reflect.

By the time she could revisit those memories, her mind’s defense mechanisms had deliberately blurred the details, dulling the pain so she could keep living.

This sudden dream had stealthily returned those forgotten, worn-away details to her, like withered wood sprouting anew in spring.

Even now, as she recalled it, she still instinctively avoided the image of Lin Duxi breaking up with her. Yet, she couldn’t help but notice something suspicious in those fragments.

Lin Duxi’s attitude had shifted too abruptly. Her sudden coldness had been the knife plunged into An Yu’s heart-but it was also the clearest sign that something was wrong.

Xiaoxiao from the orphanage had said that after Lin Duxi graduated, her relatives had caused a scene there. The aftermath left the orphanage short on funds, and the old director fell ill-a devastating blow to Lin Duxi.

Was that why?

And from the words in Lin Duxi’s childhood homework, it seemed she had known An Yu’s parents.

Why hadn’t Lin Duxi told her?

An Yu’s head felt like mush. She still knew too little, with no solid ground to stand on. Her thoughts spiraled in all directions but found no foothold.

She still needed to ask Lin Duxi. An Yu lowered her gaze, her eyes shadowed with worry.

If reliving these memories was this agonizing for her, who had been reborn, dragging Lin Duxi through them again out of sheer stubbornness-wasn’t right.

Tomorrow was the evening event. Whether as a guest on  Hello, Friend  or as part of their “CP,” she and Lin Duxi would inevitably interact. But right now, An Yu had no idea how to face her.

The sealed memories had been ripped open, and An Yu had no time to process them. She could only let the chaotic recollections crash wildly through her mind, over and over.

As dawn approached, An Yu finally found a sliver of drowsiness and curled up in a corner of her bed, drifting into a fitful sleep.

But another resident on the same floor spent the night wide awake.

Lin Duxi clutched her phone, its screen long gone dark, watching as the dark sky outside gradually lightened to pale dawn. Instead of growing sleepier, she only became more alert.

She unlocked her phone to check the time. The lock screen showed two notifications.

One was a reminder from Dr. Jiang.

The other was a message from the orphanage director.

[Ms. Lin, a woman surnamed An came by today asking about the orphanage’s past. Since you two know each other, I shared some of the old stories with her.]