Chapter 23

Seeing that someone was coming not far away, Yin Lingzhu grabbed Yan Si’s wrist and pulled her into the dance practice room.

“Yan Si, what exactly are you trying to do?” Yin Lingzhu glared at her, lowered her voice, and shouted in anger.

When Yan Si saw her like this, she frowned in confusion.

“I just want to be with you.” She spoke with a hint of grievance.

Yin Lingzhu heard that grievance, but after what had happened last time, she believed Yan Si was still acting, just like before.

“Yan Si, stop playing with me.” Yin Lingzhu let go. She saw the red mark on Yan Si’s wrist, caused by the fact that she had used too much force just now.

Yin Lingzhu looked at her own hand. Her reddened fingertips were especially noticeable. “Yan Si, do you know what love is?”

“Love is wanting to give every good thing to the other person. Love Read on BaiLianTalesis freedom. Love is the symbol of everything beautiful.”

Yan Si spoke those words fluently, as if she had practiced them thousands upon thousands of times in her heart.

After saying the last word, she stared at Yin Lingzhu with burning eyes, like a child who had given the correct answer and was waiting to be praised.

“But your love has never made me feel comfortable.”

“Yan Si, you’ve been clinging to me these days. You think you love me, but this is only your possessiveness.”

“I once waited for you to come back through countless days and nights, but you didn’t. Yan Si! You didn’t appear then!”

Yin Lingzhu roared, releasing all the emotions she had carried over this past year at this moment.

“Now you’re clinging to me like this. What do you want? Do you hope I’ll change my mind and throw myself into your arms?”

“Yan Si, to me, your love is like an expired drink!”

If Yin Lingzhu from a year ago had still been longing for a romantic, thrilling love affair with Yan Si, then the current Yin Lingzhu only hoped that her life could be like a cup of plain water.

Yin Lingzhu’s eyes were red at the corners. She looked at the person in front of her, her hands trembling nonstop, her voice shaking too.

“Yan Si, I’m begging you. Let me live properly, okay?”

“You cheated. I pretended I didn’t see it. Even when you wanted my life, I gave it to you then.”

“I was the lowly one. Now I only want a little respect. Can I have that? Just a little is enough.”

Yin Lingzhu raised her hand, wanting to use her index finger and thumb to show a tiny distance, but her hand trembled so badly that she could not even make that gesture.

Yan Si suddenly felt a stabbing pain in her heart, as if it were being gripped by countless hands, and also as if tiny needles were piercing it.

“Don’t… don’t be like this.” Only after a long while did Yan Si speak with difficulty.

“In the future, I won’t cling to you anymore.” Saying this seemed to use up all of Yan Si’s strength.

Her shoulders, which had once been straight and upright like pine and cypress, drooped now, like a deflated balloon.

Her entire person lost all spirit.

“Really?” Yin Lingzhu leaned against the wall, using the wall’s support to keep herself standing as she looked uncertainly at the woman before her.

Yan Si forced out a smile and nodded. “Really.”

“You’re free.”

Yan Si quickly walked out of the dance practice room.

Yin Lingzhu looked at her back. The long black dress on her body showed off her perfect figure.

But Yin Lingzhu only looked once before withdrawing her gaze.

In the end, Yin Lingzhu and Yan Si were not people from the same world.

Yan Si carried countless halos on her body. She was worth over a hundred million, the youngest Best Actress, and the president of a listed company.

As for Yin Lingzhu, she was only an ordinary person trying to make a living.

A year ago, she had vowed with absolute confidence that she would become the little Alpha behind Yan Si.

Now, remembering those words again, she laughed mockingly.

This past year had been nothing more than her own foolish fantasy.

A wanderer had accidentally picked up a jewel, but the jewel did not belong to that wanderer. One day, someone would take the jewel from the wanderer’s hand.

Yin Lingzhu thought absently that perhaps this would be the last time she ever saw Yan Si.

She wiped away the tears she had shed without realizing when, then walked out of the dance practice room.

Only after she had walked far away did Yan Si appear behind her.

Even the exquisite makeup on Yan Si’s face could not hide her deathly pale complexion.

With trembling hands, she took out her phone, yet she did not know what she wanted to do.

She only knew that at this moment, her heart hurt. It hurt so much.

It even hurt until she felt numb.

For the first time, she felt regret.

Yan Si opened the chat between herself and Yin Lingzhu. The screen was full of green bubbles, without a single white one.

Of all the messages she had sent to Yin Lingzhu, Yin Lingzhu had not replied to a single one.

So messages were not notices that only needed to be sent out. Messages needed replies.

Yan Si scrolled up through the chat. Gradually, there were fewer green messages, and white messages occupied the entire screen.

When she scrolled to the first message Yin Lingzhu had sent, her heart suddenly ached with bitterness, and tears spilled from her eyes beyond her control.

One drop, two drops—tears fell onto the screen one after another, slowly blurring the words that had originally been clear and visible.

How much happiness and disappointment had been mixed into those replies that never came?

If time could go back, she would not want any of those so-called tests.

Only now did Yan Si understand just how terribly wrong she had been.

Those ridiculous tests of hers had been recklessly squandering and wearing away Yin Lingzhu’s love.

She covered her eyes, but tears still kept escaping through the gaps between her fingers.

The tears kept increasing, lessening the friction between Yan Si’s hand and the phone, and the phone fell heavily to the ground.

Yan Si looked at the cracks across the screen and felt that the relationship between her and Yin Lingzhu was just like the cracks on the phone screen.

Her hand pressed the power button.

Once, no response.

Twice, still no response.

Panic rose in Yan Si’s heart. Anxiously, she kept pressing the power button again and again.

The phone screen remained black the whole time, without the slightest sign of lighting up.

In a panic, she found the nearest phone repair shop.

“Hello, can this phone still be repaired?” Yan Si handed over her phone.

The phone shop owner put down the work in his hands and accepted Yan Si’s phone. After opening it up and taking a look, the owner frowned.

“This was damaged too badly from the fall. It can’t be repaired. You can only replace it.”

The words “you can only replace it” seemed to linger endlessly by Yan Si’s ears.