Chapter 11: Sweet Delusion That Can't Be Escaped 2
After that, life returned to normal. Hongze and I went to school together as usual, kept a proper distance from each other in school, and then went home together. Life was so dull that the memory of the chairman was like a careless projectionist accidentally playing the wrong part in the movie of my life. Now, the mistake has been corrected, the traces have been erased, and only exist in my memory, and my life has returned to the way it was before.
In the classroom, I looked out the window at the branches covered with a layer of white snow and said with emotion: "The snow came really early this year."
"Hey, Fu Lingmiao, why are you still in this mood!" Li Weiwei ran to my desk, slapped a newspaper on my desk, and shouted anxiously: "Something happened to the Nie family!"
"Ah?" I was startled by Li Weiwei's sudden appearance and screamed, "What's going on? I'm so scared."
"It's all in the newspaper, and you didn't know? Are you still a member of the Nie family?" Li Weiwei opened the newspaper and handed the front-page headline to me.
I turned my face away to prevent her from pressing the newspaper against my face. When I took the newspaper and looked at it, a black and white photo came into view. It was the chairman. My eyelids jumped and I nervously tried to spread out the newspaper, but my hands were shaking so much that I failed several times.
Li Weiwei grabbed the newspaper and unfolded it in front of me. The headline "Mr. Nie Rongyu, Chairman of Nie Group, unfortunately passed away last night. Nie Rongyu's eldest son Nie Xinyuan announced that he would take over the position of chairman" appeared in front of me.
I swallowed and read the words one by one. I looked up at Li Weiwei in confusion and said, "Dead?"
"Lingmiao, don't cry. The newspaper said that he died of overwork and high blood pressure that led to a ruptured blood vessel in his brain. Please accept my condolences."
Li Weiwei explained in a panic and wiped my tears with her hands.
I raised my hand and touched my face. My hands were wet and I realized that I had been crying.
"Lingmiao, Lingmiao, look at me!" Zhou Mian came over, hugged my head, and looked straight into my eyes. "Chairman Nie is old. He has always had high blood pressure and has been suffering from illness. This is an accident."
"Is it an accident?" I stared at Zhou Mian blankly and murmured, "When I saw him that day, I felt that he had aged and become very strange. However, I never thought about him. I never thought that he would actually ..."
"Fu Lingmiao," Hongze also came to me, holding one of my hands and covering my eyes with the other hand, "Go to sleep."
Hongze's words made my originally confused mind become dizzy. The darkness in front of my eyes did not make me nervous. The warmth from my palm made me feel at ease, and the world became quiet.
"Hmm..." I groaned, slowly opened my eyes, and found myself lying on a bed in the infirmary. Hongze held my hand and fell asleep on the side of the bed.
I moved carefully, and Hongze woke up instantly. He raised his head and looked at me nervously.
I looked at him and said blankly: "Am I dizzy?"
Hongze answered me in a low voice: "No, you were too tired and you fell asleep."
"Really?" I looked at Hongze for a while, and felt my eyes a little sore, so I turned my head away and stopped looking at him.
Hongze held my hand tightly and whispered, "Lingmiao, listen to me, it's not your fault. He brought this upon himself."
Hongze's words did not make me feel any more at ease. I closed my eyes helplessly, wishing I could fall asleep forever and never wake up again: "Why isn't it my fault? When I saw him that day, he was fine."
"Fu Lingmiao!" Hongze was a little annoyed. He raised his voice, pinched my chin, and turned my face towards him. "When you saw him that day, did he really look fine? Who are you kidding? You don't have to put other people's mistakes on yourself."
"Nie Rongyu brought this upon himself! He was too greedy, wanting to possess something he shouldn't have. His death has nothing to do with me! And you, shouldn't blame yourself!" Hongze's voice was not loud, but every word he said went straight to my heart. "I don't know where he heard such words from, but he was so smart. He said he would use my reverse scales as a medium, but in fact he used the scales as a guide, and forcefully injected my cultivation into my scales. Then he probably ground my scales into powder, mixed them with some random stuff, and let him eat them. Putting aside other things, how could his mortal body possibly bear it?"
" Reverse scales? Why do you think that person wanted reverse scales? There is evil spirit hidden in the reverse scales. I think that is the best nutrition for the people who give him advice." Hongze's hand pinching my chin increased the strength little by little until I pursed my lips and opened my eyes. "I am not the one who hurt him. If I gave him reverse scales, you would see him die on the spot, and it would definitely be a hundred times uglier than it is now. I secretly replaced the scales, but let him live for another half a month."
I looked at Hongze's serious expression and suddenly felt that he was a little strange: "You knew he would die, and you didn't stop him."
"Misfortunes sent by heaven can be forgiven, but those brought upon oneself cannot be forgiven." Hongze released the hand that was pinching my chin and looked at me without blinking.
I was a little confused, looking at Hongze, and said lightly: "It was he who took a liking to me at first sight and selected me into Nie's elite training program."
Hongze nodded and sat up straight: "You should thank him."
I nodded as well: "Well, I am very grateful to him. But he died yesterday."
Hongze had no expression on his face and said in a flat tone, "What a pity."
"it's a pity."
After I finished speaking, Hongze did not respond. The infirmary fell into silence.
I was silent for a long time, looking at the white ceiling. Because the building was old, the ceiling was a little mottled, with dark water marks in some places, and some places were even peeling and cracking.
I stared at a dusty spider web in the corner of the wall. There must have been a hard-working spider there. It used to hunt there, maybe lay eggs there, or maybe not. Now it disappeared, leaving only a dusty spider web, and no one even noticed that it had been there.
I exhaled a breath of foul air and said with some emotion: "He died because of greed and trying to get something that didn't belong to him. I feel sad for his misfortune."
"Well. Are you feeling better? You've slept all day. Are you going to the last class?" As he said that, Hongze got up, poured me a cup of hot water and handed it to me.
I sat up, took the cup, drank it in one gulp, put the cup on the bedside table with a "thump", and said loudly: "Go!"
Hongze looked at me and smiled with satisfaction: "Very good, put on your shoes."
I nodded, sat on the bed and leaned over to put on my shoes. The Soul Binding Cage slid out of my clothes. I suddenly remembered what Hongze said and asked, "You have been practicing for thousands of years, why can't you escape from the Soul Binding Cage?"
"Ahem..." Hongze, who was standing, suddenly coughed violently. He poured himself a glass of water and drank it slowly. "Are you saying I'm weak?"
"No, I just think..." I hesitated and changed my words, "It doesn't make sense."
Hongze turned his head and stared at the ground, and said unnaturally: "Well, it's just... It's actually very simple. There was a little accident."
"A small accident?" I was just asking casually, but because of Hongze's reaction, I felt strange and couldn't help but continue asking .
"It's just... well, a small accident." Hongze hesitated for a long time, and suddenly raised his voice, "It takes you so long to put on a pair of shoes. Are you disabled?"
"Ah? I'm done." Facing Hongze's sudden accusation, I looked down at the shoes on my feet and smiled, "You are really bad at changing the subject."
"Stop talking nonsense. Just get dressed and go." Hongze seemed not to hear the second half of my sentence. He muttered something and walked straight out of the infirmary.
I raised my eyebrows, stood still, and said loudly: "Go away, I won't leave!"
Sure enough, Hongze turned around, stopped and looked at me: "What do you mean?"
"I'm just wondering, I don't know since when, you seem to not care about the restrictions of the Soul Binding Cage at all." I tentatively expressed my guess and carefully observed Hongze's reaction.
"Because I found that you will definitely catch up with me."
Hongze shrugged and said it as a matter of course. After that, he continued to walk out, walking faster than before I called him.
"Damn it! Are you sure I will catch up with you?" I stamped my feet, unhappy that he had predicted it, and said stubbornly, "What if I don't chase you?"
"Then I'll stop." Hongze glanced at me sideways, and the smile on his face became obvious, "But you caught up with me."
Hongze's laughter infected me, and I laughed too: "I won't chase you next time!"
Hongze winked at me, as if to say, "You won't." I smiled and glared at him, then quickly passed him, ran forward quickly, and looked back at him triumphantly.
