Chapter 115: Eight Years
I looked at Qiu Jieqin, whose face was filled with joy, and said, "It doesn't matter whether she loves me or not. What's important is that I can't lie to you anymore. Jieqin, I can't date you while liking another woman in my heart. This is too unfair to you. How can I have the face to be with you if I can't give you happiness?"
Qiu Jieqin blinked and said, "Why is it not important? It is extremely important! Let me ask you, according to what you said, you will only give happiness to the woman you love. If you can't give it to her, you would rather not be with her, right?"
"Of course! Don't you want happiness? Don't you want your man to love you?"
"Of course I hope so! But now it seems impossible to get it, I have to settle for the next best thing and just hope that my man will not abandon me!"
"Why? What's the point of being with a man who doesn't love you?"
"Tang Qian! Don't you understand? Because I love you! I can't live without you! I know you have never loved me, so I tried every way to keep you. Don't you see that I have been so proactive and shamelessly seducing you, just to make you leave me. I am willing to do anything for you. If you can get true love and find a woman you love and she loves you, then I have nothing to say. Who told you that I am not charming enough? But the problem now is that the woman you like doesn't like you, and you can't be with her. Are you going to live alone for the rest of your life just for this? You are not only hurting me, but also yourself!"
I was stunned for a moment before I thought of this question. Yes! If I can't forget Xu Shu and can't get her, will I be single all my life?
I thought about it and said, "Time will dilute all feelings. Maybe many years later, I will slowly forget her and fall in love with someone else again, but I don't know when that will be. So I can't miss you. You are not young anymore. You should hurry up and find your own happiness instead of wasting time on me."
"You! Are my happiness! I have wasted a lot of time, and I don't care about wasting more. Tang Qian, do you know how I have been through these eight years? After you left me, I gave up on myself for a while. I even thought about having sex with all the men in the world to avenge the harm you did to me. But even though I kept having boyfriends and lived a life of luxury every day, I never stopped missing you in my heart. I have suffered so much in the past eight years! I don't want to live this kind of hard life anymore. Even if you don't love me anymore, I still want to be with you. Being by your side is my greatest happiness!"
I was so moved that I couldn't help but reach out and touch her cheek again, sighing, "Jie Qin, you are so... stupid! What's so good about me that you love me so much?"
Qiu Jieqin tilted her head slightly, accepting my caress, and said, "I am like this. I seem to be romantic and passionate, but in my life, the only person I have truly loved is you."
I suddenly thought of a question, so I asked, "Then...why didn't you ever look for me in the past eight years? It was only after I found you that you thought of being with me?"
Qiu Jieqin smiled faintly and said, "I knew you were going to ask me this question. It has been on your mind for a long time, right?"
I didn't answer, I just looked at her. There were many things about Qiu Jieqin that I couldn't understand, such as why she never talked to me if she loved me so much? What had she been doing for the past eight years? How many boyfriends had she had? I needed her to explain it clearly.
Qiu Jieqin was silent for a while, then said, "Do you remember a few days ago, I had something to say to you? I noticed that you seemed to be disgusted by my flirtatiousness, so I wanted to confess to you what I have done in the past few years. I don't ask you to forgive me, I just want you to understand my feelings."
My heart tightened, and I realized that what Qiu Jieqin was going to say next would have a significant impact on my view of her. I sat up straight, ready to listen.
Qiu Jieqin sighed first, then said, "Yes! I have had many boyfriends, so many that I can't count them myself. During my most painful days, I changed to a new boyfriend almost every three or four days. Because I hated you at that time! I hated your ruthlessness and righteousness, and I hated all men in the world. I seduced them and then abandoned them immediately. Seeing their pain when they lost me, I would have an indescribable pleasure. But every night, I would hate myself and you so much that I couldn't fall asleep. I... had a bad habit, which was developed at that time. When I hated to the extreme, I tortured myself desperately to seek relief. During this period, I lived like a walking corpse. Every day, I seduced men to abandon them for pleasure. I hated you endlessly! The funny thing is that I actually fantasized that one day you would change your mind and come to me. When I seduced men, I didn't care about hugging and kissing. But just for this little fantasy, I actually kept my last chastity and didn't let any man succeed !"
I was shocked again when I heard this. I didn't expect that my rejection of her eight years ago would cause her so much harm and indirectly hurt countless innocent men. I was speechless and could only sigh.
At this point, Qiu Jieqin's eyes changed, becoming sad and sorrowful. She said: "But I am no longer a virgin. I gave it to another man, although... I never loved him!"
My heart ached. Although I knew she was not a virgin, I still felt uncomfortable when she said it herself. I forced a smile and said, "Some things are better left unsaid!"
Qiu Jieqin said stubbornly: "No! I must tell you that I am not actually promiscuous. There is a reason why I did not keep my virginity for you."
I didn't want to hear that at all, so I said, "You have no obligation to keep your virginity for me. I was the one who didn't want you first. No matter what you've done in the past eight years, you don't need to be responsible to me!"
Qiu Jieqin said: "But I am your girlfriend now! I haven't agreed to break up with you yet ! I don't need to be responsible to you, but you have the responsibility to understand my past!"
I smiled bitterly and had nothing to say. Suddenly I wanted to smoke very much, but after searching my pockets, I remembered that I had thrown away the pack of cigarettes a long time ago. I came back tired and sleepy, and haven't smoked a single cigarette until now!
Seeing that I had been searching for a long time without finding anything, Qiu Jieqin immediately stood up and ran to the bed, handing me a large paper bag.
I asked, "What is it?"
Qiu Jieqin snorted and said, "I bought this for you. I wanted to give it to you later, but I didn't expect you to break up with me as soon as you came in."
I took it and opened it, and found a sweater and a pack of cigarettes inside. The sweater was fine, but the cigarettes were what I needed most.
I tore open the cigarette box, took out a pack, and said, "Why did you suddenly think of buying me cigarettes?"
"Humph! It's because I remember you as a chain smoker! I've been your girlfriend for such a long time, have you ever bought me even a needle?"
I was sweating, thinking, you have only been my girlfriend for a few days, right? I took out a cigarette and put it in my mouth, but I couldn't find a light, so I had to run to the kitchen and light it on the gas stove.
Seeing that I finally smoked a cigarette, Qiu Jieqin said, "Now, can you listen to me?"
I said helplessly: "Go on! I'm listening!"
Qiu Jieqin took a deep breath and then said, "You called me that day and I said my mother was sick. Actually, I lied to you. I'm sorry. The sick person was not my mother, but that man's mother. That man died, leaving only his mother in the world, and I have been taking care of her."
Qiu Jieqin paused and continued, "That man's name is Zhou Yimin, he was a criminal policeman, and he died in an arrest operation in April this year. He is the person who loves me the most in this world, he loves me even more than he loves himself. Tang Qian, if you treat me one tenth as well as he does, then even if I die immediately, I will still be smiling in my grave."
I smoked a cigarette and asked myself, I was really ashamed. Qiu Jieqin was nominally my girlfriend, but it seemed that I never took her seriously, let alone treated her well. In fact, the time I spent with her was not as long as the time I spent with Hua Jingjing and Xu Xin. I was really an incompetent boyfriend.
Qiu Jieqin slowly squatted in front of me, leaned her upper body on my legs, and said faintly: "Qian, don't be angry when I say this. In fact, I have always wanted to find a chance to tell you. I am afraid that you think I am the kind of slutty woman who is ridden by thousands of people and straddled by tens of thousands of people. But in fact, I have only been with one man, and the only one I have loved is you. You asked me why I haven't thought about looking for you in the past eight years? Who said I haven't thought about it? I miss you so much. After I got tired of the days of walking like a zombie and abandoning myself, I stopped seducing men for excitement. At that time, I no longer hated you, but my longing for you became deeper and deeper. I knew that if I couldn't get you again, I would die of depression one day. But at that time, a man who had been seduced and abandoned by me kidnapped me and wanted to rape me to avenge my ruthlessness. At this time, Zhou Yimin appeared. He saved me at the most critical moment, and I was very grateful to him. Later, he launched a crazy pursuit of me, but I refused because he had done me a favor and I couldn't play with him. At that time, I was thinking about you, so..."
Qiu Jieqin lay on my lap and slowly told me a story about how infatuated and caring the criminal policeman named Zhou Yimin was to her. He pursued her relentlessly for two years despite Qiu Jieqin's repeated rejections and avoidances. Finally, he took good care of Qiu Jieqin during her hospitalization for gastric bleeding, which moved Qiu Jieqin. She thought that since she couldn't get my love, she could just find a man who loved her deeply. Not long after, the two lived together. After a while, when they were about to register for marriage, Zhou Yimin was unfortunately killed in a criminal police team's arrest of a suspect in a homicide case.
Qiu Jieqin shed sad tears when she said this, "Tang Qian, even though he loved me so much, I still loved you in my heart. Even Zhou Yiren knew this. But he tolerated me and said that no matter who I was thinking of, he just wanted to take care of me for the rest of my life and love me. He didn't expect me to give him the same feelings, so I followed him. After he died, I was sad for a long time and never contacted any other man again until you called me that day."
When Qiu Jieqin finished speaking, I had already finished my fourth cigarette. After I put out the cigarette butt, I sighed and said to her, "Jieqin, it's such a pity. It's really not easy for a man to love you so much. It's a pity that he died early. You could have lived a happy life."
Qiu Jieqin raised her body, looked at me affectionately and said: "But he also made me understand that as long as you persevere, nothing is impossible in this world. I love you so deeply, won't I be moved by him in the end? Then as long as I treat you like Zhou Yimin treats me, I believe you will be moved by me one day. It doesn't matter whether you love me or not, what matters is that I love you, I can't live without you, and being with you is my greatest happiness!"
