Near the end of the semester, Bai Yuwang finally showed up at school. But he seemed like a different person, silent and sitting farthest from Li Ziye. Many people came to comfort him, but he pushed them away . Everyone said that Li Ziye had ruined Bai Yuwang.
Li Ziye also felt that she had ruined him. Seeing him shut himself off like she did in the past, she felt really bad. But she also knew that she was no longer qualified to be a good person. It was she who had made him like this. She couldn't have the nerve to comfort him anymore.
Fortunately, Bai Yuwang's good popularity meant that he never lacked love and care. In addition, everyone knew the whole story, so even though he was in a bad mood with everyone now, no one blamed him. Many people put the blame on Li Ziye, and encouraged Bai Yuwang to cheer up and not ruin his life for a bad woman.
He and Li Ziye seemed to have a tacit understanding, avoiding each other and never saying a word. Although they were in the same class, it seemed as if there was an entire galaxy between them.
Li Ziye sometimes thought that this result might be the best. Bai Yuwang might forget her and get better soon. Time is the best medicine to heal everything. No matter how serious the injury is, there will be a day to heal.
Of course, this could just be her wishful thinking.
During this period, Song's father's condition was sometimes better and sometimes worse, and Li Ziye once again used tutoring as an excuse to avoid the routine visit to the hospital. But every weekend, Song's mother would still drive her to the hospital.
Because the doctor recommended that Mr. Song be hospitalized for a long time to avoid accidents, Mrs. Song was busy running between the company and the hospital during this period, and there was often no one at home.
The whole house became empty. When Li Ziye returned home, there was often no one there. When she woke up the next morning, there was still no one there.
Sometimes she felt a little scared in such an empty house. She didn't know why she was brought back. They took good care of her when they wanted to, but left her aside when they had no time to care about her.
She really shouldn't be trying to make a name for herself at a time like this. After all, Father Song is seriously ill and Mother Song's hair has turned white with worry. She should be sensible and treat them better.
But she still couldn't be sensible and pretend to be a good daughter to these people who didn't want to understand her at all.
In a blink of an eye, it was the weekend again, and Mother Song took Li Ziye to the hospital.
Mr. Song just had a check-up. He hasn't looked well in the past two days. The doctor told him to rest more and not worry about anything.
Father Song just nodded, sighed, and then looked up to see Li Ziye standing at the door. She was like this every time, standing at the door of the ward like a stranger and unwilling to come in. She would only come in and sit down when he called her.
But this time, Li Ziye waited for the doctor to leave before she walked in and found a chair to sit down. In the past, it was usually Father Song who slept while she read a book next to him, and this time she wanted to do the same.
But Father Song suddenly said, "Ziye, let's chat."
Li Ziye hesitated for a moment, put down the book in his hand, and nodded.
"How's your study going lately? Are you keeping up?" Song's father asked a few questions and then began to cough. He coughed for a while before stopping. "I heard from your mother that you have made great progress recently."
Li Ziye nodded: "Yeah, I can keep up."
"That's good..." Father Song seemed to be relieved, but he said, "Ziye, I know that young people like to treat dating as a trend, but you are not mature yet. There are some things you should do when you grow up."
Li Ziye looked at Song's father a little hesitantly...they never talked about these things in their usual conversations, but today he was obviously referring to the issue of premature love.
It should be impossible. The head teacher has already agreed to let her go, and the mobile phone number left by the head teacher belongs to Song's mother. It should be Song's mother who knew it first. How could it be possible that Song's father knew it first?
Seeing Li Ziye's expression of being hit in the heart, Father Song sighed again: "You, you thought I knew nothing. Although I know this kind of thing is normal, I still hope you can spend your time on studying. After all... ahem... after all, Dad doesn't know how much time he has left to watch over you. No matter what, I also hope you can get into a good university, and I don't want you to be distracted by these things..."
"Hmm..." Li Ziye just nodded without comment.
In fact, she could understand Father Song's feelings - because he might not live long, so he hoped that she could become excellent and have the ability to control her own life, so that he could leave with peace of mind.
But Li Ziye knew very well that Ye Xiang was her support and motivation. If it were not for Ye Xiang, she would not have made such great progress in her studies and she would probably still be a laggard.
Father Song couldn't tell whether Li Ziye had listened or not, so he just said, "Don't put too much pressure on yourself. If there is something you don't want to tell mom and dad, you can go to your brother. You are the same age , and he should understand your thoughts better."
Li Ziye nodded gently, but she knew in her heart that she would not call Song Chuling. To her, he was a traitor.
In this way, Li Ziye and Ye Xiang stayed together as friends until the end of their second year of high school. This year was not so turbulent, and compared to their first year of high school, it could be said to be quite peaceful.
Because there were only the two of them in their world, and the people around them had always been afraid of Ye Xiang, so in the end they could only turn a blind eye and not provoke Li Ziye again.
As for Bai Yuwang, he and Li Ziye no longer have any contact. Although he can no longer return to his carefree and optimistic self, it can be seen that he is slowly getting better. Maybe because he has become quieter and no longer spends time playing around with people around him, he studies more seriously, and his score in the latest exam is already on par with Ye Xiang.
Ye Xiang even joked with Li Ziye about this: "Your suitor is so scary. I feel like his goal is to drag me down from the top spot."
Li Ziye rolled his eyes at him : "He is no longer my suitor. If he really drags you down, I will be very happy."
"What are you happy about?" Ye Xiang frowned, looking unhappy.
"Then you won't be embarrassed to think of yourself as a genius every day and then trample on my self-confidence!" Li Ziye said indignantly and even waved his fist.
Of course, the real reason was definitely not just that. She just felt that Bai Yuwang had finally come out of that period, and she finally didn't completely destroy him. Seeing him slowly getting better, she was sincerely happy.
She should regard the time when she was despised by everyone as a kind of atonement. Although she knew that this did not mean that she and Bai Yuwang were even, it just might make her feel a little .
Li Ziye actually thought that when she graduated from high school and both she and Ye Xiang went to college, she would ask Ye Xiang for clarification. By then, she would definitely have a definite answer and could not let him fool her anymore.
If the answer he gave at that time was not what she wanted, it didn't matter. After all, they would go to college and go their separate ways, and she could go to another city to heal her wounds.
However, Li Ziye was more confident that "Ye Xiang liked her", so she actually always had infinite expectations.
However, what she didn't expect was that calmness was just a superficial appearance of life, paralyzing people's nerves and leaving them defenseless and blown to pieces by the bombs planted by fate.
Li Ziye still remembers that day very clearly, it was Ye Xiang's birthday. Although he never liked to celebrate his birthday, Li Ziye remembered June 20. When she went to his part-time job with a cake to give him a surprise, she saw a girl walking out of the restaurant with Ye Xiang's arm around her.
The girl had a fresh makeup on, wore a delicately tailored dress, a pair of high heels, had beautiful features, and a sense of pride in her eyes.
The girl frowned in disgust and complained, "Ye Xiang, you are my boyfriend now, can you please not work in such a crappy place? I'll ask my dad to arrange a job for you in our company. It's much easier than here and it's also very respectable."
Ye Xiang didn't respond at first, but when he looked up, he saw Li Ziye standing there in a daze. He turned around and said to the girl, "Okay, you can make the arrangements."
The girl happily took Ye Xiang's arm and said, "It's really good to have you as a boyfriend. You're so obedient."
Li Ziye was a little dazed when she saw this scene. She felt like she was dreaming, and it was definitely a terrible nightmare. However, she was also very clear that this was not a dream at all.
Ye Xiang was indeed with another girl.
The two of them walked past Li Ziye as if they didn't see her.
After coming to her senses, she quickly turned around, caught up with Ye Xiang, grabbed his sleeve, and asked him in a trembling voice: "She... is your girlfriend?"
Ye Xiang paused, then nodded: "Yeah."
Li Ziye couldn't believe it. She grabbed his clothes and refused to let go: "Impossible, you are lying to me, right? You said you don't want to fall in love! You clearly said you don't want to fall in love before you get into college! Today is not April Fool's Day, Ye Xiang!"
Ye Xiang gently pushed her hand away and said, "But I am talking about it now."
There were tears welling up in Li Ziye's eyes, and she had to try very hard to hold them back... She wanted to question Ye Xiang again, but she found that she couldn't speak, as if something was stuck in her throat, causing a dull pain.
The man who always said he didn't want to date and never even said whether he liked her or not, was he just playing tricks on her? So he just didn't want to date her? Was everything just her wishful thinking?
She really couldn't accept it...
The girl next to Ye Xiang glanced at Li Ziye with disdain, her tone full of disgust: "Who is this woman? Is she your old lover? Your taste is really bad."
Ye Xiang simply replied casually: "Let's go."
Li Ziye bent down, gasping for breath, his forehead covered with sweat. Tears fell uncontrollably, hitting the ground and also falling into his heart.
The girl gave her a meaningful look and sneered, "Ha, you really overestimate yourself. How can such a person be your girlfriend?"
The two people gradually walked away, and Li Ziye could not hear whether Ye Xiang answered or not.
It’s so cold. It’s summer, why is she shivering?
After returning home, Li Ziye curled up on the sofa and cried silently .
Although Song's mother, who had just returned from the hospital, didn't understand, she still took a towel to wipe her face and asked distressedly: "Aye, what's wrong with you? Tell me what's wrong. Mom knows that you have a lot of things in your heart that you don't want to talk about, but if you keep it in, you will get into trouble..."
Li Ziye still didn't say anything, but tears continued to flow out.
Mother Song saw Li Ziye like this and was worried. Helplessly, she sighed lightly: "It doesn't matter if you don't say it, I can probably guess. It's because of that boy who always sends you home... Actually, I saw you two walking together before, but I thought this kind of thing was normal during adolescence, so I didn't intervene, but I didn't expect that it would make you so sad now."
When Li Ziye heard Mother Song mention Ye Xiang, his body trembled and he finally burst into tears.
Mother Song patted her back gently. She obviously knew what she said was right, so she continued to counsel her: "Aye, in fact, it is impossible for each of us to meet the right person at the beginning. Mom also loved the wrong person before. I felt very sad at the time and felt that I was about to lose the whole world. But then I met your father, and I realized that the previous pain was worth it. If you don’t experience the wrong person, how can you understand who is the right person for you?"
Li Ziye clenched her fists tightly. She listened to what Mother Song said, but at the moment she really couldn't use these principles to calm herself down.
Perhaps most people, after experiencing pain, look back and think that the so-called pain was nothing more than that. But at the moment, Ye Xiang had a girlfriend, which was like the sky falling for the young Li Ziye.
Mother Song reached out and held Li Ziye's trembling hand, and comforted her with a gentle voice: "Aye, no matter what happens, mom and dad will always be your support. I know that because of the mistakes we made back then, you don't want to believe us now. But your father and I sincerely hope that you can live a happy life, not for atonement, but because we all love you."
Li Ziye choked up and said, "If you loved me, why did you abandon me? Why did you leave me alone? Why did you let me know that I was abandoned? Do you know that you are so selfish? You all said it was for my own good, but why can't I feel it..."
Hearing what Li Ziye said, Song's mother was stunned for a moment, then her expression began to change, as if she remembered something: "Aye, you know, when I knew I was pregnant with you, I was really happy. At that time, I had a hunch that it must be a daughter. When you were only three months old in my belly, I had already bought a whole wardrobe of clothes for little girls. I thought at the time that a daughter is a caring little cotton-padded jacket, it's great to have a daughter.
"But then the policy came down. If you were born, your father would lose his job. At that time, they all said that the child was still young and it was better to abort it. But I couldn't bear it. My daughter hadn't seen the world yet, how could I abort her? So your father and I secretly went to the countryside to give birth to you...
"We also wanted to bring you back at that time, but your grandmother and your grandmother were firmly opposed to it, and even threatened to commit suicide. After all, if your father lost his job and you were born, our family would have a hard time making ends meet, so in the end we had no choice but to send you to foster care in the countryside...
"We wanted to visit you, but we thought you were too young. We didn't want to hurt you or destroy your relationship with your adoptive parents... But you have always been a knot in your heart for your father and me. I was always worried that you wouldn't have enough to eat or wear warm clothes. Sometimes when Chu Ling was playing the piano, I would imagine you sitting in front of the piano. You must be very elegant and beautiful. My daughter will definitely be very outstanding and many boys will pursue her."
For some reason, after listening to Mother Song's description, Li Ziye suddenly became quiet, with only light sobbing sounds remaining.
She always felt that she was redundant, and that they didn't care about her at all and were just pretending to be so as to atone for her sins. She always hated them.
However, after hearing what Mother Song had just said, a very strange emotion suddenly rose in her heart.
Have you finally understood the meaning of your existence in this world?
Do they really miss her and love her?
She had always been influenced by the word "abandoned", so she gave up on herself, complained about herself, and felt that she was a marginal person... It turned out that she had been wrong all along...
"Aye, you are right, we are indeed selfish. But it's not because your father is sick that we want to atone for our sins, but because we really miss you and want to keep you by our side. If this makes you unhappy, I really feel sorry..." When she said this, Mother Song's eyes also turned red.
Li Ziye seldom saw her cry. Song Chuling once told her that before Song's father fell ill, Song's mother was very spoiled and she couldn't cook or do housework. But since Song's father fell ill, she seemed to have become a different person, a strong woman who supported the family and rarely cried.
Mother Song must be feeling very upset. Her husband is seriously ill, and her biological daughter has returned with hatred towards them. She must want to find someone to cry to, but she doesn't dare to cry because Father Song is seriously ill, and she can't complain to him because Song Chuling is not around. However, Li Ziye keeps avoiding and rejecting her.
Come to think of it, Mother Song is almost trapped in a desperate situation of loneliness.
Thinking of this, Li Ziye suddenly felt that she was really bad. This family was already in a critical juncture, but she had been rebelling against their arrangements, always thinking that they had other purposes and that they were not really good to her.
Now she suddenly felt as if a knot in her heart had been untied... Although the dull pain brought by Ye Xiang had not subsided, a ray of sunshine seemed to suddenly penetrate her gloomy world.
She thought quietly for a long time, and finally threw herself into Mother Song’s arms: “Mom… I’m sorry, I will never make you angry again…”
Mother Song reached out and gently patted her back to help her calm down: "Aye, I'm glad you understand our painstaking efforts. Really, I'm so happy. Remember, no matter what happens, you can tell us. We will always be your strongest support."
"Yeah!" Li Ziye's tears burst out again, but this time they were no longer tears of pain, but tears of emotion.
Everything will be fine, she is finally not alone anymore.
She still has family, parents, and a brother. As long as she has someone to rely on, she is not afraid of anything!