If It’s Wrong, Then It’s Wrong - Chapter 36
Chapter 36: The Twelfth Day
The day of the fire at Villa Number Five was Tomb-Sweeping Day.
Ji Chaozhou hadn’t been there not because of the fire, but because he never visited the cemetery on Tomb-Sweeping Day itself. He would always come a few days later, never bringing chrysanthemums. He would cut flowers from his own garden and place them before the tombstone.
The flowers he brought most often were lily-of-the-valley. It was Yun Ran’s favorite flower in the month before her death, the flower she had used to create Ranshan’s base notes.
Everyone thought that Yun Ran's Ranshan perfume only had top and base notes, not realizing that those were actually the top and middle notes.
The classic Ranshan fragrance was, in fact, an unfinished work.
Yun Ran was a young, talented perfumer, born for fragrance, never following fixed formulas or procedures. She blended scents based on intuition and feeling.
…And in the end, she died for fragrance as well.
Ji Chaozhou placed the freesia he had cut that morning before the tombstone, not speaking to the person resting beneath it, simply kneeling quietly beside it.
The cold tombstone offered no warmth. Ji Chaozhou knelt there in silence, letting the dark, bloody red gradually engulf him.
Unable to break free, nor wanting to.
The agonizing feeling was a reminder that he was still alive.
People came and went in the cemetery, but Ji Chaozhou remained, almost masochistically clinging to the tombstone.
The sky darkened, the clouds thickening, but he didn’t react.
Until the rain began to fall, large droplets hitting the tombstone and the stone path. Ji Chaozhou’s lowered eyelashes fluttered slightly. He slowly extended his hand, the raindrops landing on his palm, cold and heavy.
…It was raining.
But the heavy rain didn’t fall on him. Only a few drops landed on his palm before stopping, though the stone steps around him were drenched.
Ji Chaozhou belatedly noticed the familiar, bitter scent and slowly looked up, his eyes meeting Cheng Liu’s.
Her usual smile was gone. She simply looked at him, her gaze calm.
…It was her.
“It’s raining,” Cheng Liu said, holding a black umbrella, standing beside the tombstone, and looking down at the pale young man kneeling there. She extended her hand. “Let’s go home.”
He tilted his long, slender neck slightly, his eyes tinged with a faint red, like a dying swan, fragile and pale, carrying a weight of sorrow, teetering on the edge of an abyss.
Before coming, she had thought of many excuses for her presence, but now, seeing him like this, she couldn’t utter a single one.
In the end, she offered no explanation.
Cheng Liu looked at Ji Chaozhou’s outstretched hand, a few raindrops clinging to his palm.
Before he could refuse, she bent down, took his hand, and pulled him up.
For a moment, the coolness of the rain mingled with the warmth of their clasped hands, their body temperatures exchanging.
The black umbrella shielded them from the surrounding sounds, the only thing audible the beating of their hearts.
Ji Chaozhou turned to look at Cheng Liu’s face. She wasn’t looking at him, her gaze fixed ahead as she held the umbrella in one hand and his hand in the other, leading him away.
The dark, gloomy sky, the countless black tombstones, the bloody abyss…all gradually receding behind him.
Cheng Liu quickly led Ji Chaozhou out of the cemetery, opened the car door, pushed him inside, and then hurried around to the driver’s side.
The rain was now completely shut out, the windshield blurred with raindrops, obscuring the outside world.
Ji Chaozhou lowered his long eyelashes, his gaze falling to his hand, which she had just released. He paused for a moment, then subtly moved it out of sight.
Cheng Liu, having pulled him out of the cemetery in a single burst of determination, now sat in the car, unsure what to say.
Silence filled the car.
She looked at the raindrops streaming down the windshield, nervously fidgeting with her fingers, then, after much thought, blurted out, “Will the grapefruit saplings drown?”
After a moment, Ji Chaozhou, sitting in the passenger seat, turned to look at Cheng Liu: “…”
She had been glared at!
Cheng Liu, suddenly feeling relieved, started the car: “We should go back and check on them.”
Neither of them mentioned what had just happened. Cheng Liu chattered about the grapefruit trees in their yards, imagining what they would look like when they grew taller.
Ji Chaozhou leaned back in his seat, his mind unconsciously picturing the future seasons in their yards, as she described them.
He didn’t realize that a faint smile had appeared on his lips.
…
Cheng Liu drove directly into the garage of Villa Number Six.
This was Ji Chaozhou’s second time inside her villa.
“Let’s go check on the saplings,” Cheng Liu said, holding an umbrella, standing beside Ji Chaozhou as they walked out of the garage.
They walked towards Villa Number Five, sharing the umbrella.
Ji Chaozhou looked at the saplings in Cheng Liu's front yard. After his earlier intervention, they seemed to have recovered for now.
Cheng Liu, holding the umbrella, wasn’t paying attention to her own saplings. She was scheming, her thoughts spilling out, “This rain is so inconvenient. We should tear down the wall and build a covered walkway between our houses. Then we wouldn’t need umbrellas.”
Ji Chaozhou stopped abruptly. They had just reached the ladder she had left leaning against the wall. He turned to Cheng Liu and said firmly, “No.”
“Oh,” Cheng Liu said obediently. “Then we won’t tear it down.”
They could always tear it down after they got married.
CEO Cheng was determined; it was only a matter of time.
They walked towards the left side of Villa Number Five's front yard, sharing the umbrella. Cheng Liu looked at the two thriving grapefruit saplings and said earnestly, “They seem to be alive.”
“You’ve seen them now…”
Ji Chaozhou didn’t finish his sentence, interrupted by Cheng Liu.
“I’ll walk you inside. This rain is really heavy.”
She held the umbrella over Ji Chaozhou as he entered the living room, then, instead of leaving, she closed her umbrella and followed him inside.
“I think young people should eat less takeout. We should cook at home when we have time,” Cheng Liu said, standing in his living room. “Besides, the dishes we made last night could use some improvement.”
“…What are you trying to say?” Ji Chaozhou asked, looking at her coldly.
Cheng Liu, pushing his boundaries, said, “I’ll buy groceries, and we can cook together?”
Ji Chaozhou immediately refused: “No.”
“Oh, then I’ll order takeout, and we can eat together,” Cheng Liu said, seemingly waiting for his refusal. She quickly took out her phone and ordered food.
An hour later, Ji Chaozhou was once again forced to eat the takeout she had ordered.
The only improvement over last night was that they finished eating by 5 pm.
The TV was on. Ji Chaozhou sat on the large sofa, Cheng Liu on a single-seater beside him, chattering non-stop.
Ji Chaozhou felt more tired than usual.
“That company is no good. I’ve met their chairman. He’s a lecherous man, only focused on short-term gains,” Cheng Liu said, peeling a tangerine, placing the segments in a fruit bowl, and offering it to Ji Chaozhou, while commenting on the middle-aged man on the TV screen.
Ji Chaozhou sat in the middle of the sofa, listening to Cheng Liu, his brow furrowed. He pushed away the fruit bowl she had offered, suddenly feeling sleepy.
Perhaps he was simply exasperated by her.
He didn’t bother responding, simply lying down on the sofa, his back to the TV and Cheng Liu, and closing his eyes.
Ji Chaozhou was so tired that he forgot that normally, at this hour, he would be lost in the depths of despair, needing to inflict pain on himself to feel alive.
At some point, Cheng Liu, who had been chattering non-stop, stopped, quietly looking at the young man curled up on the sofa.
He had changed out of his black suit and was wearing a casual loungewear set, his thin, pale ankles visible.
Cheng Liu watched him for a long time, then, making sure he was asleep, she went to the spare bedroom, retrieved a thin blanket, and covered him with it.
Before leaving, she stood at the doorway and whispered, “Goodnight.”
"...depths of despair...inflicting pain on himself to feel alive." This novel was great before it focused on this guy. Now it's just sad and boring.
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