Returning - Chapter 175
Chapter 175: Strangers
The hospital room suddenly descended into chaos. Ji Sui, overwhelmed himself, rushed to support Zhuang Ye, while Ling Jianwei frantically ran out to call for a doctor.
Yet aside from those two, the others in the room remained like cold spectators, standing motionless, watching, uttering no word.
Including Zhao Yu, of course.
After hearing the doctor say Zhuang Ye's condition wasn't dangerous, Ji Sui finally breathed a slight sigh of relief, allowing the doctor and nurses to take Zhuang Ye to another room.
Then, his reddened eyes met Zhao Yu's gaze again.
He tried to find a trace of panic or worry in her eyes, but those impassive eyes held nothing at all.
Such calmness, such indifference—one could even call it... coldness.
Even if a complete stranger had suddenly collapsed before her, she shouldn't have reacted this way, let alone someone she had loved for four years.
"Zhao Yu..." The hoarse voice had just slipped out when the accusatory words that followed got stuck in his throat, unable to emerge.
Ask her how she could be so cold and heartless, so selfish and cruel?
Before knowing the truth, he could still be angry, still harbor resentment, could, as a pose of the innocent victim, vent his dissatisfaction at being deceived and used. But what about now?
In this moment, facing her—who was also a victim—he suddenly realized that even resentment felt powerless.
Who should he blame? Who should he hate?
Everything she had endured was caused by the Zhuang family. As a member of the Zhuang family, what right did he have to hold grudges?
He stared at her fixedly for a long while, then suddenly turned and walked toward the door without looking back.
The door was pulled open and closed naturally by its mechanism. Zhao Yu's hand, tucked beneath the blanket, clenched and unclenched in turn.
She still had questions she wanted to ask him, still wanted to drive another knife into his heart. Yet, meeting his grief-stricken gaze, she ultimately couldn't bring herself to speak.
Xu Chengyan had also been watching her the entire time—watching how she hadn't even furrowed her brow when her former boyfriend collapsed, watching how she remained calm and composed as her current boyfriend stood wounded beyond repair from her deception and manipulation...
No wonder. No wonder a woman like this could toy with him in the palm of her hand.
"Zhao Yu." Staring at her intently, he suddenly curved his lips into a smile. "You're truly insane."
An insane person who would stop at nothing for revenge, dragging innocent people down into the mire.
She said he and Zhuang Yiqing were birds of a feather—but wasn't she exactly the same kind of person?
She found him dirty and disgusting, thought it was only justified to deceive, use, and toy with him. She made her words sound lofty and righteous. Then what about what she did to Ji Sui? What did that count as?
What right did she have to despise and accuse him?
"Even if I'm insane, I was driven to it by people like you." Zhao Yu raised her eyes to look at him, her gaze filled with nothing but contempt. "Xu Chengyan, are you feeling particularly smug right now? Because you've discovered that the woman who just denounced you as utterly worthless is actually just as ugly and despicable. She has no position of righteous indignation, let alone the right to accuse you. But no matter how wretched I am, it doesn't change the fact that you and Zhuang Yiqing are as filthy as I am."
Her words hit their mark perfectly. The fury in Xu Chengyan's eyes intensified, yet that irrepressible frustration left him looking even more disheveled.
Zhao Yu couldn't help but let out a couple of soft snorts. "How noble do you think you are? How innocent do you think you are?"
How noble do you think you are. Zhuang Yiqing had said something similar to him. And all of this was thanks to the woman before him.
Xu Chengyan's eyes looked as if they might spew fire. Yet just as he prepared to retort, Zhao Yu suddenly asked, "Do you still remember Cui Lan?"
Xu Chengyan froze.
She was the woman kept by the young lover Zhuang Yiqing had been supporting. When Zhuang Yiqing discovered this, she was so furious she sent people to teach that pair of adulterers a lesson. But Cui Lan had just undergone surgery and her body hadn't yet recovered. After being sent to the hospital, she didn't make it through. Zhuang Ruyun seized the opportunity to blow the matter up online. The Zhuang family spent a fortune to suppress the news, and in the end, the police side of things was smoothed over by the Xu family.
Because of this incident, his two cousins had laughed at him for a while, saying that not only had his fiancée cuckolded him, but he'd actually ended up cleaning up their mess.
Given that Zhao Yu had found Miao San, it meant she had long known about Cui Lan's matter. It was just that her bringing it up at this particular juncture made Xu Chengyan inexplicably feel a chill creeping in.
Zhao Yu smiled faintly. "What did Cui Lan's autopsy report say? Accidental fall injury, failed rescue? Or post-surgical infection leading to death? How much hush money did her family receive after her death? Are you clear on these details, Young Master Xu? Or did you personally handle the matter? Using the same threats and bribes you used when interrogating Miao San?"
Xu Chengyan stared at her, stunned, momentarily unable to answer.
Seeing his expression, Zhao Yu smiled with even greater sarcasm. "Then let me ask Young Master Xu another question. Four years ago, my mother and Xiao Jin were pushed down the stairs by the people Zhuang Yiqing brought during an altercation. They died on the spot. If, after I woke up—instead of being threatened by Zhuang Yiqing—I had insisted on calling the police and, like Cui Lan's case, blew it up online... If at that time, you were already engaged to Zhuang Yiqing... would you have used the same methods to deal with the me from four years ago?"
Xu Chengyan remained staring at her blankly, unable to utter a single sound.
But in his heart, he knew very well—the answer was yes.
Zhao Yu smiled self-deprecatingly. "You know? That wasn't my original plan. I considered calling the police after Miao San injured me. I thought about using the Zhuang family to force Zhuang Yiqing to turn herself in, to force her to admit she sent Miao San to kill me. I even thought that, to ensure her punishment was more severe, I could let myself be gravely wounded. I could even... die directly under Miao San's knife. Everything that followed would naturally be handled by others..."
Hearing this, Xue Zhan's gaze suddenly sharpened. He looked at her incredulously. Xue Zi'ang and Ling Jianwei were so frightened their faces went deathly pale.
But then she smiled again and shook her head. "Unfortunately, false is false. Doing that—what difference would there be between me and you, and Zhuang Yiqing? Xu Chengyan, you've never done anything to wrong me personally, but people of your high standing disgust me. From the day I learned about Cui Lan, every time I saw you, I could remember the look in Zhuang Yiqing's eyes as she looked at me in that stairwell four years ago. I cried and begged her to send my mother and Xiao Jin to the hospital, but that look in her eyes told me that the lives of people like us were worthless. You and her... you're the same. You're all the same..."
Tears flickered through her eyes once more. Xu Chengyan involuntarily took a step back, staring at her blankly, his lips moving slightly as if wanting to speak but stopping himself. Finally, dazed and bewildered, he abruptly turned around and fled through the door in utter disarray.
He left so hastily that he didn't even notice Ji Sui still standing at the doorway, having never left.
And Ji Sui's expression at this moment was identical to the guilt-ridden, panicked Xu Chengyan.
He had known about Cui Lan's matter from beginning to end. The role he played was nothing more than that of a cold spectator. All the things the Zhuang and Xu families had done—he hadn't stopped any of it.
He had even gotten drunk because of it and ran to find Zhao Yu to pour his heart out. Even the first time they slept together was on the morning after that incident.
So, what about the question Zhao Yu just asked Xu Chengyan? Applied to him?
If four years ago, he had known about everything Zhuang Yiqing did to Zhao Yu... what would he have done?
Perhaps for Zhuang Ye's sake, he would have tried to persuade, maybe even tried to stop it. But if it wasn't for Zhuang Ye, if he was just facing Tang Xi, a stranger to him... what would he have done?
He would surely still have remained a cold spectator. He would have objected in his heart, stopped it in his heart, but bound by the Zhuang family's kindness to him, he would have done nothing.
He truly was never innocent.
He and the Zhuang family had always been one and the same.
Perhaps, from that incident with Cui Lan onward, every night she spent with him, Zhao Yu had felt the same... immense disgust.
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