Jun's fists hitting Cai Lingyun didn't spare him any chance to relax. The more pain he suffered, the more he knew that they would squeeze him out of all the answers at any costs.
"Ai…" he gazed at her longingly and chuckled. "I will tell you everything…But then you have to come to my side. Remember, Ai? We were always together. I don't want anything else!"
Ai expressed her disgust while Jun expressed his fury in the form of his violence. "You really deserve the most torturous death, you fucker, and I wil fulfill that wish of yours-"
"SHUT YOUR TRAP!" Cai Lingyun screamed and tried to get back at Jun, but he was no match. "Are you blind to see that I am talking to Ai!? I will kill you if you interfere the next time!"
Ai stiffened with the sharp change in his tone and mood.
Then as if a flip was switched, Cai Lingyun suddenly laughed.
She grimaced. "What's so funny?"
"Ah, Ai you are talking to me…" he didn't seem to be himself anymore, "It feels so nice to hear your voice again. It feels so nice to see you again, Ai. Do you know how much I missed you?"
Jun shut his eyes, reining his anger and the urge to bury him then and there.
Ai helped Jun calm his nerves, which only irked Cai Lingyun in the wrong direction. The intimacy between them rubbed his ego in the wrong direction. "Ai, you better stop being so close to this bastard. You should know your limits."
Fully sober, he stood on his feet and faced her.
Ai was taken aback with his warning. It didn't seem like the Cai Lingyun who never spoke a harsh word against her. She quietly rebuked. "I know my limits very well. What will you do if I don't listen to you?" Squinting her eyes, she challenged him, "Hit me like you hit Guiying?"
Jun knew she was provoking him, but the question still frustrated him out of bounds. If Cai Lingyun lifted even a finger against Ai, then this messy one-room apartment would become even messier with the bloodbath.
Cai Lingyun gritted his teeth with his hands unsteady beside his thighs. "Guiying? Why are you so obsessed with her? She is…she is my sister! What is wrong even if I did hit her a few times!?"
Ai froze. The truth for which they came here finally slipped out of his mouth. But Cai Lingyun didn't show even a shred of guilt.
"Ai you don't understand. We had lost our parents. As the eldest son, all the responsibilities came upon my shoulders…it was natural to get stressed out at times…right?"
She listened to him in silence.
"Everything was so difficult! If-if only Mom and Dad didn't have to die! Taking care of my education, then Guiying's, all the expenses…It was so tough to manage…We kept hopping back and forth with our useless relatives who didn't give a shit about us…" his eyes reddened with anger. "Fuckers only thought about themselves. The fatty and ugly cousins of ours bullied me as if I was some trash. So what did I do wrong if I took my frustration out on Guiying at times?"
Jun snarled. "That doesn't give you any right to treat her like a punching bag, you piece of shit! You were not the only one going through the situation. And how do you know that your cousins might not be targeting Cai Guiying? They might have, but she must have kept the bullying hidden from you to not make you worry more in your already precarious situation."
Cai Lingyun shouted. "Fuck off! Don't act like you know Guiying better than me! Stop showing your sympathies! G-Guiying wasn't innocent either! She was such a failure in academics. Whenever she scored less in exams, my shitty cousins laughed at me like I am the biggest joke in the world! She isn't less of a culprit! So I hit her more! And don't blame me. That worked like a charm because then she didn't slack in her studies."
Then a glint of fear passed by his eyes. "But then Guiying changed one day…I-I was just beating her like usual, but she suddenly stopped my punches and started beating me instead! Sh-she totally went crazy! She started laughing maniacally and hit me! Ai, can you believe it? How dare she hit her elder brother who raised her up all this time?"
He expected Ai would soften her gaze at him but instead, her brown irises grew only colder and icier.
Jun realized that it was that moment when Guiying's alter ego was born to take charge to protect herself.
Cai Lingyun stammered. "A-Ai, don't look at me like that. I-I didn't want to be like this either, but what could I have done? Guiying suddenly turned so different at that time. S-she threatened to expose me, and I had to stop beating her…" his voice clearly expressed his disdain for being forced to stop.
The more Jun listened to him, the more he couldn't believe that he was breathing the same air as this disgusting man.
Cai Lingyun's gaze darkened. "It was so fucking hell when I couldn't take out my anger on her. I didn't know what to do with my pent-up frustrations. She would go berserk if I ever tried to raise my hand against her. B-But I persisted somehow. In the end when she was supposed to start high school, we moved to Xuanhua after I saved up some money to move out of my shitty relatives' home! And there I met you, Ai…" his voice immediately turned mellow.
"You know w-why I like you so much, Ai?" His cheeks reddened with shyness. "You were so pretty. For your age, you acted so well-behaved and mature. You carried such elegance even though you were just a teenager. A-and ever since Guiying met you and you two became friends, that other d-dangerous side of hers stopped showing itself."
Ai stared at him, her eyes slowly widening.
"It was such a relief to me. Guiying started acting the way like she always was, and I didn't have to live in fear anymore…It was all because of you and your family, Ai that she went back to her own self."
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