"Zhan Yahui!"
A car stopped just a few yards behind the Liu family cars and Guiying stepped out of it, rushing towards her. Zixin came out of the driver's seat, taking aback the Liu siblings.
Jun asked, "Bro Zixin. What are you doing here?"
"Guiying wanted to meet her."
Ai was also surprised to suddenly see Guiying here but considering her and Zhan Yahui's relationship, she thought it was natural. Zhan Yahui to Guiying was how Xing Bi was to Ai.
"Stop," Zhan Yahui forced Guiying to stop in her steps with a hardened voice. "Why the fuck are you here? To enjoy laughing at me like the rest here?"
"No. I didn't come here to laugh at you," Guiying pressed her lips, her vision blurring. "I just re-realized that ever since 'she' came out, I never got to talk to you."
"There is nothing to talk about."
"Not for you perhaps. But for me, you were…" tears fell as her voice trembled, "always someone I could count on."
"That was all a farce. You were only a chess piece for me to reach Liu Jun."
"Yes. I know that. That's why you could go as far as hurting Zixin to manipulate me. I cannot forgive you for that. You put his life in danger. But it also doesn't change the fact that it was you who grew the confidence in me as a writer. You might have had your own agenda but it helped me stand on my own two feet. E-even if y-you had your plans…I don't feel that all the time we spent was a lie. I truly…" the tip of her nose turned red, "felt happy when we worked together and I wouldn't have felt that if…there was no sincerity in those moments."
She stared at her, her misty eyes shining. "You used me. I do feel hurt about it. But I think that sometimes…maybe sometimes you showed a side that cared about me. Maybe just a little bit. Maybe because our situation was similar. Neither you had a family nor I had anyone to call as my family. So I want to believe that you chose me as a writer to work with you instead of Ai after our high school competition was not because I won the big prize but because you thought that I was the same as you. Lonely."
"I knew nothing about your family situation."
Hou Lin ever so slightly smiled.
You knew.
All the winners and runner ups of the writing competition were celebrating it with their families, including Ai with Zhou Yichen and Xie Nuying. Of course, Guiying was with them too.
But Zhan Yahui had noticed that it was just her friend's family, not her own. The first prize winner of the competition had nobody to celebrate her achievement with.
Later, she learned that Guiying had an elder brother, but it was strange that he didn't come for the big day. It was then that she came to know through Hou Lin that Cai Lingyun was an abuser. It was an irony. Though Guiying always craved his attention, she also didn't prefer him to be anywhere near her.
So even if Guiying wanted him to see her win and praise her, the abuse he inflicted on her over the years also made her unable to invite him to the event.
Tears continued to stream down Guiying's eyes, making her softly gasp. "I think you did know. I think…you also knew that Ai was supposed to win the competition had she adhered to the theme. If you knew the judges favored her, I think that you should have chosen her. Me winning the best writer prize was just a decoration to follow the competition rules. Even so…you took me in. Your intentions might be what I think or might be not…but I just came here to thank you. To me, you were a good editor and a good friend."
Zixin pursed his lips and stepped closer to hold her hand. "Don't cry," he softly said.
Zhan Yahui burst into laughter. "Thank you for the heartfelt speech my dear but it's all meaningless now. I lost. I failed."
She looked at Hou Lin and said, "It was not her fault…I don't hate my Mom…" Zhan Yahui said with a shivering quietness in her voice. "She loved me. She loved my unborn sibling. She was a good mother…I never hated her. But I hate all those people who made her life miserable…whether it was Shi Shuren or the Liu family. They all forced her down that road in some or the other way! Everybody was equally responsible!"
Hou Lin trembled. He thought she would come to reason if he talked to her. But years of hatred, sadness and loneliness had left no place in her heart to understand anything.
"Yahui, please-"
"No! Don't talk to me, Lin. Don't try to read my heart and act as if you know me. You don't! You never will…because you are a traitor!" She shakily exhaled, tears slipping down her cheeks. "I thought that no matter what, you will always stand by my side. But even you…you switched sides…"
That hurt the most of all to Zhan Yahui because it was at this moment when she felt that she was truly alone.
"I won't forgive anybody here. If I am going down, then so would you all!"
With that said, Zhan Yahui suddenly bent, grabbed mud off the ground and violently threw it across the guard's face.
"Ah!"
The mud entered his eyes and he instinctively shut them up, feeling a harsh, stinging feeling in his pupils. He couldn't open them no matter how he tried, and taking this chance, Zhan Yahui grabbed the gun from his hands.
Her actions were so sudden and unexpected that nobody could wrap their heads around what just happened.
With a dead and soulless expression, she pointed the gun at Jun before the other guards could lock their aims on her. "If I see even a single twitch of your hands, I will shoot your young master right in front of your eyes."
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