Sometime later, Jun walked up to Hou Lin and stood behind him. He still hadn't uttered a word yet as he kept staring at Zhan Yahui's grave.
Jun said after a few moments, "I know you want to be here with her as long as you can, but don't destroy your health for that. You are cold, hungry and thirsty."
No answer.
"I don't think she will like seeing you like this."
No answer.
"You cannot mourn for her if you fall sick."
No answer.
Jun narrowed his eyes. "My guards will come later to take you back home. Resistance will be futile so you better do as they say."
Without saying a word further, he turned around and began to leave when a small voice echoed behind him. "Why aren't you killing me?"
"Because I was asked to spare you. So don't take light of that request. I won't kill you and neither does Bro Zixin wants to, but you will repent your sins in jail."
A silence ensued.
"I...wanted to stop Yahui."
His eyes slightly widened.
"When we killed the judge, when we planned Chen Zixin's accident, I did...try to stop her. Yahui has always been the person for me to tell me right from wrong. She brought sense into the things which I couldn't understand. But then it was her going astray...
I couldn't play with a girl's feelings in the past because I felt it was wrong. I didn't want to play with someone's life too. I knew that...it was a very wrong thing to do. But she would become withdrawn if I talked to her about it. She isolated herself and looked at me as if I was betraying her too. If I had crossed my boundaries, she would have cut off every last relationship with me and truly become all alone."
Hou Lin emptily stared ahead. "And before the woman who stepped into my life as a ray of sunshine, who became my first friend I genuinely could cry to, I...couldn't cross that limit of being the right. She would have become an empty shell if she had to give up on her revenge.
And I...I didn't want to see her like that. Her revenge killed others, but that was what kept her alive. I would have lost her if I had snatched that away from her, and I didn't want to. But I also didn't want her to bear the sins all alone. So, I willingly bloodied my hands with her."
Hou Lin looked up at Jun. "I am sorry, Sir. I acted the way Yahui wanted me to be because in her wretched life, my support was the only thing that made her happy. And I always wanted to see her happy. I am sorry that I was the selfish and the worst."
Jun clenched his fists, his eyelashes slightly trembling. "You were indeed the worst. But in the end, you stood against the woman you loved dearly and kept your ground even if you had to lose her. It was a hard thing to do."
He stiffened and panicked. "I...I-I didn't l-love...I mean see her that way..."
Jun simply stared at him.
"Don't be out for too long," In the end, he didn't said nothing further and walked away.
---
Hou Lin slightly trembled in the cold. With his gaze fixed at Zhan Yahui's name, he whispered, "It feels really lonely, Yahui. You are selfish. You are really very selfish. It hurts so badly…but you don't care, do you?"
He kept mumbling and whispering to her grave for a long time until two Liu family guards came to take him just as Jun had ordered. He felt their presence and before they could say anything he himself got up, albeit weakly and stumbling in his steps. His feet and knees ached because of being in the same position for a long time, but he didn't feel any of it.
"I won't come here again, Yahui," he said with certainty in his voice, "I won't come to meet you again. I have been hurt before but not like this and not by you. That's why this is my last farewell to you because this time...I cannot forgive you."
He faced the guards and said, "Thank you for coming all the way here but I am fine. I will go back home by myself."
"Boss has explicitly ordered us to drop you home and not listen to you. Also to keep an eye on you after taking you back too so that you don't sneak out here in the middle of the night."
"I won't."
"We only listen to Boss's orders."
He stared at them hard, but it hardly budged them. "Fine."
He took a step forward and paused just for a moment to look back. But he decided against it and walked away from her grave, never once turning back.
—
Apart from Hou Lin, there was another figure in the cemetery gazing at Zhan Yahui's grave but not having the courage to walk further.
Shi Shuren knew he had no right to be here. He also knew that Zhan Yahui would loathe his presence near her, yet here he was. He watched Hou Lin near her for a long time until he left with the Liu family guards.
Eventually he left the cemetery too. He was the first person to abandon Zhan Kai-Ming and Zhan Yahui and he was the last person to put the last straw in Zhan Yahui's life that began her journey towards a deadly revenge.
With slow and heavy steps, he returned to the Shi villa only to see the scenario unfold before him which he had expected.
Bags lay packed in the living room and Shi Zhelan and Shi Huan were ready to leave the house.
Shi Zhelan felt his presence but refused to even look at him. Instead, she said, "You will directly meet my lawyer now. The divorce proceedings and the legal proceedings regarding the company will all be taken care of. You just have to sign the papers."
Shi Shuren trembled. With a defeated look on his face, he asked, "Can you…please give me a chance?"
Shi Zhelan clenched her fists as her eyes reddened. "Shuren. I should have left you long back when you cheated on me. But I remained stubborn. I was afraid to lose you. Even though you betrayed me, I foolishly kept stroking your ego by staying with you. I gulped the bitter truth of your affair. But I cannot live with a man who forced himself on a woman. That's way too low and unforgivable."
She mockingly chuckled, "And don't even get me started on how you behaved with Huan all this time. It wasn't like you ever divided your love equally between her and Yahui. It's that all of your love always belonged to Yahui and that's what always hurt me. Huan and I…never existed for you, Shuren. It was always…always Zhan Kai-Ming and her daughter for you."
Shi Zhelan pulled her bag and sternly told Huan, "Let's go. We have nothing left here. We were always just decorations for him."
Shi Zhelan passed by him and walked away. The air was grim as there were only Huan and Shi Shuren left.
He tremblingly looked at Huan, who was slowly approaching him. She placed a notebook in his hands and said with a dim voice, "I always wanted to read my stories to you. I have loved writing since I was a child. I…wanted you to praise me for my grammar and vocabulary. But you never got time for me. And now…" her eyelashes fluttered, "I don't know what to do with this book anymore. I have written all my stories here. You can read it if you feel like it."
As she was about to leave too, Shi Shuren said, "You must hate me so much, right?"
Huan took a breath. "I didn't. Believe it or not, I never resented you. I have felt it ever since Zhan Yahui came here. I was just your responsibility. But she was your daughter in a real sense. For a while, it hurt me. Then I accepted reality. But now, I am glad that I got used to your ignorance because separating from you today isn't as painful anymore."
She wryly smiled. "I wanted you to love me, but now I cannot love a father who lost himself in his monstrosity. I can accept that you never treated Mom and I fairly because we were a burden to you, but to even ruin the life of the woman you loved is beyond deplorable and redemption. That's why goodbye. We will never see each other again."
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