Chapter 4.3 (1/2)

Chapter 4.3

Those five meters and all the blood, sweat and tears they represented were a badge of honor. I felt a kind of grat.i.tude. I would surely stand up one day. No. More than that. I would run and jump like any healthy, normal person. I could do it.

However, having bottled up everything for such a long time, once the floodgates burst open it was impossible to shut them again. I didn’t know whether it was tears of joy or pain coming out of my eyes; I could only prop myself up on the floor and cry. By the time my eyes began to dry, I was wheezing for air and hiccuping.

Now feeling uncomfortable, I made an attempt to get off the ground but couldn’t summon up the strength to do so because I had already exhausted all my energy. Hiccuping, I flailed my four limbs around on the floor a couple times before giving up and deciding to just lay there a bit longer. While flopping around I had noticed the mirror, and now I tilted my head to look into it.

My reflection had puffy red eyes, a mixture of snot and tears smeared everywhere, hair tangled in a mess, and ruddy cheeks. Really hideous-looking. But staring at my appalling state, I couldn’t resist cracking a smile.

Then, I was unable to smile anymore.

In the mirror, I saw Yin Li standing in the doorway. His face was obscured by the shadows, so I couldn’t make out any expression on it, and I didn’t know how long he had been silently standing there and how

much he had seen.

Noticing that I’d detected him, he finally walked out of the shadows. I couldn’t stop myself from automatically scooting into a corner. He gave off a strong, oppressive aura that always made me tense up with a faint feeling of dread. Yin Li possessed no goodwill, only good manners.

He walked right up to me, crouched down, and stared at me with a penetrating look that gave me gooseb.u.mps. Still hiccuping, I shrunk my neck back as short as possible and subconsciously shut my eyes.

Then I felt a hand very, very gently, softly and carefully, pat me on my head. And then, this hand traveled down the back of my head to my back, and lightly encouraged me to take a breath.

I hiccuped, raised my head, and looked at Yin Li with an astonished expression. He wasn’t looking into my eyes, so I only saw the bottom of his eyelashes.

He spoke: “You will be fine.”

I felt irritated for some reason, and responded in a gruff voice1: “In this situation shouldn’t you say, ‘It doesn’t matter if you’re unable to stand, because I’ll be your legs’—some dramatic lines like this? ‘You will be fine?’ Before Jing Ke left to a.s.sa.s.sinate Emperor Qin, Prince Dan also said he would be fine.”2

I only said this to keep up my false bravado, not because I hoped Yin Li would give me any meaningful response.

But unexpectedly, after a period of silence, he lifted his head and gave me a unfathomable look: “I won’t be your legs, because I know you’ll stand up again, Yan Xiao.”

A sudden feeling

feeling of resentment flooded me, which I could faintly tell was because I felt like he had somehow peeped into my innermost thoughts. Even though I had no idea how long he had stood in the doorway, I was certain that he had heard the sound of my tragic wailing.

And the thought that a man would be able to quietly stand there with no reaction to such bitter tears gave me chills all over.

Yin Li truly didn’t love me.

However, his actions right now could be interpreted as affectionate. He pulled up the hem of my pants, exposing the purple bruises and smeared blood.

That was just my lower leg; once Yin Li cut apart the trouser leg with a pair of scissors, the true spectacle was the horrible bruises on my knee and its surrounding area. As more of my leg was exposed Yin Li’s gentleness vanished, his movements instead taking on a hint of ruthlessness.