Chapter 573 - If I Was the One Who Died (1/2)

Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio  Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio

Standing there, Huo Jinyao looked cold and sharp-eyed.

“I know who drugged him,” he said.

“Who?” Su Qingsang couldn’t think of anyone who would do that. Almost everyone who had shown up today were relatives of the family.

Su Peizhen was the only one not related to the family. Was it her? Why would she drug Zhang Yichen?

‘And if it wasn’t her, who was it?’ Su Qingsang wondered.

Huo Jinyao shook his head and put both hands on Su Qingsang’s shoulders.

“Stay out of it and leave it to me. Go back to the room. Get some rest,” he said.

“What about…” Su Qingsang glanced at the bed. Zhang Yichen was still lying on it.

After the blood test results came out, the doctor gave him an early treatment.

The dose of the shot wasn’t heavy. It wouldn’t have caused such a strong effect if he hadn’t had alcohol.

“The doctor has given him a shot. He’s probably going to sleep for a while. He won’t need anyone here looking after him,” Huo Jinyao said.

Su Qingsang nodded. She didn’t want to look after Zhang Yichen in any case, not even if Huo Jinyao asked her to.

She was more than willing to take care of the Huo family relatives, but after what happened, she honestly didn’t think she had the courage to stay alone in the same room with Zhang Yichen anymore. He was a man, and she was a woman. She definitely needed to avoid that kind of situation.

“That’s what I thought,” she said, glancing at Zhang Yichen and sighing in her head. She didn’t leave hurriedly because she wanted to be respectful to Huo Jinyao.

Zhang Yichen had indeed put her in an embarrassing situation earlier, even though he didn’t mean it.

However, she wasn’t angry at him. After all, he had been drunk and drugged. In fact, she felt some pity for him. She wondered who had done that to him and why.

She took thought it was a bad prank, but Huo Jinyao thought differently.

He escorted Su Qingsang to her room and then headed straight upstairs to Liu Tongjia’s room.

Liu Tongjia was still angry. It had been quite a while, but her anger still hadn’t subsided at all.

He knocked on the door and then walked in.

He clenched his fists on either side of his body, looking at Liu Tongjia with a complicated expression.

Liu Tongjia felt uncomfortable under his gaze. But before she could say anything, Huo Jinyao took a few large steps up to her.

He stared straight at Liu Tongjia. His eyes were filled with a mixture of disappointment and something else.

“Why did you do that?” he asked.

Liu Tongjia looked at him with a confused face. As if she had no idea what he was talking about.

“Mom, tell me. Why did you do that?”

“What did I do?” Liu Tongjia pulled a sullen face and said, “Is this because I scolded your wife?”

Huo Jinyao gave her a bitter smile, smirking at Liu Tongjia. He couldn’t believe that she was still pretending that nothing happened.

“Mom, am I really your son? Are you really my mom? Does it pain you to watch me being happy?” He said.

“What are you talking about?” Liu Tongjia was infuriated now. “And what gives you the right to talk to me like this? Don’t you have any respect for me? I’m your mother!”

“You want me to respect you, but have you ever respected me? Have you ever treated me as your son? Have you?”

Huo Jinyao took another step forward. He was tall and strong, easily looming over her. Because of his intimidating stature, Liu Tongjia instinctively stepped backward even though she was the older one.

“Huo Jinyao, get out.”

“I’ll leave when I made things clear.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“My uncle, Zhang Yichen, is drugged.”

“Dru-drugged?” Liu Tongjia’s eyes widened with surprise and she said, “How could he be drugged? He’s drugged with what?”

Her surprise was, Huo Jinyao noticed, fake.

Huo Jinyao smiled coldly. He said, “Mom, you of all people would know exactly what kind of drug my uncle has taken. Isn’t that right?”

“What do you mean?”

“You know what I mean.”

All these years, Huo Jinyao had been tolerating his mother’s attitude and tried to be understanding.

He was aware of why Liu Tongjia didn’t like him.

And he knew that there was no way for him to change the way she thought about him. He had gotten used to her cold attitude.

However, he had never expected that one day, Liu Tongjia would do something like this to his wife.

Zhang Yichen might be in love with Su Qingsang, but Su Qingsang was innocent.

She shouldn’t have suffered all that.

“Huo Jinyao! Mind your attitude,” said Liu Tongjia.

“What about your attitude, Mom? Do you think you’ve been acting like a mother?” Huo Jinyao hadn’t wanted to say that. He had been holding his pain inside for a very long time. The burden was so heavy sometimes that he could barely breathe.

No one should ignore the abuse coming from their parents. He couldn’t do that anymore.

“Huo Jinyao, are you accusing me?”

“Am I not allowed to?” Huo Jinyao looked at her with sharp eyes. He was accusing her, point-blank.

“You say that you’re my mother, but would any mother do what you’ve done? In order to make me despise Qingsang, you drugged my uncle. I know that you don’t like me. You can hurt me if I’ve made you unhappy, but don’t hurt Qingsang.”

“I, I…”

Liu Tongjia stuttered, her eyes widening even further. She couldn’t believe that Huo Jinyao was really accusing her of drugging Zhang Yichen.

“I thought that maybe your grievance had eased—more or less. So many years have passed, Mom. But I was wrong. I don’t want to bring up the past again, but I want you to know that I’m done tolerating you.”

After he finished speaking, he turned and began to leave. But suddenly, Liu Tongjia stepped up to stop him.

“You think I drugged Zhang Yichen?”

“Isn’t that true?”

“Why would I do that?”

“So I’d misunderstand Su Qingsang. You did that to make us unhappy. You’ve been doing things like this the entire time, haven’t you? You’d do anything to upset me.”

“Huo Jinyao!” Liu Tongjia almost exploded with anger. She didn’t want to argue with Huo Jinyao about this. She nodded vigorously.

“Alright, alright. So I want you to misunderstand Su Qingsang? Do you call that misunderstanding? Huh? That woman was arm in arm with Zhang Yichen when you couldn’t see her. That’s not something I made up. I’m just trying to show you the facts.”

“I believe Qingsang. What do you mean, show me the facts? Is the fact that you drugged my uncle in order to frame Qingsang?”

“I drugged him?” Liu Tongjia said wrathfully. “He’s the nasty man who’s been having nasty thoughts!”

“He’s just been drugged by you. And the only reason for that is because you hate to see me happy.”

Liu Tongjia nodded quickly. She was seething with rage. She never thought that Huo Jinyao would ever storm into her room and accuse her like that.

She felt as though a fire was burning up inside of her, evaporating her sanity.

“Yeah, yeah, I did it. You’re right! I hate having to see you be happy. What gives you the right to be happy? Huo Jinyao, do you think you have the right to be happy?”

She pointed at Huo Jinyao and snarled fiercely. Anger flowing freely as if she finally let out all the grievances that had been piling up inside of her for decades.

“You, you, you have no right to be happy! Everything you have doesn’t belong to you. They all belong to Jinkai! You took your brother’s place. You killed him! And now, you are shamelessly hoarding all the happiness that belonged to someone else!

“Why would I want you to be happy? I don’t! You killed my son, my daughter. You killed my children and now, you’re still living a carefree and happy life. How did this happen? Huo Jinyao, what gives you the right to ask me for a happy life?”

Liu Tongjia’s eyes flashed red as she spoke.

Deep down inside, she wasn’t a mean person. She was just a mother who loved her children deeply. But Huo Jinyao had killed her love for others.

“When you killed them, you should have known that you’d go to hell! Huo Jinyao, every day of your life should be a living hell. You have no right to live a happy life! Am I wrong to think that?”

The rage burning up further sharpened Liu Tongjia’s voice. While she was speaking, she started to tremble.

She couldn’t control that anger of hers anymore, and she didn’t want to.

All these years, she had tried to be civil towards Huo Jinyao. But the façade was so fake, the peace between them so fragile, that even a gentle nudge would shatter it.

At this moment, she lost control of her emotions. And she let them run out of control, shattering the peace that never existed.

Huo Jinyao looked at her. She had lost her temper like that once before.

When his brother and sister died, she had grabbed his shoulders, shaking him furiously, refusing to believe what had happened.

“How can you be so cruel?” she had questioned him. “Why didn’t you die?

“Why weren’t you the one who died instead?”

Those memories were morbid and unpleasant. Huo Jinyao closed his eyes. When he opened those eyes again, they were clear, as if no emotion had ever touched them.

“That’s what you really wanted to say to me, isn’t it?

“That’s what you truly feel about me. You’ve been having these thoughts all these years. You’ve been trying to hide them, but they never went away.

“You’ve always wished that I was the one who died in that accident, didn’t you?”

His voice was soft. Every word he said splattered on Liu Tongjia’s heart like large raindrops.

Somehow, his repeating her thoughts back to her felt a little uncomfortable. She did her best to shrug off that discomfort, though.

“You said that not I,” she said. She had not said that just now, but she had said something like that when Huo Jinyao was a kid.

Huo Jinyao nodded, standing perfectly straight.

He was tall strong and mature.

He was Huo Jinyao, an indestructible man.