"......"Xiao Mubai merely stared at her in silence.
Shen Nian looked up and met his eyes, her brows curved gently: "Are you thinking of calling me brainless? Go ahead and scold me if you want, I'll listen."
Xiao Mubai said to her: "You're not brainless, you're naive."
So naive, he had never seen such a naive girl before.
Shen Nian was taken aback for a moment, then asked with a smile: "Is that a compliment?"
"No." Xiao Mubai's face was stern: "I'm scolding you, didn't you hear?"
"...." She had never heard someone scold someone like that before.
Although they weren't a couple, they had known each other for many years and were like close friends.
She looked at him, and he looked at her.
Suddenly, they both laughed.
..............................
Shen Nian still needed to receive an IV drip at the hospital, and Xiao Mubai had gone to pay the fees and get the IV fluids.
In the ward, only Shen Nian was left alone. She reached out and touched the sunflower necklace around her neck, seeming to remember something, and turned to look at the table beside her.
There were two phones, both belonging to Shen Nian.
One was a very new model, while the other was a few years old.
Nowadays, phones are updated and replaced so quickly that after just five years, the appearances of these two looked vastly different.
Shen Nian almost always carried two phones with her - one for making calls and work, and the other with no apps installed, only containing one text message -
The last text message that Lu Lingrui had sent her before committing suicide.
She opened it and stared at the words she had long since memorized.
After gazing at it for a long time, she murmured to herself.
"If you had hated me back then, maybe I would have felt better."
Sometimes Shen Nian wondered why she still couldn't let go even after so many years. After much thought, she figured it might be because of Lingrui's kindness.
Lingrui had never blamed her, not even in the last few minutes before she jumped.
Staring at the text message on the screen, she said softly: "There's nothing more to say between us."
Because they had said too much when they were young.
The two high school girls used to talk about everything - going to class together, eating together, studying together in the library, and sometimes even sleeping in the same bed, talking about love and their futures.
Lu Lingrui was talkative and could go on and on even when scolding Shen Nian.
They had discussed so much, like how when Shen Nian married Lu Lingchuan, Lu Lingrui would be her only bridesmaid;
And when Lu Lingrui got married, although Shen Nian couldn't be her bridesmaid, she would have to have two little ones to be the flower girls;
They would choose the same major in college, and even if they attended the same university but different majors, that wouldn't work because it would start making them drift apart.
And they had to choose art, which was Lu Lingrui's forte. Actually, Shen Nian was quite talented in art too. Her parents had made her learn painting and music when she was young, but she didn't pursue it seriously, though she did have a foundation.
As for why Shen Nian had to follow Lu Lingrui's wishes, it was because Lu Lingrui said she was too dumb - Shen Nian could do everything Lu Lingrui could, but not vice versa;
Lu Lingrui had also said that one month before Shen Nian married her brother, they had to go on a trip together, just the two of them, as a final single girls' trip before Shen Nian had her own family after marriage;
And...
They had said too much. So much that Shen Nian couldn't even remember it all, so besides "I'm sorry," she couldn't think of anything else to say to Lu Lingrui.
She looked at the screen and smiled bitterly: "I still want to see you again, just to catch a glimpse of you. After all, in this life, you're the only one I owe."
"...."
The ringing of a phone interrupted Shen Nian. She turned her head to look at the other phone on the table, glanced at the caller ID, then answered and put the phone to her ear without saying anything.
The other end was also silent at first.
After a while, a weary sigh came through. "He told me... he wasn't going to go there yesterday because he was afraid you would break up with him."
"...." Shen Nian's eyelashes trembled, but she remained silent.
"But you were even crueler." Tricking him into going to another woman's confession scene.
"...."
The caller didn't speak, but Lu Lingchen knew she was listening.
Lu Lingchen pinched the bridge of his nose, then called out to her: "Nian-jie."
He asked: "Are you really giving up?"
Shen Nian lowered her gaze to the sunflower necklace around her neck, taking several seconds before murmuring: "Giving up is a pity, but some things are pointless to persist with."
After a pause, she questioned: "Isn't that so?"
"...." Lu Lingchen was rendered speechless by her words.
After a good while, he stated: "You know my brother has always liked you and only you. Even when he was with Liang Jinghe, he didn't like her."
"I guess Liang Jinghe and I proved that saying," Shen Nian said.
"Which one?"
"You can't have both the fish and the bear paw."
"...."
It took a long time before Lu Lingchen asked: "Why?"
Shen Nian looked up at the bright, white ceiling light.
"Lu Lingchuan may still like me, but there are too many shackles between us. Lu Lingrui's death is an unfathomable abyss, and his two children with me are two equally bottomless abysses. Then there's the knot in your mother's heart... Any one of these is enough to prevent us from being together, let alone all of them overlapping now." She exhaled a deep breath.
"...."
"As for Liang Jinghe, she may not have captured your brother's heart yet, but her background is clean. There are no lives standing between her and your brother. When your mother sees her, she'll just see her future daughter-in-law, not someone who reminds her of Lingrui."
She paused, then said: "That's the difference between Liang Jinghe and me."
Sometimes there are no perfect choices - no matter which you choose, you have to give up something to gain something else.
She is love, Liang Jinghe is reality.
Many men, when they were young and reckless, meet a woman who becomes the moon in their heart. They vowed to marry her, but in the end were defeated by reality and married a woman who may not be the love of their life, but was suitable to live with.
The same goes for women.
"In life, we all have to bow to reality," she concluded.
"If you look at it that way, I'm still the unattainable moon in your brother Lu Lingchuan's heart," she said, laughing at herself.
Her expression turned somber as she thought of something, and she murmured softly, "It was worth it."
At least she had entered Lu Lingchuan's heart, making her life worthwhile.
Lu Lingchen asked her, "Do you really think you and he can't end up together?"
"It's possible," Shen Nian said suddenly.
Her response surprised Lu Lingchen, who had expected her to say it was impossible.
