Having lived a second life, Jiang Fuyue did not want to forgive.
If letting things go were too easy, then wouldn’t the price of betrayal be far too light?
Lou Mingshen looked at her. In those eyes was nothing but guard and vigilance; the former indulgence and closeness could no longer be seen.
Sis…
His lips moved, almost calling it out.
But Jiang Fuyue spoke first: “Do you need something?”
The tone she used for a stranger, indifferent to the point of near heartlessness.
“I went to see Ming Yu,” he said.
Jiang Fuyue’s expression did not change, only a trace of icy sharpness flashing in the depths of her eyes.
Ming Yu definitely wouldn’t reveal her identity, so there was only one possibility…
He had already discovered something and wanted to seek confirmation from Ming Yu.
Sure enough…
“I know everything now.” He looked at her, his burning gaze seeming to pierce through her, striking directly at the soul. “Sis, you came back, didn’t you? You finally came back!”
After saying that, two streams of tears slid from his eyes, winding down along his cheeks. They flowed more and more, like floodwaters after the gates had opened, impossible to stop.
Jiang Fuyue was stunned.
The moment she heard him say he had met Ming Yu, countless scenarios had already been predicted in her mind about what might happen after he recognized her.
Harsh accusations, swords drawn against each other, even a fight to the death, killing her once again!
In any case, nothing warm or pleasant.
But she had never expected that a man in his forties would cry his heart out after saying just two sentences.
“Sis… I’m sorry. I know the reason you refuse to acknowledge me must be because you blame me, blame me for bringing you back to the old house and causing your death…”
As he spoke, he cried. Then with a thump, his knees hit the ground, and he knelt his way toward her.
His expensive suit pants rubbed against the dirty ground. His carefully styled hair was now disheveled, and tears streamed down his face, completely ruining his appearance.
He stopped by Jiang Fuyue’s legs. Just as she tried to step aside, he suddenly stretched out both arms, wrapped them around her waist, and pressed his head against her abdomen,
“Sis, can you forgive me?”
“I never imagined Lou Mingxin would dare to do something like that. When I asked you to come home, I truly only wanted to have a meal with you.”
“I don’t want anything. I could even stop being a Lou. I only want you to be alive!”
Jiang Fuyue did not move, letting him hold her, watching as tears soaked her windbreaker, leaving a dark patch of dampness.
Her gaze was cold, her tone even colder. “Saying these things now has no meaning anymore. You obtained the Lou Corporation and became the head of the family, those are facts.”
Lou Mingyue’s death had made both Lou Mingxin and Lou Mingshen beneficiaries. That could not be denied.
“No, that’s not it…” Lou Mingshen shook his head, tightening his grip. He was desperate to hold onto something, yet the harder he grasped, the stronger that drifting, elusive feeling became. He felt he could not hold on anymore. It was as if a huge hole had opened in his soul, slowly being eroded, fear crawling all over his heart. “None of that is what I wanted.”
“Take the money, take the company, take even my life. I’m begging you, forgive me, please?”
In the end, Jiang Fuyue still stepped back little by little, stopping two meters away from him.
He knelt there, looking up at her humbly, his vision blurred with tears.
Lou Mingshen’s entire body trembled.
He understood the resolve in her eyes.
“Even if you didn’t participate in what happened back then, Lou Mingxin is your biological sister, bound by blood. I can choose not to hate you, but I cannot treat you the way I did before.”
“Mingshen,” pity flashed in Jiang Fuyue’s eyes, along with regret, but in the end they scattered with the wind and turned into calm. “I’m no longer Lou Mingyue, and the past twenty years cannot be turned back. We… should leave it at this.”
Brother and sister in the previous life, strangers in this one.
Each living their own lives in peace.
“No… don’t…” Lou Mingshen shook his head. “Sis, don’t be like this. Ming Yu waited for you for twenty years, and I’ve been waiting too! Why can he have a complete ending while I can’t?”
He cried like a lost child.
“I know you hate betrayal the most… Even though I didn’t know about it back then, I still became an invisible accomplice… I’m sorry…”
“You’ll never forgive me… and I can’t forgive myself either…”
His expression was dazed, his words incoherent.
His pale face looked as though it had suffered a fatal blow.
Jiang Fuyue pressed her lips together. Toward Lou Mingshen, she had nothing left to say; she had already done everything she could.
Just then, a truck approached slowly from the distance.
The towing company had arrived.
Jiang Fuyue said, “Leave. Let’s not meet again in the future.”
After saying that, she walked past him toward her car.
“Sis…”
Lou Mingshen called out to her.
Jiang Fuyue turned back, and the next second her pupils tightened. “What are you doing?!”
She saw Lou Mingshen standing on the highway guardrail. Tear tracks were still on his face, yet his expression was calm.
“Sis, I owe you a life. Today I’ll return it to you.”
After saying that, he spread his arms and leaned backward. At that moment, a relieved smile filled his face.
Twenty-three years.
It turned out that what hurt even more than losing her was her refusal to acknowledge him.
She hated him!
“Mingshen…”
At the moment he flipped over the guardrail and rolled down the mountainside, he heard her panicked cry.
That was enough…
At two in the morning, an ambulance sped toward the Central Hospital like a gust of wind.
Lou Mingshen, covered in blood and of unknown life or death, was pushed into the emergency room.
Jiang Fuyue sat on a chair in the corridor. The pale light shone on her face, making her entire person appear silently sickly.
She did not cry. There was not even visible sadness or grief. But sitting there so thin and still, she radiated endless desolation.
“Yueyue…”
A man walked in front of her, crouched down, and gently held her hand.
The warmth of his palm passed into hers, making her eyes move slightly.
Her gaze focused, meeting Xie Dingyuan’s worried eyes.
She forced out a smile, yet it looked worse than crying.
“I…”
“Don’t say anything. I already know.”
Before coming here, he had already handled matters with the police. The people from the towing company had been paid for their silence, and the news had been immediately sealed from the outside.
He handled everything first before coming to her.
From the road surveillance footage and the testimony of the towing company witnesses, he had roughly learned what had happened. But the one thing he could not understand was why Lou Mingshen would cry bitterly in front of Jiang Fuyue, kneel before her, and even attempt suicide in front of her.
But now was not the time to pursue that.
He pulled Jiang Fuyue into his arms.
His palm gently rubbed her thin back, transferring warmth bit by bit. “It’s okay now…”
Ming Yu hurried over and saw this scene,
The girl leaned in the man’s arms in a posture of absolute reliance and trust.
The man softly comforted her by her ear, tenderness filling his brows and eyes, everything he saw full of pity and love.
In his memory, whether it was the former Lou Mingyue or the current Jiang Fuyue, she had always been so strong that she never needed anyone’s help, let alone comfort.
Only the weak would show their miserable side in front of others.
Then what about now?
She leaned so peacefully and naturally in Xie Dingyuan’s arms, as if a giant ship had finally found a harbor to dock.
So it turned out…
It wasn’t that she didn’t want to dock, but that in the past there had never been a harbor wide enough for her to enter.
If she couldn’t rely on one, she could only press forward, breaking through wind and waves.
Ming Yu smiled, bitterness curling at the corner of his lips.
At that moment, he finally understood where he had lost.
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