SWTHTC - 40

Chapter 40: “Do You Mean It?”

At ten o’clock in the evening, Hou Zihao received a call from Su Ruini urging him to return home.

Earlier that day, he had already informed Su Ruini about his plan to stay at the hospital for a few days to visit Yu Qing. However, she wasn’t entirely convinced. Over the phone, she scolded him sternly: “What kind of relationship requires you to stay overnight and keep vigil? Visiting during the day is more than enough. Now hurry home!”

With that, she hung up.

Su Ruini’s words were sharp and commanding, but Hou Zihao had no intention of obediently following her orders. He planned to continue discussing with Zhou Leqi whether they should officially be together. However, she clearly didn’t share his thoughts and even sided with his mother, urging him to leave. “You should go home now,” she said. “My mom is fine now, and she’ll be discharged tomorrow.”

Yu Qing’s discharge was good news, and Hou Zihao was genuinely happy about it. However, Zhou Leqi’s current attitude left him somewhat speechless. He let out a faint, dissatisfied hum and crossed his arms. “Alright, so now that Auntie is better, you don’t need me anymore? You’re kicking me out, huh?”

He appeared a little upset, but what could an angry German Shepherd do? He wouldn’t truly sulk with the person he loved.

Zhou Leqi knew this too. She simply smiled, gathered up the candy wrappers from the floor, stood up, and pushed open the safety door to leave.

The sound of the door opening triggered the motion-sensor lights, instantly dispelling the subtle atmosphere between them earlier. Even the lingering scent of chocolate vanished without a trace.

It felt as though she was drifting away from him.

For some reason, Hou Zihao’s heart skipped a beat. At the same time, a terrible premonition crept into his mind, prompting him to instinctively reach out and tightly grab her wrist.

She turned back to look at him—one foot already outside the door, one still inside. Her beautiful face was half-hidden in shadow.

He asked, “…Where are you going?”

She raised an eyebrow, stating matter-of-factly, “Back to the ward to see my mom.”

He realized he had asked a useless question and felt slightly embarrassed. After a pause, he added, “Then I’ll go with you.”

“No need,” she smiled at him—a radiant smile. “She hasn’t freshened up yet and probably doesn’t want to see anyone. You can visit her next time.”

The phrase “next time” seemed to carry hidden meaning, like a clever little hook that erased Hou Zihao’s earlier unease while simultaneously luring him into a sweet trap.

It was undeniably sweet, enough to make his heart flutter.

“Don’t play games with me,” he surrendered, earnestly pleading. “Just tell me—are we together now?”

She continued to smile silently, like an unspeakable secret. Her gaze was calm yet complex. After a long moment, when he was on the verge of being tormented beyond endurance, she finally took pity on him and said, “I’ll… tell you tomorrow at school.”

Waiting is an intangible thing, but adding a deadline makes it feel real. The word “tomorrow” made him believe her.

Though reluctant, he reluctantly nodded, then fixed his eyes on her and asked, “Do you mean it?”

“Of course,” she promised with a smile and said, “See you tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow.”

Another word that tugged at the heartstrings.

He was powerless against her sweet trap and willingly fell into it, answering as she hoped:

“Alright… see you tomorrow.”

________________________________________

When Hou Zihao stepped out of the hospital gate, he realized it had started raining.

The rain was already heavy, not just beginning—it must have started while they were in the stairwell. But at the time, all his attention had been on her, so much so that he hadn’t noticed the rain.

Sigh… Had he become obsessed with her?

He chuckled self-deprecatingly, pulled an umbrella from his bag, opened it, and walked toward the exit.

The rain poured heavily, bringing with it the chilling dampness of early autumn. He had only taken a few steps when a bolt of lightning suddenly tore through the night sky. Cold light enveloped the entire city, followed shortly by a deafening clap of thunder. The echoes reverberated through the clouds, refusing to dissipate.

For some inexplicable reason… it made him uneasy.

Hou Zihao stopped in his tracks, frowned, glanced back at the hospital entrance, hesitated for a moment, and then turned around and ran back.

He didn’t know why he chose to run back.

Perhaps it was simply because he wanted to leave his umbrella with her to prevent her from getting soaked.

Or perhaps it was because he had already faintly heard… her silent cry for help.

At that moment, Zhou Leqi was alone.

She stood on the rooftop of the hospital, neither holding an umbrella nor seeking shelter. She allowed herself to be completely drenched by the rain, her body already soaked through.

She climbed onto the concrete railing of the rooftop. The world below suddenly seemed so small, making her realize how insignificant she was—and how even more insignificant her pain was.

So insignificant… Her suffering was negligible compared to the happiness she objectively possessed. At least she had a place to live, enough food to eat, good health without illness, and the opportunity to attend school. These conditions should have made her feel content. To outsiders, there was nothing pitiable about her, and certainly no justification for contemplating ending her life. Even sharing her pain with others would seem overly dramatic.

But… she truly suffered.

She suffered from loneliness. Her classmates and friends who had long moved on, her biological father who now had a new family, her exhausted mother who begged her to “let her go”—everything made her feel isolated.

She had tried so hard, harder than anyone could imagine. Three years ago, she endured her parents’ endless arguments, listening silently to Yu Qing’s intermittent sobs in the endless night. She bore the pain of repeated college entrance exam failures, pretending not to notice the strange looks from teachers and classmates or their whispered comments behind her back. She played the role of strength, pretending not to care about her parents’ divorce, pretending to sever all emotional ties with Zhou Lei, and pretending to fully adapt to life in a single-parent household. She also concealed all signs of her struggles—chronic insomnia, sudden bouts of low mood, and a gradually worsening memory…

She had given it her all, silently fighting against everything life threw at her. But in the end, she lost.

She didn’t know who she lost to, but the sense of failure was profound. She felt worthless and had no expectations for the future.

She wasn’t always like this. Once, she was full of energy, believing that effort could change many things and that she would lead a brilliant life. But somewhere along the way, everything went wrong. She found herself uninteresting, the world uninteresting, every path blocked, and every destination she desired surrounded by thorns.

She was like an isolated island.

When does a mental breakdown occur? Perhaps no grand event is needed—just a slight touch of that tiny switch. All the accumulated grievances and pain burst forth, revealing wounds beneath the bandages that had long festered. They couldn’t heal; they could only be temporarily covered.

Take Zhou Leqi, for example. She could have pretended to endure a little longer, but today, seeing the exhaustion in Yu Qing’s eyes made her suddenly realize that all her efforts were meaningless.

Why should she keep enduring?

Why pretend to tolerate this miserable life?

Why not admit it?

Admit that she was weak, overly sentimental, and defeated by an unseen fate.

Now, she was only one step away from complete surrender.

Just one more step forward, and she would be free.

She would never suffer again. The only consequence might be becoming a cautionary tale for others to teach their children. She might be labeled as a child “who hadn’t suffered, so was too fragile,” or someone “with high expectations who got stuck in a rut.”

But none of it mattered anymore.

Let it be.

Let everything… just be.

The rain was torrential, enough to drown out the fall of a life, to conceal the tears of that girl, and to drown out the quiet she craved in her final moments.

It also drowned out the footsteps of the boy running toward her.

“Zhou Leqi!!!”

He shouted her name in the pouring rain, but his voice was far quieter than the thunder roaring in the distance. The world was too noisy; his voice couldn’t reach her ears.

But the embrace of that boy could not be blocked.

He ran toward her through the rain, lunging at her in the moment of her hesitation. With all his might, almost savagely, he pulled her into his arms, and they both crashed onto the rain-soaked concrete ground.

A loud thud.

Their bones ached.

They were both in pain, but the gaze of that boy in the rain was more painful than anything else combined.

He looked at her with an intensity that pierced to the bone, pinning her down on the hard, cold ground. For the first time, he confronted her with unprecedented dominance and ferocity. “Zhou Leqi… what are you doing?”

Was it ferocity?

Perhaps it was.

He seemed truly enraged, a side of him no one had ever seen. His entire body was taut like a drawn bow, ready to snap at any moment.

But perhaps it wasn’t.

He was simply too panicked, too shocked, too deeply pained, losing control of himself in that instant and becoming a slave to his anguish.

My beloved girl… why are you doing this?

That girl didn’t answer him.

She lay there on the ground without resistance, showing no reaction to his fierce questioning. At first, her eyes reflected deep pain, but soon they grew numb.

Like a beautiful doll that had lost its soul, even the last flicker of light had extinguished.

And in that moment, he suddenly realized:

The person he loved… was already sick.