FY - 42

Si Wen didn’t stop her. He let Zhou Yan leave.

But he couldn’t just watch her go, so he followed. When she hailed a taxi, he got in his car and followed her all the way to her apartment complex. He watched her get out of the car and enter the building.

Parking his car on the side of the road, Si Wen followed closely behind her until she entered her home. He then stood at the stairwell, staring at her door.

He didn’t move forward, and he didn’t leave.

The moment Zhou Yan entered the door, she slid down the door panel to the floor, covering her mouth as she wept uncontrollably.

She should have felt a sense of relief, so why was she crying? What was there to cry about? What about an old bastard like Si Wen was worth crying over?

Nothing.

He was selfish, vicious, domineering, foul-mouthed, shameless, and not a human being... He had no good qualities at all, so why couldn’t she stop the tears? Zhou Yan, are you a victim of Stockholm syndrome? Are you a masochist? Or are you just pathetic?

He trampled you through eighteen levels of hell and pushed you in front of the King of Hell, and you’re still crying for him? Is leaving the devil so painful for you?

For more than four years, he was moody and always found new ways to display his cruel side.

When he was high on drugs and felt good, he would pet your head like a dog and grant you the right to be near him. When he wasn’t feeling good, he would bite you all over, and have sex with you until your legs were weak, so you couldn’t even put on a pair of pants.

Slowly, you became composed, no longer in the terrified state you were in at the beginning. Later, you could handle all his forms of aggression. Everyone thought you had successfully mastered the art of endurance, but then he started to change.

He became more and more indulgent toward you. The tenderness outweighed the cruelty, and you panicked. You wondered what was wrong with him, and you believed that he had a complete change of heart. But the reality was a slap in the face: he hadn’t changed. Even if the tenderness was real, the cruelty wasn’t fake.

You finally couldn’t take it anymore. You wanted to leave, and you felt it was normal. This was a controlled, reflexive human response. This was the ninth time, and it was time to go.

But in the end, hadn’t you also changed?

You no longer saw him as a boss, so you couldn’t tolerate him just for the money anymore.

...

Zhou Yan hugged her head with both hands, trying to stop herself from thinking further. She didn’t want to hear the answer.

No matter what it was, she had already left, and she would no longer be tortured by Si Wen.

But what about the tears? Why were they still falling?

Zhou Siyuan heard the commotion and came out of his room. He turned on the light, saw Zhou Yan on the floor, and ran over, looking at her face anxiously. “Sister? What’s wrong? What happened?”

Zhou Yan reached out and hugged Zhou Siyuan, her eyes on the door as her tears continued to fall. She spoke slowly, as if telling a story: “A poisonous weed grew in Sister’s heart, and I pulled it out today.”

Zhou Siyuan understood the literal meaning. “Then Sister is saved, isn’t she? Why are you crying? Siyuan is going to be sad, too.”

Zhou Yan hugged him tighter. “Because it had lived for too long. It had intertwined with my limbs and rooted itself in my heart. Pulling it out took half my life. Fortunately, I only cried. I didn’t die.”

Zhou Siyuan nuzzled her in her arms. “I’m still here.”

Yes. She still had Zhou Siyuan.

Tomorrow would be a brand new start.