MY - 56

Liang Sirong had a gentle and kind appearance, with soft features and a voice as gentle as water.

She put down her teacup. “It’s been eight years since A’dou came home.”

He had been neglected and ignored abroad, drifting for more than ten years before finally returning home.

“But I know he wasn’t always alone,” Liang Sirong looked at Jiang Xi, smiling. “You were with him for a while, and he’s always remembered it.”

Jiang Xi didn’t interrupt.

“When he came home at seventeen, he had a bad temper. He was like a powder keg with everyone, and he argued with his dad all the time.”

Liang Sirong seemed to be reminiscing, smiling. “The kid wasn’t close to me at first either. Maybe he suffered too much hardship as a child. He was very sweet, but he wasn’t close to anyone.”

Jiang Xi said, “You were good to him.”

Liang Sirong smiled. “Yes, that’s why he’s so close to me now.”

Jiang Xi wasn’t surprised at all. Lu Nandu was that kind of person. Give him a piece of candy and he’ll go with you. Whoever was good to him, he’d be even better to them.

It was just that there were too few people who were willing to give him candy.

Jiang Xi didn’t say anything.

“Later, when he was abroad, I video-called him once and asked him if he had a girlfriend since he was an adult,” Liang Sirong’s gaze fell on her face. “He took your picture and put it over the camera and told me that was her.”

“At the time, I didn’t know who you were, and I had never seen you around him before. I later found out that you were his ex-girlfriend.”

Liang Sirong spoke slowly, smiling. “This kid would definitely not tell you these things.”

Indeed.

Jiang Xi hummed.

He was a person who loved to act spoiled, but he was silent about the most difficult years of his life.

Liang Sirong glanced at the courtyard. Xu Qingzhou hadn’t tidied it up before going in. There were a few broken branches and twigs next to the flower stand.

She looked away and asked Jiang Xi, “Xu Qingzhou’s identity prevents him from telling you too much about A’dou. Has A’dou himself talked to you about it?”

Jiang Xi wasn’t sure what she was referring to and asked, “About his illness?”

Liang Sirong nodded. “It seems A’dou must have told you a little.”

From the moment she entered the courtyard and saw Jiang Xi sitting there, Liang Sirong knew that Jiang Xi knew about Lu Nandu’s illness. Otherwise, she wouldn’t be here.

So she was just asking Jiang Xi a perfunctory question about whether Lu Nandu had talked to her.

She said, “Then you must know that the source of A’dou’s fear is his mother, right?”

In fact, this was something Jiang Xi had only found out a few hours ago.

She and Lu Nandu hadn’t spent much time alone together, and Lu Nandu also avoided talking about his illness.

If Jiang Xi hadn’t unintentionally discovered the detail that Lu Nandu was afraid of windows yesterday, she wouldn’t have guessed that the source of his inner demons was his mother.

Jiang Xi hummed. “I know.”

Liang Sirong said, “A’dou’s mother committed suicide by jumping off a building back then.”

Chu Xingru was her husband Lu Kaidong’s mistress. Liang Sirong should have been very clear about this, but her tone was calm, and there wasn’t a hint of emotional turmoil about it.

Jiang Xi nodded. She and Lu Nandu were still together at the time.

It was the summer after Lu Nandu’s senior year of high school. They had just started dating. After being together for more than a month, Lu Nandu went back to high school to get his report card.

Chu Xingru’s accident happened during those few days.

Jiang Xi didn’t see Lu Nandu during those days. She remembered that he was very calm every time they talked on the phone and didn’t confide any of his pain to her.

No one would have thought that under such a calm exterior, Lu Nandu had endured a struggle with his inner demons for nearly ten years.

Even about Chu Xingru’s death, he only mentioned it in a few words.

She passed away. She jumped from a building.

Liang Sirong said, “The first few times A’dou had an episode, I didn’t know the reason for it. He wouldn’t say, and even if he did, he couldn’t get over that psychological hurdle himself.”

Talking about these things, Jiang Xi was quite calm. She asked, “How did you find out later?”

Liang Sirong didn’t answer immediately and looked at Xu Qingzhou’s house.

Jiang Xi also looked over in the direction of her gaze.

Liang Sirong didn’t know what she was thinking. After a while, she said, “After En’di passed away, A’dou’s condition got worse and worse. Although I said he became close to me because I was good to him, the truth is, it was because of En’di’s death that he felt extremely guilty towards me, and that’s why he got closer to me later on.”

When she mentioned her biological son, who had passed away eight years ago, there was a quiet sadness in Liang Sirong’s eyes.

Jiang Xi didn’t interrupt her.

But Liang Sirong quickly came back to herself and turned her head to look at her. “I got sidetracked.”

She said, “Of course, A’dou didn’t tell me these things himself. It was after he agreed to let Xu Qingzhou talk to me about his condition that I found out.”

Jiang Xi: “I see.”

“He was going to let Xu Qingzhou tell you these things, but it’s the same whether I tell you or Xu Qingzhou tells you. Since we’re sitting here chatting, I’ll just tell you everything at once.”

Jiang Xi had no objections and nodded. “Okay.”

“When A’dou’s mother jumped from the building, it was right in front of him. You’re such a smart girl. Seeing A’dou’s current state, even if you don’t know the specifics of what his mother did back then, you should be able to guess what she must have done before she jumped.”

Jiang Xi had been thinking about this question from last night until now.

But Liang Sirong’s next sentence was something she hadn’t expected. She didn’t beat around the bush and said directly, “It has something to do with you.”

Jiang Xi was stunned.

Liang Sirong was not surprised by her reaction.

She didn’t pause either, as if she were just having a casual and ordinary chat with the person in front of her over a pot of tea.

After Chu Xingru gave birth to Lu Nandu, Lu Kaidong didn’t acknowledge the son. Later, Chu Xingru’s resentment towards the Lu family deepened day by day.

She knew that Lu Kaidong looked down on her and her son. Underneath the man’s refined appearance was a disdain for the lower class. Chu Xingru, in bed with him, was nothing but a plaything. She wasn’t even considered a mistress.

The world was a glitzy illusion, and love was a mirage.

Chu Xingru was nothing but a mayfly living and dying in a day, surviving in a corner of this city with a child in tow.

While Lu Kaidong was a prodigy, successful in life, living under the emperor’s feet, with power constantly clinging to him.

Every time life beat her down, Chu Xingru’s resentment towards Lu Kaidong would grow stronger. His contempt for her and her son also gradually became Chu Xingru’s obsession.

She had turned from a young woman into a pervert and, unknowingly, became a version of Lu Kaidong.

She hated that her son was useless, idle, and a disappointment.

She was indifferent to her son. Even if he died somewhere one day, she might not even go look for him. Yet, this person was exceptionally concerned about her son’s academic performance.

Other than their mother-son relationship, the two of them were strangers who had nothing to do with each other. They each did their own thing. The only connection they had was their studies.

Neither Chu Xingru nor Lu Nandu were the type to back down. They clashed, often arguing over this matter.

It was a common occurrence for Lu Nandu to have a wine bottle smashed on his head by his mother.

The ten-plus years of Lu Nandu’s life when he most needed to be loved and guided were spent in violence and darkness.

Until he met Jiang Xi.

He knew what it felt like to be liked and loved. He knew there could be moments when people could be so close.

Jiang Xi might have been a stranger to Chu Xingru, but Chu Xingru was not a stranger to her.

Chu Xingru knew all about her and Lu Nandu’s little romance back then.

But before that, she first knew that Jiang Xi was a friend of the Lu family’s weak and sickly real young master. Lu En’di probably never knew that he had been living under the resentful and malicious gaze of a strange woman since he was a child.

Seeing Lu Nandu and Jiang Xi together, she, who had been living in a dirty, dark corner for the second half of her life, wouldn’t let go of this opportunity. The filthy maggots in her body writhed and crawled out from between her bones.

In her eyes, these youthful and naive loves were a joke, and their demise was not worthy of pity.

Her arguments with Lu Nandu gradually shifted from academics to Jiang Xi.

Human nature is evil. A person who has lived in the shadows for a long time can immediately see a person’s weaknesses.

Chu Xingru was 100% sure that the useless young master of the Lu family would fall for her plan. As long as Lu Nandu threatened him with Jiang Xi, he would immediately agree.

What she didn’t expect was that the biggest obstacle would be her own foolish son.

The arguments escalated. Chu Xingru even started to self-harm.

The day Lu Nandu came home with his report card, they got into another argument.

That day, Chu Xingru said the same things as before. The mother and son’s argument went into a vicious cycle, and furniture was smashed all over the room.

Chu Xingru’s hair was a mess, like a mad beast.

She swung a chair and smashed it against Lu Nandu.

Lu Nandu had never fought back since he was a child, no matter how much he was beaten. He knew Chu Xingru was always ruthless when she hit people, but he never dodged.

The woman was very strong, and the leg of the chair broke instantly.

Lu Nandu, however, seemed to not feel any pain, only frowning.

She told Lu Nandu to get lost and go to the capital.

The woman’s screaming insults were vicious and filthy. She even started to attack Jiang Xi.

She had gone insane.

The harm was mutual. That day, Lu Nandu glared at her and said something to her calmly and indifferently.

He said, “Even if you die, don’t expect me to agree.”

And with that sentence, the argument’s climax came to an abrupt halt.

Chu Xingru, without any warning, unexpectedly climbed out of the window and jumped from the high-rise building.

When Lu Nandu subconsciously rushed over to grab her, it was too late. In the blink of an eye, the body smashed onto the cement.

There was a muffled thud, and blood splattered.

In an instant, the screams and cries from below the high-rise building formed a chorus.

Lu Nandu was hunched over the windowsill. It was too late to grab anything with his arm, and his fingertips were trembling slightly.

Her voice before she died and the intermittent screams from downstairs became a single jumble of sound.

Lu Nandu.

You killed me.

It was you.

...

Lu Nandu had never told Jiang Xi a single one of these things.

She felt cold all over, and her fingertips were stiff and chilly.

The memory of her own mother’s accidental death in a fire was still a scar on her heart. She couldn’t imagine how much of an impact Chu Xingru’s destructive retaliatory suicide had on Lu Nandu.

“A living person suddenly died in front of him,” Liang Sirong looked at her. “No one could bear that.”

She paused. “What’s more, that was his mother.”

Even if there had been pain and resentment for more than ten years, who is born without any feelings for their mother?

Liang Sirong was silent for a while, her voice subdued.

“After that day, A’dou found a bank card that his mother had left for him in her room. The bank card was placed with a picture of him from when he was a child.”

It contained all the money she had earned over the past ten-plus years.

Whether it was clean or not, she had saved it all for him.