Before My Withering [枯萎之前]

Chapter 19

[The tired figure isn't me, It's isn't me you want to see]

What do I think of myself...

I'm worthless, useless, good for nothing, weak.

Qi Shu had kept me in a cage for the past four years. In order not to tire him out, I tried my best night and day to please him, and cater to him.

Now I was no longer by his side, yet I still had to rely on another alpha to live.

From beginning 'till the end, all I could offer was my body. I couldn't think of anything else they needed from me besides that.

So Zhou Chen could either be my benefactor, or he could be my patron.

It'd be nothing more than moving from one transaction to another. If love was excluded in the talk, it wouldn't make any difference.

It'd be the simplest relationship, and he and I could both take things less seriously.

As for all my naive fantasies, they all ended as early as when I'd been 18 years old. Now 22 years old, I'd learned that free kindness didn't exist in the adult world.

You wouldn't feel pain as long as you wouldn't expect something.

This was what Qi Shu taught me.

"You know full well my relationship with Qi Shu, yet still saved me. You also know full well what kind of person I am..."

I still find speaking truthfully difficult.

"You know everything."

"So? Do you think I want to sleep with you or keep you?"

Zhou Chen's voice contained his fury. It'd been the first time he'd gotten angry with me.

But why is he angry? Am I wrong?

"Isn't it?"

I was sitting on my knees, and when I looked up at him, a big tear suddenly rolled out without warning.

Damn it, I felt wronged because of what.

When I'd been humiliated by Qi Shu, I didn't feel aggrieved.

I didn't feel aggrieved when my face was destroyed.

Even knowing that I had lost my child, I'd only been in pain and despair, without feeling wronged.

And now, I felt unprecedentedly wronged more than ever for exposing my dirty, lowly, and cheap nature in front of Zhou Chen.

He was so good that I even begged him to sleep with me, as if I was sullying him.

I should've rotted in the swamp, and shouldn't have broken into the rose garden.

The moment our eyes met, the fury in Zhou Chen's eyes disappeared. There was a moment of panic on his face, which then turned into restrained heartache.

Such an expression made me feel bad more than indifference and contempt.

I want to tell him not to pity me. I abandoned myself, undeserving of his sympathy.

But all I could do was sob on my words.

The next moment, Zhou Chen hugged me.

He let me cry in his arms and whispered it's not in my ear.

I'd finally vented the long-hidden anxiety that'd accumulated in my heart. Zhou Chen's chest was burning hot, and I felt a little out of breath, like I was drowning in a wine cellar, surrounded by the smell of brandy.