Rose Hotel 18

"Yuye, why did you give your body to someone else? You are Su Yuye..." Li Xing said with great difficulty.

Su Yuye clenched her fists, her voice tight, "Everything I do is for this family, to serve Lin Hui and my mother."

She closed her eyes and uttered the words that pierced Li Xing's heart the most: "Why did you save me?"

She felt utterly wretched inside, and so she wanted to riddle Li Xing with holes of agony as well, "It was you who made me endure this secondary trauma."

"Li Xing, you are the one who ruined me!"

"Everything I did was entirely voluntary!"

She cried out her final sentence almost in a sob. Among the words she spoke, there were truths and falsehoods, but one thing was certain: she truly wanted to die.

Ever since she was little, she had been taught that she was an adopted child, and an adopted child had no home. Growing up in this household, she constantly had to walk on eggshells, where everything only came to her after Lin Hui was done rejecting it. It was true that everything she did was for Lin Hui; no matter how much she sacrificed for this family, her mother would always insist that she was indebted to it.

She had truly lived enough of such a life. She longed for freedom, yet the word freedom had never existed in her world.

She was like a young elephant tethered since childhood, her neck already bound by invisible shackles. Her mother and Lin Hui merely had to stand there, and she was securely anchored.

She had tried to change, but every attempt had failed. She no longer wished to change; she only wanted to die. To die while being exploited—that was her ultimate destination, and she had accepted it long ago.

A victorious smile crossed her mother-in-law's face. She had known all along that Yuye was an obedient child who would never abandon this family.

Listening to these words, Li Xing felt only a buzzing in his head. He watched Su Yuye's mouth moving up and down, yet he could not hear a single sound.

Stabbed in the back by Su Yuye, the consciousness he had desperately forced himself to maintain finally collapsed, and he crashed heavily to the ground.

Right before losing consciousness, he seemed to hear Yuye calling out to him in terror. He sank into darkness, thinking it must have been an illusion.

It was no illusion. The moment he fell, all the forced strength and coldness Su Yuye had put on shattered instantly.

She knelt beside Li Xing, weeping bitterly, calling his name over and over again. She screamed out her repentance, confessing that she was wrong. Li Xing remained motionless in her arms, while the pool of blood beneath them grew larger and larger.

It was impossible to tell when a light drizzle had begun to fall from the sky, as if weeping for someone.

"Yuye, the man is dead. Hurry up and dump him somewhere, and let's go home." The mother-in-law's voice clashed completely with the sorrowful atmosphere. She cared nothing for this; her only concern was Huihui. If the man hadn't dared to touch her bottom line, she might have uttered a few hypocritical words of condolence, but who told him to harbor the intention of taking Yuye away? If Yuye left, what would happen to Huihui? Therefore, for him to end up like this—he deserved it.

This time, however, Su Yuye paid her no mind at all. Catching sight of Su Man standing not far away, she crawled on her knees right up to her and pleaded for help, "Ms. Su, I saw from Lin Hui's memories that you possess that miraculous power of resurrection. Can you please save Li Xing? Li Xing is truly not a bad person; he doesn't deserve to die. The one who deserves to die is a sinner like me. I am the one who should die, and I shouldn't have said those things to him."

Repeating this in a trance, as if entirely numb to pain, she slammed her head heavily against the ground, kowtowing over and over again, as though she would not stop until she received a promise.

Blood seeped from her forehead, washed away by the rainwater into a large smear that resembled a weeping face.

Yet she dared not stop, terrified that if she paused for even a second, she would lose Li Xing forever.

"Ms. Su, I beg you, save him. I beg you, I really beg you, I will serve you like a beast of burden to repay you."

Su Man merely looked at her, offering no answer for a long time.

Could she save him?

She could.

She still had a syringe left—the one she had purchased from Zhou Miaomiao, a vial of somewhat diminished potency gifted by Zhou Miaomiao.

Although its efficacy was not as strong, it was more than enough to keep Li Xing hanging by a thread.

Yet she did not want to save him.

Just as she had stated earlier, the fates of Li Xing and Su Yuye had been sealed long ago. Saving him now would only burden them with more painful memories of struggle.

Her possessions were hers to command, and she did not wish to waste them on these two.

If Su Yuye and Li Xing were to have any future, it would require Su Yuye to change at her very core, but she did not believe Su Yuye was capable of changing.

"I once reminded him to go to the hospital, but he refused. Back then, he should have anticipated this ending," she said tactfully, yet the intended meaning was crystal clear, "Su Yuye, sometimes letting go is better for everyone."

Yet Su Yuye acted as if she understood nothing, continuing to kowtow forcefully and mechanically repeating the same phrase, "I beg you to save him, I beg you!"

Finding this display disgraceful, the mother-in-law rushed forward and kicked her down to the ground, "You've truly gone mad! For the sake of a man, do you want to die? If you die, what will happen to Huihui? How can you be so selfish?"

Yet Su Yuye seemed deaf to all words and numb to all pain. Knocked to the ground, she immediately scrambled back up and resumed kowtowing to Su Man, "I beg you to save him, I beg you."

"You damned girl, have you lost your ability to understand human speech?" Furious, this was the first time Su Yuye had ever defied her orders, which only fueled her anger further, "I forbid you to harm your body! This is not your body, it belongs to Huihui!"

She lunged forward to grab Su Yuye's hair, completely ignoring Su Man's presence.

Still, Su Yuye showed not the slightest reaction, her strength so overwhelming that the mother-in-law could not even keep a grip on her hair. She was like a machine programmed solely to kowtow, "I beg you to save him, I beg you."

Her forehead was battered raw and lacerated, a terrifying sight that shocked even the mother-in-law, who dared not step forward to stop her anymore.

Su Man's original intention had been to ignore her completely, even if she kowtowed herself to death right before her eyes. However, this unintentional act of defiance against her mother-in-law made her change her mind.

She stopped Su Yuye, "Remember this, Su Yuye: this is the chance you begged for by kowtowing until your head was torn to shreds."

Therefore, do not repeat the same mistakes.

Li Xing was still barely clinging to life. After receiving the injection, his condition stabilized considerably. Su Yuye scrambled up eagerly to check on him, only to collapse heavily to the ground the moment she rose, her vision turning completely crimson.

"Li Xing..." she tried desperately to raise her hand to reach out.

Su Man squatted down and grasped her hand, "He is going to be fine."

A smile touched the corners of Su Yuye's lips. After whispering a weak word of gratitude, she lost consciousness entirely.

Su Man turned her gaze toward the mother-in-law, whose face was clouded with gloomy resentment.