Chapter 101: Neither praise nor sympathy

“No!”, Suyin kneeled down and grabbed his leg, “Please do not say this to anybody. I beg you.”, she panicked.

Jianyu looked at her incredulously.

“I did a horrible thing and I’m apologizing for it. But please. Don’t tell this to anyone. I will go to jail.”, she cried non-stop.

“You should have thought that way before even coming up with this plan.”

“Jianyu no. Please, please. Do me this one favor. Just this one. I won’t ask anything else. I won’t come in between your relationship anymore. At least think about the friendship we had all these years, the relationship we had. Please give me one chance and let me go. Please keep this a secret.”

He stared at her.

“Answer me one question. The media incident…That was also planned by you, right? Did you purposely leak her past? Don’t you even dare lie to me.”

She avoided eye contact.

“Yes or no?”, he asked his eyes and voice freezing cold.

“..Y-yes.”, she got terrified the way he spoke.

He sadly smiled. “Thank you. Thank you for opening my eyes to the harsh reality. It hurts, but I know now what kind of a fool I was and…”, he snickered, “you want me to forgive you? How many times?”

Suyin was in a pathetic state. Her snot mixed with her tears making her look even more awful and unsightly. “Jianyu, please! I have already suffered. I was raped by those men. I have already lost my virginity to those disgusting gangsters. I don’t know if I will ever get a man who will accept me after what happened to me. Isn’t this enough? If you tell everybody, then I will go to jail. My name will be smeared, my business will go bankrupt, everyone will hate the Tang family.”

She cried harder, “I don’t want to go to jail Jianyu. Please…”

Jianyu mocked, “Tell me. Had Nana plotted against you, would you have let her go? Would you have let me forgive her?”

She stopped. Of course not. She would have ruined her life.

“That…”, she bit her lips.

“No, right?”

“Jianyu…”

He bent down and lifted her chin. “Alright. I will do this one last favor, in exchange for whatever friendship we had. After this, there is nothing between us. But…,” he looked at her with utter hate in his eyes, “don’t ever show your face to me again. If I see you anywhere near Nana and me from now on, I swear I will personally end you with my own hands. Do you clearly understand?”

She nodded weakly with tears and snot continuously streaming down.

He got up but before he left he said, “You know what, Suyin? You deserve what happened to you. I don’t feel even an ounce of sympathy for you. You wanted Nana to get filthy. But instead, you were pinned under those men and got dirtied. This is called Karma. You fell in your own trap. You deserved to be raped.”, he banged the door and left.

Suyin kept kneeling at the same place crying over her destiny.

—

In Nana’s ward, the twins were with her taking care of her.

“Here, have some soup.”, Yukito brought a fresh bowl of soup.

“I will help you in getting up.”, Yukira said.

They slowly helped her sit upright and started feeding her.

She shook her head, “I can eat on my own.”

“No. We will feed you. You need to have complete rest.”

“Yeah. Don’t argue on this.”, they both adorably puffed up their cheeks.

She raised her hands in defeat.

Yukira asked, “Sis, can I ask you something? One question has been bugging us for a while. But, we don’t want to stress you.”

“En. Go on. I’m fine.”

He glanced at Yukito and he nodded. “How were you the only one trapped in that shed? I mean both Miss Tang and Mrs. Liu were outside in the car when brother Chen Jianyu reached there. How were you left behind?”

“Yes, didn’t you escape with them?”, Yukito asked.

She stopped. After pausing for a while she said, “I-“

“Nana!”, somebody interrupted.

They turned to see Huian in her ward.

“Ah, Mrs. Liu…How are you? We heard you also got some minor injuries.”, the twins asked.

She smiled, “You are such sweet boys. Thank you for asking. I’m fine now.”, she looked at Nana and said, “So, Nana…How are you feeling now?”

She said in a neutral tone, “Much better.”

“That’s good…”

Huian immediately came to meet Nana when she got the news that she has woken up. Then outside, she heard the twins asking that same dreaded question and she interrupted, in fear that Nana will spill out everything.

She stood there thinking of how to talk to her alone.

Nana said to the twins, “Yukito. Yukira. Can you please bring me something to eat? The soup is almost done.”

They sensed some tension and they really didn’t want to leave but they nodded.

They left and Huian quickly sat on the chair near her bed.

“Nana, I-“

“Mrs. Liu Huian”, she cut her off, “I already know why you are here. Rest assured, I will not tell anybody the thing that you are worried about.”

Huian was astonished.

She smiled, “I am not interested in anyone singing my praises of how brave I was nor I want to gain anyone’s sympathy for how I was abandoned. I only did what my heart told me to do.”

Huian kept silent.

“So, don’t worry. I won’t stir any trouble to cause any strain between you and your family.”

She bit her lips, “I-I am sorry-“

“Please don’t do that either. Your concern and your sorry, both are stemming from your own fear and selfishness to stop me from talking. I know you really don’t mean any of it.”

Every word of hers was a direct, brutal hit to Huian.

“You had said that you will treat me as your sister when you came to Natsukashi that day. But now I know, that it would never be possible.”

“What would not be possible?”, a voice came from behind.