Incurable Pain | Chapter 36.1
Sometimes, even the most desperate flowers can bloom on a cliff’s edge
When Bai Xunyin was grabbed by Yu Luoyin as she ran out of the alley, her mind went blank, and she felt a slight tremble in her body followed by a cold sweat.
On a night when water turned into ice, there was an all-encompassing chill.
For a moment, Bai Xunyin thought she was being grabbed by someone chasing after her from behind. Her vision seemed blurred by a thin layer of mist, and she couldn’t see anything clearly.
With hollow eyes, she mechanically watched as Yu Luoyin grabbed her, her lips moving as if saying something.
“Bai Xunyin! What’s wrong? Who’s chasing you?”
Yu Luoyin instinctively pulled her behind him protectively. In this brief delay, before Bai Xunyin could speak, the sound of men cursing in the alley came through.
Yu Luoyin’s clear and sharp brows furrowed slightly, making him look colder.
He pushed Bai Xunyin against the wall and positioned himself and his bicycle in front of her.
“You punk! Who the hell are you?”
The injured man couldn’t speak from the pain; his face pale and covered in cold sweat. He gritted his teeth, ordering the two henchmen beside him help him chase—otherwise, with the stamina of an adult man, he would have caught up with Bai Xunyin long ago.
Having suffered such a big loss, the wound in the man’s palm was almost deep enough to expose bone, and he didn’t dare touch it.
Of course, they wouldn’t silently accept this loss. Even if the injured person couldn’t speak, someone would naturally speak up for him.
“Injuries can be compensated with money; let’s talk it out, no need to get angry,” Despite being outnumbered three to one, with one of them injured not lightly but still, three adults against one student, as long as someone’s thinking straight, they wouldn’t resort to violence.
Yu Luoyin forced a smile, pressing tightly on Bai Xunyin behind him with one hand, urging her not to intervene, while his other hand raised to block them, controlling the distance between them.
“I can cover the medical expenses, all of it,” Yu Luoyin smiled, a hint of imperceptible coldness flashing in his eyes, “Will this make you stop causing trouble?”
“Damn, who the hell do you think you are? Dare to negotiate with me?!”
The man clearly didn’t take Yu Luoyin seriously just because he was wearing a school uniform, disdainfully snorting, “This bitch owes us money! With so much debt, can a little brat like you afford it? Just thinking about medical expenses? Ridiculous, you’re really giving yourselves face!”
“Let’s settle on a figure,” Yu Luoyin’s fingers tightened imperceptibly around the handlebar of his bicycle, his expression faint as he said, “You name your price.”
…
His calm demeanor actually made the man uncertain of his stance.
After a while, he squinted suspiciously and asked, “Can you really afford it?”
“There’s about seventy to eighty grand in this card,” Yu Luoyin pulled out a card from his wallet pocket, holding it between two slender fingers and handing it over. In the darkness, the card seemed to shimmer, catching the debt collector’s gaze.
Yu Luoyin politely said, “You can spend it first. If it’s not enough, we can discuss further.”
As he spoke, he quietly grabbed Bai Xunyin behind him and silently squeezed her hand, the firmn
Yu Luoyin politely said, “You can spend it first. If it’s not enough, we can discuss further.”
As he spoke, he quietly grabbed Bai Xunyin behind him and silently squeezed her hand, the firmness in his grip undeniable.
The man instinctively reached out for the card, still muttering incessantly, “I’m telling you, this bitch owes us hundreds of thousands. Let me tell you, kid, if you want to act tough in front of the girl, you better have some substance… Damn!!”
Midway through his words, he abruptly stopped, suddenly howling a pitiful scream.
The once jubilant man was suddenly punched in the jaw by Yu Luoyin. He felt his teeth biting his tongue and lip, instantly tearing up from the pain, blood pooling in his mouth, making his speech unclear as he cursed.
“Let’s go!”
Yu Luoyin acted swiftly, taking advantage of the moment when those people were immersed in their own little world, he finished the fight and pulled Bai Xunyin onto the bike. The mountain bike, shipped from Germany, was sturdy.
With the boy’s rapid movements, it sounded like a wild horse breaking free from its reins as they burst out of the Ajun alleyway.
“Run!”
“Damn it!”
The man spat blood in frustration, stomping his foot angrily, “They’re escaping! Quickly, damn it, chase them!”
Bai Xunyin, still dazed, was forced onto the back seat of Yu Luoyin’s bike. His legs became a blur, turning the bicycle’s speed into that of a car. The cold wind whistled past them, making their bodies numb, their hair flying loose.
She had to reach out and hold onto Yu Luoyin’s waist to prevent herself from being thrown off the bike entirely.
“They’re solding you yet expect me to pay them?”
Yu Luoyin, recalling those men who repeatedly called her a ‘bitch’, felt infuriated, sneering coldly, “Dream on, bunch of trash.”
The voice of the young man dissipated into the chilling night, mocking, arrogant, and unrestrained.
The girl on the back seat of the car heard it all clearly. Her fingers clutching Yu Luoyin’s school uniform involuntarily curled up, inexplicably feeling a sense of ‘reassurance’.
Even though they were now only sitting on a flimsy bicycle, not knowing where the road ahead led, and even though she still couldn’t tell Ji Huiying why she hadn’t returned home…
“Stop! You damn well wait for me!”
But the good moment was short-lived. Soon, the man’s hysterical voice in the pitch-black night interrupted all fleeting thoughts.
Bai Xunyin abruptly turned her head, only to see those three debt collectors driving a car, getting closer and closer. The sound of their approach was crystal clear.
After all, a bicycle couldn’t compete with a car.
“Don’t be afraid. This is a lawful society; they won’t dare to hit us,” Yu Luoyin felt the girl’s trembling hand clutching his school uniform, and in the midst of all the chaos, he comforted her with a calm voice.
After a few turns of thought, he quickly came up with a solution.
“The bicycle is too slow. Let’s run.”
Yu Luoyin made a decisive decision before they were caught up, disregarding the bike and throwing it aside on the roadside. Then, he pulled the girl, whose legs had become weak, off the bike.
“Take the shortcuts, run until the car can’t follow!”
Since the debt collectors had a car, this was their only option.
However, amidst the streets and alleys of Linlan, except for particularly dilapidated places, there were streetlights everywhere, brightly lit. Yu Luoyin pulled Bai Xunyin into an alleyway at random, and soon heard the sound of the car stopping by the roadside and the men cursing fiercely. They were still relentlessly pursuing them.
These men’s pride had been thoroughly shaken by the actions of two students injuring others successively, and they didn’t care about anything else, adopting an attitude of having to catch them and teach them a lesson properly.
But making a headstrong young child bow down and admit defeat was impossible. Even if it was a dead-end alley, they would find a way to overcome it.
“Keep going.”
The footsteps chasing from behind were relentless. Under the urgent pressure, Yu Luoyin could only keep running with Bai Xunyin, but there was a difference in stamina between the girl and the boy.
As he heard the breathing of the person he was holding become gradually heavy and urgent, their body slowing down and feeling heavier, Yu Luoyin couldn’t help but grit his teeth and wrap his arm around her waist.
“We can’t let them catch up. Yinyin, listen to me. When we got off the car just now, I called the police and activated the location tracking on my phone…”
Before he could finish speaking, he saw a towering dark building in front of him, and his words came to an abrupt halt.
They didn’t know which direction they were running, or how long they had been running for. The air they breathed seemed to play tricks on their internal organs, causing a dull ache in their chests. But somehow, they ended up running into a skyscraper that seemed to be a commercial office area.
There were no narrow alleys around the building to hide in, and the people behind them were only a few hundred meters away.
Yu Luoyin looked at the wires and lights entwined around the glass building, gritted his teeth, “Upstairs!”
These kinds of office buildings all had open-air sections with safety exits. They could temporarily hide inside and see if they could find a place to hide.
Yu Luoyin was about to pull Bai Xunyin upstairs, but when he tried to move her hand, he found that he couldn’t. The girl beside him was almost stiff like a statue, her feet seemingly rooted to the ground.
Turning his head, he saw Bai Xunyin’s pale face, staring blankly at the tall building in front of her without blinking. Her eyes seemed bewildered and fearful, reflecting the glass skyscraper and the countless stars in the sky.
Bai Xunyin never expected that their aimless running for almost an hour would lead them to the Jiguang District.
Of all the places, this building happened to be the former headquarters of Hengneng Electronics, and also… the skyscraper where Bai Hongsheng leaped off.
Countless memories surged uncontrollably back into her mind, and for a moment, Bai Xunyin felt like she had returned to three years ago, becoming her desperate self at just fifteen years old, experiencing the most hopeless nightmare on that scorching afternoon.
Unshakeable, it repeated itself endlessly.
Suddenly, Bai Xunyin couldn’t hear anything around her. She stared blankly at her “nightmare,” as if she could see the rooftop from back then, could see Bai Hongsheng’s figure.
—This scene unexpectedly matched the damned moments from years ago, even the debt collectors behind her looked exactly the same!
“Bai Xunyin!”
It seemed like Yu Luoyin was calling her by her ear, his voice tinged with annoyance, but she couldn’t hear him clearly. She only felt her wrist being tightly gripped, and she stumbled as he dragged her up the stairs.
Her two slender legs trembled uncontrollably. With each step up the stairs, Bai Xunyin felt like she was reliving the experiences from three years ago in her mind.
Back then, Bai Hongsheng was also afraid of being caught. The two of them ran like dogs with their tongues out, completely exhausted, their legs giving out, but still pushing themselves to run with all their might.
But in the end, they ran out of places to escape, forced onto the rooftop by their pursuers, who had caught up to them.
And now, it was happening all over again.
Once inside the building, Yu Luoyin quickly untied the plastic rope from the cardboard that was probably placed there by the company employees and used it to secure the handle of the safety exit.
“Don’t make a sound.”
Yu Luoyin pressed the trembling Bai Xunyin against his chest and whispered quickly in her ear, “Let’s run up. There are many floors here, they might not know we’re hiding in here.”
He finished speaking and pulled Bai Xunyin upwards.
The boy had made all the arrangements before the police cars could arrive, and everything was done correctly and decisively… but Bai Xunyin couldn’t shake off the inexplicable panic in her heart.
Whether it was due to the trauma she had suffered here before, Bai Xunyin couldn’t help but feel…
