Lu Ming leaned forward and embraced Chi Qiu, who had shrunk into a ball, gently stroking his back.
This action was as gentle as when he was once sick, Chi Qiu was full of patience and tolerance to hold him. Lu Ming’s palm was warm, pressing against Chi Qiu’s thin body, and the temperature was gradually transferred to Chi Qiu over time.
In the small ward, they only occupied a small position.
In such a small space, Chi Qiu felt the hot temperature. But he still didn’t relax his strength under Lu Ming’s reassurance.
Lu Ming’s voice then rang out, a low tone like the moon in water: “You will press the wound like this. Chi Qiu, raise your head.”
Chi Qiu didn’t do as he was told. He stubbornly clung to the thin fabric of his body, his knuckles whitened, trapping himself with all his might.
Lu Ming pinched his hand. The pain could make him feel Chi Qiu’s helplessness more personally. Lu Ming held Chi Qiu in his arms, hoping that Chi Qiu could rely on him. It was better to cry or make a scene than to hurt yourself in this way.
But when he hugged Chi Qiu, he found that Chi Qiu was just crying. Crying without a sound, like a fine stone shattered on the ground, inconspicuous but painful.
And there were countless grievances hidden in the forbearing body, all piled up densely, and the accumulated sadness was about to break through the ground.
It was just that Chi Qiu didn’t know anyone who could accept his pain. He was a taut string, no need to cut with a sharp instrument, no need to pluck, he could break at a certain moment.
He was tormented.
Why?
Why was he always so unlucky?
Was it because no one wanted him to recover his sight, so every time he decided to ‘recover his sight’, he would be stumped by reality.
At the age of fifteen, the conflict in his family forced him to give up being an able-bodied person. At the age of twenty-four, Chi Xia elopement forced him to continue hiding it. At the age of twenty-five, he thought everything was going in the right direction when Lin Yuming’s sudden beating caused him to lose his sight once again.
The whimper was a hanging rope and it was about to hang Chi Qiu to death.
His whole body was tense and his broken feelings were glass shards.Whether family affection or love, all stabbed him with blood.
He wandered in the trough, unwilling to lift his head.
Night fell, the bright moon hung high outside the window and then dark clouds unknowingly gathered.
By the faint moonlight, Lu Ming and Chi Qiu had been frozen in place.
The nurse came twice, but had no choice but to turn back. In the meantime, she gently asked Lu Ming if he needed help but Lu Ming refused every time.
Lu Ming sat with Chi Qiu on the floor and put his suit jacket over Chi Qiu’s shoulders. He gently patted Chi Qiu’s back and said many kind words, not even tired of saying them.
If the night was too long, the temperature of the language would be as high as the moon.
Chi Qiu was stuck in his lonely city, his fingers were all cold. Lu Ming held his hand and rubbed it delicately: “Tomorrow we’ll have a checkup first. Then listen to the doctor’s words to cooperate with the treatment and recuperate at ease, I guess it will be fine after a while.”
Chi Qiu was indifferent and didn’t seem to have any hope for his own eyes.
Sometimes being blind means that you just had to live it for days and years; it wouldn’t get better in a few days, or even in a few years. God had already given him a chance, but it was his own indecisiveness and forbearance that completely ruined his life.
Seeing that Chi Qiu is indifferent, Lu Ming pondered for a while.
He originally wanted to wait until tomorrow after the checkup before talking to Chi Qiu, but right now, he spoke out the doctor’s guess in advance: “Chi Qiu, the doctor said that in your case, there is a high possibility that it is just a temporary blindness. I’ve checked the information, it’s true that there are many people who had this condition after an accident, but it’s all temporary.”
Chi Qiu thought that Lu Ming was lying to him so he was unwilling to talk to him.
Lu Ming could only hug him tightly, repeating over and over again: “No matter what, I will be with you, don’t be afraid. I will stay with you until your eyes are cured. If it doesn’t work here, we’ll change places. If it doesn’t work in this country, we’ll go abroad.”
He could try everywhere, one place after another. He wouldn’t leave Chi Qiu alone in the dark, and he would never lose Chi Qiu again.
But this was the word that poked Chi Qiu’s already flawed heart.
Chi Qiu shivered, his body was stiff because he had been in one position for a long time. When he finally raised head, his face was full of tears. He openly announced his downfall to the public.
“Chi Qiu…” Lu Ming wanted to hold his face, wanted to wipe away those tears for him, but was afraid of hurting him. He was clumsy and at a loss.
Chi Qiu’s tears kept falling, the organs in the body all seemed to twist together and hurt violently.
He exerted his strength, his lips and teeth were a gust of wind withering in the autumn: “…Why are you still lying to me now?”
What a heartbroken tone, Chi Qiu couldn’t even speak. He breathed hard and swallowed his sobbing voice.
Chi Qiu also really didn’t expect that his own usefulness to Lu Ming was actually so great and so important that he could even make Lu Ming go to great lengths and wouldn’t hesitate to lie and try his best to please him.
For this reason, Chi Qiu felt both sad and pitiful for Lu Ming.
He pitied Lu Ming for being trapped by hatred for so many years, like a fish that had strayed into a fishing net, digging through tiny holes, unwilling to give up even the last bit of hope.
Chi Qiu’s cheeks were still swollen, he felt pain every time he twitched while crying.
He was a person who could foolishly deliver his sincerity, but he clearly knew that in Lu Ming’s eyes, his sincerity was an abandoned existence.
Chi Qiu hated this feeling, the feeling that he could be pushed off the cliff at any time.
…
Lu Ming’s face was pale, he didn’t understand the ‘lie’ Chi Qiu said.
He instinctively explained: “I’m not lying to you, everything I’m saying now is from my heart.”
Chi Qiu shook his head, he had no expectations for the empty promise. He felt that he was equally pitiful; it had come to this point, how could Lu Ming still lie to him?
Of those who didn’t want him to regain his sight, wasn’t Lu Ming one of them?
All the talk about accompanying him and taking him to seek medical treatment was fake. What Lu Ming wanted was just a blind man who could do as he was told and complete his five-year marriage contract. If he could see, would Lu Ming choose him? The answer could be imagined.
Chi Qiu was always in a passive position. Even if he wanted to leave now, he couldn’t have a complete initiative.
Chi Qiu’s strings were stretched to a millimeter and he broke down.
“I can’t help it, Lu Ming. I can’t afford to stay in this marriage with you…” He bawled like a child, covering his face, ignoring the bruises on his face as he choked in pain, “I can’t do it…you don’t love me, you don’t like me at all…You don’t care about anything I do, it’s all perfunctory.”
“Chi Qiu, I’m not..”
“I hate that you’re like a piece of ice that won’t melt, I hate your reticent reasoning. I hate that you care for me in a step-by-step manner…It’s like you’re doing a task. You won’t even smile at me more than once, it’s always me sticking to you, it’s always me liking you…”
And that was called loving him? That was called being sincere?
Chi Qiu lost his indifference and cried, asking: “Lu Ming, what exactly do you want before you will let me go?”
“…”
The last sentence simply shattered Lu Ming’s heart.
But Lu Ming had long been prepared, even if his heart was stepped on by Chi Qiu, he could still patch himself up.
Looking at Chi Qiu, who was crying until he was in a mess, Lu Ming’s eyes were red: “Chi Qiu, can you listen to me?” He didn’t dare to exert himself on Chi Qiu, and he didn’t know where to put his hands. “I do not want to divorce you, this is sincere. But if you want a divorce, I will leave, this is also true. But after the divorce, I will pursue you again. I love you, Chi Qiu, I love you.”
Chi Qiu got tired of what he was saying and covered his ears. He was so annoyed that he couldn’t listen to a single word.
This cry of love was too ironic, he couldn’t stand it, the pain in his heart was an excessive noise: “Let me go, I beg you, stop saying you love me.”
“Chi Qiu!”
“I’m not divorcing you anymore okay, I won’t mention it. Lu Ming can you stop coming to me? You really want to see how miserable I am?”
Lu Ming’s heart was sad and dreary. He eagerly opened his mouth, but not even a word was said.
Chi Qiu interrupted him with a roar: “You obviously don’t want me to regain my sight!”
Lu Ming was stunned: “What did you say?”
Chi Qiu closed his eyes and his voice dropped suddenly: “You don’t even want me to see, why do you say you love me?”
With this accusation, Chi Qiu seemed to have used up all his remaining strength.
Lu Ming’s hand stiffened, all the words that were about to come out were broken in this sentence. He asked again in confusion: “What did you say?”
Chi Qiu took a deep breath and said with difficulty: “I heard it with my own ears. You refused the ophthalmologist your uncle found for me, saying that if I wasn’t blind….you wouldn’t have married me at all.”
Without Lu Ming knowledge, he unilaterally gave Lu Ming a ‘death sentence’.
The entire ward fell into absurd silence.
Chi Qiu cowered in the corner, the real blindness brought him much more torture than before. He could not see Lu Ming’s expression, maybe after knowing that he was blind for the second time, Lu Ming reverted to that cold expression.
But he couldn’t see anymore, Lu Ming didn’t have to act anymore.
Chi Qiu uneasily curled up on his toes, cowering and clenching one of his hands. He thought that Lu Ming, who had been exposed, would leave him, would give up on him, and would retract all his lies.
But Lu Ming didn’t, he was not even angry. On the contrary, unexpectedly, he breathed a long sigh of relief.
“So it’s like this…” Lu Ming looked at Chi Qiu, “So you heard our conversation.”
It turned out that there was such a terrible misunderstanding between us.
Chi Qiu cried uncontrollably: “Yes.”
Lu Ming became emotional and held Chi Qiu’s shoulder: “Chi Qiu, then you listen carefully. The day you and Ji Yanchen went to the exhibition, you were drunk. When you came back, you told me personally that you could see. From that day on, I knew your secret.”
Chi Qiu opened his mouth and suddenly raised his head, stunned.
“Chi Qiu, I’m not lying to you. That night you told me that you saw Xia Zhiyan clearly. But the next day you couldn’t remember what happened when you were drunk. I asked you vaguely, but you didn’t say anything about this, so I had to pretend I didn’t know.”
“…Me?”
Lu Ming grabbed Chi Qiu’s wrist and then reached for his palm. He held Chi Qiu’s hand in an unreasonable way: “I didn’t know what difficulties you had at the time, but since it was something you wanted to hide, I have an obligation to help you. Because of this, I repeatedly refused my uncle, but he was very insistent, so I had to say those words against my heart.”
Chi Qiu’s tears didn’t stop. He listened to every word that Lu Ming said in disbelief, and the throbbing in his heart was reduced by decibels.
He shook his head, and slowly, he recalled the situation that night and remembered how abnormal Lu Ming was the next day.
Chi Qiu choked up and asked, “Is everything you said true?”
“Really!” Lu Ming’s voice also got a little choked up as he repeated, “Chi Qiu, every word you heard then was against my heart. And I hope you get your sight back, I hope you give me another chance, I hope you hear me say I love you, that’s what I really mean!”
This was what Lu Ming really wanted to say.
T/N: Girls and guys, communication is the key.
