Three Years and Three Years

Chapter 24: Unspoken Pain

The doctor said Zhou Mushi was lucky, if the knife had deviated a little, it would have pierced his heart. He was stabbed and it looked deep, but it didn’t damage his internal organs. As long as he takes good care of himself, it won’t be a big problem in the future.

“Surviving a great danger will bring good luck. Surviving a great danger will bring good luck.” Zhou Hang kept repeating these words and kept pouring expensive chicken soup, fish soup, and pork rib soup into Zhou Mushi’s stomach.

Zhou Mushi didn’t have a good appetite to begin with, and he couldn’t drink these soups and broths. Only after he strong request did he gain the right to replace the nourishing soup with millet porridge for breakfast.

“How come you dared to walk alone on the big road in the middle of the night with no village or shop in sight?” Zhou Hang asked him as he nibbled on an apple.

Zhou Mushi raised the corner of his mouth and said, “It’s not that late actually. Never mind that. Are my discharge procedures ready?”

“In my opinion, you’d better stay in the hospital and observe for a while longer. No need to rush to leave,” he said.

Zhou Mushi shook his head and said, “I’m fine. The doctors said I can be discharged. I…I want to go see Jin Yang.”

With his apple half-eaten, Zhou Hang chewed and swallowed it absentmindedly before saying gloomily, “You really have made progress.”

The person involved knew they lacked ambition, but when it came to matters of love and face, what good was ambition? If even principles could be compromised, then what about something as superficial as ambition?

“I feel like…anyway, I want to see him.”

“Do you want to see him, or do you want to reconcile with him?” Zhou Hang hit the nail on the head and revealed his true thoughts.

Zhou Mushi looked down at the corner of the quilt, unable to help but think of the countless nights when Jin Yang would tuck him in.

“I…let’s talk about it later.”

“Alright, sir. Your meaning couldn’t be any clearer,” Zhou Hang said with disgust. “I really don’t understand. What are you trying to achieve?”

Zhou Mushi lifted his eyelids slightly and said, “What were you after when you were with Li Lingling back then?”

As soon as this person was mentioned, Zhou Hang’s head began to ache. He repeatedly waved his hands and said, “I’ve come to my senses now, but what about you? Do you have to go and hit the wall?”

“I want to see him… to see him…”

Zhou Hang knew he was stubborn and that he always made decisions without considering the consequences. Now, there was no way he could persuade him, so he could only go along with his intentions.

After finishing the procedures, he personally drove to the neighborhood where Jin Yang lived.

As they went deeper into the neighborhood, the more tightly knit the creases between Zhou Hang’s eyebrows became. It wasn’t that he was born wealthy and looked down on people poorer than him. It was just that he felt that someone as delicate and precious as Mushi should be delicately nurtured in an exquisite flowerpot and not in a cheap three-dollar clay pot.

Zhou Mushi’s heart was pounding with nervousness, his palms were sweaty, and when the car finally came to a stop, he even lacked the courage to step inside.

He and Zhou Hang got off the car and stood downstairs. He felt a little nervous and his palms were sweaty. When the car stopped, he even lacked the courage to go in. It was not that he didn’t want to see Jin Yang, but subconsciously he didn’t have the courage to move forward. After all, they had a conflict, and it took a lot of courage to reconcile.

“Should we, uh, go back and come again tomorrow?”

Zhou Hang let out a deep sigh from his chest, “Are you kidding me?”

“Um, no, I…,” he hesitated.

Now he was even more certain that this timid and hesitant Zhou Mushi was not the person he knew.

“You weren’t like this before. Weren’t you pretty confident before? Why are you so scared now, even to go upstairs? If it doesn’t work out, it doesn’t matter. I can go up with you. What’s the big deal?”

As he was talking, a man came down from upstairs and looked at the two people standing in front of the car, saying, “Hey man, this is our parking spot.”

Zhou Hang quickly apologized, “Sorry, my mistake. I thought it was public parking. I’ll move the car right away.”

He got into the car and drove out. Zhou Hang had never stayed in such a community before and didn’t know which parking spots were for public use and which were private. He decided to drive out of the community and stopped in front of a supermarket.

Jin Yang came down from the building when Zhou Hang’s car had just driven away.

He was carrying some packaged items in his hand, and on the other side, he was holding a beautiful girl wearing high heels and a LV bag. He coincidentally bumped into Zhou Mushi as he walked past.

Zhou Mushi: “…”

Jin Yang furrowed his brows, his face full of disgust and sarcasm. “What are you doing here? Since your new sugar daddy is so rich, who cares about this small amount of gifts?”

Zhou Mushi stared at the things in Jin Yang’s hand. It was his “Wind Blows Over the Wheat Fields” oil painting, which was originally hung on the wall but had now been taken down.

He used to only feel tenderness from those lips, but now he didn’t expect that when those lips twisted into a knife, it would hurt so much when it scraped against his body.

Jin Yang walked past him and threw the thing in his hand into the trash can right in front of him.

It was as if he had thrown him into the trash bin along with the object, and now he couldn’t be retrieved.

“How come you’re still standing here? Did the sugar daddy kick you out? If he doesn’t want you anymore, I can give you some money to find a new one.”

Intense breathing tugged at the knife wound on their chest, making it hard to distinguish whether the pain was from the heart or the flesh.

A crisp slap resounded, sounding somewhat harsh in the chilly air.

Zhou Mushi forced a smile and said, “I can only say that I have been wasting my time for the past three years…”

After the trembling figure had walked away, the man with a clear palm print on his face released his companion’s arm and retrieved the painting from the trash can. He carefully blew off the dust on it and held it in his arms as if it were a treasure.

The girl’s eyes turned red and she stepped forward to persuade, “Mr. Jin, why do you have to do this?”

The man carefully brushed off a speck of dirt on the painting and said in a soft voice, “There’s no more ‘Mr. Jin’ now. The company is gone.”

“But, I think he… He seems to love you very much, and he looks like he can endure hardships with you. You can always start from scratch and build your way up again. Senior, what do you think…”

“You don’t understand, he has already suffered a lot with me,” Jin Yang smiled and took out a red envelope from his pocket to hand it to the girl, “This is your year-end bonus for this year.”

The girl hesitated for a moment and said, “Senior.”

“Take it, I still have to pay your salary. There’s also a red packet inside for you, I heard you’re getting married next month, so I wish you a happy wedding in advance.”

The girl hesitated for a moment, but eventually took the red envelope. Her eyes became slightly red. After all, she had followed Jin Yang into the company without graduating from college. She had witnessed the growth of the company, so she was also feeling uneasy about the current situation.

“Senior, I believe that with your abilities, you will surely be able to make a comeback. If you need any help, just give me a call. If you don’t mind, I can even come back and be your secretary again.”

“Thank you.”

It’s snowing…