Chapter 15: Ye Weixi

In short, Su Wanqing had to die. But she was already dead. Lin Cheng heard the system’s voice announce that the mission was complete. He let go of the girl’s wrist. The slender, pale arm dropped limply, red marks glaring on her skin from his grip.

Ye Weixi collapsed to her knees, coughing violently.

Her already pale and gaunt frame began to tremble. Beneath the thin layer of skin, her bones seemed ready to burst outward, joints protruding one by one—like a ghost wearing the skin of the dead, barely held together.

Lin Cheng squatted down and pulled out a few tissues. But before he could hand them to her, Ye Weixi coughed up a spray of blood—straight onto his hand.

The color was disturbingly dark.

She raised her head. Her pale lips were smeared with that dark red, and her once rosy, cute face was now white as wallpaper.

The only color left on her face was the blood dripping from the corner of her mouth.

“Eek!!”

Su Wanqing recoiled in horror, quickly taking several steps back.

“You’re too scary. Are you even human? You look worse than those late-stage cancer patients right before death.”

Ye Weixi opened her mouth, as if wanting to respond, but eventually gave up.

Lin Cheng stayed silent for a few seconds, then grabbed a few clean tissues and gently wiped the blood from her lips.

“Let me help you up,” he said softly.

He supported Ye Weixi’s frail body. The moment he touched her, he could feel the jagged bones beneath her skin—sharp and brittle, pressing against his hand like knives.

If it hurt him, what kind of agony did she endure every day?

Her body was far too light. Almost inhuman.

Fifty pounds…? Did she even weigh forty?

Terminal illness didn’t just consume the body. It gnawed away at the will.

It was a kind of torment where:

The organs felt as though they were being sliced open with scissors and stitched back up with thread.

The brain was chewed on by thousands of worms.

The skin peeled, the limbs dismembered.

Even using the toilet felt like something was dragging your guts out.

Pain.

Real pain.

The screams echoing in hospitals were death’s way of mocking life.

At such times, death truly felt like relief.

But—who could call it a crime to want to live?

Lin Cheng helped Ye Weixi along slowly, finally reaching the elevator.

They arrived at her apartment: unit 444.

The moment the door opened, a strong hospital-like smell of disinfectant hit them. The table inside was cluttered with all kinds of medicine bottles and jars.

On the ceramic tile floor—normally spotless—were dark stains of varying intensity.

Blood.

Coughed-up blood.

Clearly, she no longer had the strength to clean it up.

Su Wanqing stood at the door and swallowed nervously—unsure if it was saliva or something else.

“Oh my god… She’s like this, and her place is such a mess. Don’t her family take care of her?”

Then she thought of her own parents. Her expression turned cold. She looked at Ye Weixi again, with a bit more sympathy.

“Could she be like me… abandoned by her family?”

Lin Cheng helped Ye Weixi sit down on the sofa. Looking at the stained floor, he frowned slightly.

Ye Weixi was obviously very sick. But her family didn’t seem poor.

She had a driver. She lived in a high-end residential complex.

Even if her parents didn’t have time, shouldn’t they at least be able to afford a nanny?

The room fell into silence.

Ye Weixi’s face twisted slightly in pain. The emotional turmoil just now seemed to be hurting her.

Lin Cheng searched the table and found a bottle of painkillers. He handed them to her.

Ye Weixi dry-swallowed eight or nine pills in a row.

Is she addicted to painkillers? The thought crossed Lin Cheng’s mind—but he dismissed it immediately.

At this point, addiction was irrelevant.

Who could endure pain that felt like having their flesh carved up with a dull blade?

Ye Weixi curled up on the sofa after taking the medicine, her body trembling intermittently. Her bones shifted visibly beneath her skin, as if she were some living corpse—kept alive only by the plot’s corrective force.

Wanting to die, but unable to. Wanting to live, but unable to.

After a long pause…

“Thank you,” Ye Weixi whispered.

Her white teeth were still stained with blood, but her expression had softened a little.

“How’s your illness now? Su Wanqing is already dead,” Lin Cheng asked as he sat down across from her.

“I don’t know. The doctors say there’s nothing wrong with me anymore. They just tell me to rest.”

Ye Weixi looked up, her eyes hollow.

“I don’t know what’s wrong with me either. I’m just very weak, and everything hurts. My parents called yesterday. They said they still won’t come back. Told me I could go to school if I wanted, or just stay home.”

“Why don’t you hire a nanny at least? Someone to help clean, take care of things?”

“I don’t have any money. All the money’s in their cards. If I need anything, I have to call them.”

Lin Cheng rubbed his temples. Her words made his head hurt.

Did her parents even care?

Su Wanqing’s parents were the same.

If Li Xiaoran’s parents turned out to be like this too, he’d have to start wondering if the entire “pathetic original family” genre was ganging up on him.

Su Wanqing floated closer to Ye Weixi and let out a heavy sigh.

“Your parents are a pair of beasts too. Mine let Zhou Mingyuan kill me. Yours are trying to kill you through abandonment. The four of them should just play mahjong together. I’ll grab a knife from the kitchen and tell them not to leave.”

She reached out as if to touch Ye Weixi’s cheek.

A gentle breeze drifted through the room. It brought momentary relief to the cold sweat forming on Ye Weixi’s face.

Lin Cheng stood up, looking around the messy apartment and the girl curled up on the sofa.

The overpowering smell of disinfectant made his nose itch.

He’d already asked what he needed to.

He could leave now.

The girl was sick. As fragile as a reed, ready to break at any time.

Even if she suddenly died after he left—it would feel… expected.

Everyone dies eventually.

Maybe death would bring her peace.

Peace, my ass.

Ye Weixi wanted to live.

She wanted it more than anyone else.

He’d already seen one foolish girl he’d vowed to protect smashed into pulp in front of him.

He wasn’t some cold-blooded gentleman.

This damn world left him deeply unconvinced.

Su Wanqing had to die?

Even though she was silly and naïve?

Ye Weixi had to suffer like this?

And Zhou Mingyuan didn’t get so much as a scratch?

Damn it, Lin Cheng thought. I’m an outstanding member of the Youth League.

I can’t stand seeing villains go unpunished, and I can’t stand seeing pitiful people stay pitiful.

He turned and slammed the door shut with a loud bang.

Ye Weixi flinched in fear, her body trembling.

She looked at him, dazed.

“Ye Weixi, since you tried to kill Su Wanqing by stabbing needles into a doll to save yourself, you should be ready to pay the price.”

Lin Cheng walked toward her step by step.

Ye Weixi’s face turned pale again. She clutched her chest in panic.

“I… Can I kowtow to her?”

“No. Su Wanqing is already dead, and that makes me very angry.”

He grabbed her wrist again.

“Use yourself to pay the price.”

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