Pursuing Her Best Friend after Confession Failed-Chapter 353 - 157: Returning to Modu, The Heartbroken and Fasting Zhong Tingyue_3

Li Yuan tried to dispel the gloom in his heart. Since it had already happened, he resolved to face it proactively. Dwelling on it was pointless and would only add to his troubles. Now that he was in Shancheng, he would handle things with Xia Zhijin properly, bring this trip to a perfect conclusion, and give her a satisfactory answer.

Having thought it through, Li Yuan’s heart suddenly felt much lighter. He patted Xia Zhijin’s head and smiled. "Zhijin, Grandma, Ning, and your uncles are all waiting for us downstairs. Should we go down now, or do you want to rest a bit longer?"

Xia Zhijin replied softly, "There’s no need. I’m fine. Let’s go down now."

"Alright then. I’ll call Zixia, and we’ll get ready to leave."

After saying this, Li Yuan supported Xia Zhijin, called out for Li Zixia, and they headed downstairs.

When the Chen Family Brothers saw Li Yuan and Xia Zhijin come down together, they hurriedly stood up to greet them.

"Little Li, you didn’t have to get up so early. You could have slept in."

Li Yuan smiled awkwardly. It was already ten in the morning, which was hardly early at all.

"First Uncle, Second Uncle, Third Uncle, sorry to have kept you waiting."

"Jin, are you...?" The old lady’s gaze fell on Xia Zhijin, who was walking somewhat oddly. Worldly and shrewd, she could tell at a glance what had happened; it looked as though her granddaughter had just made the transition from girl to woman.

An unusual light flickered in her cloudy eyes. She had assumed that Li Yuan and her granddaughter had been living together for some time. Otherwise, Li Yuan wouldn’t have brought his own sister all the way from Modu to Shancheng to accompany his girlfriend, let alone spend one to two million to buy such a large house for her in the city.

It never occurred to her that the two had only taken the final step the previous night. This realization made her regard Li Yuan in an even better light. He had to be an upright man, not the unreliable sort who used sweet talk to swindle women.

At the same time, her heart ached for her granddaughter.

The old lady suddenly remembered something she had once told Xia Zhijin one night, just before she left for university. "Jin," she had said, "when you’re ready to get married, you must bring him home so Grandma can check him out for you."

At the time, Xia Zhijin had readily agreed. "Grandma, I’ll definitely listen to you."

What a good girl, the old lady thought to herself. She stepped forward, took Xia Zhijin’s hand, and asked with loving concern, "Jin, if you’re not feeling well, you should rest."

Xia Zhijin shook her head, her cheeks flushing shyly. "Grandma, I’m fine," she replied, her voice barely a whisper.

Seeing her granddaughter insist, the old lady could only relent.

"Alright then."

The group set off, a grand procession in high spirits.

* * *

That evening, after a full day of crazy fun and a reunion dinner with Xia Zhijin’s uncles and their large families, Li Yuan was also a bit drunk.

「The next morning.」

Li Yuan took Xia Zhijin and Li Zixia to board their flight back to Modu.

Li Yuan embraced Xia Zhijin, who was sobbing uncontrollably, and comforted her softly. "Zhijin, don’t cry. When we have time, we can come back often to visit Grandma and Ning."

With red-rimmed eyes, Xia Zhijin nodded and grasped Li Yuan’s hand tightly. She looked him straight in the eye and said earnestly, "Li Yuan, thank you. These past few days have been the happiest days of my life."

Li Yuan ruffled Xia Zhijin’s hair and laughed heartily. "Zhijin, the happiest days are still ahead of us. We have to look forward. Everything will only get better from here."

Seeing the heartfelt exchange between Li Yuan and Xia Zhijin, Li Zixia couldn’t help but purse her lips. Her mind drifted to her conversation with Bai Weixi the previous night. Weixi had shared many of Li Yuan’s embarrassing stories from high school, and the two of them had chatted cheerfully until midnight, leaving Li Zixia with suddenly complex feelings.

I’m done for. I think I’m starting to like Weixi, too. Her personality seems great. Ugh, if only Weixi and Zhijin could both be my sisters-in-law, that would be perfect. Can my brother really pull that off?

* * *

「Sucheng, in a certain residential complex.」

Zhong Tingyue held her guitar, gazing blankly out the window.

Her face, a work of art as if carefully sculpted by Nuwa herself, was streaked with tears. Her beautiful eyes were red and swollen, completely drained of light, as if every last ounce of her spirit had been stolen away.

Scenes from Bai Weixi’s social media page from two nights ago replayed in Zhong Tingyue’s mind. The photographs of Li Yuan and Bai Weixi together, along with the comments beneath them, were like a bayonet twisting in her tender heart, tearing it to shreds until not a single piece remained whole.

"South of Nanshan, a northern autumn grieves; Nanshan has stacks of grain..."

"The south wind murmurs, north of Beihai; Beihai holds a tombstone..."

Zhong Tingyue gently strummed her guitar, humming the song Li Yuan had written for her over and over.

Li Yuan had once told her this was a song from a past life, one he had written to commemorate their relationship—a song that belonged only to her. 𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝔀𝓮𝒃𝙣𝓸𝒗𝒆𝒍.𝙘𝒐𝒎

Suddenly, she felt the full weight of the song’s tragic meaning. She suddenly felt so foolish, so utterly ridiculous.

Li Yuan and Bai Weixi were high school classmates, true childhood sweethearts. She, on the other hand, had only met Li Yuan in college, yet she had fallen so easily for a story he spun. She had inadvertently become the third party in their relationship.

Why? You already had Bai Weixi, so why did you have to provoke me? Why did you burst into my life, give me hope of escaping my bonds, only to crush that hope with your own hands?