Rebirth: The Ascent of a Socialite-Chapter 611 - 246: Trading Lives
"Suicide?" Chang Mei was stunned when she heard this news, how could Xiao Chu have committed suicide? Xiao Chu had merely stepped on the rose soap she had sent, slipped, and fell to the ground, leading to a fatal hemorrhage. How could it be suicide?
"Perhaps, in the eyes of all of you, my mother was nothing but a greenhouse flower that needed protection, yet she was one of the earliest to see things clearly," Su Ziceng simply and concisely repeated Qiao Chu’s words.
After hearing everything, Chang Mei did not flip through the Rose Handbook again. She hugged it tightly to her chest, placing it near her heart. The owner of this diary had been dead for twenty-three years, but just now, she had come back to life, residing within this diary, alive again with the beating of Chang Mei’s heart. That trusting friend, with her pair of clean, youthful eyes, had been resurrected once more in the depths of Chang Mei’s heart.
"Aunt Chang," Su Ziceng called softly. If Qiao Chu had not chosen suicide, Chang Mei would have been the most endearing elder, who would have cherished Su Ziceng just like she cherished Qiao Chu. However, the absolute departure of Qiao Chu transformed the nature of Chang Mei’s heart. For the majority of the past, she took pleasure in watching Su Ziceng act willfully and unreasonably, watching this girl, who had deprived Qiao Chu of her life from birth, endure all kinds of hardships.
"Thank you, thank you," Chang Mei murmured with her head lowered, her lips pressed against the diary, "for bringing Xiao Chu back to me."
"I plan to bury the ashes of Qiao Zhi’an, that is, my uncle, next to my mother’s grave. Even until the moment of his death, he still remembered my mother." Qiao Chu’s fortune was another’s misfortune. Her short life did not garner the love of her beloved husband, but it did earn the lifelong devotion of another man and woman.
Su Ziceng left the Rose Handbook with the still-living Chang Mei. She also wanted to do something for the already deceased Qiao Zhi’an.
"Qiao Zhi’an? He’s dead?" Chang Mei also knew that reserved and pedantic old-style scholar. When Qiao Chu first enrolled, it was Qiao Zhi’an and the Qiao Family who sent her over. Qiao Zhi’an’s love was lonelier and even harder to sustain than that of Chang Mei, who lived with Qiao Chu day in and day out.
"My father sent me to ask for your opinion," Su Ziceng looked at Chang Mei with hopeful eyes, wishing for her affirmation.
"He’s had a tough time too, Xiao Chu has been dead for so many years now," thinking that there was someone in the world who was even more pained than herself, Chang Mei’s heart softened.
"Also, I haven’t seen Xiao Chi for a while now. After a bit, I’m thinking of moving my father in to live with me, and if it’s convenient, I’d like for her to move in too." Su Ziceng invited Chang Chi over not only for the convenience of taking care of Su Qingzhang but also because she would need a helper when Espr’s affairs gradually got on the right track.
"Have you stopped resenting her?" Chang Mei looked into Su Ziceng’s clear eyes and couldn’t detect any traces of the past in her tone.
"She... no longer resents me, right? The issues between her and me were nothing but childish squabbles," Su Ziceng heard from Sister Mu that when she received news of Pello’s engagement to Wen Maixue, Chang Chi was the first to rush over. Her tearful state at that time even moved Sister Mu, who was normally indifferent to familial affections.
"Ziceng, I know you’re doing things you believe are right. Xiao Chi has always been strong-willed, partly because of me. The recent matters involving the Su Family have hurt her deeply, and now she’s doing what she must, taking good care of Qing Chang," Chang Mei promised Su Ziceng that she would pass on her invitation to Chang Chi.
When Su Ziceng walked out of the prison visiting room, she didn’t call for a taxi, but instead, she walked straight along the prison’s kilometer-long perimeter wall. The road ahead seemed interminable, as if it would never end.
Unable to see the end, Su Ziceng stepped on a stone that crunched beneath her shoe. Her cellphone began to ring, and she hurriedly checked it; it was an unfamiliar number.
"Ziceng," with the prison wall still beside her, Su Ziceng instinctively looked towards the over two-meter-tall barrier topped with barbed wire. Had Chang Mei perhaps left something unsaid just moments before? "The life-exchange mentioned in Xiao Chu’s diary, have you read it too?"
After returning to the cell, Chang Mei began examining the diary. She and Su Qingzhang were different; the Yu Hua’s God Stick and Japanese God’s Calculator mentioned in Qiao Chu’s diary were both people Chang Mei had met, and they definitely had some secrets to them.
