Chapter 230 - 197: I Just Want to Cry

Chapter 230: Chapter 197: I Just Want to Cry

The weather was gradually getting hotter. Zhou Qian now woke up at five o’clock every morning to tend to the vegetable garden. However, just as he raised his hoe today, he suddenly heard a voice coming from Huai Yu’s room.

"AHHHHH!!!"

He stood there, gripping his hoe. The scream didn’t sound like fear; rather, it sounded like impotent rage. A moment later, he heard the faint, muffled thuds of a pillow being punched. It was nothing unusual—after the apocalypse, those capable of joining the Defense Army had slightly enhanced physical fitness and Five Senses.

What was going on so early in the morning?

He put down his hoe, walked over hesitantly, and knocked on the door. "Little Yu?"

A moment later, a flurry of loud noises echoed inside the room before the door was thrown open, hitting the wall with a loud BANG.

Huai Yu stood there with disheveled hair, her pale cheeks flushed with a faint redness. She looked as if she were breathing fire.

(╬◣д◢)!

Zhou Qian fell silent. It was quite a novelty to see someone get this angry just from sleeping. Intrigued, he asked, "What’s wrong? Did you dream of a grand feast but couldn’t get a single bite into your mouth?"

"No." Huai Yu’s voice was a mix of resentment and anger, sounding incredibly eerie. "I’m dirty."

Zhou Qian was utterly confused. He didn’t quite dare to touch that comment. After hesitating for a long while, he asked, "What exactly happened?"

Huai Yu grabbed her hair in a breakdown and looked at him in absolute despair. "What do I do? What do I do? I dreamed of that ex-boyfriend of mine! His name really is Wu Yue!"

GASP!

Now, Zhou Qian’s expression turned grim as well.

Huai Yu seemed to have found an outlet to vent, and a torrent of words spilled from her lips. "I really didn’t expect it! What kind of sin did I commit in my past life to run into a guy like that just by going into the mountains to pick some mushrooms and make a little money?

"And what is wrong with me? How could I be so worthless! I was so poor that I had to pick mushrooms to make a living, yet I still had the mood to date and fall in love? Shouldn’t I have focused on getting rich first?

"No, no, no, it can’t be that I’m worthless! It’s that he was shameless and calculating!

"I’m so gentle, kind, generous, and resilient. It’s just the worst luck in eight lifetimes to meet an ex-boyfriend like that. Now I’ve lost all face and can never hold my head high again!"

Thinking of the scenes in her dream, she was still half-dead with anger.

After a long hesitation, Zhou Qian carefully asked, "Did you guys... in your dream... did he... You just said you’re dirty. Was it..."

Huai Yu grew even more frantic. "He held my hand! He’s shameless!"

Zhou Qian was speechless.

The emotional rollercoaster of life was truly something else. He let out a long sigh of relief, not knowing whether to laugh or cry. "What era are we in? What’s the big deal about holding hands?"

"That’s not it!" Huai Yu stretched out her palms, examining them repeatedly against the morning light. "These are the hands of a working-class citizen. After being grabbed by him in my dream, it feels like they can’t even earn money anymore."

Zhou Qian was thoroughly amused. What kind of nonsense was this! However, since Huai Yu looked genuinely furious, he lifted his chin slightly. "Tell me more."

Telling him more didn’t actually amount to much.

The eighteen-year-old girl, who had stopped going to school after graduating from high school, went into the mountains to pick mushrooms as usual. She planned to set up a stall at the market to earn some extra cash. Instead, she unexpectedly ran into Wu Yue, a college freshman who had agreed to go hiking with his friends.

He had fallen down a slope. As it happened, he had taken a different path from his classmates, so she had to support him. With a great deal of effort, he limped all the way down the mountain.

Just talking about this made Huai Yu angry again. "It turns out my name wasn’t Yu like in Yu Qian’er, but Yu as in ’superfluous’!"

To be exact, her name was originally Huai Yu, meaning "holding jade."

But having grown up in an orphanage and maturing too early, she had changed her name to the homophonic Huai Yu, meaning "holding onto the superfluous," when she was just a little older. Having been returned by adoptive families twice, what was she if not superfluous?

How was she a precious piece of jade?

Every couple who came to the orphanage and chose her had spoken softly, coaxed her sweetly, and swore to treat her as their own daughter. They promised she would have a home from then on. Watching all this in her dream, Huai Yu believed they were sincere when they made those promises.

But it wasn’t long before they unexpectedly had children of their own. From the moment the pregnancy began, the out-of-place outsider in the home became increasingly superfluous.

The first family had said, "Work is so busy, and you’re pregnant. Next year, we’ll have a little one to take care of. Why are we keeping her around? She’s at the age to go to school, and there will be a ton of school matters to deal with. How are we supposed to manage it all?"

The other family had said, "Raising a child, especially one that isn’t your own, is just too difficult.

"If you raise them well, people think it’s what you’re supposed to do. If there’s the slightest dissatisfaction, they say it’s because she’s not your biological child. Look at today—didn’t I just forget to bring her an umbrella? Did she have to run all the way back in the rain?

"You don’t know this, but everyone in the family quarters is gossiping about me... She’s so young, but she sure is scheming.

"Let’s just send her back..."

Recalling those flashing fragments of the past from her dream, Huai Yu couldn’t help but feel a sourness in her nose, her eyes turning red.

Zhou Qian had been listening patiently as she recounted the details of her dream. However, she had barely spoken a few sentences and only mentioned a name before a pool of tears welled up in her eyes.

The next moment, the teardrops fell with a PATTER.

"Hey, you... why are you crying?"

The grown man, his hands still covered in dirt, held his arms up in the air, completely at a loss.

Huai Yu had already buried her head into his chest. She sobbed, her hot tears rapidly soaking through his summer clothes. Her voice was muffled. "I... I’m crying for her. SOB SOB SOB... I don’t know why. I never used to shed a tear in the past. Even when I was wronged, I never cried...

"But I just want to shed tears now... I really want to cry. SOB SOB SOB..."

She gripped Zhou Qian’s shirt with both hands, her tears already soaking a large patch of the fabric. Zhou Qian hesitated for a moment before gently patting her head. After thinking for a long time, he could only squeeze out one sentence: "You... aren’t you crying right now?"

Huai Yu paused, then cried even louder. "I want to cry! If you’ve been wronged, you should cry it out!

"In this world, only you will truly ache for yourself. If you don’t cry and just hold it in, you’ll get sick!

"I don’t care if it makes others uncomfortable or awkward to hear, I’m going to cry!"

She spoke fiercely, her tears flowing out uncontrollably. Huai Yu knew she was crying for the version of herself that used to exist.

Meanwhile, Zhou Qian glanced at the mud he had accidentally rubbed onto the top of Huai Yu’s head and cleared his throat. "It’s fine, then. You can cry. Cry for whoever you want. Do you still have a lot of tears left? How about I go pour you a glass of water?"

Huai Yu was speechless.

A moment later, she wiped her tears with the back of her hand and sniffled. Standing straight, she complained, "You really are something. I’m pitying myself, and you just have to ruin the mood..."

She couldn’t even cry anymore. She paused and added, "I know why she wanted to date."

It was because she needed a home, and that stinking man had told her he would give her one.