DDT - Chapter 67
Chapter 67: School Tyrant × The Pushover (Side Story 1)
Three years had passed. Yi Shuhan had returned to this familiar place.
She had finally managed to step out again.
Beijing was a bustling metropolis, a world of dazzling lights and endless indulgence, incomparable to a mere second-tier city like Qingyun City.
Beijing University was also one of the top schools in the country. Back then, with a high score of 723, she had become the top scorer in the college entrance exams for both Qingyun City and Qinglian Province. Her parents had chosen the school, but she had casually picked her major herself. At that time, she had been on the verge of collapse, shutting herself in her room day after day. Although several media outlets were curious why the top student, Yi Shuhan, wasn't accepting interviews, they didn't dare to press the matter due to the Yi Family's influence. In the end, the originally planned interviews were all quietly dropped.
The journalists were heartbroken over the lost opportunity.
Yi Shuhan's parents were very worried about their daughter's mental state and condition. They tried to hire a psychological counselor to guide her, but the day after she submitted her university application, Yi Shuhan walked out of her room with a look of indifference. She told her parents she wanted to go to Beijing as soon as possible.
Her parents understood that their child wanted to leave this heartbreaking place, so they decided to move the entire family away from the small city for good. The plane tickets were booked for the next morning.
In three years, Yi Shuhan, with her brilliant mind, had skipped two grades and completed her studies ahead of schedule. Now, she was trying to take over a small company under the Yi Family, and its headquarters happened to be in Qingyun City.
When she made this decision, her parents were still against it. They hadn't forgotten how Yi Shuhan had struggled through the past few years. Her best friend, her most important friend, had fallen to her death right in front of their daughter. To be honest, no matter how much sympathy they felt for that girl, the Yi couple still harbored some resentment.
Over the years, Yi Shuhan had become even more taciturn. She didn't actively make friends and often had nightmares, which made it difficult for her to sleep. The already slim girl grew even thinner. It was a sight that pained her parents' hearts.
Now that their daughter insisted on returning to her old home, the Yi couple was worried she would suffer another blow or be reminded of unpleasant memories. They pleaded with her, suggesting she could just go work at the Yi Corporation headquarters instead. There was no need to go back to a backwater like Qingyun.
Seeing her parents' excessive worry, Yi Shuhan had to promise she would only go for a few months, treating it as a business trip for on-site inspection. After a long conversation, the old couple reluctantly agreed, their hearts heavy with concern.
As for why Yi Shuhan was so stubborn about returning to Qingyun City, it was simply that after three years, she wanted to see if she had truly let go.
They say time heals all wounds. The face of that person had begun to blur in her mind.
One morning, when she realized with alarm that she could no longer clearly see the girl's face, a pain from the depths of her heart left her breathless. She was suddenly struck by a realization: for the past three years, she thought she wanted to forget everything related to that person, but in truth, she was only trying to escape. When she was truly on the verge of forgetting, her heart told her that she didn't want to.
The girl who had burst into her life when she was at her most helpless, who had single-handedly pulled her back from the edge of the abyss, who had protected her from harm time and time again, who had always been by her side.
Those days spent together after school were not figments of her imagination; they were real.
Luo Luo, such a gentle and considerate girl, such a beautiful girl, had once truly existed in this world. Over the past three years in Beijing, she had encountered many new things and come to know a wider world. Only then did she learn about illnesses like depression.
Luo Luo had what people often call "smiling depression." Cheerful in front of others, seemingly without a care in the world, but when alone, she endured pain and pressure unimaginable to ordinary people.
That girl had to face the pressures of life and the trauma of a broken family all by herself. Perhaps the sorrow had long since festered into an illness.
And yet, even she herself hadn't noticed anything unusual about her until that final day. She was truly an unqualified friend.
That's right. Yi Shuhan suddenly remembered what Chi Junluo had said at her home that day. "I've long since lost much hope for life. Everything now is just getting by."
She had never thought Chi Junluo's words were melodramatic, but she had also never imagined that Chi Junluo truly had no hope for life.
When a person has no hope, living is merely getting by.
Merely living on borrowed time.
Three years had passed. She, Yi Shuhan, was finally willing to face the past. It was just a pity that the person she missed could never come back.
Chi Jingpeng had one son and one daughter in his life. The son left with his mother that year, leaving him with his daughter.
His daughter's name was Chi Junluo. He had named her the year she was born. He felt the name was grand and that she would surely achieve great things in the future.
However, before the two little kids had even grown up, his wife fell in love with another man.
They agreed to a divorce and divided their assets. Back then, several hundred thousand yuan was a huge sum of money. If Chi Jingpeng had been willing, he could have easily provided Chi Junluo with a good environment to grow up in.
But he failed to do so. It should have been a simple thing.
He and his ex-wife had fallen in love freely. His family had once opposed their marriage, believing the woman seemed a bit unreliable and was too beautiful, likely to attract trouble.
Chi Jingpeng didn't listen to his family's advice and even had a huge falling out with them over it.
The old couple was furious but could say no more. Just like that, Chi Jingpeng married his so-called true love.
The deeper the love, the sharper the pain of separation. Chi Jingpeng couldn't bear the blow of his lover's betrayal. A man who had never touched tobacco or alcohol, he learned to drink for the first time, learned to smoke for the first time.
The liquor burned his stomach, and the smoke choked him, but the light-headed feeling after heavy drinking was something he couldn't get enough of.
He started going to bars to drown his sorrows. The exquisite cocktails were often the most intoxicating.
He started dancing in discos, the loud music allowing him to completely lose himself.
He had never been a drinker, so he didn't know how terrifying he was when drunk.
He didn't black out, so he remembered everything that happened the night before with perfect clarity. He had actually laid a hand on his lovely daughter, just because she had asked him during his drunken state when her mother was coming home.
He remembered clearly that he hadn't held back that night. Sure enough, the next morning, he saw several bruises on his daughter's face and arms.
He was dumbfounded, not knowing what to say to his lovely daughter.
He said, "Dad promises not to drink anymore. I won't hit you again."
His daughter nodded and said she believed him.
Not even a week passed before he couldn't resist drinking again, and he ended up sleeping on the living room floor until dawn.
He had broken his promise. His daughter seemed terrified. On the way to school, neither of them spoke a word.
Later, drinking became a daily routine. He also became obsessed with the lottery and quit his job. He devoted himself entirely to various lotteries.
After the lottery, he fell in love with gambling. He played for high stakes; a single game of mahjong could win or lose tens of thousands.
He liked this kind of gambling where money came from just sitting there. It was exciting, not tiring, and he didn't have to take orders from a boss.
If he won, he drank. If he lost, he drank. If he won the lottery, he drank. If he didn't win, he drank even more.
Alcohol, alcohol, alcohol. He became increasingly dependent on it. Whenever he drank, he couldn't control himself and would lash out at his daughter. The most terrifying time, he actually cut Chi Junluo's back with a knife.
After that incident, he felt his daughter deliberately distancing herself from him. It was true; he had been a complete failure as a father.
In those years, he moved with his daughter several times. The houses got smaller and smaller, and the money from gambling dwindled.
Finally, he was swindled out of over a hundred thousand yuan by a group of people, and his savings were nearly gone.
His daughter had just started high school then. He actually began to blame Chi Junluo, thinking that raising her was a burden. If it weren't for Chi Junluo, he could save a lot of money.
He drank too much that day. When he got home, he hit Chi Junluo again.
To his surprise, Chi Junluo had learned to fight back, and he couldn't even win against her.
When had it started? The little kid who used to ride on his neck had grown to be as tall as him. When had it started? That little kid could now beat him in a fight?
He was unwilling to accept it. He felt he had lost all face, being beaten by his own daughter.
The second time he tried to hit her, he was cornered in an alley and beaten up by a group of young punks. The punks threatened that if he ever hit Chi Junluo again, they would ambush him every day and teach him a lesson.
He was cowed.
He never dared to hit Chi Junluo again, but the relationship between father and daughter had hit rock bottom.
During the day, he drank at home; at night, he went out and stayed up all night.
Chi Junluo went to school during the day and came home to sleep at night.
He never gave Chi Junluo another cent for living expenses because he had almost no money left himself.
Chi Junluo worked very hard and even found a part-time job, supporting herself before she was even an adult.
In his sober moments, he would occasionally feel guilty, but most of the time, he was wasting his life away in a drunken stupor.
If that day had never come, he might have remained in that drunken stupor for the rest of his life.
But his awakening came too late.
That afternoon, he returned home in a daze and saw a thick envelope on the table. Only he and Chi Junluo lived in the house. It wasn't his, so it must have been left by her.
Curiosity drove him to open the envelope. Inside was a thick stack of cash, all hundred-yuan bills, and nothing else.
His mind sluggish, he pulled out his phone and saw the date: June 8th. Only then did he belatedly realize that today was the last day of the college entrance exams.
He held his head in his hands and sat on the sofa, thinking for a long time. How had he spent all these years so absurdly? In the blink of an eye, that little kid had already become an adult, taking the college entrance exams.
Honestly, he had not fulfilled his duties as a father.
This thought wasn't new. He knew he owed this child a great deal. Perhaps… perhaps there was still a chance to make amends?
After some thought, he put the envelope back on the desk in Chi Junluo's room.
He couldn't take this money.
He suddenly wanted to salvage this shattered father-daughter relationship. He thought, perhaps his conscience had finally awakened, or perhaps he had grown tired of his aimless, drunken, and inactive self.
This thought had actually been buried in his heart for a long time, but he lacked the courage. Maybe Chi Junluo would never forgive him.
Now, Chi Junluo had left him this envelope. Was she trying to repair their relationship, or did she want to make a clean break?
He didn't dare to think about it.
He still went to Qingshui High School. It was the first time in all these years that he had come to his daughter's school. A long police line was set up outside the sports field, where parents were gathered in a dense crowd, waiting anxiously.
The bell signaling the end of the exam rang. The parents waiting for their children to come out suddenly cried out in alarm.
On the roof of the teaching building in front of them, a tall, thin figure walked to the edge.
Chi Jingpeng had sharp eyes and immediately recognized who it was. It was Chi Junluo.
He was stunned, in disbelief. Pushing through the crowd, he squeezed to the very front. He looked up, but against the light, he couldn't see the expression on the girl's face on the fifth-floor roof.
In front of him, a long-haired girl seemed to know Chi Junluo. The girl desperately tried to persuade her, but she still couldn't stop that figure from leaping off.
It all happened too fast. Before any safety measures could be taken, a vibrant life was gone just like that.
He quit drinking.
But it was all too late.
A biting wind blew. It was once again the day when a new class of high school graduates found their temporary release.
June 8th.
The outskirts of Qingyun City, Yunling Cemetery.
Counting from the bottom, the third row of public graves, the eleventh plot in. Yi Shuhan was sitting cross-legged in front of the tomb, muttering to herself. In her right hand, she held a small white cup filled with Sprite. She said she didn't know what Luo Luo liked, but she definitely didn't like alcohol, so she would have a glass of Sprite with her.
She rambled on, recounting the bits and pieces of the past three years. She said she had gotten into Beijing University, and that Luo Luo's scores would have been good enough too. She said she had skipped two grades, and with Luo Luo's intelligence, she definitely could have done the same. She said, "I'm sorry I didn't come to see you for three years. Were you lonely by yourself?"
She didn't cry. In front of her good friend, she didn't want to cry.
Finally, she stood up and looked at the offerings. They were neatly arranged. Then she looked at the somewhat weathered photograph. The girl in the photo had a straight face and looked a bit serious. When Chi Junluo was alive, she didn't have many photos. The only one was taken by the school for everyone before the college entrance exams.
She bent down, gently touched the photo, and sighed.
Dark clouds gathered in the sky; it looked like it was about to rain. Yi Shuhan put her baseball cap back on. She reached out and stroked the two golden floral patterns she had tattooed on her hand three years ago. Finally, with great reluctance, she left the cemetery. When she had time, she would come to see her more often.
After the long-haired woman left, a man emerged from behind a tree by the row of graves above. He walked down and looked at the neatly arranged offerings, his heart a mix of complex emotions.
Raindrops began to fall, quickly turning into a downpour. The man was soaked to the bone. He squatted down, holding his head in his hands. Every year on this day, he would come to visit. In the plastic bag beside him was food he had cooked himself. Although he knew the child could no longer eat it, he still wanted to bring her some.
Not far away on the cemetery path, a young man holding an umbrella had his arm around a somewhat sickly-looking middle-aged woman. They stopped in the distance, watching the wretched man crouching in the rain…
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