Chapter 209

Chapter 209

She yanked the glasses off her face and threw them hard onto the ground.

"I was still wearing this stupid, ridiculous frame—it even hurt the bridge of my nose! Did I ever complain once?"

"And this outfit, these shoes, and whatever this is, this crappy earring!"

As she spoke, she pulled at the items she was wearing—kicking off her shoes, tearing her clothes, even yanking off her earrings and necklace and tossing them to the ground.

"I did all of this just to please you, to become the kind of person you like, and what did you say? That this isn't what you wanted?"

Xie Shiqing laughed hysterically, laughing so hard she doubled over, laughing until she couldn’t straighten her back. Her sharp, piercing laughter echoed through the garden, more jarring than the sound of sobbing.

Zhong Ning was shaken by the revelation in her words and stunned by her clearly deranged state.

"You..."

The sharp laughter abruptly stopped. Xie Shiqing turned her head and stared at her directly. It was impossible to tell whether it was just her eye rims that were red or if even her eyeballs were bloodshot. Her gaze was terrifying. An intense madness hovered in her eyes, like a solar eclipse, gradually consuming all clarity from her expression.

"Tell me, what did I do wrong?" she asked. Her voice was as cold and lifeless as if it had been frozen in a refrigeration plant.

But Zhong Ning’s face was filled with immense sorrow. Before Xie Shiqing could shed a tear, her tears had already fallen first, dripping down her chin and onto the stone steps.

"You went against your own nature just to win me back, forced yourself into a version you didn’t like, betrayed your own personality. That’s wrong. That’s just not right."

"I did all that not because I wanted you to become some so-called sunny, upbeat person—not those externally defined, fixed traits."

Choked with sobs, Zhong Ning said,

"I just wanted you to learn how to love yourself..."

"To love yourself, to accept every part of you—whether it's good or bad—because that’s all a part of who you are. Not to split yourself apart. Not to 'correct' it."

Her eyes rimmed with red, she murmured,

"I never wanted to change your essence. I only wanted you to learn how to love, to calmly make peace with yourself."

She wiped her tears away with her palm, took a deep breath, and slowly said,

"I don't mind the darkness you hide. I don’t mind that you have a cold and ruthless side. Just like you said—so you’re ruthless, so what? People are multifaceted; purely good people don’t even exist."

"What I want is your trust. I want you to be able to talk about these things openly, because you have the confidence to accept that you have flaws, to not fear that others—or I—would distance ourselves from you because of them, or that we’d stop caring about being a part of your life."

"You can have immense self-love and confidence, trust that I won’t stop loving you, and more importantly, trust that besides me, there are thousands, tens of thousands of people who will love you."

With tears shimmering in her eyes, Zhong Ning looked sorrowfully at Xie Shiqing.

"The truth is, the problem isn’t with you. It’s that I don’t have the ability. I couldn’t support you while also holding myself together."

"I couldn’t do it. I’m a coward."

Chapter 73

The fiery clouds in the sky were so red it looked as though an entire ocean of blood had been poured into them.

Xie Shiqing was completely lost.

She couldn’t understand what Zhong Ning was saying at all. She recognized every word individually, yet strung together, they became incomprehensible.

What did it mean to love oneself? What did acceptance mean? What was reconciliation?

Zhong Ning sounded as if she were reciting some strange incantation, uttering words in a foreign language that made no sense to her.

Seeing her in this state, Zhong Ning let out a bleak smile.

"You see? You still don’t understand anything… and I can’t help you understand."

"I once thought I was someone with a strong core, someone full of absolute confidence, someone capable of saving anyone, someone who could face hardship with calm. But I was wrong."

"I’m not."

She wiped the last lingering tear from the corner of her eye.

"I’m just a plant carefully cultivated in a greenhouse, only able to bask in the sunlight, unable to endure any wind or rain."

"I thought I could do it. That I could save you. What an arrogant kind of confidence that was."

Zhong Ning let out a self-deprecating laugh.

"The truth has proven I was wrong. Not only did I fail to help you, but I’ve also gotten myself caught in it."

"So just think of me as a weak and selfish person. I’ve wronged you, Shiqing. I really can’t come any closer to you."

Her upbringing had been too comfortable, too gentle. Zhong Ning thought she was a strong and thriving tree, full of lush branches and leaves, with the strength and courage to stand tall. She believed she could do anything.

After all, in her experience, whatever she wanted, she could easily get.

Xie Shiqing was certainly an arrogant person—but wasn’t she the same? Except hers was a kind of ignorant arrogance.

Until she stumbled hard over and over again with Xie Shiqing.

She had fallen so badly that she was left battered and bruised, as if her bones had been broken from the pain.

Only then did she realize—there were things she simply couldn’t do. Not everything could unfold the way she imagined it would. She wasn’t omnipotent.

But a privileged environment did come with certain advantages—at least Zhong Ning was never lacking in love. She wouldn’t lose sight of the painful, sorrowful parts of an experience just because of a fleeting moment of tenderness or joy.

Nor would she brainwash herself over and over, whispering things like: She still loves me. She must have her reasons. I should forgive her… to lull herself into submission.

At the very least, her past environment had taught her how to love herself.

And once she realized that this situation was already harming her—that it was affecting her mental well-being—Zhong Ning’s first instinct was to distance herself.

Protecting herself was her most basic instinct.

She still loved Xie Shiqing. But precisely because of that, she had to sever the connection. She couldn’t let herself completely sink into a swamp of suffering, into a warped relationship.

This kind of love, though it looked sweet on the outside, was laced with slow-acting poison beneath. It would corrode a person’s mind, twist their personality, make them unrecognizable—even to themselves—without them realizing it.

And that was something Zhong Ning absolutely could not accept.