Chapter 7

Grandma fell ill.

I hurriedly took leave and rushed back to my hometown.

By her sickbed, my gaze often drifted absently out the window.

That scene replayed over and over in my mind, my heart tightening in waves.

Though weak, Grandma keenly sensed something was wrong with me.

She struggled to lift her other hand, gently touching my face.

“What’s wrong, are you unhappy… Did someone bully you?”

I couldn’t hold back anymore. Tears fell in heavy drops, landing on the back of her hand.

Choking with sobs, my words tumbled out: “Grandma, I like someone, but he… he said I was disgusting…”

Grandma’s frail expression changed abruptly.

A surge of indescribable pain and anger welled up in her eyes.

She gripped my hand tightly, though her strength was barely there.

“Nonsense!” She panted, her voice trembling with agitation. “Who said that! My child is the best!”

Her clouded eyes looked at me with utter seriousness. “Liking someone isn’t shameful. To truly like someone is the best, the very best thing.”

“Nanxing, you deserve the best.”

Grandma’s words, like a warm current, slowly flowed into my frozen heart.

She didn’t understand complicated reasoning, but with the simplest, most direct conviction, she affirmed me without reservation.

In her eyes, everything about me was good, and my feelings were precious and pure.

I was an illegitimate child who couldn’t see the light of day. My mother left me for a new family, and my father never appeared.

Grandma gave me all the love she could, and even what she couldn’t.

Though poor, I never felt inferior.

She was my only anchor in this world, my only source of warmth.

Now, that last warmth was about to go out.

In the end, Grandma didn’t make it.

The only person in this world who loved me unconditionally was gone.

Along with her, that cautious, maligned feeling of mine-called “disgusting”-died on that rainy night.

Afterward.

I deleted all the apps related to him, left every fan group, and stopped following Xu Qing.

I told myself I had to put away that cheap and repulsive affection.

After that, I would still occasionally catch bits of news about him from the corners of the internet.

He seemed to be in a relationship, and many haters cursed him.

His hand was badly injured; he announced his retirement and vanished from the public eye.

I didn’t dare look closely.

Every glimpse would make that unhealed wound split open again, bleeding fresh.

Until.

I met him again, in that underground boxing ring.