White Roses and Red Roses - Chapter 8

After returning, I quickly packed my bags and flew back home.

Actually, my mom had been urging me to come back for a while. I had told her that Qin Rui’s company matters weren’t settled yet, so we’d be delayed by half a month.

So when my mom came home from work and saw me curled up on the sofa, she was shocked. “Weren’t you supposed to come back in half a month? Where’s Qin Rui?”

I tried to keep the sob out of my voice. “I broke up with him.”

I’ve always been rather soft-hearted. Outside the consultation room, I held back my tears, just to maintain a shred of dignity in front of Qin Rui and Xu Aile.

But now, under my mom’s worried gaze, all that forced composure crumbled instantly.

Over the years, my parents knew all too well how persistently I had pursued Qin Rui, how deeply I liked him.

At first, they didn’t approve, because my dad said Qin Rui had a complicated background and a heavy heart, almost the complete opposite of me.

“If you stay with him, you’ll be the one who gets hurt.”

I refused to listen, refused to believe it, always thinking that since I had accompanied him through his darkest times, he should at least feel something special for me.

I thought I was saving him.

In the end, it was just wishful thinking.

After Qin Rui and I started dating, he visited my home a few times.

He was naturally aloof, but he managed to behave appropriately in front of my parents. And since I genuinely liked him and didn’t hide my feelings, my parents eventually relented.

“As long as Qin Rui treats you well, we won’t say anything.”

But he didn’t.

I never told my mom about him and Xu Aile. I just said that Qin Rui and I broke up, and being the proud person he was, he wouldn’t come to make amends.

But on the third day after I got home, I received a call from Qin Rui.

At first, I didn’t know it was him because I had blocked all his contacts after returning home.

He called from a new number, and just as I was about to hang up, I heard his hoarse voice. “Don’t hang up. I’m downstairs at your place.”

“You should be at the hospital taking care of Xu Aile,” I said coldly. “After all, the child she lost was yours.”

“…Nine years, and this is the first time I’ve heard you speak to me like this.”

A moment later, Qin Rui’s voice came through again, clear in the quiet space.

“Honestly, it’s refreshing. If you had gotten angry at me before, maybe I wouldn’t have felt the need to escape from you, just to catch a breath.”

I didn’t understand.

I just felt that the Qin Rui on the other end of the line was becoming more and more unfamiliar.

“Are you saying that your sneaky affair with Xu Aile is my fault?”

“No, it’s not your fault. It’s just… it’s been too long.”

He said, “Wen Yu, we’ve known each other for too long. You’re always so cautious around me. I really like you, but facing you like this, I feel like some things are hard to say. As the studio grew and our future became clearer, this feeling in my heart only grew stronger.”

I almost couldn’t help but laugh, but as I laughed, tears began to fall.

Three years into our relationship, I had never heard Qin Rui say he liked me. It was only after our breakup, after discovering his betrayal, that those words finally reached my ears.

Before this, I had desperately hoped he would express his feelings for me, rather than leaving me to imagine them myself.

“You never say anything to me, but you’re willing to talk to Xu Aile. You refuse to give me flowers, yet you easily send her a bouquet of white roses on important occasions-it’s clear you know what to do, you just choose not to do it for me.”

I took a deep breath, trying to steady the tremor in my voice.

“To you, I was the one who clung to you, needing no promises or concessions. I would chase after you unconditionally, so you felt no need to give me anything in return.”

Thus, the crystal necklace I couldn’t bring myself to buy became an expensive diamond necklace for Xu Aile.

The roses I never received were effortlessly hers.

That day, as I sweated through the subway with ninety-nine roses, they were in that room, on that cramped sofa, lost in a passionate embrace.

Later, while I cooked in the kitchen, separated by a door, they kissed in the living room. Xu Aile even provocatively bit his lip hard enough to draw blood, confident I wouldn’t notice.

That post on social media wasn’t about buying a bag; it was meant for me to see.

How could I have been so foolish?

How could I have been so blind?

There had been countless hints in the past, but I had deliberately or inadvertently ignored them.

Until that day at the hospital, in front of the consultation room, I could no longer avoid the raw, undeniable truth laid bare.

“Wen Yu, do your words still hold true?”

Qin Rui suddenly asked, “You said, no matter what happens, you’d hold my hand and never leave me-”

“What right do you have to ask me that?”

I interrupted coldly,

“If I had known things would turn out like this, when you sat at the entrance bleeding, I wouldn’t have spared you a glance.”