“Are you… sick?”
Su Ling raised his hand, tentatively touching her.
“Yes.”
“Then… how long have you been sick? Can it be cured?”
Ye Moran fell silent for a moment, gently rubbing the little fellow’s cheek.
“Do you want me to be cured?”
“I do…”
“But, if I said that after I’m cured, I might not love you anymore… would you still want me to be treated?”
Ye Moran toyed with a lock of his hair, winding it around her finger. She didn’t look at him, appearing indifferent to his answer, but her unsteady breathing betrayed her inner turmoil.
“Then… you still have to get treated. If you’re sick, you must fix it. It’ll be very painful if you don’t.”
Su Ling’s innocent words reached Ye Moran’s ears, but they didn’t make her happy.
Her little fellow still didn’t love her. Or perhaps, to him, her not loving him was what he had always wanted?
After all, he had always wanted to escape her.
“What’s… wrong?”
“Nothing.”
Ye Moran’s voice was flat, her face devoid of expression.
“Go to sleep.”
“No, I just woke up. I don’t want to sleep.”
“I said, sleep!”
“Be a good boy, okay?”
Sensing her tone was a bit harsh, Ye Moran immediately added a gentle follow-up.
“Fine, I’ll sleep.”
Su Ling curled his lip and closed his eyes.
Ye Moran soothed him with stroke after stroke. Only when the sound of his steady breathing returned did she slowly stop.
She stood up, walked out of the room, and stood in the living room, remaining motionless for a long time.
Finally, she paced toward a specific spot—a storage cabinet. She took out the medication kept there.
Tossing out two pills, she swallowed them dry.
Having done this, she stared at the medicine in her hand, lost in thought.
She had forgotten exactly when she started taking the medicine. It seemed to be when Su Ling was six years old. He had gone out to play and accidentally fell into the pool. While she was changing his clothes, she had almost lost control of herself.
After that incident, she went to the hospital to get a prescription, which was also when she met Lin Qingyu, who was still working as a doctor back then.
She had been taking this stuff for over ten years. It wasn’t that she hadn’t thought about undergoing comprehensive treatment—Lin Qingyu had urged her many times and even drafted a treatment plan for her.
…But she hadn’t wanted to cure herself. Because whenever the little fellow was by her side, her mood was always exceptionally good.
Back then, she thought that as long as she kept him caged by her side, it didn’t matter if she was cured or not.
But today, she had hit him. It wasn’t the usual neck-pinching or cheek-squeezing—it was a vicious slap.
She shouldn’t have done that.
She never intended to truly harm him, but… the moment that slap landed, what surged in her heart wasn’t just panic. There was also… excitement.
It was a hidden, inexplicable excitement that even she couldn’t define.
Yet she knew very well that this was wrong. She shouldn’t be like this.
So… regarding the treatment, she had to consider it.
She took out her phone and called Lin Qingyu to arrange a meeting.
Lin Qingyu sat in the café, her mood worse than ever before.
She thought that after returning from Diannan, she and Ye Moran were no longer friends. After all, she had been bullied so badly by that detestable person.
And yet, this person actually contacted her? Was her skin really that thick?
Knock, knock!!
Ye Moran tapped on the table, a faint, ambiguous smile on her lips.
“You!”
Lin Qingyu took a deep breath, telling herself not to get angry.
…She couldn’t win in a fight, so getting angry was useless.
After chanting this mantra a few times in her head, her heart finally calmed down.
“What did you call me here for?”
Ye Moran sat across from her, her fingertips resting idly on the table. That faint smile faded, replaced by an exhaustion that seemed to reach her very bones.
She lowered her head, eyes flickering with complex light, lost in thought.
“Hey, you’re the one who asked for me, okay? Now you’re not talking—do you think I’m a joke?”
Lin Qingyu glared at her. This person called her over and then stayed silent. What was the meaning of this?
Ye Moran remained silent. The light from the window fell into her eyes, reflecting a murky, indecipherable darkness.
“That treatment plan you gave me before.”
She spoke slowly, every word sounding as if it were being squeezed out of her throat.
“I want to know more about it.”
Lin Qingyu snapped her head up, her eyes full of disbelief.
“You… what did you say?”
Lin Qingyu was stunned. For so many years, she had urged Ye Moran countless times to accept treatment, to stop trapping herself in that morbid obsession. But every time, the other woman would dismiss her with a breezy “No thanks,” shutting out all good intentions.
Now, she was actually being proactive?
Ye Moran’s fingertips curled slightly. Images flashed through her mind: Su Ling’s reddened cheek, his aggrieved and terrified eyes, and that innocent yet serious sentence:
“If you’re sick, you must fix it. It’ll be very painful if you don’t.”
A dense, prickling pain suddenly flared in her chest, making her breathing tight.
She turned her head to look at the scenery outside the window, her voice carrying an indelible trace of sorrow.
“I don’t want to… hurt him again.”
Seeing the unrestrained panic and fragility in the depths of her eyes, Lin Qingyu’s brow furrowed slightly.
“What did you… do?”
“I… hit him.”
“What?”
“A very hard slap. His face is still red even now.”
“Did you skip your meds again?”
Ye Moran didn’t answer, but her silence was the best answer.
“Damn it!”
“You… I’m honestly fed up with you. I told you to take your medicine properly, and you still end up like this!”
“Heh, perhaps.”
Ye Moran shook her head, seemingly indifferent to the scolding.
“I only want to know one thing: if I am cured, will I stop loving him?”
“Huh?!”
“This is very important to me. If I’ll end up not loving him, then I would rather… never be cured!”
Ye Moran’s tone was incredibly serious. Her eyes regained their sharpness, like a predator lying in wait, ready to tear someone apart at any moment.
Lin Qingyu looked at her and suddenly burst out laughing.
“You don’t actually think that your love for Ye Jin is caused by your illness, do you?”
“Is it not?”
“Have you ever seriously thought about it? Did you fall in love with him before you got sick, or did you only love him because you got sick?”
Ye Moran frowned and remained silent for a long time before shaking her head.
“I’m not sure. But the probability is the latter. Because at first, I didn’t like him. I even intentionally ignored his hundred-day banquet when he was born.”
Hearing this, Lin Qingyu felt speechless. Was skipping a hundred-day banquet really proof of “not loving”?
For heaven’s sake, he was a baby back then!
“Then when did you start liking him?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t like him before, but he was always pestering me, clinging to me. Slowly, I started paying attention to his every move. When he cried, when he laughed… I started to care.”
“Stop, stop, stop! End it right there!”
Lin Qingyu raised her hand to cut her off. She had heard the rest of the story before!
And regarding that story, she could only say: this woman is a total pervert!
Ever since they were young, her favorite thing to do was bully her younger brother to make him cry. And she was actually proud of it—saying that after she made Ye Jin cry, he would still have to beg her to comfort him!
It was simply too twisted!
…Wait, thinking about it carefully, the young Ye Jin was also a bit strange. He would actually go and beg the person who bullied him.
No, no, she shouldn’t think that. Back then, Ye Jin was just a little kid who didn’t know any better. When bullied, he would only seek comfort from the person closest to him—and that person just happened to be her!