Chapter 51: Don’t Trust Tang Man’s Words

Si Jiahe stared at Xie Li for a long time, then suddenly pursed his lips and smiled, revealing shallow dimples that made him look extraordinarily well-behaved.

With his red-rimmed eyes and hair naturally falling over his forehead, he seemed to be the one who had been bullied.

This kind of frail demeanor had always been popular with women, especially with Tang Man. Sometimes she seemed particularly tender and affectionate, while other times she seemed to have a heart of stone.

Xie Li couldn’t stand seeing Si Jiahe like this. He had witnessed countless times how this man gained Tang Man’s pity with this demeanor. With his pride, he couldn’t bring himself to wag his tail and beg for mercy like this, so he grew more and more disgusted by Si Jiahe’s behavior.

Si Jiahe met Xie Li’s gaze, but as if in defiance, he just stared at Xie Li with tear-filled eyes, then called out “Man Man”.

As he called her name, more tears fell from Si Jiahe’s face. Seeing Tang Man stir, he smiled and silently mouthed a sentence to Xie Li who had been watching him the whole time, with tears still welling in his eyes.

“Xie Li, how high do you think your status is in Man Man’s heart?”

Xie Li’s face darkened a bit, but in the end he didn’t say anything and pulled Tang Man, wanting to leave directly.

At this moment, he fully experienced the suffocating feeling Du Henian had when facing Si Jiahe. It was like having a fishbone stuck in the throat – no matter what, it couldn’t be pulled out.

Moreover, Tang Man was the type who could be coaxed but not coerced. But sometimes coaxing might not work either. However, since she could turn back to Si Jiahe once, she could do it a second or third time. Once it started, there was no telling what would happen next.

It was because of this that Xie Li had always lacked confidence when it came to Si Jiahe. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have blurted out those words earlier when Tang Man was still there. If he were facing Du Henian, he would still be able to maintain as much reason and pride as possible.

He pulled Tang Man to leave, but was tripped up by Si Jiahe. Si Jiahe reached out and grabbed Tang Man’s other hand, and the three of them became deadlocked in the corridor.

No matter what, Si Jiahe just held on to Tang Man and wouldn’t let go. Xie Li reached out to pry the other man’s hand off, leaving several red marks on the pale skin, but Si Jiahe still refused to let go, burying his head as if lost in his own world.

No matter what, he would not voluntarily let go.

He knew that if he let go this time, there would be no more chances. Unlike three years ago, marriage now held a different meaning for him. Once Tang Man entered into marriage, he understood what it would mean for him to get involved again.

He was afraid of falling into such a state, where his heart would be crushed to ashes on the ground, becoming fallen leaves blown away by the wind, turning into the gray snow closest to the soil in winter.

“Man Man, don’t abandon me like this.”

His tears dripped onto the ground.

Xie Li’s face had completely darkened, with a hint of paleness from his unspoken words. Because in the midst of this deadlock, Tang Man suddenly said, “Xie Li, you go down first. I’ll have a few words with Jiahe.”

Xie Li turned to look at Tang Man.

Tang Man’s voice softened. She touched Xie Li’s wrist and said softly, “Wait for me downstairs for a bit. I’ll be right down.”

She actually knew what methods to use to coax someone in different situations, especially a man. It’s just that most of the time, she was too lazy to waste her words. But it was already late at night now. If they made any more of a scene, the neighbors would probably notice the two men and one woman arguing in the corridor. It would look too unsightly.

Xie Li looked at Tang Man for a while, his gaze sweeping over Si Jiahe, and said to her, “I’ll wait downstairs for half an hour.”

“Tang Man, if you don’t come down in half an hour, I’ll come up.” He said in a low voice.

Tang Man smiled, “Okay, I’ll be down in half an hour.”

She said, “Xie Li, I won’t let you get into such an awkward situation.”

See, she was quite good with her words. As soon as she finished speaking, the expression on Xie Li’s face relaxed, no longer as tense as before. Even though he knew that Tang Man’s words were just a casual remark, he still felt much more at ease and was happy about it.

Xie Li went downstairs alone. Si Jiahe immediately grabbed both of Tang Man’s hands, his bright, cat-like eyes constantly fixed on her.

Meeting her gaze, he pursed his lips cutely. In front of her, he always had this demeanor, as if he had no bones. His delicate face always carried an unabated childishness. When looking at her, he was always fully focused, with all his attention on her.

He called out, “Man Man.” It seemed that simply because of her staying, this person became happy.

But was Si Jiahe a fool? Tang Man knew he wasn’t. Du Henian also knew. Even Xie Li standing there knew that Si Jiahe wasn’t a brainless person. It’s just that some people are too good-looking. Doing certain things always makes people think they’re brainless, just a vase. But in the end, you find out that he got everything he should’ve gotten.

Tang Man also smiled slightly. She said, “It’s inconvenient to talk in the corridor. Let’s go in and talk.”

Si Jiahe obediently nodded and followed behind Tang Man into the apartment like a shadow.

The apartment was very dark. The living room lights were not on. She almost tripped over something when she walked in. Hearing the sound, Si Jiahe quickly supported her, almost falling himself in the process. Tang Man felt Si Jiahe’s wrist and traced up along his arm.

She found a spot to sit down and watched as Si Jiahe walked a few steps towards her after turning on the light, but then stopped, hesitating in place.

Tang Man smiled and patted the sofa underneath her. “Jiahe, what are you afraid of? You had quite the momentum when facing Xie Li just now.”

Hearing Tang Man mention Xie Li, Si Jiahe’s eyes flickered. His hand unconsciously picked at the corner of the sofa beside him.

“Come sit for a bit. I’ll go down in half an hour.” Tang Man sat cross-legged on the sofa. After speaking, she even raised her hand to glance at her watch. “There’s still about twenty minutes left. I came straight over the moment I saw your message in the middle of the night, without a second’s delay.”

Si Jiahe walked over and sat beside Tang Man. His hand instinctively grabbed one of Tang Man’s hands as he hung his head like a cat resting on its paws, sitting on the sofa in silence.

Then, Tang Man saw a spot on the sofa gradually darken in color. She felt a bit helpless. “Jiahe, why are you crying again?”

“How do you, as a man, have so many tears?”

Si Jiahe said, “I can’t help it, Man Man. I can’t hold back from crying.”

Especially in front of Tang Man, he seemed to always be unable to hold back his tears.

Tang Man sighed and told Si Jiahe to extend his other hand. There were some shallow wounds on it, as if caused by fingernails or some sharp object, as if he had been self-harming.

The wounds left streak after streak on his pale skin, looking extremely obvious. A few of the streaks were still red in color, able to ooze blood – clearly fresh wounds.

Just pressing down slightly would leave a mark, let alone the wounds caused by these sharp fingernails and objects on the skin. The crisscrossing wounds were frightening enough.

“Where is your first-aid kit?” Tang Man rolled up Si Jiahe’s sleeve, her gaze falling on his arm without looking up as she asked.

Si Jiahe’s skin contracted a few times under Tang Man’s touch before he said softly, “Under the TV cabinet. It’s very old and hasn’t been used.”

Tang Man searched under the TV cabinet and indeed found a box at the very back, already covered in a layer of dust. It really hadn’t been used in a long time.

She frowned and opened it to rummage through. Inside were disinfectant, medicine for wounds, and a box of band-aids, all barely within their expiration dates. Better than nothing.

She took out the medicine bottle from inside and placed it on the side table. Sitting cross-legged on the sofa, she grabbed Si Jiahe’s hand to treat his wounds. The weather was gradually getting hot now. Leaving the wounds like this might cause inflammation and suppuration, resulting in deeper scars.

Tang Man first disinfected the wounds before applying the medicine and covering them with band-aids. Si Jiahe remained silent throughout the process. In the end, for some reason, he lowered his eyes. Seeing Tang Man like this, he felt even more reluctant to part, and his eyes couldn’t help but turn sour.

He couldn’t bear it.

A thousand words could be summed up in just three – he couldn’t bear it.

He couldn’t bear to let go of Tang Man, couldn’t bear to leave her, couldn’t bear to abandon their past years together. Most of the happy years in his twenties were related to Tang Man. Those memories were so profound that they had been engraved like patterns in his mind.

All the love and loss in his youth were tied to Tang Man, including his future. He had reserved a place for her there.

He couldn’t accept their current outcome. He had already tried his best once, yet still ended up with this result.

Tang Man covered the last wound on Si Jiahe’s hand with a band-aid. She suddenly spoke, “Jiahe, some things, once lost, are no longer the same even if they come back.”

“This is called ‘the world changes and people change with it’.”

“When I was little…” Tang Man said, “I don’t often talk about my childhood because the memories are too scarce and monotonous. There’s no need to mention them.”

“Actually, I also had a period of sentimentality back then. I read the poetry collections of the Crescent Moon School, but found that when literati poured too much emotion into their writing, they easily became mawkish. So, I discovered that most literati are mawkish people. The women lively in their writing are never just one. From then on, I realized that most people who left their names in history were not devoted lovers. Instead, they were accompanied by more than one intimate female companion.”

“Later, I fell in love with fairy tales, but found that they were also horror stories.”

The fickle male protagonist may not be a prince, but could also be a playboy.

She was still a teenage girl at that time. Although precocious, she was still a little girl. Back then, she accidentally found out that the male protagonist of an animation she liked was a playboy. The witch in it was his ex-girlfriend, and he had countless intimate female companions. At that time, she seemed to have been sad for a while. Since then, her view on love had gradually gone astray.

Thinking about it now, she still felt that her past self was really childish, wasn’t she?

It was a very immature period, undoubtedly a dark history in Tang Man’s eyes. No one had ever told her, and now, she definitely couldn’t tell Si Jiahe.

It was also during that period that Tang Man gradually shed her beautiful imaginings about love. She gradually realized that love was not just for one person. A person could have many love stories in their life. What they liked was not a person, but a type, a vague framework.

“So, Jiahe, don’t consume the last bit of joy I have for you.”