Chapter 24

Darkness, endless darkness.
Zhu Xinyue thought she could get used to not being able to see anything. After all, since developing severe nearsightedness, the world had been a blur without her glasses. But when she truly couldn’t see anything, she would rather have blurry vision than complete darkness.
The doctor examined her, but modern medicine, of course, couldn’t detect any issues with her eyes. The real culprit was the system that had allowed her to live a second life, it wasn’t a product of this world’s technology at all.
The system had never mentioned when her eyes would recover. Zhu Xinyue called out to it thousands of times in her mind, but there was no response.
According to the doctor, her vision might return tomorrow, or it might never return. The patient and her family needed to be mentally prepared.
This hospital was already the best ophthalmology hospital in the area. Ji Linyu did everything he could, contacting experts in the field of ophthalmology for Zhu Xinyue, whether domestic or international, and arranging for them to conduct various examinations for her.
Zhu Xinyue sat in the hospital corridor, waiting for the newly arrived specialist to deliver her sentence. She overheard passersby talking: "So young, and already blind."
"Such a pretty face, what a shame."
"I heard she's an actress."
"How can she act if she's blind? She'll struggle just to live independently."
She had heard plenty of similar remarks over the past two days.
Each one pierced straight through her heart.
After the accident on set, filming had been temporarily suspended for a week.
Zhu Shilang had rushed over from Qingyang. When he saw Zhu Xinyue sitting expressionless on the sofa, her eyes vacant as if two glass marbles were lodged in their sockets, she resembled an exquisite doll.
Only the two siblings remained in the hospital room. The crew members who had come to visit Zhu Xinyue had already left, and Ji Linyu had seen them out, leaving the siblings some space to talk.
"I never agreed with you joining the entertainment industry as an actress!" Zhu Shilang, in his anger, spoke without thinking. "If you just come home, you can live as a young lady of the house, no one would ever mistreat you. Look at you now!"
Zhu Xinyue could no longer see. Earlier, when people came to visit, she knew they cared about her and felt sorry about her blindness. So she suppressed her inner turmoil, forced herself to stay composed, and even managed to squeeze out a smile now and then to interact with them.
But facing Zhu Shilang, hearing him repeat the same tiresome arguments, she felt suffocated.
"No one would mistreat me?" Zhu Xinyue let out a cold laugh. Already frustrated by her blindness, she now bristled with sharp defensiveness.
"You mean going back to Qingyang, following your arrangements, going on endless blind dates, then hastily marrying some man you deem suitable, even if he's seeing multiple people at once, I should pretend not to know and cover for him? That doesn't count as mistreatment?! Or do you think the fiancee of Zhenheng Group's eldest son really doesn't know he's playing the field?"
The situation with Zhenheng Group's eldest son made it clear: these so-called "high-quality matches" who end up in blind dates, if they were truly that great, they wouldn't need to be "set up" in the first place.
Zhu Shilang hadn't expected Zhu Xinyue to refute him so fiercely, as if they were back to the day he brought her from Nancheng to Qingyang.
After all this time, he thought she would have grown more sensible.
"Then what? You want to live in some rundown rental? A room smaller than your wardrobe! Or go out and find some job paying three or four thousand a month, enduring disdain, earning less than a fraction of the interest on my bank savings?
"Zhu Xinyue, you're too naive! You've never lacked money since you were young. You have no idea how tough life outside is, that's why you spout such nonsense. If you think marrying someone is painful, let me tell you, that's the worst hardship in your life of luxury. Aside from that, everything else is sweet. There's no easier path than this one!"
Zhu Shilang's every word felt like chains tightening around Zhu Xinyue's neck, winding tighter and tighter until she could barely breathe.
He wasn't wrong.
She wasn't outstanding, had no talent or knack for making money, and was indifferent to wealth. She was just an ordinary person, which was why even before transmigrating, she had remained a bottom-tier employee at her company after all those years. Half of her six-thousand salary went to rent and living expenses, and the meager savings she scrimped to invest ended up losing 20% in a year instead of growing.
From the start, she never had any grand dreams. All she wanted was a place of her own and a job that could support her, that was it.
Why hasn't this damn world ended yet?
Who exactly is living happily?
Zhu Xinyue's agony lay in her acute awareness of what she wanted: wealth, freedom, and love. It also lay in her inherent flaws, greed, laziness, and selfishness. She longed to reap without sowing, to have the freedom to do nothing if she wished, and to receive unconditional love.
Only now did Zhu Xinyue realize that the unlimited credit card Zhu Shilang had given her wasn't a rope pulling her up from the bottom of a well, but an exquisitely crafted golden cage.
Fall.
Fall deeper.
This luxurious life was effortless, granting everything she once desired with ease.
She had been too naïve, naive to believe this was the family's love for "Zhu Xinyue," naive to think such love came without strings attached.
Turns out, it was an investment.
Zhu Xinyue groped along the sofa and stood up. Unable to see, she bumped into the coffee table in front of her, her knee hitting the hard surface with a dull thud.
Zhu Shilang, unsure what she was doing, moved to support her. "Where are you going?"
The moment his hand touched her, Zhu Xinyue shoved him away violently, her hand striking his face.
"Don't touch me! Don't touch me!" she screamed, nearly hysterical as she pushed him off.
Now she understood why the original host had argued with the Zhu family, she, too, was being suffocated by them.
Relying on her memory of how the nurse had led her into the room, Zhu Xinyue felt her way toward the hospital bed diagonally ahead. Each step was uncertain, fraught with the risk of colliding or tripping over something.
Zhu Shilang, angered by her erratic behavior and the stinging red mark her nail had left on his chin, stood by and watched as she stumbled and fell to her knees on the carpet.
Zhu Xinyue pushed herself up with her hands and felt around until she finally reached the bed. She then followed the bed toward the nightstand.
On the nightstand were her personal belongings. Jiang Rui, who had visited her, had packed her luggage and brought it over.
Zhu Xinyue found the familiar handbag she often used. Even blindfolded, she could locate the card Zhu Shilang had given her in its compartment.
She pulled out the card and thrust it toward where she thought Zhu Shilang was still standing.
"Take it back!"
Zhu Shilang stood before her, watching her speak to an empty space, and felt a pang of pity for her.
She had been ruined by her mother. She could do nothing but throw tantrums at her family, exactly like her mother.
"I'm here," Zhu Shilang spoke up, reminding her of the fact that she couldn't see him at all, she couldn't even locate the person she was talking to.
Zhu Xinyue shuddered, and the card in her hand fell to the ground. He had suddenly shifted his position, his voice now too close to her, and she hadn't noticed a thing. If he had been a dangerous person, she would have died a hundred times over by now.
As family, Zhu Shilang knew exactly which words would cut deepest and hurt the most. He wasn't angry anymore; instead, he smiled faintly and asked her, "Do you know how much it costs to stay in this hospital room for a day? Do you know how much your check-ups, treatments, and the fees for the specialists cost? Do you know how much money has been spent on your food, clothes, and daily expenses since you were a child? Do you know how much alimony Mom has taken from Dad in your name? If you want to pay it back, you'll never be able to in this lifetime."
"You hypocrite!" Zhu Xinyue had thought he was so noble, but he was no different from her former boss, just putting a price on her time.
She pointed in Zhu Shilang's direction and yelled, "Who are you putting on that condescending, charitable act for? Did I beg you to put me in this hospital room? Did I beg them to give birth to me? Did anyone ask for my opinion before I was born? Get out! Get out of here!"
Furious, Zhu Xinyue threw her handbag at Zhu Shilang. The jumble of items inside scattered across the floor, clattering noisily.
Zhu Shilang easily dodged the things she threw at him, they couldn't harm him in the slightest.
He looked at her as if she were a child throwing a helpless tantrum, especially since she was blind now.
Zhu Shilang picked up the card Zhu Xinyue had thrown back at him but didn't take it with him. Instead, he placed it on the coffee table.
"Think it over carefully. If you remain blind for the rest of your life, returning to Qingyang is your only way out. The Zhu family is your only retreat," he said.
After Zhu Shilang left, the hospital room fell silent again.
Too silent.
As silent as a morgue.
Zhu Xinyue sat on the hospital bed and leaned back.
So dark.
She couldn't see anything.
What time was it? She didn't care anymore, because to her, day and night were no different.
Darkness breeds negativity, and her mind was filled with too many chaotic voices. She even wondered, if she had known she would go blind, would she still have saved Ji Qingyuan and the others?
Once Zhu Xinyue started thinking this way, she couldn't control the malicious thoughts.
Her soul split into two halves, the malevolent soul transformed into a vulture, pecking at the benevolent soul, gnawing at her flesh and bones. She was unable to move.
She had never been particularly clever, nor were her abilities remarkable. Kindness should have been one of her few virtues, yet at this moment, she began to regret it.
How could she save others when she could barely take care of herself? What ability did she have? Was she even worthy?
Zhu Xinyue despised this version of herself that wasn't kind enough, and she loathed this dark, cowardly self.
She wept silently, crying until she was exhausted. Even as she fell asleep, her fists remained tightly clenched, her stress with no outlet, leaving her in a constant state of vigilance.
In her dreams, she felt someone by her side, lifting her body and changing her position, carefully placing her head on the pillow and covering her with a blanket.
Zhu Xinyue heard the person pick up the bottles and containers from the floor, placing them into her handbag. The clinking sounds were familiar, she had made similar noises when organizing her bag before.
Was it a nurse? Zhu Xinyue clenched her fists, resisting the urge to make a sound.
She never liked strangers touching her things.
"Did I wake you?" It was Ji Linyu's voice.
Zhu Xinyue's anxious heart settled back into place, and her clenched fists gradually loosened as she heard him place her handbag on the bedside table.
"What time is it?" she asked.
"It's almost 7 p.m. Do you want something to eat?" Ji Linyu had run into an acquaintance at the hospital entrance earlier and chatted with them at a restaurant outside. When he returned, he found her asleep.
Zhu Xinyue had been eating very little lately, with little appetite.
She shook her head. "I don't want to eat."
Seeing the tear stains on her face, Ji Linyu's mood grew heavy.
He took a chocolate ball from his pocket and placed it in her palm. "Chocolate."
Zhu Xinyue sat up. Pinching the chocolate ball, the texture of the wrapper felt familiar, she had unwrapped it twice before. But the last time she ate this brand, it was overly sweet. Why was he giving it to her again?
She unwrapped it and was about to put it in her mouth when Ji Linyu grasped her wrist.
"There's still a bit left to unwrap." Ji Linyu removed a small piece of paper from the chocolate ball. Just as he was about to release her hand, he looked up and saw a tear roll down from her eye.
She seemed unaware that she was crying, mechanically placing the chocolate into her mouth.
"Ji Linyu, it's not sweet at all," Zhu Xinyue whispered as tears fell silently.
Ji Linyu instinctively raised his hand, pausing briefly in front of her before gently wiping away her tears.
"It's a new flavor. Are you feeling a bit better?"
His movements were light and tender, making one unconsciously want to lose themselves in them.
Zhu Xinyue held Ji Linyu's fingertips and asked softly, "Ji Linyu, is your kindness toward me also a trap?"
Ji Linyu froze, his heart aching with a bitter sorrow.
He had been doubted by countless people about his intentions, some suspicions were justified, others were not. But with her, it was simply because he couldn't help himself.
If the first time was out of compassion, then what were all the times that followed?
He saw her delicate and frail figure, bearing such heavy iron chains, holding up a fragile red umbrella, rescuing people amidst the sea of fire.
He didn’t even dare to recall the scene at that time, everyone was fleeing outward, yet she, like a fool, went against the current.
It was precisely this figure that occupied his entire being, causing him to lose all reason as well, rushing into the flames to reach her side.
At that moment, he could have let professionals save her.
But he couldn’t wait.
Even a second later, he feared something might happen to her.
What did this mean?
Ji Linyu was unfamiliar with such feelings.
Zhu Xinyue, not receiving his response, released his fingertips and calmed down.
“Ji Linyu, stop being good to me.”
Her tone was cold, as if pushing him away.
Ji Linyu’s Adam’s apple bobbed as he looked at her pale, bloodless face. She had no idea how sorrowful she appeared at that moment.
All her insincerity was written plainly on her face.
“I have little self-control,” Zhu Xinyue tugged at the corner of her lips. “Aren’t you afraid of me clinging to you if you tempt me like this?”
Ji Linyu listened to her almost confessional probing, all her cards laid bare before him.
It was as if she were telling him he could take advantage, when her eyes couldn’t see, when she felt most insecure, he could be the one she could rely on, offering her support and kindness, so she would be tempted by him and become devoted to him.
She would remember his goodness for a lifetime.
But his kindness toward her wasn’t for the sake of repayment or to demand something in exchange.
He simply… wanted to be good to her.
Zhu Xinyue’s wrist was grasped by a familiar strength, placing her hand on the back of his, just like the first day they met, when he accompanied her on a night walk.
She couldn’t see anything then either, but the person beside her made her feel at ease.
Because she knew he wouldn’t harm her.
Faced with her probing, he neither rejected nor accepted her.
Instead, he solemnly made a promise, one that even Zhu Xinyue herself might not be able to keep if their positions were reversed.
He said, “I won’t leave you until your eyes are healed.”