Chapter 19: Li Xin's Struggles
Ling Hong gently patted her head and said in a soft voice "No need to panic, I'm not going to leave you this time. I'm sorry for what I did that time."
Li Xin did not say anything but he could feel her breaths getting steadier as she became calm. She then gently lifted her head and gazed at him. A beautiful smile blossomed on her face.
"I never held you responsible for that. I only blamed myself for being too weak to support you as you had done for me all those years ago. But because I wasn't strong enough, you left me in fear that you couldn't protect me." she spoke as her eyes stared into his.
"Xinxin, I -" Ling Hong wanted to say something but was interrupted by her.
"Brother Ling, you know what? When they said that you ran away, it felt as if my heart had died. You were the only important person in my life and to suddenly lose you like that, I felt sacred. I searched for you for a long time but there was never a trace. After a few weeks, I realized that you were deliberately removing yourself from my life so that I wouldn't depend on you forever." she continued, her gaze still fixed on him.
"You know, I never gave up. I was a little happy realizing that you had done this for me, it atleast showed that you started to have me in your heart. So I began to be like you - trying to become stronger so that one day when you came back, I could help you."
She sighed and smiled bitterly, looking over herself in her housekeeper attire and said "Seems like I couldn't become strong. Sorry."
Ling Hong felt moved. This girl had gone through a lot and even went as far as sacrificing 4 years of her golden youth waiting for him. These actions were enough to shake up his soul. He felt a lot of affection towards this girl who vowed her entire life for him. He decided that the would try his best to return her love, for his remnant soul too held some feelings of love for her.
Ling Hong grabbed her by the shoulders and said "You need not worry. See, I got stronger, even more than before. So just like the old days, I'll become even more stronger to protect you okay? You just need to stay by me."
Li Xin's eyes reddened as tears began forming in her eyes. All the difficulties, insults and everything else she had endured all these years seemed to be washed away. Now that she got back what she wanted, she had no more worries. She just fiercely nodded in reply.
Chuckling, Ling Hong stretched his hands out to wipe away her tears, murmuring "Tsk, tsk. Still a crybaby after all these years."
She became happy and shy upon hearing that, remembering how her Brother Ling would appear every time she cried to console her by teasing her in the same way.
"Let's talk about you now shall we?" he asked while holding her hand.
Li Xin wanted to pour out everything to him, but a moment of worry flashed through her eyes. Seeing her look, he smiled and said "You can tell me everything, don't worry about me going to beat up someone after hearing your troubles. I'll act only after discussing with you, and I told that I'm stronger than the past."
Under his assurance, she no longer held back and explained everything that she went though the past years.
When he had suddenly disappeared that year, the orphanage and school went into a panic. Only later did they discover the letter he had left and they calmed down. The school withdrew but Mother Ma, Li Xin and others close to Ling Hong never gave up searching. They continued to search for weeks till one day Guo Chen found out that Ling Hong had left the city with his hacking skills. Mother Ma then told everyone that she believed he was just trying to find himself and would return to them after some time.
As weeks turned to months and months turned to years, with no news of Ling Hong everyone started to forget about him except for a handful of people. Li Xin then started to dedicate herself to studies, hoping to get a good score on the High School Entrance Examination so that if he saw it, then he would atleast come back to congratulate her. But reality was cruel, as the thing she wished for never happened. After that she entered Fourth High School, the school Ling Hong had enrolled in before the accident.
But as soon as she entered she caught the fancy of many young masters with her beauty, which led them to chase after her. She tried politely refusing everyone at first, but that just led them to attack more fiercely. When they realized that they could not succeed, they began to play dirty tricks. Some of them began to catch on to her friends and people around her, promising them benefits if they could lure her out. Things were going well at first, but soon the plot was discovered by Li Xin.
She was very quiet so nobody noticed her as she moved around. One time she overheard her so-called friends discussing about how much money they would get if they helped one of those rich young masters get in bed with her. Disgusted by their acts, she began to check around for similar acts. To her horror, even some from the orphanage began plans to sell her out. Heartbroken, she severed all relationships and became a loner, even going as far as to ignore her teachers.
After a year, one of the nouveau riches named Wei Kai couldn't help himself. He used his father's name as the director of a billion dollar company who donated money to the school to make the board of directors into expelling her if she did not agree to sleep with him. But she surprised everyone by withdrawing from school and even announced in public about the behind the scenes act, but the school managed to keep everything within their control and wrote off everything as her fault. They claimed that she was just making excuses as her performance was bad.
Faced with the cruel side of society, Li Xin gave upon everything completely and prepared to leave the city like Ling Hong. But then an opportunity appeared when one of her juniors, the young miss of the Hua Family invited her to work at her villa. She reluctantly accepted as she felt it could atleast give her money to provide for others at the orphanage.
But even then, misfortune followed her. Due to her working hard and quickly rising the ranks, she was soon to be promoted as exclusive maid to the young miss. But the housekeeper wanted her own daughter to get that position so she pulled up some fake complaints to reduce her status back to that of a common worker.
Li Xin was enraged at first and wanted to leave, but eventually stayed as to repay the favor to the young miss and to get money for the orphanage. She kept a low profile till today when she was suddenly asked to be the housekeeper for Ling Hong's villa.
Hearing her story, Ling Hong felt great anger towards himself for making her go through everything. A cold glint flashed across his eyes as he remembered some of the name that hurt her. He would definitely get revenge for her.
"Alright, I'm finished with mine. Now tell me yours Brother Ling." she said while blinking her beautiful eyes at him.
Ling Hong laughed and pulled her down to lay on the bed. They both lay side by side as he talked about his past - namely how he met Hua Meimei and Grandmother Chen in the forest, then the Hua couple finding them. He left out the parts abut his accident and his abilities to cure Meiling's disease as he feared it would be too much for her. He planned to gradually let her know.
As expected, she was very happy to hear that his injury was gone and shocked at the fact that there had been another young miss of the house. She mumbled "Wow, it seems we are fated with the Hua Family. We were both taken in by one of the daughters and after they reunited, we were too."
Ling Hong just laughed it off and said "Alright, we'll talk more tomorrow. Go and sleep for now."
The girl was quite reluctant to leave and he had to promise her several times that he would not go out without telling her before she went to bed.
She too, was exhausted and was soon asleep. A few seconds later, Ling Hong looked into the room and upon seeing the sleeping Li Xin, smiled and went to the balcony facing the back. He had found yet another reason to quickly increase his strength.
He sat down in a meditative stance and looked up at the night sky.
-- Gift
received