They Regretted it After Their Hearts Turned to Ashes - Chapter 7

Unedited 

Sorry for the late update! Between Thanksgiving, studying and visiting my grandparents, I’ve been super busy these past few weeks. Hopefully it’ll be better next week. Anyways, here’s the long-awaited chapter! Hope you like it!

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Luo Cheng stayed where she was, unable to answer.

This was the first time Luo Zhi had asked her this kind of question. His tone was very light and casual, and he even had a lighthearted smile like they were just having some small talk.

…

But at that moment, there were countless things that had happened, that were currently happening now, and will be indispensable in the future. They all seem to be summed up lightly in the same sentence.

Is she such a person?

Luo Zhi is indeed hateful, and it is his own fault for getting to this point… But no matter what, the person on the hospital bed is related to her by blood in the end… Is she such a cold-blooded person? Just like what Luo Zhi said…

“She’s not that kind of person.” Ren Chenbai suddenly spoke. “Xiao Zhi, your malice towards your sister is too strong.”

Luo Cheng raised her head suddenly.

Her eyes were red, and her hands were tightly clutching the hem of her clothes. Her eyes were gazing toward Ren Chenbai as if asking for help.

“Have you seen the comments on the internet? Those people are really looking forward to your death.”

Ren Chenbai’s voice was very gentle, as if he was patiently teaching the simplest truth. “Your sister is angry because she cares about you. That’s why she got upset at you when you did something like that. She just couldn’t explain it clearly at the moment.”

“If you didn’t really care about your family, why would you feel guilty and blame yourself for this incident and come to question you?”1

“It’s because I hope you are well that I get angry with you.” Ren Chenbai said. “You may have misunderstood her intentions since you are in a daze after fainting, her wording was not considerate enough, and you’re currently unable to control your emotions, but this cannot be a reason for you to slander Xiao Cheng.”

Ren Chen Bai turned to Luo Cheng and said in a gentle tone, “Isn’t that right?”

Luo Cheng bit her lower lip hard. She suddenly felt that a huge weight had been lifted from her shoulders, leaving her delicate body to feel shaky as tears began to well up in her eyes.

When Luo Chengxiu entered the door, he happened to see this scene in front of him.

The birthday banquet of the Luo family was almost a joke, and Mrs. Luo’s condition was unstable for several days. Luo Zhi made such a scandal at the critical time of the handover of Huaisheng Entertainment.

Luo Chengxiu was originally upset because of this round of public opinion turmoil caused by Luo Zhi. At a glance, he saw his little daughter’s tears of grievance, and saw how she looked at him helplessly and uneasy. The anger accumulated by various disturbances that happened these past few days burst out and rushed to the top of his head with intense disgust.

Luo Chengxiu took a few steps to the side of the hospital bed, grabbed Luo Zhi’s hospital gown, and picked him up from the bed.

Luo Zhi was so terribly thin that he had almost no weight. Luo Chengxiu’s strength made him go too far, and the drastic change in body position quickly caused a dizziness that was enough to engulf his consciousness.

Luo Zhi’s eyes suddenly darkened.

…

When he regained consciousness, Ren Chenbai had already persuaded the furious Luo family master.

Luo Chengxiu sat silently in the farthest corner of the ward with a calm expression and said nothing. Ren Chenbai was speaking to him in a low voice, trying to persuade him, or maybe he was explaining the specific “real situation” to Luo Chengxiu.

Luo Cheng shrank in her father’s arms, her eyes were so red that she looked like she was crying aloud with grievance.

Luo Zhi leaned against the corner of the wall.

Although he was thrown in the corner beside the hospital bed, he didn’t get any new injuries. It seemed that Ren Chenbai stopped him in time.

No one bothered to take care of him, and he didn’t have the strength to move his body.

It was probably because his blood sugar still did not reach a safe level that even moving his fingertips would cause him to feel severe palpitation and numbness, and cause him to keep breaking out in cold sweat.

Luo Zhi lowered his eyes.

At this moment, his consciousness seemed to escape from his increasingly weak and broken body suddenly, and quietly floated in place.

It’s easy to do nothing but watch.

Looking at the body hidden in the hospital gown, it was limp as if it had no bones. It was crooked and stacked awkwardly, like a dirty and worn fallen leaf that had been swept into a stall by the side of the road.

Luo Zhi remembered the doll costume he had become in his dream.

It would be nice if it were a dream now.

At the age of five or six, he watched a lot of messy TV dramas. He was so absorbed in it that he wiped his tears and made up his brain into some pitiful character, and had a long and chaotic nightmare.2

When Luo Zhi saw a figure appearing in front of him, he slowly distinguished the outline of the shadow and raised his head.

Luo Cheng was there standing in front of him.

The shadow of the tender and childish little girl behind him has faded. The girl’s appearance has become Pingting,3 and her expression has calmed down again.

It’s just that her face is still a little pale, and her eyes are still red.

“I forgive you,” Luo Cheng looked at him. “Luo Zhi.”

Luo Zhi looked at her for a few seconds, the corners of his mouth gently curving up ever so slightly.

Luo Cheng took this smile as his way of covering up his little plans and continued speaking. “I know what you’re trying to do. You said that on purpose to make me feel that I am a very disgusting person.”

“You think my second brother and I have teamed up to steal your company, so you have to set up such a situation.”

Luo Cheng paused for a while before continuing softly. “You have to find ways to make me blame myself, make me feel sorry for you, and then let me be tortured by these thoughts and go mad… just like my mother.”

Luo Zhi was surprised that he had a deep scheming in the eyes of these people. He raised his eyebrows and tried to look at his sister who had grown up in front of him.

Because of his blurred vision, Luo Zhi felt as if his eyes were covered with a layer of mist. His pupils were a little dilated, but instead, his eyes appeared to be more pure black and bright, with a small shadow cast by the dense long eyelashes.

Luo Cheng was looked at by those eyes. Even if Luo Zhi’s eyes did not have a clear focus, she still felt as if she was suddenly pierced by an extremely thin needle.

Luo Cheng didn’t know what to do and subconsciously moved her gaze away. “You don’t…you don’t remember that mother was driven crazy by you, right?”

Luo Zhi thought for a while.

He remembered that he seemed to have such a crime.

It should have happened when he was twelve years old. Luo Zhi still had some impressions of the day he was taken to speak with Mrs. Luo, and that they had some disputes from it.

Later, he was pushed down by Mrs. Luo from the window on the second floor.

…

After that, Mrs. Luo’s mental state significantly worsened.

Luo Cheng fiddled with the corner of her clothes with her fingertips. She didn’t know what she was panicking about, but she just lowered her head and said, “You can still change, don’t hurt anyone in the future.”

Luo Zhi lowered his eyelashes and just smiled, choosing to not respond.

Luo Cheng finally sensed his strangeness at this moment. She frowned and pulled Luo Zhi’s hand: “Luo Zhi, you—”

Luo Zhi’s hand was ice cold.

Feeling its frigidness, Luo Cheng subconsciously let go of his hand and watched as Luo Zhi’s arm fell down softly. The already thin and pale hand hit the ground on its back, and the bone joints that knocked against the tiles made a very harsh crisp sound.

Luo Chengxiu was ready to leave, waiting for her at the door: “Luo Cheng.” 

Luo Cheng turned her head back in a panic.

She is actually still afraid of Luo Zhi. If her father was not here, she was worried that Luo Zhi will continue to brainwash her with more vicious means, as Brother Chenbai said.

Thinking of this, Luo Cheng looked at Luo Zhi, who was quiet and did not speak, and couldn’t help but sighed in relief.

If only Luo Zhi can always be like this, not making trouble and not doing evil. It would be fine to just be quiet.

After all, they are still related by blood, so it is impossible to ignore him completely.

If Luo Zhi couldn’t move or talk anymore, and he would just lie in the hospital like this, she could actually come to see him every month…

When such a thought came up, Luo Cheng was taken aback by herself. She raised her hand and pressed it against her chest according to how Brother Chenbai taught her to calm down.

It wasn’t that she had vicious thoughts, but the fact that Luo Zhi was going too far.

Luo Zhi came back for revenge and tried every means to destroy the Luo family. He drove his mother crazy and forced Second Brother Jian to live in his shadow. Now he has to drive her crazy.

Even the gentlest brother Chenbai, who has always been taking care of them, was exhausted by the affairs of Luo Zhi.

It’s said on the internet that when Luo Zhi made his debut, he used his power to suppress people, opened a company, and wanted to insult the company’s artists. After they refused, he used means to hide them in the snow for several years.

…

For someone who hurt their family as Luo Zhi did, it was already magnanimous of her to not want to take revenge against him, but to only secretly have such thoughts of him.

Luo Cheng swallowed back what she was about to say.

She didn’t even look at Luo Zhi again. She just ran out of the ward without looking back, and hurriedly left with her father.

Ren Chenbai went out to see them off and closed the door of the ward behind him.

…

At last, there was silence in the ward.

The silence lasted for three or four hours. Since Mr. Ren had explained in advance that there were some family members that were coming to visit, the doctors and nurses who checked the room avoided this ward.

Up until Ren Chenbai finished dealing with some things and returned to the ward, except for the fact that the sky turned dark, everything was the same as when he left.

Because Luo Cheng was crying too hard in her father’s arms, Luo Chengxiu was afraid that his precious daughter would be out of breath, so he asked someone to open the window, which is still half-opened.

It’s probably going to rain tonight, and the night wind is blowing in, bringing a wet coldness with it.

The silver moon was faint, and the icy light penetrated through the gap of the curtains that had been knocked open by the wind and melted into the unextinguished light in the house.

Luo Zhi was still sitting at the foot of the bed with his head down.

Ren Chenbai stopped at the door for a moment.

His gaze was very complicated, but those complexities were eventually overshadowed by coldness. He walked to Luo Zhi and looked down at the embarrassing figure.

“Do you know what’s wrong?” Ren Chenbai’s tone was very light, “You can’t live on your own.”

Luo Zhi sat at the junction of the light and the moonlight.

Ren Chenbai stood in front of him, his usual gentle and considerate face chilled by the cold moon. “Jian Huai is at ease with every step forward he makes, your family is selfish and cold-blooded, and the sister you want to protect is just a brainless idiot.”

Luo Zhi remained silent and did not answer.

“You found out that I hate you, so you don’t want to go home with me?”

Ren Chenbai squatted down and pinched Luo Zhi’s pale jaw. “But I won’t let you go.”

“I used to really want to be with you.” Although Ren Chenbai’s tone was gentle, what he said was contradictory to what he was portraying. “But I don’t know, you are also a strange and heartless monster…”

Luo Yan’s body followed this strength and leaned silently into his arms, his forehead softly pressed against his neck.

Ren Chenbai looked at him, his arm stiffened unconsciously for a moment.

But that brief stagnation was instantly overwhelmed by a more distinct disgust and contempt. Ren Chenbai threw off his arm forcefully, and stood up suddenly. “Go away! I don’t know when you—”

His words abruptly stopped.

Luo Zhi was thrown away by him, rolled twice, and slammed into the corner of the bed, but still did not respond.

Ren Chenbai was suddenly caught by a strong sense of suffocation. He squatted down in a daze and turned the person in front of him over.

Ren Chenbai froze for a while as if he was still, then slowly raised his hand and reached just beneath Luo Zhi’s nose.

Luo Zhi’s body was terrifyingly ice cold.

He quietly tilted his head, his arms hanging softly, and his breath was too light to blow half a feather.

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