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Home/ The Selfish Gene/ Chapter 45

“What do you want to explain?”

Behind the palliative care hospital building was a large dense forest, with rare birds due to the winter, making it particularly quiet. Ji Chenfeng leaned against a thick camphor tree and stood opposite me, about a meter apart.

Walking from the entrance of the ward to this place, it was only a few hundred meters and a few minutes away, but my mind was already in a state of confusion and disorientation.

The phrase ‘listen to my explanation’ blurted out under conditioned reflex is just a classic sentence to procrastinate. Let alone explain, I haven’t even figured out how I ended up in this situation.

Back then, in my midnight dreams and nightmares, it’s not that I never thought about what it would be like to be exposed. But I have been preventing Yan Shanhua from actively leaking the secret, afraid that one day she might run to Sang Zhengbai to confess or tell Ji Chenfeng everything out of guilt. In my subconscious mind, these two scenarios were the two most likely.

But I never expected that in the end, it would be like this…

A hundred secrets and one slip will result in failure. 

It was obvious that I was almost successful. After Yan Shanhua’s death, there would be nothing in this world that could shake or affect me anymore. I would soon be able to become the young master of the Sang family, surrounded by money and wealth, completely cut off from Ji Chenfeng and the dirty and lowly genes in my body.

A hundred steps down the road, I took ninety-nine arduous steps. I saw that I was about to reach the finish line perfectly, but inexplicably died in the last step.

I refuse…to accept it.

“If you can’t think of it, then don’t think about it.”

Returning to the bizarre situation of providing an explanation, Ji Chenfeng looked at me with an expressionless face, with no expectation or disappointment in his eyes, as if he had already anticipated all my reactions. Giving me a chance to explain, just wanting to see how else I can act.

He won’t believe me anymore. I have lied to him too many times, and in his heart, my credibility has reached a negative point.

When I realized this, I knew it would be difficult to win his trust just by relying on weak words. Cold sweat dripped down my back, and as time passed by, if I didn’t do something, I would really be finished.

“I thought you were at least a bit sincere, but I didn’t expect that even that was false. No wonder a young master like you would pay attention to someone like me. It turns out that it wasn’t about paying attention, but just… watching a joke.” Ji Chenfeng’s eyelids drooped slightly, covering his emotions, “It’s so ridiculous. My mother, my lover, are all fake, all lies.”

In just a few words, he felt like a traveler lost in the desert, exhausted and desperate to the extreme. He completely lost his anger and had fully accepted the cruel reality.

“What else is real in my life?” He asked me in a hoarse voice, with a hint of confusion. Every word turned into sharp nails, piercing my nerves one by one.

“You said I was fake. Is this also fake?”

My fingers trembled, unable to think of a better way, so I gave up thinking and acted purely on instinct. Rushing forward, I held Ji Chenfeng’s face and kissed him forcefully. No, it couldn’t be called a “kiss” at all. I tore at his lips, his tongue, just like a wild beast…

If you eat here, you won’t have any worries at all.

A sweet and fishy smell gradually filled my mouth. Feeling his resistance, I pressed the back of his neck tighter, trying to sustain this rough and savage kiss.

This wasn’t a good time for kissing, and Ji Chenfeng didn’t want to accept such a kiss at all. During the entanglement and rejection, his patience was gradually exhausted by me. The kiss made him nauseous, and the pain was more like a trigger, completely igniting his suppressed anger.

My body lost balance backwards, and my gaze crossed the treetop and sky. The next second, my back suddenly hurt, and I was crushed to the ground by Ji Chenfeng.

There was blood dripping from the corner of his mouth, panting and glaring at me, gripping my neck with his uninjured hand.

“Don’t touch me!” His eyes were full of disgust, as if I was no longer me, but an annoying bug. Apart from sucking on his blood, causing him pain and illness, there was nothing else that I could bring him.

I do him only harm, not good.

“I love you.” I looked into his eyes, unusually smooth and unobstructed, making a sound deep in my throat.

Ji Chenfeng was in a daze for a moment. For a moment, he seemed to be bewitched by my “magic words” and was briefly shaken. But in the next second, he regained his composure and became more determined than ever.

“Don’t you feel nauseous doing this with someone you don’t like?”

Have you now become the person who feels nauseous?

One hand gently grasps his wrist, ambiguously caressing the skin at his pulse, while the other hand leans towards his side face, gently touching his cheekbones with the thumb.

“Those words I said to Yan Shanhua were all lies, Chenfeng, I love you. Forgive me, okay?”

In the current situation, I can only do it step by step. First stabilize him and consolidate the relationship between the two parties. What happens next… let’s just talk about it later.

After working as an ostrich for a long time, it seems that I only know how to think like an ostrich, only able to think about the things in front of me. The future, tomorrow, and even what to do after I walk out of this hospital are not within my scope of thinking.

“Forgive you, and then what? Can you give up everything for me?” Ji Chenfeng asked me, “Don’t you want the Sang family’s property, don’t you want your current career? Can you just live an ordinary life with me?”

The force on my neck wasn’t enough to suffocate me, but after hearing his words, I still felt as if my throat was being strangled by a huge force. I stared at him blankly, unable to say a word.

Give up everything? So what is my life, a complete joke?

My fingertips bounced away like an electric shock. Even if I imagined it, I couldn’t accept such a disastrous defeat.

“Look, you can’t.” Ji Chenfeng seemed to have guessed the answer a long time ago, showing a clear expression, “You want too much, Sang Nian. Greedy people will end up with nothing.”

So, you want me to have nothing?

You say it so nicely, but in fact you just want to replace me as the only son of the Sang family, right?

My fingers curled up into fists, leaving his warm face and falling onto the snow beside him. Even though I was wearing gloves, the chill quickly spread from my fingertips to the entire arm.

“Ha”, I stretched out my limbs and put away my affectionate expression, revealing an ugly face that matched my greedy persona, “You’re not greedy, you’re dignified, so give me your place. I don’t want much, just take what I deserve.”

The blood stains on his lips had already dried. When Ji Chenfeng heard this, his pupils shrank and he tightened his hands slightly.

The feeling of suffocation gradually surged up, but it gradually relaxed before completely blocking my airway.

After a moment of silence, he said, “Is money so important?”

His question made me laugh.

I really laughed, my body was shaking with laughter.

“If money is not important, why did Cheng Tao’s mother leave her husband and children behind to run away? If money is not important, where does your own cochlear implant come from? If money is not important, why did Zhou Jiyu leave you and the Fly City?”

It’s already a look that’s not even as good as a bug. If you insist on describing it, it should be the look of a bug corpse, it’s so rotten.

The voice choked in my throat, and I could only forcefully squeeze out the words, grinding them rough like sandpaper through my throat.

“The worst thing in this world is poverty. Having money does not necessarily lead to happiness, but having no money will definitely lead to misfortune. You grew up in Fly City, so haven’t you suffered enough from not having money since you were a child? Now you ask me: ‘Is money so important? Don’t you know yourself if it’s important?” 

Anyway, I couldn’t talk well anymore, so I simply yelled out the thoughts in my heart, “Everything I do is to make myself live a good life. What’s wrong with that?”

If people don’t make way for themselves, who else will. Anyway, I am not wrong.

After hearing my answer, Ji Chenfeng had no intention of refuting me. He just quietly stared at me for a long time, then slowly straightened up and retracted the hand that was gripping my neck.

The feeling of oppression on my body disappeared and he stood up.

I was stunned and touched my throat, propping up my elbows and looking up at him.

“What, are you convinced by me?” The fishy taste came from the throat again, and my voice seemed to have been cut into pieces.

Without even looking at me, he wiped the corner of his lower lip with his thumb, erasing the last traces of me left on him.

“I think there may be no need for us to communicate any further.”

What, what do you mean by leaving halfway? Won’t you scold me? Won’t you refute me? The young master doesn’t want to argue with a bug like me anymore. He’s too lazy to have any more interactions with me, right?

Damn it, why are you ignoring me? Use your hands to strangle my neck, use your teeth to bite my flesh, and beat me to the point until I don’t even have the ability to think anymore.

Come back, don’t leave!

Come back!

Seeing that Ji Chenfeng was about to turn around and leave, I tried to sit up and tried every means to keep him.

“Didn’t you just ask me if kissing someone I don’t like makes me nauseous?” Perhaps it was because I had been lying on the ground for too long, but the cold penetrated into my coat bit by bit, invading my whole body and making me tremble uncontrollably. My tongue was stiff as I spoke, “Of course it makes me nauseous. Every time I sleep with you, I feel sick to death. Your kisses, your touches, everything about you makes me disgusted.”

Ji Chenfeng’s cold and distant expression finally turned into a color of pain, and his footsteps of departure were also somewhat delayed.

Miraculously, seeing that he was no longer indifferent, my shattered nerves felt soothed, and the big hole in my heart stopped expanding endlessly.

His pain was like a painkiller for me.

“Everything was a lie. But the funniest thing is that you still thought of me as an angel…” I laughed at his gullibility, “Not only do you have bad ears, but your eyes are also not good.”

There was a voice in my heart telling me not to anger him anymore, things shouldn’t have gone this way, I had messed everything up. But my mouth couldn’t stop, like a car that was out of control. Without brakes, it could only keep rushing forward, knocking others into pieces, and hitting itself badly at the same time.

“You’re right.” Ji Chenfeng finally looked at me with a self-deprecating smile, saying, “It’s true that I can’t recognize people well. So don’t get close to me anymore, Sang Nian. Go back and be the young master of the Sang family. I can’t offend you.” After speaking, he turned around and walked along the path in the garden towards the hospital building without looking back.

I wanted to keep him, but after listening to my words, he just walked away even more decisively.

My eyes were stung by the snow, but in just a blink of an eye, his figure disappeared without a trace among the trees in the distance.

I gritted my teeth and just as I was about to get up and chase after him, my foot slipped and I fell forward onto the wet and muddy ground. I hit my knee heavily on the gravel, causing pain in my legs, stomach, heart, and even scalp. For a moment, a starlight appeared in front of me.

It hurts……

With my hands propped up on the snow, I breathed heavily, trying to alleviate the pain, but to no avail.

The physical discomfort made my emotions even more out of control, and I angrily punched the ground, venting my annoyance.

After resting on the ground for a long time, I staggered to my feet. The knees of my pants were wet, showing a deeper color. Without paying attention to it, I just glanced at it casually and limped towards the parking lot. It was a completely opposite direction to where Ji Chenfeng disappeared.

Back at the rented house, my body became colder every second during the half-hour drive. It felt like I could spit out ice shards just by spitting a drop of saliva.

Even in the warm room, there was still no way to keep the body warm. I couldn’t bear it and took off my clothes and rushed into the bathroom.

The severe scrapes on the knees were washed away by the water, with the wound showing a sickening white. Although it hurts, it wasn’t unbearable.

I thought a hot bath would be helpful, but when I walked out of the bathroom, my body again started to feel cold after a while. I adjusted the floor heating temperature to 30 degrees, which was even hotter than summer, but the temperature still didn’t warm up.

What happened? Is this rented house a piece of trash? Why is it so cold? Is it trying to freeze me to death?

Anxiously rummaging through all the boxes and cabinets, searching for all the items that could make me feel good, I found Ji Chenfeng’s scarf in the wardrobe.

I threw it back as if I got burnt and firmly closed the closet door, leaving the bedroom as if I was running away. Finally, I found two bottles of whiskey in the deepest part of the cupboard.

My salvation.

The moment I saw the bottles, I couldn’t help but sigh in my mind.

Opening the whiskey, I tilted my head towards the mouth of the bottle and drank the spicy alcohol. A vague sense of drunkenness quickly emerged, and the whole person seemed to be floating among the clouds.

As the body warmed up, the pain in my knees became numb, but strangely, the severe pain that could even crush the heart became more obvious.

It was so painful that my body was hunched over uncontrollably, and my spine was like a tape measure, wanting to curl up into a ball.

Holding my chest with both hands, I knelt on the hard floor and bent my body, almost succumbing to the severe pain as if a tsunami washed over me.

I lost, I lost.

Stop it, stop it, I can’t take it anymore…

I don’t know who I am admitting defeat to, nor do I know who I am praying to. But the other party seems to have no mercy, showing no signs of stopping this torment.

Just thinking about Ji Chenfeng made my whole brain scream, sound waves penetrated the bones and shattered the internal organs, as if I could open the mouth and vomit out the whole heart.

However, when I rushed into the bathroom, all I vomited out was sour gastric juice and strong alcohol.

Am I sick?

After vomiting for a while, I pressed the flush button and sat down on the toilet seat wearily.

The little orange cat walked in against the door frame and shouted at me inexplicably, walking back and forth around my feet, making an “8”.

It really doesn’t care about people’s mood…

Before it could rub up against me again, I retracted my foot, and it suddenly fell over and simply lay on the ground, exposing its round belly to me.

I leaned down and scratched its belly. Looking at its leisurely appearance, I actually felt a bit jealous.

“From now on, you will only have me.”

The kitten looked at me and suddenly let out a cry, as if asking me the reason.

“Because… I’ve exposed my true appearance.” I stood up and stared at the purple tooth marks on my knuckles. “He said that he liked everything about me. But in fact, he only liked my brilliant disguise. Once he found out that my insides are a bunch of moldy and smelly cotton, he didn’t want me anymore.”

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