Chapter 71: Get Out, the Farther the Better
When she opened the door and saw the bloody scene, Su Yuqing was so terrified she froze.
It wasn’t until she saw her stepfather was still talking that she said with concern, "The hospital is nearby. We should take him to the hospital quickly."
"This has nothing to do with you! You jinx! If it weren’t for you, how could he have ended up like this? Get out! The farther you go, the better!" Li Fengzhi spat, her face a mask of rage and disgust as she glared at Su Yuqing.
As for what happened after that,
Su Yuqing had no idea.
She had run out of the house in a panic with only a little spare change and a small knife. With the rain pouring down, the only place she could go was her father’s home. So she ran toward it without looking back.
Now, hearing that her mother and stepfather were at the hospital, she naturally recalled the scene of her mother stabbing her stepfather in the abdomen.
She figured that must be why they were both there.
Even Chen Mo didn’t know about this. What he had heard came from witness statements, which were based on bystander speculation and fabrication.
Li Gang and Li Fengzhi had hidden the truth about the stabbing, and the neighbors had seen Su Yuqing leave the house stained with blood.
And so, people had quite naturally connected the dots—incorrectly.
Shaking her head to clear the memories of last week, Su Yuqing turned to Li Mingyu and said, "Xiaoyu, you should go back and do your homework. Your sister and I have some things to do, so we can’t play with you right now."
With that, Su Yuqing led Chen Mo back to her room.
Li Mingyu was still young and didn’t understand what might happen when a young man and woman were alone in a room with the door closed, so he paid it no mind and went straight back to his own room.
Once inside, Su Yuqing immediately pulled out a pink suitcase and started packing her things.
She made sure to pack her school uniforms, since she couldn’t just wear one set of clothes.
Not wanting to pry, Chen Mo could only wander around the room.
Soon, he found a notebook in Su Yuqing’s drawer.
The notebook was secured with a small lock.
Su Yuqing, who was still packing, saw the notebook in Chen Mo’s hands and her heart skipped a beat. But when she saw he hadn’t found the key, she didn’t intervene.
Besides, she believed him. ’He wouldn’t unlock and read something like that without my permission.’
And normally, Chen Mo wouldn’t have done such a thing.
But in the previous timeline, he had done exactly that.
Not for any other reason than that Su Yuqing had already passed away, and he needed to understand what her life had been like before she died.
In this notebook, Su Yuqing had recorded only her happy memories; she hadn’t written down a single unhappy thing.
She did this because whenever she felt sad or hurt, she wanted to be able to open the notebook and remember those happy times.
This notebook had helped her endure countless painful days.
It was her greatest emotional support.
However, Su Yuqing only started writing in this diary after her parents divorced, so there was no record of her meeting Chen Mo as a child. Naturally, Chen Mo was unaware of their shared history.
Although Su Yuqing hadn’t said what she wanted to pack from that side of the room, Chen Mo had picked out everything he thought she would want to take and placed it all on the desk.
After finishing packing her underwear and some other clothes into the suitcase, Su Yuqing turned around to grab her books and notebooks, only to be stunned. The pile of things Chen Mo had organized for her was exactly what she had wanted to take.
Everything left behind was stuff she didn’t care about.
This made Su Yuqing freeze in place.
She looked up at Chen Mo in astonishment.
"I’ve seen you reading these books, and these are the notebooks you always use, so I gathered them for you. I don’t know if I got it right, but you can decide what to take," Chen Mo said with a smile.
Su Yuqing’s heart swelled with unexpected warmth and excitement. ’So while I was secretly watching him all this time, he was secretly watching me just as closely.’ A sweet feeling blossomed in her chest.
After packing everything into the suitcase, Su Yuqing took out a piece of paper and a pen and began to write a note for her mother.
Chen Mo didn’t look over her shoulder. Instead, he tactfully pretended to gaze at the scenery outside the window.
Su Yuqing quickly finished the note, folded it, and wrote a few words on the outside: "For Mom." Then, she and Chen Mo left her room, suitcase in tow.
Glancing at the living room and dining table, she left the note on the table and prepared to drag her suitcase out the door.
But just then, the sound of a key turning in the lock came from the front door. CLICK.
The next moment, the door swung open, and Li Fengzhi’s figure appeared in the doorway.
At the sight, both of them froze.
Su Yuqing’s hand, gripping the suitcase handle, trembled. Li Fengzhi stood rooted to the spot.
The standoff lasted until Li Mingyu’s door opened again.
Hearing the front door, he knew his mom was back and came out to see.
He found his mother and sister standing frozen, staring at each other.
"Mom, can you make dinner? I’m starving," Li Mingyu said, oblivious to the tension in the air.
He just rubbed his belly and whined playfully at his mother.
Seeing that Li Mingyu was present, Li Fengzhi suppressed the urge to explode. She forced a smile, nodded at her son, and said, "I’ll get right on it. You go back to your room and finish your homework like a good boy."
After coaxing Li Mingyu back into his room, Li Fengzhi turned to Su Yuqing, her expression one of disbelief. "What is the meaning of this? You think you’re all grown up now? That your wings are strong enough? You think your mother can’t control you anymore? Found yourself a man and now you’re planning to elope, is that it?"
Su Yuqing bit her lip and said nothing.
But her mother’s words from last Friday—"Get out! The farther you go, the better!"—echoed endlessly in her ears.
"Do you have any idea how hard it was for me to carry you for nine months, to raise you all this time? And now that your wings are strong, you just pack your bags and get ready to leave without a second thought? Did you even ask me? Speak up! Do you even see me as your mother anymore?!" Li Fengzhi grew more and more furious as she spoke.
Tears instantly welled up in Su Yuqing’s eyes. She wasn’t crying because she was being scolded. She was crying because she still held on to the image of her mother’s gentle side. She didn’t want to have a complete falling-out, a fight that would shatter her last beautiful memories of her mother beyond repair. She was crying for the heartbreak of their fracturing relationship.
So she said nothing, simply enduring her mother’s tirade.
Seeing this, Chen Mo slowly stepped in front of Su Yuqing to face Li Fengzhi. "Ma’am, Yuqing didn’t choose to end up in this situation. You and her stepfather are the ones who pushed her to the point where she had no other way out..."