Chapter 169: Someone To Put The Blame On
The first thing Wang Gege felt when consciousness returned was the pain around her neck.
Her brows immediately furrowed as the soreness made itself known, and before she even opened her eyes, a deeply offended thought had already formed in her mind.
’Why is it always my neck?’
She slowly opened her eyes and stared at the familiar ceiling, her mind still hazy as she tried to remember what had happened, until the memory of Xie An’an, the accusation, Yun’er, and that broken piece of porcelain suddenly flashed through her mind.
Wang Gege instinctively reached toward her neck, only to wince when her fingers touched the bandage wrapped around it.
’Ah... right. Did I die again?’
Finally managing to turn around, she finally met the eyes of the man she wanted to avoid the most.
Xie Rong was stunned, froze, probably didn’t expect she would suddenly open her eyes.
When finally everything registered on his brain, he finally shouted, "You awake! Qing—"
But his words were cut off when Wang Gege held onto his hand, "You didn’t wear your blindfold..."
"That’s the first thing you think?" Xie Rong asked, staring at her in disbelief.
Wang Gege’s lips moved into the faintest pout.
"Your eyes..." Her voice was still weak and slightly hoarse from two days of unconsciousness, but she sounded genuinely concerned about the fact that his blindfold was missing.
Xie Rong’s expression softened almost immediately.
"I took it off because it was already late at night. There was no one else here, and I didn’t see any reason to keep wearing it."
Wang Gege blinked slowly, finally noticing the unusual blue glow of his right eye, the same eye she had only recently learned was partly connected to Gemi.
She stared at it for a moment before her brows slowly furrowed.
"Yun’er..." The moment she remembered the maid, she tried to push herself upright.
Xie Rong immediately supported her, carefully helping her sit up against the headboard.
"She’s safe. I placed her somewhere An’an might never reach."
Wang Gege let out a small breath of relief, but her expression remained serious.
"You might need to tighten your security..." She paused, her voice still weak but carrying clear concern. "Because Xie An’an is more cunning than you might think."
Xie Rong’s expression turned solemn. "I know."
"No, you don’t." Wang Gege shook her head slightly before wincing at the movement.
"She isn’t simply someone who loses control when she’s angry. She knows how to pretend to be frightened, how to make herself look like the victim, and how to make everyone else feel guilty for doubting her."
Xie Rong remained silent.
Wang Gege looked directly at him.
"And now that she knows Yun’er is alive and the sole witness, she will definitely try to silence her."
"I already anticipated that." His voice was calm.
"Her maid too. Don’t let her slip through your fingers. Since she has been locked in her chamber, I’m sure she will use that maid to do everything she cannot do herself."
Xie Rong looked at Wang Gege for a long moment before letting out a quiet sigh. "You have only just woken up. Calm down, my Furen..."
The moment the word left his mouth, Wang Gege’s forehead immediately furrowed.
Xie Rong noticed it at once.
"I’m sorry..." He lowered his gaze, looking genuinely guilty. "I’m slowly getting used to correcting my tongue whenever I speak to you."
He paused, then seemed to remember something, "I might as well ask Gemi to redo the Language Portion effect. I’ve already become quite familiar with the ancient way of speaking anyway, so I don’t think I need it anymore."
Wang Gege blinked. "You can do that?"
"Perhaps." He tilted his head slightly. "Gemi said some rewards can be modified or exchanged depending on the situation."
Wang Gege stared at him for a moment before suddenly remembering something.
"I never checked my rewards..." Her brows slowly lifted. "Maybe there are portions like that in my storage too."
Xie Rong looked at her with mild surprise. "You have never checked?"
"No." She frowned, trying to remember the two rewards she probably still had sitting inside her storage because she had never bothered to check them properly. "I was too busy dealing with one thing after another, so I asked Mini to put them in my storage first."
Xie Rong continued gazing at her for a moment before asking quietly, "Are you thinking of returning home?"
"Home?" Wang Gege’s eyebrows arched slightly. "Where?"
She thought about the question for a moment before letting out a faint breath. "You know... I never really had a specific place that I could call home." Her gaze lowered toward her hands, "Maybe there was one, I suppose. The place I went back to every day after work."
She gave a small, almost self-mocking smile.
"But it was just an apartment. I slept there, woke up, went to work, came back, and repeated the same thing the next day." Her fingers lightly curled against the blanket. "Can I call that home?"
Xie Rong remained silent.
Wang Gege looked toward Xie Rong, her expression becoming thoughtful.
"I had my own place, but I didn’t really have anyone waiting for me there." She paused. "So when you ask me whether I want to return home..."
Her voice became quieter, "I don’t even know what I’m supposed to return to."
A faint smile appeared on her lips, though there was something almost pitiful in her expression. "So... I don’t really think I want to return home. If that was home..."
Xie Rong gazed at her deeply, unable to find the right words to continue the conversation.
After a long silence, he finally spoke, "I’m sorry..." His voice was low, "about everything."
Wang Gege looked at him.
Xie Rong lowered his gaze, his fingers resting quietly against the blanket.
"I know saying sorry cannot change what happened. It cannot erase the years you spent believing that you were unwanted, nor can it make you forget what I said to you."
He paused, swallowing the heaviness in his throat. "But if I could go back..." His hand slowly tightened. "I would never have rejected you that way."
Wang Gege remained silent.
Xie Rong looked at her again, "I thought I was protecting you. I thought if I pushed you away hard enough, you would stay away from the mess between our families until I could resolve everything."
A bitter smile touched his lips.
"I was wrong." He lowered his head. "I made the person I wanted to protect believe that she was the person I wanted to hurt."
Wang Gege’s fingers slowly loosened against the blanket.
"I should have been your home..." His voice became quieter, almost painful. "But instead, I became the one who crushed the very place you thought you could belong."
Wang Gege suddenly let out a bitter laugh.
"Actually... maybe, just maybe..." She lowered her gaze, her smile carrying a trace of helplessness. "I was looking for someone to put the blame on."
Xie Rong remained silent.
"Someone I could blame for all the things that happened to me. Someone I could pour all my anger, all my frustration, and all those years of unhappiness onto."
Her fingers slowly tightened against the blanket.
"And you were the easiest person to blame." She gave another bitter laugh. "Because you were the person I loved, and when I needed someone to depend on, you hurt me at exactly that moment..."
Xie Rong simply looked at her without a word.
"Want to know a secret?" She smiled, but there was no warmth in it, only the kind of smile that seemed to hide more pain than tears ever could.
Xie Rong’s fingers slowly moved toward hers, but stopped before they could touch. "What secret?"
"My mother..." Her voice weakened, the memory clearly painful even after all these years. "She came to meet me a few months after you rejected me..."
Xie Rong’s brows furrowed, "She did? Why?"
"To persuade me, I suppose?" A faint, bitter chuckle escaped her, as though even now she found her mother’s words absurd. "She told me that you had asked her not to marry your father..."
Xie Rong blinked.
"And she agreed." Wang Gege bobbed her head slightly.
His expression slowly changed. "She agreed? I never heard anything from her."
Wang Gege nodded.
"Probably because I rejected her request." A bitter sneer touched her lips. "And do you know why?"
She pressed her lips into a straight line, the bitterness in her eyes deepening.
"She told me that if I married you, it would be much easier for her than if she married your father."
Xie Rong’s brows slowly furrowed.
"She said she wouldn’t have to spend years trying to please your father or work so hard to secure her position beside him. If I became your wife, then you would eventually inherit everything your father had, and she could benefit from that through me."
Wang Gege gave a bitter laugh.
"In her words, why should she work so hard to marry your father when she could simply have her daughter marry you instead?"