After My Death, Everyone Repented (Transmigration) - Chapter 14

Half an hour later, Dami pulled the car over to the side of the road, turned on the hazard lights, and called for her to get in.

Thinking this might be the last time she’d come to the Xie household, Xie Shaojun turned back for a long look at the red-and-white building fading into the darkness.

A two-story Western-style house with its own small courtyard. A few years ago, for aesthetic reasons, Xie Guangqi had hired a renovation company to install an antique-style wrought iron gate.

From the outside, it looked quite grand. The only discordant note was the dense vines that had completely overtaken the beautiful walls. They provided shade in summer but made the place damp in winter. Xie Shaojun had planted them long ago, they should have been uprooted ages back, yet for some reason, they remained to this day.

Now, the vines’ leaves showed signs of withering, scattered and sparse. A few unpicked loofahs dangled from the ends of the withered tendrils stretching beyond the wall, sickly and partially rotten.

Xie Shaojun stood there for a long time, realizing she somewhat resembled those rotting loofahs.

Once the metaphor took shape in her mind, she stopped herself. Up ahead, Dami leaned out and urged her to get in the car.

“Xiao Xie!”

Xie Shaojun responded and walked toward the streetlight. Passing the sidewalk, she reached the car parked at the gap in the road. She opened the door, got in, and didn’t look back again.

Settling into the seat, Xie Shaojun glanced at Dami and asked in her usual tone, “About the lawsuit, don’t you have anything to say to me?”

Dami scratched her head, avoiding eye contact. “What do you mean?”

Xie Shaojun didn’t reply, just kept looking at her.

The expression in her eyes seemed to say she already knew everything.

In truth, since Xie Guangqi had decided to pursue legal action, it was impossible for Xie Shaojun’s identity to remain hidden.

Besides, standing outside her own home so late at night, what else was there to guess?

Under Xie Shaojun’s unreadable gaze, Dami lowered her head, lips parting slightly, a bitter feeling in her chest. She didn’t ask, “Are you okay?” or “Did your dad hit you?”

In the world of adults, there were boundaries. In moments like these before, when Dami had come to pick Xie Shaojun up from the Xie household, Xie Shaojun had never once spoken ill of her family in front of Dami.

Dami often thought this was probably what good upbringing looked like.

The car smelled of smoke. Rolling down the window, Dami tried to change the subject, asking Xie Shaojun if she was cold.

“Not cold.”

“Want a drink?” Dami glanced at Xie Shaojun through the rearview mirror and admitted, “Actually, I’m the one who wants a drink.”

Dami confessed to Xie Shaojun that Jian Qing’s miscarriage had left her deeply traumatized. She still carried a heavy burden of guilt.

As she spoke, her head drooped, half-hidden in the dim light of the driver’s seat, accentuating the weariness unique to someone her age.

Xie Shaojun couldn’t drink, so she stayed silent.

Pressing her cheek against the cold window, she watched the rain outside. The headlights were on, and in the amber glow, the fine drizzle divided her vision into blurry, dotted fragments.

It reminded her of the view through tears the two scenes overlapped perfectly.

Why did it feel like she was the one grieving? Xie Shaojun smirked listlessly, then withdrew her gaze and said to Dami, “I can only have a tiny bit.”

“Last time,” she emphasized.

Dami turned the steering wheel, her mood lifting slightly. “Got it.”

They didn’t go to a bar places that were too noisy gave Xie Shaojun headaches.

Instead, they stopped at a random roadside barbecue stall. It was raining tonight, so the vendor had set up a large canopy over the open area in front of the shop, with a few scattered small round tables underneath.

Unlike the upscale bars and clubs that Dami frequented, this place was utterly simple and crude.

Xie Shaojun found a blanket in Dami’s car and draped it over her legs.

Dami laughed at her. “After knowing you for so long, this is the first time I’ve seen you care about staying warm.”

“Of course,” Xie Shaojun replied without even lifting her eyelids. “My body is my own.”

Dami tilted her head, giving her a look that said you’re hopeless. “That’s Chi Yi’s influence, isn’t it? Spare a thought for us single folks save your wife’s health lectures for the bedroom.”

Xie Shaojun turned her head, shooting Dami a strange glance. She wanted to tell her that it wasn’t Chi Yi’s doing, she had chosen this herself.

But Dami had already moved on. She took the menu and indulged in some revenge spending, ordering enough barbecue for two women who could never finish it. Finally, she handed the menu back to the owner and boldly requested two bottles of premium red wine.

The owner shook his head helplessly. This roadside stall didn’t carry Lafite, Barbera, or anything of the sort.

“Do you have Wuliangye?”

Another shake of the head. “No.”

“What about Maotai?”

“Then what do you have?” Dami asked.

The owner jutted his chin toward the crates of beer at the next table.

Dami: “…”

It was then that Xie Shaojun recognized a familiar face at the neighboring table the assistant Chi Yi had fired just days ago.

The assistant was clearly drunk. He downed his beer straight from the bottle, swayed to his feet, and called out to his friends, “Drink up!”

“Take it easy. If you keep going, I’m not carrying you back to the dorm tonight,” someone warned.

“Haimi Tech is famous worldwide for its employee benefits, elevator apartments, two-bedroom suites. Our Xiao Jia here even worked as the boss’s assistant. Not like us, stuck in the old district. Who needs you to carry him”

Before the envious flattery could finish, Xiao Jia’s expression darkened. He slammed his beer bottle onto the ground.

The glass shattered with a loud crash.

Everyone froze.

The first speaker shot frantic glances at his companions, signaling them to shut up.

“What’s going on?”

Dami glanced over, then let out a surprised “Huh?” before scooting closer to Xie Shaojun. “Isn’t Haimi Tech…?”

Xie Shaojun took a sip of warm tea and confirmed, “Chi Yi’s company.”

Dami gasped. “He”

“Got fired by Chi Yi on his third day,” Xie Shaojun said flatly. She remembered that night when she had asked Chi Yi if she’d end up like this assistant.

Chi Yi had replied that she was different.

Xie Shaojun wasn’t entirely sure what that difference meant. During past arguments, she had wanted to ask was it because of No. 1, the childhood memory Chi Yi couldn’t forget, or simply because she was herself?

Now, she no longer cared to know.

Because just as Xie Shaojun no longer wanted Chi Yi, the past three days in the hospital had shown her that Chi Yi’s treatment of her wasn’t much different from how she had dismissed the assistant.

Breaking free from an all-consuming love took time.

Fortunately, Xie Shaojun was someone without expectations. Compared to the assistant’s anguish over being discarded, she faced the same fate with far more composure.

At the next table, the assistant’s eyes were bloodshot. He had exhausted every connection to stay at Haimi, after all, the benefits were among the best in Nan City’s tech industry.

But now, everything was ruined.

The assistant began frequently criticizing Chi Yi’s shortcomings as a boss. He told his colleagues about what a cold-blooded, heartless work machine she was, often pulling all-nighters and enforcing a zero-tolerance, strict management system on her subordinates.

“Suffocating! I admit she’s brilliant, but her way of dealing with people… I just can’t agree with it.”

“No way. I thought with you being some distant cousin of the Chi family, she’d at least cut you some slack,” someone nearby remarked.

“Don’t even bring up distant relatives. She doesn’t even have her own father in her eyes, how could she possibly care about us?”

Xiao Jia scoffed. “You can’t treat her like a normal woman. No, to be precise, she can’t even be considered a socially adaptable human being. Normal people show consideration and leave room for others she doesn’t. Even with her own partner, she maintains a superior-subordinate dynamic. You expect her to make an exception for some distant cousin? Don’t embarrass me.”

The assistant, slurring his words, vented to his companions.

Damei leaned closer to Xie Shaojun, winking suggestively.

She probed, “Should I go over and shut him up?”

Xie Shaojun lifted her eyelids slightly and raised a hand to stop her. “Drunk words spoken in frustration, they’re unpleasant, but if Chi Yi can’t hear them, it doesn’t matter. Though he’s wrong about one thing: Chi Yi is every bit a woman. Her temper isn’t bad at all, she’s patient. Even when she’s angry, there’s a deliberate, clear-headed gentleness in her tone. The only thing is, her words can be harsh.”

Damei made another exaggerated face of disbelief and teased, “Love is blind.”

Xie Shaojun wanted to correct Damei several times, she was being entirely objective in her assessment of Chi Yi.

If she and Chi Yi hadn’t broken up, Xie Shaojun’s personality wouldn’t have allowed that assistant to badmouth Chi Yi for even a second longer. But precisely because they were no longer together, Xie Shaojun had lost the standing to defend Chi Yi, that’s why she said to let it be.

Damei couldn’t even see that. Xie Shaojun couldn’t help but worry about how Damei would manage Twilight Studio after her death.

She really has no sense of tact, Xie Shaojun sighed.

Damei laughed for a while, but once the amusement faded, she stopped.

The late-night snacks arrived, along with rows of beer 1000ml tall bottles.

Xie Shaojun had only a tiny glass in front of her, filled with just a sip. At first, she didn’t even drink it.

After downing several cans, Damei’s words started flowing freely.

She told Xie Shaojun she was going through a painful period. she talked about Qin Chu, about dreams, and finally circled back to the most agonizing guilt from last month: the miscarriage incident caused by her mistake with Jian Qing.

Under the dim yellow light, Xie Shaojun met Damei’s remorseful gaze and finally couldn’t hold back. “You’re overthinking it. Maybe it was never your fault to begin with.”

Xie Shaojun hated revisiting the past or judging right and wrong without foresight. But Damei’s tattooing itself wasn’t wrong, she had asked Jian Qing if she was pregnant before inking her. Jian Qing simply hadn’t answered.

It was hard to say whether Jian Qing had done it on purpose.

Based on Xie Shaojun’s experience, the probability that Jian Qing had deliberately terminated her own embryo was as high as ninety percent.

Xie Shaojun told Damei, “In the Xie family, when it comes to anything involving Jian Qing, the one who always ends up taking the blame is me.”

“I was always a mischievous kid, but never truly bad. When I was little, Xie Guangqi and Feng Xiaoqing would investigate before asking if I was the one who did it. Now, they don’t bother, they just assume any mistake must be mine. Want to know why?”

Damei silently refilled Xie Shaojun’s glass. Xie Shaojun didn’t notice and took a sip.

Jian Qing wasn’t a bad person, but she had a habit of destroying anything that displeased her, leaving others in perpetual misery.

Four years ago, Xie Shaojun had gotten close to a 20-year-old guy while preparing for a tattoo competition. He was her model for the exhibition.

Back then, Xie Shaojun stopped going home with Jian Qing after school and often skipped lunch at the school cafeteria.

Three months later, after the exhibition ended, Xie Shaojun found out Jian Qing was dating that guy. She warned Jian Qing not to play with his feelings, his older brother was involved with the underworld.

Jian Qing didn’t listen. Instead, she gazed at Xie Shaojun with a gentle smile and asked, “Was he good? I’d like a taste too.”

Then things took a dark turn. A month into their relationship, Jian Qing callously dumped him, and the guy ended up taking his own life.

For a while, Jian Qing was marked for retaliation. The night she was cornered, Xie Shaojun was the one who saved her.

But the next day, when Xie Shaojun woke up from unconsciousness, Xie Guangqi was screaming at her, blaming her for Jian Qing’s ruptured kidney.

Jian Qing never offered a single word of explanation. After losing a kidney in surgery, she played the victim, refusing to communicate or clarify anything.

So everyone assumed Xie Shaojun had dragged Jian Qing into trouble, provoking dangerous people.

Later, to compensate Jian Qing, Xie Guangqi took out the family savings to send her abroad for studies.

From start to finish, Xie Shaojun suspected the whole beating incident had been orchestrated by Jian Qing to escape retaliation from the gangster brother.

Jian Qing wasn’t evil, but she always craved what wasn’t hers. And after making mistakes, she’d save herself, leaving others to clean up the mess.

The late-night snack dragged on until dawn, and Damei got drunk.

Xie Shaojun went to settle the bill while Damei, her mind foggy, called a designated driver for herself. Then, realizing Xie Shaojun had no ride home, she scrolled through her contacts and dialed a number she’d never called before.

The call was answered almost instantly.

“Hello,” Chi Yi said.

“Miss Chi, could you come pick someone up if it’s convenient?” Damei asked. “Xiao Xie had a bit to drink.”

There was a two-second silence before Chi Yi replied, her tone measured, “Did Xie Shaojun ask you to call me?”

Damei: “She’s settling the bill.”

“Oh.” Chi Yi sounded disappointed.

After a pause, she spoke again, her voice softer, as if reminding herself rather than Damei: “We’re getting a divorce. Didn’t she tell you?”

Damei’s expression darkened. She pulled the phone away, double-checking the number to confirm it was really Chi Yi.

She asked again, “Are you sure you won’t come get her?”

Another five seconds of silence. Chi Yi’s voice dropped even lower, repeating the same words like a mantra: “It’s not appropriate. We’re no longer involved.”

Damei opened her mouth, a chill seeping into her bones. She wanted to curse at Chi Yi

But when she looked up, she found Xie Shaojun already back on the stool, sober, resting her sharp chin on her hand and staring at her.

Damei hastily ended the call.

“Is it Chi Yi?”

Damei didn’t respond.

Xie Shaojun didn’t press further either. She turned her head to gaze at the drizzling rain, then curled her lips slightly and said to Damei, “It’s getting a bit cold. Could you call me a Didi?”