After The Honest Person Was Discovered For Simultaneously Pursuing Three People - Chapter 20

Chapter 20: “Let’s Elop”

The fierce wind continued, and a heavy downpour was imminent. Tao Ning reacted quickly, rushing forward to grab Tao Yuan’s wrist. His soft voice was filled with panic: “Sister… let’s go back now.”

Tao Yuan stopped her trembling. She raised her head slightly, looking at her younger brother who had grown into a slender young man. The glasses he wore were no longer the ones she had bought for him. She used to think Zhao Jingqun was a good person, but now it seemed their goals were the same.

She knew Tao Ning’s appearance was exceptionally outstanding, which attracted countless dirty intentions from a young age. She deliberately bought him unfashionable glasses and clothes, hoping he wouldn’t stand out anywhere except academically. Because Tao Yuan had been out of the mountains, she knew the outside world was complex, ever-changing, and full of temptations.

She didn’t want her brother to be ruined by disgusting people and things.

Zhao Jingqun’s goal was the same as hers, only his was driven by possessiveness and jealousy…

All the details she had previously overlooked came flooding back. The anger that had accumulated in Tao Yuan’s heart turned into erupting magma. She turned and grabbed Tao Ning’s wrist. Her thin, bony hand was tense. She looked at the man behind him with cold eyes. “You’re coming with me right now. Tell him not to follow!” With that, she pulled Tao Ning away forcefully.

Behind them, Zhao Jingqun stared at Tao Ning’s reddened wrist, his brows furrowed tightly. His lips parted slightly, but in the end, he said nothing.

The gale roared, making the surrounding trees shriek mournfully. Surrounded by the mountains, his figure returned to its usual solitude. His dark eyes watched the boy’s slender back recede into the distance.

The boy never looked back.

His heart grew colder and colder. The cigarette burn on his thumb throbbed with a sharp pain. The pain was so intense that Zhao Jingqun clutched his hand and crouched down, his eyes turning bloodshot and filled with undisguised agony.

However, because of this, he didn’t see the boy who had walked some distance away turn his head, as if to take one last look at him, only to be harshly rebuked by Tao Yuan: “Still looking?! Tao Ning, when you get back, be a good boy and go kneel in front of Mom and Dad. You won’t get up until you know you’ve done something wrong…”

“This isn’t wrong, Sister.”

The boy’s voice was very soft, yet it was like a huge stone that stirred up a thousand waves in a lake on the verge of eruption.

With a ‘slap’ sound, Tao Yuan threw his hand away. Just as her raised palm was about to land on the boy’s face, she remembered his condition and forcefully lowered it. Instead, she pointed a finger at his nose and cursed him out: “What kind of drug did he put on you that you’re defending him like this? You’re a man yourself; don’t you know how few good men there are?! I’m telling you, Tao Ning, if you don’t cut off these crazy thoughts in your head, you can forget about going to school!”

After her tirade, she didn’t look at Tao Ning again and turned to leave. Tao Ning stared blankly as she walked away. Inside his mind, which operated like a machine, a gear came loose.

In a place known to no one, a voice mechanically announced a string of numbers:

Congratulations, the autonomous emotional value of number 510 has reached 31.5%…

An old television was playing a children’s show. The host exaggeratedly read, “Children, repeat after me, thirty-one, thirty-two…”

Little Meng shook his head, enunciating clearly: “Thirty-three, thirty-four.”

The front door was suddenly pushed open. The howling wind swept fallen leaves into the house. Little Meng turned his head, his eyes lighting up as he ran over and hugged Tao Yuan’s legs. “Mom, you’re back? Where’s Uncle…”

Little Meng craned his neck but saw Tao Ning standing at the door like a phantom. He came in but didn’t say anything. Instead, he walked straight to the offering table and knelt heavily in front of the two portraits of the deceased.

A clear ‘thud’ was heard as the boy’s knees hit the ground. He didn’t let out a single cry of pain, but because his skin was soft and delicate, the tiny碎石 on the cold cement ground scraped against his skin. The instantaneous pain made Tao Ning furrow his brows, and his body trembled slightly, but his back remained straight like a sturdy pine tree.

Little Meng was heartbroken. Just as he was about to pull Tao Ning up, he was yanked back by Tao Yuan. He turned around and realized that his usually smiling mother’s eyes were now bloodshot and she was surrounded by a dark aura.

“Mom…”

She grabbed Little Meng’s hand and led him toward his room, suppressing her anger with a low growl: “This has nothing to do with you. Get back to your room and do your homework! I’ll come check on you later. If you dare to write nonsense, you’ll be kneeling here too. Hurry up!”

Little Meng didn’t understand what was happening, but the atmosphere in the house was as oppressive as the calm before a storm. He was pushed into his room, and through the crack in the door, the last thing he saw was the boy kneeling on the ground, his profile a mixture of stubbornness and tranquility.

‘Wooooosh, woooosh’, the long-brewing downpour finally fell. Raindrops the size of soybeans beat against the windowpane, creaking like a series of ancient, rigid mountains, stubbornly rooted to the earth no matter how much the rain washed over them.

Tao Ning’s knees were so numb they were throbbing. In a daze, he suddenly remembered that when the man said he wanted to be with him, the weather was also chaotic and oppressive like today. When he was pressed under that huge rock, he felt what despair was like for the first time.

He asked the system: Am I going to die?

The usually talkative system was uncharacteristically silent. Just when Tao Ning thought he might die, the rock was moved away. The next second, the man ran over, his hands covered in blood, and held him, trembling all over, saying: “Let’s be together.”

Tao Ning couldn’t describe how he felt at that moment. In fact, since he was a child, his emotional perception had been extremely low. Fortunately, his learning ability was excellent. When others laughed, he would laugh. When others cried, he would shed tears.

He turned emotions into what was needed for specific situations. For example, when his adoptive parents died, he knew he should cry, so he cried until his eyes were red and swollen. For example, when Little Meng was born, he knew he should be happy, so he was overjoyed for a long time…

But what about now? Should he be happy… or should he cry?

Tao Ning couldn’t understand. His head felt as if it was stuffed with cotton balls, blocking his ability to think. He felt a little dizzy, and his body swayed slightly, but he held on, refusing to fall.

Until Tao Yuan’s calm voice came from behind him: “I’ve packed your things for you. I’m taking you to the secretary’s house now. Our family won’t accept that money; I put it all in your luggage. Let’s go.”

Through the drizzling rain, the man stood outside the door. His voice was a little unclear: “…Tao Yuan, your brother’s body can’t handle kneeling. I can leave, but you have to let him get up first.”

Then came the woman’s near-screaming voice: “That’s enough! My brother has nothing to do with you now. Stop pretending to care here…” As she spoke, she began to cry softly, her tone finally laced with a hint of pleading.

“…Just go, Zhao Jingqun. I, as his sister, am begging you. Even if you can’t understand me, if… if you really like him, think about him properly. Our family isn’t rich with a fallback like you people in the city. We’ve been poor all our lives, especially Tao Ning. I don’t know if he’s told you, but he’s a child our family found…”

The woman choked up, her crying like a sharp thorn, hurting herself and piercing others without hesitation: “When Tao Ning was just a baby, my dad found him. He’s the only boy in our old Tao family, the root of our future, do you understand? He was so small…”

She gestured with her hand to the height of her knee, then cried as she continued, “He was so small, but he was already very sensible. He never made us worry. He could help us cook and wash clothes at four or five years old. Even though he only started school when he was eleven or twelve, his grades were the best in the school. He skipped many grades and won many awards. Did you see all the awards in his room?”

“He’s so outstanding. For a family like ours, studying is his only way out. It’s not like you rich people who have many choices.” Her voice gradually calmed down again. “Let him go. My brother can’t have people gossiping about him. If people find out about you two, it’ll be the end of him. If you really like him, then don’t ever appear in front of him again.”

After the last word fell, silence descended on the surroundings.

The rain soaked the man who stood motionless outside the door. His deep, sharp features were covered with salty raindrops. He looked defeated, as if he had been dragged into an unsolvable whirlpool.

He bent one leg, and then, both knees dropped to the ground. He bowed his head toward the front hall of the Tao house. But the man said nothing, as if using silent protest against the stubborn, feudal mountains.

At that moment, the moment he bowed, the woman’s scream and Little Meng’s panicked voice came: “Ning Ning!” “Uncle! What’s wrong with you…”

Before Tao Yuan could run over, a figure suddenly rushed past her. Zhao Jingqun had already picked up the unconscious Tao Ning in his arms. With a grim face, he said, “Get some clothes and go to the clinic.”

Seeing the abnormal blush on the boy’s face, Tao Yuan was terrified and lost all her anger. Although she was still bothered by Zhao Jingqun holding her brother, she couldn’t care about it at that moment. She quickly grabbed an umbrella, clothes, and money, pushed the crying Little Meng back into his room, and then rushed into the rain with Zhao Jingqun.

They borrowed a neighbor’s electric tricycle and rushed all the way to the town clinic. The final result was that Tao Ning had a high fever. Combined with the rain and wind, his temperature had soared to around forty degrees Celsius.

Tao Yuan remembered that the boy had been weak since childhood, often getting fevers and colds, and his blood wouldn’t clot after a cut. Now, in her fury, she had made him kneel in the rain.

Sitting on the corridor outside the sickroom, she was filled with guilt, covering her face and sobbing, “It’s my fault…” But she would not give up the idea of separating Tao Ning and Zhao Jingqun. Because she had once witnessed two men in the village get together. In just a few days, the news had spread to everyone on the mountain.

The villagers thought they were sick and had a problem with their minds, so they dragged them to a mental hospital for treatment. In the end, one of them died, and the matter was finally over.

She was afraid her brother would have the same fate, so she would never let Tao Ning and Zhao Jingqun be together.

The rain outside grew heavier, as if it had a premonition of devouring the world. The man disappeared after taking Tao Ning to the clinic. Tao Yuan didn’t care where he went.

It wasn’t until the next morning that the boy on the bed woke up. He opened his eyes, which were red from the high fever, and looked at Tao Yuan, who was watching over him with red, swollen eyes. His gentle voice turned hoarse: “Sister, I…”

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” Tao Yuan forced a smile and shook her head slightly at him. “Don’t say anything. That person has already left… I’ll pretend nothing happened. The most important thing for you now is to get well. I made you some porridge. Get up and have a few bites.”

“…Okay.”

Tao Ning’s pale face was as calm as a blank sheet of paper. When he heard that Zhao Jingqun had left, the shadows of his long eyelashes on his eyelids trembled for a moment, but the tremor was too quick to be noticed.

He calmly finished the porridge. In fact, Tao Ning’s cooking always had a heavier taste, but he never said anything and didn’t eat much.

He had gained a little weight recently because the man’s cooking suited him.

Zhao Jingqun would often pick him up and weigh him in the room, then bury his face in his neck and say with a laugh, “My little dummy, I’ve fattened you up.”

“…”

After swallowing the last spoonful of porridge, Tao Ning looked up and saw that Tao Yuan had fallen asleep in the chair. There were dark circles under her eyes, and she was frowning even in her sleep.

He watched her quietly. Because he still had an IV drip in his arm, with a needle on the back of his hand, he couldn’t get out of bed to wash the bowl.

After a moment, the sleeping woman seemed to be startled awake. She groggily opened her eyes, felt relieved when she saw Tao Ning was still there, and took the bowl and chopsticks. She told him: “I’ll go back and settle Little Meng down and then come back to be with you. If you feel any pain or discomfort, you must tell the doctor. I’ve put the money under your pillow.”

“Okay.”

Tao Yuan gave him a few more worried instructions before leaving with the thermos.

Once she was gone, Tao Ning was the only one left in the entire room. In the square sickroom, he sat alone on the bed, his head down, revealing his soft, pale nape.

Tao Ning asked softly, “System, are you there?”

The system, which hadn’t spoken for many days, appeared: What’s wrong, you little dummy?

Tao Ning’s voice was muffled: “…Something came up. Where have you been these past few days?”

The system said happily: I went on vacation! The past few days were our AI holiday, so I got some time off. I took a lot of pictures of Earth. Do you want to see them?

…Maybe tonight.

Okay, so what’s up, you little dummy?

Tao Ning’s slender fingers curled up. After a moment, he said softly, “I want to know if Zhao Jingqun is doing okay now…”

As soon as he finished speaking, the door to the sickroom was opened. Zhao Jingqun stood outside the door, his dark eyes staring at him, watching Tao Ning without blinking, as if the boy would disappear from his sight if he did.

He looked at him with great care until he walked over step by step and took the boy’s hand. The searing warmth of his hand pressed against the soft skin of his palm. Zhao Jingqun’s eyes were filled with heavy emotions. He couldn’t stop kissing the delicate hand in his palm, his voice hoarse:

“My little dummy… Let’s elope?”

The boy on the bed lowered his eyes to look at him, quietly. Neither of them spoke, as if they were immersed in a naive and beautiful dream. After a long time, he called out “Zhao Jingqun.”

The man kissed his hand, his voice full of affection, “I’m here.”

“…Do you love me?”

The man was stunned for a moment, as if he hadn’t expected Tao Ning to ask this question. Then, as if he had made up his mind, he answered without hesitation:

“I love you, Tao Ning.”

“I love you.”

The man kissed the boy’s hand, saying again and again, “I love you so much. I love you.”

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