After the Most Hated Persona Faked Their Death, the Ex-Husband Lost His Mind - Chapter 4

Watching the wide-open window, he suddenly felt a frantic impulse to jump.

Li Zhi once wrote in an essay: “The world is an overturned bowl, and I am an ant inside it. My soft antennae are not enough to shake even a ten-thousandth of the bowl, so I can only sit and wait for death.”

The teacher had underlined this sentence with a wavy line, but the grade on the essay was very low. The Chinese teacher said earnestly, “Li Zhi, you cannot write like this for exams. You need to be positive and upward-looking.”

Among all subjects, Li Zhi’s Chinese was the best. This was likely because he had loved reading since he was a child; it was his only hobby. Back when Li Zhi’s father was still alive, he had applied for a library card for him.

On weekends, if his father was free, he would take Li Zhi to the library to read for the entire afternoon. If he was not free, Wang Xiaochun would accompany him.

In those days, Wang Xiaochun was a good mother. She had a sharp tongue but a soft heart. On the rare occasions she hit him, it was primarily for discipline.

After Li Zhi’s father met with his accident, she became a different person. Li Zhi thought she must be suffering too, which was why she became temperamental and started taking medication. On the day Li Zhi was beaten, Wang Xiaochun knocked on his bedroom door carrying a fruit platter.

Li Zhi was sitting despondently on the windowsill, his heavy bangs covering his eyes. He was not wearing his glasses because he did not have the courage to reach out and take them.

The three boys standing at the door clearly had not expected to be greeted by someone performing such a “grand gesture” the moment they entered.

Zhou Baiyu gloated, Han Ziyao looked on with disgust and contempt, while Chu Mingzhang simply crouched down, picked up the glasses, and handed them to him. He did not say a word. His expression was indifferent and appeared very cold.

However, compared to the blatant malice of the other two, Chu Mingzhang’s indifference could almost be called gentle. Li Zhi looked up, his hand propped on the ground curling slightly. Just as he was about to lift it, the back of his hand suddenly felt wet.

It was a nosebleed.

The blood dripped onto the back of his hand, forming a filthy, dark red streak. Li Zhi suddenly felt a profound sense of humiliation. He yanked his hand back as if burned and fled without looking back.

“Li Zhi? Li Zhi? Mom is coming in,” Wang Xiaochun’s voice rang out again. Li Zhi jumped quickly from the windowsill. As he turned, the locked door was opened by his mother using a spare key.

“Why are you locking the door inside the house? Who are you trying to keep out?” Wang Xiaochun muttered with dissatisfaction. She took two steps toward Li Zhi and placed the fruit platter on his desk. “Here, have some fruit.”

Li Zhi had no appetite for fruit. He stood before Wang Xiaochun, feeling restless and uneasy, as if the person in front of him was not his mother, but a boss he had to work hard to please.

“Do not blame me; I was just anxious,” Wang Xiaochun said after a moment of silence, downplaying her actions. “I am doing this for your own good. Li Zhi, think about it: who else in this place would care about you besides me?”

It is common for parents to hope their children will become successful, but someone as radical as Wang Xiaochun was rare.

“I am very tired, too,” Wang Xiaochun said before leaving the room.

After she left, Li Zhi slowly sat down against the wall. His mother’s parting words kept circling in his mind: “I am very tired, too. I am doing this for your own good.”

She is sick. She is taking medicine. Even though she hides it from you, you actually know, Li Zhi told himself. Be understanding of her; she is in pain, too.

Having convinced himself, Li Zhi climbed up from the floor. He turned around and looked at the wide-open window, suddenly feeling a frantic impulse to jump.

But he controlled himself.

It was also starting from that night that Li Zhi began to have nightmares every single night.

Li Zhi knew something was wrong with him. His body no longer felt like his own. Sometimes his limbs felt as if they were filled with molten lead, leaving him unable to even lift an arm. He frequently experienced tinnitus and hallucinations.

The most severe incident happened when he actually screamed during an exam.

Li Zhi simply could not see the text of the final question clearly. The dense, black characters became distorted, turning into sharp forks, then into eerie little faces, and finally merging into a grinning skull.

“Aaaaaah!” Li Zhi stood up abruptly. The student sitting behind him was startled by the sudden movement, and the proctor, who had been dozing off, was also shaken.

“Student, what is wrong?”

“Heh, heh,” it took Li Zhi a long time to calm down. The strange laughter ringing in his ears dissipated, and his vision cleared. “I am sorry, teacher. There was a bug.”

The proctor scolded him briefly, clearly annoyed: “Maintain exam discipline.”

Naturally, he could not solve that problem. He performed poorly in the following subjects as well, and even Chinese was not spared because Li Zhi had written those sentences based on his feelings during the exam.

After the report card was handed out, he was scolded again. That night, Li Zhi stood by the window with one leg already over the ledge. Yet, he still did not jump; he just sat on the windowsill and let the wind blow on him for half the night.

The next day, Li Zhi skipped class during the lunch break and went to the hospital. The female doctor in the outpatient clinic sat to the side, patiently waiting for him to finish the assessment forms. After reading them, she asked him a few questions in a gentle tone, and Li Zhi answered them one by one.

“Should I schedule an appointment with a psychiatrist for you?” the doctor asked finally.

Li Zhi shook his head.

In the end, Li Zhi went home with a plastic bag full of medicine. Li Zhi had no friends; these colorful pills were his friends. They calmed him down and made him seem like a normal person. It was quite nice.

At this time, Li Zhi was not yet fifteen years old. His daydreams back then were just about being able to play on a phone for a while or having time to read the books he actually wanted to read. However, dreams were just dreams, which are falsehoods. The reality was: school, classes, and more school.

One day, after coming home from tutoring, he happened to run into Zhou Baiyu, who had invited his two friends over to play. Li Zhi, who looked like a dead dog from studying, stood in sharp contrast to the three well-dressed boys.

Encountering them usually meant trouble. Li Zhi wanted to run away, but Zhou Baiyu grabbed him by the back of his collar and hauled him back. “What are you running for?”

“Brother,” Li Zhi pleaded in a small voice, “I have to go up and do my homework.”

“Homework my ass,” Zhou Baiyu was in a good mood today, so he only used his words; otherwise, he would have kicked him long ago. “With those grades of yours, I could score better than you using my feet.”

“Is there something wrong with your IQ? You take so many extra classes and still fail this miserably. But then again, you are a bastard; the genes are already there,” Han Ziyao chimed in loyally.

Li Zhi’s face flushed red. He clenched his teeth to hold back his tears. He desperately wanted to run back upstairs, hide in his wardrobe, and lock himself away until he died. Unfortunately, Zhou Baiyu’s hand held him like an iron vise, making it impossible to move.

“Are we playing or not?” Chu Mingzhang, who had been looking down at his phone, finally spoke. “I need to be home by ten-thirty.”

Zhou Baiyu shrugged but still did not let go of Li Zhi. He dragged him all the way to the e-sports room on the second floor and gave Li Zhi a malicious smile. “Do not even think about running. Get over here and serve us.”

Serving meant nothing more than bringing tea and water. Li Zhi was well-versed in this. Like a little servant, he brought chilled sodas for Zhou Baiyu and Han Ziyao, then stood somewhat awkwardly in front of Chu Mingzhang, who had not told him what he wanted to drink yet.

After waiting for a long time without the other person speaking, Li Zhi timidly asked, “Um, um, what would you like to drink?”

Chu Mingzhang frowned slightly and then said, “No need.”

“No need.” Those were the first words Chu Mingzhang ever said to Li Zhi. In the years that followed, he would say those words to Li Zhi countless times, usually accompanied by pain.

But this time, at least for the first time, those two words kept Li Zhi’s self-esteem from shattering completely.

Because he did not order Li Zhi around like a servant the way the other two did, Li Zhi felt a secret sense of relief.

Zhou Baiyu had not given him permission to leave, so Li Zhi did not dare depart on his own. He curled up in a corner to work on his tutoring assignments.

The gaming setup in Zhou Baiyu’s room was so high-end that the visuals and sound effects were incredibly immersive. Li Zhi found it difficult to concentrate. After writing a few lines, he could not help but look up; his gaze drifted between the monitors and the people sitting in front of them.

Li Zhi had not seen Chu Mingzhang and Han Ziyao many times. Aside from the previous encounter, there was only this one. But after staying at the Zhou house for a year, he had gained some understanding of these two.

To sum them up in one phrase: they were the elite of society.

Han Ziyao’s father was the largest medical equipment supplier in S-City, and his mother was the director of the local Health Bureau. Both parents had deep backgrounds in the medical field, forming a powerful alliance. Han Ziyao’s father held shares in many hospitals in S-City.

As for Chu Mingzhang, Li Zhi was truly shocked when he first learned about his family background.

Chu Mingzhang, as well as his mother, both took his maternal grandmother’s surname because she was an extraordinary figure. How extraordinary? Li Zhi did not even dare to say it plainly.

His maternal grandfather had separated from his grandmother due to differing views. Afterward, he left politics for business. He caught the right timing, and with his connections, he quickly built a real estate empire. Today, Hongtian Group had transformed from a simple real estate group into a comprehensive conglomerate.

As for Chu Mingzhang’s father, he was the son of his grandfather’s close friend and confidant, and he had married into the Chu family. However, his father was a very capable man; otherwise, the elder Chu would not have thought much of him.

The nominal Chairperson Chu, his mother, did not involve herself in affairs. The group’s operations were handled by his father, the CEO. Under his hand, Hongtian became a true commercial empire, a titan.

Chu Mingzhang was born into such a family, and even his name was chosen with great care. Mingzhang. The first time Li Zhi heard it, he thought it sounded beautiful, like the name of a prince from ancient times.

The name was given by his remarkable grandmother, taken from the Tao Te Ching: “He does not show himself, therefore he is luminous (Ming); he does not justify himself, therefore he is far-famed (Zhang).”

Grandmother Chu felt that she and the grandfather had been too focused on fame and wealth in their youth, causing them to miss many more important things in life. She hoped Chu Mingzhang would not be so utilitarian; she hoped he could see his own heart clearly and understand what he truly wanted.

Chu Mingzhang was undeniably a young master born with a silver spoon in his mouth. Li Zhi truly envied him.

Medication could save his body, but it could not cure Li Zhi’s fractured soul. Li Zhi still felt the urge to open the window and jump. When a person desperately wants to die, they force themselves to find a reason to live.

Li Zhi lived to realize his dream, and his dream was to become a person like Chu Mingzhang.