Because I Cannot Hurt You

On the other side, Zhiyuan's black orbs were fixed on Xinyi as he slowly asked, "Because you cannot hurt me?"

"Yes…" she wiped the corner of her eye. "Please don't ask me anything, Zhiyuan," it felt as if her soft voice was begging him, "I don't want to…"

A thought came across his mind and he slowly widened his eyes. "That time when you got afraid and pushed me away...is it because of this same thing?"

She froze. She slightly trembled but couldn't answer. Zhiyuan noticed the change in her demeanor and her face that had turned pale which said that he was right on the mark. Her traumatic reaction and the abortion was connected.

As he thought about it more and more, the foggy picture in front of him became clearer. He still didn't know the truth, but somehow, he felt he guessed the source of it.

"Xinyi, tell me the truth," his heart started madly racing in his chest as he feared the worst. "Did I do something?"

Her eyes widened and she looked at him, aghast. "No!" She panicked as his question caught her off guard.

Zhiyuan felt even more sure by her expression now that he had an important role to play in whatever happened. And that was the worst. That realization stabbed him like hell. Xinyi suffered because of him to the point that she opted for abortion. He scarred her heart to the point that she was still in trauma.

All because of me…

He grabbed her shoulders and shook her. "W-what did I do, Xinyi?"

Xinyi met his gaze that was filled with trepidation and horror. He had realized that it had to do with him which Xinyi never wanted. 

"T-that…"

She had already buried that incident, so she didn't wish to rake it up now. "Nothing."

"Xinyi please!" The fear of hurting her in some way was driving him crazy. "I need to know. If I am the one behind what happened then I need to know. If it was because of me that you were in that horrible condition three years back, then...I must know what I did wrong. How did I hurt you so much that you had to think of aborting Siying? Just what did I do?"

"No...I…cannot say it. Please don't make me…" she tremblingly took a few steps back, creating distance between them.

"I beg you, Xinyi please…Unknowingly, I have hurt you so much. I am guilty of driving you into depression and that state. How can I not know? Please Xinyi. Please don't care about hurting me. Don't think about my feelings. I deserve to know the bitter truth no matter how much cruel it is. I deserve to bear the pain and the consequences that will come with it. I am ready to take all the responsibility, but don't keep me in the dark anymore."

"I cannot say it Zhiyuan!" She broke down. "It will crush your heart as much as mine. Again, not again... I don't want to…"

Gasping and covering her mouth, she turned and ran away from him as tears escaped her eyes.

"Xi-Xinyi!" 

Her knees were shaking, her chest swelled in uneasiness as she kept running. Now that Zhiyuan knew that she was hiding something from him, she had no place to go. Yet she wanted to run away because she had no strength to recall that night anymore.

She took a turn along the corridor when her knees finally gave away and she was on the verge of collapse. She took support of a pillar and stopped, her chest heaving up and down in breathlessness and adrenaline rushing all inside her. Slowly, she saw someone's feet coming in her sight. She froze and jerked her head up.

But to her shock, it wasn't Zhiyuan.

Xinyi quickly wiped her tears. "Xiaosi…?"

No response. He merely looked at her with an impassive gaze, his silence having an eerie ring to it.

"Xinyi."

She pursed her lips. "Sorry for my state like this now...I am heading back home anyway. If you could, please tell Caihong and the others that I have left."

"Not so soon, Mrs. Han."

She blinked her eyes. "What?"

She shuddered sharply when she saw his dark gaze suddenly filled with a sense of danger and alarm. It was menacing and even... hurtful.

"I mean you cannot leave until I bring the real meaning behind this reunion gathering."

Her brows furrowed in confusion but before she could ask him more, she suddenly felt a hand grabbing her mouth. Her blood went cold and her eyes widened in horror. She felt her heart jump in her chest.

"Hmmpph!?"

Xinyi looked at Xiaosi for help, but he simply stood there, watching her in silence. She resisted, but to no avail. Confusion and fear marred her face.

That man behind her stuffed her nose with a cloth and soon Xinyi felt drowsy and fell unconscious. Xiaosi coldly said, "Lock her in the room I told you and keep an eye from outside the room."

He nodded.

Xiaosi smiled. "Well then, let's end this now."

---

Zhiyuan, who was hastily following Xinyi in panic had seen her taking a turn at the corridor. But as soon as he reached the turn, he found an obstruction that made him unable to move ahead. It had blocked the way.

"Wait, Xinyi went this way. I saw her. How did these things come in between? Where did Xinyi go?"

He looked left and right, but there was no other turn which Xinyi could have taken so going straight was the only option. He didn't want to waste time in searching another route or calling for the staff and in turn they would take more time, so he somehow moved the heavy stuff himself and made his way.

But by the time, he reached the place where Xinyi talked with Xiaosi a few moments earlier, she was already gone.

"Xinyi?"

He called out to her. He searched everywhere but there was no clue. He quickly called her but he found that there was no signal.

"Damn it!"

Zhiyuan tried searching for a signal too but to no avail. "This has never happened before! Why is the signal suddenly lost?"

He felt an uneasy and ugly feeling rise in his chest as if Xinyi was in trouble.

Xinyi. Where are you?

---

With rage consuming all over her, Zizi glared at Shuang. "That's right! You are one heartless woman! You have the nerve to accuse Yunru when he had done nothing but to help you! What crap were you saying? You don't want to hurt Yunru by being so cruel? The cruelty wasn't in that! The cruelty is that you refused to forget Xiaosi! You refused to move on! You are accusing him of hoping for you to fall in love with him? What's wrong in that?"

Shuang watched her in a daze.

"Are you an idiot? What did you think? Okay. Xiaosi rejected you. He married Caihong. It hurt you and it is understandable. But for how long? You cannot be that stupid enough to hold onto your love for a man who you know is already married to someone else! There was no scope of him returning your feelings ever! Do you mean that even if your love is one-sided forever, you would let your life just pass away like that, crying for Xiaosi until you die? Lamenting over your fate until you take your last breath? Will you never give a chance to someone else who would love you the same way you loved Xiaosi?"

She stiffened.

"So what if Yunru wished for you to love him back? You have been in a relationship with such a fine man for seven years. With him by your side, you should have forgotten Xiaosi long back! He loves you so much. He cares about you more than his life. He stayed beside you even if it hurt him to see you still thinking about Xiaosi and you are saying that you couldn't fall for a man like Yunru? Are you nuts? Do you know how much courage it takes? He has been waiting and waiting and you are nothing but accusing him!"

Yunru blankly stared at Zizi, his gaze fixed at her in a stupor. He didn't know why but he felt something welling in his chest that brought tears in his eyes.

"P-princess...l-let it-"

"You shut up!" Zizi shot a deadly glare at him. "I cannot believe you were such a wimp all this time! You always talked back and knocked sense into me, but you couldn't knock some sense into your own girlfriend's head who needed it the most?"

His lips parted in shock and he failed to gather any words.

Zizi looked back at Shuang and gritted hier teeth. "Stop acting like a pitiful victim. You don't have to say to him if he should have confessed to you or not. Or if he should have dated you or not. He is an adult for God's sake! He knows what he is doing. It's YOU who don't know what the hell is happening! It is difficult to move past your first love, but you weren't alone, right? Yunru was right beside you. He is loving, caring, responsible, loyal and everything a woman looks for in her lover."

"So An Shuang! It is not his fault for loving you. It is your fault that you failed to fall in love with a man like Soo Yunru!"