Because I Cannot Hurt You

Yunru's one sentence had left everybody shell-shocked. Even Zizi looked up at him, stunned.

Yunru faintly smiled. "Or maybe I should say that it's the reverse. Aunt Han wasn't forced at all. Uncle An was."

Han Huizhong had an extremely ugly look on his face. Anger couldn't even describe what he felt right now. 

"Soo Yunru. Do you know what you are talking about?" He asked in an extremely quiet voice. It was a tone that had brought many mighty and arrogant people on their knees.

But Yunru remained calm.

"My daughter had shed tears. She hated her own unborn child. She lived a life of misery until she felt it was better to give up her life. And you say that all this pain and suffering never happened at all?"

Han Tian had an icy expression. "Yunru. Just because you are Zizi's fiance doesn't mean that we will listen to whatever crap you are spouting! Don't forget you are talking about my sister! She is dead, for God's sake, and you are implying that she actually 'wanted' that night to happen? Are you out of your mind?"

An Guoting paled. "Yes! Yunru is speaking nonsense!"

Yunru stared at him. "Uncle. I understand you want to protect the last memory everybody has of Aunt Han. But don't you think that it's enough now? It's because of that that Caihong had to go through that night seven years back. Only because you kept your silence."

An Guoting froze. 

"She was lucky that it was Xiaosi, in the end, who slept with her. She was being protected even though she was being assaulted. But had it been Grandpa's men, would you have been able to forgive yourself?"

He trembled, and tears spilled out of his eyes. 

At long last, An Guoting finally broke down. He had been listening to the accusations. He felt helpless. 

But now, he really wanted to cry. 

He was tired. He was exhausted right now.

"Dad…?" Caihong and Shuang gently sat beside him. "Dad…"

The daughters choked. They had never seen their father so fragile before. He was crying as if the wall he had been holding for so long in his heart had finally broken apart.

"If Grandpa and Uncle Tian knew this, the tragedy would have never cascaded to our generation."

An Guoting simply kept crying. He had no strength left to speak anymore.

Yunru lowered his voice. "It wasn't that Aunt hadn't suffered. But she suffered for entirely different reasons that she always kept hidden from everybody. When I felt that something was wrong with this whole situation, I tried to get hold of any person who was present at that banquet night. I know it was a long shot. Twenty-eight years have passed. Hope was bleak."

"But I guess even God wants the truth to be out now. That's why I found the person - the only person apart from Uncle An and Aunt Han who knows the truth."

An Guoting slowly raised his head. Then his eyes widened as realization dawned upon him.

"Are you…"

Yunru smiled. "Yes. I am talking about the waiter who had witnessed everything."

He stepped out and brought in a middle-aged man who looked in his early fifties. 

"He is Kong Quan. He worked part-time as a waiter and was a member of the hotel's staff where the banquet was held that night. He was twenty-two at that time."

Kong Quan's gaze traveled across the room. He looked at everybody one by one. He found Zizi and tilted his head.

There was a flicker of something in his eyes as he observed her. But then he withdrew it.

Then his gaze finally settled on An Guoting.

He recognized him as his irises slowly widened in realization. "It's you."

Han Tian asked, "What does he know?"

Yunru glanced at Kong Quan. He, in turn, looked at An Guoting as if asking for his agreement. "You had made me promise that I won't ever utter about what happened to anybody."

An Guoting said nothing.

"Are you sure you want me to tell them?"

Silence.

Caihong said, "Please don't care about his permission. We want to know, and that's that."

Shuang nodded. "I have a strong feeling that Dad had been an idiot for all these years. But now it's coming to an end. So you can talk freely."

Her sharp words cut right through An Guoting's heart.

Kong Quan smiled. "I knew this day would come sooner or later. That night had a heavy conscience on my heart. It never made me leave this city. Somehow, I had a feeling that somebody would seek me out one day to know the truth of what had really happened."

Han Huizhong slowly asked, "What do you mean? Don't test my patience."

"I see the resemblance. You must be that woman's father who cut her wrist that night."

"What!?" He exclaimed. "Cut her wrist?" His nostrils flared, and his chest heaved up and down. This was the first time he was hearing it, and it sounded totally bullshit to him.

Kong Quan let out a breath. "I was doing my usual routine that night. I was carrying a tray of drinks for the guests when I heard a sob coming from a room. I kept the tray aside and went to check in. The door was slightly ajar, and when I peeked in, I saw a woman sobbing and kneeling on the floor. She had a fruit knife in her right hand, and her left wrist was bleeding with a cut. I was horrified. It was a suicide attempt. I panicked and didn't know what to do."

"Then there was this man in front of her who was just as panicked as me. He had tried to stop her, but she wasn't listening to him. Instead, she threatened him with the knife even more. She was deepening the cut on her wrist as she cried. And then I heard her say…

'An Guoting. If you don't want me to kill myself and see my dead body right here, then please.... please sleep with me just once.'"