Imperfect Desires

What do you think hurts more?

Physical pain?

Or...

Emotional pain?

People often believe that physical pain can numb the emotional pain. But when your heart is being crushed into a million pieces, how are you supposed to feel anything else?

Ying patted her clothes as she stood up from the ground and looked around to find the culprit who dared to give her a scare. Although falling from the tree was really hurting, the agony she felt within was far worse.

 "Why did you do it, Zizi?" she glowered.

"Who told you to act like a monkey?" he questioned back.

Ying fixed up her hair as she answered, "I was just looking at the beautiful full moon tonight. Is that a crime now?"

Xin Zimen placed his hand on her head affectionately, "You heard everything, right?" It wasn't a question, his tone suggested that it was a statement he was certain of and her silence only proved him right. "You really have the worst timing in the whole world."

Ying took a deep breath and laughed mockingly, "Right. I indeed have the worst timing. But do you know what else is even worse than my timing?" Xin Zimen looked at her inquisitively as she went on, "It's my stupid intuition. The moment I heard Weiwei's voice, my intuition bellowed me to run. But I'm that idiot who stood there and let myself get hurt again."

"Even though he's my son, I'd like to say he doesn't deserve you."

Ying looked at his face in surprise and smiled, "Are you complimenting me or insulting your son?"

"Both," he answered casually.

"How come you still don't understand, Zizi? It's not about whether he deserves me or not, the point is that he is the one I loved since I learned the meaning of love."

"I wonder whom should I take for an eye checkup, you or my son?" Ying furrowed her brows at him as he added, "I mean I think you both need to see an eye specialist. Xiaoli because he's too blind to see you and you because you can't even see anyone else other than him."

"No wonder people call you weird," began Ying. "That's no way to comfort someone."

"But I wasn't trying to comfort you," replied Xin Zimen calmly. Ying looked perplexed as he continued, "A person like you doesn't need comforting. No matter what I say, I know I'm gonna make it worse for you."

Ying didn't know why she smiled at his words but she did. 

"I know you're neither gonna run from this pain nor are you gonna share it with anyone. You can feel the pain and you can understand it, now the question is how long it's gonna take before you accept it."

"I've accepted it long ago that he wasn't mine," said Ying making him frown as she turned to leave and whispered softly, "It's just my heart that's unwilling."

She got inside her car and drove away. The tears that had been threatening to fall finally fell down her cheeks in the silence and comfort of her own car where no one else could see her breaking down.

She wasn't fond of showing her tears that easily to anyone no matter how close she was to someone. But she found silence and loneliness quite comforting at this moment. Those burning tears were making her vision blurry to the point that she really didn't know where she was driving off to now. It was almost midnight and the road was almost empty, it was good for her otherwise she would have definitely gotten into an accident.

Her phone's ringtone broke her daze and she shook her head before parking the car at a side. "What? Aren't you off duty? Why are you calling me at this time, Mark?"

"Team leader, can you come to the HQ?"

"At this time?" she questioned.

"Yes," came the reply.

"Is everything okay? Why do you sound so tense?"

"You'll know when you get here," he replied and hanged up.

Ying thought about it for a while before turning the car around and driving straight to the HQ. As soon as she entered, she was surprised to find every person of her team gathered around. Didn't they all love running off to home after work hours, what were they doing here till now?

"What's going on?" Ying asked looking around at their faces.

"Team leader, Destiny Novell's case is very important to you, right?" asked Mark.

"You can say that," replied Ying. "But why are you bringing it up now? You all did a good job and I already know where Destiny Novell is. Case closed."

"But that's where you are wrong," said Gigi as she stepped up from the group. "You looked really disturbed when you found out that Destiny Novell's personal data had been stored in our server." Ying nodded thoughtfully. That was still a mystery to her and she was gonna get to it but she hadn't found the right time to look into that matter yet. "We found the answer for you."

"What? What do you mean?"

"The only people to have access to our server are the ones inside this building. No outsider can breach in no matter how smart or a wicked of a hacker that person is."

"Get to the point guys," said Ying, with impatience visible in her voice. Unlike the crying mess she had been for the past hour, now she looked rather calm and serious. She was totally focusing on their words and wasn't allowing her mind to drift off at all. And under the complicated thoughts of hers, how could she even think of anything else right now?

"To access the main server, every person needs to add in the unique code that had been assigned to them. That code is only known to the person himself. No other person can know it." 

"I know that Gigi. So, what?"

"We tracked the code and we found the person who concealed Destiny Novell's identity," added Mark.

"Really?" Ying was surprised. "I didn't know you all had the team spirit. You actually went out of your way to find that detail for me. That's amazing. Now, tell me who is the person behind it?"

The members of her team shared a strange look with each other before one of them asked, "Team leader, you really don't know?"

"How would I know?" Ying asked in confusion.

"Because the unique code matched with your id," said Mark making Ying's eyes widen. "It's you."