Chapter 856 - 265: Lu Ya’s Theory of Happiness

"He’s beyond saving now..."

"We can put an end to this, right?"

"How long are you going to keep making a scene?"

"We’ll cremate him tomorrow..."

"Get back here!"

The setting sun fell along the edge of the window. Her parents’ voices lingered in her ears, accompanied by the spinning fan, buzzing and droning, buzzing and droning, like flies that couldn’t be swatted away.

Chaotic sirens, curses, scolding, and sobbing.

For a very long time, they refused to disperse from around her.

She could no longer remember many things; she only remembered that she had to take Jiang Si away.

Her parents had cut off her financial support, so she’d been working hard these days, saving up some money.

She’d thought it would be very exhausting, because everyone said it would be; but once she actually started doing it, it didn’t seem as unbearable as she’d imagined.

Odd jobs during the day, then at night she would go back to Jiang Si’s side and read novels, reading those web stories to him, then slowly falling asleep beside him.

In the morning, just looking at his face, all the day’s fatigue would vanish, clean and clear.

She was gaining things, she had something to look forward to, she had a future, she was doing what she wanted to do, living freely and content.

If this wasn’t called happiness, she didn’t know what in this world could be called happiness.

Yet there was always someone telling her this wasn’t happiness, that this had no future.

She clearly wasn’t bothering anyone, wasn’t relying on anyone.

She was only pursuing the happiness she herself believed in—why couldn’t she?

Everyone told her this was wrong, but she insisted on doing it.

"Do you plan to live like this for the rest of your life?"

"Wake up already!"

Her father questioned her like this: "You want to spend your whole life taking care of a dead man with no hope at all—can you really bear that?"

Isn’t that, like, super happy?

Why would spending a lifetime taking care of the person she liked, spending a lifetime together with the person she liked, and having him forever be able to depend only on her—

be something painful?

Just imagining spending a lifetime like that filled her with immense peace and contentment.

"One day you’ll meet someone you like even more, one day you’ll regret the youth you wasted, one day you’ll no longer be able to forgive the you of today..."

"But Dad."

She looked at her impassioned father and simply said, "That’s not who I am right now."

"The me right now is the most important, isn’t she? If one day I become what you’re talking about, it means the me of now is already dead, and the one living is just another stranger. So why should I care what some stranger thinks?"

"You’re just too young; you’ll meet someone better..."

"Father, do you remember that doll from when I was little?"

She cut him off.

"That already worn-out doll—you threw it into the trash can. You kept telling me there would be better ones, and you bought me so many, many dolls that were more expensive and prettier."

"But even now, my favorite is still that very first torn and tattered doll. Maybe it really was cheap, maybe it wasn’t all that gorgeous or beautiful, but liking something means liking it, doesn’t it?"

She’d picked it back out of the trash, washed it clean, used a needle and thread for the first time to mend it herself, and kept it ever since.

She was just that kind of girl. Once she liked something, no matter how good the other options were, she didn’t want to replace it.

It wasn’t that something had to be special for her to like it.

It was because she liked it that it became the most special thing in the world.

It was that way with dolls, and the same with a lover.

Why insist on thinking on my behalf? Why insist on suffering on my behalf? Why insist on regretting on my behalf?

Aren’t I right here myself?

Am I not still alive?

Can I not still feel everything in this world?

Obviously, it’s Jiang Si who needs you to suffer for him, to regret for him, to think on his behalf, isn’t it?

Obviously, he’s the one who’s in the most pain, right? He’ll never again be able to realize his dreams, never again feel those emotions, forever lying on that bed.

What if he really regretted saving me—what then?

Who would think of him? Who would think of someone who can never get up again?

So even if the whole world gives up, she won’t.

Even if the whole world stops thinking of him, Lu Ya will suffer for him, regret for him, think on his behalf.

She took her lover out of the hospital, avoiding others who were searching for them, in order to better hide and transport him.

She personally dissected her lover’s corpse.

She didn’t find it ugly, nor did she find it disgusting. She felt every single organ on her lover’s body, even if it was just a small piece.

Her love would not scatter; she could pour the same love into every piece of the body.

She admired those organs that had already stopped functioning, imagining how they had once worked inside her lover’s body, sustaining his life. When she personally touched those warm, slippery organs,

she felt as if she had touched all of him.

She came to know every part of her lover’s body, from organs to blood vessels. She had carefully, tirelessly touched, cleaned, and admired them all.

Dismembering, reassembling—for the sake of ensuring that she could put him back together in the future, she practiced many times and gradually came to like the process.

It felt as if her lover was gradually returning in her hands; that feeling made her a little obsessed.

But she wasn’t some pervert who had a thing for corpses.

Dismemberment was merely for convenient transport; the practice of assembling him was only because she feared that one day she might forget how to put her lover back together.

Once she found a safe place someday and reassembled her lover’s body, she would no longer dismember him.