Chapter 201 - 195: The Past

Chapter 201: Chapter 195: The Past

The story begins with a woman named Yu Jiaqi. As her name suggests, she was as beautiful and precious as fine jade. She was a Sichuan girl with a fiery personality. When I was a freshman, she was already a prominent figure at our university.

Can you believe it? Yu Jiaqi founded the school’s very first all-female band. Back in those days, that was incredibly cool.

I was her biggest fangirl. No matter where they performed, I would go to every single one of their shows. Their band’s favorite songs to cover were by Ray Charles. Jiaqi felt that even as a blind Black man, Ray Charles was never defeated by fate or racial discrimination. Instead, he kept creating music and became the true King of Soul. She believed their band should embody that same spirit and have the courage to face fate head-on.

She also wanted to show those male chauvinists that women could be just as outstanding as men. She wanted to prove to the guys who constantly claimed women were inferior that anything they could do, women could do too—and we could even do the things they couldn’t. Every one of the band’s performances was so unique, so eye-catching, and absolutely spectacular.

Of course, being the stars of the campus, they all eventually found love. But what shocked everyone the most was the band’s biggest star, Yu Jiaqi. It’s no exaggeration to say her suitors could form a line from the campus all the way to the Huangpu River. Yet, she chose Jiang Shuyuan, a guy we all saw as a total nerd.

Oh! Right! Back then, calling someone an honest, simple guy was actually a compliment. Jiang Shuyuan was a handsome, refined-looking boy who loved poetry and literature.

Can you picture that scene? A trendy, rock-and-roll goddess getting together with a serious-faced, delicate scholar. To us, it was like Mars colliding with Earth. It felt even more absurd than the Y2K doomsday predictions. And the craziest part was that Yu Jiaqi was the one who made the first move.

"I like him, so I’m going to boldly go after him," she said. "The idea that girls have to be shy or act like proper little ladies is a thing of the past. We are women of a new era, and we should bravely pursue love.

"If I win his heart, I’ll cherish him. If I don’t, I’ll wish him luck. If he misses out on me, he’s the one who should regret it. That’s true rock-and-roll spirit."

You have no idea how deafening our silence was after she said that.

True to her word, Yu Jiaqi launched a passionate pursuit of Jiang Shuyuan. She even did something that sent shockwaves through the entire school. Maybe you’d think it’s perfectly normal now, but back in those days, a girl boldly holding a bouquet of roses to confess her love was massive news. Who wouldn’t love a girl like that?

Yu Jiaqi and Jiang Shuyuan fell in love. They became the couple everyone talked about, and they were incredibly happy together. Yu Jiaqi always had these wild, imaginative ideas, and Jiang Shuyuan would silently commit them to memory. Everyone could tell he didn’t like rock music, but he still learned to sing several of Ray Charles’s songs.

HEHEHE.

Just let me laugh for a second. Even now, I can clearly picture that nerd Jiang Shuyuan, wearing a tacky plaid shirt, standing on stage with stiff limbs and awkwardly singing "Big Bad Love".

Later on, they graduated with their master’s degrees and went to Shanghai to build their careers. They were both outstanding and found jobs they loved. Though there were a few minor bumps along the way, they eventually got married. Life after marriage wasn’t incredibly wealthy, but it was incredibly sweet.

Jiang Shuyuan wasn’t the type to socialize. After work, the first thing he’d do was go to the wet market to buy groceries, then head home to cook delicious meals for Yu Jiaqi.

Not long after, they had a daughter. Another vibrant splash of color was added to Jiang Shuyuan and Yu Jiaqi’s world.

We were waiting outside the delivery room at the time. When Jiang Shuyuan saw the little baby for the first time, he cried his eyes out. He said, "You little brat, making your mom labor for two whole days. Do you have any idea how much that hurt? You have to be a good girl from now on, eat well, and grow up happy."

Yu Jiaqi watched the scene with a sweet smile. "Shuyuan, have you figured out what to name the baby yet? Didn’t you say you’d know as soon as you saw her? If you can’t think of one, I’m just going to pick something at random..."

Jiang Shuyuan cradled the child carefully and said, "I’ve got it! Our favorite book is ’The Moon and Sixpence’, and we both long for poetry and distant horizons. Let’s call her Shiyue! Jiang Shiyue! Doesn’t that sound lovely?"

Their three-person world was filled with joy and laughter. Little Shiyue grew up bit by bit.

Until...

Perhaps God just wanted an interesting soul by His side. One day, Yu Jiaqi suddenly fainted. After she was frantically rushed to the hospital, the test results completely shattered that man’s world.

Acute liver failure of unknown etiology.

There were only two treatment options: conservative treatment, or a liver transplant. To put it bluntly, conservative treatment meant leaving it to fate. Once a liver goes bad, it happens incredibly fast. A liver transplant was the optimal choice, but it required a massive amount of luck—and a massive amount of money.

Jiang Shuyuan didn’t hesitate to choose the second option. The hospital told him to go back and prepare the funds while they urgently applied for a matching liver donor. He went home and sold their house, and both of their families chipped in some money, but the donor organ was nowhere to be found. Yu Jiaqi’s condition worsened day by day, and she began to experience severe physical reactions.

It was around this time that Jiang Shuyuan heard a rumor from somewhere—that he could buy a liver on the black market if he had the money. Can you imagine what it feels like for a drowning man to grasp at a final straw? For his true love, he was willing to give up everything. He would try anything.

But the source of that rumor was a gang of scammers who specialized in extorting desperate families of terminally ill patients. Fate played a cruel joke on him. Right after he had been swindled out of his money, the hospital called to say they had found a matching liver and told him to pay the surgical fees as soon as possible to prepare for the operation.

Jiang Shuyuan saw a glimmer of hope amidst his despair. He frantically scrambled to raise the money, trying every method he could think of and begging everyone he could borrow from. But just as he was on the verge of scraping the money together, the hospital delivered the devastating news.

Yu Jiaqi had passed away.

She had made the final choice for her own life. All she left behind was a tear-stained suicide note.

When Jiang Shuyuan rushed to the hospital, he wept until his voice gave out. But after reading her letter, his emotions inexplicably stabilized. We were all incredibly worried about him, but he simply said that since his wife had made her choice, we should respect it.

Jiang Shuyuan held the funeral exactly the way his wife would have wanted. He said Jiaqi loved lively atmospheres, so her funeral shouldn’t be a depressing affair. No one knew how much agony he was in. During that time, he lost dozens of pounds and wandered around like a walking corpse.

After the funeral, Jiang Shuyuan’s temperament completely changed. He stubbornly believed that his lack of money was what killed his wife, so he became singularly obsessed with making money, desperately wanting to provide a better life for their daughter. He quit his job, entrusted his parents with taking care of the nine-year-old Shiyue, and left the city to hustle for money like a madman.

He only came back once a year, and every time, he left behind a massive sum of money.

Three years later, he had saved enough capital to dive into business. His business grew bigger and bigger. However, he completely neglected his daughter’s feelings. Whether he was afraid to face her or for some other reason, he missed out on countless important moments in Shiyue’s life.

Because they went years barely seeing each other, the rift between father and daughter grew wider and wider. You can imagine how sensitive and fragile a girl’s heart would become growing up in those circumstances.

To Jiang Shiyue, her world was colorful before she turned nine. After she turned nine, her world turned into an endless winter. Aside from money, she felt not a single shred of warmth from her father. Hitting puberty right at that time, she became incredibly rebellious—smoking, drinking, and getting into online dating.

She met a piece of trash who disguised himself very well. That scumbag sweet-talked her on the internet every day, brainwashing her with all sorts of messed-up ideas.

The only silver lining was that right before they planned to meet in person, another friend and I noticed something was off with Shiyue. We sat her down and analyzed everything that could possibly go wrong if they met up. But what rebellious teenager actually listens to that kind of advice?

So, we made a deal with her. She could go meet him, but she had to report her whereabouts to us constantly. We would only agree to it—and keep it a secret from her father—if we could guarantee her safety.

Honestly, based on the chat logs we saw at the time, we had already guessed what was going to happen. So, we preemptively contacted a friend on the police force. Right as that scumbag tore off his hypocritical mask and tried to drag Jiang Shiyue into a hotel, the few of us rushed out, beat the living daylights out of him, and handed him over to the police.

Ever since then, Shiyue has never trusted another boy. She returned to school and studied hard until she graduated. But over the years, her relationship with her father has never improved. If anything, you could say it’s gotten worse.

And Su Yunzhou, you are the first male friend I’ve seen her bring around in all these years.

So...