Li Zhenruo’s heart trembled.
He let go of the telephone he had already touched, stood up and walked around to the desk. He stood with his back against the big desk, and said, “I’m looking for a photo, a photo of Zhao Yuqiong and the man who abandoned her.”
Li Zhenran stood by the door and didn’t move. He said, “The photo is with Li Zhentai, don’t you remember?”
Li Zhenruo said, “Is there only one photo? If I were Sun He, something that important would definitely be re-photographed and kept. I wouldn’t have just handed it over and lost it.”
“Sun He?” Li Zhenran’s tone was a little surprised.
The room was still shrouded in darkness, especially when looking from Li Zhenruo to Li Zhenran’s direction, he could only see the outline of a person, but not the expression of the person.
Li Zhenruo said, “Sun He told me that he came to you.”
Li Zhenran heard the words and did not speak.
Li Zhenruo took a deep breath, calmed himself down, and didn’t want to be affected by the other party’s emotions.
In the end, Li Zhenran seemed to sigh and said, “Are you going to test me like this? Sun He can’t tell you this, because I know where Sun He is.”
Li Zhenruo squeezed the edge of the desk tightly, “Sun He really came to you?”
Li Zhenran said, “Sun He came to me. He asked me for money and said he would give me a photo. He said that I would definitely be interested in that photo. I said yes to him, and I gave him the money.”
Li Zhenruo gritted his teeth, “So you have seen that photo in the first place?”
Li Zhenran said unhurriedly, “Sun He gave me the photo, and I felt that things were not so simple. So I asked people to keep an eye on him. It turned out that he had tasted the sweetness, and turned around and contacted Li Zhentai again.”
Li Zhenruo said, “You knew he had gone to contact Li Zhentai, but you didn’t stop him.”
Li Zhenran was quiet for a while and admitted, “I want to see how Li Zhentai will react.”
Li Zhenruo took a deep breath and said, “You said you wanted to see it, but you knew that Li Zhentai would never let go of this opportunity to deal with me, so while he drove me out and found someone to kill me, you kept watching from the sidelines.”
Li Zhenran suddenly approached Li Zhenruo slowly, his footsteps were particularly loud in the darkness until he stopped in front of Li Zhenruo and reached out to touch Li Zhenruo’s face.
His palms were warm and dry as always, but Li Zhenruo shivered for no reason.
Li Zhenran said softly, “I didn’t know he would kill you, I was surprised and thought he was too stupid. I thought he would make Li Jianglin angry by killing you, so he would investigate this matter thoroughly, but instead, I didn’t expect it to spur Li Jianglin to give up and drop the matter.”
Li Zhenruo felt Li Zhenran’s gentle touch and said, “You knew the truth from the beginning, but you pretended not to know anything and played me for a fool.”
Li Zhenran said, “I said it was Li Zhentai who did it, I didn’t lie to you.”
By now Li Zhenran still said that he didn’t lie to him. Li Zhenruo was suddenly very angry, his throat was dry and sore. He raised his head and said, “You saw the photo, then what? Where is Sun He? What’s going on in Luo Yunguang’s place?”
Li Zhenran sighed lightly, “I didn’t think it was simple. The first thing I did was to go to Luo Yunguang and learn the truth from him. At the same time, in order to prevent Sun He from talking nonsense, I kept having people looking for him, forcing him to leave the place and not dare to come back.”
Li Zhenruo said, “So that time later, when you took me to Luo Yunguang, you had already conspired to put on a show with him for me?”
Li Zhenran kissed his forehead, “What he said is the truth. I asked him to tell you everything you want to know.”
Li Zhenruo was a little dazed, “Then what he said to Li Zhentai was a deception?”
Li Zhenran said, “Yes, I asked him to say that to Li Zhentai. I will not give Li Zhentai the opportunity to seize my weakness and threaten me back, and at the same time keep him from giving up and want to continue to struggle. That way, we can send him to his death in name only.”
He whispered these words close to Li Zhenruo’s ear, and his airy voice burrowed into his ear, like a wet and cold insect.
Li Zhenruo felt that he could no longer control his emotions, he raised his hand to push Li Zhenran away and wanted to stay away from him. But when he turned around, he was hugged by Li Zhenran from behind. Li Zhenran’s arms were tightly wrapped around his waist, no matter how hard he struggled, Li Zhenran would not let go. He then said in his ear, “Zhenruo, listen, I do love you. I only know the truth from the beginning to the end, I have not harmed you.”
Li Zhenruo said, “But you lied to me.”
Li Zhenran reached out to turn his face and said in a low voice, “Didn’t you also lie to me? In the days when I doubted your identity, I hoped you were not Li Zhenruo more than once, but I still couldn’t avoid it. After twenty years of being brothers, what kind of relationship do we had? How do you want me to invest myself to you? If you and I swap identities, can you swear you won’t do the same thing?”
Li Zhenruo gasped and became emotional, “You’re right! I can’t swear that you don’t owe me anything, you’re just watching me die, and I might do the same thing! But so what? You lied to me for so long, and now how dare I believe that you love me?”
Li Zhenran said, “Ask your own heart, can’t you feel that I love you?”
Li Zhenruo tried his best to calm his breath, “From the time you knew I was Li Zhenruo, you were planning how to completely take yourself out of this matter, right? I felt very strange before, at that time it was obvious I deceived you first and left home afterwards, yet you took the initiative to come to me and ask for peace because you had already planned what was to follow, didn’t you?”
Li Zhenran didn’t answer, in Li Zhenruo’s view, he acquiesced.
At that time, rather than being angry at being deceived, Li Zhenran began to think about how to present the truth to Li Zhenruo. After hesitating, he finally decided to cover up all the facts related to him, and only let him know about Li Zhentai. However, what was presented to Li Zhenruo in this way was almost the complete truth.
Anger was the disguise. After Li Zhenruo ran away from home, Li Zhenran decided to stop the disguised anger and chose to bow to Li Zhenruo.
Li Zhenruo said, “Since you chose to hide from me, why did you let me see Li Zhentai alone? You should have watched me and not let me have the chance to be alone with him.”
Li Zhenran heard the words and said, “So it was Li Zhentai. I let you see him alone because he didn’t know that I was involved in this matter from beginning to end. I want you to watch him die and complete your revenge. I didn’t think he’d say anything to you that would make you start to suspect me.”
“No,” Li Zhenruo shook his head, “It’s not that I doubt you, it’s just I doubt that someone else was involved behind this affair.”
Li Zhenran asked him, “So do you hate me?”
Li Zhenruo said, “Let go of me first.”
Li Zhenran let go of his hand and helped Li Zhenruo fix the collar that had come loose in the tugging.
Li Zhenruo said, “I don’t hate you, I’m just a little afraid of you. If I continue to be with you, I will never be able to get rid of doubts and fears. I don’t know which of your words is true and which is false. Even now, I began to suspect that the truth is not so simple, there is a bigger situation behind it, and I don’t know it even if I’m in it.”
“Zhenruo,” Li Zhenran reached out to touch his face.
Li Zhenruo turned his head to avoid it. He walked towards the door of the office, and finally stopped by the door. He reached out and grabbed the collar around his neck and ripped it off. The chain buckle behind the collar was pulled off, and a bloodstain was also strangled on the back of the neck.
“This collar,” Li Zhenruo said, “I know it has a tracker, but I never took it off. I thought it was more of a memory of the past between us, and it always lost its practical significance, but now I’m not so sure anymore. I’m not your cat, and you can’t tie me up.”
After he said that, he threw the collar in the direction of Li Zhenran.
The collar hit Li Zhenran’s chest and then landed on the ground with a crisp sound.
Li Zhenruo opened the door and walked out, while Li Zhenran crouched down to pick up the collar slowly with his hands.
When he came out of Li Zhenran’s office, Li Zhenruo realised that it was still dark outside in the corridor. He groped for the direction of the elevator. But after two steps he remembered that the power had gone out and the lift had naturally stopped, so he turned around and groped in the direction of the stairwell.
The staircase was so pitch black and there was no light at all coming in.
He felt that his head was spinning, so he changed back to the shape of a cat, and his vision suddenly became clear before running downstairs. He just kept running out of Yunlin’s building, Li Zhenruo ran all the way forward on the brightly lit street.
The cold wind of the night kept blowing through his body, and his aching mind was gradually clearing up. When he stopped and turned around, Yunlin’s building had disappeared from sight.
He slowed his pace and raised his head like many arrogant cats.
When he was still a complete human, love was just a spice of life for him. He believed that the goal of life as a man should be a career; after losing his life, his goal in life was to find his murderer and to take revenge; when he got his revenge, he wanted to live longer to accompany Li Zhenran. He admitted that he was a little addicted to love and could not extricate himself from it. He understood the taste of love beyond the sky, and other things seemed less important.
Until now.
When he was standing at the intersection and waiting for the red light, several people around him were looking at him. Li Zhenruo’s mobile phone was put on a rope by him, so it could be hung around his neck when he turned into a cat.
A young man seemed to have followed him for a while, and when he saw him alone as a cat, he knelt down and pretended to pet his head while trying to get the phone around his neck.
Li Zhenruo bit his hand mercilessly then ran into the crowd and ran away.
When he saw the red light turn green and the pedestrians hurrying forward, Li Zhenruo thought to himself, should his story be over now? Rather than being a cat, he still wanted to be a complete person.
He had already fulfilled his wish with this body, so it was better to return the body to the original owner now and to reincarnate as soon as possible. He didn’t need an overly prominent family, even if he was a child of a poor man, to work step by step for what he wanted was the best life.
The author has something to say:
I’ve got a shield in front of me, come on, attack me, I’ll pretend I didn’t see it
Notes:
Can you trust someone again after being deceived so bad that you begin to question everything? I feel like I just witnessed something real dark… about Zhenran… and how calculative he is…
Also I just read an NU comment saying that the people here are treating the cat so bad. I agree. But don’t call PETA please (ಥ_ಥ)
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