What was wrong with me back then? For He Yuguang, was I...
Before that thought could enter Ji Yi's mind, all her thoughts stopped at once.
She stared at her feet on the floor. She was stunned like that for a long time before she pressed her back to the door and slowly slid down like she'd lost all her strength.
He Yuguang... The Yuguang Ge who gave her a sense of warmth many times last year when she was at her lowest; The Yuguang Ge who was the only person in the world who never forgot about her and visited her at the hospital every month during her four year coma; The Yuguang Ge who she brutally chose to abandon when he tried to confess his love, and after she developed feelings for He Jichen and had sex with him... How could she have forgotten about him?
At first, she rejected He Jichen's offer to take responsibility and asked for a divorce from Yuguang Ge because she had both of them in her heart. She didn't think she was worthy of being with either of them, so she figured that she might as well not have either of them.
She knew she had to interact with He Jichen because of work, and she had always told herself not to fall harder for He Jichen. However, as the situation went on, all her heart could remember was He Jichen. She completely forgot about how she ruthlessly abandoned He Yuguang.
A strong sense of guilt and unease instantly swallowed Ji Yi up.
But He Yuguang truly treated her well from the beginning and she truly liked him, but he was also He Jichen's older brother. What's important was that she used to be married to He Yuguang for some time... Even if He Jichen wasn't married, she couldn't go and marry the younger brother after having married the older brother!
With that thought, harsh feelings flashed across Ji Yi's mind: self-blame, pain, loss, helplessness - all types of complicated feelings came rushing at her one after the other.
The distance between her and He Jichen wasn't just determined by the two red marriage certificates she saw in his office in the afternoon but it was also determined by his biological older brother. She used to like Yuguang Ge.
This wasn't just a single wide gap but two wide gaps which brutally separated the two of them and determined that in their lifetimes, they weren't destined to be together.
It hurt... it really hurt. It was the type of pain that hit the bone... But even though it hurt, what could she do about it? All she could do was endure it, like... how she loved He Jichen, loved him so deeply in her core that she couldn't free herself. All she could do was love him fully in silence.
Ji Yi gradually buried her head between her knees.
She felt like a large hand was mercilessly clutching her heart. The pain made it hard for her to breathe and her fists started to tremble softly.
She knew she deserved it. Who told her to like the older brother then fall for the younger brother? I started this whole mess!
She didn't have the right to cry, but she still lost her cool and sobbed in pain...
He Jichen didn't know when Ji Yi had left.
All he knew was that when he came back to his senses, the sky outside was filled with evening clouds. It had already turned pitch-black.
His chest felt heavy like it was being crushed by a rock, making it very hard to breathe fluidly.
He got up and walked over to his desk in a daze and pulled out a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. He randomly pulled out a cigarette, lit it up, and took a big drag.