Chapter 9 Gratitude of an Ungrateful Female Lead 9: I Have a Boyfriend

After Grandma’s funeral, the guests gradually left.

Uncle Xie’s house, which had been bustling for a whole week, suddenly fell quiet.

The relatives sat around together and ate one last meal before they too prepared to go their separate ways.

Uncle Xie told Zhou He, “We’ve been so busy these past few days that I didn’t get a chance to ask. Calculate how much you spent on those supplies that day.”

“You don’t have to, Uncle. Grandma was good to me too. It was just a small token of my feelings.” Knowing Uncle Xie wanted to transfer her the money, Zhou He hurriedly refused.

“One thing is one thing. Good intentions are good intentions, but that carload of stuff arrived right on time and really solved our urgent problem. Everyone in the family appreciates what you did. With so many elders here, how could we let a junior like you pay?” Uncle Xie was quite stubborn about it.

Aside from the fact that a junior shouldn’t be footing the bill, the more important reason was that back then, Uncle Xie and Father Xie had already divided responsibilities between them. One would care for Grandpa in his old age, and the other would care for Grandma.

They had already sent Grandpa off a few years ago, so according to their original agreement, Grandma’s funeral expenses should properly be covered by Uncle Xie’s family.

Father Xie spoke up. “If you ask me, Xiao He doesn’t need to calculate anything. If family starts splitting hairs over every cent, it’ll only make us seem distant.”

Uncle Xie still wanted to argue, but Father Xie cut him off. “Hear me out first. Count those things as coming from our eldest branch¹. I’m the older brother, so if I pay for this, surely you won’t feel awkward about that too, right?” Then he said to Zhou He, “I’ll make up whatever you spent.”

Only then did Uncle Xie let the matter drop.

As soon as he turned around, Father Xie had his wife, Xu Meijuan, transfer ten thousand yuan to Zhou He.

“Mom, I didn’t spend nearly that much.”

Xu Meijuan said, “Then keep the rest for living expenses. Buy yourself more good food.”

Xie Qingjia and Zhou He planned to leave the next morning. Xie Qingjia especially had already delayed work too long because of Grandma’s funeral, and it really wasn’t good to put it off any longer.

Naturally, Zhou He was going with him.

The two of them bought tickets for the same high-speed rail train. They would depart from the county town, Zhou He would get off at the Provincial Capital, and Xie Qingjia still had another leg of the journey after that.

Originally, both Xie Chonghu and Xie Lingge also attended university in the Provincial Capital, so they were more on Zhou He’s route. But the two of them studied at the same university and had decided to leave together after the Qingming² break was over, so they wouldn’t be traveling with Zhou He and the others.

When Zhou He was about to leave, the ones most reluctant to part with her were actually that bunch of little brats. Especially Second Great King, Little Fatty, who clung to her leg and cried so hard he was a sniffling, tearful mess. If people didn’t know better, they’d think she was Little Fatty’s mother abandoning him.

Little Fatty’s actual mom watched her son crying while hugging someone else and laughed so hard she could barely stand it. She even took out her phone to record a video, saying she’d show it to him when he was older.

That only made Little Fatty cry even harder.

Zhou He held the soft, pudgy Little Fatty and comforted him for quite a while before his sobbing finally quieted a little. She even pinky-swore with him that the two of them would forever be each other’s Great King and Second Great King.

“…”

What the hell?

After handing the little crybaby back to his real mother, Zhou He felt her arms had suffered terribly. She really didn’t know how his mom had raised him to be so solid.

After breakfast the next morning, Father Xie and Mother Xie escorted Zhou He and Xie Qingjia to the town bus stop to wait for the bus. The buses in the little town were never punctual, and even the fastest would take at least half an hour to come.

Mother Xie had stuffed quite a lot of homemade cooked food into both of their bags and kept reminding them to eat properly and not overwork themselves. It was as if words of concern could never run out.

Father Xie said, “They’re not children anymore. Do you still need to arrange their eating and sleeping for them?”

Mother Xie sighed and finally stopped talking.

Then she turned her fire on Father Xie instead. “When your children aren’t by your side, even if they’re seventy or eighty years old, a mother still can’t stop worrying. Men like you are the only ones with hearts of stone.”

That shut Father Xie up completely. He didn’t dare say another word in rebuttal.

Zhou He said, “Don’t worry, we’ll take good care of ourselves. As soon as we have time, we’ll come back to see you.”

“Good, good, good.” She said it several times in a row. “I don’t have any grand ambitions in this life. I just hope you two will both be well.”

Zhou He moved a little closer to Xie Qingjia. “We definitely will be.” She promised.

Xie Qingjia also joined in reassuring them, and only after quite a bit of effort did they finally persuade the old couple to go back.

While waiting for the bus, they also ran into someone. It was the slight woman they had seen at the funeral banquet that day, the middle-aged man’s wife.

She passed by carrying a child on her back and holding a bag in her hand.

Perhaps noticing Zhou He’s gaze, she took the initiative to come over and greet them. They exchanged the usual pleasantries for a while, things like, “Are you leaving today? Why not stay a while longer? Are you busy in the city? How’s the weather there?” and so on.

Then Zhou He heard the woman say, “How nice.”

She noticed the woman’s eyes fixed on her backpack. The woman reached out as if wanting to touch it, but withdrew her hand halfway.

The woman repeated, “How nice.”

Zhou He’s backpack had been issued uniformly by her college. On it was a silicone 3D logo printed with the college emblem.

The woman had only said two words, but to Zhou He, they sounded like a thousand unspoken thoughts. Her emotions churned, and it felt as though an invisible hand had clenched around her heart.

That hand had a name: fate.

She couldn’t bring herself to discuss that topic with the woman, so she asked instead, “You’re out so early. Where are you headed?”

The woman said, “The child’s father got drunk and fell the day before yesterday afternoon, and now he’s in the hospital. I’m bringing him food.”

A fall put him in the hospital?

Zhou He asked, “Was it a bad fall?”

“Yeah. I don’t know how he managed it. When he got back, his face was all bruised and swollen, and his leg was even broken. I don’t think he drank that much either.” The woman was puzzled too. Then she added, “I won’t disturb you any longer. I need to take him his meal.”

How did someone end up with a battered face from just falling on flat ground? Zhou He glanced at Xie Qingjia, but there was nothing unusual about his expression.

Before leaving, the woman said one last thing. “I wish you both every success in your work out there!”

That was what Zhou He had wanted to say to her. But though she parted her lips, in the end she couldn’t say anything else. She simply said goodbye and watched the woman’s figure disappear around the bend in the road.

The smile she had been forcing collapsed, and Zhou He’s mood sank. She felt Xie Qingjia’s hand close around her shoulder. She opened her mouth. “I…” But she didn’t know how to continue.

As if he knew exactly what she was thinking, Xie Qingjia answered directly.

He said, “It’s not the same.”

“What?”

“The two of you aren’t the same. Xiao He, you don’t need to feel guilty about her life. Her fate shouldn’t become a burden on your heart. The one who decides a person’s life is that person, not someone else. You couldn’t help her, and you didn’t cause this either. Even if there hadn’t been me back then, you still could have climbed out of the mire by yourself. Do you know, Xiao He? The most dazzling thing about you is your stubbornness. Not everyone has that. So you don’t need to feel guilty. Even if she hadn’t married her current husband, she might not necessarily be living any better than she is now.”

Was that really so?

Xie Qingjia gave her a definite answer.

Zhou He looked at Xie Qingjia. Over these past few days, he really had grown much thinner. The line of his jaw had become even more distinct, and his gaze had grown firmer.

She suddenly asked, “What did you and Xie Chonghu go do the afternoon before yesterday?”

“You guessed?” Xie Qingjia let out a soft sigh. “I wasn’t trying to hide it from you on purpose…”

He pulled Zhou He into his arms and patted her back soothingly. “Don’t be afraid, Xiao He. I’m here. I won’t let anyone bully you.”

Xie Qingjia had lied to Zhou He. He hadn’t intended to let her know about this in the first place, but Meng Qiu and Xie Chonghu’s acting had really been too awful.

His thoughts returned to the afternoon two days earlier.

He had texted Meng Qiu and asked her to find something to distract Zhou He with, while he himself called Xie Chonghu and followed that middle-aged man.

He couldn’t get the image of Zhou He’s instinctive recoil and fear out of his mind.

To him, Zhou He had all kinds of expressions. Joyful, proud, indifferent, guiltily probing… but never that kind of trembling that came from the bottom of her heart. It had nothing to do with strength or status. It was the kind of psychological violence from youth that could not be resisted, the shadow cast over the soul.

The middle-aged man had been drinking. When the children came to take him home, he barked at them, and his thin, scrawny wife was dragged into it too.

After a string of curses, the woman silently left with the children.

The man walked off with his drinking buddy.

Trailing behind them, the Xie Qingjia brothers heard him slurring drunkenly, his mouth still filthy: “Damn it, what a loss. If I’d put up twenty thousand more back then, that little girl would’ve been mine. So what if she was a graduate student? She still would’ve had to sleep with me.” He spat. “Such a pity, that pale, delicate skin of hers went cheap to that brat surnamed Xie…”

Xie Qingjia took a few quick strides forward and kicked him hard. There was a small slope by the roadside, and with his unsteady legs, the man immediately tumbled down it with a string of shrieks. Xie Qingjia followed right after him and, ignoring the man’s wails, stomped down hard.

The man’s drinking buddy was so frightened he sobered up on the spot and collapsed by the roadside under Xie Chonghu’s watch.

“I-I-I-I… I didn’t see anything…”

After the man fell, he found an opening, scrambled to his feet, and tried to run. As he ran, he shouted, “Murder! Help! Somebody save me…”

This place was not that far from the Xie Family. If they let him keep shouting like that, he might really draw people over. Xie Chonghu hurried after him and cut him off in a few long strides. “With a filthy mouth like yours, daring to bully someone from our Xie Family, and you think you can run?”

The drunken man was slammed to the ground by Xie Chonghu, and Xie Qingjia grabbed his pant leg and dragged him back.

The man yelped, “If I’d known, I should’ve forced her back then. That little bitch would’ve had to marry me whether she wanted to or not, and all you could’ve done was take what I left behind… aaah…”

That one was from Xie Chonghu, who couldn’t hold back any longer. “You fucking deserve this beating.”

It was just that he lacked experience. After throwing a few punches, he ended up hurting himself instead.

Xie Qingjia didn’t waste as many words as Xie Chonghu. He directly seized the man’s leg and smashed it viciously against the nearby rock. The man curled up, clutching his lower leg, unable to make even a sound.

Xie Qingjia crouched down. “Say it again.”

How could the man still dare to act tough? Xie Qingjia had been far too ruthless. He didn’t even blink when he struck. At last, the man knew fear. He kept backing away, not even daring to beg for mercy. But how could the brothers possibly let him off?

Xie Chonghu was so tired he couldn’t even catch his breath properly. As Xie Qingjia hauled him up, he heard his brother say, “Let’s go back. It should be the final course by now.”

“Huh?”

“If your sister-in-law doesn’t see us at the banquet, she’ll get suspicious.”

“Oh, right, right. Got it.”

Xie Qingjia pulled out all the cash in his wallet and threw it at the man, too disgusted to spare a glance at that piece of trash.

Still, as he caught up, Xie Chonghu asked in a low voice, “Aren’t we going to leave him with a few threats?”

“Do you think he’d still dare?” Xie Qingjia said coldly. “I guarantee that from now on, he won’t even be able to come up with a single filthy thought in his heart.”

Translator’s Notes