Chapter 263: Even Dreams Are Restless ②
Footsteps sounded outside the private room. He took a deep breath, reached into his purse, and took out the pills. After a moment of hesitation, he threw the pills in his hand into the cup containing the light green cocktail. The footsteps gradually faded away, and no one knocked on the door of this small private room.
Ye Haifei breathed a sigh of relief and lay on the coffee table, quietly waiting for Nie Qiu’s arrival. He knew… this time, there would be no turning back.
Nie Qiu took a taxi. When she arrived at Zijin Hotel and paid the fare, she realized that the surroundings of Zijin Hotel had changed. Next to the grand hotel, there was a Purple Gold Pavilion, which was similar to an entertainment venue. Like Zijin Hotel, it was a three-story building. The first floor was a bar and KTV, the second floor had private rooms, and the third floor was for billiards and a lounge.
After being led to the doorway of the private room by the waiter, there was no large group of friends and classmates to see Ye Haifei off as he had expected. The room was a bit quiet. The waiter knocked on the door, and Ye Haifei immediately sat up straight and said faintly, “Please come in.”
The waiter pushed the door open as instructed. Nie Qiu stood outside the private room and looked around inside.
“Stop looking, Nie Qiu,” Ye Haifei said with a forced smile. “There’s no one else; I only invited you.”
“Then…”
“Nie Qiu, for the sake of how long I’ve pursued you, can you… just stay with me for a while? Consider it a farewell gift.” Ye Haifei interrupted Nie Qiu’s impending words, knowing that Nie Qiu was about to say it was late and she had to leave.
Nie Qiu reluctantly walked into the private room. Because there were many people in each private room, some singing, some dancing, and some having rowdy gatherings, the waiter, to avoid disturbing the customers in the room, dutifully closed the door.
Inside the KTV private room, there were usually fruit platters and beverage sets. Ye Haifei ordered a cocktail, and the accompanying set meal included two fruit platters and two dried snack platters. The fruits on the platters were exquisitely carved. Small tomatoes, also known as cherry tomatoes, stood with their ears perked up, like little red rabbits huddled around the plate. Oranges and watermelons were cut into slices and arranged with carved fruit peels to form a carved cage. Dragon fruit was also carved into flowers, making it almost a shame to eat.
Seeing Nie Qiu approach the private room and sit opposite him, Ye Haifei looked at the cup of light green cocktail. After hesitating for a long time, he smiled and pushed the cup towards Nie Qiu. “I ordered this; it’s RIO, and it’s quite good. I think… I think Li Kai would buy this for you to drink, you probably like it, right?”
Nie Qiu did not refuse. She picked up the large-bellied high-footed cup, looked at the light green liquid inside, and then asked, “What do you want to tell me?”
“Nie Qiu,” Ye Haifei said, looking at Nie Qiu gently, then giving a bitter smile. “Give me some time! Don’t be so eager to leave. I’m going abroad soon. We’ve never had a proper conversation since we met. For the sake of how long I’ve liked you, Nie Qiu… can you talk with me for a bit?”
Ye Haifei’s pleading tone softened Nie Qiu’s heart a little. She thought about it and decided to temporarily treat Ye Haifei as an ordinary friend, rather than a thug from Class 5. Although she had previously regarded Ye Haifei as a thug from Class 5, hadn’t someone said that every class had a few such people?
She had previously thought that Ye Haifei’s desire to date her was a whim, or that the unobtainable was the most desirable, which was why he had pursued her for so long. As for whether Ye Haifei truly liked her, she no longer wanted to delve into it. “When are you going abroad?”
“Maybe after the Senior High School Entrance Examination, or maybe I won’t take it. My mom is coming to pick me up. My parents are both abroad,” Ye Haifei replied. “Nie Qiu, do you know? My parents haven’t been around since I was little…”
“My parents divorced when I was very young. When I was five, my mom went abroad with a blue-eyed man.” Ye Haifei’s eyes were lost. He looked at the pink liquid in the high-footed cup in his hand. “Since I was little, people have called me parentless, saying I wasn’t raised properly. Back then, TV dramas often showed that if you were powerful, others wouldn’t dare to say anything about you, or if they did, they would only do it behind your back. From then on, I understood that as long as I was powerful, it would be enough. I didn’t form gangs. My sister was willing to give me money, and others were willing to hang out with me. If someone insulted me, I would take the people who hung out with me to beat them up. I didn’t have any other ideas; I just didn’t like people saying I didn’t have parents. I do have parents! I do! I know that the people who hung out with me did so because I had money, because I was righteous, and also… because they thought I had a brother-in-law in the underworld, so they felt it was imposing to hang out with me, and they wouldn’t be bullied if they were with me. I hung out with them purely for mutual benefit. Because…”
“When I was in the first grade of elementary school, there was a parent-teacher meeting. My nanny was very young and didn’t want to attend. A boy said I didn’t have parents. I still remember that boy’s name; it was Wang Minghai. The day after the parent-teacher meeting, I fought with him. I hit his head with a small stool, making him bleed, and he hit my leg with the iron shovel used for sweeping the floor…” Ye Haifei looked at the cup in Nie Qiu’s hand, his eyes vacant, his mouth tasting bitter. He raised the cup in his hand and drank another glass of the attractively colored cocktail beverage. “From then on, I knew that if I became powerful and had people to help me, no one would dare to bully me…”
Nie Qiu’s heart began to tremble uncontrollably, beat after beat. Pain!
It hurt a lot. She hadn’t expected Ye Haifei’s experiences to be so similar to her own. She understood, she understood that feeling. Her classmates would isolate her in groups, standing not far from her and pointing at her. She could vaguely hear words like “parentless” and “uneducated…” She really wanted to shout like Ye Haifei: I have parents! I do!
But she didn’t dare… Perhaps girls are naturally more timid than boys. When people talked about Ye Haifei, Ye Haifei could jump up and curse back, or even fight them. But she could only hide far away. If she couldn’t hide, she would lower her head.
In elementary and middle school, classmates would discuss animatedly, mostly with mockery. By high school, everyone had matured, and there was mostly sympathy. But no one knew that she didn’t want sympathy at all.
She looked at Ye Haifei, who was talking intermittently, and felt pain in her heart. Her throat was dry. She lowered her head and took a sip of the beverage in her cup, her mouth full of bitterness. She felt extremely uncomfortable and silently took another sip.
“My sister… my sister is a good woman. If it weren’t for helping Dad pay off his debts, she would never have gotten together with my brother-in-law. My brother-in-law… my brother-in-law is more than ten years older than my sister!” Ye Haifei saw Nie Qiu drink the beverage from her cup and knew there was no turning back. He felt his eyes gradually moisten, and his chest felt uncomfortably sour. “It’s all my fault! If… if I had money, I could have helped her…”
