Chapter 162:
Jiang Ning didn’t even react, and the water in her hand had already splashed onto the servant’s face.
The servant who fetched water for her was so scared that she nodded and bowed repeatedly: “Sorry, Miss, did it burn you? Sorry, sorry…”
Jiang Ning was still holding the cup in her hand. She looked at her hand somewhat dazedly, pursed her lips: “Sorry, it’s my fault. I didn’t hold the cup steady… Please clean this up.”
After Jiang Ning finished speaking, she handed the cup to the servant and went straight upstairs.
The servant looked up in some confusion. Jiang Ning’s changes during this time were quite obvious.
Compared to before when Jiang Ning would get irritable and hit people if she was unhappy, now she could be said to be very gentle and polite.
She wouldn’t casually hit or scold them anymore.
Just like the situation just now.
Splashing water was considered light. If her temper had been worse, she would have thrown the cup at them to vent her anger.
She didn’t dare say more. After all, finding a job now was really too difficult, and plus working for the Jiang Family had really good benefits, so generally as long as they didn’t overstep, they were willing to endure it.
And Jiang Ning sat in the room.
She lowered her head and stared blankly at her hand.
For a moment, she felt like she was out of control.
It was as if her soul was being pulled.
When she came back to her senses, she had already done this.
Even until going to school, Jiang Ning was very silent.
Xie Jingyan was riding the bicycle. Seeing Jiang Ning not speaking, he couldn’t help but ask: “What’s wrong? Are you unhappy?”
Jiang Ning looked at the scenery along the road. The wind in early November was very cold, the maple leaves by the roadside were red like fire. Jiang Ning looked at the not-so-sunny sky and asked: “Xie Jingyan, what if my first personality comes back?”
Xie Jingyan pondered for a moment before slowly saying: “Even if it comes back, it’s still you.”
Jiang Ning shook her head: “At that time, you won’t like me anymore.”
But Xie Jingyan’s voice was firm: “I will always like you.”
How long is always?
At the moment when the world consciousness extracts her soul, turning her back into a soulless shell, like a puppet arbitrarily manipulated, would this liking still be there?
Jiang Ning didn’t know and didn’t dare to agree to his words.
After all, true heart changes in an instant.
“Let’s go to the ancient temple to make a wish together tomorrow.” Jiang Ning changed the topic.
The bicycle had just stopped at Ninth Middle School.
She jumped off the bike and walked side by side with Xie Jingyan.
Xie Jingyan frowned, somewhat unhappy: “I don’t want to go with Wei Jin.”
Jiang Ning raised her eyebrow: “I didn’t ask you to be alone with Wei Jin, we’re all going together.”
Xie Jingyan raised his hand and rubbed his brow: “You know that’s not what I mean. That kid has no good intentions toward you. Jiang Ning, you must not be fooled by that delinquent.”
Jiang Ning thought of Wei Jin and also felt a headache. She had already made it clear, but that kid was just stubborn.
So for this trip to the ancient temple, Jiang Ning decided to make it clear to him.
Don’t waste time on her anymore.
In the afternoon, Jiang Ning went to the hospital where Jiang Yan was staying.
He had already been recuperating in the hospital for a week and could go home tomorrow, but Jiang Ning was going to the ancient temple tomorrow, and plus when Jiang Yan returned he also needed to recuperate in another villa, so Jiang Ning decided to go see him today.
But at the hospital entrance, she happened to run into Wei Jin.
Wei Jin was carrying a lunchbox in his hand.
When he saw Jiang Ning, his eyes obviously lit up: “Jiang Ning! What a coincidence.”
Jiang Ning raised her eyebrow: “Why are you here?”
Wei Jin smiled: “My mom is also receiving treatment in this hospital. By the way, have you met my mother?”
Jiang Ning: “???”
She was puzzled: “Why would I meet your mother?”
But Wei Jin was so enthusiastic that he pulled Jiang Ning toward the general ward: “Then come see her. Her life is almost at its end.”
Jiang Ning had been struggling at first, but upon hearing the second half of Wei Jin’s words, she stopped and followed behind him.
She hesitated: “Life at its end? What’s wrong with your mother?”
“Sigh, cancer. It was diagnosed two years ago, but it was only recently discovered that the cancer cells have spread, already to the point of no return.” Wei Jin’s face was smiling: “But it’s okay, my mom lived two extra years, she profited. I was even saying that later when you go to the capital city to study, I’ll bring my mom over, wait for you on one side, earn money to take care of mom on the other, but it seems like that’s not needed now.”
“My only thought now is to make something of myself. Jiang Ning, I will definitely prove that I can be worthy of you.”
Jiang Ning looked at Wei Jin. Although he was smiling, his eyes were full of sadness and sorrow, and the words of refusal got stuck in her throat.
He seemed to be suffering enough already, so did she still need to say more hurtful words of refusal?
She really didn’t want Wei Jin to waste time. Jiang Ning’s heart was very small. She had accepted that she had feelings for Xie Jingyan.
“Wei Jin, actually I…”
“Shh.” Wei Jin made a silencing gesture, interrupting what Jiang Ning was about to say: “The hospital room is here.”
Jiang Ning’s gaze turned to the half-open hospital room. Inside lay a woman wearing a hospital gown. The woman’s hair was sparse, without a hat, her face full of deep wrinkles, bearing the traces of age’s decline, but her pair of eyes were very bright. From that gaunt face, Jiang Ning could tell that she had been a gentle and beautiful woman in her youth, because Wei Jin’s eyebrows and eyes resembled hers greatly.
She looked up and asked Wei Jin: “Not going in?”
Wei Jin lowered his eyes, his expression somewhat sad: “Let’s stand outside for a while. My mom suffered her whole life. When I was five, my dad drank and gambled, and when drunk he would hit her. Every time she protected me, ending up covered in wounds herself. Later that man owed hundreds of thousands in debt and left without a word, leaving that huge debt on my mom’s head. She was just an ordinary countryside woman, uneducated, without any special skills, and that money almost crushed her.”
“To pay off that debt, my mom had to work three jobs a day. In the morning she’d carry cement at the construction site, at noon at the restaurant she’d wash dishes for two hours while eating, in the evening back from the site without time to eat she’d go out as a housekeeper to clean for other families. Her illness came from inhaling too much dust. At first it was just not-severe tuberculosis, she didn’t take it seriously, later when coughing blood became more frequent she went to the hospital, but by then it had already become late-stage lung cancer.”
Wei Jin gave a self-mocking laugh: “That year happened to be when she paid off all the loans. She thought good days were coming, but instead she was diagnosed with this deadly disease. Jiang Ning, tell me, why in this world does hardship always pick on the poor, why does the hemp rope break at the thinnest place, as if not wanting to leave us even a shred of a way to live.”
Wei Jin spoke to the end full of confusion, and similarly Jiang Ning had no answer.
She could only slowly say: “I don’t know.”
Wei Jin smiled at Jiang Ning: “But that’s right, rich people wouldn’t have these worries, but Jiang Ning, you’re different from the rich misses I’ve met.”
