Having lived nearly thirty years, Cen Jin had experienced no shortage of confessions, but none had ever left her as panicked, flustered, and incredulous as this one.
Caught completely off guard, her blood surged violently through her veins, invisible thorns bursting forth all at once.
Desperate to set everything back on track, her lips trembled as she almost instinctively uttered two words: "Not possible."
Absolutely not possible.
The sharpness in Li Wu's eyes suddenly receded: "What's not possible?"
Cen Jin unconsciously straightened her back, her posture as if ready to enter a battle at any moment. She stared intently at him, as if looking at an adversary who had thrown her off balance and infuriated her: "You cannot like me."
A crack seemed to tear open in her heart, and pain slowly seeped in.
His tenaciously held resilience and courage shattered instantly. Li Wu's brow furrowed slightly, his face revealing a trace of wounded emotion: "Why?"
Cen Jin's chest rose and fell sharply as she asked him: "What do you take yourself for?"
Li Wu looked at her: "What could I be? I am myself."
"Is that so," Cen Jin's lips twitched slightly, as if unsure what expression to wear. "If you truly saw yourself as yourself, you shouldn't like me."
Li Wu stared blankly, whispering: "Why?"
What he really wanted to ask was whether it was because he wasn't worthy, but he feared hearing the answer. They both knew this answer, and it had been etched into their story from the very beginning.
Self-abasement and self-respect, wild hopes and disappointment violently collided within him. His heart ached sharply, and he regretted it to death.
He never wanted her to find out this early.
Cen Jin's emotions were equally complex, unable to respond immediately.
"Why can't I like you?"
Seeing her silence, he pressed harder, taking half a step forward. The pressure from their physical disparity grew increasingly intense.
Cen Jin's heart skipped a beat in panic. After a moment of silence, she stood firm and unyielding: "Tell me then, why do you like me?"
Li Wu felt as if something was stuck in his throat, unable to provide a specific reason. "The day you came to pick me up, I started liking you."
"Then your liking isn't genuine liking." For some reason, the woman gave him an illusion of relief.
She spoke slowly and methodically, yet unassailable, as if she were reading the verdict from on high: "Your feelings aren't pure." There are many other elements mixed in - gratitude, attachment, dependence... These emotions will cloud your judgment. Try reexamining these confusing feelings from different perspectives - like benefactor and recipient, parent and child, older sister and younger brother. Then your emotions would make sense, and none of these count as romantic feelings between a man and a woman. I suggest you reconsider and reevaluate, rather than hastily imposing them on me."
Throughout her speech, the young man never blinked as he watched her, his face suddenly flushing crimson before slowly turning pale, as if his emotions had peaked before crashing to the bottom.
When he spoke again, his voice was as flat as dead ashes: "Are you making excuses for yourself?"
As if struck by pain, Cen Jin's pupils constricted sharply: "What excuses am I making?"
"Aren't you? What liking means, I understand perfectly well. I don't need you to teach me!" he retorted, growing agitated again until his face turned red.
He didn't want to speak like this either, but he truly couldn't bear it. She could belittle him, belittle him however she wanted, but he absolutely couldn't accept her questioning his feelings for her.
Her rational, detached attitude was like a sharp blade, piercing straight through him.Cen Jin found it utterly unbelievable, her tone condescending: "Then let me make it clear—I'm not making excuses for myself, but for you."
"I don't need it." The moment he admitted it, he had never considered turning back.
The boy's eyes were like gleaming mirrors. Cen Jin averted her gaze: "The day I went to Shengzhou to pick you up, I wasn't divorced yet. What if I never ended up getting divorced? What would you have done?"
Li Wu's eyes instantly reddened, as if even this hypothetical was enough to fill him with panic and vulnerability.
He sniffed hard: "I would have kept silently loving you. I wouldn't have looked for a girlfriend, wouldn't have gotten married. For the rest of my life, until I die, I would only love you. But I wouldn't disturb you—I wouldn't say a single word."
His vow-like response felt like a thin thread, instantly constricting Cen Jin's heart.
She clenched her jaw, steadying herself for a moment before saying, "Ten years from now, you won't say things like this anymore."
Li Wu retorted, "How do you know I won't?"
Cen Jin was unusually certain: "Because I'm more than ten years older than you. I know how time can completely change a person. When you look back from where I am now, these words are useless—nothing more than emotional outbursts that prove your immaturity."
"You're not me. What gives you the right to judge me like this?" He stared at her intently, searching for any crack in her composure—anything to keep him from giving up too soon—but he found nothing.
His sister was flawless.
Cen Jin's expression was icy: "I don't want to judge anyone, but I won't give you any answer you're hoping for. That's my stance as a twenty-nine-year-old."
"What answer was I hoping for? Did I force you to give me one right now?" Li Wu's breathing grew rapid. "I just wanted to tell you I love you. Don't I even have the right to love you?"
He balled one hand into a fist and struck his own chest hard, as if venting his frustration on himself: "Why should I—and my feelings—be so easily dismissed by you? I'm telling you, ten years from now, I'll still feel this way. What gives you the right to decide for me, just because you're eleven years older than me? I may not be good enough for you, and I don't even have ten years to prove myself—but what about a month? A day? A minute? You won't even let me have the chance to love you."
The boy's eyes were wet and red, his voice nearly choked with sobs: "What did I do wrong that you won't even let me love you?" His tone wasn't fierce, but it carried a desperate, hysterical edge.
Cen Jin's heart trembled violently, frozen by his intensity, momentarily robbed of speech.
Was it fear? Anger? Or perhaps empathy? She couldn't tell. But she had to lightly grip the back of a nearby chair, using it as an anchor to regain the upper hand.
"Because your love will lead nowhere," Cen Jin sneered, curling her lips slightly. "How old will I be in ten years? Do you think I'll be forever twenty-nine?"
Li Wu inhaled sharply, tilting his head back, his Adam's apple bobbing as if struggling to hold back.
He looked again into her eyes, now filled with distortion and absurdity: "Then will I be forever eighteen? I'll become a man you can rely on too. I'll study hard, pay you back, get a job. Your colleague likes you, and you can talk to him normally—why not me? You look at me like I'm a monster. You won't even let me speak. Is my love so disgusting and shameful to you?"
Cen Jin let out a breath, instantly composing herself: "Fine, let me ask you—how old will I be by then?"She lifted her chin, looking at him directly, and scoffed lightly, "If you like me as much as you claim, how could you bear to make me wait? I’ve already done enough for you."
Li Wu’s eyes widened instantly. The emotions he had barely managed to regain collapsed in an instant, as if he had been shot.
His entire being was shattered, crushed, and he was in unbearable agony. The veins in his neck bulged as he began to spiral uncontrollably, lashing out self-destructively: "Then why were you so good to me? Why did you take such care of me? If you hadn’t treated me so well, I wouldn’t be like this. If you hadn’t come to Shengzhou, none of this would have happened. Now you want to cut ties with me? Just because I said I like you?"
As if she had been waiting for this exact moment, the woman replied without hesitation, "I told you before—I would only see you through to university. You might not know why I took you in for your studies back then. It was mainly to prove my ex-husband wrong, to show that my choices weren’t mistakes."
She was as calm as a machine preprogrammed with responses: "I did want to help you, but more than that, I wanted to help myself. I was separated at the time, in a terrible state, so I needed something to do, something to hold onto. I relied on you to distract myself. I believe I’ve maintained appropriate boundaries in our interactions over the past year or so. If any of my actions gave you the wrong impression, I apologize. But without me, you wouldn’t have been able to attend school properly, let alone achieve what you have now. You don’t need to worry about repaying the money—we both got what we needed, that’s all."
Cen Jin felt a chill run through her body. Regaining her senses under the young man’s utterly extinguished gaze, she took a step back as if drained of strength and pointed to the bed. "Go pack your things now and come back with me. We’ll discuss what to do next."
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