Su Yang spent two days taking care of He Juan's funeral arrangements, and then called He Rou the day before the cremation.
It was already evening when He Rou rushed from Linde to Haicheng. At the first sight of Su Yang, He Rou raised her hand and slapped her, then hugged her tightly and burst into tears.
After both of them had calmed down, He Rou looked around the empty villa and asked, "Where's Xu Lize?"
Su Yang took out a tissue and stuffed it into He Rou's hand, saying softly, "He's out. He'll take us to the funeral parlor tomorrow morning. Ming Kai... seems to be a bit busy."
Xu Lize was really busy, and Su Yang had noticed it. In these three days when he accompanied her to arrange He Juan's funeral, his phone hardly stopped ringing.
It was obvious whether his state was genuine or not. He didn't need to put on an act in front of her. Su Yang could understand. They were all adults and knew that the world would still go on without anyone.
Hearing this, He Rou unexpectedly nodded, "I heard him calling Mr. Xu these two days. I don't understand much about business matters, but the father and son would talk for more than twenty minutes each time. Judging from Mr. Xu's tone, it didn't seem like a casual chat."
As she said this, she glanced at the brand - new and almost - filled urn that Su Yang had placed on the coffee table. Suddenly, grief welled up in her heart, and she trembled as she said, "But you, child... it's all so sudden. Why didn't you tell me earlier? You... you made me miss seeing her for the last time!"
"Auntie, I didn't get to see her for the last time either." Su Yang forced a bitter smile, "I was really in a mess the first day, and later I thought you didn't need to rush back and forth. Tomorrow, we'll send Mom off together, and then go back to our hometown. We'll bury Mom beside Grandpa and Grandma. Then this matter will be over."
"Your mom was really in great pain in the end." Some things were obvious to those who cared. Everyone knew how difficult the last month of He Juan's life had been. "Every time I had a video call with her, I would feel sad for a long time looking at her face."
As He Rou said this, she looked up and saw that Su Yang's gaze was also fixed on the urn. Finally, she voiced the thought that had been buried deep in her heart.
"Maybe for someone like your mom, it's good that she's gone. It's a relief. Really, just like Grandma back then." The Grandma He Rou mentioned was Su Yang's grandmother.
"Grandma left because of her expectation and for reunion. But Auntie, what did Mom leave for..."
Su Yang reached out to cover her face. The emotions she had been holding back for these days finally broke again after seeing the only close relative in the world.
"She left for rebirth." He Rou said softly and then hugged Su Yang firmly.
She knew that from then on, this grown - up child in front of her would be the only relative she could rely on. In this world, her fate with her sister had come to an end. The rest of the way would be for her and Su Yang.
Holding back the heartache of tears, He Rou silently said to He Juan in her heart:
Sister, you've really suffered a lot from being sick these years. Every time I went to see you, I always wondered how a person could take so many pills and get so many injections in a single day. Look at you, you've become so thin. You used to be so fond of beauty. You must have been a bit unhappy in your heart.
Sister, I believe that people have souls and reincarnation. If so, you who have been so strong all your life must stride forward bravely. Don't be nostalgic and never look back.
Sister, I want to congratulate you. After being reborn into the cycle of reincarnation, you'll become a brand - new self. You'll grow and become powerful, but you'll surely leave a trace of longing and turn into the brightest star in the sky. Even if there are thousands of miles and mountains between us, you can still take a look at me and Yangyang who are still busy in the world from time to time.
Sister, if you're reborn as a child again, I wish you peace, joy and a smooth life in your next life!
...
The day after He Juan's cremation, He Rou and Su Yang took her ashes back to their long - absent hometown, Wuxian County.
The car and the driver were arranged by Xu Lize. He originally planned to go with them, but Su Yang didn't agree.
In these two days, Xu Lize had seen Su Yang's determined attitude. He was afraid that pushing too hard would backfire. So when he sent the two of them off in the morning, he made an excuse to stay in front of He Rou.
It was actually quite close from Haicheng to Wuxian. After the car got on the highway, they arrived in less than two hours.
After getting off the car, the two first went to the funeral shop in the town. They found an old master and some workers to go up the mountain first. They buried He Juan in the Su family's ancestral cemetery, burned incense, placed wine and burned paper ingots. Then He Juan was finally laid to rest.
After seeing off the masters from the funeral shop, He Rou and Su Yang dropped by to take a look at the old house that had been empty for many years.
The door of the house was still locked, and the key had always been with He Juan. After the things were packed up from the hospital, Su Yang hadn't had time to sort them out and had piled them all in the guest room.
"We should get the key and go in to take a look." Peeping inside through the crack of the door, Su Yang looked a bit regretful.
"What for?" He Rou shook her head, "This place might be demolished in a year. If there's a unified plan in the town, you can just sell it then."
"To be demolished?" Su Yang was taken aback and turned to ask He Rou, "How do you know?"
"The little daughter of Aunt Liu next door is my high - school classmate. We've been in touch for the past two years. She's married in the town. The Lius haven't moved either and are still living in the old house. The whole family is waiting for the demolition." He Rou said.
"Then there will be new houses here in the future. We can come back and live." Su Yang was a bit excited when she heard this.
But He Rou sensed something was wrong. She grabbed her and said, "Come back here to live? You're living in Haicheng with Mr. Xu quite well. Why come back here?"
Su Yang pursed her pale lips and didn't say a word for a moment.
"Yangyang!" Her silence made He Rou even more suspicious. He Rou couldn't help but straighten her face and ask, "What's going on with you?"
"Auntie, I... I want to divorce Xu Lize." Su Yang gave a gentle smile to the stunned He Rou, "Now that everything is over, I can't keep the title of Mrs. Xu and continue to be a nominal couple with him. It's unnecessary. I can't let him think that I'm trying to depend on him for the rest of his life, right?"
"What's going on? You two..." There was too much information in Su Yang's words, and He Rou was too shocked to speak.
"Xu Lize and I are from two different worlds. It's better for us to start gracefully and end peacefully than to end up in a complete mess."
"Does Xu Lize also agree to the divorce?" He Rou always felt that something was wrong, but she couldn't figure it out for a moment.
Sure enough, Su Yang shook her head, "Auntie, whether he agrees or not doesn't matter to me. I've made up my mind to get divorced."
"Yangyang, don't you like Xu Lize?" He Rou looked at her niece in front of her, feeling that the young people nowadays were just acting willfully.
"For Xu Lize and me, it's not just about whether I like him or not. We won't necessarily have a happy ending." Su Yang felt her heart skip a beat.
He Rou's question was like a loaded gun pointed at her chest.
It seemed that she had the upper hand in this tug - of - war with Xu Lize, but in fact, she didn't feel the slightest bit of joy.
Proposing the divorce was the last bit of dignity she wanted to keep, a stubborn kind of dignity.
She didn't want everyone to see through her feelings for Xu Lize in the end. She didn't want to lose so completely that even she would look down on herself.