Chi Yu's voice was soft and slow, but for some reason, Jiang Zhirou sensed a hint of indescribable emotion.
She lay on the bed, her eyes clouded with ambiguous emotions.
The next second, she suddenly sat up.
Chi Yu's hand slipped off顺势滑落 as well. Before he could say a word,
Jiang Zhirou had already crawled out of the bed and sat upright, staring at him intently without blinking.
She didn't say a word. She just stared at Chi Yu for quite a while.
"Why are you looking at me like this?"
Chi Yu's voice broke the silence in the air. He forced a casual tone, but his eyes unconsciously avoided Jiang Zhirou's gaze.
He hoped that "Qingmian" would always stay in this bright and confident state. But at the same time, he felt that he couldn't seem to hold onto this "Qingmian".
She was clearly standing right in front of him, but he had this feeling that she might leave at any moment. This feeling wasn't good. At least, it made him feel very uneasy.
"Chi Yu."
Jiang Zhirou suddenly spoke up. Her fair hand grasped Chi Yu's.
"Dirty." Chi Yu instinctively pulled his hand back. "Don't touch."
There was still the medicinal liquor he had just used to wipe her wound on his hand.
Chi Yu tried to pull his hand away, but the person in front of him held it even tighter.
He lifted his eyes and stared blankly at Jiang Zhirou. He opened his mouth, but before he could say anything, Jiang Zhirou's voice rang out first.
"Do you still remember what I said last time?"
Chi Yu nodded and then shook his head. She had said a lot of things, and he almost remembered them all, but he didn't know which one she was referring to.
Jiang Zhirou rarely saw Chi Yu looking so lost. A smile unconsciously spread across her face. She enunciated each word clearly. "I said last time, don't make me the center of your life."
"I'm serious."
As soon as the words left her mouth, the light in Chi Yu's eyes clearly dimmed a bit.
"I hope you can love yourself first and then love me."
"The same goes for me. I will learn to love myself first and then love you."
"If I can't even learn how to love myself, then it's even more impossible for me to learn how to love someone else."
"Since I returned to the imperial capital from Mexico, in my memory, you've always been busy because of my affairs."
"I said I wanted to find out what happened back then, and without hesitation, you showed your attitude and said you would accompany me in the investigation."
"But what about you?"
Jiang Zhirou looked at Chi Yu seriously.
"Don't you have anything you want to do?"
"I don't want you to give up your goals because of me. Everyone has their own pursuits and aspirations in this life. I've determined my current goal. What about yours?"
Jiang Zhirou's voice was very gentle. She could sense Chi Yu's emotions and his current concerns.
She was all too familiar with this feeling. She had felt this kind of insecurity countless times in Chen Qingmian.
She knew very well where this feeling came from.
If a person loses their goal and has no center, they will become paranoid.
Chi Yu had always been a person with little sense of security.
In the past, Chen Qingmian and Chi Yu had regarded each other as the center of their lives.
But they had forgotten that in this life, anything can be a spiritual pillar, except for people.
People are uncontrollable and the most changeable.
Just like now, Chi Yu thought she was still Chen Qingmian, but only she knew clearly that the person he liked had long since disappeared.
And she couldn't possibly pretend to be someone else for a lifetime.
If Chi Yu found out the truth one day, based on the current him, Jiang Zhirou was very worried that he would do something stupid that she couldn't even imagine.
The only thing she could do now was to help him find himself again.
The original him, the one without Chen Qingmian.
Chi Yu hung his head. Waves of warmth came from his palm. It was the temperature of "Qingmian".
But he felt that it seemed a bit unreal.
After a moment, Chi Yu slowly raised his head and met Jiang Zhirou's gaze. A faint smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. "Baby, you seem to have grown up all of a sudden."
Grown up to the point that... she seemed to not need him anymore...
Hearing Chi Yu's words, Jiang Zhirou followed his train of thought. "You're so amazing. You're both a professor and a boss. Of course, I have to grow up quickly so that I won't hold you back."
Chi Yu looked at the cute and mischievous look of the woman in front of him. His throat tightened. "Actually, you can—"
Not grow up so quickly.
Before he could finish the second half of the sentence, Jiang Zhirou suddenly interrupted him.
"I remember that Grandpa Jiang told me before that he wanted you to continue your doctoral studies. Did you actually have such an idea at that time?"
Jiang Zhirou asked him tentatively.
Hearing this, a flash of surprise crossed Chi Yu's eyes, as if he was surprised that she would know.
He did want to continue his further studies back then, but later...
Jiang Zhirou's attention had always been on Chi Yu, and she didn't miss the fleeting expression on his face just now.
She might not know exactly what Chi Yu was thinking, but she knew her grandfather very well.
Jiang Yuezhong always cherished talented people, but he never took students actively. So when he repeatedly mentioned that he wanted Chi Yu to go back to school to continue his doctoral studies, she could more or less guess that Chi Yu must have taken the initiative to mention further studies to Jiang Yuezhong at that time.
But later, because of Chen Qingmian, he chose to return to China in a hurry.
After that, he even resigned from his position at Hanlin. It wasn't hard for her to guess that Chi Yu was actually reluctant.
Few people could bear to give up the things they liked one by one.
At least... she couldn't.
"Why are you suddenly bringing this up?"
Chi Yu's voice interrupted Jiang Zhirou's train of thought. He was answering her question just now.
"I think you can actually continue your further studies. Isn't Brother Jinghao mainly in charge of the company now? There's nothing particularly worrying about my side for the time being. You can just focus on yourself."
"Let's work hard and make progress together."
Jiang Zhirou looked at Chi Yu with a beaming smile, but Chi Yu couldn't smile at all.
These words seemed to be driving him away.
Thinking of this, Chi Yu met Jiang Zhirou's gaze and suddenly said, "Do you still remember when Chen Yu'an first took you back to the Wei family?"
Hearing this, Jiang Zhirou's expression froze.
Chi Yu continued.
"At that time, you climbed over the wall secretly and happened to be discovered by me. I thought you would run away quietly.没想到你不但没跑，还朝我走过来，警告我别把这事说出去，还把我零花錢都給搶走了。"
"I thought to myself at that time, why is this little girl so fierce? She actually dared to rob someone much older than herself."
"But at that time, I saw that you were fair and clean and so thin and small. I guessed that your life in the Wei family might not be easy, so I didn't argue with you and gave you all the money."
"I thought that such a cute girl shouldn't be hungry all the time."