Chapter 66: Terrifying Campus, The Sunshine Doll (4)

Night had fallen.

Little Tang Mu carefully gathered the pink pages of love letters she had written by hand, along with her diaries where she poured out her heart. She stacked them neatly, one pile atop another.

From first grade through sixth grade, she had kept a record every single day.

She had liked Zi Yushu for such a long time.

From the very first moment she saw him, she sensed that this little boy was different from all the others. She could see right through everyone else at a glance, but only this boy’s eyes seemed to be veiled in mist, stirring her curiosity. She wanted to peel back the layers of his heart, to discover what truly lay beneath.

She knew well enough that, despite his popularity and his charm, despite his air of nonchalance, whenever he was alone, he would simply gaze quietly at something, his eyes full of melancholy.

Such extremes of contrast.

He was someone with a story—an extraordinary story.

But there was another reason why Zi Yushu drew her in.

Why was he always so popular, while she herself was never liked?

Her mother didn’t care for her, her father was too busy with work to pay her any mind. Friends wouldn’t play with her, and even the teachers always called her dull and wooden.

Whenever she wanted to talk or make friends, her mother would say, “You only need to study hard. When you get into the best middle school and high school, all these friends you care about now will be begging to play with you. After all, they’ll be left behind, but you are different. You have a bright future. There’s a fundamental difference between you and them!”

“You don’t need friends! You don’t need any emotions! Just study hard, that is enough!”

...

Yet, little Tang Mu still treasured and collected her girlish secrets.

She cherished these diaries. Touching them felt as if she held the whole world in her hands.

Gazing at herself lying on the bed, running her fingers over the diaries again and again, Tang Mu sneered coldly.

Everyone carries a bit of innocence in their youth.

They always overestimate the importance of friendship, family, and love.

In this world, nothing is immune to betrayal.

Make a friend, and that friend will use you as a stepping stone.

Have a family, and they will flaunt you as a trophy, a certificate to show off—unless you follow the path they’ve set, in which case you are nothing in their eyes, not even worth the basic dignity of being human.

As for love... how laughable. To fall in love with someone is to hand over your most vulnerable weakness, to entrust your fate to a stranger you can neither control nor predict.

Will a stranger spare your weakness?

No.

He will only mock your innocence and your overestimation of yourself.

Looking back at the girl she was more than a decade ago—naive, filled with dreams, blind to the treacherous hearts of others, wanting only to throw herself headlong into it all—Tang Mu couldn’t help but whisper in her ear:

“One day, you will regret the choices you’re making now. Be brave—pick up the knife, and kill Zi Yushu. Only with his death will you have no more weaknesses, invincible and unassailable! Only then will you be able to restrain others perfectly, instead of being restrained yourself!”

“Do you still want to be so weak?”

“Do you still want to taste the bitterness of betrayal?”

“You don’t!”

“So long as you close your heart and look on with cold indifference, they can no longer hurt you.”

“Better that I wrong the world, than the world wrong me!”

...

“Who? Who’s speaking?” Little Tang Mu rubbed her sleepy eyes and stared into the emptiness of the room.

She saw no one. Thinking it was only her imagination, she lay down and fell quietly asleep.

The next day.

Little Tang Mu, body aching from the beating, returned to the old-fashioned classroom of the 1990s.

She had to read aloud, in front of everyone, the love letter she had written to Zi Yushu, as well as her written confession of regret.

To be honest, deep inside, she didn’t think she’d done anything wrong.

What was so wrong with puppy love?

Why did everyone treat it like some kind of flood or wild beast, a forbidden fruit not to be touched, something so shocking to discuss?

She understood, too, that the thoughts of adults seemed different from those of children.

Adults—everything revolved around sex.

But a child’s innocent crush was merely a matter of the heart.

Perhaps there is always an unbridgeable chasm between one person’s thoughts and another’s.

In the classroom, before the teacher and classmates, after reading her love letter aloud, everyone now knew she liked Zi Yushu.

Many stifled their laughter behind their hands.

Under so many scrutinizing gazes, Tang Mu’s palms sweated with nerves. Her cheeks, from embarrassment, turned a deep, deep red.

After class.

Tang Mu hesitated for a long time before finally walking over to Zi Yushu’s desk.

“Well, um, Zi Yushu... did you get what I wrote for you? They said you handed it to the teacher yourself, but I don’t believe it... If it was really you, then why didn’t you give the teacher the paper stars I folded for you, or the paper cranes, or the message in a bottle? They also say you don’t like me, but I don’t believe that either. Last time, when you were playing basketball and I brought you water, you smiled at me... As long as you’re willing to be with me, I won’t be afraid of anyone’s laughter or strange looks...”

“Are you talking about these?” Zi Yushu produced all the items she mentioned.

But none of them had been treasured by him—instead, he’d stuffed them all into a black plastic bag.

A black plastic bag.

A trash bag.

Right in front of her, Zi Yushu tossed all these childish trinkets into the trash can.

The hopeful expression on Tang Mu’s face froze instantly.

“I don’t like you,” he said. “I like girls who are sexy. You’re too dull... You feel like a clueless little kid to me.”

...

Tang Mu stared in a daze. “But aren’t we all just children?”

“Only a fool is a child,” Zi Yushu’s face was cold. “It’s just adults who think we’re ignorant kids. But in reality, at our age, we should already know—everything we should and shouldn’t.”

“Oh, right, apart from that love letter, you wrote a lot of other things, didn’t you?”

He somehow produced her diary.

“I read it. Your writing isn’t bad. But... I have to tell you clearly, your problem with one-sided obsession is really serious. I suggest you seek hospital treatment, or else if you keep pestering people like this, they’ll start to wonder if you have a mental problem.”

He tossed the diary at Tang Mu’s feet.

She looked down at it, now crumpled and torn.

Her heart ached, wrinkled up inside her.

These diaries had been precious to her.

But in front of the person she cherished, they were nothing but useless scraps of paper.

Utterly, laughably worthless.