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P.S This chapter might be a little triggering
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Chapter 144.1 Jiang Xu’s curtain call
The next day, Lin An Lan went to see Jiang Xu with Cheng Yu.
When Jiang Xu saw Cheng Yu, he turned his head away and said coldly, “Get out.”
Cheng Yu didn’t want to see him either, so he said warmly to Lin An Lan, “I’ll wait for you outside.”
“En.”
Then Cheng Yu left, leaving only Jiang Xu and Lin An Lan in the hospital room.
Sitting up on the bed, Jiang Xu looked at Lin An Lan for a while before saying, “I thought I’d never see you again.”
Lin An Lan chuckled, “You thought too much. When have you ever not been able to see me when you wanted to? Most of the time, as long as you wanted to see me, you will, right?”
“If that’s the case, then why have we only seen each other three or five times in the past six months?”
“How many times would you have wanted to see me otherwise? Thirty or fifty times? There’s no need for that, is there?”
He looked at Jiang Xu, his eyes calm, “Did you do it on purpose? Did you intentionally want to die?”
“Can’t I?” Jiang Xu turned his head to look out the window, “What’s the point of living when I’m like this now?”
“Like what?” Lin An Lan asked him, “You have an agent, an assistant, fans. Everyone around you is worried about you being hurt and your agent doesn’t dare let your fans know, afraid that they wouldn’t be able to handle it. Don’t you care about that?”
“What about you? Are you worried?” Jiang Xu turned his head back.
“If I wasn’t worried, why would I be standing here today? Could it be that I have so much time on my hands that I have nowhere else to go?” Lin An Lan replied honestly.
Jiang Xu froze, incredulous, “You’re worried about me?”
“I’m not worried about you, I’m worried about that life of yours. If it was someone else lying here today, one of my fans, as long as I came, they would be okay and I would go too, because I respect life and cherish it too.”
“But you don’t cherish it. You have all the great resources, yet you still want to die. Do you think you’re living too happily?”
“Me, happy?” Jiang Xu felt like he had heard a joke, “What do I have to be happy about? My parents don’t want me and my friend has abandoned me. Where is my happiness? If I was really happy, would I feel like I have no reason to live?!”
“I’ve never been happy, so I’ve grown tired of this world.”
“Then go die.” Lin An Lan said calmly, “If you truly feel that unhappy and that living has no meaning, then go die.”
Jiang Xu couldn’t believe it. He tried to read Lin An Lan’s expression, but all he saw was a calm expression without any waves.
“After you die, I’ll help you with the funeral arrangements. You should choose your grave in advance and I’ll put your ashes in there. You’d better write a will for your property as well, otherwise according to the law, it will probably go to your parents. Cheng Feng will most likely not want your inheritance, but your mom probably will. If you don’t want to give it to her, write a will in advance.”
Jiang Xu: “……”
Lin An Lan thought for a moment then added, “Don’t worry, I’ll go clean your grave every Qingming Festival. Do you have any other requests? I’ll try my best to fulfill them. After all, the dead are to be respected.”
Jiang Xu: “….”
Jiang Xu looked at him in a daze for a long time before he laughed bitterly, “Xiao Lan, you’re even more heartless than I thought.”
“Isn’t this what you want? I’m going along with your wishes, taking care of your affairs after your death, helping with your inheritance and even helping you sweep your grave and I’m heartless? Besides me, is there anyone else who will do these things for you? Oh, your assistant and agent might, but you don’t care about them, you only see yourself and the suffering you’ve endured.”
“You are trapped in your own self-pity and misery and can’t get out, nor do you want to. I have tried, tried so hard to pull you out for so many years, but I wasn’t able to, so I’ve given up. I don’t want to try to pull you out anymore. If you want to be trapped there forever, then what’s the use of an outsider trying any harder? I might as well save my breath.”
“You know full well that if you want to, if you want to now, I can get out.” Jiang Xu told him.
“But I don’t want to.” Lin An Lan replied calmly, “I’m not a saint, I have various desires and emotions, I don’t want to sacrifice myself for others. I just want to live my own life.”
“Even if I die, it doesn’t matter?”
“That’s not it.” Lin An Lan’s voice carried the usual calm it always did as he looked at his fragile expression, “These are two separate issues, so they shouldn’t be discussed together. I don’t want you to die and you don’t have to either. Your death and my love are independent of each other. It’s just that you want to link them together, to hold my emotions hostage. From this perspective, I am the victim. So why don’t you ask yourself— even if I become the victim, it doesn’t matter to you?”
“You’ve always said that you knew you were wrong and wouldn’t do it again, that you liked me and I was your good friend. But now you’re putting me on the grill once again. I told you, you don’t care about me but you didn’t believe it, saying that you cared, but what’s the result? As soon as I do something you don’t like, you’re unhappy and want to make me unhappy too, to make me compromise, to make me do things your way and you still say you know you were wrong and that you care about me. Do you find that believable? I don’t believe it.”
“I care about you. If I didn’t, how would I be like this?” Jiang Xu shouted agitatedly.
“You don’t.” Lin An Lan shook his head, “You only care about yourself, which is why it is that when you need me, I should be by your side. This isn’t caring about me, because from beginning to end, you’ve never even considered my feelings.”
Sighing, Lin An Lan stepped closer to him, “How long have we been separated? I haven’t completely disappeared from your life, yet you want to blackmail me emotionally this way. If we follow your logic, then Cheng Yu has probably committed su*cide sixteen times and I would have to carry sixteen times the guilt because even though I didn’t kill him, he died because of me and then spend the rest of my life in regret in his memory.”
“You always love to compare yourself to Cheng Yu. I never put you and him together before because I didn’t want you to compare yourself to him. I thought it wasn’t good for you, I was afraid you would care too much about him and be envious and jealous. I don’t put you two together, yet you secretly compare yourself to him. Then have you seen the difference between the two of you?”
“Cheng Yu has liked me for so long, yet I avoided him. He was heartbroken and in pain, yet he never thought of killing himself to make me feel guilty. Why? Because life is important, because he could see that people other than me cared about him and because he didn’t want me to feel sad because of him. He wasn’t much happier than you, but he lived in a very clear-headed manner, treating himself and his life well.”
“You ask me why I can forgive him but not you? Because he cares about me. When he says he loves me, he really loves me. For me, he can even put up with you, be afraid yet allow me to still be in contact with you even though I had amnesia. If it were you, would you have allowed it? Of course not. When I didn’t have amnesia, you didn’t want me to have contact with him, let alone when I lost my memories?”
“Just like now. He clearly doesn’t want to see you, yet still comes to visit you. It’s because he cares about me, so he respects my decisions, my emotions. But you don’t care, so you can naturally choose to kill yourself, even hoping that I would feel guilty after you die.”
“But why should I feel guilty? As a friend, I didn’t wrong you in anyway in life and after your death, I helped you with the aftermath, so what do I have to feel guilty about? Just because I didn’t give up my love for you? Love in itself is a matter between two people, so what qualifications do you, as the third party have, to ask me to give it up?”
“So even if you were to die, I wouldn’t feel guilty. Maybe someone would blackmail me morally, but you don’t care about them doing that to me, so I don’t need to feel guilty for your leaving.”
Jiang Xu looked at him, his expression fragile, unable to say a word.
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Holy guacamole, An An is SERVING lines every single time. He just hands-down explains everything well.
“You only see yourself and the suffering you’ve endured,” is 100% spot on.