These words, laden with heavy sarcasm, made Jiang Ling freeze all over.
She felt a coldness spreading from the depths of her heart.
Right after, Mo Ran looked down at her from above, her gaze growing even sharper, her voice indifferent: “Help me?
How do you plan to help me? You don’t even know what’s happened to me, yet you can so easily say you’d do anything to help me.”
“Jiang Ling, don’t you think you’re being childish?”
These few sentences were like sharp blades, stabbing deep into Jiang Ling’s heart. She parted her lips slightly, as if she hadn’t expected her honesty to be met with such a response. For a moment, she could only stare blankly at Mo Ran’s indifferent expression.
“I told you, it’s meaningless.”
Mo Ran took a step forward, her posture steady.
As her body moved, her pajamas swayed with her, revealing her sunken collarbones and a small, soft, rounded portion that could not be concealed.
“I didn’t want to waste words on this in the first place.”
She fixed her gaze on Jiang Ling, who had already fallen silent in panic, and slowly, forcefully grasped Jiang Ling’s fingers that hung by her pants, bringing them up to rest on her own shoulder. Then, in silence, she turned around.
“Pa-da––”
The pajamas slipped off.
Jiang Ling stared dumbfounded at the scene before her, feeling no shame nor desire, but rather a suffocating pain.
Because on that fair back, there were scars—crisscrossed, striking and ghastly in their appearance. They looked old, and on Mo Ran’s snow-white skin, they appeared especially cruel.
Jiang Ling even forgot to breathe for an instant. Her fingers trembled as she tried to reach out to touch them, but she was afraid of hurting Mo Ran, so with a trembling voice she hurriedly spoke, “Th-this is……”
“Ugly, isn’t it.”
Mo Ran turned her face slightly and laughed softly. She reached up and unfastened the buttons at her back, letting her undergarment slip down slowly to the pajamas beneath.
Facing Mo Ran, who now stood with her back completely exposed, Jiang Ling couldn’t tear her gaze away from those scars.
This is… what?
She found herself unable to even ask, forced only to feel the increasingly heavy atmosphere in silence, unconsciously clenching her palm.
What was she supposed to do at a time like this?
“You said before, didn’t you, that you wanted to know about my past, right?”
Mo Ran turned around and stared into Jiang Ling’s eyes as she spoke.
Her slender figure, outlined by the moonlight, should have made one’s heart race, but Jiang Ling only felt a jumble of heartache and piercing sorrow.
“When I was eight, my mother left home because my father abused her. Before she left, she told me that if only I hadn’t been born, she wouldn’t have had to endure for so long.”
Mo Ran spoke in a calm tone, then let out a low chuckle.
“But I distinctly remember, when I was little, she used to hold me in her arms and say I was the cutest in the world, that she’d always be with me.”
Yet these words, spoken so lightly by her, only made the pain in Jiang Ling’s heart grow more intense.
She parted her lips, trying to comfort Mo Ran, but felt any words would be too pale and powerless, so she hesitated and said nothing, simply listening as Mo Ran continued.
“After my mother left, I became my father’s target for violence. The endless abuse and beatings made me wish for death, but I was powerless, because back then I couldn’t take care of myself. Even if I wanted to go out to work, no one would want such a frail little girl.”
Mo Ran seemed to sink into memories, a mocking smile curling at her lips.
Whenever she closed her eyes, those scenes would surface in her mind.
How had she endured back then?
“At first, I cried and screamed every day, trying to avoid being beaten that way… But in fact, hearing me cry only made him more excited. After it happened over and over, I finally figured out his temper.”
“As long as I was obedient and cute, did whatever he said, kept the house tidy and in order, then most of the time, I could avoid being beaten. This worked pretty well. He even agreed to let me go to school—of course, only because he thought it’d be easier for me to get a job with a diploma and bring him more money.”
Taking a deep breath, Mo Ran lowered her gaze.
“But he used to let me ride on his shoulders and run around, telling everyone I was his adorable daughter.”
As Jiang Ling listened to her recount every word, it was as if something clogged her chest, leaving her unable to utter a sound.
“Later, I got into a mediocre high school. While others played and fooled around, I studied desperately, just so I could leave that place that couldn’t even be called home as soon as possible. At that time, there was a girl who got very close to me. We were almost inseparable friends… But not long after, she found someone she liked better and gradually disappeared from my world.”
“But she’d clearly promised me we’d be best friends for life.”
As she finished, she lifted her dry hair at her ear and gave it a slight tug, not using much force. Wisps of pale pink hair fell in clumps into her palm.
“Do you see now? Everyone is the same.”
“They give me dizzying promises of happiness, then push me into the abyss with their own hands—without exception.”
She placed the fallen hair on the table. Following her gaze, Jiang Ling unconsciously looked over and saw a transparent bottle on the table, filled with white pills.
Just like the first time Jiang Ling had entered this room.
The difference was, more than half of the pills were gone.
She remembered that Mo Ran had explained before—
“This is a tranquilizer.”
As if guessing what Jiang Ling was thinking, Mo Ran picked up the bottle and carefully examined the few pills left inside. “It can effectively suppress my awful emotions, but the price is all my feelings become numb, my movements sluggish, my hair falls out, and I hear things that aren’t there.”
When she finished speaking, she looked at the silent Jiang Ling, her eyes sharp and scrutinizing.
“So I’ll ask you again.”
There was no sarcasm left in Mo Ran’s eyes now. Instead, they shimmered with unshed tears as she murmured softly,
“How do you want me to answer you, Jiang Ling?” “Should I honestly say that you can’t help me, and then watch you leave with a disappointed face; or should I pretend to thank you, and join you in celebrating your useless kindness?”
Such bare, piercing words wounded Jiang Ling’s heart.
But she had no strength to argue.
Because Mo Ran was absolutely right.
Seeing the look on Jiang Ling’s face darken bit by bit, Mo Ran, as if she had expected it, curled her lips slightly, bent down to pick up her messy pajamas, threw them on haphazardly, and stepped closer.
“I don’t want to trouble any of you.”
Mo Ran took Jiang Ling’s hand, and as always, her face bloomed with a bright and gentle smile.
“Someone as messed up as me was never fit to stay at NOVA in the first place.”