Back Then, I Adored You

After hearing his long speech, her body trembled as she pursed her lips tightly. She did not make another sound. His words had stabbed her through her ribs and gotten to her heart and her ego; her gaze was bleak, dazed, and lifeless.

Her silence made Lu Bancheng remain quiet as well. When he stared down at Xu Wennuan, he looked at her for a very long time. Panic was starting to rise in her heart when he spoke again with a cold, stern face. “You don’t want to have anything else to do with me, right? It’s just nice…”

I was at fault for what happened that night. And because of that, I put up with however coldly and distastefully she treated me. But her abortion is something I will not accept or tolerate. Perhaps I should never have gotten close to her at the beginning.

Lu Bancheng forced himself not to get distracted by the pain and tenderness deep in his heart. He steadied his voice and continued speaking. “I don’t want to have anything else to do with you either. I raped you, and you killed my child. From now on, we don’t owe each other anything!”

Yes, we don’t owe each other anything anymore.

The remorse he felt toward her, his liking and indulgence of her, all of it was cruelly smashed at the moment she killed his child.

“Don’t worry, I’ll definitely let you go on the day of our first wedding anniversary. And until that day comes, you’ll no longer have to worry about me bothering you like I have been in the past, because…”

Lu Bancheng paused momentarily. His words came flowing out clearly and coldly. “From now on, you’re nobody to me, and I will have nothing to do with you at all!”

After Lu Bancheng finished speaking, he stood upright and turned around to leave the room before Xu Wennuan could react. After he left, she heard creaking sounds outside the guest bedroom, followed by the front door being pulled open and slammed shut. Afterward, the apartment had never felt so empty before.

Xu Wennuan remained in the pose she was in before Lu Bancheng left. She stared at the window without any focus in her eyes as she sat dazedly on the bed for a long time. Then, she slowly moved her pupils and returned to her senses.

She pulled her blanket over her, curled into a ball, and shut her eyes. She felt physically uncomfortable all over after the surgery. The doctor had told her to stay still after returning home, but she could not fall asleep. The scenes from the afternoon when she had been on the operating table kept surfacing in her mind.

When she had been on the operating table, her tears had flowed like rivers down her face. She had clearly felt the child inside her, who was her blood kin, vanish from her world bit by bit. They had injected her with anesthesia, but her body had still trembled from the pain.

It wasn’t that she would only give birth to Wu Hao’s child. Now that she had reached this stage with Lu Bancheng and had nothing more to do with Wu Hao, she wouldn’t have kept Lu Bancheng’s child even if Wu Hao had never existed in her life. A month after Lu Bancheng had raped her, she still had nightmares every night, scaring her awake.

And this child’s existence would have always served as a reminder to her about how desperate and helpless she had been that night as she had experienced Lu Bancheng rob her of her innocence.

In essence, she hated Lu Bancheng, and she had been afraid that she would transfer the same hatred onto the child.