âI heard you want to see me?â Xiao Qian pulled a chair and sat in front of him.
âYes, I want to personally say sorry to you. I should have told you before I went to the mountainous area, but I didnât have the courage then. And nowââ
Li Zhen glanced at his unresponsive legs and said painfully.
âIâve received my retribution. I think I should be a man and take responsibility for my mistakes. I owe you an apology.â
âWhy?â Xiao Qian asked.
âBecause I once loved the wrong person who caused you a lot of trouble, and I blamed you. Whatâs even more helpless is that my mother, for my sake, did so many wrong things to you and my cousins. If one misstep leads to a series of mistakes, then it should start with me, the person who took the first wrong step, to sincerely apologize to you.â
His tone was very sincere.n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om
âChen Xiaoqian, Iâm sorry. Please forgive me for not being able to stand up and bow deeply to you like a man. Everything started because of me, and now Iâve received my retribution. I hope you and my uncleâs family can reconcile with my mother. Sheâs made many mistakes, but sheâs not a bad person. She just loves me too much, but I disappointed her.â
Xiao Qian could tell that Li Zhenâs apology was heartfelt, but she immediately made a judgment that she absolutely couldnât accept it.
Because if she did, Li Zhen would lose his faith to live.
âLi Zhen, if you really want to be a man, why donât you bravely live on? Do you think that if you apologize to me, your mother will get better? No, she wonât. Her psychological imbalance will become even worse, and she might go crazy, especially when youâre gone. She wonât have any way out. I admit I really donât likeâitâs sorry to say that bluntly, but I particularly hate your mother. But she doesnât seem to deserve to die for it.â
Yu Minglang once said that Xiao Qian had a balance in her heart, and she judged everything in the world with her unique standards. She wouldnât let anyone who bullied her go, but she also wouldnât lose her bottom line and take revenge on others indiscriminately. She knew how far she should go.
Even if her aunt were disgusting, she shouldnât die. As for Li Zhen, Xiao Qian couldnât say she liked or disliked him. Just treat him as a stranger with no connection, and he shouldnât die either.
âHow did you knowâ¦I want to commit suicide?â Li Zhen was surprised. How could Chen Xiaoqian see it when his parents didnât even know about it?
âDonât forget what I do for a living. Iâm a psychologist. Although we have instruments in our field, they are far from as many as those used for treating physical illnesses in hospitals. Most of the time, we make judgments based on here, here, and here.â
Xiao Qian pointed to her eyes, brain, and heart, respectively.
âAlright, psychologist, youâre right. I do have that idea. Donât tell my parents. As a psychologist, you should understand how painful I am at this moment. If I have to rely on a caregiver to take care of my most basic physiological needs for the rest of my life, every day I live is a day of despair. Itâs the best choice for me to leave with dignity.â
Now, Li Zhen was eager to die.
His family was in good condition and could hire caregivers for him for a lifetime. There would be people to support him for the rest of his life, but he would just be living without any dignity. His mind would be clear, but his body couldnât move. He could only watch helplessly as he became like a baby, defecating and urinating in bed. That was terrifying.
He would lie in bed for the rest of his life, and his father might even buy him a high-end wheelchair. Someone would push him out and then see the strange looks from others. When his wheelchair went far away, people would whisper.
Did you know that Old Liâs child is disabled? I heard he canât even control his bladder. A grown man, tsk tsk â¦
He had suffered a lot of discrimination before because of his sexual orientation. Heâd had enough of those whispers behind his back. His proud and upright father had already been humiliated because of his sexual orientation. How could he let his parents face more criticisms because of his paralysis?
Xiao Qian understood Li Zhenâs feelings very well because, in her past life, she had treated several similar patients. Some needed Xiao Qianâs treatment after suffering major physical disabilities, helping them accept their reality and imperfect selves.
But some were not like that.
Li Zhen was one of the latter.
Seeing Li Zhenâs desperate expression, Xiao Qian didnât say any comforting words. Instead, she echoed his views.
âAlthough our country doesnât have euthanasia, my attitude towards euthanasia is neutral. I neither support nor oppose it. We should analyze specific circumstances and no one can make the right or wrong judgment for others. As a man, being paralyzed is indeed a very heavy blow. Itâs normal for you to have suicidal thoughts. I occasionally come across similar cases, but my heart is in great pain when treating them.â
âWhy?â Li Zhen was interested in Xiao Qianâs words. This was the first time since the accident that he felt the impulse to talk to someone. There was a special magic in Xiao Qian that no one could guess her thoughts, but she seemed to know how to make people listen to her words.
Li Zhen didnât realize that he had become Xiao Qianâs patient.
âBecause living is more painful than dying. Really, Iâve seen a high-level paraplegic athlete who tried to cooperate with my treatment and fought against depression time and time again for the sake of his familyâs peace of mind. Every time I treated him, I had to drink half a catty of liquor.â
âYou drink?â It didnât look like it, Xiao Qian seemed well-behaved.
âDonât tell Yu Minglang about this. This is our secret. Iâm not an alcoholic, but everyone needs a way to vent their emotions. If I were with Yu Minglang at that time, I wouldnât need to drink to vent. Our job involves dealing with negative news daily. Although weâre supposed to comfort peopleâs hearts, sometimes we come across things we canât solve, and I feel suffocated. Drinking a little helps calm myself down.â
If it were her past life and she were with Yu Minglang, she wouldnât drink sulkingly. Instead, they would just strip Xiao Qiang naked, laugh, and get on with it. Rolling around and sweating could guarantee a week of good mood.
This was also a method Xiao Qian had learned after breaking her moral barrier, and she felt that Xiao Qiang was very useful.
âIf I hadnât had the accident, maybe weâd still have a chance to be friends. Itâs a pityâ¦â At this time, Li Zhen realized that Xiao Qian was not as unattainable, arrogant, and resourceful as he had imagined. She still retained her innocence when dealing with work.
It was too late, though. He wouldnât have any more friends. He wanted to leave this cruel world.