Chapter 545: Circular Causation
Zhou Mei said in a hoa.r.s.e voice, “My sister was diagnosed with lung cancer some time ago. Her illness has been worsening these two days. Yesterday, the hospital had already issued a notice of critical illness.”
“Your sister?”
Lan Jia was surprised. “Wasn’t she fine before?”
“I don’t know. It started to develop not long ago. We only found out after a hospital checkup that it was late-stage lung cancer.”
“Then… what should we do?”
Zhou Mei shook her head and did not want to mention it again.
Lu Sheng understood immediately.
She knew that Li Xia knew that Zhou Mei was Zhou Qing’s sister. That was why she sent that post, right?
However, she still deleted it in the end.
Two days later, Zhou Mei received a call after cla.s.s and burst into tears.
Lu Sheng immediately realized what had happened.
Other than her, there was only Lan Jia, Zhu Ling, and the rest.
The teacher asked her out for a few questions. After knowing the reason, she asked her to ask Teacher Li for leave.
In the end, Lan Jia accompanied her to apply for leave and returned to the Zhou family with her.
“Jiang Jing, why did Zhou Mei cry just now?”
Yang Chunmei asked curiously.
Lu Sheng said in a low voice, “Perhaps a relative at home died from an illness.”
Zhu Ling turned back and glanced at her. There was some surprise in her eyes, as if she could not believe that Lu Sheng could even guess this.
“Really?” Yang Chunmei’s expression became stern immediately. “If that’s the case, it’s quite pitiful.”
Although she usually did not like Zhou Mei, that did not mean that she would destroy her conscience because she did not like someone.
After all, the dead were the most important. If someone from Zhou Mei’s family really died from an illness, she would not be happy.
Lu Sheng smiled at her and asked softly, “How’s your work?”
“Pretty good.” Yang Chunmei smiled. “Thank you for giving me such a good job!”
Lu Sheng smiled. “You’re welcome.”
“Junior Jiang, here’s your milk tea.”
Yang Chunmei wanted to say something when Pei Yan’s voice suddenly sounded outside the window.
Everyone in the cla.s.s looked out of the window and saw Pei Yan waving the milk tea in his hand at Lu Sheng.
Lu Sheng raised an eyebrow and walked out.
“Where’s Ah Yan?”
Lu Sheng received the milk tea and asked.
Pei Yan smiled and said, “He has a cold. He’s in the sickbay.”
“He caught a cold?” Lu Sheng frowned. “Wasn’t he fine this morning?”
She even had breakfast with Chu Yan today.
“I don’t know. When I returned to the cla.s.sroom, he said he wasn’t feeling well and coughed after a while.”
Lu Sheng pursed her lips. “I’ll visit him.”
Pei Yan followed behind her and mumbled, “The school doctor said that there’s nothing serious. It’s just that he didn’t sleep well last night and caught a cold. Cla.s.s is starting soon. It’s not good for you to skip cla.s.s, right?”
Lu Sheng stopped in her tracks and walked in from the back door. She placed the milk tea in her hands on Yang Chunmei’s table. “This is for you. I’m not feeling well. When the teacher asks later, tell him that I went to the sickbay.”
“Okay.”
Yang Chunmei smiled and gestured ‘okay.’ “However, take this milk tea. I’m tired of smelling it since I work there.”
Seeing that she did not seem to be lying, Lu Sheng took it away.
“Hey, didn’t you go in? Why did you come out again?”
Pei Yan, who was about to return to the sickbay, frowned when he saw Lu Sheng coming out again.
“Don’t worry, my results will definitely be better than yours.” Lu Sheng raised her eyebrows and smiled. “I’ll skip a grade next semester and be in the same cla.s.s as you.”
“Tsk.” Pei Yan said disdainfully as he walked. “Junior, don’t be too confident. How many geniuses are there in this world? Even a genius like Chu Yan has to follow the prescribed order. You? Forget it.”
“What do you mean by forget it?” Lu Sheng frowned. “Don’t I look like a genius?”
When she was learning, this kid was probably still queuing on the Bridge of Helplessness to be reborn.
Pei Yan shrugged. “I don’t read fortunes.”
“I know how to!” Lu Sheng smiled and said, “With your looks, you’re obviously a fool.”
Pei Yan was speechless.
“You can insult my intelligence, but not my looks!”
After all, he was once the most handsome boy in school. If Chu Yan had not suddenly transferred schools, the position of the school beau would still be his!
Lu Sheng chuckled and did not speak.
The two of them reached the sickbay quickly. Chu Yan was sitting at the side quietly on drip.
In addition to him, there were two female students who peeped at him from time to time. Then, they smiled and whispered.
“Chu Yan, Junior is here to accompany you,” Pei Yan shouted as soon as he entered.
Chu Yan looked up. When he saw Lu Sheng, he was slightly stunned. After a while, he said, “Aren’t you going to cla.s.s?”
“Since Junior is here, I’ll go back to cla.s.s first.”
Pei Yan glanced at the two of them ambiguously before leaving.
Lu Sheng watched him leave before sitting down beside Chu Yan.
“Weren’t you fine this morning? Why did you suddenly catch a cold?”
“Perhaps it’s because of the season change and lack of sleep.”
As he had a cold, his voice was a bit hoa.r.s.e and his eyes were bloodshot.
“Are you feeling hot?”
Chu Yan smiled faintly and shook his head. “I’m not feeling hot. It’s just that my nose is a bit stuffy.”
Lu Sheng reached out to touch his forehead. When she realized that his temperature was normal, she heaved a sigh of relief.
Chu Yan’s drip lasted for more than two hours. When he was done, school was long over.
Lu Sheng had just returned to the dormitory after dinner when she saw Fu Sisi send a picture.
The picture was of her checking Chu Yan’s forehead temperature in the sickbay.
She raised her eyebrows and asked, “You took this?”
“No, I saw it on Tieba. Someone said you two are together.”
After speaking, Fu Sisi sent a ‘hehe’ emoticon over.
When Lu Sheng heard that, she went to Tieba and took a look. She saw the post on the front page.
The t.i.tle was: [Chu Yan and Jiang Jing are together]
Then, there were blessings, eccentric comments, and even words of scolding.
Some said that they were compatible. Some said that they were not worthy of each other. Of course, it was even more tempting to dig out Chu Yan’s background and say that Lu Sheng was not worthy of him.
Lu Sheng only smiled faintly.
On the other hand, Pei Yan showed the post to Chu Yan immediately.
Chu Yan did not have Tieba and rarely read these. Most of the time, Pei Yan would show them to him.
He took Pei Yan’s phone and stared at the picture silently.
Outside the window, the autumn sun shone in from the corner and mottled their bodies. Their fair skin became a lot warmer and yellower, but for some reason, it became more beautiful.
Hence, after taking a look, he said lightly, “This person’s camera skills are good.”
“No, is that the point?” Pei Yan said, “The point is, are you with Junior?”
Seeing Pei Yan’s expression, Chu Yan raised an eyebrow. “Does it have anything to do with you?”
“Of course!” Pei Yan pouted. “It’s not like you don’t know how many boys like Junior in our school. They heard that I have a good relations.h.i.+p with her and even kept asking me for her WeChat.”
“Do you have it?” Chu Yan asked disdainfully.
“I don’t have it now, but as long as I ask, Junior won’t refuse, right?”
Pei Yan s.n.a.t.c.hed his phone back proudly.
Chu Yan glanced at him and lay back on the pillow.
He did not know his relations.h.i.+p with Lu Sheng.
To say they were a couple, it did not seem like that was the case.
However, to say they were friends, he confessed to Lu Sheng and she agreed.
However, he kept feeling that although Lu Sheng was often with him, there was an unspeakable distance.
It was as if… there was a layer of paper between the two of them, and no one had poked through it.
Pei Yan sharply sensed Chu Yan’s confusion and disappointment. He could not help but say in surprise, “The two of you are already so close. Are you still friends?”
“Close?” Chu Yan turned his head and asked, “Do we look very close?”
“Nonsense!” Pei Yan was speechless for a while before saying, “The two of you are inseparable. You buy milk tea for her and she came to take care of you when you were sick. Isn’t this a close relations.h.i.+p?”
Chu Yan smiled bitterly. “However, I feel like there’s an invisible boundary between us.”
He had not dreamed recently.
His dream seemed to have stopped after the girl died.
“You’re overthinking, right?” Pei Yan climbed back onto his bed. He was about to say something when a black figure suddenly fell from the window.
The dormitory darkened for a while before brightening up again. Then, a few screams suddenly came from downstairs.
Chu Yan immediately sat up. Before Pei Yan could react, someone shouted, “Someone jumped off a building!”
“Someone jumped off a building?”
Chu Yan had just gotten off the bed when Pei Yan hurriedly climbed down.
The two of them looked down from the window and saw that it was already crowded.
Some people were taking photos, while others hid far away in fear.
After a while, the news spread throughout the school and many teachers and students rushed over.
“Let’s go downstairs and take a look!”
Pei Yan pulled Chu Yan downstairs, but was rejected by him.
“Casual causation. There’s nothing to see.”
After muttering, he climbed back onto the bed and closed his eyes to rest.
Seeing that he was not going, Pei Yan opened the door and went downstairs with the people from the other dormitory.
After Lu Sheng saw the news in the cla.s.s chat, she came over to watch.
When she saw a seventeen-year-old girl holding a child beside the boy’s corpse, she understood.
According to the cla.s.smate in the boy’s dormitory, the boy was drying his shoes on the air conditioner when he accidentally slipped and fell down with his shoes.
Soon, the ambulance and police cars arrived.
The boy’s parents were also here. Instantly, there were cries.
The girl stood at the side with the child in her arms. She had a strange smile on her lips and patted the child in her arms from time to time.
The boy’s soul stood at the side and stared at his corpse blankly.
“Baby, look. Daddy’s here to accompany us!”
Lu Sheng stood beside the girl and heard her say this with a smile.
“Boyi?” The boy seemed to have just discovered the girl and was staring at her in horror. “Aren’t… aren’t you dead?”
The girl smiled and said, “Chen Sheng, look. Our child is already so big. It’s very tiring for me to take care of him alone.”
The child in her arms seemed to be sleeping soundly without opening his eyes.
“Don’t… Don’t come over!”
The boy retreated in fear.
“What are you afraid of? This is our child. Hehe—”
The girl giggled and walked towards him with the child in her arms.
Other than Lu Sheng, no one else saw this scene.
Although Lu Sheng did not know the reason, she could roughly guess from the situation.
“What are you afraid of?”
Seeing the boy keep retreating, the girl’s face became ferocious. “If not for you, both of us would not have died!”
“No… It’s not my fault. I didn’t!”
The boy retreated in fear.
“If you hadn’t forced me to be your girlfriend, abandoned me after I became pregnant, and hired people to kill me, how would I have died?”
The girl spoke softly, but Lu Sheng could tell from her twisted expression that she was suppressing her anger.
“You people bullied children from the countryside just because you have money and power. You deserve to die. All of you deserve to die!”
The girl’s black hair immediately stood up. Her face was gloomy and she stared at the boy angrily.
The boy fell to the ground in fear. He cried and shouted for his father and mother, but no one cared about him.
He did not seem to have realized that he was already dead.
“You’re already dead!”
The girl laughed strangely.
The boy was slightly stunned. Then, he shook his head repeatedly and said, “I’m not! I’m not dead yet. I can’t be dead!”
The girl smiled coldly and opened her mouth, wanting to suck the boy’s soul into her body.
Lu Sheng’s eyes turned cold. The yellow talisman in her hand flew out and hit the girl.
The girl screamed and rolled into the gra.s.s with the child in her arms.
“Who? Who’s that?”
When everyone’s attention was still on the corpse, Lu Sheng quickly made a hand seal.
Soon, an invisible net covered her, the girl, and the boy.
Lu Sheng walked out and said lightly, “He’s already dead. Why do you still want to kill him?”
“It’s you?!”
Fury burned in the girl’s eyes and she roared angrily, “Who are you? Why did you stop me?”
“If you suck his soul, you and your child can forget about entering the cycle of reincarnation for the rest of your life.”
Lu Sheng glanced at the boy and said to the girl, “Do you think it’s worth losing your chance to be reborn for such a person?”
“I don’t care!” The girl roared with reddened eyes. “His soul will dissipate to extinguish the hatred in my heart!”
Lu Sheng sighed softly. “Casual causation. You betrayed him in your previous life, and he betrayed you in this lifetime. A lifetime for a lifetime. That’s enough.”
The girl was stunned. “What do you mean?”
Lu Sheng flung her hand and an invisible screen appeared in front of the girl.
In that scene, a girl who looked identical to her was lying on a man’s leg. She looked coldly at the scholar who was on his last breath and said,
“Chen Sheng, I’ve already strangled your child to death. Young Master Du can give me everything, but you can’t give me anything except poverty.”
“Boyi, if there’s a next life, I’ll make sure you die a horrible death!”
The scholar spat out a mouthful of blood and collapsed to the ground.
Lu Sheng flung her hand and the screen dissipated.
She stared at the shocked girl and asked, “You should know now, right? You owed him first, not him.”