They Regretted it After Their Hearts Turned to Ashes

Ren Chenbai raised his eyebrows.

At first, he didn’t think much about it, but when the other party mentioned it like this, he remembered that Luo Zhi’s behavior in the ward seemed to be a little strange before he left last night.

…

It was strange that his hysterical and out-of-control crazy questioning, from beginning to end, was just an embarrassing and absurd one-man show solely performed by Ren Chenbai.

Luo Zhi was unexpectedly calm, and seemed to be completely immersed in his own world.

It wasn’t until Ren Chenbai grabbed his collar that Luo Zhi finally reacted, and slowly raised his eyes to look at him.

Luo Zhi looked at him, but there was nothing in his eyes. His pupils were dilated, the focus point seemed to be in a more ethereal and ungraspable place, and it seemed to be looking at a shadow that has long been abandoned by Ren Chen in vain.1

After watching it for a long time, those eyes bent softly. Before the very shallow and faint smile could reach his eyebrows, his eyes suddenly focused on Ren Chenbai’s face as if he had just woken up.

Luo Zhi then staggered his gaze, and didn’t look at him again.

Then, no matter what Ren Chenbai said, Luo Zhi just lowered his head as if he hadn’t heard anything.

The dark and dense eyelashes trembled once, then twice, and finally fell slowly as if they were overwhelmed.

Luo Zhi didn’t look at him anymore.

…

After returning from the hospital, Ren Chenbai couldn’t fall asleep again, and he was also very irritable throughout the next day.

He completely attributed this irritability to the regret caused by accidentally destroying his mother’s relics – a responsibility that could easily be blamed on Luo Zhi.

If Luo Zhi hadn’t avoided Ren Chenbai and fled into the car, Ren Chenbai wouldn’t have had the chance to destroy the car.

If Luo Zhi hadn’t kept this matter a secret, Ren Chenbai would have known who owned the car earlier, and of course it would have been impossible to attack that car.

Look, it was no wonder why the Luo family blamed Luo Zhi for everything.

This was an experience that couldn’t be more relaxed, it was a way to avoid all troubles and self-blame. The only thing they had to do was to hate Luo Zhi.

It was just so easy to hate Luo Zhi.

Ren Chenbai retracted his thoughts.

He recalled the scene last night, and cooperated with the doctor’s reminder, only to realize that Luo Zhi probably couldn’t hear him at that time.

Ren Chenbai nodded, and asked: “So what?”

The doctor on duty couldn’t help being stunned.

This private hospital is owned by the Ren family. Here, at least, many people know that Ren Chenbai was not as gentle and kind as the outside world thinks.

They have seen Mr. Ren accompany his mother by her bedside, carefully peeling an apple, while calmly ordering people to “abolish the cooperation of XXX”, “fire XXX’s department manager due to dereliction of duty”, and “dismiss XXX’s redundant department”.

When giving those orders, Ren Chenbai’s tone was no different from this time.

Very calm and indifferent, knocking on the chessboard against a chess piece that is on the verge of death, perhaps with a slight interest in watching from the sidelines.

He can’t hear anymore.2

So what?

The doctor on duty naturally understood Ren Chenbai’s attitude, shook his head while shutting his mouth tightly, and retreated to the corner of the elevator.

The elevator dinged to a stop on the top floor.

Ren Chenbai didn’t pause, and when the door opened, he went straight out of the elevator.

…

Luo Zhi locked the door of the hotel.

He put his hand under the faucet of the sink, squeezed out some hand soap, and rinsed the oil on his hands repeatedly.

The cold and clean water from the faucet fell on his hands, flowing to his fingers, and splashing up from the force.

Luo Zhi eyes widened slightly.

Curiously, he repeatedly touched the water with his hand, as if it was the first time he had seen such a thing. There was a splash of water that fell on his eyelashes, causing him to instinctively blink his eyes to hide. The ice cold water made him tremble slightly, before it dripped into his eyes and burned them. It made his eyes hurt.

After Luo Zhi thought about it, he decided to say it as well, “It hurts.”

He couldn’t hear his own voice, so he didn’t know what he sounded like, but it didn’t matter. He dubbed himself in his head.3

“It hurts, it hurts.” Luo Zhi suddenly fell in love with this game. It as if he had just learned a new word, as he repeated it while paddling the water with his hands, laughing to avoid the splashing water.

This hotel used groundwater as their main source of water, which was so cold that it felt like thousands of needles were piercing into the bones. He kept playing with the water like this, and those beautiful fingers that had been washed long ago were soon turned pale and stiff from the cold.

Luo Zhi didn’t know how much water got into his eyes. As he rubbed his eyes vigorously, he found that his cold hands felt very comfortable against his forehead, so he turned off the faucet, and repeatedly pressed both hands to his face to cool it down.

Just like this, he played with himself for a long time. When the water on his hands were almost dry, he took out his mobile phone and opened a memo.

In the memo, there is a short explanation Luo Zhi left for himself, explaining why he is here and what he is here for.

This was the closest hotel to the junkyard.

Since his car was scrapped, he came here to find the wreckage of his own car.

There will be no loopholes in Ren Chenbai’s arrangement, and his car must have been completely destroyed, but Mr. Ren was born wealthy, so he doesn’t know how to earn a living working under the ground.

His car is so good, its spare parts are worth a lot of money.

Doors, glass, rearview mirrors, wheels… Maybe there is something that hasn’t been sold and was left in the ruins of the site. As long as you give a few hundred yuan and add a cigarette to the guard, you can go in and look around for it for as long as you like.

Luo Zhi walked out of the bathroom with his mobile phone and sat on the sofa. He stared at the short note that was on his screen for a long time.

He spent some time thinking about who Ren Chenbai was.

He didn’t know why, but his mind has been running a bit slowly recently, and there were often large gaps left in his memory without warning. Sometimes, he couldn’t even remember what happened before and after the current time.

For example, now, Luo Zhi spent quite a long time thinking about why his car was scrapped, who scrapped it, and what else happened besides this incident.

…

When he found the answers to these questions, the sky outside the window was already dark again.

Luo Zhi was still seated on the sofa in his previous posture.

Just as he was about to get up after having his last question answered, he suddenly felt a sharp burning pain, and lost his strength and fell back heavily.

It came from his stomach.

It was a reminder that he needed to eat.

Luo Zhi got the answer in only one second this time, he was very satisfied with himself, raised his hand and gently pinched his earlobe.

That was how Aunt Ren used to praise him.

Every time Xiao Luo Zhi received particularly good grades, got great achievements in other fields of interest, or can play the whole song “Two Tigers” with the guitar intermittently… Aunt Ren would do this, touch Xiao Luo Zhi’s earlobe, praising him exaggeratedly with a smile.

Luo Zhi chose a memory that was highly treasured and cherished, and let it play automatically on repeat in his mind. He pursed the corners of his mouth as he listened to Aunt Ren exaggeratedly praise him.

There was one particularly obvious benefit of not being able to hear the sound of the outside world. At this time, the voice in his head becomes extremely clear, almost as if it is real.

This was also very comfortable, and you don’t have to hear the noisy outside world, and you can peacefully listen to whatever you want.

Luo Zhi was very satisfied with this status quo. He pressed his stomach with one hand, put his other one on the sofa to use it as leverage to help him slowly stand up. Walking to the other side of the sofa, he opened his schoolbag and took out a bag of instant noodles.

He tore open the package, and broke off a piece, putting it in his mouth so he could chew slowly.

Since eating too fast hurts his stomach, he has to chew slowly and eat little by little, and remember to drink water when he gets thirsty.

After finishing this whole process, he didn’t pass out, nor did he spit out what he ate.

Perfect, plus ten points.

Luo Zhi touched his earlobe again.

He behaved so well today that he was a little flustered, and Aunt Ren’s voice in his memory also coaxed him. The more she boasted, the more outrageous he became.

“Xiao Huomiao is so cool!”

“Xiao Huomiao is really powerful, most people can’t do the things he can do.”

“Xiao Huomiao is super cute. Anyone who sees you will definitely like you. If they don’t like you, there is something wrong with them.”

“Xiao Huomiao is so good.”

Luo Zhi ate the whole bag of instant noodles in a good mood.

He ate two more pieces of milk candy and drank a few sips of water before taking out a portable blood glucose monitor from his school bag. He disinfected it and then used it to measured his blood sugar.

Luo Zhi looked at the tables and compared the numbers.

The result showed that he was super healthy.

Luo Zhi put down the blood glucose monitor, stood up in the dark room, and went to the bathroom to take a shower.

When he ran out of the hospital on the first day, he forgot to test his blood sugar on top of forgetting to eat. He ended up feeling dizzy while he was taking a shower, and accidentally fell asleep.

The aunt who came to do the cleaning thought there was no one in the room, and when she went to tidy up the bathroom, she found Luo Zhi unconscious on the ground. She was so frightened that she almost called the police.

Having had that experience of war and chaos, Luo Zhi learnt from this new life experience, and has now become more and more proficient in taking care of himself.

While taking a shower, Luo Zhi also took the opportunity to wash his clothes. When he was done, he changed into a newly bought oversized T-shirt to use as pajamas and then hummed a silent song with his toothbrush in his mouth as he went to hang the clean clothes so it could air dry.

After doing this, he turned on the table lamp a little and opened his palm like a baby. He carefully looked at today’s harvest under the light.

He found a small piece of tinted glass.

Only his car would use such a cool color-changing glass. It should have been accidentally broken when it was disassembled and resold, and it was mixed in the dark brown gravel all over the ground. It took him more than forty hours to find it.

Luo Zhi smoothed the sharp edges of the glass little by little on the ground, and after returning he cleaned it repeatedly. The small piece of broken glass lay glistening in his hand.

It was enough.

Today was the third day since he escaped from the hospital.

He has found what he wanted, so now he could leave here tomorrow.

He could go to a new place and start a new life where no one knows him. He would also change his name since he didn’t want to be called Luo Zhi anymore. How can anyone name a child “Zhi”?4

As a matter of fact, he didn’t like Luo either. He really wanted to take Aunt Ren’s last name, but he felt tired of thinking of Ren Chenbai.

In that case, just call it Huo Miao ba.5

The more Luo Zhi thought about it, the more satisfied he became. He even imagined this scene in his head for a while.

With a pendant made of color-changing glass, he’ll wander around the world with his guitar and drawing board on his back. When he meets anyone who dares to question him, he’ll introduces himself confidently.

“How could that be, you can’t sing if you can’t hear.”

“How could that be, no one is allowed to have the surname Huo.”6

“How could that be, you can’t live well if you don’t have a home.”

…

Luo Zhi was overwhelmed by the sheer amount of thoughts he had in his head. He tried to roll around on the bed to try to clear up his mind but ended up accidentally hitting his head against the wall with a loud “bang” instead! A fierce wave of dizziness suddenly overcame him, and everything in front of him went black as if someone took off the lights.

The piece of glass slipped from his fingers.

Luo Yan’s breathing stagnated, and he fell out of bed without thinking about it. After groping around and failing to find it, he quickly turned on all the lights.

He was so dizzy that he could hardly stand, his heartbeat was fluctuating, as if a hand was holding his heart and was gently kneading it.

But it doesn’t matter, this kind of thing is not important.

Luo Zhi also turned on the flashlight on his phone and shone the light on the floor inch by inch, until he found that small piece of glass in the most inconspicuous corner at the foot of the bed. It wasn’t until he held it firmly in the palm of his hand that he finally heaved a sigh of relief.

Coming back to his senses, Luo Zhi realized that he was sweating non-stop, and his body was so weak that he couldn’t stand up.

He found that his right hand was trembling uncontrollably, so he had to hold it with the other hand, and then pressed his body against the bed with his arms together.

“How can you run around?” Luo Zhi stretched out his finger and poked the piece of glass repeatedly, reprimanding it with a voice that he couldn’t hear, “You are my home, don’t you know?”

The glass probably knew it was wrong, choosing to lye obediently in his palm without talking back.

Luo Zhi closed his eyes in satisfaction and rested for a while, then began to reflect on whether he was too aggressive. He opened his eyes, and apologized with a soft voice.

“I know I’m wrong, I shouldn’t have lost my temper.” Luo Zhi said in a low voice, “Let me go home, okay?”

The glass must have softened its heart.

Luo Zhi doesn’t care. Anyway, this is also a small theater he made for himself for his own amusement. He is a director, and what he says is what goes.

He must be soft hearted, how could he not be allowed to go home because of such a trivial matter?

When the dizziness became manageable, Luo Zhi leaned on the edge of the bed and slowly tried to stand up.

He was looking forward to a new life.

Although he hadn’t started yet, he could almost imagine that he would wander the world freely with his home.

Luo Zhi tried several times but failed to stand up. He looked at his two legs with some doubts, and stretched them out again. This time, his left leg successfully exerted strength, but his right leg was still limp and motionless.

Oh, no matter.

Anyway, it will be fine as soon as he wakes up in the morning.

Luo Zhi apologized to the hotel in his heart. He pulled off the quilt on the bed little by little, pulled himself a pillow, and laid on the floor wrapped up in a ball.

It was very nice.

Luo Zhi held the piece of glass that was warmed with his own body temperature and cradled his hands up against his chest. He curled up little by little, and closed his eyes contentedly with a smile.

The moon is bright and the wind is quiet.

He is so happy.

—

T/N

Welcome to Kiwi’s Corner of Mini-Theatre!

LZ: * plays with water * (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧

Kiwi: Awww Σ>―(〃°ω°〃)♡→

LZ: * goes to junkyard and finds the shard of glass * ☆*:.｡.o(≧▽≦)o.｡.:*☆

Kiwi: * shook * Σ(°ロ°)

LZ: * panicking to find glass shard when he drops it * ＼(º □ º l|l)/

Kiwi: * heartbreaks * (ಥ﹏ಥ)

Kiwi: My precious boi… must proteccc…  ヽ(`⌒´メ)ノ

…

Kiwi: * starts a LZ protection club *

Kiwi: Accepting people of all ages! What are our club activities, you ask?

Kiwi: * grabs pitchforks * Taking out the trash (¬‿¬)

…

RCB: * exists *

Kiwi: Fight me!

…

1

Means that it seemed like LZ was daydreaming of the younger (kinder) RCB, whom the older one has long cast away

2

“听不见了啊”

3

Basically LZ imagining what his voice sounded like when he said “it hurts”

4

The “枳” (Zhi) in his name could mean trifoliate orange, which usually has a bitter, sour taste

5

Having “ba” at the end of a sentence usually indicates uncertainty. In this case, LZ is still trying to decide if he wants to change his name to 火苗 (flame).

6

This “Huo” is the same “Huo” (火) from Huo Miao (火苗).