Chapter 75: Like Blazing Sunlight, Descending Upon Her Rainy Night

The atmosphere was suffused with an indescribable sense of oppression. Her gentle, serene smile pierced his heart like countless fine needles, pain spreading instantly through his entire being. He had witnessed the most despicable parent—his own father—but compared to the parents Tang Yu described, his father seemed almost saintly.

Bian Yang’s brows were furrowed as he cupped her cheeks in his hands, her soft hair slipping through his fingers. He forced her to lift her gaze to meet his eyes, his thumb gently stroking her cheek. His throat tightened, voice rough and muffled, “Stop smiling. It’s uglier than crying—damn ugly. Whatever you say, I’ll listen.”

Her strained smile faded bit by bit, lashes lowered, her mood sinking deeply.

“I’m afraid that if I’m like this, it’ll affect your mood...” she whispered.

“Affect my mood, my ass!” Bian Yang couldn’t help cursing. “Tang Xiaoyu, if you feel bad, you should show it. If you don’t wear it on your face, are you going to hang it on the wall? Do you think you're the Mona Lisa?”

Tang Yu let out a faint laugh, head bowed, and the tears she had been holding back finally rolled down. Bian Yang’s heart ached unbearably as he watched her long, thick lashes droop, wet with tears that fell in large, burning drops onto his palm.

“I’ll just cry for a little while,” she said hoarsely.

Bian Yang exhaled deeply, struggling to suppress the urge to destroy those who had hurt her. He wrapped her hands around his waist. “I’ll let you hug me, but only for a little while. You’re still recovering, you can’t cry too long.”

Tang Yu pressed her forehead against his collarbone, sinking herself into his warm embrace. Bian Yang raised his hand to gently caress the back of her head, soothing her with feather-light strokes.

“Tang Xiaoyu, some people compare kindness to a triangle. Do you know why?” he asked, his voice low and soft.

She shook her head in front of him.

Bian Yang’s voice was deep and quiet. “When you haven’t done anything wrong, the triangle stays still. If you do something bad, it starts to spin, and each corner stabs at you. If you keep doing bad things, the corners eventually wear down, and you stop feeling the pain.”

“Bad people have such a triangle in their hearts too, but theirs is already worn smooth. So they never realize they’re doing wrong, and they don’t feel the pain. But good people do, and they feel it intensely.”

“This society teaches everyone to be a good person, to strive for perfection, like a crowd living in the gutter, complaining each day that the sunlight is too dazzling.”

“They use morality to demand things of you, because you have it. But you can’t use morality to demand things from them, because they don’t, so you end up bound and controlled by their words. Yet the bad ones are given the chance to become saints just by laying down their knives, while the slightest flaw in a decent person is enough for the crowd to attack.”

“They hold themselves to the standards of the wretched, and expect others to be saints.”

Bian Yang’s voice dropped even lower. “But the scars and knife marks those bad people leave on the hearts of the good eventually turn to dust, blown away by the wind, and in the end, few people care.”

His palm pressed against her cool neck, his other hand wrapping her tighter in his jacket, pulling her closer.

“If you don’t have sharp edges, too much kindness and warmth will get swallowed by the shadows in the dark.”

He brushed his lips against the crown of her head, voice rough from a sleepless night. “Tang Xiaoyu, I don’t know what you ultimately want to do, but just do it. Go ahead with no burden, no guilt, no sense of owing anyone. Just remember, everything you receive is what you deserve. Someone who truly cares about you won’t mind if you’re not a perfect good person—they’ll only feel heartache seeing how wounded you’ve become.”

He caressed, embraced, and kissed her vulnerability.

Bian Yang wanted her to be fearless, to be reckless. He wanted her to know, no matter who she was, he liked her.

Sunlight poured in through the window, illuminating the air in distinct particles. Tang Yu’s tears slipped silently into his collar. She wanted to say, “Bian Yang, I’m so lucky to have you here. You help me feel less afraid, give me the sudden courage to keep moving forward. Bian Yang, you’re like blazing sunlight, arriving in the midst of my rainy night.”

—

Tang Yu stayed in the hospital for three days. The principal visited once, offering some polite, empty words. He congratulated her for achieving the highest score in the school’s first mock exam, with a total of 720 points. He told her not to worry about medical expenses, as the incident occurred at school and the school would cover all costs.

As for Meng Shirui’s apology, the principal said the arrangement would be made during next Monday’s flag-raising ceremony, where Meng Shirui would read her letter of reflection aloud before everyone.

Tang Yu couldn’t sit idle in her hospital room. Bian Yang brought her the graded mock exam papers. Normally, her English score hovered around 130; this time, she improved by seven points, scoring 137. The mistakes were still mostly in reading comprehension and listening, but she had made significant progress.

She singled out each wrong question, analyzed the knowledge points involved, found hundreds of similar question types online and practiced them repeatedly until she thoroughly understood them and could apply her knowledge flexibly. Then, she asked Bian Yang to help copy another set of the mock exam papers, starting from the beginning and doing them all over again. Only when there were no mistakes left did she finally throw the battered old papers into the trash.

As for Bian Yang, outside of Tang Yu’s insistence that he attend class on time, he spent all his free moments in the hospital room. The sofa became his bed, under the pretense of taking care of her.

When Bian Yang arrived with lunch, Tang Yu was hunched over the small table on her bed, completely absorbed in her exercises. To make it easier, the IV was inserted into the back of her left hand.

She was so engrossed in her work that she lost all sense of her surroundings—even when Bian Yang had sat in the room for ten whole minutes, she hadn’t noticed. Eventually, he couldn’t stand it anymore, snatching her pen and papers and setting them aside, laying out the food on the table and shoving the chopsticks into her hand.

Tang Yu grumbled, “I said I could be discharged, but you won’t let me. Who knows how much schoolwork I’ve missed these three days?”

Bian Yang’s mouth twitched as he glanced over the bed covered in books and papers.

Despite being in the hospital, the room was suffused not with the scent of disinfectant, but with the fragrance of knowledge!

“These three days, the total assignments from all the teachers aren’t even half of what you’ve done. Anyone who knows you’re here to recuperate; anyone who doesn’t would think you’re here in seclusion to become a master of exam papers!”

“It’s not that exaggerated...” Tang Yu glanced at the food, then at him. “This isn’t canteen food, is it? You didn’t use my meal card to buy it.”

“Eat up. Why so many questions?” Bian Yang’s words were gruff, but his hands kept moving, sorting her books into neat stacks, separating finished papers from unfinished ones, placing her error notebook and notes in prominent spots.

Once everything was in order, he tossed a phone onto her desk.

Tang Yu picked it up. It was a new phone. She looked at him in confusion. “Did you buy this?”

She frowned and pushed the phone back. “It’s too expensive. I can’t accept something from you.”

Bian Yang pressed his tongue against his jaw, scoffing, “Who said I bought it? It’s compensation from the girls who attacked you. They broke your phone, so this is their replacement. I just brought it over for you.”

Tang Yu eyed him doubtfully, obviously not convinced. “Really?”

“When have I ever lied?” He handed her a folded piece of paper. “And this.”

Tang Yu unfolded it, finding a police dispatch receipt.

Bian Yang watched as she carefully stowed everything under her pillow, finally raising his brow. “Now do you believe me?”

Tang Yu’s beautiful brows arched, her eyes clear and bright like glass marbles in the sunlight. “Bian Yang, thank you for running around for me.”

Bian Yang sat on the sofa, legs casually spread. “Why do you need those things?”

“They’ll be useful, anyway.”

Bian Yang didn’t ask further, nodding for her to eat, adding, “Your old SIM card’s already in there, all the data’s been transferred. Check if anything’s missing.”

Tang Yu ate while unlocking the phone. The password was still six ones, even the wallpaper hadn’t changed. All her WeChat chats were synced, exam photos and error questions were intact. She opened her private album—nothing was missing.

“When did you take pictures of me?” came a sudden, light voice from above.

Tang Yu’s hand jerked in surprise. Bian Yang had somehow appeared at her side, head lowered to watch her. Instinctively, she used both hands to cover the screen tightly, her gaze darting around in panic, unsure where to look.