Chapter 107: Leave It To Me

“I wouldn’t cry,” Chen Lu said with a light smile.

“That’s not what I meant…” Liang Zhirou became a little anxious, not knowing how to explain.

Chen Lu looked at her with amusement, “I know, I was just teasing you.”

Liang Zhirou puffed out her cheeks. Just when she thought Chen Lu was being particularly kind to her, he started to tease her.

How unfair.

She couldn’t be angry, so she could only protest a little to maintain a semblance of normalcy.

Along the way, Chen Lu didn’t interfere with anything. Wherever Liang Zhirou went, he followed.

Fortunately, Liang Zhirou was familiar with the way, and she quickly led him to a small mound of earth.

She pursed her lips, suppressing the sadness in her heart, and went forward to pull out the weeds around the mound.

“I’ll help you.”

Liang Zhirou looked up in surprise and saw Chen Lu squatting on the other side, doing the same thing, carefully and efficiently.

She didn’t say anything, just sniffed and continued to lower her head, trying to pull as fast as she could.

The girl knew she couldn’t persuade Chen Lu, but she also knew that if she worked faster, Chen Lu would have less work to do.

Time flew by as they worked. Unconsciously, dusk had fallen, the sky grew dark, making people feel oppressed.

By this time, they had already pulled out most of the weeds around the grave. Chen Lu stood up, clapped his hands, and said to the girl, “If you have anything you want to say, I’ll wait over there and come back later.”

Liang Zhirou’s gaze remained fixed on Chen Lu’s muddy hands, her expression complex as she nodded.

Then she took out the paper money she had bought from her canvas bag, drew a circle on the ground with her finger.

Chen Lu leaned against a tree in the distance, silently watching the girl.

A few minutes later, all he could see in his eyes was a blaze of fire.

The flickering flames in the darkness illuminated the surroundings, illuminating Liang Zhirou’s delicate and beautiful profile and the tears that kept sliding down her cheeks.

…

The high temperature made Liang Zhirou’s eyes feel dry, and she unconsciously closed them.

She knelt quietly on the ground, gently patted the soil with her hand, and then spoke slowly in a very small voice:

“Dad, I’m sorry…”

“I’m still slowly saving up the money to treat Mom, it looks like I won’t be able to do it until after I graduate.”

“I’m still so useless, but I really tried my best.”

“By the way, Dad, I found a boyfriend, he’s really, really good to me.”

“I really like him.”

“I really didn’t just focus on dating and ignore Mom, don’t blame me…”

Perhaps because she had spoken her most vulnerable thoughts, the girl became choked with sobs.

“If you don’t blame me, come see me in my dreams. You haven’t been here for a long time.”

“I’m almost forgetting what you look like…”

As she muttered to herself, she suddenly saw a figure standing next to her out of the corner of her eye.

Then it got lower and lower, until it was about the same height as her kneeling position.

Chen Lu knelt down beside her.

He moved quickly, without hesitation.

“Hello, Uncle, my name is Chen Lu.”

In the girl’s shocked and dazed gaze, he said in a deep voice:

“I’ll take care of everything from now on.”

Liang Zhirou’s mouth kept opening and closing, but in the end, all her words got stuck in her throat.

Actually, she didn’t know what she wanted to say.

She simply turned her head, silently handing the paper money into the fire, watching it turn crimson and then turn to ashes.

The firelight blurred in her eyes, but the two lines of tears on her cheeks wouldn’t stop.

She sobbed uncontrollably, and Chen Lu knelt beside her, silently accompanying her.

Liang Zhirou felt that if, many years later, someone asked her when she started wanting to marry Chen Lu, she would probably say that she wanted to marry him every moment.

But if they asked her about the moment she most wanted to marry Chen Lu, it would definitely be right now.

All the scars that the hardships of these years had left on her were finally beginning to heal at this moment.

……

“It’s really scary walking in the mountains at night.”

Chen Lu complained as he gently wiped the tears from the girl’s face with a tissue.

The two of them were sitting in the car, and Chen Lu had rarely turned on the car stereo.

Don’t ask, it was just because he suddenly wanted to listen to music, and it had nothing to do with building up his courage.

He only realized now that moonlight actually had a lighting effect.

Unlike in the city, here, when there was no moon at night, it was truly pitch black.

No light at all.

“You’re actually afraid of bugs.” Liang Zhirou said with a sob in her voice.

Chen Lu felt like his heart was going to stop. How could his lifelong reputation be ruined by tiny bugs? “Can we just forget about this?”

“No.”

Liang Zhirou’s curved eyes still had a tear hanging from them, but Chen Lu could tell that she was genuinely smiling at this moment.

Chen Lu looked at the girl’s expression and couldn’t help but smile.

Forget it, his lifelong reputation was useless.

As long as this silly girl was happy.

“Actually, I wasn’t afraid of bugs when I was a kid,” Chen Lu said, starting the engine with a look of helplessness.

“Until later, I used a magnifying glass to observe their mouthparts, especially crickets and spiders.”

He shivered slightly. “From then on, I started to fear bugs. I just couldn’t accept something like that touching my skin.”

Liang Zhirou was also a little creeped out by what he said. She rubbed her eyes and said softly, “You’re so tired, isn’t it a little unsafe? Maybe… maybe just stay in the car for the night.”

She mustered up the courage to make a suggestion that she would never normally make in her lifetime.

“Sleeping in the car for a night might suffocate you, silly girl.” Chen Lu tapped her head.

If it were just him, maybe he would just crack the window a bit and make do for the night.

But he couldn’t do that with this silly girl. He couldn’t feel at ease without sending her home.

“Then you can just sleep for a while.” Liang Zhirou said softly again, as if afraid that Chen Lu would refute her opinion.

Chen Lu was really tired, she could tell. The empty cans of Red Bull next to him proved it.

She looked towards the back seat.

“You can… sleep on my lap.”

The girl’s voice got quieter and quieter, until it was completely inaudible.

Don’t say it, Chen Lu was actually no longer sleepy after hearing this. He felt completely energized.

But his remaining rationality still prompted him to ask with a mischievous smile, “We’re in the middle of nowhere now, and you’d be screaming your head off and no one would come to save you. Aren’t you afraid that I might have ulterior motives?”

Liang Zhirou shook her head firmly, “No, you’re not that kind of person.”

“What if I am?” He leaned towards the girl, asking with a mischievous smile.

The girl thought about it seriously for a moment, looking both nervous and scared, but she still said in a trembling voice, “Then, then I like you too…”