chsdbacks Chapter 129 A head full of rubbish!
Chapter 129 A head full of rubbish!
He raised his hand and wiped his face, the back of his hand brushing against the corner of his eye.
"I don't know where I got the strength... I broke free from the people holding me down. Maybe they thought I was about to give up, so they loosened their grip. I lunged forward and grabbed the gun from the nearest person... I don't remember much after that. I just remember shooting and firing... By the time I came to my senses, all four of them were down."
Bai Rongbei lowered his head and looked at his hands. These hands were large and steady, but they were trembling slightly at the moment.
"When I picked up that girl... she was covered in blood and wounds... her eyes were open, but there was no light. Her mother woke up, crawled over and hugged her, without crying out a sound, just holding her like that, her eyes staring blankly... Later, we took her away, and the girl died before we even got to the hospital... Her mother went back home and drank pesticide a couple of days later."
He fell silent, only his heavy breathing remained.
The bottle is half empty.
The wind howled across the Gobi Desert, carrying the chill of the night.
"I was wounded, stabbed in the waist and shot in the leg," Bai Rongbei continued, his tone calmer but revealing utter exhaustion. "The wounds have healed, but... that area has left a lingering ailment that hasn't improved. The organization commended me, saying I killed an enemy agent and rescued civilians. But I know myself..."
He turned his head and looked directly at Su Wanwan for the first time, his eyes frighteningly red.
"Su Wanwan, I think about this every day... If I hadn't wasted my breath on them and had just taken action... If I had acted faster... Would they have avoided that suffering? Would that girl have survived?"
"I clearly killed them in the end... so why couldn't I have killed them sooner? Why did I have to wait until... until it was too late..."
"Perhaps the physical injuries, coupled with the trauma I experienced from witnessing that girl being raped by so many men, left me with a deep-seated aversion to matters between husband and wife."
His voice choked, his shoulders slumped, and he looked as if his spine had been removed.
Su Wanwan's face was already covered in tears.
After she finished listening to him, her heart felt like it was being squeezed tightly by a hand, and the pain made it hard for her to breathe.
She looked at Bai Rongbei in front of her. He was usually calm and composed, but now he was huddled under the starry sky like a lost, wounded child.
Without hesitation, she opened her arms, lunged forward, and hugged him tightly.
Bai Rongbei's body stiffened.
"It's not your fault... Bai Rongbei, it's not your fault..." Su Wanwan buried her face in his neck, her tears wetting his skin, her voice trembling with sobs, broken and intermittent, "It's the spies' fault... it's those beasts' fault... you've already risked your life... you're a victim too... how could you take their sins upon yourself..."
She was sobbing uncontrollably, her fingers gripping his back tightly, as if trying to transfer her strength to him through his clothes.
"You've done so well...you saved others...you killed those bad guys...you were so badly injured...you can't think of yourself like that...you can't..."
Bai Rongbei was initially stiff as she held him.
Gradually, he felt a warm tremor in his arms and heard her incoherent words of comfort.
Those words didn't make any grand sense; they were just repeated "It's not your fault."
No one had ever told him these things.
When he received his award for meritorious service, the leader patted him on the shoulder and said, "Well done."
His comrades envied him for becoming a battalion commander at such a young age.
When the military doctor examined him, he only said, "Old wounds are hard to heal, so take your time to recover."
No one knows how the cries and images from the mine replayed in his mind again and again in the dead of night.
No one knows how many years that "what if" thought had haunted him like a poisonous ivy.
This was the first time he had torn open these bloody scars for people to see.
It was also the first time someone hugged him and told him that it wasn't his fault.
Bai Rongbei slowly, slowly raised his arm, then tightened it, and hugged Su Wanwan tightly.
He buried his face in her shoulder, took a deep breath, and smelled the faint, clean scent of soap on her.
The suffocating darkness that had haunted him for so many years seemed to have been pried open a crack by this warm embrace and tears.
Light shone in.
Su Wanwan felt the strength of his hug and cried even harder, but she felt inexplicably at ease.
She looked up, her eyes blurred with tears, at his face so close to hers.
His eyes were red, and the corners of his eyes were wet.
Without thinking, she followed the painful yet throbbing emotion in her heart, leaned in, and kissed his lips.
Bai Rongbei was stunned.
Her lips were soft, salty and slightly cool from tears.
The kiss was haphazard, just a tight, trembling kiss.
Bai Rongbei's breathing became erratic instantly.
Looking at her wet eyelashes and her red little nose, a corner of his heart, which had been frozen for many years, suddenly collapsed.
He closed his eyes, took the initiative, and deepened the kiss.
Unlike the previous awkward attempts, this kiss was tinged with the smell of alcohol, and carried with it the pain and longing that had been suppressed for too long; it was hot and forceful.
He cupped the back of her head with one hand, running his fingers through her soft hair, while his other hand gripped her waist tightly, pressing her even closer to him.
Su Wanwan's body went limp from his kisses, her mind went blank, and she could only passively endure it and awkwardly respond.
Her tongue tentatively touched him, only to be met with his even more ferocious entanglement.
The taste of alcohol mixed with the taste of tears spread between my lips and teeth, creating a dizzying sensation.
Starlight bathed them, and the vast winds of the Gobi Desert swept across the rooftops.
The whole world seemed to consist only of intertwined breaths and heartbeats, intense and real.
After an unknown amount of time, Bai Rongbei finally stepped back slightly, his forehead touching hers, both of them breathing heavily.
Su Wanwan's face was burning hot, her lips were numb and swollen, but her eyes were surprisingly bright as she stared at him without blinking.
Bai Rongbei was also looking at her, his eyes unfathomable, churning with too many emotions she couldn't understand, but the heavy pain seemed to have faded somewhat.
He raised his hand and gently wiped away the tear stains on her face with his thumb. The movement was a little clumsy, but extremely tender.
Just then, a noise came from the gate of the courtyard.
The two of them turned to look down at the same time.
Lin Weiwei and Bai Si'an are back.
Lin Weiwei was carrying a bulging cloth bag, while Bai Si'an was holding a cardboard box.
The two of them had obviously seen them on the roof. Lin Weiwei stopped in her tracks, her eyes widened, and then a sly smile spread across her face.
She quickly put a finger to her lips, winked at Bai Si'an to signal him to be quiet, pointed to the roof and mouthed "shh," then tiptoed into the house with an expression that said, "I know everything, I won't bother you."
Bai Si'an pushed up his glasses, looked up at the two people cuddling on the roof, and then at his wife's excited expression, a smile curving his lips.
He leaned close to Lin Weiwei's ear, lowered his voice, and said with a hint of teasing and something else in his tone, "I didn't realize you were so romantic."
Lin Weiwei turned around and glared at him, saying in a low voice, "Keep your voice down!"
Bai Si'an then kissed her ear, his warm breath brushing against her earlobe: "We can do it on the rooftop from now on."
He paused, his voice lower and more suggestive, "...there's something else we can do."
Lin Weiwei's face flushed red, and she elbowed him hard in the stomach: "Bai Si'an! Can't you put something serious in your head! It's all lewd nonsense! You want to explore every part of your body!"