The Sound of Strings - Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Threatening other people by hurting yourself is the stupidest thing you can do.

But people who lose themselves in love can never see that. It is as if they have lost their minds.

The stupider Lu Chen acted, the happier I was.

So I looked at him, unmoved.

I never expected Lu Chen to actually be stupid enough to jump.

The next second, my body had already moved to shield him.

As if it were a reflex carved into my bones.

I hated Lu Chen so much.

Yet my body had already gotten used to loving him.

Lu Chen fell and crashed heavily onto me.

A sharp, violent pain shot through my calf.

My face went deathly pale.

When Lu Chen saw that I was hurt, panic flashed across his face.

“Brother, where does it hurt? Where did you hit?”

I endured the cold sweat and the pain. “Hospital.”

Lu Chen carefully picked me up and rushed me to the hospital.

It was a fracture.

I got the X-rays and stared at them expressionlessly.

Beside me, Lu Chen apologized over and over, his eyes rimmed red with guilt.

“Brother, I was wrong. Does it hurt?”

I should have comforted my little brother.

But it hurt too much. So much that all I wanted to do was hit him.

My leg, now in a cast, was suspended high in the air.

I closed my eyes and snapped impatiently at him.

“Be quiet for a while.”

Only then did Lu Chen shut up.

The fracture required surgery.

To stabilize it, they had to put steel pins into my leg. Once the bone healed, they would remove them.

The night after the anesthesia wore off, I broke out in a cold sweat from the pain.

The agony coming from my leg made me bite down hard on my lip just to keep from groaning.

Lu Chen looked at me with tears streaming down his face. He pried my teeth apart with his thumb, then held his arm up to my mouth.

“Brother, don’t bite yourself. If it hurts, bite me.”

I shoved his arm away, leaned my head against his shoulder, and bit down hard on a corner of his shirt.

It fucking hurt.

Lu Chen carefully held me as I trembled from the pain, gently patting my back.

His tears slid down into the crook of my neck, cool against my skin.

After that, I stayed in the hospital, received IV drips, drank traditional medicine, and worked remotely on my laptop.

Lu Chen came to keep me company every day.

He would stew pork rib soup at home and bring it for me to drink.

He stopped skipping class too, afraid I would get angry.

At night, he would carefully wrap his arms around my waist and whisper good night in my ear.

He became unusually quiet and obedient.

But I only felt irritated.

I knew very clearly that from the moment I rushed over to protect him, something had gone out of control.

I had pretended to love Lu Chen for ten years.

So long that even I was no longer sure whether there had ever been a moment when I had truly loved him.

It was like, while he was growing up, there had clearly been so many chances for me to throw him away.

But I never did.

And even now, he was still by my side.

Looking at his sleeping face, my gaze darkened.

Once my fracture healed, I would throw him away.

After that, he should stop appearing in my sight.

Lu Chen.