The Sickly Omega Is No Longer Pretending to Be Good/Obedient - Chapter 27

Chapter 27: Lucid Dream

“You never accepted your own imperfection”

Perhaps it was Xu Zhouye’s broken body, his pleading eyes, and his slumped posture, or perhaps something else entirely—Shen Qiudu couldn’t quite put his finger on it—but he chose to quietly follow behind him, to see exactly what he intended to do or what he wanted to explain.

Shen Qiudu originally thought that Xu Zhouye would still, like before, use belittlement to assert his self-worth or mock Shen Qiudu for deluding himself into thinking he was the protagonist of a possessive CEO novel.

But no, there was nothing of the sort.

On the empty corridor, Xu Zhouye’s black clothes made him look like a lost, wandering ghost, helplessly roaming the world, trying to find a resting place. But he was a ghost, and in this vast human world, there would never be a place for him to exist.

Xu Zhouye didn’t say anything, only led Shen Qiudu straight up to the third floor.

Shen Qiudu had been at the Wen family’s house for so long and had never been up here. The entrance to the third floor was blocked and hidden by large cargo and secured with a special lock. No one could open it except for Xu Zhouye himself.

“This is the space Aunt Wen specifically set aside for me in the Wen family after my mother left. Only I am allowed to come up.”

Noticing Shen Qiudu’s puzzled expression, Xu Zhouye explained expressionlessly.

He then disregarded everything else and led Shen Qiudu straight to a room door in the corner.

The door opened, and a cloud of dust, like a swarm of dense moths, rushed towards Shen Qiudu. The choking smell of decay and rust invaded his nostrils, causing Shen Qiudu to recoil and instinctively frown.

Shen Qiudu dusted himself off. “Where is this? Why did you bring me here? Are you planning to trap me and leave me to die here without a sound?”

“Trap you and leave you to die?”

Xu Zhouye chuckled as if he had heard the world’s greatest joke. However, the sudden presence of expression on his usually wooden face made him look particularly rigid and eerie.

“I haven’t even managed to get out myself, so how could I possibly have the ability to trap you?”

Xu Zhouye expertly walked over to the sofa near the window, patted the cushion, and motioned for Shen Qiudu to sit. He then sat down on the edge of the bed without any sign of disgust and turned on the small desk lamp nearby.

“It’s too dark in the room, I’ll open the curtains.”

“No need to be so particular, and it’s been raining in Suozhou City these days. Even if you open them, there won’t be much light.”

The gentle patter of fine rain against the window pane, which immediately followed his words, served as confirmation of Xu Zhouye’s statement.

Shen Qiudu was too lazy to argue and let Xu Zhouye do as he wished. He looked up and scanned the room’s furnishings. The furniture was mostly made of high-quality mahogany, and there was a study, a dressing room, and an indoor bathroom—everything one could need.

What caught Shen Qiudu’s attention most was a huge painting hanging above the head of the bed, its size almost occupying the entire wall.

The content of the painting sent a jolt through Shen Qiudu’s heart:

The background was a chaotic mass of rain streaks. A figure was painted in the center with black paint, and the heart was deliberately highlighted with red paint. At the same time, lines of jade-like beads were painted in white, resembling a sharp sword thrust straight into that heart.

A thought instinctively flashed through Shen Qiudu’s mind.

The person in the painting was probably Wen Jiangchu.

The intense fear disrupted Shen Qiudu’s breathing rhythm. He tried his best to stabilize himself, eager to end the conversation early, so he proactively broached the topic.

“What do you want to talk about by bringing me here? Your high school days?”

“Of course not. I’m just very curious, why have you never asked me why I hate Wen Jiangchu so much? Whenever I bring it up, you try to gloss over it.”

“I don’t want to get involved in matters between the two of you. Logically, the one sitting here right now should be Wen Jiangchu.”

Xu Zhouye restrained his smile, his fingers viciously rubbing over the torn skin and bleeding wound, concealing the ripples in his eyes.

“Then why did you come? And why did you quietly leave without waking Wen Jiangchu?”

“Because I was worried. Worried that you would hurt him. Is that reason enough for you?”

Drops of bl00d seeped from the wound and fell onto the floor, mixing with the messy dust.

Xu Zhouye’s breathing was heavy, and his face completely dropped.

“See, that’s why I hate him.”

“Why, why can he so easily make everyone care about him, worry about him, and love him? And everything I do is wrong? We are clearly the same kind of person!”

“He should be just like me! He should be bullied, locked in a dirty school bathroom until dawn, laughed at since childhood as a child without a home, forced to live off of other people’s pity, unable to return home, and constantly used for comparison!”

“We should have grown up depending on each other… supporting each other… either live together or die together, becoming the most important people in each other’s lives! Instead of him being glorious and radiant, while I’m like a rat hiding in the sewer, only able to barely survive in his light, and still have to thank him for his great kindness!”

Xu Zhouye screamed hysterically, his eyes wide with anger, accusing Wen Jiangchu of moral corruption. His body trembled from the intense emotional outburst, and his stiff back slumped again in the silence.

Shen Qiudu watched Xu Zhouye’s breakdown with utter calmness. In his eyes, Xu Zhouye was simply an unreasonable lunatic.

He didn’t understand why Xu Zhouye was so ungrateful, why he tried to prevent others from being better or more excellent than him.

At first, Shen Qiudu thought Xu Zhouye’s feelings for Wen Jiangchu might be a form of twisted love—love that turned into jealousy. But no, he genuinely wanted Wen Jiangchu to die with him.

There was no trace of love in his eyes, only endless resentment. It was as if he had been pushed into hell by his most trusted friend.

“If you brought me here to vent these things, I advise you to find someone else. I don’t have that much time.”

“I don’t understand your thinking, nor do I agree with your choice to betray a friend because you lag behind others, instead of striving through your own efforts. There is no difference between this and a stinking rat in a gutter, but at least a stinking rat knows to find trash to eat. So you are even more ungrateful than a stinking rat.”

Hearing Shen Qiudu’s words, Xu Zhouye laughed instead of getting angry. “You don’t understand, of course you wouldn’t understand. How could a low-class, inferior Omega like you, who lives in the slums and whose biggest hope every day is to earn a little money to buy roadside food to fill your stomach, possibly comprehend?”

“I called you here to be charitable and warn you not to be deceived by hypocrites like Wen Jiangchu. That’s what happened to me; I was attracted by his kind demeanor and believed everything he said. But what happened in the end? Look at me now. He is the bl00d-sucking demon!”

Shen Qiudu lowered his eyes and sighed helplessly, feeling that Xu Zhouye was now completely lost.

In order to deceive himself, he had created a lie that only he was aware of. But the lie would grow larger and larger until it completely enveloped his worldview, making it difficult for Xu Zhouye to distinguish between what was real and what he had fabricated privately.

And so, he eventually fell completely into it, unable to listen to any words of dissuasion.

“Then why don’t you tell me, how exactly did Wen Jiangchu ‘suck your fresh bl00d’ little by little? What exactly happened in the ‘before’ you keep talking about?”

The rain outside grew heavier, and the thick, accumulating puddles grew wildly, reflecting a chaotic illusion.

Xu Zhouye turned his head and picked up a photo frame from the bedside table, gently wiping the dust from the surface to reveal the face of the young man in the photo.

It was Xu Zhouye.

But Xu Zhouye’s hand did not stop.

He opened the photo frame and took out the photo, only to realize that half of it had been hidden. The other young man in the photo was Wen Jiangchu.

“This was the first time I came to the Wen family. Aunt Wen took it. It was also my first photo with Wen Jiangchu, to commemorate my first day at the Wen family.”

“Just because of my family background, many people in the circle refrained from whispering in front of me only out of respect for the Wen family. But I knew that behind my back, many looked down on me, saying I had ruined the Xu family, caused my mother to leave, and was now trying to harm the Wen family. They said I was an ungrateful person and tactless.”

“Many of the servants in the Wen family also looked down on people. They were so poor and lowly, yet they dared to speak ill of me behind my back, favored others, deliberately made me eat leftovers, and gave me a blanket that hadn’t dried, which resulted in a back full of red rashes.”

“But I knew I couldn’t cry. No one truly cared about my feelings, so I constantly held back. I didn’t dare to complain, firstly because I didn’t want to worry Aunt Wen and the others, and secondly, because I didn’t want to acquire the label of a ‘tattletale’.”

“Until one day, I was so hungry that I couldn’t stand it. I secretly ran to the kitchen, grabbed a leftover steamed bun from the morning, and hid on the steps outside the door to eat it.”

“The bun was so dry that it hurt my teeth. I cried a lot because of it, and unexpectedly, Wen Jiangchu, who couldn’t sleep and came out for a walk, saw me.”

“He knew I was fiercely proud, so he pretended nothing happened and went back. But when I finished the bun and returned, I saw the lamp he had specially left on for me and the bowl of steaming hot noodles on the table.”

“After that, Wen Jiangchu took the initiative to come to my side, held my wrist, and told everyone in the Wen family that I was his good friend and a child personally brought back by Aunt Wen, a part of the Wen family.”

“He didn’t tell anyone what happened that day, but since that day, I regained the dignity that a young master of the Xu family should have.”

“But why? Why could he get everything without doing anything—a perfect family, everyone’s affection, and the sole heir of the Wen family?”

“And I, my family background is no worse than his. In terms of looks and ability, how am I inferior to him? Why do I have to rely on his light to achieve what I want to do?”

“He was the one who said we were friends. He was the one who said we were the same. Why did he go back on his word halfway through?! Why did he break his promise?! Why me again… why am I the one left behind again?!”

Xu Zhouye’s voice was hoarse as he denounced all his grievances, and tears welled up in the corners of his eyes, shining white.

“I didn’t understand at first, but I quickly figured it out.”

“It’s because Wen Jiangchu did all of this intentionally. He just wanted me to be his backdrop, to show everyone how good he was to me, how kind he was, and how despicable I was! He wanted to use this immense disparity and contrast to step on me for the rest of my life!”

Shen Qiudu couldn’t take it anymore. He stood up and shouted, “Xu Zhouye, are you a fucking lunatic?!”

“You said Wen Jiangchu wanted to step on you. Fine, if he wanted to step on you, shouldn’t he have let public opinion take its course, letting those filthy, unsightly comments crush you? Or, wouldn’t it have been simpler for him to just pretend in front of outsiders?”

“Then why did he, when he was alone with you, constantly consider your feelings? Why, when you were being attacked by everyone, did he ignore the threats of his sworn enemy and resolutely step forward? Why, when he knew you had instructed others to drug him and betrayed the company by handing core information to a competitor, did he fill a hole of tens of millions for you?”

“And Aunt Wen, why did she disregard public opinion to bring someone with a scandal-ridden past like you home and take good care of you? Why did she dismiss the servants who had worked for the Wen family for years without hesitation when she found out they neglected you? Why did she specially reserve an entire floor in the Wen family for you, simply because she knew you were sensitive and prone to overthinking?”

“Xu Zhouye, everything you’re saying is just a lie you fabricated to deceive yourself and make yourself seem less pathetic. You can only fool yourself; you can’t blind others.”

Xu Zhouye was utterly stunned, his mouth silently agape, unable to utter a single word. Tears streamed down his face, leaving a clear, winding trail.

A sour taste stung his mouth, which finally brought Xu Zhouye back to his senses.

“That’s right… why… why did he do that?”

“I know why.”

Shen Qiudu walked to the curtains. The heavy color was like the persistent mist in Xu Zhouye’s heart, covered in wrinkles and thorns, preventing him from daring to face it or step out time and time again.

“Because you have never truly accepted everything about yourself, accepted that you are not as perfect as you imagine.”

“So you started to hate, hate those who could achieve it.”

“It’s just a shame that you hated someone who is not hateful.”

“Whoosh—”

A violent tug echoed through the room. Shen Qiudu forcefully pulled open the curtains, revealing everything outside the window.

The white light was like a bronze lamp, accumulated with years of filth and finally seeing the light of day, fiercely devouring all the darkness.

It was a pity that the lampshade was pitch black and covered in grease, unable to illuminate anything anymore.

Just like Xu Zhouye, who was covered by the shadows by the bed.

It turned out the rain had stopped sometime earlier.

Xu Zhouye felt as if he had been doused in molten lava, his body scorching hot, wanting to crawl into the tightest corner.

“Close them… Shen Qiudu! I told you to close them!”

At this moment, Xu Zhouye was like a clown, having lost his former arrogance, his voice as thin as a mosquito’s buzz.

Shen Qiudu silently watched this spectacle that belonged only to him.

Suddenly, the faint sound of footsteps on the floor came from behind him.

Shen Qiudu looked back, and it was Wen Jiangchu, dressed in the same style of loungewear as him.