Chapter 42: All Mixed Up

Even though Lü Yang thought he was quite familiar with Donkey Head Mountain, and even though he was rather confident in his sense of direction, after fleeing in a panic from that abandoned construction site for two hours, he still ended up getting himself and Liu Hui lost in the mountain forest.

The only fortunate thing was that the people chasing him and Liu Hui were definitely shaken off completely. In such a large and complex terrain like Donkey Head Mountain, rushing around in the dark, it would be very, very difficult for just those few people to find Lü Yang and Liu Hui’s location within such a vast area.

The Eerie Computer finally gave a notification that the Task was complete and rewarded Lü Yang with two Eerie Points, exactly offsetting the two Eerie Points he had lost earlier from using the Healing Card after being shot twice. It seemed even the Eerie Computer thought those people could no longer find Lü Yang and the girl. Or perhaps those people had already given up the search.

Running these two hours of mountain paths wasn’t too draining for Lü Yang, and using the Healing Card had also healed the injuries he suffered from the earlier car accident. But Liu Hui couldn’t handle it. Her legs and feet hurt so much that taking even one more step seemed extremely difficult.

With no other choice, Lü Yang found a slightly flat spot for the two of them to rest temporarily.

After sitting down on a rock, Liu Hui rubbed her painfully sore legs and feet. Exhausted and scared, she started crying softly.

“Don’t cry. Be careful you don’t attract wild wolves to come and bite you to death,” Lü Yang was thinking about their current situation and found Liu Hui’s crying irritating, so he could only try to scare her.

The scare tactic worked. Liu Hui stopped crying immediately. Even though she didn’t really understand why her crying would attract wild wolves—and her understanding of wolves was still at the level of Big Big Wolf—since Lü Yang said they would bite her to death, combined with their current environment, she felt quite afraid.

“Is your surname Liu?” After a while, Lü Yang found something to say to Liu Hui, wanting to distract her a bit. If she stayed this tense, it would drain her energy greatly, which wasn’t good for escaping in the mountains.

“Hmm,” Liu Hui nodded.

“Do you live in Guishe City?”

“Hmm.”

“Do you know Liu Jianhao from the Yida Group?”

“He… he’s my dad.” Liu Hui hesitated for a moment before telling Lü Yang the truth. She had witnessed Lü Yang risking his life to save someone in front of her car, and later he rescued her from the kidnappers. She was sure he wasn’t a bad person. If he were bad, he would have already done something to her.

“So it’s true!”

Lü Yang sighed. Although he thought this rich second-generation Miss Liu from Guishe City was likely related to the wealthy Liu Jianhao from the Yida Group, he didn’t expect her to be his daughter.

“Thank you for saving me. If we get back alive, I’ll definitely ask my dad to reward you heavily,” Liu Hui quickly said to Lü Yang.

“No need. Saving you was just a side thing. I don’t want to get involved in your kidnapping case. Even if I had a few extra lives, it wouldn’t be enough to die like that.” Lü Yang shook his head, but then he suddenly remembered Yi Ya. He didn’t need anything from the Liu Family for himself, but maybe he could ask them to provide Yi Ya with a good job opportunity after her graduation.

Never mind, better not. Just thinking about how those managers at Jiahui Company had leered at Yi Ya made Lü Yang feel sick.

“I’m sorry…” Liu Hui apologized to Lü Yang.

“Don’t worry. As long as I can get out of here, I’ll definitely take you with me. After we leave the mountains, we’ll go our separate ways. And don’t bother me again in the future, with cars crashing one moment, flipping over the next, then kidnappings… I can’t handle your bad luck.” Lü Yang made this promise to Liu Hui but couldn’t help complaining a bit.

“Sorry… I’m sorry…” Liu Hui apologized repeatedly to Lü Yang and started crying softly again. Lü Yang’s words had touched on her worries. For years, she had felt she was very unlucky and doomed.

“I said crying will attract wild wolves, and you’re still crying…” Realizing he might have spoken too harshly, Lü Yang could only try to scare her again.

“Sorry… I really am bad luck… I even caused my dad to get a terminal illness…” This time, Liu Hui wasn’t scared into stopping; instead, she cried even harder.

“Ah… your dad has a terminal illness?” Lü Yang asked, somewhat surprised.

The Yida Group was at its peak. Probably no one in Guishe City would have thought that the legendary Liu Jianhao had a terminal illness.

“Hmm…” Liu Hui spoke between sobs. “Over a year ago, on my sixteenth birthday, because he was busy with work and came home a bit late, I threw a huge tantrum at him. He kept explaining and apologizing, but I wouldn’t let it go. I even pushed him hard. After he fell, he couldn’t get up again. When he was taken to the hospital, the doctors said he… had late-stage liver cancer…”

“Um… well…” Lü Yang scratched his head. “Falling down doesn’t cause liver cancer…”

Hearing about the Liu family’s misfortune, Lü Yang knew he had spoken too harshly earlier, but he didn’t know how to comfort Liu Hui. He could only point out the mixed-up part in her story.

“No! His illness… it’s all my fault… My mom said it’s because I was disobedient, always making him angry. Great anger hurts the liver, that’s why he got that terminal illness…” Liu Hui cried even more bitterly now.

“Birth, aging, illness, and death are inevitable. Try to accept it…” Lü Yang now regretted starting the conversation with Liu Hui. Once you open a woman’s floodgates, it’s not so easy to close them again, especially when she’s crying.

“If it happened to you, could you accept it so easily?” Liu Hui was clearly a bit unhappy with Lü Yang’s words.

“When I was two months old, my dad was gone. My mom died when I was three. When I was fifteen… my only remaining relative, the Maternal Grandmother who raised me, also died… According to you, I should have been unable to accept it and died long ago. But here I am, living on my own just fine.” Lü Yang shrugged, though when he said this, his heart wasn’t as light as he made it seem.

Hearing this, Liu Hui was completely speechless. She stayed silent for a long while before finally speaking again. “I’m sorry… I thought I was unlucky enough, but I didn’t expect you…”

“No need to apologize to me… I’m not as fragile as you. You’re like a little flower in a greenhouse, always protected, unable to withstand even a little wind or rain. I’m like a wild weed by the roadside; wind, rain, being run over by cars or stepped on, it doesn’t matter to me…” Lü Yang smiled. He used to think that having money would make people happy. For example, if he ever had the chance to get rich, he’d eat instant noodles by making two bowls—eat one and throw the other away—and marry two wives, marry Yi Yi and also keep Yi Ya…

But he never expected that a wealthy family like the Lius, with the head Liu Jianhao having a terminal illness, and his daughter Liu Hui so unhappy. He figured Liu Jianhao’s wife probably wasn’t happy either. What use was all their money? It couldn’t buy life, nor could it buy happiness and joy.

“I thought I was very unfortunate, but I didn’t expect you to be even more unfortunate than me…” Liu Hui stopped crying and sighed softly. When a woman faces misfortune, if she compares and finds someone near her who is even worse off, her mood often improves a lot. She might even start trying to comfort the other person.