"Qiao Kang, how dare you lie!" Yin gnashed his jaw. "Even you are betraying me-"
"Come out of your fucking delusion, Yin!" He finally snapped. "You are the one who screwed it all up and now you are acting as if you are in some lala land to not see what is happening right in front of you! Wake up already! I cannot clean up your mess any longer!"
It was that moment which rained down upon him like the harsh realization of reality. Everything was out and clear as daylight as if the rays left no scope to hide in the darkness any longer.
From the corner of his eye, he could see the outline of Chyou's figure, but he didn't dare to look at her. He didn't dare to look at what expression her face now held.
What...what should I do-
Before his jumbling thoughts could make any sense and come to a conclusion, a loud slap reverberated across the air as if an earthquake shook the ground. The slap landed at the same cheek as where Yating had punched him. The immense pain made him feel breathless and a slit cracked at the corner of his lip.
"Ch-Chyou please listen to me-"
He turned to talk to her but instead met Caihong's fury-blazed eyes. Chyou hadn't moved from her place an inch.
Caihong's slightly misty irises were filled with loathe and ire. It was a hard slap that stung her palm too, but she didn't care about any of it.
"First of all, don't you dare talk to my daughter anymore..." her livid, shaking voice quietly threatened him like a fearsome tigress. "After everything that you possibly did to smash her heart like it's a toy you can break anytime, you have the nerve to still face her!?"
"M-Mrs. Zhu-"
"Shut the fuck up, you piece of shit!!"
Even Xiang trembled with his mother's roar and promptly hid behind Xiaosi so as to not die as collateral damage. "Wow Mom is cursing..."
Xiaosi nodded. "Nothing can save him now."
His face paled harder.
Yating balled his fist and made up his mind. Chyou had heard enough. He would take her away from the monster who would keep breaking her heart the longer she would stay. He took one step ahead but Caihong stopped him. "Let her be here."
"No. She has heard enough, Aunt."
"Not at all. On the contrary, she hasn't heard anything yet. I want her to see every bit of truth about this man that there is to see."
"It's not necessary," his gaze darkened.
Xiang applauded Yating's courage.
Wow, he is not afraid of his death at all!
"It is necessary."
Caihong maintained her level-headed gaze at Yating understandably but also resiliently.
"There was a time in my past, Yating, where I lived eight long years in the dark. I hated the man I was supposed to love. I hated my daughter who I was supposed to cherish. The hatred was only because I didn't know the truth at all. I just foolishly kept loathing the wrong people in my life only because things were kept from me to protect me."
A faint flicker passed through Xiaosi's eyes.
"But that doesn't help anybody, Yating. Know every bit of truth there is to know no matter how bitter it is because only then your heart can decide what path to follow. I know. Truth is blunt. Truth is poisonous. Truth is cutting.
It makes you feel as if you are getting cut into half but unless you go through that excruciating pain, you will never be able to wake up to reality."
Her gaze clouded, reminiscing the past, "I needed to see with my own eyes how far Xiaosi went to love me. And Chyou needs to see with her own eyes just how far Cheng Yin went to break her. She will have to see it so that there is not a speck of doubt in her mind that she would ever need to forgive him."