Chapter 235 - Which should I cut first?

Just as Xiao Lei was feeling bad, Han Ye added, "But I think that it's ok. The selfish you now is different from the selfish you back in the past."

She frowned slightly as she thought about his words. She then looked at him and asked curiously, "What do you mean?" 

"When we were kids, you cared a lot about having fun and always did things your own way, and you neglected people's feelings. But as an a.d.u.l.t, even though you are hiding a lot of things from me and you are still doing things your own way..." he said.

His words were like knives that stabbed into Xiao Lei's heart, and she sighed internally at his description of her.   

However, he soon added, "But unlike before, your selfishness now came from your desire to protect the ones you love. I know you're hiding things from me because you want to protect other people's feelings and memories, especially your husband's. And I know that you chose to hide your identity from me because you didn't believe that I was strong enough."

"Han Ye..."

He placed a hand on her mouth to stop her from saying anything. When he released it, he added with a slight frown, "Let me finish."

She nodded.

Han Ye continued, "I think it's valid for you to feel that way. You didn't know what I had been doing for the last two decades or so. You said that you didn't tell me because you didn't want to give me any trouble, but I believe that a part of you didn't want to tell me because you didn't know if I was still the same Han Ye who you could trust. After all, we lost contact with each other for so long, and time has changed a lot of people."

He rolled to his side and propped his head up with a hand. As he looked at her slightly teary eyes that were tinged with guilt, he said softly, "If I'm not wrong, and I'm only saying this based on my own speculation... You've been hurt by the ones that you believed in, and so, you were afraid that I had changed. And you and Xiao Yunjie had only each other for so long that you find it hard to trust another person."

Xiao Lei looked into his eyes for a few seconds, and soon, she found her vision to have turned blurry. He had seen through her, and she did not like it. Feeling overwhelmed, she immediately covered her eyes with the back of her hand. "I don't like it when you're so mature." 

"We are both a.d.u.l.ts," he said with a smile. "Xiao Lei, you don't have to worry about whether or not I think your actions are selfish. I know you've been through a lot and that you're only trying to protect yourself and Zhihao, especially now that your husband is not here. But I want you to know that I'm not here to hurt you. If you don't want to tell me things, then it's fine. But please don't lie to me."

"You're right... I trusted you, but at the same time, I was a little hesitant. My uncle... Fan Chuan killed my parents. He didn't know that I was in the room when he admitted it to his wife."

Han Ye's eyes went wide open. He had guessed this before, and based on how Xiao Lei acted when she met with Fan Chuan, he was already 99% sure that Fan Chuan was responsible for the death of President Fan Lei and Chen Qingting.

"Do you want to talk about it?" he asked.  

She shrugged. "I don't know much about it. They did it because they wanted the company. I don't know if Fan Shaohang was involved in it. After I found out that Fan Chuan and his wife did it, I don't know who or what to believe, especially people from the Fan Family. I heard them planning to take me, Xiyue, and Xichen for a camping trip. I knew then that they were going to do something to me, so I've been planning how to escape as well." 

"What happened back then?"

"I was going to go to the police, but I didn't have any proof that they masterminded the accident, and if I were to go to the police without any solid proof that they were planning to hurt me, then I'd only alert them, which would put my life in more danger. So I planned to run away... I wanted to turn the table on them. Run away and hide, and after a few days, I would return and claim that they tried to kill me."

She then sighed. "Unfortunately... when we were at the camping ground, I ran out of the house, only to be caught by the kidnapper who was about to break into the house to kidnap me. I made his job easier, and not only that, I accidentally helped him kidnap me."

....

Back then, 

When she was running away from the camping ground, she had a torchlight with her as well as a bag full of necessities in the dark forest, and they slowed her down quite a bit. The forest was so dark, and she kept hearing noises, like someone was following her. 

And she was right. 

She was indeed being followed.

When she was about a kilometer away from the camping ground, someone suddenly jumped out from the shadows and snatched her. 

Little Fan Wushuang had tried to yell, but before she could even make a sound, that person clamped a dirty smelly rag over her mouth, and before long, she was unconscious. 

When she woke up, she found herself in a small room with her feet and wrists tied up. Her mouth was taped shut to prevent her from screaming. Little Fan Wushuang's vision was blurry, but she could hear the sound of a knife being sharpened. The sound scared her, and she started to whimper as she tried to see who the person was. 

She then saw her kidnapper. He did not bother to cover his face. And after Little Fan Wushuang's vision cleared up, she saw him clearly. He had a very common face; the kind that was unmemorable. And he did not look like a kidnapper. Instead, he looked like an office man despite him wearing a basic black shirt, a pair of gloves, and a pair of army pants.

What scared Little Fan Wushuang the most was that she was smart enough to know what this meant... He did not bother to cover his face; nor did he bother to cover her eyes. This meant that he was planning to kill her.   

"You've been out for six hours..." the man said without even looking over. He had heard her whimper earlier and knew that she was up.  

Little Fan Wushuang looked at the knife he was sharpening, and she started to cry from fear. 

The man sneered and brought the knife over. He gave her an evil grin as he squatted down next to her.

He then rested the knife on her cheek and said, "Which should I cut first? Your ear or your nose? But you're such a pretty little girl, it's a waste to just let you be..."

The knife that was still warm from being sharpened earlier felt cold on Little Fan Wushuang's cheek, and she did not dare to take her eyes away from his face.

When he lowered the knife to her shirt and cut the first button off her flannel shirt, she gulped.

Little Fan Wushuang kept inching backward. She had never been this afraid ever since she was kidnapped by her nanny. 

The man laughed eerily when he saw her tears, as if her tears were waking a sadistic part of him. His laughter creeped Little Fan Wushuang out so badly that her body shivered from it.

He then leaned forward and whispered, "The nearest house is 30 kilometers away, so if you want to shout... Feel free to do so." 

The moment he said that, he ripped the tape off her mouth, causing her to wince in pain.