Chapter 279 - Take Me Where I Can Be Zhenyi

"Where are you?" Sam asked her gently. 

"I don't know," Zhenyi said, looking around. She didn't know what place it was. And she didn't want to talk to Long Jie so she didn't ask him. 

"What do you mean you don't know?" Sam said in a loud voice. 

"I might have abandoned my guards, and drove the car at a lightning speed aimlessly," Zhenyi said in a small voice. 

"Girl! Are you for real? Send me the location from your phone," Sam said, taking the car keys. He ran towards the door. When he saw the location Zhenyi gave him, he added," I'll be there in ten. Don't move from that place." He paused and then said, "Can you do me a favor? Don't tell Ryuu, I'm in the country."

Zhenyi agreed, and Sam couldn't believe the obedient girl he was talking to was his troublesome best friend. 

When she ended the call, she saw Long Jie gaze fixed on her. She had a question in her mind and so she asked him. 

"If I hadn't known about this matter by myself, would you have told me?" 

Long Jie nodded. "I never intended to lie to you. It was just that when you finally started recovering, I had to leave the country." 

Hearing his answer, Zhenyi realized that he was in a different country until yesterday and it meant he just arrived a few hours ago.

"How's your brother?" She asked him. 

He smiled sadly. "We weren't able to save him." 

"I'm sorry," She quickly said. She didn't know what else to say. "What about his daughter?" 

"She is under my care for now," Long Jie replied. 

Zhenyi nodded. She didn't know what to say. She had been so occupied with her grief that she didn't know that he had been suffering all the time as well. 

She caught his arm and said, "Let's go home." 

She looked up when he didn't move. Seeing him shaking his head, she asked him in perplexion. "What happened?"

"You're not coming with me?" She asked again. 

He shook his head again. 

"Why?" She asked him in confusion. "You don't want me anymore?" 

He removed his arm out of her hold and said, "I want you with me all the time. Zhenyi, do you know what tears my heart apart from your hate? Your pity. I can bear anything, even your hate and anger directed at me, but not pity."

"I'm not pitying you," Zhenyi said in a whisper. 

"I know, baby." 

Long Jie held up her chin and made her look at him. "People say that you're a bad and dangerous woman, and I agree with them. You're so bad and so dangerous for yourself that I want to protect you and keep you safe inside my heart always. You don't have to be selfless always for people you love. Can you be selfish for yourself once? Can you throw a tantrum because you're hurt? Can you be upset with me instead of forgiving me easily?" 

Her eyes turned misty as she looked at his glassy eyes. "Don't come with me just because you think I'm suffering. I won't say that I'm not and I don't need you. But right now, more than me, you need yourself. You need to take a deep breath and be selfish for once. Only listen to what your heart says. Stop living for Bà, stop living for me. Just live for yourself once." 

He caressed her face one last time and uttered, "Go with him." 

She nodded. 

"Let me wait until your ride comes," Long Jie said after a while as Zhenyi saw that he hadn't moved. 

She silently agreed. 

Minutes later, a catchy red sports car appeared and stopped a few inches away from Zhenyi. Sam came out and engulfed Zhenyi in a hug, and after breaking the hug, he looked at her from head to toe to scan if she had any injuries. He sighed in relief when he found none and so he hugged her again. 

"Thank God, you're alright!" He couldn't express in words just how scared he was. 

His eye fell on a black car which was broken beyond repair, and then at the white car which crashed into the pole. Last but not the least, his gaze rested on Long Jie, and then at his broken jaw.

"You didn't say that your husband was here too?" Sam asked her. 

"I don't know that man," Zhenyi replied, and opening the door of the car, she sat on the passenger seat. 

From a distance, Long Jie saw a man with long hair hugging his wife, and he had to clench his hands to smash his ugly face with the steel rod his wife had used on his million-dollar limited edition car. 

Seeing that Zhenyi got into the car, Sam went in as well and drove to his apartment soon after, leaving Long Jie behind. 

__

Inside the car. 

"You left your husband behind," Sam said as he didn't like the silent Zhenyi. 

"Didn't I say I don't know that man?" Zhenyi asked while glancing at him. 

Sam pursed his lips to stop commenting about her husband. Although he didn't like Long Jie, today he pities him. 

"So...where are we going?" Sam asked her. 

Zhenyi stared at Sam's face for a little more than normal. Where did she want to go? Home? No. She needed to go away from home to be her. Who did she want to be? Where was she going?

'Do I hate Bà, Ryuu, and Jie for what they did to me?' She asked in her heart.

'I don't have the answer to my own question. I don't know what I'm angry and sad for? Am I sad because they lied to me? Or am I sad because I lost my baby? I have questions in my heart and mind but no answers. I need to find the answer if I want to find myself. I don't want to be Xin Yichen's daughter or Ryuu's sister or Long Jie's wife. I want to be just Zhenyi. The Zhenyi, I never knew still exist inside me. ' 

"Where are we going, Zhenyi?" Sam questioned her again. 

"Take me where I can simply be Zhenyi."