pdf-ebookys Chapter 172. Better to you than to our ancestors.
Chapter 172. Better to you than to our ancestors.
Zhong Lingxi closed the door and wiped the coffee table with a wet wipe.
Ji Yubai lay on the hospital bed and silently watched for a few seconds.
How could he bear to let her do such dirty work?
"Stop wiping. Just say what you want to say. I won't cause any trouble, I promise."
Zhong Lingxi ignored his words, insisted on wiping the coffee table clean, went to the bathroom to wash her hands, and then picked up a chair and sat down next to Ji Yubai's hospital bed.
She really had something to say, and Ji Yubai's heart sank.
“My attitude wasn’t clear enough before, and I apologize to you,” Zhong Lingxi said solemnly.
Ji Yubai's chest began to ache again. "Don't take my mother's words to heart. She means well, but she cares too much about me. She can't persuade me with her words, so she thought you could talk to me. She's worried too much, which is why she made the decision to come to you."
"I do care." Zhong Lingxi's gaze was deep, and she couldn't hide the self-reproach in her eyes. "I should care."
Ji Yubai was at a loss. In front of him was the person he liked, and the person they were talking about was his mother, who gave birth to him and loved him.
From either Zhong Lingxi's or her mother's perspective, he felt they were not wrong.
Sure enough, a man as indecisive as him, who couldn't handle the relationship between two women, didn't deserve a response from the one he loved.
What saddened him even more was that Zhong Lingxi was going to extinguish even the faint hope that he had left to comfort himself.
He is unwilling to face, but must see reality clearly.
Seeing his sorrowful expression and lack of intention to speak, Zhong Lingxi continued, "Your mother's words have reminded me; I have something to ask you now."
Even if they can't be together, he's content to have such a calm and face-to-face conversation and understand Lingxi's thoughts.
"You said."
Zhong Lingxi: "Is it true that you can't live without me?"
"Yes."
It struck Zhong Lingxi's heart with a resounding thud.
She pursed her lips and tentatively asked, "If I don't marry you, will you accept the person your parents arrange for you?"
"No." Ji Yubai answered without hesitation, "My parents want me to get married because they don't want me to live alone in this world. My sister-in-law's child is about to be born, and I can be the child's godfather. If my parents think one is not enough, I will take their money and adopt eighty or ninety children from the orphanage. That will definitely make it lively."
Zhong Lingxi: ......
This is indeed something that the unreliable Ji Yubai would do.
"Why don't you marry the person they arranged?" Zhong Lingxi pressed.
"Because I've married a patriarch, I don't want to serve him or cause myself any trouble."
Others aren't stupid. How happy can a marriage be when both families' interests are intertwined?
"Then marry me?" Zhong Lingxi blurted out, her hand clenching the knuckles of her other hand.
She stared at Ji Yubai's face, wanting to know his true thoughts.
Upon hearing this, Ji Yubai's eyes instantly lit up, sparkling like stars in the sky.
“Marrying you will be different!” he said in a high-pitched voice. “I’m willing to serve you like a slave and treat you like royalty.”
After he finished speaking, ignoring Zhong Lingxi's furrowed brows, he boldly corrected her.
"No, I've never served my ancestors, at most I burn incense and pray during festivals. If you're willing to marry me, I'll treat you better than I treat any of those ancestors."
Good heavens, she's that old!
If I hadn't seen him lying there sick, I would have loved to slap him across the face.
You're talking nonsense!
Seeing her indignant expression, Ji Yubai knew that his words had angered her again. "Hit me if you want," he said. He had said what he wanted to say anyway.
Zhong Lingxi was both angry and amused by his words. She couldn't really hit him, so she just lectured him, "You never know how to keep your mouth shut. If your ancestors knew, they would rise up and beat you up."
Ji Yubai shamelessly replied, "No, my ancestors want me to live a happy and healthy life. They won't beat me up after hearing these words."
Zhong Lingxi was speechless for a moment. Being the ancestor of the Ji family was not easy. She had to bless her descendants with wealth and safety, and even take care of their marriage and childbirth.
She was too lazy to waste time arguing with Ji Yu, so she got straight to the point: "You know I have no feelings for you."
"I love you, that's enough." Marrying her is already a blessing from heaven. If she loves him, he'll be so happy he won't be able to sleep.
Zhong Lingxi stared at him blankly. Compared to the playful and teasing tone he used every time he said "I like you" before, Ji Yubai was obviously much more serious at this moment.
“There’s one more thing…” Zhong Lingxi paused for a moment, but when it came time to say it, she became less decisive.
She loosened her tightly clasped fingers, then clenched them into a fist again.
Zhong Lingxi mustered her courage and said, "I'm not a blank slate. I've dated other people, and on the seventh day of our relationship, we had sex. Later, I became known as a 'scumbag' woman. As for how many boyfriends I've dated, I've never counted."
After Zhong Lingxi finished speaking in one breath, she lowered her head and tears dripped onto the back of her hand.
She didn't know why she felt like crying when she said those words.
When Ji Yubai saw her crying, he panicked and didn't know what to do.
Unfortunately, he was confined to the bed by various medical devices; otherwise, he would have definitely held her and comforted her.
Unable to get up, I could only try to distract her by chatting with her.
After a long while, he thought about her words carefully, and asked her with a choked voice, "So... are you trying to tell me that I've also been dumped by you? And I don't even know which one I am."
Zhong Lingxi's tears disappeared instantly.
Her original intention in saying this was completely different from the key point that Ji Yubai grasped.
She smiled through her tears, her eyes brimming with tears as she looked at the man on the hospital bed, his eyes red and on the verge of tears.
"We were never together, so how can you be considered an ex?"
Ji Yubai curled his lips and laughed self-deprecatingly, "That's right, I don't even deserve your affection."
He can't even compare to any of her exes. What exactly is wrong with him?
Now it was Ji Yubai's turn to cry, while Zhong Lingxi looked completely bewildered.
Why is he crying?
Does Ji Yubai want to be the ex-boyfriend, but not the current one?
Zhong Lingxi was both amused and exasperated, and felt helpless that he hadn't grasped the key point of her words.
Ji Yubai's thought process is somewhat different from that of ordinary people.
She could only emphasize, "What I meant by what I just said was, do you care about my past? Including my first time."
"Huh?" Ji Yubai looked at her as if she were an alien, as if to say, "Are you alright?"
"What I like about you is you as a person, what does it have to do with the first time?"
Zhong Lingxi didn't know if he genuinely didn't understand what "first time" meant, or if liking someone had nothing to do with being a first time.
After all, Ji Yubai was a virgin and had never even had a girlfriend.
She had no choice but to be more direct: "The first time I'm talking about is the first sexual relationship between a man and a woman, do you understand?"