Her Rose – Chapter 91

Cheng Ying did not attend Cheng Liang’s trial, but Qin Guanyu, as a key witness who provided evidence, had to be there.

After getting the court’s permission, Qin Guanyu recorded a video of the sentencing and sent it to Cheng Ying.

Watching the main culprit—who was once high and mighty, mercilessly refusing to give her family’s company any chance of survival, leading to her father’s despair and suicide—now pale as a sheet in court, weeping and begging for mercy, before being roughly dragged away by expressionless bailiffs.

Qin Guanyu thought she would feel immense satisfaction. Once helpless, she now sat in the gallery wearing a clean, tailored suit, looking down on her enemy, who was clad in a prison uniform with no hope of a comeback.

But in reality, she didn’t. The deep-rooted, sprawling hatred in her heart had unknowingly withered and died along with the object of her hate, leaving only a desolate emptiness.

Fortunately, she still had someone who could fill that void.

But what about Cheng Ying?

When Qin Guanyu came out of the courthouse, Zhang Zeyun was leaning against a crimson sedan parked in the courthouse parking lot, a half-smoked cigarette between her fingers, staring expressionlessly at the solemn and imposing courthouse doors.

It wasn’t until Qin Guanyu’s figure appeared in the doorway that a faint smile emerged on her face. She took a couple of steps to meet her lover.

“Is it over?”

“It’s over.” Qin Guanyu tried to smile, but found the corners of her mouth felt as if they weighed a thousand pounds, refusing to lift. In the end, they only managed a difficult twitch.

Zhang Zeyun said nothing more. In silence, she helped the seemingly unsteady Alpha into the back seat of the car and got into the driver’s seat herself.

“Where to next?”

The person behind her was silent for a long time. Zhang Zeyun didn’t speak either, quietly waiting for her answer.

After a long while, Qin Guanyu said with a sigh, “Let’s go to the Huashan villa. To see Cheng Ying… and Jiang Hanguang.”

Zhang Zeyun silently started the car. The red sedan glided smoothly out of the parking space and onto the wide road, leaving the tall, magnificent courthouse behind.

Qin Guanyu watched the scenery fly by outside the window and began to speak slowly. “The first time I met Cheng Ying, I thought she was a lunatic who wasn’t in her right mind. She probably thought I was an idiot.”

Zhang Zeyun listened quietly. She already knew everything, but this was the first time she had heard Qin Guanyu talk about her past with Cheng Ying.

It was a time she hadn’t been a part of, so she could only be a listener.

Qin Guanyu probably wasn’t expecting a reply. She just continued speaking to herself, like a box stuffed with too many things that had finally found its lost key, eagerly spilling out the secrets she had forced down into her heart.

“Later, I believed her words, accepted her proposal, and became a knife in her hand.”

“Everyone says Cheng Ying and I are the closest of friends, but we’re not. We aren’t even friends. At most, we were comrades-in-arms, forced to huddle in the same trench under enemy fire.”

The expression on Qin Guanyu’s face was strange, as if she wanted to cry but couldn’t. On her face, which was usually overly serious and proper, it created a comical, distorted look.

“I know her capabilities better than anyone, so I also fear her more than anyone. Because I know she could crush me at any moment, with no more difficulty than crushing an ant.”

Zhang Zeyun lowered her eyes. After a moment, she uttered four words: “That’s only human.”

Qin Guanyu gave a bitter smile. “Yes. So I don’t feel guilty. I’m just wondering… does Cheng Ying… feel lonely?”

Bearing a profound secret all alone, with no one to tell, no one to share the burden with. A story so insane it seemed unreal was precisely Cheng Ying’s reality.

Even the warmth she had finally managed to embrace was plunged into an endless slumber because of this overly heavy secret.

Before, Qin Guanyu feared Cheng Ying, but she also felt they were kindred spirits in suffering.

But now, her hatred had dissipated, and her lover was by her side.

Yet Cheng Ying still had to walk that long, sunless road alone, waiting for a return with no set date.

She no longer feared Cheng Ying. Even though the other woman, now without her restraints, possessed even greater power than before, she knew Cheng Ying wouldn’t harm her.

Because there was no point. No point in anger, no point in hatred.

All her purpose had vanished along with that person’s slumber.

It was probably similar to how she felt when she saw Cheng Liang face justice.

After wasting so much time and paying such a great price, all that could be obtained in the end was a sense of closure that was barely better than nothing for the person involved.

After her wish was granted, there was only a vast, blank emptiness.

The car drove into a villa adorned with blooming flowers. It was early summer, not yet scorching hot. A gentle breeze brushed perfectly against their cheeks. A tall Alpha stood in her garden, holding a kite winder.

A swallow-shaped kite floated lightly in the sky, occasionally flapping its wings as she pulled the line.

Qin Guanyu heard Cheng Ying say with a smile, “Should I reel it in? I’m afraid it’ll go too far and won’t be able to find its way home.”

This wasn’t said to her and Zhang Zeyun, so only the wind answered Cheng Ying.

The Alpha turned her head, her eyes sweeping over the two of them. She smiled, “Well, well, you even brought family along.”

With a face that looked anything but joking, Qin Guanyu joked back, “Yeah, I was worried someone might hold a grudge and cause trouble for my wife, so I rushed over to apologize as soon as things were settled.”

But this time, it wasn’t a bluff born of insecurity, but a genuine attempt to make her smile.

Cheng Ying shook her head with a smile and began to reel in the kite. “Your timing is perfect. I just baked some cookies. Have a seat.”

She patiently rolled up the reeled-in kite, tidying it until it looked as if it had never been opened, and leaned it in a corner of the glass sunroom before sitting down opposite the two of them.

A round robot rolled up to the table, opened the lid on its head, and presented a plate of rather good-looking, steaming hot butter cookies.

The cookies tasted as good as they looked—crisp and delicious. Zhang Zeyun couldn’t resist eating a couple more. As she sipped her tea, she thought, with Cheng Ying’s intelligence, there’s probably nothing she can’t master.

“Did you watch the video I sent you?” Qin Guanyu asked.

The Alpha opposite her nodded. “I did. It was very satisfying.”

As she said this, there wasn’t a trace of satisfaction on her face. She still wore that light, breezy smile.

Qin Guanyu paused for a moment before speaking again. “And you? How have you been lately?”

Cheng Ying smiled and pointed at the cookies on the table. “I’m doing well. I just figured out a good cookie-baking method. I never realized before that there were so many interesting things in the world.”

Qin Guanyu looked at the sincere smile on the Alpha’s face, but her heart couldn’t feel any happiness.

For once, she cursed inwardly.

Interesting my ass. If Jiang Hanguang had died today, we probably would have found two bodies when we arrived.

But in the end, she said nothing, because it would have been useless.

And so, the two, who couldn’t really be called friends and had nothing personal to discuss, started talking about work.

Chaos was now in charge of intelligent machinery empowerment for Blueprint. For an intelligent brain with human-like thinking, this was a tedious job, akin to hauling bricks on a construction site.

However, Chaos itself had no complaints about the job, because it had a clear understanding of its own status.

It wasn’t some hero who turned the tide at a critical moment, but a criminal on death row with a suspended sentence.

It had teamed up with Cheng Mantou and barely managed to preserve Jiang Hanguang’s consciousness under Cheng Mo’s attack, but they couldn’t stop the woman’s consciousness from being dragged into the nearly boundless underlying database by the data storm caused by the virtual world’s collapse.

Unfortunately, the entrance to the underlying database had been permanently annihilated in that data storm.

The only good news was that there was still an exit that could be opened from the inside.

But the data stored in the underlying time was vast and complex, with no concept of time or space. To an ordinary person, it would seem like nothing but darkness. Chaos couldn’t be certain whether a human will could endure long enough to find the exit.

But it could be certain that if Jiang Hanguang truly got lost in that darkness and unknowingly stopped breathing, Cheng Ying would definitely drag it down with her to the grave.

So it hauled bricks diligently without complaint. Fortunately, Cheng Mantou had also been sent over by Cheng Ying for labor reform for not fully carrying out its master’s orders.

The two intelligent brains worked hard every day, bickering like sisters while praying for Jiang Hanguang to wake up soon. Their days weren’t too boring.

Zhang Zeyun couldn’t get a word in, so her gaze unconsciously fell upon the person who was as silent as she was.

Jiang Hanguang was still sleeping soundly. The woman’s face was no different from when Zhang Zeyun first saw her, still breathtakingly beautiful.

Yet she couldn’t help but feel a little nostalgic for those bright, lamp-like black eyes.

Over there, the conversation between Qin Guanyu and Cheng Ying came to a pause, but Zhang Zeyun suddenly spoke up: “Has Miss Jiang’s condition improved at all?”

Qin Guanyu was startled by her sudden question and instinctively reached under the table to pull her hand, telling her not to bring up a sore subject.

Zhang Zeyun gently patted her hand away and just looked at Cheng Ying.

But Cheng Ying didn’t show the pained expression Qin Guanyu expected. The Alpha blinked and answered her question in a gentle tone, “No better, but no worse either.”

Jiang Hanguang’s current state was equivalent to hovering between life and death. Her body was still alive, but her consciousness was lost. The final outcome could only be one of two extremes: death or waking up.

Zhang Zeyun took a player out of her pocket and placed it on the table. “Back when we were filming Little Little Farm, a crew member was a fan of Miss Jiang. She secretly took a lot of photos and videos of Miss Jiang. They’re all in here.”

For the first time since Jiang Hanguang fell into her slumber, Qin Guanyu saw genuine joy on Cheng Ying’s face.

The Alpha was like a child who had just been hit squarely by a gift falling from the sky. She picked up the player, almost gingerly, and pressed the power button.

On the screen, the woman was sitting under a tree to cool off, completely unaware of the camera in the corner. Her fair face was flushed from the sun, a faint smile hung on her lips, and her beautiful eyes were slightly lowered, gentle waves flowing within them as she looked at someone beside her.

The crew member who secretly filmed this was clearly a solo fan of Jiang Hanguang; the person she was looking at was not in the frame.

But Cheng Ying knew who she was looking at. And so, all the longing that had been suppressed under a thick barrier, hidden from the light of day for so long, surged up at once, making her eyes burn so hot that tears almost fell.

How pathetic. It’s been so long, why is it still so painful?

Cheng Ying had to turn off the player to avoid losing her composure in front of others.

She carefully placed the player in an inner pocket. Qin Guanyu was certain that even a diamond of the same size wouldn’t receive such preferential treatment from Cheng Ying.

The Alpha looked at Zhang Zeyun, her smile filled with sincere gratitude. “Thank you.”

Zhang Zeyun shook her head. “It was nothing. Actually, I should be the one formally apologizing to you again. Because of some misunderstandings, I was always targeting you on the show.”

Cheng Ying smiled, her eyes full of nostalgia. “I really used to hate you. But now, I think those were all good things worth remembering. If it weren’t for all that trouble, Hanguang and I wouldn’t have gotten together so quickly.”

Since she left, even the things that once disgusted her were now only objects of nostalgia.

As long as she was there, everything was good.

As a return gift for Zhang Zeyun’s kindness, Cheng Ying turned to Qin Guanyu with a grin and said earnestly, “You’ve held up Director Zhang for so long because of this matter. You’d better treat her well from now on.”

Qin Guanyu: “…”

Selling out her own subordinate for a player. Cheng Ying would definitely make a great tyrant.

Zhang Zeyun also smiled, but one hand quietly moved to Qin Guanyu’s waist and gave it a sharp twist.

Qin Guanyu’s expression changed drastically. She managed to hold back a sound, but the look she gave Zhang Zeyun was tinged with a pitiful plea.

Zhang Zeyun, expressionless, silently withdrew her hand.

The revenge was complete, but the debt of love was not yet repaid.

Cheng Ying burst out laughing. “Ahem, President Qin, take care of yourself. Back pain is common when you get older.”

Qin Guanyu: “…Thank you for your concern.”

Zhang Zeyun smiled. “I hope Boss Cheng can also start living a life that requires maintenance soon.”

Cheng Ying also smiled. “I’d love to, but my Hanguang wouldn’t have the heart to pinch me.”

Zhang Zeyun grabbed a handful of cookies. “It’s okay, I’ll have a chat with Miss Jiang about it then.”

Cheng Ying’s smile widened. “Then I’ll thank you in advance on her behalf.”

When Qin Guanyu and Zhang Zeyun left, they also received a bouquet of blooming roses.

On the way back, Qin Guanyu couldn’t help but ask, “Why did you… bring up Jiang Hanguang with her?”

Zhang Zeyun said while eating the cookies she brought back from the villa, “Because she likes it when people talk to her about Jiang Hanguang. Not in that memorial service tone, but very casually, as if she’s just taken a nap and will eventually wake up.”

Qin Guanyu: “…A person like her, would she delude herself?”

Zhang Zeyun gave a bitter smile. “It’s not delusion. It’s just a kind of hope, or longing.”

Qin Guanyu: “…I see.”

In the third year after Jiang Hanguang fell into her slumber, Cheng Ying received an email from Meng Ziyan.

After Feng Nan’s case was over, Meng Ziyan underwent a series of physical and psychological treatments. Then, after consulting her, Cheng Ying sent her to a non-profit kindergarten and would send her a sum of money periodically.

The email contained a group photo of Meng Ziyan and a group of children. They were all squatting on a soft lawn, bright sunlight illuminating their faces. Everyone was smiling radiantly, as if the gloom had never existed.

She had woken up from that nightmare and was continuing to walk forward, facing the sun.

The children in the photo were holding a large banner that read—Thank you, Miss Cheng Ying, for the candy and toys. We wish Miss Jiang Hanguang a speedy recovery.

Cheng Ying stared at the name in the photo for a long time before slowly smiling.

As she smiled, tears fell onto the keyboard in front of her.

See? So many people are waiting for you to wake up, just like me.

Open your eyes and look at me, please?

Jiang Hanguang could no longer remember how long she had been walking in this endless darkness. At first, she could rely on her memories to remain optimistic in the dark.

Later, as time passed, she slowly forgot who she was, why she was here, and where she was going.

There was no day or night here, no tall buildings, not a single sound or glimmer of light—only an eternally silent, eternally lonely blackness.

In the end, Jiang Hanguang even thought about just falling asleep, melting into this darkness. At least then, she wouldn’t be so lonely anymore.

But ultimately, she didn’t stop walking. The last shred of thought in her mind relentlessly tugged at her gradually dimming consciousness.

Keep walking, never stop. Someone is waiting for me. I have to… go back to her side.

Who is waiting for me?

Jiang Hanguang couldn’t remember, but she still forced herself to keep moving her feet until she saw a glowing door.

She seemed to have forgotten the emotion of joy. She just woodenly touched the doorknob and opened it by instinct.

She opened her eyes and saw a warm firelight.

In the brick-red fireplace, a bright fire was burning fiercely.

A thick carpet covered the floor, and steam rose from the tea on the table.

A beautiful woman in a white sweater was sitting opposite her, a book resting on her lap.

The woman’s voice was deep and magnetic, gently reading aloud: “If you tame me, then my life will be filled with sunshine…”

For some reason, when she saw the woman’s face clearly, Jiang Hanguang’s vision blurred.

Scalding liquid flowed from her eyes, merging with the fluid floating around her.

She reached out, wanting to touch the person’s face, but met a thick glass barrier.

Her palm made a soft sound against the glass. The person paused, then slowly raised her head.

Her eyes are like the sea, Jiang Hanguang thought.

Have you ever seen a boiling sea?

She watched the woman rush over, knocking over her chair in her haste.

She rushed right up to her but stood there at a loss, her expression a mixture of crying and laughing that looked utterly comical.

But Jiang Hanguang didn’t want to laugh. She only wanted to kiss the woman’s cheeks and wipe away the tears that were streaming down.

The woman slapped herself hard across the face, froze for a moment, and then cautiously pressed a button.

The liquid surrounding her quickly drained away, and the glass barrier opened.

Jiang Hanguang raised a hand to remove the mask from her face. Unaccustomed to the sudden fresh air, she coughed twice and fell into a firm embrace.

The person’s embrace was so warm, nothing like that cold liquid.

Jiang Hanguang liked her embrace, and she liked her scent.

“Hanguang… Hanguang…”

She heard the person’s tearful whisper.

Is that my name?

The person held her for a very long time before reluctantly pulling back a little, caressing her cheek lovingly.

Jiang Hanguang closed her eyes, enjoying the caress.

She couldn’t remember this person’s name, but she loved her touch.

It felt as if it had happened a thousand times before, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

She spoke, a little slowly, “You are…”

The person froze for a second, then looked at her with feigned reproach. “Silly, I’m your… lover.”

Her face was so familiar, her scent so intoxicating.

Her name was… Cheng Ying.

A name, vivid and profound, surfaced in her mind. Jiang Hanguang didn’t know why, but she smiled through her tears.

She opened her arms to the woman before her. “Then hug me again.”

The familiar embrace enveloped her tightly once more, a contented smile on the woman’s face.

That’s right. She was the end of her long journey. She was the peaceful sleep she had sought but could not find. She was heaven’s reward for not giving up.

She was her lover.