The Amnesiac Omega Who Reels Me In Every Day – Chapter 73
by Little PandaDon’t Even Think About Leaving Me
Huo Qi told Jiang Jinyi, “I know you feel helpless right now. Don’t be afraid—I can stay with you, stay with you always.”
“Even if everyone around you is a bad person, I will never betray you, never lie to you.”
When she said these words, Huo Qi didn’t move closer. Instead, she stood up and said with a smile, “I’ll go make you something to eat. Be good, have a meal, then get some proper rest here. Leave everything to tomorrow?”
Listen to that—how lovely those words were, how sincere that companionship. Huo Qi had already been here with her for an entire day, and now she was going to cook for her too.
When people are fragile and helpless, they always find it easy to soften toward, to be moved by, those who treat them well.
To grow dependent, unable to leave, even to fall in love.
That was exactly what Jiang Youwan had done before.
Using such methods to make her drown in it, to make her pour all her love—all of it, every last bit—into her mother’s killer.
Jiang Youwan was her mother’s killer, but was Huo Qi any kind of good person?
What Huo Qi was doing—how was it any different from what Jiang Youwan had done?
One had just taken it slow, the other had been more impatient. And now, Huo Qi had learned to take it slow too.
Huo Qi was busy in the kitchen. Jiang Jinyi didn’t want to eat her food, and she didn’t want to stay here any longer. She picked up that Old Family Photo and got up to leave. When she reached the door, Huo Qi called out to stop her from behind: “Did you know? Jiang Youwan is conducting a full-scale manhunt for you right now. What does that seem like? Like hunting down a fugitive?”
Sure enough, Jiang Jinyi stopped in her tracks.
A full-scale manhunt? The term seemed a bit exaggerated, yet it also seemed like exactly the kind of thing Jiang Youwan would do.
Before her memories returned, Jiang Youwan had told her, time and time again, that she couldn’t leave her, that they had to be together properly.
The Jiang Jinyi of that time hadn’t understood. Why was jiejie so insecure, so afraid of loss?
Now she understood it all.
Things stolen, things gained through deception—possessing them didn’t make them yours.
Living every day in fear.
Sensing that Jiang Jinyi had only paused briefly before wanting to continue forward, Huo Qi frowned and said sharply, “I know you’re in agony right now. You’re in pain. All your agony and pain comes from Jiang Youwan.”
Jiang Jinyi didn’t stop. Huo Qi’s voice grew louder. “I know you don’t want to believe me right now, but I have a way to end all of this suffering. You should hear it out.”
Jiang Jinyi opened the car door. Huo Qi, growing frantic, rushed forward two steps. “Taking back Jiang Corporation, making Jiang Youwan pay, sending Jiang Youwan to prison to reflect for the rest of her life—it’s all too hard, too slow. Xiao Jin, kill her. Kill her and everything will end. You’ll have avenged your mother. You’ll be able to live with a clear conscience. You’ll be able to start a new life.”
Kill her?
At those two words, Jiang Jinyi’s eyes—empty and lifeless until now—snapped tight. She stopped moving.
She turned to look at Huo Qi. The clouds at the horizon looked as though they’d been set ablaze, staining a vast expanse red. The light was dim. They weren’t close enough to make out Huo Qi’s expression anymore, but she could still feel the hysteria radiating from her.
“Jiang Youwan should have died a long time ago!”
“Think it through carefully. Seven days from now, at this same time, bring her to Wushan. I’ll help you deal with her.”
Time passed quickly. The clouds at the horizon burned out like fire consumed to ash, and the sky surrendered to darkness.
It wasn’t just the sky shrouded in darkness. They were both fractured and falling apart.
After a full day, neither of them had had it easy.
Jiang Youwan exhausted every method at her disposal. Luo City’s airport, every major and minor station and tollbooth was under her surveillance—she was determined to block every possible escape route for Jiang Jinyi.
Considering every place Jiang Jinyi might possibly appear, she raced around without stopping.
She hadn’t stopped all day. Even when her strength was spent, she didn’t stop, because Jiang Jinyi had already pushed her to the limit, pushed her to the edge.
On the other side, Jiang Jinyi didn’t know where to go. She didn’t go home. She didn’t want to go home.
She knew Jiang Youwan was looking for her, so she didn’t leave Luo City either. Driving aimlessly through the darkness, suddenly she missed her mother so much. She wanted to go see her mother.
When a child misses her mother, she finds her destination.
Jiang Jinyi was timid. In the past, during Qingming Festival1 when visiting the graves to honor ancestors, she wouldn’t dare set foot in the cemetery unless she had plenty of people with her.
She was afraid of ghosts, and she was afraid of the dark.
But the one who lived inside was her mother. Her mother was so gentle, loved her so much, doted on her so much. Even if there were other ghosts there, her mother would protect her, wouldn’t she?
Thinking this, Jiang Jinyi wasn’t afraid anymore.
She went to a flower shop near the cemetery and bought a bouquet. For some reason, the shopkeeper looked at her strangely, but still carefully wrapped the flowers for her and handed them over, saying, “My condolences.”
Jiang Jinyi carried the flowers to the cemetery. Standing before Jiang Ningshu’s gravestone, she couldn’t hold back her tears again.
The person resting inside was the one she loved most, and the one who had loved her most.
They were never supposed to end up like this. Jiang Jinyi imagined it for a moment—they should be at home right now, curled up on the couch together watching TV, or attending some banquet together, or traveling, or she’d had a nightmare and her mother was holding her, soothing her…
Suddenly, the sound of footsteps behind her jolted Jiang Jinyi awake. She clenched her fist, reopening the wounds she’d inflicted earlier that day when she’d lost control—wounds that hadn’t fully healed—until they bled again.
Even the beauty of her fantasies had to be shattered by someone?
She turned around. Sure enough, the person standing behind her was Jiang Youwan.
After just one day apart, every trace of the beauty between them had vanished.
“Xiao Jin, you remember everything now, don’t you?”
Jiang Youwan’s condition wasn’t good. She seemed both relieved and even more tightly wound, her eyes fixed on the person before her, terrified she would disappear again.
Her voice was so very soft—so soft that she hoped Jiang Jinyi wouldn’t hear what she was asking, and instead would come running to her the next second, throw her arms around her, and say with a choked voice, “Jiejie, I miss Mom.”
Xiao Jin had disappeared for a whole day because she suddenly missed her mother, because she had run to the cemetery to cry. Not because her memories had returned, not…
Jiang Youwan stepped forward, walking toward Jiang Jinyi.
“If I hadn’t remembered, would you have lied to me for the rest of my life?” Jiang Jinyi’s cold voice froze her movements and her heartbeat together.
Fate proclaimed to her: your Xiao Jin has remembered. She remembers it all. The lies have been exposed, the beautiful dream has shattered completely, and that last shred of wishful thinking doesn’t deserve to exist anymore.
Jiang Youwan despaired.
The night suddenly grew heavier, the surroundings more deathly silent, without a trace of life.
Neither of them moved. It was Jiang Jinyi who broke the silence: “Your name isn’t Jiang Youwan. You’re Su Lin, aren’t you? You’re the illegitimate daughter of the Su Family. Your brother is that man who tried to lay hands on me last time—Su Yi.”
Jiang Jinyi laid out, word by word with absolute clarity, everything she’d heard from Huo Qi:
“Five years ago, you came to the Jiang Family with a scheme. You came to avenge the grudges of the previous generation of your family. You came to swallow up the Jiang Family. Isn’t that right? That was your purpose in coming to the Jiang Family from the very start.”
“…Isn’t that right?”
Jiang Jinyi was asking her—hadn’t sentenced her to death yet. She was asking earnestly, hoping she would give a denial and promise never to lie to her again.
“Is that how it is? Su Lin?”
“Stop lying to me, please?”
Deception truly was the most detestable thing in this world.
But Jiang Youwan fell silent for a long time, then answered weakly, dodging the question: “Xiao Jin, it’s so dark and cold here. Go home with jiejie.”
She didn’t deny it, and she didn’t dare admit it either.
In her silence, she had already given her answer.
The air solidified. They both knew full well that Jiang Youwan had already sentenced herself.
Jiang Jinyi suddenly laughed, the mockery incomparable: “Go back with you and do what? You want me to keep dating my mother’s killer? To act lovey-dovey with my mother’s killer?”
Suffocating words. The term “mother’s killer” was simply too heavy.
Between them lay the distance of a dead person.
Jiang Jinyi knew how to wound her. Jiang Jinyi wounded her mercilessly, making her suffer as much as she did, wanting her to suffer even more than she did.
She kept calling her real name: “Su Lin, Su Lin? What a beautiful name… Why couldn’t you just be yourself? Why did you have to come torture me?”
Jiang Youwan kept her head down and said nothing. Jiang Jinyi stopped looking at her. She turned toward the gravestone, to the photo she could no longer make out in the darkness, and murmured:
“Mom, if I’d known that today, four years on, it would turn out like this, I shouldn’t have been so willful. I shouldn’t have gone to Bei City. I should have stayed by your side and protected you.”
“No—if only I’d been even more willful. If I’d kept making a scene, fought to drive her away even if it killed me. Between her and me, you would still have chosen me, wouldn’t you?”
“Mom, I’m sorry…”
After saying these words, Jiang Jinyi walked in a daze, brushing past Jiang Youwan, heading out of the cemetery. When she tried to drive, the car wouldn’t move. She got out and checked—all four tires were slashed.
Who did it, and why—she knew perfectly well.
A car soon pulled up beside her. Behind the wheel sat Uncle Dong. Dongbo had already retired, yet here he was in their family’s car. His weathered face offered an apologetic smile as he coaxed her gently: “Miss, let’s go home first. Let’s go home, and everything else can be discussed.”
Jiang Jinyi ignored him completely.
She walked forward on her own as though she couldn’t hear a thing. This was the outskirts, where even other cars were scarce, let alone taxis.
Walking back to the city proper would take 10 kilometers. Jiang Jinyi hadn’t eaten anything all day. She didn’t know how long she’d been walking—by the time her consciousness faded, she crumpled to the ground.
When she opened her eyes again, the familiar ceiling, the familiar scent—Jiang Jinyi realized she was in Jiang Youwan’s room.
Lying on the soft bed, yet everything felt heavy and suffocating, like drowning in the deep sea. The atmosphere was so oppressive she couldn’t breathe, making Jiang Jinyi desperately want to escape.
She propped herself up to leave, but her movement startled the person who had been resting against the edge of the bed, finally asleep after such difficulty. Jiang Youwan rose and lunged forward, seizing her wrist, staring at her fiercely. She began releasing her datura flower scent—fatally alluring to Jinyi—and said with iron force: “Don’t even think about leaving me!”
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