Last Love chapter 13

Wen Ke was suddenly stunned and raised his head abruptly. “You…you know? How could you know…?”

Han Jiangque turned around, looking at him, and his eyes were somewhat red. “In the third year of high school, the school officially announced that you were caught passing notes and cheating in the exam. Everyone believed it, but I didn’t. I don’t care what others say, but you couldn’t—Wen Ke, you couldn’t and didn’t need to cheat.”

“During the mock exams, Class AB and Class O had seats arranged in the auditorium, and Zhuo Yuan sat behind you.”

Han Jiangque clenched his teeth and continued, “I later checked, and Zhuo Yuan’s grades for all the quizzes in that month declined, except for this last mock exam, where he performed the best. Wen Ke, mock exam results are used to apply for foreign universities. Wasn’t that always Zhuo Yuan’s plan? —It was Zhuo Yuan who cheated.”

Han Jiangque sat down at the edge of the bed, staring at Wen Ke, and asked again, “Zhuo Yuan wanted to copy your answers, right?”

The hand under Wen Ke’s blanket trembled violently.

At that time, no one believed him anymore. During the cheating scandal days, he was like a mute, not uttering a single word in his defense.

He remembered the last time he went to the classroom to pack his things, everyone looked at him with strange, evasive eyes.

Feeling like a thorn in the back, he left the school like fleeing.

Since then, he had never gone back, not just to the school but also to that small northern town.

Changed his number, almost severed contact with all high school classmates, and then quickly got engaged to Zhuo Yuan, moving to City B with the Zhuo family.

That’s how he completely cut ties with the Wen Ke of high school.

So, it wasn’t until now that he knew Han Jiangque believed in him.

Han Jiangque was the only person who believed in him from start to finish.

“I…” Wen Ke used all his strength to keep himself calm. He didn’t look at Han Jiangque, just said indifferently, “It’s all in the past. I don’t care anymore.”

It was like telling Han Jiangque and telling himself.

“But I care,” Han Jiangque said. He picked up a shirt from the side and hastily put it on.

Unable to hold back, Wen Ke raised his head and stared blankly at Han Jiangque’s face.

He was very close to Han Jiangque, close enough to see clearly the short and fierce scar between Han Jiangque’s eyebrows.

It was the wound he inflicted with a chair, probably deep enough to require several stitches.

Back then, they were both too young, relying mostly on instinct to deal with the world, but sometimes instinct was too weak, unable to solve the problem.

Looking at him and thinking about the time when Han Jiangque clenched his neck, saying, “I only know how to fight,” Wen Ke felt very sad.

Sixteen-year-old Han Jiangque wanted to help him, and the only method he could think of was to beat up Zhuo Yuan.

He didn’t want Zhuo Yuan to be beaten, and he didn’t want Han Jiangque to get into trouble, so he lifted the chair and left an everlasting ugly mark on the face he was obsessed with.

He had tried to forget blindly, but Han Jiangque remembered.

Ten years later, the scar from that scandal not only remained on Han Jiangque’s face but also in his heart.

“Even if it’s cheating, it can’t be done by one person. I beat up Zhuo Yuan because I wanted him to admit—it was him copying your paper, and he forced you to agree to cheating. If he had confessed, you might not have been expelled.”

Han Jiangque looked at Wen Ke, with sadness and anger in his eyes, stubbornly saying, “As long as you were not expelled, there was still a chance. You could still take the college entrance exam and go to the university you want. Wen Ke, why didn’t you fight for yourself?”

“Han Jiangque… don’t say it.”

Wen Ke said this, almost feeling like he was about to collapse. He covered his face, trying to hide his emotions, but he immediately felt the palms becoming wet. He choked, saying, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, don’t say it. I cheated in the first place, no matter for whom, I cheated—I shouldn’t go to college, It was right for me to be expelled. Please, don’t mention it again, I’m sorry…”

He still broke down in front of Han Jiangque. In fact, getting expelled for cheating ten years ago was a much more massive blow than the current divorce.

No matter how much he wanted to play the role of a mature, carefree adult, he couldn’t face it.

Han Jiangque, with red eyes, suddenly reached out and tightly hugged him.

Wen Ke wanted to struggle, but the arms of an adult Alpha were as solid as a fortress, and he couldn’t escape.

“Wen Ke, you always apologize to others.”

He buried his face in Wen Ke’s shoulder, saying hoarsely, “But the one you owe the most apologies to is yourself.”

…

Han Jiangque was right, every word was right.

Memories, like a nightmare, linked one after another. Wen Ke hadn’t thought about it for too long.

That incident, he hadn’t mentioned it to anyone, keeping this secret for ten years, both for Zhuo Yuan and for himself.

It was his deepest nightmare, his most painful wound.

After Zhuo Yuan marked him for the first time, perhaps due to the curiosity of adolescents trying forbidden fruit, he almost thought about that thing all the time, and Zhuo Yuan’s demands on him were so intense that it was almost unbearable.

That period of life was in shades of gray. Wen Ke remembered being tired, falling asleep while doing papers in his mother’s hospital room, and then being taken away by the secretly-entered Zhuo Yuan, repeatedly having sex in his cold and shabby little house.

Such madness, even Wen Ke worried about his grades, not to mention that Zhuo Yuan was not originally the top student.

Before the mock exams, Zhuo Yuan was extremely afraid. Perhaps the seating arrangement gave him a glimpse of hope, and he kept saying he had always wanted to study abroad. Mock exam results didn’t affect the college entrance exam, but they were used to apply for foreign universities. If he didn’t do well this time, his mother would beat him to death.

Repeated entanglement and pleading finally made Wen Ke dizzy.

He, who had always been an honest student, never cheated for Han Jiangque, even though he cared about him. On the other hand, Han Jiangque, even if he ranked last in the entire grade, scolded by every teacher, never asked Wen Ke for such a request as Zhuo Yuan did.

If it weren’t for meeting Zhuo Yuan, Wen Ke never thought he would be expelled one day for cheating.

Wen Ke was a clumsy cheater, and Zhuo Yuan was a greedy plagiarist.

Even after passing a cheat sheet, Zhuo Yuan kicked the back of Wen Ke’s chair from behind several times, asking for the answers several times.

When it came to the fourth cheat sheet, Wen Ke was finally caught on the spot—

He held the crumpled cheat sheet that he hadn’t passed yet and was forcibly escorted out of the exam room by the teacher with a grim face.

The memories that followed were like a poorly directed and randomly edited montage of chaotic scenes.

He remembered that his palms were sweaty, and his back was sweaty too. Above his head, the dim yellow light kept flickering because the light bulb was malfunctioning.

Like a criminal, he cowered in the headteacher’s office, being scolded by his own class teacher, who was astonished and resentful like she was beating iron into steel.

At first, they all asked him who he was writing cheat sheets for. No one believed that Wen Ke could be the one cheating, but he never spoke up.

Even now, it was challenging to understand his past self.

Later, the teachers let him go home to think it over.

Zhuo Yuan took him back to the Zhuo family. The whole night, he shivered, huddled in Zhuo Yuan’s arms. His mind seemed to be swirling with many thoughts but also felt like a blank slate.

He was genuinely terrified.

Zhuo Yuan repeatedly kissed his ear, saying “Xiao Ke, I’m sorry.” He comforted Wen Ke, saying, “It’s just cheating in the mock exam, not the actual college entrance exam. It won’t have a significant impact, at most, you’ll get a severe warning.”

That night, Wen Ke cried, and Zhuo Yuan couldn’t help shedding tears either. He kept begging Wen Ke not to expose him, saying, “If this matter is discovered, I’m done for. If I’m done for, my family won’t accept me, and I won’t be able to help you, nor your mother.”

Wen Ke was in a daze, not sure what he was going to do. But within two days, the school’s punishment came swiftly—

He was expelled.

Getting expelled at that time completely extinguished any possibility of taking the college entrance exam.

No one asked him anymore if someone had asked him to cheat. Overnight, it seemed like this matter became unimportant.

The teachers who believed in him before no longer cared, and he received an unprecedented severe punishment.

In the days that followed, he felt almost dead.

While others were actively preparing for the college entrance exam, he lay on his bed night after night, staring blankly, watching the dirty window turn from night to day, from dawn to dusk.

More than once, he thought about dying, but in the end, he didn’t. Perhaps it was due to his cowardice.

Zhuo Yuan was the only person he could rely on.

The Zhuo family probably knew the details of the whole incident. They quickly transferred Wen Ke and his seriously ill mother to City B, saying it was to help him relax.

A few months later, relying on outstanding mock exam scores, Zhuo Yuan was admitted early to the coveted overseas university.

The entire Zhuo family was overjoyed. On the night of the family celebration, Zhuo Yuan put an engagement ring on Wen Ke, saying, “Xiao Ke, I will love you forever.”

Three months later, Wen Ke’s mother’s cancer relapsed and she passed away.

Everything at the age of eighteen settled into dust.

…

What does regret feel like?

Wen Ke knew it too well.

For ten years, the thought of being expelled for cheating brought him so much pain that he couldn’t sleep. He could only immediately shut off that memory and rely on fantasies—

Fantasies of holding a knife, cutting his wrists over and over again, bleeding profusely, just to gradually calm his state of mind.

It was a form of punishment, punishing himself in the imaginary space by killing himself, to gather the courage to keep on living.

That’s what regret is.

Without being expelled, his life was open, with countless intersections and unlimited possibilities ahead.

But with expulsion, those exciting possibilities closed, and the future was sealed in front of him.

On the path of life, one always faces many, many choices.

Some choices may seem small at the moment, but in reality, looking back after many years, one might realize that an ordinary day in the past was the pivotal turning point that ultimately changed their life.

Just like that day when Wen Ke nervously entered the exam room, the warm sunlight falling gently on the back of his head, it seemed like the most ordinary morning.