Chapter 681 - 392: Old Li Arrives

What does true powerlessness feel like?

It’s as if, before you embark on the thing you most want to do, at the starting point on the path of pursuing happiness and a life without regret, life has already shown you the clearest and most desperate outcome of that endeavor.

This is a disillusioning path, filled with countless difficulties and thorns, with no endpoint. As you inflict pain on others, you will also be tormented, experiencing a long torture. After which, you will watch as they leave you behind one by one, until you too, eventually, vanish into nothingness.

Yet living in such a terrifying world filled with endless pain and despair, there seems to be no other path for you but this. So, in pursuit of a false sense of happiness, you muster the courage to set foot on this path and strive forward. Life begins to guide you, step by step, to prove that most desperate result.

You run amidst hardships, rise from setbacks, enveloped in worries, with pain scattered all around. But these cannot defeat you; your steps do not stop as you continue forward. Along the way, you also experience moments of hope and the illusion of beauty, the shadows of wild lilies and wild roses appearing before you. This gives you solace and captivates you, moving you to hope, believing that all suffering will eventually pass, and tears will be wiped away. There is nothing to be discouraged about, for you have a long life ahead.

Yet the remaining reason makes you understand over and over that no matter how hard you try, no matter how long you persist, the final outcome of things will not change in the slightest.

Even more laughable, every time hope appears before you, every time you overcome a difficulty or pass a phase of the journey, you feel that if you keep pushing forward desperately, clearing the thorns in your path, the outcome will be just a little bit different.

Until time passes, and the further you go, the more difficult it becomes, yet still, you see no endpoint.

You begin to hesitate and fear hope, finding no interest even in beautiful scenery, only feeling sadness and guilt. Because you finally realize that, from the very start, you were never alone—along with you were many companions who embarked on this journey together.

It was your stubborn insistence initially, half coercing with various means, that got them to join you on the road. Along the way, they were worried, scared, and aggrieved, their suffering far greater than yours. They advised you repeatedly that this path is impassable and urged you to turn back quickly. But you ignored them completely, insisting on forging ahead, dragging hesitant companions with you, tying them with ropes as you all walked together.

And now, before you, there appear towering snow-capped mountains reaching into the clouds and overlapping peaks. To proceed would mean enduring not only bone-chilling cold, hunger, and loneliness, but also fierce winds, and the abyss below, a single misstep leading straight to hell...

Only now do you truly awaken, overwhelmed by guilt and remorse within your heart. You realize you should not have brought them along. Because this endeavor is far crueler and more despairing than life ever told you. And the cause of this outcome was, ironically, all the efforts you made on this hopeful path.

The further you walk, the harder it is for them to return. Some now are even unable to turn back at all. When you show fear, there is a companion urging you; hurry, hurry, you’re already here, don’t back out on me...

"Still thinking about your fruit salad?"

Huang Tianxuan chuckled, "They talk to you about real issues, causing you to be unable to register for marriage, and you’re thinking of those two bites of food. Wenyue, are you just gutless and trying to escape, or are you, like Peifeng, enjoying the lack of morals in the current relationship status?"

"Don’t slander people!" Wu Wenyue’s face darkened, "Moreover, it’s not that I can’t marry you guys, Professor Zhao wants to save face, mindful of opinions around him. The same goes for you, the Huang family’s grand house—it would surely cause a huge uproar if they knew about this... You better end it while you can!"

"So this has nothing to do with you, huh?"

"Of course, without you guys, it’d be too simple!"

Wu Wenyue glanced at the silent Li Peifeng, her lips moved slightly as if cursing, and then she quietly said to Xu Manning, "According to our original plan, after he graduates, you first register the marriage with him, hold a ceremony in the Capital. Then, after half a year or a year, I’ll graduate, and Manning, you divorce him and directly inform Uncle and Aunt. Then I’ll take him back to Ningyuan City to hold a ceremony... as long as we don’t invite friends or colleagues around us, there’s absolutely no problem!"

Xu Manning looked a bit surprised, then nodded slightly, "If there’s a six-month buffer, it’ll work, even if my parents find out he divorced me and then got with you, at most, they’ll just complain a bit, and even if outsiders know, it won’t have a big impact."

Yes, it’s mainly about time.

Li Peifeng, like a statue, slightly moved his eyelids, realizing that time not only buries everything but also turns seas into fields, and turns snow mountains into plains...

"Wenyue, you’ve thought it through well." Huang Tianxuan shifted her cross-legged position from right-leaning to left, her expression unchanged, "But it’s a bit cold-hearted, hurt my sisterly feelings. During those days we spent together, I thought... haha."

"Don’t pretend like my Yueyue is very familiar with you."

Xu Manning rolled her eyes, hesitated for a moment, couldn’t help but wonder, and looked at Wu Wenyue, "During the week I was on a business trip, how many times did she come to our house?"

Only came once! But after coming, she never left!

Wu Wenyue felt guilty, so she didn’t answer the question, calmly saying to Huang Tianxuan, "Even if you’re anxious, there’s nothing you can do. If you were to hold it in Hangzhou, according to your parents’ wishes, the wedding scale would surely be very large, and news would surely come out. By then, Manning and I would..."