Chapter 229 Chapter 229 Is The Choice You Made The Right One?
Chapter 229 Is The Choice You Made The Right One?
Yes, to make Xiaocheng no longer exhibit her obsessive tendencies, to turn her into a normal person, and thus live a normal life with her.
Wasn't this what she had always wished for?
Ever since the incident in the dark room, up until Xiaocheng was shot and died, Su Tao felt she had repeatedly taken the wrong path.
This wrong path was to evade Xiaocheng's possessive nature, and to self-consolingly tell herself everything was for Xiaocheng's cure, which led her to do things that hurt Xiaocheng.
It was only in the past two weeks that she truly understood Xiaocheng had both an obsessive side and a lovable side.
Since she had enjoyed Xiaocheng's lovable qualities, she shouldn't have tried to avoid her obsessive tendencies.
As for curing her, Su Tao hadn't even considered it for some time now.
But now, the chance to cure her was right before her eyes.
Within her grasp!
In fact, this might be the only opportunity she would ever have!
Her breathing began to quicken, the metal casing in her hand felt incredibly cold, yet Su Tao felt as if hot blood, accompanied by the words on her phone, surged forth and then re-entered her body.
If it truly was as Chengcheng said, what would the future become?
Su Tao wasn't the type with a vivid imagination.
If asked to imagine a future where Xiaocheng was free of her obsessive attachment, what came to Su Tao's mind were childhood memories.
Memories from middle school and high school, before they had their falling out.
She hadn't understood Xiaocheng's feelings, but perhaps even then, Xiaocheng had already harbored a bit of affection for her?
If she lost her obsessive tendencies, would she return to her former life?
Su Tao held her phone like that, letting the cold wind redden her ears.
She stood unmoving, like an ice sculpture.
Her beautiful pupils seemed unfocused, gazing abstractedly at the words on the screen.
Various smiling faces of Chi Xiaocheng gradually flashed through her mind.
After the smiles came bleeding at the lips, and one terrifying, suffocating scene after another.
The basement.
The rooftop.
The small dark room.
The snowy road when she broke ties with Ye Liang.
The images flashed by like an old film reel, accompanied by "click-clack" sounds, finally freezing on the scene just before her death.
Not the look of satisfaction she had when she was shot.
But rather... her outpouring of feelings during their last argument.
Hurting Sister Long, causing a huge scene at school, venting her anger on Su Tao's behalf in front of her mentor.
Originally, she was disrupting Su Tao's life, creating terrifying scenes, and this kind of behavior, without a doubt, was characteristic of her obsessive nature.
But when she acted that way, with such an obsessive attachment, wasn't it also for Su Tao?
"If that suffocating love is gone, would she still be the Xiaocheng I know?"
When Su Tao came back to herself, this sentence softly murmured from her lips.
The evening breeze still blew from behind her, messing up her ponytail, its chill seemingly intent on dispersing her confusion.
Suddenly, an old man's voice came from nearby, "Child, what are you thinking about?"
Hearing the voice, Su Tao then noticed that while she had been lost in thought, a patient from the neighboring room seemed to have walked out.
It was an elderly man; Su Tao noticed his bandaged eyes and the white cane in his hand.
The elderly man was blind.
Su Tao temporarily put away her phone, smiled at the elderly man, and said, "Oh, nothing much, just chatting with a friend."
Though blind, the elderly man's hearing was very keen. He had come out to enjoy the evening breeze, but the sudden murmuring that reached his ears had startled him, and he had, of course, heard it clearly.
With the thought of finding someone to chat with, the elderly man said, "If it's trouble you're thinking about, you can tell this old man. It's a bit too lonely sitting here alone in the evening breeze."
Su Tao felt a little confused; the thoughts that had just surfaced were still battling with memories of Xiaocheng from the past.
She couldn't help but open her mouth and ask, "My story might be a bit long, Grandpa, would you like to hear it?"
The elderly man tapped the floor with his white cane and nodded gently.
Su Tao thought for a moment, then recounted her story with Chi Xiaocheng.
Only, in her telling, her love for Chi Xiaocheng became familial affection.
Xiaocheng's obsessive tendencies became a mental illness.
Her extreme actions were merely due to an excessive reliance on Su Tao as a sister, rather than loving her to the point of madness.
She needed to consider the elderly man's ability to understand.
Finally, she voiced her confusion: "The doctor told me that if my friend continues to suffer from amnesia, she won't have a mental illness. But if her past memories are reawakened, then her mental illness might become incurable."
The elderly man didn't make a sound to interrupt Su Tao throughout her story. Only when she finished did he softly ask in return, "Is the doctor you speak of truly a doctor?"
Su Tao was momentarily speechless, then awkwardly twirled a strand of hair with her index finger. "Well... actually, it was a friend of mine who said that."
The elderly man smiled kindly. "Then your friend is actually mistaken."
"Mistaken?"
"Yes," the elderly man replied. "Memory is not something you can control. Even if you don't try to help her regain her memories, perhaps one day she'll have a dream, or experience something profoundly impactful.
"And from that, she could recall past events. That's not impossible.
"To put it more directly, unless your sister moves to a new environment and avoids contact with everyone she once knew, sooner or later, she will regain her memories.
"Even a significant event that impacts her mind could cause her memories to return."
The elderly man said, "If you're not in a hurry, why don't you listen to my son's story?"
His son was a firefighter. During a mission when he was twenty, he rescued a girl from a blazing inferno.
The cause of the massive fire was a desperate criminal who had broken in to rob the house. After killing her parents in front of her, the police arrived, and knowing he couldn't escape, he set the house ablaze.
To die with the girl.
The fire was fierce. By the time his son found the girl, she had been hit on the head by a charred beam and had already fallen unconscious.
After she was rescued and revived, perhaps because the events before her unconsciousness were too painful, or perhaps because she was hit on the head by the beam, the girl lost her memory. Apart from a vague impression of 'home,' she remembered nothing of her past.
The girl was cheerful and resilient, actively cooperating with her treatment, hoping that one day she could go home.
But many things couldn't be kept secret. After six months of treatment, she hadn't made a single phone call home, nor had her parents visited her in the hospital. All the information she had received was from the doctors and his son.
She had amnesia, but she was not foolish. Realizing that something might have happened to her family, and with a vague impression of home in her mind, she kept pressing to know what had truly occurred.
At this point, two choices lay before his son.
Reawaken her past memories.
Fabricate a home for her. As a firefighter, his son even considered marrying her to take care of her for the rest of her life, to prevent her from recalling those painful memories.
At this point in the story, the elderly man turned around, guided by the sound of Su Tao's earlier voice.
Although his eyes were covered with a black cloth, it was as if he were looking directly at her.
"Child," he asked, "if it were you, which would you choose?"
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