"Mengjie!" It was the first time Si Hongqi raised his voice at her. "Don't put yourself in danger for a man like him. I know that you find him attractive. I know that you wanted him to be part of our family and that's fine. You can recruit him but having a relationship is another thing! You don't even love him!"

"So what if I don't love him right now? It doesn't mean that my feelings will remain the same in the future," she argued back. "I can always learn to love him. And just so you know, Yong Liwei is not hard to love!"

Who wouldn't fall for a man who knew how to treat a woman with respect? She knew that it would only be a matter of time before they would finally be able to accept each other.

"Do you even know what love is?" He frowned deeply. Frustration was seen in his eyes.

"I do!" She exclaimed. "I have loved you for so many years but you keep on pushing me away!"

"What you have for me is not love," he retorted.

It was not love... ?

"Did you think that after all these years I don't know what you have been actually chasing for in me?" He laughed with a sarcastic tone in his voice. "It's not me but your father's shadow! The love you have for me is not the same love I've been wanting from you!"

The moment she heard his words, she felt as if a knife was stabbed in her chest. Tears brimmed in her eyes. She couldn't deny what he said since she knew that his words were correct. She had just realized that fact lately. She already understood that was unconsciously running after another man but hearing the truth directly from Si Hongqi's lips hit her differently. Lu Mengjie was slapped hard by his words despite knowing it already. It was not romantic love. She was only running after a dead man's shadow, not wanting to let go.

"Did you think that I have not tried making a move on making you fall for me?" He laughed despite the seething flame in his eyes. "Did you think that I have not tried working out the relationship you wanted? Did you really think that I won't grow feelings for you despite knowing that I'm not the person you really wanted?"

He tightened his hold on her hand but not to the point where it would hurt her. "I'm not the one pushing you away, Mengjie… You are."

She lowered her head as her lips were stretched into a straight line. Even if she tried her best to hold her tears, she found it hard to do it. They were about to spill from her eyes.

"It may not be on purpose but you have always been pushing me away whenever I tried to make a move so I gave up," he confessed. "If I can keep on staying by your side this way, that's fine for me. I don't want to ruin the friendship we have. I don't want us to get hurt by forcing something that is not meant to be but let me tell you this... I care about you more than anyone else."

Lu Mengjie's tears fell, her pain had at last condensed into a deluge of rain. She has always thought that he was the one pushing her away but it was the other way around. Whenever he leaned down his face to her, she knew what was going to happen next but for some reason, she couldn't bring herself to do it. She kept on making excuses. Kept on avoiding him. Every time he took a step forward to take their relationship to another level, she would unconsciously back off and keep a wall between their hearts. She may have told that she tried to drug him but… it was all a lie. Others may think that they were each other's fiancé but that was only in name. It was not official. Never have been. Their parents never arranged an engagement and at the same time, So Hongqi kept quiet about the truth.

People close to her might thought that they knew her well but... that wasn't the case. She was not a wild woman. That was just a mask that she put on for others.

In truth, she was a woman who never grew up. The child in her kept on chasing for Si Hongqi just because of one person, a man that she would never be able to see again. Others may say that time takes away the pain, that may be the case only for others... like her mother but for her... she grew up, keeping all the suffering inside, learning how to live with it, finding ways to distract her from all of it. Even if she wasn't the real daughter of that man, she has always been more of that. She was young, she shouldn't have remember that much about that man but every year, she we been reminded of him. She couldn't even fully celebrate her birthday... no, she couldn't celebrate it especially when it was the day of his death. The only time she found comfort was whenever she was with Si Hongqi... whenever she saw him smile that was why she couldn't let go of him. She has always been clinging to him like a child who just wanted to stay close to whatever's left of that man. The child in her has always been a broken girl who could never move on.

She lied about Si Hongqi's proposal. He never proposed to which he kept quiet about it and lied together with her since he was the only person who knew the truth about her condition. She was lying to others and to herself. It was her fault. It was her fault all along. She has deceived so many people, even the ones close to her... even to herself.