Chapter 28: Breaking Down in Tears

"W-what did you just say?!" Su Siyun's eyes widened in disbelief.

"Sorry, I let that slip... Oh, wait, I mean I misspoke," Chen Ye quickly apologized. "What I meant to say is that when I do things, I'm always fully focused and free of distractions, so..."

"Enough, you don't need to explain!" Su Siyun cut him off, her expression awful.

That was the most hurtful thing she had heard all night. If she wasn't as resilient as she was—if she were just an average girl—her eyes would probably be red with tears by now.

"Oh."

Chen Ye nodded at her words. True to her demand, he offered no further explanation and simply lowered his head to finish the last remaining bites of his beef.

Great, now something even more hurtful than his previous words had appeared! A single, dismissive "oh" made Su Siyun's emotions show signs of spiraling out of control.

When she thought about Chen Ye's sudden change over the past few days, the hurtful things he had said tonight, and how the things she had taken pride in for years had been shattered by his words "fantasy" and "immature"—even his apology just now felt like he was mocking her. The very thought of it made her nose tingle. Her eyes instantly turned red, and her breathing grew ragged.

Yet Chen Ye remained like one of those cold-blooded husbands in the movies who ignored their heartbroken wives, focused only on stuffing food into their mouths, completely devoid of any guilt for the hurtful things they had just said.

Gradually, Su Siyun began to sniffle.

The cabin wasn't large, and the two weren't sitting far apart. It was naturally impossible for Chen Ye not to hear her.

When he raised his head, he found that Su Siyun's face was already a mess of silent tears. Her teeth were biting down hard on her lower lip, and her delicate nose twitched with each sob. Two distinct tear tracks stained her fair, tender cheeks, with the droplets gathering at her chin before falling one by one onto her chest.

"What are you crying for?" Chen Ye frowned slightly, wiping his mouth with a napkin as he glanced at his empty plate. "Didn't you say you weren't going to eat? Even if you have money, you shouldn't waste food."

He knew Su Siyun all too well. She appeared to be a proud and fearless woman, but in reality, she was much more timid than Jiang Xin, and she loved to cry.

Especially during intimate moments, she cried every single time.

Now, he had no idea what nerve he had struck to make her cry so suddenly, making it look like he was bullying her.

But Su Siyun just stared at Chen Ye, blindly sniffling and shedding tears.

Chen Ye shook his head helplessly and stopped paying attention to her. Instead, he got up, walked to the edge of the cabin, and gazed out at the night scenery up close.

The Ferris wheel had already passed its highest point and was slowly descending.

Seeing that Chen Ye not only refused to apologize but didn't even offer a single word of comfort, Su Siyun felt as though she had suffered the greatest injustice in the world. Finally, she cried out loud for the first time.

"WAAAH!"

She abruptly threw herself over the dining table and sobbed loudly.

Once a woman's cries grew loud, they tended to become shrill and piercing. Although Su Siyun was already restraining herself quite a bit, the sound still reached Chen Ye's ears and ruined his mood for enjoying the view.

Left with no choice, he could only return to his seat, SLAM his hand onto the table, and loudly scold her.

"Enough! You cry at the drop of a hat. Even my ten-year-old cousin doesn't fucking cry as much as you do!"

This sudden scolding made Su Siyun raise her head and freeze in place. Aside from her instinctive sniffling, her tears had indeed stopped.

Chen Ye breathed a sigh of relief.

The method he had figured out in his previous life was still just as effective now.

Coaxing Su Siyun when she cried was useless; in fact, the more she was coaxed, the harder she would cry. On the contrary, a forceful scolding worked wonders.

According to his grandfather, it was pretty much the same as training a dog at home.

But unlike the highly mature Su Siyun of his past life, the current eighteen-year-old Su Siyun reacted to his reprimand by suddenly starting to hiccup.

"HIC!"

The moment the first sound slipped out, Su Siyun quickly covered her chest, her face filled with shock and bewilderment.

A second later, she glared at Chen Ye angrily, loudly questioning him through her tears and hiccups. "What right do you have to de—HIC—deny me?! What right do you have to say that everything is just my fan—HIC—tasy?! What right do you have to say that the guys who like me are all imma—HIC—ture?! If you don't like me, fine, can't you just say so direct—HIC—ly?! You even cur—HIC—sed at me! And now you're yelling at me..."

She grew more and more agitated as she spoke, and her hiccups became increasingly pronounced. By the end, she was hiccuping every other word, unable to string together a complete sentence.

Seeing this unprecedented side of Su Siyun, Chen Ye felt no emotional fluctuation at all. He simply treated her as "a classmate who knew everything." But Su Siyun couldn't hold it in any longer.

She had made herself so mad that she actually burst out laughing.

However, after barely two chuckles, another "HIC" interrupted her laughter. Then, catching sight of Chen Ye's face—a face she resented, hated, and found utterly detestable—Su Siyun couldn't help but start crying again.

This time, it was as if her emotional defenses had completely collapsed. Su Siyun cried miserably, completely disregarding her image as she repeatedly wiped her tears with her sleeves.

Chen Ye stood across from her, expressionless, silently watching her bawl.

Lies didn't hurt; the truth was the real sharp knife. Everything he had said were things Su Siyun herself had confided in him night after night in his previous life. They were the true inner monologues of her mature self.

It was just that, for the her from ten years ago, this kind of naked psychoanalysis was indeed more than she could bear.

They say women are made of water, but Chen Ye hadn't known Su Siyun contained quite this much of it.

Time ticked by, but her crying showed no signs of stopping.

Turning his head to glance out the window, he was forced to remind her, "We're almost at the bottom. If you keep crying, other people are going to see you."

Just as he expected, no matter how fiercely or passionately Su Siyun was crying, hearing those words made her stop her tears immediately.

She didn't want to lose face.

Even though she had already thoroughly humiliated herself in front of Chen Ye, to anyone else, she still had to be the highly sought-after Su Siyun.

With red eyes, she glared fiercely at Chen Ye, then immediately grabbed a napkin from the table to wipe the tears clean from her face.

Because she had rushed out, and because she wasn't the main character tonight anyway, Su Siyun hadn't worn any makeup. This conveniently saved her from ending up with a clownish, smudged face.

Once she finally stopped crying, Chen Ye leaned back against the wall of the cabin and jutted his chin toward Su Siyun's front.

Su Siyun immediately followed his gaze down, only to find that the white shirt over her chest had been soaked through with tears. It was clinging tightly to her body, and what was worse, a white shirt became much more... transparent when wet.

She hurriedly covered herself with a napkin, glaring at Chen Ye as she barked out an angry scolding.

"D-don't you dare—HIC—look!"

Hiccuping midway through her sentence only added to her shame, making her want to cover her face and jump out of the cabin right then and there.

"I just told you not to flatter yourself. I didn't expect you to forget it completely." Chen Ye curled his lip and shook his head again.

As his words fell, the Ferris wheel slowly came to a halt. Through the glass window, they could see that their cabin had reached the lowest point. Weng Jilin and Yu Mengmeng had already gotten off a few minutes earlier and were currently standing not far away, waiting for them.

Judging by Weng Jilin's listless appearance, things probably hadn't worked out for him.

Hearing Chen Ye's mockery, Su Siyun glared at him indignantly, ready to retort. But remembering that the door was about to open, she had no choice but to swallow her anger for now and bide her time.

CLICK.

The door was opened from the outside, and the operator ushered them out.

Chen Ye stepped down first, then walked toward Weng Jilin without looking back. Seeing this, Su Siyun bit her lip, grabbed her bag, and followed him out, pretending that nothing had happened.

However, the moment she stepped down, a familiar voice reached both of their ears.

"Su Siyun, why are you here? And with... him?"