She needed to fight it or she will lose herself in it. Master Lu had lost many beloveds in battles in life and he knew what needed to be done.
He had seen valiant warriors birthed on battle-grounds breaking, he knew the wounds like he knew the remedies.
"Did you think for a second what it would do to your parents? How would they live after this?" Master Lu asked in a lethally calm tone.
A bitter smile bloomed in her garden of thorns as she met his gaze with ridicule, "Well, you would have to schedule an appointment for them to attend my funeral." She shrugged and let out a bitter laugh, "It wouldn't really matter to them. They weren't waiting for me out there, were they?"
Master Lu held her intense gaze and a sinister smirk formed on his face, "If I was your father I wouldn't too come to see a selfish excuse of a daughter."
Lu Xinyi and He Zheng who were dumbfounded until now snapped their heads to him in shock. What was he trying to do?! They were no experts but even they could tell, it wasn't how you talk to a suicidal woman!
They were about to cut in when something glimmered like appreciation in Master Lu eyes, their heads fastened to Su Qing in the speed of light.
Su Qing fisted her fist on the sheets, crumbling them. Her glare intensified and angry tears rained down her rosy cheeks, "You! You know nothing about me!"
That is when they realized, Master Lu was giving her the criteria to vent her stray emotions. No wonder, venting emotions is the best way to figure emotions and she needed to do this now. Anger and tears were the easiest exertion vessel.
Lu Xinyi looked at it now with familiarity. Master Lu always used the same tactic with Lu Sheng and Lu Han when they were wallowing in self-pity at failure or hopelessness. It always worked.
Master Lu shook his head and inched closer to bed, "None the less, you are selfish. You only thought about yourself." He pointed behind him, "For one moment did you think about the teenage boy who you were going to leave devasted behind you or the man outside who looks like you killed him with yourself or your friend for only four months who had a panic attack looking at you like that?"
Su Qing covered her face with her hands and sobbed, "You don't know how much it hurts..."
Master Lu softened before hardening again, "I do know how it, little squirrel. For a matter of fact, everyone in this room knows how much it hurts because of you."
He shook his head, once Su Qing had cried her heart out and was wiping her pearls away, "For your size, little squirrel, you are too cruel." He wasn't relenting, he pursed his lips and coldly looked at her, "You knew how much it hurts yet you forced everyone who loved you to through the same pain."
"A person who punishes people to love them like this doesn't deserve to be loved." Master Lu strict voice was laced in fatherhood through and through but fell like a sledgehammer on her already shattered heart.
There was care as much as there was anger, like a parent. Like a General spoke to his peers, like a family that shared everything except blood.
The unfamiliarity of the familiarity filed in Su Qing heart even when her mind couldn't register it.
Su Qing froze and her dull dazed eyes turned ablaze melting the glacier in her heart, "Lei Xinyi, my sister, She is dead..."
To her, Lei Xinyi wasn't just her saviour. She was her family, a friend, a shoulder to cry on and a back to fall on. It wasn't possible to imagine life and not her in it.
Today people saw her glamour and grace but they didn't see the horrid panic attacks, they hadn't held her when she cried for the loss of her only child she could ever have and they didn't know the ripped, torn reality behind the alluring facade. Lei Xinyi did.
Wasn't Lei Xinyi her everything? How is life, life without her? Who will collect her pieces now, wasn't that what Lei Xinyi did?
People told her time and again that Lei Xinyi was alive but she would rather die with the glimmer of hope than see it shatter in front of her.
If Lei Xinyi was alive she would never leave her like this! But how could she explain that to everyone?!
"She must be the only reason that you lived." Master Lu nodded and sarcastically smirked, "This teenage guy who doesn't have any other family must not be reason enough or that boyfriend of your who is blaming there himself for your selfishness must not be worth it!"
Su Qing cried more as if a new wound was ripped of bandages, "He...he is not my boyfriend. I am a broken woman. A barren woman..."
By now He Zheng and Lu Xinyi looked equally stunned. They didn't know that. She never talked about the weight she carried but Master Lu was making her vent her unspoken emotions with ease, as a parent would.
Master Lu looked at her with his intense gaze not wavering even for a second, "And there are a million children in the world without a mother. Do they not deserve one?"
Su Qing let out her aches she hid beneath a bubbly smile through her tears for a while and when she lost the heavyweight in her shoulder, she at once felt the damage slumping her down.
She shook her head through her tears still raining her rosy petals, "I ca...can't do this. Life is meaningless. I am not strong enough..."
"Of course, Life is meaningless, stupid squirrel. You are the one who is going to give it a meaning." Master Lu took out a pair of keys from his pocket and removed the key chain from it, "Besides, you don't need to be strong. Survive till you are ready to fight."
He handed the keys to Lu Xinyi who took them with a questioning look. Master Lu walked to Su Qing side and flopped the key chain in her lap.
"If you really wish to die. There are honourable ways to die. As a saviour, as a martyr, as a light than a coward or embarra.s.sment."
Su Qing held the key chain and turned it to see 'VICTORS AREN'T CONQUERERS, THEY ARE WARRIOR' written in block letters.
