Outside, a persistent drizzle had been falling for several days with no sign of letting up.
The windowpanes of the office on the seventeenth floor were blurred by the raindrops.
Inside the office, the temperature was even lower than outside, as its owner preferred a chilly atmosphere whenever she was in a bad mood.
"Knock, knock." There was a knock at the door.
"Come in," a slightly hoarse female voice rang out.
As soon as the door opened, a voice was heard from afar, even before anyone appeared.
"Oh my god! I'm freezing to death, Sis! If I didn't see you sitting right in front of me, I'd think I'd walked into a freezer by mistake."
Hearing the voice of her younger sister, who had just returned to the country, Lu Manru placed the teacup in her hand on the table, then reached for the remote and turned off the air conditioner.
By this time, Lu Xiaoxing had walked over to the sofa and was sprawled out comfortably.
"Ugh, my dear big sister, as soon as I got back, I heard Auntie Chan, the housekeeper, say you've changed boyfriends again. What's up? Are you in a bad mood? Come on, tell me all about it."
From the moment she stepped into the room, Lu Xiaoxing had been chattering non-stop.
She occasionally flew back to visit her 'old' sister.
Their parents still couldn't understand why her sister chose to run off to a distant place to build a career, when at home, as a young lady of means, she lacked nothing.
In a big city like this, only the two sisters relied on each other, and the person she cared about most was still her older sister.
Recently, she'd heard from the familiar housekeeper that her 'old' sister had a strange hobby: bringing men home to keep, but never getting intimate with them. It was like buying decorative flowers just to admire them, and then replacing them when she got bored.
She really couldn't understand what had gotten into her sister.
Lu Manru stood up, walked over to her sister, and sat down beside her, tossing her a jacket and some of Lu Xiaoxing's favorite candies.
Hearing the crunching sounds and seeing her sister's eyes eager for gossip, she smiled, shook her head, and then replied:
"I made a bet with some friends. If I lost, I had to keep a toy boy at home."
"And you see the result, I lost big." She sighed as she spoke. That day, she didn't know what possessed her to agree to play mahjong with them, let alone come up with such a ridiculous game.
Lu Manru continued:
"The one I brought back this time, he wasn't content. He used the money I gave him to support a mistress."
Lu Xiaoxing's eyes lit up even more after hearing this.
"Sis...! You're always buried in work, making money. Auntie Chan said you rarely come home these days, so how did you even find out?"
Lu Manru took out her phone and showed her sister several video clips.
There was even a clip of him audaciously bringing his outside girlfriend to her sister's house.
Lu Xiaoxing bit down hard on her candy:
"That shameless guy! Being kept, and he still couldn't behave himself."
She then looked at the sender of the messages and realized it was her sister's trusted assistant, Shao Yuan.
"So, Assistant Shao found out."
Lu Manru just nodded. She trusted Shao Yuan implicitly; he had been both a friend and a capable assistant by her side for many years.
After watching, she simply terminated the contract with the guy, kicked him out of the house, and didn't demand any compensation from him.
Upon hearing this, Lu Xiaoxing's jaw dropped. She reached out and touched her sister's forehead:
"When did you become such a saint?!"
Hearing her sister say that, she tapped her on the head:
"After all, he's a man, he has needs. I kept him, but nothing ever happened between us, so it's not surprising that he went looking for other women."
Lu Xiaoxing truly didn't know what medicine could cure her sister. She just looked up at the wall and mumbled:
“Where’s the sister I used to know? Back then, when she was with her ex-boyfriend, she really held onto him tightly.”
As soon as the words left her mouth, she immediately covered her own mouth.
She thought to herself, “Oh crap, why did I have to mention him?”
Lục Mạn Nhu, however, was quick to respond:
“Don’t call him that anymore. The person you just mentioned already has a family, and he is currently living very happily.” She truly wished him well, a lifetime of happiness, a lifetime of peace.
Seeing her sister like this again, Lục Hiểu Tinh could only pull her sister into a hug:
“It’s all in the past, sister, you need to let go. It’s been so many years, and you know he’s very happy now. You should go find your own happiness too.”
My sister had a deeply etched love story that spanned ten years of her youth.
For some reason, they couldn’t be together.
He has already found new happiness. My sister, though outwardly calm and offering her blessings, her heart stubbornly clung to an obsession she couldn’t escape.
Lately, perhaps triggered by something unknown, she’s taken to ‘raising’ toy boys.
Becoming a ‘scumbag girl’ would at least be normal, but she only ‘raises’ them, she doesn’t ‘consume’ them.
Whatever the case, I just hope someone truly appears soon to pull her out of the prison of the past.