Chapter 92: A Burden She Should Never Have Had to Bear

“Heh. He’s a commander? You’re lying to me, aren’t you?”

Mu Ting had grown up poor, raised from childhood by her grandmother in the countryside.

Her brother had enlisted in the army.

For years, it had been her brother who paid her tuition.

Later, after something happened to her brother, it was Lu Yunzhou who kept paying for her education, all the way through university.

She had always believed that Lu Yunzhou and her brother were comrades-in-arms.

And that her brother had saved Lu Yunzhou’s life.

So Lu Yunzhou felt indebted to him.

He had to make it up to her.

That was why she hated him.

But now they were telling her that Lu Yunzhou was the commander of the military district?

Did she not know what kind of status a commander held?

That was a man almost beyond the clouds, someone she could only look up to, someone forever out of reach.

So how could that be possible?

“A commander…”

A bitter sting rose violently in Mu Ting’s heart.

She had always thought Lu Yunzhou came from the same kind of background as she did, and held the same rank as her brother.

In the blink of an eye, he had become the commander of the military district.

She could not accept it at once.

“Miss Mu, I’ve said all I can. If you keep going and do anything reckless that damages the captain’s reputation, or hurts anyone around him, then you’ll have to bear the consequences too.”

All that had come before was the captain’s tolerance, granted out of respect for her brother.

He simply could not be bothered to quarrel with her.

“You’re threatening me?”

Hearing this, Mu Ting’s expression changed. She looked at Lu Fifteen, as if startled.

At that moment, Lu Yunzhou stepped forward. Sunlight filtered across his face, bright and shadowed by turns, making him seem cold and severe.

His gaze was deep, his expression indifferent as he said, “It isn’t a threat.”

“This is a warning.”

“What…” Mu Ting laughed.

She stared in disbelief at the man before her, so clean-featured and strikingly handsome.

He wore a crisp military uniform, tall and straight-backed, long legs planted firmly, his features captivatingly handsome, his bearing icy and aloof.

It was precisely because he was like this that she had hated him for so many years.

Why, in the end, were they telling her that he and her brother had not been comrades?

At first, Lu Yunzhou had merely found an excuse to support her tuition.

Then, under the guise of a fellow soldier, he had paid her brother’s medical bills.

In the end, it all turned into Mu Ting’s suspicion of him.

Her hatred for him.

After all, her brother had been injured and lying in a hospital bed, desperately in need of money.

And she was still in school, with no means of survival and no financial support.

So he could only tell the girl still studying that he was helping her as a comrade.

It was as a comrade that he had offered his support.

He had never expected her to misunderstand it.

But all his tolerance toward her had never meant she could use that as an excuse to hurt the people around him however she pleased.

To make the girl suffer.

“If you keep this up, don’t blame me for being merciless.”

Lu Yunzhou’s voice was cold as he finished.

He did not even spare her another look.

Then he turned and walked away.

In that instant, Mu Ting seemed to deflate like a punctured balloon and collapsed to the ground.

Heh. How could this be?

No, it couldn’t be.

“It can’t be…” She let out a bitter, broken laugh.

Some people are born to soar above the clouds.

Others are destined to remain mud beneath the earth.

Everyone has a chance to struggle upward.

Lu Yunzhou had supported Mu Ting’s education not only out of regard for her brother.

More than that, he had hoped she could become an outstanding person.

But Mu Ting had staked her entire life on hating Lu Yunzhou.

And she had ruined it beyond repair.

Just as Lu Yunzhou stepped outside, he ran into the quiet girl waiting beyond the door.

“You heard everything?”

Lu Yunzhou’s voice was low and husky as his lowered eyes settled on the girl’s pale, calm face.

From the look on her face, she must have heard it all.

He had not expected her to be here.

At that moment, a soldier assigned to watch over Shen Chaoxi stepped forward and reported to Lu Yunzhou, “Captain, Miss Shen said she wanted to come find you. We couldn’t stop her, so…”

The soldier hesitated, sounding a little flustered.

Shen Chaoxi had indeed been outside just now.

She had heard everything.

So this Mu Ting had, because of the hatred in her heart, gradually developed a twisted fixation on Lu Yunzhou.

That hatred had become deformed.

In Mu Ting’s mind, Lu Yunzhou could only owe her.

He would never be able to repay it.

That way, Lu Yunzhou would be forced to live in pain forever.

But even if Mu Ting’s brother had saved Lu Yunzhou, that was still her brother’s kindness.

Forcing repayment on the basis of that favor was already the behavior of a thankless ingrate.

Not to mention, Lu Yunzhou did not owe their family anything.

For a commander of the military district to do this much was truly admirable.

Shen Chaoxi, too, felt a faint stir of sympathy.

She had even been thinking that someone with Lu Yunzhou’s status could never have had any connection to Mu Ting.

So that was why.

The girl lowered her gaze and stood before him without saying a word.

Her face was pale, like fragile jade on the verge of breaking.

Lu Yunzhou frowned, his eyes darkening, and panic flickered through him.

“What did you hear?”

The urgency in his voice was about what Shen Chaoxi might have heard from the gossip forum.

The girl did not even lift her eyes.

She just stood there in silence.

And that silence made him deeply uneasy.

His features remained severe.

On that face, perpetually set in a frown and usually cold to the point of indifference, his eyes were dark as bottomless pools.

For once, there was a trace of complicated worry in his gaze.

Lu Yunzhou glanced aside at the person beside him.

Lu Fifteen panicked.

He hurriedly defended himself. “Captain, I’m innocent. I did not tell Miss Shen about the university forum.”

The things posted there were far too vile.

How could he possibly have told Miss Shen about it?

Besides, hadn’t he already taken that post down?

Miss Shen should not have seen it.

Unless…

At the thought of something, Lu Yunzhou’s brows knitted.

The only possibility he could think of was that someone had said something in her ear.

Had they been insults aimed at her?

Just as he was growing tense, staring at her, the girl suddenly lifted her eyes and met his deep gaze.

Their eyes met.

The girl’s face was pale, her lashes damp, the corners of her eyes red.

Her voice was choked with tears.

At that moment, Lu Yunzhou felt his heart clench.

He gathered her into his arms.

“Tomorrow, we’ll go home.”

Even if he could stop Mu Ting from posting behind the scenes.

He could not stop ugly words from reaching the girl’s ears.

So he could only take her home.

But hearing this, Lu Fifteen was dumbstruck.

“But Captain, don’t you still have the last week of training here?”

Lu Yunzhou’s expression turned colder.

He looked at him sidelong.

Lu Fifteen: “…”

He was scared.

Had he said something wrong again?

But by the standards of the military base, it was true.

There was still a week of training left here that had not been completed.

But now, because of Mu Ting’s appearance,

Shen Chaoxi had been hurt.

And Lu Yunzhou did not want her little heart to bear any of this.

None of it should have been hers to bear.