If Xu Mey had heard Ye Jie's words, she would have realized the meaning behind his 'I'm sorry!'.
An apology is also a weird thing. If you apologize, you feel like it was not enough and if you don't apologize, it keeps gnawing at your heart.
For Ye Jie, his doubt of a minute was enough to make him ashamed at himself for the rest of his life. Words and actions are not the only things you should be sorry about. Your thoughts also matter. Because those thoughts make you.
Ye Jun sat beside his frustrated elder brother and patted his shoulder. "Bro, what happened last night?" He was cautious with his words because of Ye Jie's earlier outburst. Ye Jie narrated everything honestly to Ye Jun making him feel guilty. Then he showed the photos of documents he received with that video. "Bro, this?" Ye Jun was flabbergasted reading the details in those documents. "She spent 4 years in that place?" His voice was extremely low as if talking to himself.
"4 years is a long time, Jun." Ye Jie started. "Even at this age, if I have to spend a day there, I'll lose my mind. She was barely a teenager and she had to spend 4 years in that place. Look at her calm and serene personality, even if it is a facade, she's still holding on. You and I can't even imagine what she went through." Ye Jun nodded, agreeing with his elder brother.
"What are you gonna do?" Ye Jun asked after a moment of silence.
"I'm gonna wait for her to open herself. Whatever courage I had to question her is shattered after last night. I've seen her warm side, her cheery side, and even her irritated side but last night, her petrified side is what I never want to see again." Ye Jie replied honestly as the memory of her trembling body came to his mind shaking him.
They were conversing when the doorbell caught there attention. Ye Jun headed to the door and opened it. A dignified man with his noble air was staring back Ye Jun. "Xu Mey is home?" He asked in his polite yet authoritative voice. Ye Jun nodded and Lin Shen walked inside without asking.
Ye Jun was about to close the door when he heard another voice, "Wait!" He saw a man in jeans and v-neck shirt with a leather jacket almost running up to the door. He was panting as he asked, "Xu Mey is home, right?" Ye Jun nodded again and just like Lin Shen, Wu Wang ran inside leaving a startled Ye Jun at the door.
He had only closed the door for a minute before the doorbell rang again. Ye Jun pulled open the door in frustration to yell but the men in front of him were exuding the air of danger making him swallow down his profanities. "Xu Mey?" He Jian only said the name not bothering to say further while Li Qiao stayed quiet. Ye Jun was gaping at that time while he nodded his head instinctively.
Even though the group of people had different auras but one thing was the same about them; they all saw Ye Jun as a doorkeeper. As both Li Qiao and He Jian made their way inside, there was a cold temperature inside the living room. Ye Jie was standing before Lin Shen and Wu Wang as a criminal stood before the judge.
"You!" Wu Wang walked up to Ye Jie while glaring at him. "You did something. Didn't you?" Ye Jie felt like digging a grave for himself to lie in. Oh, wait! Seems like Wu Wang was gonna dig a grave for him. Ye Jie gulped audibly.
"Wang! Stay back," Lin Shen placed his hand on Wu Wang's shoulder to hold him back. He looked at Ye Jie. "Where is Mey?" He asked with a faint smile plastered on his face. Oddly enough, the smile scared Ye Jie even more than Wu Wang's furious face.
"She's in the kitchen." He replied in a small voice. True to their nature, all of their faces showed black lines as they stared at him.
"You're trying to tell me, Mr. Ye Jie that my Xiao Mey was in the hospital last night and today you pushed her in the kitchen." He Jian was a man of few words and seeing him say so many words in one go made Ye Jie realize the dire situation he was in.
"I didn't ask her to," He really didn't want her to be in the kitchen but he really had no power before his mother. Ye Jie was not outspoken like Ye Jun who always challenged his mother's decisions. Ye Jie was the obedient one.
"And you want us to believe that?" Li Qiao asked with a solemn face.
"It was really not bro's fault." Ye Jun tried to speak up for his brother. "Mom suddenly came and asked sis-in-law to cook. And sis-in-law said she will. No one forced her."
"You don't have to force her. And that's the real problem here," Wu Wang snorted. "Where is the kitchen?" He asked Ye Jie.
"Over there," Ye Jie pointed towards the kitchen direction and all of them left Ye Jie and Ye Jun alone in the living room.
"They are scary..." Ye Jun commented looking at their back.
"Not scary... Just overprotective, " Ye Jie pursed his lips and asked Ye Jun to follow him back to the garden. Any minute later and his parents would have come inside.
Li Qiao, Wu Wang, Lin Shen, and He Jian stood looking at their precious Xu Mey wearing an apron, holding a ladle and stirring something in the pot. Even though to a normal person, she looked beautiful while cooking but they were her best friends who had the hawk-like eyes when it came to her.
All they saw was her blanched skin, scratches at her neck, cuts on her hand and the way she kept rubbing her right upper arm. All of their heart broke at that sight.
Even Ye Jie couldn't tell that her right upper arm was swollen. When Xu Liqing was holding her yesterday, the force was more than necessary making an ugly blue spot appear on her jade-white skin.
"Honey Mey!" Wu Wang called her softly making her look up. She was stunned.