TVSFPAG -Side Story Chu Jinhan’s Perspective (Part 3)

He seemed to understand.

Song Yunfei’s unhappiness was because of him, and her return to being cheerful and happy was because she no longer relied on him.

Unexpectedly, he had such a great impact on her.

At this moment, Chu Jinhan had to admit that he was a scumbag.

He wanted to do something to make up for it, but realized there was almost nothing he could do.

He even began to suspect that Song Yunfei might have a new boyfriend.

After all, she used to scroll through videos every day, and he could hear from her phone things like “if a man isn’t good, just replace him.”

She wasn’t unattractive, and with her current personality, it wouldn’t be difficult for her to find a man who treated her well and was financially capable.

When she first mentioned breaking up—even though it sounded like she was just acting on impulse—Chu Jinhan did feel a moment of panic.

He stood there alone, thinking for a long time.

He eventually came to terms with it: if she truly had a new target, or if leaving him would make her happier, he had no reason to hold her back.

How could he, for his own needs, prevent her from choosing a better life?

So when he and Song Yunfei cleared things up and he realized she was only angry because he had mistakenly thought she was cheating, he actually felt a trace of relief.

He still had a chance to make things right.

Before this, he had never had much concept of money.

Aside from covering daily expenses, he didn’t really have other uses for it. As for what others said about wealth, becoming a boss, and living a luxurious life—he had no interest in those things, and even felt a vague sense of aversion.

So when General Manager He first suggested that he try sales, Chu Jinhan refused.

Dealing with a girlfriend was already exhausting enough; he didn’t have the energy to deal with difficult clients as well.

But after Song Yunfei changed, the gloom dissipated, and life began to feel hopeful again.

The rental apartment he once felt reluctant to return to became the place he most wanted to go after work each day.

This time, he agreed to General Manager He’s suggestion and tried working in sales.

He wanted her to live better, and he also wanted them to have a better future.

As long as she didn’t revert to how she used to be, he could do his best to meet all her requests.

Everything seemed to be moving in a good direction.

They also seemed to have become a real couple—but that lingering sense of distance between them still remained in his heart.

He always felt that this woman might leave at any time.

Not only had she become passionate about work, she had even developed a passion for learning.

It wasn’t until that man appeared that Chu Jinhan finally understood why she suddenly became so interested in studying and living life.

It turned out that she truly had found a better option.

And compared to that, he had nothing—no competitiveness at all.

Was it already too late for him to start trying now?

But if he didn’t try, how would he know?

His only advantage was their shared past—and that, too, counted as an advantage.

She should still like him; otherwise, why would she choose to stay by his side and entrust herself to him?

Only later did he realize that her desperate need to earn money and her desire for financial independence weren’t about leaving him—but about her father.

So her pretending to get along with that bespectacled man was also for the sake of money.

Her earlier suggestion of breaking up—was it because she thought he was too poor and didn’t want to drag him down?

Of course, he also noticed a flaw in this: the story that they grew up together in an orphanage as childhood sweethearts was a lie.

But compared to the lie itself, the fact that she didn’t truly want to leave him was far more reassuring to him.

He knew she had lied—and there might be more lies.

But someone so kind, even if she had deceived him before, probably wasn’t truly bad.

Perhaps she had her own difficulties.

As long as she didn’t leave, that was enough.

But hadn’t everything already been resolved?

Why, then, was there still that lingering sense of distance between them?

It made him feel increasingly insecure.

At some point, he seemed to begin to understand the old Song Yunfei.

So this was what it felt like to lack a sense of security.

You would doubt every place she went, and every person she interacted with.

Yet he couldn’t bring himself to behave the way Song Yunfei once did—throwing tantrums and arguing loudly.

Aside from his personality, there was another reason.

He had experienced it himself. He knew that doing so would only make the other person grow more repulsed and drift further away.

This was all his own doing; he had no one else to blame.

If, back then, he had agreed to have a child with her, would things have been different?

He actually found himself having such thoughts.

Would having a child make things better? Would she not leave?

Every day, his mind felt like it was in conflict.

One voice told him: have a child, create a bond between them, and she wouldn’t leave.

Another voice told him: no. Back then, when she pressured you to have a child, how resistant were you? Don’t you know yourself?

A child should be the crystallization of love, not a tool to maintain a fragile relationship, not a chain to bind the other person.

That would also… be disrespectful to her.

In the end, reason prevailed—he shouldn’t do that.

Later on, unexpectedly, he recalled some fragments of memory.

He realized that Song Yunfei’s lies were not as simple as they seemed.

She had actually driven a car and hit him.

Even his current state of amnesia might have been caused by her.

After the lie about them being childhood sweethearts, another even more excessive lie emerged.

The connection between them suddenly became even more blurred.

He suddenly didn’t know what to do.

If the earlier lies only made him feel deceived and constrained, then the truth behind the car accident pointed toward malice and crime, casting everything in a more terrifying light.

On one side was the cruel truth.

On the other were the fragments of their time together—the happiness, the hopes for a future.

Those details he couldn’t ignore, like a small flame flickering in the depths of his cold and despairing heart, bringing with it a trace of inappropriate longing.

He chose to numb himself—no talking to her, no seeing her.

Perhaps once he completely calmed down, he would find his answer.

Late at night, in the early hours of the morning, he saw the familiar electric scooter outside the industrial park, and that thin figure waiting for him in the cold wind.

A heavy wave of heartache and bitterness shattered all his defenses, breaking down the walls he had built with indifference.

In front of the figure waiting for him in the freezing wind, everything collapsed without resistance.

Perhaps due to prolonged mental exhaustion, or perhaps because overwhelming emotions had burst through the dam, leaving him drained—he fell ill.

Illness made people fragile, and it also lowered their defenses.

That shameful trace of longing and false hope began to grow again.

Just as he was finding all kinds of excuses to forgive her…

The distance between them, that sense of being neither close nor distant, had not lessened at all.

He could see an increasingly strong desire in her expression—to leave.

Suddenly, Chu Jinhan discovered an even more cruel truth.

Perhaps… she had never loved him at all.

Their relationship was built on lies, and she might have stayed by his side out of guilt and compensation for that accident.

Maybe at the beginning, when she wanted to have a child, it was to gain his forgiveness.

Using a child to bind him, to offset her guilt, to earn his forgiveness.

The child was no longer a product of love, but her ticket to redemption.

Later distance between them meant she had begun to consider leaving.

If her feelings were obsessive out of love—driven to extremes by fear of loss—then even if distorted, at least that emotion was real.

He could try to understand the twisted possessiveness behind such love.

But if everything was merely guilt…

Then what did he mean to her?

A burden? A nightmare that constantly reminded her of her wrongdoing?

For the first time, he felt so pathetic.

Everything between them began with a car accident that may have been malicious.

It was sustained by a heavy sense of guilt, and the ending had already been decided—she would eventually leave quietly, carrying that guilt with her.

He had never felt this kind of sorrow before.

Living in a lie was one thing, but even love itself was fake.

What was more cruel than the truth was realizing that he had never been loved at all—that even his resentment felt like self-indulgence.

In that case, then let’s avoid it together.

Avoidance won’t solve anything, but at least it won’t make things hurt so much.