The Remaining Life Has Its Limits

Chapter 16

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Qin Nan found her a sports outfit, helped her change into sneakers, put on boxing gloves and a pistol stick, and took her to the rooftop. Ye Sibei was still a little confused.

It was already night, and there was no one on the rooftop. Qin Nan took her to the open space in the middle, put the gloves and the target aside, took out a piece of cloth from the gloves, and lowered his head and called her: "Put out your hand."

Ye Sibei stretched out her hand blankly, and Qin Nan grabbed her fingertips with one hand to hold them in place. Ye Sibei trembled slightly, and Qin Nan said calmly: "Open all your fingers."

Ye Sibei suppressed her physical discomfort and spread her fingers. Qin Nan wrapped the cloth around her fingertips, wrapping her hands layer by layer.

"The first year after graduating from school was a bit difficult. The salary was low, there were a lot of things to do, and the older employees always bullied me. At that time, I was thin and small, so I did 100 push-ups every night. Later, I saw people boxing, so I found a tutorial online and learned how to box. Every time I was at a disadvantage and felt uncomfortable, I would box. While boxing, I would think about who made me feel uncomfortable. If he was left alone one day, I would cover him with a bag and beat him so hard that his father would not recognize him."

Ye Sibei listened to him and looked up at him.

Although he is not big and strong now, he is lean and strong, and he is not someone who can be easily messed with. It is hard to imagine how he was bullied when he left school at the age of seventeen or eighteen and started to be a car apprentice.

"Pinch it." After wrapping it up, Qin Nan clenched his hand into a fist and demonstrated to her, "Move it and see if it's tight."

Ye Sibei moved his hands and shook his head: "Not tight."

"The other hand."

Qin Nan wrapped one of her hands and asked her to hand over the other. After wrapping it in the same way as before, he put on the boxing gloves for her and began to demonstrate to her: "Stand like me first, let's learn the first movement first. You punch out. Note that you don't use your hands to generate power. Punching is actually a body movement." He demonstrated the movement slowly, "Your waist and hips must follow the power. When you punch, there is a small rotation movement, that's it."

Qin Nan demonstrated his good posture and turned to look at her: "Do you understand?"

Ye Sibei didn't quite understand what he was going to do, but seeing his serious look, she nodded.

Qin Nan put on the target, bent his knees slightly and stood firm, then patted the target: "Come on," he looked at her steadily, "Don't think about anything, just hit it."

"Will it hurt you?"

She hesitated, and Qin Nan smiled: "If you can hurt me, I will treat you to a meal."

"Come."

Qin Nan urged him, and Ye Sibei tried to punch the target lightly.

"Do you want to eat?" Qin Nan tilted his head and asked, "Focus on the key points!"

Ye Sibei hesitated, then punched with more force.

Qin Nan didn't move at all and continued to shout: "Right fist! Hit with all your strength!"

Ye Sibei gritted her teeth and punched him hard. Seeing that Qin Nan was still steady, she finally let go, listened to Qin Nan's orders, and followed his punches.

Ye Sibei's movements were not standard, but Qin Nan did not correct him. He even began to slide and continued to move with Ye Sibei: "Raise your knee and kick inwards. That's right!"

"When I put my hand over your head, you squat down."

"Listen to me, come and fight, left, left, left, left, right, left kick, right kick, squat..."

Ye Sibei didn't say anything, she just followed his instructions.

At first, she would think about many things, but as she smashed, her mind slowly became filled with other things, and only Qin Nan's orders were left: punch, punch, raise your knee, squat.

As he became more and more proficient in the movements, every time he punched the target and felt the force being released, he felt an indescribable sense of pleasure.

She seemed to have forgotten everything, indulging in the excitement and pleasure brought by the adrenaline and dopamine. She didn't want to stop at all. Qin Nan observed her condition and saw that her movements were getting slower and slower, so he withdrew his hands in time. When she staggered and punched at him, he clamped his two palms together to clamp her fist: "Stop hitting, take a rest."

"I'm alright."

Ye Sibei was sweating profusely, staring at him with his eyes full of desire. Qin Nan shook his head, he put down his hand, lowered his head and took off his hand target and walked towards the rusty iron steps next to him: "I can't do it anymore, let's do it another day."

Ye Sibei felt a little regretful, but once she stopped, she also felt tired, so she simply sat next to Qin Nan and looked up at the sky that was illuminated red by the lights.

The night wind blew over, and the sweat on her face felt a little cold. Qin Nan took her hand, took out the boxing gloves for her, and untied the cloth that bound her hands bit by bit.

Ye Sibei looked at the delicate and meticulous man opposite her. Looking at his heavily painted eyebrows, she felt a tenderness that she had never experienced before.

For the first time, she was curious about this person: "You used to come to the rooftop at night just to practice boxing?"

"Um."

Qin Nan lowered his head and said, "If you move a little, you won't be annoyed anymore."

"Why don't you continue reading the novel?"

"My grades are bad, and my dad is gone. I think it's a waste of money to continue studying, so I might as well start working early."

"Do you regret it?"

"It doesn't matter whether you regret it or not," Qin Nan put the cloth aside and took Ye Sibei's hand, "I'm living a good life now, that's all."

"Too."

Ye Sibei smiled and said, "Besides smoking, drinking and boxing, what else do you like?"

Hearing this, Qin Nan paused. He looked up at Ye Sibei with a complicated look. After a long while, he finally said, "Watching movies, cooking, and reading martial arts novels."

"Are you kidding me?" Ye Sibei was a little unconvinced.

Qin Nan gave her a cold look, took her other hand, and roughly pulled the cloth off in circles: "Ye Sibei, you are really not particular about marrying someone. A man who graduated from a high school, has nothing, just likes to smoke, drink and box. What do you want to marry this man?"

"Are you different too?"

Ye Sibei took back his hand, hugged his knees with both hands, and tilted his head to watch him adjust his gloves: "At that time, I was a worker, introverted, average looking, had a younger brother, and asked for a high betrothal gift. What was your purpose in marrying me?"

"You're a college student."

"Then you still make hundreds of thousands a year."

After the two of them finished talking, they looked at each other and couldn't help laughing.

After thinking for a while, Ye Sibei said softly: "Actually, I was also very good before, but it's a pity that you haven't seen it."

Qin Nan turned around and handed the water to her. Ye Sibei took a sip. She didn't know why, but she hoped that Qin Nan could know more about her goodness. She whispered to him, "I was the top scorer in the liberal arts department of our middle school last year."

As he was talking, Ye Sibei suddenly remembered: "Which middle school did you attend before?"

Qin Nan paused for a moment, as if he remembered something, and replied in a low voice: "Seventh Middle School."

"That's a pity," Ye Sibei turned his head, "I'm from No. 2 Middle School, Class of 2006. If you were in our school for the first time, you must have heard of my name. I was always among the top students."

"That's impressive," Qin Nan took out a cigarette from his pocket and leaned against the stairs behind him. "You're a college student, why don't you stay in the provincial capital?"

When Ye Sibei heard what she said, she was silent for a while, then lowered her head and smiled: "I can't stay."

Ye Sibei recalled how he had sent out resumes and interviewed everywhere in the past: "It was not easy to find a job after graduation at that time. I finally found an accounting firm with a monthly salary of more than 5,000 yuan, plus project bonuses. If I did a good job, I could make more than 100,000 yuan in the first year."

"But my mother wasn't happy about it," Ye Sibei shrugged. "She went to the firm and made a scene. After two days of making a scene, the firm fired me. So I cut off all ties with them and stayed alone there for half a year."

"At that time, I thought that I must make a name for myself, but I had no future. I lost the job I just found. I was not a fresh graduate, so I had no work experience. I looked for jobs everywhere, but none of them worked. I finally found a decent job, but my boss made dirty jokes to me in the first week. I immediately got angry with him and was fired after the internship period."

"After that, I went to a private company. The salary was not bad, 2,700 yuan a month. I didn't dare live in a bad place, so I rented a house in a residential complex. The rent alone cost more than 1,000 yuan a month. The boss had a bad temper and often scolded me. I didn't dare to resign. I worked overtime every day and was scolded. I got used to it. Whenever the boss scolded me, I would say sorry and he would stop scolding me after a while. If you dare to talk back, he would scold you for two more hours."

"But life is hard," Ye Sibei looked up at the sky, "as it got harder and harder, I started to wonder, what am I trying to achieve."

"Then one day the landlord suddenly came to kick me out, saying that I had not paid the rent for several months. I then realized that the real estate agent I had paid to at the beginning had run away with the money. I was also stupid. At that time, I wanted to save money and paid half a year's rent in one go. I thought that such a big real estate agency should not have any problems. It turned out that they were actually scammers who specifically cheated people like me."

"I had my salary for that month and I paid the landlord all the money. The next day, the landlord pried open my door and threw my things outside. It happened to rain that night, so I went to other places and stayed under the building for a while. The security guards drove me away. I wanted to rent a room, but it was too expensive. So I dragged my luggage to the train station. At night, I saw those drunk men passing by and felt very scared. I suddenly felt that my mother was right. This city really couldn't accommodate me, so I had to stay there."

"And you came back?"

Qin Nan vaguely understood the reason why Ye Sibei came back.

Ye Sibei imitated Qin Nan and leaned against the stairs. "I was so cold that night that I had a fever and fainted on the side of the road. When I opened my eyes, I saw my mother with red eyes beside me taking care of me. At that moment, I suddenly gave in."

"I suddenly felt that even though my family members always scolded me and asked me for money, I still had a home. They would not drive me away and would take care of me when I was sick. If I was wronged or bullied outside, I still had a place to return to."

"But after coming back, I've had a better life."

Qin Nan definitely spoke, but Ye Sibei remained silent for a long time.

“That’s my dilemma.”

Ye Sibei looked at the ground and said, "If my home is really not good at all, I think it's fine. Because this way I have no way back, I would have stayed here a long time ago."

"I have thought countless times that it would be fine if my parents were not nice to me at all, or if Nianwen was particularly bad. But that is not the case. Nianwen would fight for me, my parents would cry for me, but they would also ask me for money, and would rather ruin my job to support me in my old age, and force me to get married for their own face."

"They gave you a little love, but not much. They brought you back to the swamp and led you to sink deeper and deeper until you were completely submerged. Even if you wanted to escape, you couldn't."

"How come you can't escape?"

Qin Nan looked at her and pointed to the door: "Go out now, go down the stairs, get in the car, and drive towards the provincial capital. It's only an hour on the highway."

"How can it be that simple?" Ye Sibei laughed, "If not for him, the car wouldn't even be mine."

"It's yours," Qin Nan took out the car keys and turned them in his hand. "It's the common property of the divorced couple. I'll give the car to you after the divorce." He raised his eyes and said, "Do you want to leave?"

Ye Sibei was surprised: "Now?"

Qin Nan nodded: "Now."

Ye Sibei didn't speak. She looked into Qin Nan's eyes, which were calm but also had a hint of smile in them.

She didn't dare to look directly at him before. After a long while, she suddenly laughed, grabbed the keys and stood up: "I have a driver's license, I drive."