When Chi Mi saw Xu Chaoxi, she broke into a radiant smile.
Xu Chaoxi’s eyes widened, filled with disbelief.
Chi Mi… was actually smiling.
Her close friend looked much the same as she remembered—a bit thinner, with a more mature air about her.
But those eyes were still bright and dark, beautiful, carrying that familiar gentleness and serenity.
When Chi Mi explained the situation to her, it took considerable effort for Xu Chaoxi to sort through her thoughts.
Xu Chaoxi had the shop staff buy them some milk tea and cakes.
The two talked for a long time.
She gave Chi Mi a general account of what had happened over the past ten years.
The Xu family wasn’t as wealthy as Chi Mi’s, but they were comfortably well-off. After graduating from middle school, Xu Chaoxi had gone abroad for a few years.
When she returned, it happened to coincide with the upheaval at the Anda Group, and Chi Mi had become a fallen heiress.
To make matters worse, An Wangning, the chairman of the Anda Group, was facing the prospect of imprisonment.
Around the same time, Feng Zhenhong of the K Group had handed over the position of CEO to his youngest son, Feng Yixun.
When Chi Mi heard this, her face turned pale with shock.
“Kic? Feng Zhenhong, the richest man in Li City? He’s Feng Zhenhong’s son? Feng Zhenhong is that old!”
In her memory, ten years ago, Feng Zhenhong had been nearly sixty.
He was the founder of Kic. It was said he’d started out making mechanical kinetic components, then expanded into biotech, real estate, and other industries with precise investments. With countless subsidiaries, he’d long amassed enormous wealth.
Who could have imagined that Feng Zhenhong had a son in his teens back then?
Xu Chaoxi nodded and continued, “Right, he’s Feng Zhenhong’s never-publicly-acknowledged son. Five years ago, he became Kic’s new CEO. At the time, there were rumors that he was Feng Zhenhong’s illegitimate child. Actually, his mother is French—she had a brief marriage with K Group founder Feng Zhenhong back in the day, but they divorced quickly, and the son was left with his ex-husband. Within just half a year of Feng Yixun taking over, he completely overhauled the group, and the stock price kept climbing. He subdued all of Li City with an iron fist…”
So that was how it was.
The silent boy who had once been bullied over a rose had transformed into the living demon king of Li City.
The broken rose, for the sake of her mother and her mother’s company, had sought him out of her own accord.
Xu Chaoxi said, “You used every trick in the book to marry him. To get him to save Anda, you even pulled the ‘pregnant before marriage’ card. If you go looking now, you can still find news articles from a few years back—the gossipmongers were all talking about how the young miss of Anda Industries had seduced Kic’s new CEO…”
Chi Mi was mortified, unable to believe that was how the story had gone.
She murmured, “Was I really that despicable?”
Because of the upheaval at the Anda Group, the fallen rose had transformed into a scheming white lotus.
She’d used all sorts of underhanded methods to climb into Feng Yixun’s bed, gotten pregnant before marriage, and become his wife.
The Anda Group as it stood now had essentially survived by relying on the Feng family.
As Chi Mi’s close confidante, Xu Chaoxi naturally stood entirely on her side.
With deep sympathy for Chi Mi, she said, “You did it to save your mother. So much happened to your family in those years—you were constantly wearing a worried expression back then!”
“You and Feng Yixun seem to have a terrible relationship. You rarely mention him in front of me, and besides, how could an unplanned pregnancy be your fault alone? He’s the man—he’s the one who should bear the primary responsibility!”
Chi Mi found this very reasonable and nodded along with her words.
Could getting pregnant before marriage really count as a scheme?
Her good best friend had no idea that back then, Feng Yixun had been bullied by her.
All these years, she probably had never mentioned it.
Back when they got married, it was very likely that Feng Yixun had been the one driving it.
He wanted to marry her precisely so he could torment her!
At that thought, Chi Mi’s hairs stood on end again.
Suddenly, Xu Chaoxi spoke again: “Mi Mi, you’ve never been happy, especially after your parents divorced. You barely smiled at all. You’ve been separated from him for a year now—yesterday was Feng Zhenhong’s birthday banquet, and you only went back together for that. I’ve been busy with work these past few days and didn’t get to keep you company… Seeing you today, though, you somehow have a certain vitality about you…”
Chi Mi listened to all this, paying no mind to the whole mess of the Feng family.
She only caught that one phrase—her parents had divorced.
“My parents divorced?!”
She stared at her best friend across the table in utter shock.
Xu Chaoxi was a bit startled by her reaction and stammered in response: “Y-yes… that’s right…”
Chi Mi leaned back against her chair, a look of melancholy spreading across her face.
In that instant, her faith was shattered.
In the past, the perfect love she envisioned was like her father and mother’s—mutual tolerance, supporting each other through thick and thin.
She had always been drawn to gentle men like her father.
But now, even her parents had divorced.
The mother who, in her eyes, had doted on her endlessly, wasn’t as caring as she had imagined.
Her mother only cared about her company, only about her An Da.
For that, she would let her only daughter suffer in the Feng family.
And if she divorced, her mother would cut off their mother-daughter ties.
Chi Mi held her head; it seemed to ache again.
Even though she looked pained, Xu Chaoxi genuinely felt happy for her.
She seemed to have finally come back to life.
Xu Chaoxi smiled and said, “Mi Mi, last time I saw you, your complexion was terrible. You look so much better today!”
Hearing this, Chi Mi wore a strange, constipated expression.
“And this counts as looking good? I’ve been poisoned, sis! Poisoned, you get it? Sis!”
Xu Chaoxi kept smiling and said, “Your complexion is a bit pale, but you have spirit and energy. And you smiled when you saw me—I don’t think you’ve genuinely smiled in at least six months…”
Chi Mi couldn’t believe it.
“Really? Have I really been that miserable?”
Xu Chaoxi picked up her phone, scrolling through the screen as she said, “Just look at your Moments. In three years, you’ve only posted three updates—photos celebrating Linlin’s birthday.”
Chi Mi said weakly, “It must be Feng Yixun—he’s tormenting me…”
Recalling her own arrogance from ten years ago, she could already imagine how he had been trampling on her, this broken rose, all these years—Feng Yixun, a corporate CEO who turned dark over a shoelace.
Xu Chaoxi said, “Maybe so, but he’s actually a good father and treats Linlin very well. When you first gave birth to Linlin, he was the one who stayed by your side taking care of you. I still remember when I went to your house to visit you, he personally took care of Linlin with such skill…”
“In my opinion, it’s your mother who pushed you too hard. Over the years, An Da’s business has grown bigger and bigger, and when she made her own mistakes, you were the one who had to bear all of it…”
Chi Mi interrupted her, somewhat frantically, as if she didn’t want to shatter some illusion in her heart.
“Xixi, this isn’t about my father and mother now. I’m really troubled right now—how did my life end up like this? How could I have married him! Even if I were to get married, it should have been to someone like Gu Zixuan. How could it have been him? And now, I’m already living so miserably, and there are still people trying to harm me. I don’t even know who!”
When Xu Chaoxi heard that name, her expression changed drastically.
“Gu Zixuan? You’re still thinking about Gu Zixuan?”
Chi Mi remembered her current identity and shrank her neck, not daring to make a sound.
“…”
Xu Chaoxi’s face darkened as she said, “He came back to the country last month. I heard he’s getting engaged soon.”
Chi Mi felt a twinge of guilt and responded casually, “Is that so…”
Times had changed. She was now a wife and a mother.
Even her phone had become so flashy and complicated that she couldn’t understand it—just pointing it at her face would light up the screen.
Losing ten years of memories felt like having half her life severed.
The crush she had in her teens suddenly became raw and bleeding.