The room was so quiet that the ticking of the clock on the wall could be heard.
Zhou Yang just stood there. In the backlighting, the expression on her face could not be seen clearly, but the lethality of those words did not diminish in the slightest due to the flatness of her tone.
“How much money do you want this time?”
Pei Ran opened her mouth, unable to say a single word.
What could she say? Say “Actually, I transmigrated here and I don’t know you at all”? Say “I don’t want money, I’m here to remarry you”? Zhou Yang would probably think she had gone mad…
Zhou Yang’s patience ran out.
The corners of her lips pulled into an extremely faint curve, carrying a touch of sarcasm. “It seems Zhao Wanqing dumped you pretty cleanly this time, didn’t even give you a breakup fee.”
Pei Ran: “…” That’s actually true.
Normally, before such rich patrons dismiss their canaries, wouldn’t they give a large breakup fee? How come when it came to her, the house and car were all taken back, the cards were frozen, she was kicked out empty-handed, and she couldn’t even keep a decent piece of jewelry?
For a dignified villainous female supporting character, mixing to this point was quite embarrassing.
Just as Pei Ran thought Zhou Yang was going to continue mocking her, the other party suddenly pulled out a check from her suit jacket’s inner pocket, her black fountain pen sliding quickly across the check. Realizing that the other party seemed to intend to give her a check, Pei Ran’s eyes widened in surprise.
“This money is enough for you to rent a better apartment. The rest will serve as your compensation for staying with Niannian.”
A mother needing to be paid compensation just for staying with her own daughter. Zhou Yang let out a satirical laugh, unsure whether she was mocking Pei Ran or mocking herself for having been summoned and dismissed at the other party’s whim.
Having said that, she turned around, preparing to leave.
Pei Ran didn’t know why, but subconsciously called out to her: “Wait.”
Zhou Yang stopped and turned halfway to look at her, a hint of surprise in those deep, bottomless eyes.
“I…” Pei Ran took a deep breath. “I’m not here for money.”
Zhou Yang didn’t speak; she just looked at her, her gaze as calm as a pool of stagnant water. But Pei Ran noticed that the hand hanging at Zhou Yang’s side moved slightly, as if she were desperately enduring something.
“Then what are you here for?” There was finally a slight ripple in her voice, not anger, nor resentment, but more like being struck in the chest, hit by hit with a blunt instrument, a numb pain. “To catch up on old times with me? To ask me if I’ve been doing well these past few years?”
She took a step forward, her powerful pressure forcing Pei Ran to subconsciously take half a step back.
“When you ran off with all my savings, why didn’t you think about catching up on old times with me?”
“When you followed Zhao Wanqing onto the front pages of the newspapers, why didn’t you think about asking how Niannian and I were doing?”
Pei Ran’s throat felt as if it were being choked by someone; she couldn’t utter a single word of explanation.
Everything Zhou Yang said had been written clearly in black and white in the original novel. But standing in front of her now, hearing her accuse her of those unbearable years face-to-face, Pei Ran suddenly realized that the person in front of her was not just cold words in a book, but a living, breathing human being. A person whose life was almost destroyed by her.
Looking at her expression, Zhou Yang let out a cold laugh.
“Forget it.” She turned around, her back to Pei Ran, her voice returning to that emotionless flatness from before. “I’ve left the check there. If you don’t want it, you can tear it up. But don’t come looking for me again.”
The sound of the door closing was very light, yet Pei Ran felt as though she had been struck hard in the chest with a fist.
Before coming to find her, Zhou Yang had already made preparations to give her money. She knew the original “Pei Ran” all too well. Knowing that after being dumped by Zhao Wanqing, the original host would definitely come to pester her, she preemptively handed over the check, slapping it on the table to block her mouth in an almost humiliating way.
In the original novel, Pei Ran indeed took the check with wild joy, but turned around and pestered Zhou Yang even more relentlessly.
However, she was not the original Pei Ran; she was a quick-transmigration conqueror. Her task was to make Zhou Yang fall in love with her, not to take the money and run. These checks were meaningless to her.
It was just that right now, Zhou Yang’s impression of her had reached rock bottom. In her perception, Pei Ran was a woman who snobbed the poor and loved the rich, abandoned her wife and child, and only cared about money. Wanting to make the other party fall in love with her again under these circumstances? This was simply a catastrophe of a starting hand!
Just as Pei Ran was at a complete loss, an unfamiliar voice suddenly sounded in her mind: “Finally caught up! I am so sorry, the system encountered space-time turbulence during transmission and arrived late.”
“I am your conquest system, Xiao Qi, dedicated to serving you. Let me see what step we’ve reached now…”
“System?” Right, she was a quick-transmigration conqueror; she ought to have a system. It was just that when she woke up earlier, the information had been too chaotic, and she had almost forgotten about it.
While Pei Ran digested the new information, the system had already watched everything that had happened during this period at multiple times speed. After about ten seconds, it suddenly let out a desperate, blood-curdling scream: “Ahhhhhhhh…”
Pei Ran: “?”
“The transmission time point I set was supposed to be 1985, before Zhou Yang went bankrupt!”
“The original host and Zhou Yang were originally introduced through a blind date and had no emotional foundation to begin with. You were supposed to enter Pei Ran’s body at that time, stay by her side through thick and thin, and help her make a comeback so she would fall in love with you!”
“And now?” Pei Ran pressed.
The system’s voice sounded like it was on the verge of tears: “Now Zhou Yang has already gone bankrupt and turned things around again. Pei Ran has also abandoned her wife and child and run off with Zhao Wanqing for two or three years, and now she’s even been dumped…”
By the end of its sentence, the system’s voice had turned into a desperate wail:
“We transmigrated to the wrong time, ahhhhhhh!”
Pei Ran: “…”
She knew it.
She knew things wouldn’t be that simple.
“So what you’re saying is,” Pei Ran took a deep breath, trying hard to keep her tone calm.
“I was supposed to transmigrate to before Zhou Yang went bankrupt, stop Pei Ran from getting a divorce, and then stay by Zhou Yang’s side through the hardship to make her fall in love with me. In the end, you transmigrated me to three years later; the person who should have run has already run, the heart that should have been broken has already been broken, Zhou Yang is disgusted just looking at me now, and you expect me to make her fall in love with me under these circumstances?”
“Do you think that’s possible?”
Guilty, the system didn’t dare to speak.
After three seconds of silence, it spoke in a tone like breaking a cracked pot: “I think Zhou Yang still has feelings for Pei Ran; after all, you two still have a child together.” Zhou Yang regarded Zhou Nian as the treasure of her heart. Even for the sake of her daughter Zhou Nian, she couldn’t openly display her disgust toward Pei Ran.
Furthermore, as far as she knew, Zhou Yang had not remarried after the divorce, nor had she entered any romantic relationships. Moreover, after making her comeback, she fiercely suppressed Zhao Wanqing’s company, which clearly showed that she cared deeply about Zhao Wanqing keeping Pei Ran as a mistress back then, indirectly proving that she had never truly let go of Pei Ran in her heart.
Pei Ran frowned: “Come on, Zhao Wanqing cuckolded her. If she didn’t retaliate against her, was she supposed to become brothers with her?”
The system’s voice suddenly became flattering: “You are the most outstanding conqueror in our system world; you will definitely be able to do it.”
“Can you stop flattering me?” Pei Ran said snappishly. “Tell me first, what am I supposed to do now?”
“Go pick up your daughter first,” the system said. “Zhou Nian is the only bond between you two and the key to breaking the deadlock.”
The system’s voice suddenly became very serious:
“Zhou Yang isn’t that easy to fool. You must make her believe that you have changed, and that you are no longer the Pei Ran who abandoned her wife and child back then.”
Pei Ran remained silent for a long time.
She recalled the instinctive reaction of this body when she received Zhou Nian’s phone call earlier. Perhaps loving her daughter really could become the bridge to reconnecting her and Zhou Yang.
“I understand.” Pei Ran opened her eyes, her face filled with determination.
“Pick up Niannian first.”
She took the car key, stepped into the elevator, and pressed the button for the first basement floor.
The elevator descended slowly. The lighting in the underground garage was dim, but Pei Ran spotted that black Mercedes at a single glance, not because the car was particularly eye-catching, but because of the person standing beside it.
The flame of a lighter flickered in the dim light, illuminating half of Zhou Yang’s face. Across a distance of over ten meters, those eyes locked precisely onto Pei Ran. Then, she put out the cigarette in her hand.
Pei Ran didn’t like the smell of smoke; whenever she smelled it, she would feel unwell.