Meanwhile, in the neighboring room, Xie Weiyi had stopped pretending to sleep.
She pushed herself up leisurely against the bedside table, then shot Su Leli a glare.
Knowing she had been far too hasty earlier and said things to Jiang Tong she shouldn’t have, Su Leli quickly raised both hands in a gesture of surrender: “I reflect on my actions, I apologize.”
Xie Weiyi wasn’t buying it, however, placing her hands on her hips and half-jokingly interrogating her: “What else did you say to her, ‘As long as you crook your finger at her, she’ll charge right over’—do you think I’m a dog or something?”
Listening to Xie Weiyi’s insincere complaints, Su Leli saw right through her. Tossing her a glance, she replied in a flat tone: “Then tell me honestly, would you charge over or not?”
Naturally, Xie Weiyi paused, then nodded and said, “I would.”
Su Leli burst out laughing.
After seeing Su Leli off, the trace of feigned drunkenness and playfulness instantly vanished from Xie Weiyi’s face entirely.
She picked up the cup of long-cooled hangover tea on the table and tossed it back in a single gulp.
The hour was already late, but Xie Weiyi had no intention of sleeping. With far too many thoughts weighing heavily on her mind, sleep was completely out of the question.
After washing away the smell of sea salt and fatigue, she casually threw on a silk bathrobe, loosely tied the sash, and walked barefoot out onto the ocean-facing balcony, letting the night breeze ruffle her half-dry long hair.
The island was quiet deep into the night, accompanied only by the endless, rhythmic crashing of distant waves. Narrowing her eyes at the dark sea, Xie Weiyi let her mind drift into a blank slate.
The cold, clear moonlight spilled downward, stretching her figure into a slender silhouette.
In her hand, she held an outdated music player with several shallow scratches on its surface from years of handling.
Her fingertips brushed unconsciously across those marks, as though she could touch the elapsed passage of time right through them.
An audio file was stored within it, though Xie Weiyi didn’t listen to it often.
After wrestling with herself for a long time, she finally put on her earphones and pressed play.
What poured into her ears wasn’t music, but a recording filled with heavy background noise.
Against the blurry backdrop, one could distinguish the deafening stage acoustics alongside the fanatical cheers and shouts of fans—the boiling, peak-level clamor belonging to the night of the group debut.
Then, a clear yet nervous female voice cut through all the chaos, ringing out distinctly: “Unique, this song was written for you. I hope… I hope you can keep being a singer in the future, the very best kind.”
Though the voice passed through slightly distorted current electricity, it was still unmistakably recognizable as a younger Jiang Tong’s voice.
What followed immediately was a simple acoustic guitar performance. Jiang Tong’s voice was slightly husky, but the melody was exceptionally lovely, and the lyrics overflowed with clumsy affection for Xie Weiyi and bright aspirations for their future.
That was the song Jiang Tong had prepared long ago to use for her confession on debut night, yet ultimately never managed to sing to her.
That audio recording hadn’t come easily; it had been accidentally recorded by a fansite photographer at the scene of the debut night.
Through countless connections and painstaking effort, Xie Weiyi had finally managed to get her hands on it.
According to that fansite photographer’s recollection, Jiang Tong had been standing far away from the bustling crowd around the stage at the time, hiding alone in a corner and gazing longingly toward the stage from afar.
Jiang Tong watched the dazzlingly radiant Xie Weiyi on stage, singing this song to her—a song she was destined never to hear.
The singing looped in the earphones in solitary repetition. Leaning against the balcony railing and lifting her gaze to the full moon in the sky, Xie Weiyi felt her eye rims sting with uncontrollable redness.
Wetness rapidly gathered, condensing into beads that slid down her fair cheeks.
She thought of Jiang Tong’s focused profile when instinctively solving the clues in the coconut grove yesterday, and how slender and fragile the wrist she had caught was when Jiang Tong almost fell.
She thought of the flash of light in Jiang Tong’s eyes when they found the treasure chest, and how Jiang Tong had indulged her just like in the old days after she pretended to be drunk.
Jiang Tong was still that same Jiang Tong, still the Jiang Tong who cared about her.
“Amnesty?” Xie Weiyi raised a hand, quickly wiping away the tears on her cheek with her fingertips, and muttered softly to herself while glancing toward the neighboring room, her voice carrying a trace of lingering sobbing and mockery: “Jiang Tong, your acting skills really are so terrible.”
If she had truly forgotten, how could she have dazed out and lost focus over a simple “teammate” address? If she had truly forgotten, how could they still share such seamless chemistry? If she had truly forgotten, how could she have revealed that panicked yet secretly pleased look when touched?
Xie Weiyi hadn’t been without resentment.
She hated Jiang Tong’s decisiveness, hated her departure without a word, and hated how she had pushed her away in the most cruel manner possible.
During those long five years, she was gnawed away by longing and pain every single night. She frantically searched for traces of Jiang Tong, only for every attempt to sink like a stone in the ocean.
Thus, the moment her five-year girl group contract expired, heartbroken and disillusioned, she flew far overseas.
It wasn’t until she later met her good friend Su Leli, and with her reminders and covert assistance, that Xie Weiyi vaguely sensed something was amiss.
Pieces of undercurrent-churning secrets from behind the scenes of back then were delivered into her hands, and the shattered clues slowly pieced themselves together, gradually revealing a chilling truth.
Only then did Xie Weiyi belatedly realize: what her Jiang Tong had faced back then was far more terrifying than she could have ever imagined.
That’s right, if there hadn’t been a more powerful force deliberately covering things up and exerting pressure, how could a living person—a contestant who had just begun making a name for herself in a survival show and possessed a fair number of fans—have vanished as thoroughly as evaporating into thin air, leaving not a single trace behind?
Therefore, her Jiang Tong had never forgotten her or stopped loving her; she had been forced to separate from her…
Perhaps it was to protect her? Using her own sacrifice to ensure that she could shine brightly on stage for five full years.
This realization cut like a dull blade, repeatedly carving into Xie Weiyi’s already scarred heart, bringing deep pain and remorse. That thread of resentment that wasn’t quite “hatred” was completely replaced by boundless heartache.
Thus, Xie Weiyi chose to return to China without a moment’s hesitation, fighting with all her might to climb upward until she reached the pinnacle of the entertainment industry.
She needed sufficient power, sufficient speaking rights, and needed to stand in a position where no one could easily shake her, just so she could investigate everything from back then and find the person who had “forgotten” her.
Then, she would gather Jiang Tong into her arms, bring her out into the sunlight, and tell her: “I missed you so much.”
Xie Weiyi switched off the music player, took a few deep breaths, and when she wiped away her tears and looked back up, she had already recovered her flawless, unassailable composure.
Only a certain corner of her heart remained utterly softened and agonizingly sore because of the person quietly crying in the next room.
Jiang Tong, just how much did you endure all on your own these past years?
Island weather changes on a whim. Yesterday was brilliant sunshine, but waking up this morning, a gentle, misty drizzle was pattering down outside the window.
The clouds hung heavy, merging the distant sea surface with a hazy gray-white. The entire island looked overcast, heavily impacting everyone’s moods and dragging them down into a noticeable slump.
Outdoor activities were out of the question. The production team quickly adjusted their plans, notifying everyone to gather in the spacious first-floor living room for indoor activities.
Following some discussion, it was decided that the morning’s time would be spent watching a movie.
When Jiang Tong came downstairs, Xie Weiyi was already sitting in a corner of the sofa with her long hair draped casually over her shoulders, looking down at her phone.
In the slightly dim natural light filtering through, the lines of her profile appeared sharp and cold.
Hearing footsteps, Xie Weiyi lifted her eyelids slightly. Her gaze brushed across Jiang Tong briefly before sweeping past and withdrawing with cool indifference, lingering for not even a second.
The subtle atmosphere spawned last night by “drunkenness” and porridge-feeding seemed to have been thoroughly quenched by this rain, leaving behind not even a wisp of vapor.
Their relationship seemed to have regressed back to square one overnight, feeling even stiffer than it had on the first day of their reunion.
Jiang Tong’s footsteps paused imperceptibly, after which she walked over with a calm expression and sat down at the opposite end of the sofa, resulting in the two of them occupying the absolute two ends of the couch.
An unmistakable alienation hung thick in the air between them. Sensing something was amiss, the other guests quietly chose to sit in the middle to prevent the recording atmosphere from becoming awkward.
Yu Ningzhi attempted to crowd closer to Xie Weiyi, only to be intercepted by Su Leli with a plate of fruit and playfully dragged into a middle seat.
Su Leli offered a perfectly logical reason: “Ningzhi, you’re a guest star and our visitor, you absolutely must take the central C-position!”
With that, she walked over to the outermost edge, seated herself right next to Xie Weiyi, and nudged Xie Weiyi to shift a bit closer toward the middle.
Bai Yu and Song Anna walked over hand-in-hand. To prevent Xie Weiyi and Song Anna from bickering like a pair of school children, Bai Yu arranged for Song Anna to sit beside Yu Ningzhi, while taking the seat directly next to Xie Weiyi herself.
“Hi, Sister Jiang Tong.” Sensing that the relationship between Jiang Tong and Yu Ningzhi was strained, Xia Yuan very perceptively sat on Jiang Tong’s inner side, successfully blocking Yu Ningzhi’s line of sight.
Jiang Tong smiled and thanked her softly: “Thank you.”
The production crew had prepared a classic romance movie. Coincidentally, the plot revolved around two lovers who had once loved deeply but separated due to misunderstandings and real-world pressures.
The two accidentally reunited years later, re-examining the past and each other amidst entanglements and struggles, ultimately overcoming their psychological barriers and reuniting.
As the movie opened, a soaring yet slightly melancholy melody rose, accompanied by the same continuous drizzle falling outside today. The female lead walked slowly into the frame, creating an aesthetic visual tableau.
Jiang Tong initially watched with only half her attention, but as the plot progressed, those elements of misunderstanding, separation, struggle, and the lingering, unspoken eye-contact post-reunion… pierced into her heart like tiny needles.
When the female lead in the movie choked out a tearful question at the male lead’s retreating back: “Why did you leave without a word back then? Do you have any idea how long I searched for you?”—Jiang Tong’s fingertips curled inward abruptly.
She could practically feel a phantom, lingering gaze from the diagonal opposite resting on her for a fraction of a second.
Yet she didn’t turn her head, stubbornly keeping her eyes fixed on the screen as though deeply captivated by the plot.
Only she knew that a thin layer of sweat had already slicked her palms.
On screen, the male and female leads drew closer through repeated probings, arguments, and reminiscing about the past. During an accident, the female lead slipped, and the male lead instinctively reached out to pull her tightly into his embrace, freezing them in place as all their feigned indifference crumbled to dust in that instant.
Jiang Tong’s breathing hitched slightly.
Right at that moment, a cup of warm water was set down gently on the coffee table right in front of her.
The glass bottom met the wooden tabletop with a faint, soft clack.