The bewilderment on Ruan Qingxiao’s face was no less than the doubt in Li Mengjue’s mind.
However, Ruan Qingxiao was quicker to convince herself. As a former “friend,” knowing about an undisclosed hobby shouldn’t be that strange.
—Right?
“Perhaps my subconscious still remembers the past,” Ruan Qingxiao said thoughtfully. She reached up and tapped her own head. “But as for the specific details, the words people said, the events that happened… I still can’t remember a thing.”
Li Mengjue let out a soft sigh. “If you really can’t remember, don’t force yourself. It’s not that important.”
Because once you do remember, Li Mengjue thought, you’ll realize we didn’t actually know each other at all.
—Wait, was that true?
Outside the window, the storm raged. Rain pelted against the glass with a fierce, unstoppable momentum, as if trying to break through. A flash of lightning illuminated the sky at just the right moment, casting a flickering silver light across the shadows on the wall. The chirping of insects, the songs of birds, and the noise of traffic were all locked away in another world by the torrential rain.
Amidst the hazy white noise, it seemed like the perfect time for reminiscence.
Ultimately, the one to break this strange silence wasn’t a memory escaping its cage, but a phone call from Assistant Zheng.
The ringtone chimed simultaneously with a crack of thunder. It took a reminder from Li Mengjue for Ruan Qingxiao to snap out of it and pull out her phone.
Ruan Qingxiao pressed the speakerphone.
Assistant Zheng’s voice, laced with irritation, echoed through the study. “Qingxiao, how much can you remember right now?”
“Still just what I told you before,” Ruan Qingxiao paused, then added, “Though I did remember that I went to university in City C, and what my major was.”
Assistant Zheng asked, “What about people? Have you remembered anyone from back then?”
“N-No.” Ruan Qingxiao stammered inexplicably. She instinctively looked up at Li Mengjue before forcing herself to regain her composure. “Aside from fragments of the campus and classes, I haven’t remembered anything else.”
“Is my current situation related to someone from university?” Ruan Qingxiao asked.
“In a way.” Assistant Zheng clearly didn’t realize she was on speakerphone. She sighed in frustration for a long while. After calming her emotions slightly, she continued, “Then do you still remember your former fiancé?”
Assistant Zheng placed such a deliberate emphasis on the word “former” that it was impossible to ignore.
Li Mengjue arched an eyebrow.
—Another detail that deviated from the original “plot.”
Ruan Qingxiao shot Li Mengjue a nervous glance. Seeing the look of genuine interest on Li Mengjue’s face, she quickly followed up with her own emphasis: “The engagement has already been called off.”
Li Mengjue asked, “You remember him?”
Ruan Qingxiao gave a vague “Mm.” “He gave me some compensation. I saw his signature in that pile of documents.”
However, her knowledge was limited to his name.
On the other end of the line, Assistant Zheng faltered. “Teacher Li is there too?”
Li Mengjue asked, “Do you need me to excuse myself?”
Ruan Qingxiao immediately grabbed her hand. “No!” Then, she spoke into the phone, “Just say it. There’s nothing Sister Li can’t hear.”
Assistant Zheng: “…”
Tch, what a classic display of a ‘besotted ruler’ neglecting her duties, Zheng thought, rolling her eyes where no one could see. Nonetheless, she spoke truthfully. “Actually, there isn’t anything Teacher Li can’t hear. Even if she weren’t there, I would have had to contact her eventually. This saves us some trouble.”
“So, Qingxiao’s collapse on the roadside… was it related to that fiancé?” Li Mengjue asked.
“There’s a slight connection. In fact, at the beginning, I suspected Young Master Tang of intentional retaliation, but…” Assistant Zheng paused, sounding dissatisfied. “I reckon he actually wasn’t in the loop this time.”
When Assistant Zheng had brought the documents over that day, she had briefly explained the situation regarding the ex-fiancé. Besides the fact that the compensation contract was in the pile, it was also because Zheng had wondered if Tang Qingyun had anything to do with Ruan Qingxiao’s amnesia.
Unfortunately, Ruan Qingxiao had no impression of the name; all her information came from Assistant Zheng.
Over a month ago, Ruan Qingxiao had broken off her engagement with Tang Qingyun. Almost the day after the official public announcement, the Tang family began actively preparing for the wedding between Tang Qingyun and his “True Love.”
If all went as planned, the wedding would take place in a month or two. Though it was rushed, it was because the “True Love” was already pregnant. The Tangs wanted the ceremony finished before the birth so the bride could still look her best.
The Ruan family had received an invitation, but naturally, none of them intended to show up.
As the ex-fiancé who had just suffered a loss at Ruan Qingxiao’s hands, Tang Qingyun was at the top of Assistant Zheng’s suspect list. After all, the Young Master was famously vain and petty. However, after several investigations, Zheng had lowered his suspicion to the minimum.
Firstly, it was unnecessary. Tang Qingyun had eventually “bled” some assets to appease his True Love, and Ruan Qingxiao was satisfied with the compensation. On the surface, the breakup was handled properly. The childhood jokes of the parents didn’t translate into adult compatibility; both had found other people, and in this modern era, there was no room for forced marriages.
While those in high society circles knew the ugly truth and whispered gossip, the public face of the two families remained polite and harmonious.
Tang Qingyun wasn’t an idiot. Even if he held a grudge, he wouldn’t be stupid enough to act out now. If something happened to Ruan Qingxiao because of him, he would lose both face and status, and be branded as a narrow-minded villain.
In fact, he even had the audacity to want Ruan Qingxiao to attend the wedding to bless his True Love—Assistant Zheng had received a sheepish call from him just two days ago. He was likely intoxicated by his “True Love’s” gentleness and thought only of giving her the best of everything, including “face.” If the ex-fiancée could let go of the grudge and offer a blessing, it would prove his current relationship was righteous and perfect. No one could criticize his bride then.
To this end, Tang Qingyun even hinted at offering more business concessions. Assistant Zheng had played word games to stall him—mostly because she wasn’t impressed by the current offer. If he increased the stakes, she might reconsider.
Secondly… this crude method of stalking didn’t fit Tang Qingyun’s style. He wouldn’t hire a hitman over this, and even if he did, he would hire a professional. Hiring low-level thugs to jump someone in an alley wasn’t his way. If Ruan Qingxiao survived, she would retaliate 100%, and the perpetrator could be sent to prison.
The only reason Ruan Qingxiao wasn’t acting now was because she couldn’t remember the incident and didn’t want rivals to take advantage of her vulnerability. Amnesia was a freak occurrence that no one could have predicted. If Tang Qingyun wanted revenge, he would sabotage her work or embarrass her in public; he wouldn’t take a physical risk.
“And then, I accidentally forgot about his ‘Accessory’,” Assistant Zheng’s tone turned sour again. She took a few deep breaths. “It was my oversight.”
“Accessory?” Ruan Qingxiao blinked, then guessed with a sudden flash of insight, “His ‘True Love’?”
“Exactly,” Assistant Zheng said heavily.
Li Mengjue was still processing the massive amount of information. Assistant Zheng hadn’t spent much time describing the romance, but from the bits and pieces, Li Mengjue reached a reliable conclusion.
—The female lead of the “melodramatic angst” plot had changed.
This was great news.
Li Mengjue suppressed a smile, feeling zero sympathy. From Zheng’s unspoken words, she caught the subtext. “Was it the ‘True Love’ who hired people to follow Qingxiao?”
“Most likely,” Assistant Zheng said. “We don’t have concrete proof of the initial incident yet, but the man who was stalking you these past few days is the ‘True Love’s’ uncle.”
“A friend of mine at a wedding planning company told me that just this morning, she overheard the ‘True Love’ wheedling Young Master Tang, begging him to come to City A to bail out her uncle.”
The investigation wasn’t difficult. This “True Love”—the “White Lotus”—hailed from City C. Her family background was poor, essentially the bottom of the social ladder. Her father was a lazy gambler, her mother supported the family as a mistress, and her uncle was a street-level thug who collected protection money.
Tang’s True Love was the “pure lotus rising from the mud,” working odd jobs since she was a teenager to pay for her tuition while caring for a younger brother. Once Tang confirmed his feelings, he arranged jobs for her family.
To put it bluntly, those gamblers and thugs were like “rotten mud that couldn’t stick to a wall.” Tang wasn’t so love-struck that he would bring them under the Tang family’s nose. If he had, his romance wouldn’t be going so smoothly.
So, the family remained in City C, but their living standards rose significantly. The “rotten mud” group hadn’t developed massive greed yet; they just couldn’t help bragging to everyone that their daughter was marrying into a wealthy family. Unfortunately, it didn’t make them act any more refined.
When Assistant Zheng heard “City C” from Li Mengjue, she immediately sent someone to investigate the family. It didn’t take much effort to pry the truth out.
“They were worried about a slip-up in their daughter’s marriage. They heard from somewhere that Tang had a fiancée who was obstructing the wedding, so they decided to remove the threat.”
“According to them, the uncle called a few of his ‘brothers’ and came to City A to stake you out half a month ago.”
“…I truly didn’t expect that,” Zheng sighed.
The two on the other end were also speechless. How should they put it? They had prepared for a high-level mastermind, only to find it was just a group of simple-minded, brute-force thugs.
“It’s also Tang Qingyun’s fault for having a brain full of mush, constantly talking about how ‘kind, weak, and pure’ his True Love is. Since she has no backing and has been like an ‘accessory’ by his side for years, I never thought she’d dare move against Qingxiao.”
Assistant Zheng paused, sounding defeated. “But then again, only someone with no brain and no vision would do something so reckless and consequence-free.”
“No brain?” Li Mengjue offered a different opinion. “If she were truly brainless, how would she know to come to City A in advance? Do you think a thug who is so incompetent at stalking could easily track the eldest miss’s whereabouts?”
She looked at Ruan Qingxiao. Ruan Qingxiao nodded; she had noticed this issue too. But with her amnesia, she couldn’t figure out where the leak occurred.
“That’s true.” Assistant Zheng, now calmed down, realized the discrepancy. “Even I didn’t know Qingxiao went to City A at first. How did they know?”
“I think…” Ruan Qingxiao pondered, a theory forming. “Does that person know that I… like Sister Li? That’s why they could wait here for me to appear, and then something went wrong for some reason…”
She spoke as she thought, but when she finished, both ends of the phone fell into a dead silence.
Lightning flashed outside again. Li Mengjue’s expression shifted slightly, only to return to calm as the light vanished. She stared at Ruan Qingxiao’s profile, deep in thought.
“Hardly anyone should know about that,” Assistant Zheng said hesitantly. “To be honest, if I hadn’t seen that… document, I wouldn’t have known you liked Teacher Li so deeply. You never mentioned it to anyone. Most people thought you two didn’t get along…”
Even Tang Qingyun thought Ruan Qingxiao disliked Li Mengjue. How could his “accessory” know Ruan cared so much?
But no one was listening to Assistant Zheng anymore.
Li Mengjue’s focus was entirely on Ruan Qingxiao’s face. At such a close distance, the latter couldn’t ignore the gaze. Ruan Qingxiao looked up, appearing somewhat uncomfortable. Most people didn’t dare stare at her so directly for so long; for the Eldest Miss Ruan, such a gaze was usually an affront.
But Ruan Qingxiao didn’t feel offended. She was just… embarrassed.
Li Mengjue had no intention of looking away. Instead, she reflexively offered a smile, her eyes still scanning Ruan like she was admiring a precious treasure—gentle and candid as always. However, when she looked at you with that much focus, it was hard to notice anything other than her beautiful eyes.
Li Mengjue had “peach blossom eyes,” which seemed to possess a fox-like, soul-capturing magic. One look could make a person feel like they were drowning in a deep, intoxicating sea. You’d forget everything else.
Ruan Qingxiao suddenly lowered her head, not daring to meet her eyes. She felt a strange tension; she didn’t know where to put her hands. Her gaze drifted into the void, and her fingers instinctively began fiddling with her left wrist, rubbing the small charms hanging from her bracelet.
Li Mengjue’s gaze shifted slightly. She saw Ruan Qingxiao’s reddened ears as she bowed her head, heard the pitter-patter of the rain, and unconsciously leaned back against the windowsill. Her arm accidentally bumped a nearby flowerpot. The roses that had been blooming for days swayed, and a few pink petals drifted down.
Li Mengjue saw a petal land on her own arm, then looked back at Ruan Qingxiao’s profile.
A spark of light suddenly flared in her mind.
“I remember now,” Li Mengjue said, her expression one of sudden realization. “During university… I really did see you.”