Chapter 25: The Exposed Secret

"Sister."

The word struck like a sudden, jagged bolt of lightning, cleaving a deeper, darker fissure into the world of Xu Yuan—a world already churned into chaos by the tsunami of her memories.

The video call request rang on, tireless and persistent. The crisp, rhythmic "ding-dong" echoed through the deathly silent dormitory, tolling like a funeral bell for a cruel secret about to be unearthed.

"Should I... answer it?"

Lin Feifei’s voice was agonizingly dry. She looked at the screen, at the stranger in the white coat with the gentle eyes, then back at Xu Yuan, who sat beside her, soul-stricken and seemingly hollowed out. For the first time, Lin Feifei felt a sense of powerless panic, one that lay far beyond her control.

It seemed as though everything was sliding madly toward a direction that was becoming increasingly complex and unpredictable.

Xu Yuan did not answer. She stared fixedly at the gentle, unfamiliar woman on the screen, her heart hammering so violently against her ribs it felt as if it might leap from her throat.

Jiang Yi’s... sister.

Was this the sister who, besieged by countless reporters at the courthouse, had been so overwhelmed that she had no choice but to "entrust" her lonely brother to Xu Yuan?

Why was she video calling?

Had something happened to Jiang Yi?!

Once this thought took root, it could not be suppressed. Fear instantly eclipsed all shock and shame. Driven by instinct, Xu Yuan reached out with a trembling hand and, in the final second before the call would have automatically disconnected, slammed the "accept" button.

The screen lit up instantly. A clear, magnified face, filled with a hint of anxiety and weariness, crashed into Xu Yuan’s field of vision.

"Jiang Yi? Why are you..."

The woman on the other end clearly had not expected a strange girl to answer. Her gentle voice came to an abrupt halt the moment she saw Xu Yuan, replaced by undisguised surprise and wariness.

"Who are you?" she asked, her voice turning cold instantly. "Why are you using Jiang Yi’s computer?"

"I..." Xu Yuan stared at the woman whose expression had sharpened so suddenly. Her mind was a blank; all her justifications and pretenses seemed laughable now.

"She... she’s our Jiang Yi’s girlfriend!"

Just as Xu Yuan stammered, unsure how to explain, Lin Feifei suddenly acted like a soldier charging into battle. She shoved Xu Yuan aside and thrust her own face—full of righteous indignation—directly into the camera’s view.

"You’re his sister, right? Hi, hello! I’m his girlfriend’s roommate!" Lin Feifei spoke with the rapid-fire speed of a machine gun. "Jiang Yi went to take a shower! His phone died, and he left his laptop here! We were just about to bring it to him! If you have anything to say, you can tell me, it’s the same thing!"

The story was riddled with holes, yet it carried the formidable, unassailable aura of a wealthy heiress.

Xu Yuan was completely stunned. She looked at her best friend, who was willing to drag herself into this murky water just to protect her, with disbelief. The frozen lake in her heart was shattered, and a torrent of scalding warmth surged forth.

Jiang Wan, on the other end of the screen, was clearly taken aback by Lin Feifei’s performance. Her sharp, scrutinizing gaze lingered on Lin Feifei’s "don't mess with me" face for a few seconds before slowly shifting back to Xu Yuan, who was already teary-eyed and too shocked to cry.

Her expression softened, bit by bit.

In its place came a look of realization, followed by a sigh tinged with helplessness and bitterness.

"You are... Xu Yuan, aren't you?" she asked slowly. There was no longer any wariness in her voice, only a heartbreaking weariness.

Xu Yuan’s heart gave a violent tremor. She... knew who she was.

"I’m not..." she began, her instinct to deny kicking in.

"It’s alright," Jiang Wan interrupted. Looking at Xu Yuan’s red, swollen eyes and her devastated appearance, she seemed to have guessed everything. "I’m not calling Jiang Yi about anything urgent. I just... I kept calling him and he wouldn't answer, so I got worried and decided to try his computer."

"He’s the type who likes to disappear when he’s angry; no one can ever find him."

"Seeing you here, I’m relieved."

Her words were like the gentlest of blades, slowly yet precisely peeling away all of Jiang Yi’s coldness and pretense.

So, he was not impenetrable after all. He was simply accustomed to hiding away alone, licking his own wounds.

"Um..." Seeing the atmosphere grow heavy, Lin Feifei’s eyes darted around, and she immediately put on a sweet, ingratiating smile. "Sister, don't worry! Jiang Yi is doing great! With our Yuanyuan around, we’ll make sure he’s well-fed and happy! By the way, have you eaten, Sister? Would you like us to have Jiang Yi call you back now?"

"No need." Jiang Wan shook her head, a faint, genuine smile appearing on her face. "I’m just happy to see that he... is finally not alone."

She looked at Xu Yuan, her gentle eyes filled with undisguised gratitude and a silent plea.

"Xu Yuan, I... leave Jiang Yi to you."

With that, she said no more. She gave them a gentle nod and ended the call herself.

...

Back in the dormitory, silence reclaimed the room. Lin Feifei stared at the blackened screen, taking a long time to find her voice.

"My god..." she murmured, then grabbed Xu Yuan by the shoulders and shook her firmly. "Xu Yuan! Wake up! Did you hear that?! His sister! She said it herself! She’s leaving him to you!"

"Do you know what this means? It means you are now the officially certified, one-and-only chosen one capable of saving that terminally ill, tsundere middle-schooler!"

Xu Yuan ignored her hysterics. She silently retrieved the hard-bound notebook and flipped to the page where the candy wrapper was tucked.

She looked at the immature handwriting, then recalled Jiang Wan’s final, entrustment-filled words. The tangled ball of yarn in her heart suddenly unraveled.

She finally understood.

The relationship between her and Jiang Yi had never been one of "savior" and "saved." They were two lonely reefs, battered and bruised by their own respective storms.

It was just that the currents of fate had pushed them together.

"Feifei," she said, slowly lifting her head to look at her friend. Her eyes, washed clean by tears, no longer held any confusion or retreat, but a newfound, desperate resolve. "Do me a favor."

"What?"

"Help me look someone up." Xu Yuan turned the notebook to the front cover and pointed to a flamboyant, sweeping signature she had never paid attention to before: "Wen Ran."

"Look him up?" Lin Feifei blinked. "Why? I thought you weren't interested in him?"

"I suspect," Xu Yuan said, enunciating each word as she stared at the name, "that on that rainy night ten years ago, in the hotel’s back garden, there were more than just the three of us."

...

That night, Xu Yuan had a dream.

A new, strange dream she had never seen before. In the dream, there was no fire, no sea. There was only an endless, pure white, and terrifyingly empty space.

Jiang Yi stood in the center.

He wore his clean white shirt, his expression calm, his eyes hollow.

Suddenly, countless invisible black threads appeared from nowhere, coiling like vipers around his wrists, his ankles, his neck...

The threads tightened.

He did not struggle, nor did he resist. He simply stood there, allowing the black threads to drag him into that pure white, bottomless abyss.

At the very end of the dream, she saw a pair of eyes.

A pair of smiling eyes hidden behind a pure white curtain, framed by gold-rimmed glasses.

It was Wen Ran.

Xu Yuan jolted awake, her heart pounding so hard she thought it might burst through her chest!

A chill, far more intense than any she had felt while dreaming of the fire, seeped deep into her bones, sweeping through her entire body.

She finally understood.

All of her previous predictions had been wrong.

The one who truly wanted to drag Jiang Yi into the abyss had never been an idiot like Li Wenfeng, nor a woman like Song Siya.

It was the one who appeared the most harmless, the most gentle, the one who seemed like light itself... Wen Ran.