Ruan Yu snapped out of her thoughts, opened the door, and spread her palm. "The USB drive with my outline notes isn't lost. What does that mean?"
Xu Huaisong lowered his head, his gaze freezing.
For a fleeting moment, he wanted to tear off his own mask.
Actually, it wasn't just this moment. Earlier, when he'd deliberately asked how she knew he was from Suzhou, and when he'd made her read aloud that passage about the "dream," he'd felt the same impulse.
He thought that if she finally couldn't keep up the act, he could give up too.
But she kept up the pretense, and his lies kept snowballing. Every time he tried to push himself, he'd imagine her frightened expression upon learning the truth—terrified by his almost pathological scheming.
In his silence, Ruan Yu began considering other possibilities.
"Is it possible," she asked, "that some computer expert used technology to silently hack into my computer?"
"Theoretically, yes."
"And in reality?"
Xu Huaisong didn't want to spin more lies, so he told the truth. "Who would be that bored?"
"Cen Sisi." Ruan Yu didn't take his words as rhetorical. She thought about how Cen Sisi had dug up her address and even attempted suicide on live stream to sabotage her—was there anything she wouldn't do?
Xu Huaisong swallowed the confession on his lips.
No wonder she couldn't guess the truth.
Who could easily connect the dots to something so absurd?
And just like that, he lost another chance to come clean.
His hand at his side clenched and unclenched, unclenched and clenched, before he finally turned and walked back to the living room.
Ruan Yu didn't notice his unease, absorbed in her own hypothetical scenario.
If even the outline had been stolen by Cen Sisi, what role did the author of Her Eyes Smile, "The Poet," play in all this?
If she and Cen Sisi were in cahoots, why would she have proactively fed information to Liu Mao back then?
Unable to resolve this contradiction, she packed her basic belongings and moved them to the new apartment. After parting ways with Xu Huaisong, she contacted Li Shican.
He'd called her yesterday with a PR update, saying the live-streamed suicide had such severe social repercussions that it was quickly censored, limiting its spread. His cleanup efforts had gone smoothly, and the situation was mostly resolved now.
This time, Ruan Yu was genuinely grateful. Over the phone, she asked what she could do in return.
Li Shican said she didn't need to do anything—just treat him to a meal as payment.
The debt she owed couldn't possibly be repaid with just one meal, so she naturally couldn't refuse such a simple request. She agreed to take him out once he finished preparing for his upcoming concert.
But before that meal could happen, she needed to trouble him again.
When he answered, she got straight to the point. "Junior, could you give me Cen Sisi's father's contact info?"
That night, Cen Rong hadn't left his phone number. Yesterday, she'd received a compensation payment, but the account had been provided to the defendant earlier—she hadn't gotten in touch with the Cen family directly.
Before answering, Li Shican asked, "Did something happen?"
"He mentioned investigating potential threats for me a couple days ago. I wanted to check on the progress." And also confirm whether Cen Sisi had hired someone to hack her computer.Li Shican said, "I have a general idea of the situation. Uncle Cen didn’t find any issues while checking her external communication records, but he’s a cautious man, so he hasn’t given you a final answer yet. He plans to invite a hypnotherapist from abroad to question Cen Sisi about her past behavior under hypnosis to confirm the facts. However, her current health condition isn’t good enough for her to travel abroad for treatment, so it’s been delayed."
In the end, he still provided Cen Rong’s number, but since Ruan Yu already understood the situation, she didn’t rush to contact him and decided to wait a little longer. After all, from the perspective of a father, he was already overwhelmed, and as the person responsible for the incident, he had done his best.
She stayed in her new two-bedroom apartment with a kitchen and bathroom, unpacking her belongings. By the time she finished, it was already past two in the afternoon, and realizing she hadn’t eaten, she went downstairs to grab some takeout.
Unexpectedly, as she stepped out of the building, she ran into the girl who had been trapped in the elevator with her and Xu Huaisong a few days ago.
Today, the girl wasn’t wearing heavy makeup—her face was clean and bare, making her look much prettier than before.
Sun Miaohan was both surprised and delighted to see her. "It’s you, sis! Do you live in this building too?"
Ruan Yu was about to explain that she was a new resident when Sun Miaohan tightly grasped her hands, looking as if she had just met a long-lost friend. "You and your boyfriend are my lucky stars!" she exclaimed.
Her emphasis was on the last part, so before clarifying that he wasn’t her boyfriend, Ruan Yu asked curiously, "Lucky stars?"
"Remember I went to Huanshi for an audition that day? When I got there, my makeup was ruined from crying, so I wanted to remove it and redo it. But before I could finish, it was my turn, so I had to go in bare-faced..."
Ruan Yu guessed the outcome. "You got in, didn’t you?"
Sun Miaohan nodded vigorously. "After I got in, I found out they were specifically looking for someone with a natural, makeup-free look!"
Ruan Yu smiled and congratulated her, then said, "It was meant to be for you. What does it have to do with me and my friend?"
"Huh?" Sun Miaohan blinked. "Still just friends?"
Ruan Yu nodded, puzzled. "What else would we be?"
"Even though you said that day you’d never had a boyfriend, I thought in a moment of adversity revealing true feelings, he would’ve confessed to you!"
Ruan Yu started to laugh and explain that nothing like that had happened, but her laughter suddenly froze mid-breath.
In her mind, fragments of a conversation pieced together.
—"Little sister, don’t cry. Actually, I’ve never had a boyfriend either, and I’m already twenty-six..."
—"Do you want one?"
Was the missing word between "Do you want" and "one" actually "a boyfriend"?
So, after "Do you want a boyfriend?", was the next line "What do you think of me?" or "Let me introduce you to someone?"
A sudden realization left Ruan Yu standing there in a daze until Sun Miaohan’s voice snapped her back. "Sis, what’s wrong?"
She shook her head. "N-nothing." Then, like a lost soul, she walked out the door.
Fifteen minutes later, she found herself circling back to the apartment building—with no food in her hands.
Meanwhile, Xu Huaisong was in the living room of his hotel suite, discussing work with Lü Shenglan.
She was dealing with a dispute related to overseas investments and had returned to China with him for on-site investigations. Now, she had hit a bottleneck and was consulting him for a breakthrough.After listening, Xu Huaisong remained silent. He opened his laptop and began typing. Five minutes later, he turned the screen toward her: "Contact this person. You should be able to secure an investigation opportunity."
She nodded. "Thank you."
"You're welcome."
His attitude was, as always, strictly professional—aloof and indifferent. But Lü Shenglan faintly sensed something amiss. Noticing his unhealthy complexion, she asked, "Is your stomach acting up again? Did you skip lunch?"
He had.
After dropping Ruan Yu off at her new place around mealtime, she had offered to treat him to a meal as thanks. But he'd been distracted, preoccupied with the USB drive, so he'd said, "Next time."
Back at the hotel, he'd forgotten about eating entirely.
Now his stomach was indeed cramping painfully.
Before he could answer, Lü Shenglan stood up. "Where are your meds? In the bedroom? I'll get them for you."
"No need." Xu Huaisong endured another wave of pain and stood. "Go back to working on the case. I'll handle it myself." With that, he turned and entered the bedroom's attached bathroom, bracing himself against the sink as cold sweat broke out across his forehead.
Meanwhile, Ruan Yu was also hungry, sitting at her computer, opening and closing Xu Huaisong's chat window repeatedly. Finally, she sent Shen Mingying a message: "Tell me, when a man asks a woman 'Do you want a boyfriend?', does he secretly mean a) 'What do you think of me?' or b) 'Let me introduce you to someone'?"
Not receiving an immediate reply, she absentmindedly right-clicked the message to forward it to another friend for advice.
But perhaps because she'd been opening Xu Huaisong's chat window so frequently, her mind blanked when selecting recipients, and she accidentally clicked on his name—second on the list.
After hitting "confirm," she suddenly realized her mistake and frantically tried to recall the message. Seeing "You have recalled a message," she sighed in relief—only to receive a reply from the other end: "b."
Ruan Yu froze before her screen.
On the other side, Lü Shenglan—who had typed that "b" on Xu Huaisong's computer—hurriedly deleted the message history and called toward the bedroom, "I'll head out then. Take care of yourself."
Author's note: A villain who surpasses her mentor has arrived. Don't panic, stay steady—Softie can win this!
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