“Stop saying that! My parents… how could they possibly do something like that!” Lin Ziyan was truly angry. She gritted her teeth, staring fixedly at Ye Xingmian while pinning down her arms and legs, making the girl beneath her unable to move.
Lin Ziyan’s long hair draped down, tickling Ye Xingmian’s face and making her squint.
“But I’m telling the truth. Don’t you have a single doubt? Do you really trust them that much? Only you are kept in the dark about your parents being two fraudsters. You’re just like a clown, still saying things to defend them even now. It’s truly laughable.”
Honestly, Ye Xingmian didn’t know why she was saying such things. She only felt a surge of excitement, a palpitation in her heart she had never felt before—a feeling different from any moment in the past. ‘Is this what it feels like to catch someone’s weakness?’
Perhaps before this, she had never imagined she had such a side to her.
As for Lin Ziyan’s revenge? It didn’t matter. Whether she was kicked out or the toy bear was destroyed, it was all trivial compared to Liu Yinuo. Lin Ziyan had been playing with her from the beginning, treating her like a toy. She knew this very well.
Lin Ziyan was indeed enraged. The look in her eyes was as if she wanted to kill her. ‘Do not only parents dote on daughters, but daughters also trust parents? What a laughable blood relationship.’
After that gaze persisted for a moment, Lin Ziyan suddenly grabbed her neck with both hands.
“Speak! Say you’re lying!” she growled.
Being choked tightly, a powerful sense of suffocation flooded Ye Xingmian’s mind. Yet, she managed to smile.
She was flustered.
Because she couldn’t speak, Ye Xingmian silently shook her head.
“You!”
For a moment, in her rage, Lin Ziyan really thought about just strangling Ye Xingmian to death. But when Ye Xingmian truly began to struggle unconsciously from the pain of suffocation, she couldn’t help but feel a little afraid.
She finally let go.
Why? Her feelings were complicated. When she saw Ye Xingmian’s expression of intense pain, she seemed to feel a faint sense of distress. ‘It shouldn’t be like this. Isn’t this exactly what I wanted?’
Unable to understand, she ultimately fell silent, not wanting to talk about the topic anymore. Had her parents really defrauded Ye Xingmian’s mother of her money? She had been convinced otherwise, but now her resolve wavered slightly once more.
After her neck was released, Ye Xingmian coughed violently twice, then panted heavily, taking a long time to catch her breath.
“Keep your voice down. Don’t let my parents hear you,” Lin Ziyan said.
“Ha? So you’re actually afraid of them finding out? Haha… cough… *cough-cough*!”
“Shut up!”
Lin Ziyan suddenly felt she should have just strangled her just now. Ye Xingmian had changed, becoming somewhat unfamiliar. She was unfamiliar to the point of making Ziyan feel irritated. She gritted her teeth, not knowing the reason for the change, and only felt an overwhelming annoyance.
She swallowed that inexplicable distress along with her frustration.
Thinking for a moment, she turned around and looked at Ye Xingmian lying on the bed. There was a glaring red mark on that fair swan-like neck, clearly left by her hands. As the tide of anger receded, she unexpectedly felt a faint sense of heartache.
‘Heartache? Why? How strange. Why would I feel such an emotion?’
Unable to figure it out, she simply stopped thinking about it. She pulled Ye Xingmian close again and held her in her arms.
“Go to sleep,” she said somewhat impatiently.
Ye Xingmian froze for a moment and turned to look at Lin Ziyan, who had already closed her eyes. A flash of disgust crossed her own eyes.
But it felt too early to leave. When would be the right time? She couldn’t say. She decided not to think about it. Perhaps it would be the day she could no longer stay here and had nowhere else to go but Liu Yinuo’s.
‘Do I have to push myself to such an extreme?’ She found herself ridiculous. ‘What am I hesitating for even now? Am I staying here to watch a joke?’
Perhaps.
Right, there was also Qin Haiyue. She didn’t know what had happened on her end or if she should go there tomorrow. It was all an unknown.
She couldn’t sleep while being held, and she wanted to sneak off to the restroom with her schoolbag to check her cellphone and see if Liu Yinuo had messaged her. But feeling Lin Ziyan’s unsteady breathing behind her, she gave up.
‘Is this the feeling of missing someone you love? Maybe.’ She felt very strange today.
There were no stars in the city sky. Occasionally, the distant, ceaseless roar of cars on the highway drifted in. A hazy sleepiness gradually clouded her mind, and eventually, unable to resist the exhaustion, the girl fell into a deep sleep.
—
The Magic City was always a scene of endless prosperity. With its neon lights, bustling crowds, and constant flow of traffic, it was as if the city never knew night.
Qin Haiyue had taken an evening flight and arrived late at night. She was currently in a family car, rushing toward the hospital.
Her hands were tightly clasped together, nervously gripping her wrist. Perhaps because it was too hot, her palms were slightly sweaty. Her gaze drifted, occasionally looking toward the distant traffic lights.
“Driver, can you go a little faster? Just a bit faster,” she called out nervously.
“Miss, this is the fastest I can go. The speed limit on this road is only this high,” the driver said, biting the bullet.
Qin Haiyue fell silent for a moment, knowing it wasn’t the time to be impatient. She took two deep breaths, trying to calm her racing heart.
‘Why am I like this? That father of mine doesn’t even care about me. He’s always just let me do whatever I wanted, hasn’t he?’ She shouldn’t care about him this much. It would be better if he were dead, so he wouldn’t annoy her or make her do things for no reason.
Watching the night scenery recede rapidly outside the window, Qin Haiyue’s brows furrowed deeper. Her heart was still panicking, and she couldn’t suppress it.
‘The air conditioning must be set too high, right? It must be…’
“Please turn down the air conditioning.”
“Ah? Yes, Miss.”
The driver glanced down at the control panel. This was the fifth time…
When they reached the hospital, Qin Haiyue hurried out of the car. The biting midnight wind blew against her head, instantly clearing her mind. She took out her cellphone and dialed her mother’s number, which was answered quickly.
“Mother, where is my dad’s ward? I’ve arrived.”
“I sent it to you. Didn’t I tell you earlier?”
“Ah? Oh, sorry…”
Apologizing for her haste, Qin Haiyue opened her social media app and saw that her mother had indeed sent the specific location earlier; she just hadn’t noticed.
She followed the directions to a private high-end ward. However, when she saw the scene before her, she felt as if a bucket of cold water had been poured over her, and she calmed down significantly.
The place was overcrowded, just like many other times in her memory. There wasn’t even a place for her to stand.