After more than half a month, Gu Ci's facial injuries have fully healed. She used the best medicine, and it was only in the first week or so that the swelling was difficult to reduce.

She remains beautiful, with bright eyes and white teeth, gentle and charming. Even though her face is somewhat pale and sickly, she is dressed in simple and comfortable casual clothes, unlike her usual refined style, but this cannot diminish her captivating charm.

Gu Qinglian didn't even want to look in the mirror to see what she looked like.

She was inside for more than half a month. Although the lawyer sent her toiletries and clothes, he only came twice. She didn't know that the police were denying her visitation rights, but she still felt a little resentful because of this.

To be honest, she was indeed resentful when she was first locked up. Her restlessness and natural temper caused her to lose her temper several times.

But the police are not servants in her home, nor are they her parents or brothers who would spoil and pamper her without reason.

If she resists too fiercely, the police will actually pin her to the ground and punish her until she submits.

Even now, she still has a bruise on her side and back.

What kind of life did she lead inside? But what about her dear sister, Gu Ci?

They even moved into the Pei family's house.

What made her resentful, angry, and hateful wasn't just this, but also the fact that during the ten days she spent calming down inside, she thought a lot about what Meng Sheng had said.

My brain, which had been flooded with idiots before, had never been so clever and quick-witted.

She began to recall her interactions with Gu Ci from childhood to adulthood. It seemed that no matter what happened, Gu Ci only needed to shed a couple of tears and say nothing, and she would take the initiative to find out what had happened and rush to the front for Gu Ci.

Gu Ci would always try to persuade her and pull her back, but over the decades, how many times had she actually managed to persuade or pull her back?

Every time, wasn't it under the guise of persuading her to pull her along, that he was actually expressing his own grievances in a roundabout way?

If she had just given her a sincere plea, some things could have been let go.

Because she listens to her so much.

In her eyes, this younger sister was a rare treasure. When she was little, she was so small and sickly. She would share her food with her and plead for her when she made a mistake.

Even if she just has a cold, a runny nose, or a fever, this girl will cry uncontrollably.

Therefore, there is absolutely nothing wrong with her loving Gu Ci.

But after calming down and shattering those past filters, what's left?

Just as Meng Sheng said, her beloved younger sister had been using her all along.

Looking back carefully, too many things were too coincidental.

Take the time when Gu Ci shielded Pei Yu from a knife and fell into a coma. She and her mother, Liu Lingyi, only wanted Pei Sui to marry A Ci. This was actually because Gu Ci kept talking about this matter a few days before the incident.

It left a deep impression on them.

Once you have preconceived notions about something, it becomes difficult to see the truth beyond appearances.

In addition, Gu Ci's coma during that period made them all tense and on the verge of collapse. They really thought that A Ci was going to die, so they wanted to fulfill her last wish.

Looking back now, it was Gu Ci who had been brainwashing them.

That is, they are being subjected to PUA (Pick-Up Artist) tactics.

"Sis, what's wrong?" Gu Ci sniffed, reached out to pull her arm, and pouted with heartache. "Why have you lost so much weight? Is the food at the police station bad?"

Of course not!

Although the food wasn't spoiled or cold, it was absolutely disgusting in her eyes, no different from pig swill.

It was really hard for her to swallow.

But she'd be hungry if she didn't eat, and the police weren't going to put up with her at all; if she didn't eat, they'd take it away, and they didn't care what she did.

She only ate when she was so hungry that she couldn't stand it anymore.

Her resentment towards Gu Ci deepened, and she wondered if she could send someone to bring her some food.

Seeing that Gu Qinglian avoided her hand, and that her eyes were clearer than usual, and that she didn't come forward to inquire about her body and facial injuries, Gu Ci felt a moment of panic.

She had a feeling that something was spiraling out of control, something she couldn't grasp.

"Sister, I know you're coming back today, but my body is just too weak to pick you up in person. I'm sorry."

She lowered her head, her self-reproachful expression touching everyone present.

Gu Qinglian remained silent, simply watching her calmly. The turbulent waves crashed against her heart again and again. She was piecing together some odd things, looking at Gu Qinglian's face, connecting the dots and correcting them over and over again.

Gu Ci clenched her fist, increasingly unsure of Gu Qinglian's reaction.

Surely he couldn't have gone crazy from being locked up for half a month.

Surely they can't be that useless?!

"Sis, you must not have been eating well these days. I asked the kitchen to prepare a table full of your favorite dishes. You eat first, and I'll have someone pour you some water. You can take a nice bath to relax and then get some sleep."

Gu Qinglian could indeed smell the aroma of food wafting from the restaurant.

Knowing she was going out today, she hadn't even eaten breakfast, and now she was indeed a little hungry.

She suppressed her inner turmoil, walked into the restaurant expressionlessly, pulled out a chair, and started eating without saying a word.

Gu Ci sat opposite her, and seeing Gu Qinglian like this, she became more and more flustered. "Sister, I'm sorry for making you suffer. It's all because of me. I'm sorry. You can vent your frustrations as before. Don't keep them bottled up inside and hurt yourself."

After eating half a bowl of rice, Gu Qinglian felt less empty and hungry, and then she slowed down her eating speed.

He looked up and asked her, "I heard from the driver that Dad was arrested, and all the companies under the Gu Group have been blacklisted by the Pei family. What exactly happened? What's going on?"

"Where's Mom? Are there too few servants at home?"

As Gu Ci mentioned this, her eyes filled with even more tears. "Mom is at the company. In the past few days, all the companies related to our family have been affected. My eldest brother was also targeted by the board of directors. They didn't let him take the chairman's position. Instead, they let A-Chen take it."

“There are fewer servants at home because Mom checked the accounts a couple of days ago and found that many accounts didn’t match. More than a dozen people were embezzling money, some of whom embezzled more than 400,000 yuan, and others embezzled 70,000 or 80,000 yuan. Mom was very angry and called the police to have them all arrested.”

"As for the Pei family..."

She choked up again as she mentioned this. "Meng Sheng falsely accused me of hurting Grandma Pei. Asui believed her one-sided story and kicked me out of the Pei family. I was speechless. No one believed me, not even Brother Yu. I called Grandma, and her nanny told me not to call her anymore, saying that the two families were no longer on good terms. They all believed Meng Sheng and not me. I... I had no choice. I even called Asui, but Asui blocked my number."

“A few days ago, I really had no choice. Seeing how hard Mom and my older brother were working, how much our family was losing money, and how the lawyer couldn’t even see Dad, I called Meng Sheng. Meng Sheng mocked me and hung up. She even posted the CCTV footage of you going to the art museum and me having diarrhea in the east of the city that day to humiliate us online…”

She cried uncontrollably, her voice broken and intermittent, making her already pale face look even more wretched.

Gu Qinglian watched her act with cold eyes. If she hadn't seen the trending topics on her way back and called her older brother to ask about the situation, she would have actually believed Gu Ci's words.

She suddenly interrupted Gu Ci, her voice calm yet tinged with a forced restraint, "Gu Ci, neither I nor our Gu family have wronged you in any way, have we?"

"Wh...what?"

Having never heard Gu Qinglian speak like this before, Gu Ci was momentarily stunned and taken aback.

When Gu Qinglian saw her pitiful, weak, and aggrieved face as always, an inexplicable anger surged up. Combined with the restlessness she had just suppressed and the sadness and grief of being betrayed, all her emotions intertwined.

She lost all appetite, slammed her chopsticks on the table, stood up, and pointed angrily at her, "Isn't this the result of your actions? Don't you have any idea why I was locked up, or why those two videos are online?!"

"Gu Ci, that's enough! What, do you think that if you complain a little more and shed a couple of fake tears, I'll stand up for you and go against Meng Sheng and the Pei family again? Gu Ci, put your hand on your heart and tell me, have you done right by me, by Mom and Dad, by my older brother, by our Gu family?!"