Chapter 28
As dawn broke, pale golden light filtered through the sheer curtains and spilled into the bedroom.
Jiang Minghua woke up from her sleep, her long hair scattered on the pillow, her eyes still filled with lingering sleepiness.
Just then, the sound of a plus sign suddenly rang in my mind, the usually steady electronic tone now carrying a hint of imperceptible urgency.
What did you do last night? I'm completely blocked; I can't see any of your messages, not even your basic information.
Jiang Minghua frowned slightly and raised her hand to rub her temples.
I didn't do anything, I just slept.
Her voice was still hoarse from just waking up, and her tone revealed genuine confusion.
After a moment of silence, the plus sign replied briefly: "Okay."
The faint disappointment in that voice made Jiang Minghua thoughtful.
She sat up, the silk quilt slipping from her shoulders to reveal her beautifully shaped collarbone. The morning light cast a soft glow on her delicate skin.
What's wrong? What happened?
Plus replied listlessly: "It's nothing."
It thought it had found a bug to block the book-transferring system, but in the end, it was all for naught.
The plus sign clearly meant something was wrong. Before Jiang Minghua could ask for details, her phone screen suddenly lit up. It was a message from Fu Yanzhi.
Jiang Minghua raised an eyebrow slightly. It was quite rare for Fu Yanzhi to take the initiative to contact her.
The bedroom was silent, broken only by the occasional chirping of birds outside the window. She stared at the unread message, her gaze growing serious. After a moment's thought, she replied:
【knew. 】
The school auditorium was empty and quiet on Sunday. The setting sun shone through the high windows, casting long shadows on the floor.
Jiang Minghua sat upright in the red velvet chair, her gaze calmly fixed on Fu Yanzhi.
He was wearing a dark gray school uniform today, his figure was upright, but a lingering weariness shrouded his brows. His usually clear eyes were also bloodshot, and his jawline was tighter than usual.
"Jiang," he began hesitantly, his voice slightly hoarse.
“I know you have a problem with me. But I have to say, I did treat Chuqing as a substitute for Shuyi back then, but things are different now.”
He turned to look out the window, where the ginkgo tree in the courtyard was swaying gently in the wind, its leaves rustling softly.
"She always gave me a strange sense of familiarity." His deep voice was particularly clear in the empty auditorium.
“When I was sixteen, I fell into the water and was rescued. Before I lost consciousness, I gave my jade pendant to that blurry figure… Later, this jade pendant appeared on Shuyi, and I was convinced that it was her.”
He turned around, his eyes filled with confusion mixed with a hint of anticipation.
"But now I've realized I've really fallen in love with Chu Qing. You and she are friends, so I hope you can help me."
Jiang Minghua tilted her head slightly, a strand of long hair falling beside her cheek. A mocking smile curved her red lips, her voice steady:
"How can you be so sure that you've fallen in love with Wen Chuqing? You just said that she gives you a sense of familiarity."
She slowly stood up, looking down at him with a cold gaze.
"Fu, I understand," she said, enunciating each word clearly.
"You don't love Qin Shuyi, nor Wen Chuqing."
She paused for a moment, looking at Fu Yanzhi's suddenly tense expression, before slowly uttering the second half of her sentence:
"What you actually love is that jade pendant."
Fu Yanzhi's face instantly turned ugly. "What do you mean by this?"
"You'll understand soon enough," Jiang Minghua said, keeping him in suspense instead of giving him a direct answer.
One week later, outside the Fu family villa.
The morning mist had not yet dissipated, and the sunlight barely pierced through the clouds, casting faint patches of light on the meticulously manicured lawn.
Outside the wrought iron gate, a hundred people had gathered. They were dressed in various styles, including young people who looked like students and ordinary people in simple clothes. Each of them held a lustrous jade pendant in their hands, which gleamed similarly in the morning light.
The butler hurried through the living room, his footsteps echoing on the gleaming marble floor. He hesitated before knocking on Fu Yanzhi's door.
"Young Master, there are over a hundred people outside who want to see you. They all say they are the person you are looking for."
Fu Yanzhi frowned. He walked to the floor-to-ceiling window and looked down at the absurd scene below.
The hundred people lined up neatly in a long queue, each face bearing a similar curiosity and expectation, each hand holding the jade pendant he knew all too well.
Just then, his phone rang. Jiang Minghua had sent him a voice message. He played it, and her cool voice carried a mischievous smirk of triumph:
"Student Fu, these one hundred jade pendants are all one-to-one replicas made by a master craftsman. Now, please find the one you 'love'."
After a brief pause, Jiang Minghua continued:
"After all, according to your logic, you should love whoever has the jade pendant, right?"
Standing by the window, Fu Yanzhi saw for the first time the absurdity of his own feelings.
All the convictions and obsessions he once held so firmly collapsed in the face of these hundred similar jade pendants.
It turns out that he never loved any specific person; it was just a self-deceiving obsession.
Once the obsession is let go, the emotions recede like the tide.
Looking back with clear rationality, Fu Yanzhi finally saw that his so-called feelings for Wen Chuqing were actually so empty at their core. There was no attraction, no spark; it was all just an illusion, and it didn't include love.
When he told Jiang Minghua his thoughts, she didn't care who he liked and simply replied with a period, meaning she understood.
Then she received a call from Wen Chuqing:
"Minghua, Grandma, Grandma suddenly fainted today, what should we do!"
The sound of Wen Chuqing crying could be heard from the other end of the phone. Jiang Minghua frowned, comforted her briefly, and then asked about Jiahao:
Did the original novel mention Wen Chuqing's grandmother's illness?
Plus sign: [Yes, of course. This is part of the climax of the original novel. Wen Chuqing's grandmother suddenly falls seriously ill and needs expensive surgery. Desperate, the female lead is forced to ask the male lead, Fu Yanzhi, for help. Fu Yanzhi uses this opportunity to force the female lead to exchange her body for his. During the process, the male lead rudely questions her: "Do you do this to every man? Tell me, which man am I to you?" Afterwards, he throws down a wad of banknotes, coldly watching the female lead pick them up, internally labeling them as "cheap" and "despicable."]
Finally, the commenter summarized: [This is a necessary, heart-wrenching plot point.]
Jiang Minghua: ...
This plot made her feel incredibly disgusted every time she watched it.
In the hospital corridor, the smell of disinfectant mingled with a vague sense of anxiety, spreading silently through the air. Wen Chuqing sat alone on the edge of a bench, her fingers tightly gripping the hem of her clothes, her gaze never leaving the closed door of the intensive care unit.
"The situation isn't good." The doctor's words still echoed in my ears. "Surgery is the only hope, but the cost..."
She looked down at the number on her phone screen that she could never reach.
"The weather cleared up."
Looking up at the sound, she saw Jiang Minghua standing not far away. The afternoon sunlight slanted in from the window at the end of the corridor, outlining a faint halo around her.
“Minghua! Grandma…” Wen Chuqing ran and threw herself into Jiang Minghua’s arms, trying to calm her unease.
Jiang Minghua didn't offer much comfort, but simply patted her shoulder gently and then placed a file folder in her hand.
"The surgery fee has been paid in full, and the best medical team will arrive tomorrow."
Wen Chuqing stared blankly at the payment receipt in the file folder. She looked up to thank her, but saw that Jiang Minghua had already turned and left, leaving only the words:
"Grandma will get better."
On the day of the surgery, Wen Chuqing waited outside the operating room for a full six hours. When the surgeon came out, took off his mask, and revealed a relieved smile, she almost couldn't stand up.
"Very successful. The tumor was completely removed, and all indicators are recovering."
She looked at her grandmother in the intensive care unit through the glass. The old woman's complexion was much rosier than before, and her breathing was steady, as if she were simply sleeping peacefully. At that moment, she felt that the gloom of the past few days had finally dissipated.
However, this sense of security lasted for less than half a day.
The hospital corridor was unusually quiet late at night. Wen Chuqing was taking a nap on a hospital chair when she was suddenly awakened by a sharp alarm. She looked up abruptly and saw the glaring straight line on the monitor through the glass, as well as the medical staff who suddenly rushed into the ward.
"What happened? She was fine just now!" She grabbed a nurse who was hurrying past, her voice trembling uncontrollably.
The rescue lasted forty minutes.
When the doctor finally walked out of the ward, took off his mask, and revealed a tired and confused expression, Wen Chuqing already had a premonition of the outcome.
“We did our best…the sudden onset of multiple organ failure, with no identifiable cause…this is not in accordance with medical practice.”
She couldn't hear what the doctor said next; the whole world seemed to have been muted. She moved step by step to the bedside, looking at her grandmother's peaceful face, and couldn't believe that just a few hours ago, the doctor had confidently said that the surgery was a success.
Tears streamed down her face silently as she knelt before the hospital bed, her shoulders trembling violently.
Just as despair was about to completely engulf her, a cold voice rang out directly in her mind:
Want to bring your grandmother back to life? Go find Fu Yanzhi and make him truly fall in love with you. If you're together, your grandmother can regain her life.
The voice was devoid of any emotion, like that of a robot.
Wen Chuqing abruptly raised her head, her eyes blurry with tears as she looked at the empty hospital room. Reason told her this was absurd, but a voice deep inside her cried out, "What if? What if this is true?"
She slowly stood up, wiped away her tears, and her eyes gradually hardened. For her grandmother, she was willing to try anything, even if it meant her grandmother falling into despair.
As night deepened, the city's neon lights cast a cold strip of light on the carpet through the gaps in the heavy curtains of the hotel room.
Wen Chuqing stood quietly in the center of the room, like a soulless porcelain doll. Her dress slipped to the floor, making a soft rustling sound, revealing her fair but slightly trembling shoulders.
The room was comfortably cooled by the air conditioning, yet she felt a bone-chilling cold. Only one frantic thought echoed in her mind: if she could get Fu Yanzhi, her grandmother could return.
When Fu Yanzhi opened the door with his room card and walked in, this was the scene he saw.
The girl stood barefoot on the dark red carpet, her clothes off, her eyes vacant yet filled with a desperate resolve. The warm, ambiguous light cast an unreal halo around her.
Fu Yanzhi stopped at the doorway, his brows furrowing instantly. His eyes held no expected surprise or desire, only clear astonishment and rapidly hardening vigilance.
"Put your clothes on." His voice was calm, almost cold, unlike any reaction she had expected.
Wen Chuqing took a step forward, trying to force a seductive smile, but the corners of her mouth twitched uncontrollably:
"Fu Yanzhi, do you love me?" Her voice was dry, but it was clearly choked with sobs.
Fu Yanzhi did not move, his gaze sweeping over her pale face and unfocused eyes, keenly capturing her abnormal madness and despair.
The Wen Chuqing before him was completely different from the gentle and resilient girl he remembered.
Just as Wen Chuqing reached out to touch him, Fu Yanzhi suddenly turned to the side, avoiding her touch, and at the same time raised his hand, delivering a precise light chop to the back of her neck. The movement was swift and decisive, without the slightest hesitation.
Wen Chuqing slumped down, but he caught her with his arm just in time, preventing her from falling to the ground. He pulled the blanket over the bed and wrapped her up properly, his actions devoid of any impropriety.
After doing all this, Fu Yanzhi walked to the window and dialed Jiang Minghua's number.
“Jiang Minghua, Wen Chuqing is with me, and she's acting very strangely. You'd better come over right away.”
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