Chapter 20
During a break at work, a colleague told me someone was here to see me. When I went to the reception room, I saw Bai Zifan. This time he was dressed casually, in a black short-sleeved T-shirt, the scar on his arm glaringly obvious.
When he saw me, he stood up unhurriedly and walked toward me with a smile.
“What are you doing here?” I instinctively took half a step back.
“An old friend dropping by to reminisce a little-is that not allowed?”
“It’s not convenient. I have class in a bit.”
I turned to leave, but he suddenly sidestepped past me, shut the door, and braced one hand against the door by my ear, leaving me nowhere to retreat.
“What’s wrong? Not welcoming your ex-boyfriend?” He leaned in close to my ear. “Your husband isn’t here. What’s so inconvenient about this?”
Shame and anger flushed hot across my face.
“What, embarrassed? We’ve been closer than this, you know.”
“Bai Zifan, if you keep this up, I’m calling the police!” I blurted, mortified.
“And what would you tell them? Same as before-say I raped you?”
I was stunned. “What?”
“Because of your lie, I almost died. You know that?”
He told me that back then, after my dad found out about us at the hotel, I went home and told him Bai Zifan had raped me. For the sake of my reputation, my dad didn’t call the police. Instead, he secretly hired people to “kill him.” They broke three of his ribs; he nearly died and only barely managed to escape. That incident even got his older sister fired and dragged his friend Brother Hao’s shop, Galaxy Auto Repair, into it-shut down and investigated.
“Nonsense!” I was shocked and furious.
What I’d gone through was completely different from what he was saying. He was the one who’d set everything up in advance at the hotel, who’d recorded a video of us to blackmail my dad…
“So that’s how it is. I get it, I get it now.” He looked suddenly enlightened, lifting his head as if to keep his tears from falling. “It was all lies your dad made up to break us apart.”
“Is that so? Then how do you explain the video?”
“There was never any such video.”
“You’re lying. I saw that video!” I started to tremble.
“Are you sure it was us? Same hotel room, blurry security footage, two people on a bed-you can really be sure it was us?”
I was speechless.
It felt like every pore on my scalp exploded. He was right-I couldn’t be sure at all. And at the time, I’d been too terrified to watch closely.
“No… no way…” I denied it out loud, but inside, I was growing more and more certain that what he said might be true.
My dad has been in business for thirty years; I’ve always known he has methods. I just never imagined he’d use something that cruel against me.
He knows me too well. He knew only the most extreme approach would cut off every last lingering thought, make me willingly go abroad.
He’d personally said it before: if I ever saw Bai Zifan again, he’d kill him. My dad is the kind of man who does what he says. This is exactly the sort of thing he’d do.
I should’ve put it together long ago.
He’d schemed so hard to trick me into going abroad, but what he didn’t foresee was that once I got there, I didn’t quickly forget or bounce back-instead, I just got more and more… ruined.
Bai Zifan and I sat one at each end of the sofa, both lost in our own tangled thoughts, like two silent piano keys.
“All these years, I’ve been living like a stray dog,” he suddenly said. He told me he’d once worked as an accountant in an illegal workshop in Guangdong, then sold jade on the border in Yunnan, until he saved a college student suffering from malaria in Myanmar-a student who happened to look about seventy percent like him.
He took over Li Yunzhou’s identity and returned to Anzhou with a single obsession: that one day, he’d stand in front of me and ask me the truth to my face.
“That night at the hotel, seeing you play piano for Suhang… I really wanted to just rush over and demand an answer right then and there.”
Later, he deliberately arranged for us to meet again at that dinner.
“The world can be huge, but it can be really small too,” he sighed.
“Weren’t you afraid I’d expose you on the spot?” I asked.
He said compared to getting an answer, he didn’t care about any of that. Back when he escaped from those thugs, he’d clung to that one belief: he had to ask me in person. Otherwise, he wouldn’t be able to die in peace.
“Now I finally understand…” He scrubbed at his face haphazardly, then gave a wistful smile. “You were never the one who lied. I should’ve realized that sooner. You must’ve hated me all these years. I’m sorry, Little Penguin. But at least the misunderstanding’s cleared up… To be honest, I’m really happy. Really, really happy.”
Tears glimmered in his eyes. He turned away, waving a hand at me with his back to me. “I’m leaving. Be happy, okay?”
That “Little Penguin” sent a full-body shiver through me. I stood there, lost and shaken. So all these years, we were just trapped in different lies-but we were still us.
He turned back again and said, “If Suhang ever bullies you in the future, tell me. I won’t let that punk off.”
At the mention of Suhang, something twisted in my chest. My eyes brimmed over, and tears finally spilled down my face.