Chapter 11
Chapter 11
A few days after Zhou Jinyan left, Lu Sisi found me.
She glared at me with a look bordering on hatred. “I thought you were dead.”
“Over the years, he tried to break off our engagement several times, but I refused every time. So he punished me. Whenever he got drunk, he would call out your name over and over, saying you were the one he truly loved.”
“Yu Ning, how could you possibly be worthy of having me as your substitute?”
I looked at her face, which had been altered by plastic surgery until it was almost unrecognizable. Her eyes betrayed an exhaustion she couldn’t hide, along with the frantic anxiety of a trapped animal.
Inexplicably, my mind drifted back to when she had first returned years ago.
She had been high and mighty then, the center of everyone’s attention.
She had ordered me around, making me pour her wine and serve her soup.
With just a casual remark, she had forced me to soak in a freezing artificial lake to search for a ring that didn’t even exist.
After all these twists and turns, she had somehow ended up being tortured into this state herself.
Seeing that I remained calm while watching her, Lu Sisi’s composure suddenly snapped.
She bolted upright, staring at me intently. “Why did you come back? Since you left, you should have stayed away. Do you have any idea? The moment you returned, Zhou Jinyan insisted on breaking our engagement no matter what.”
“He said he wanted to pursue you with a clean slate, to beg you for a single chance.”
“I went abroad to study and conduct research. I brought my results back to continue my work and contribute to my country and its people. I don’t believe there is anything wrong with that.”
I stirred the coffee in front of me, my tone indifferent. “Miss Lu, your outlook is narrow. You’ve confined your mind to useless love and hate. What right do you have to turn around and question me?”
She glared at me with resentment, but she couldn’t find the words to respond.
Lu Sisi and Zhou Jinyan were the same kind of person.
From the moment they were born, they had everything; they lacked for nothing.
In their worldview, if you don’t love me or I don’t love you, it’s a catastrophe of epic proportions.
But what I wanted had always been the path to my ideals.
I ignored Lu Sisi, paid for my coffee, and stood up to leave.
I didn’t expect to see myself on the trending searches that very night.
Just like Lin Jia years ago, her favorite tactic was to use public opinion as a weapon.
In that long Weibo post, she and Zhou Jinyan were portrayed as a long-term engaged couple, while I was the villain who had returned to the country to snatch another woman’s man.
When people couldn’t find me, they swarmed the research institute’s official account, leaving comments demanding my dismissal.
“Even with the halo of a high degree, how can someone with such corrupt character be entrusted with important scientific research?”
This time, the wave of public outcry was fierce.
A few extremist fans even went so far as to hang banners outside the institute.
I called the police immediately.
Cen Yuqi was livid. “I’ve given her enough face. What right does that plastic surgery freak have to be acting out like this?”
I stopped her. “Let me handle it myself this time.”
There were some things I hadn’t spoken about back then, but that didn’t mean I hadn’t kept the evidence.
I registered an account and posted a video recording.
Back then on the film set, Lu Sisi and Lin Jia had gotten into a conflict. Feeling frustrated, Lu Sisi had forced me into the water to find her ring.
A small assistant on set, who was also a nobody and constantly bullied, had recorded the scene and secretly sent the video to me.
She had said, “If she ever bullies you again, expose her.”
“These people are like this. They’re put on such high pedestals by their fans that they don’t even treat us like human beings…”
Five years ago, I didn’t release it.
I knew very well that the root of the problem was never Lu Sisi, but Zhou Jinyan.
But this time, she was the one who came looking for trouble.