Yan Yijia furrowed her brows tightly, carrying a thermal flask and walking briskly in high heels, with a stride as swift as the wind.
Her best friend, Gu Qingtong, had gotten into a car accident. Her parents were still on vacation in Europe and could not rush back, so they asked Yan Yijia to make some soup and deliver it to her.
However, the reason why she was so anxious was because her best friend had sent her a vague WeChat message that had no beginning or end.
“I’m not marrying your cousin.”
Yan Yijia only saw this message an hour later and was suddenly flustered.
She made ten frantic calls, but they were all met with a powered-off status. That’s why she hurriedly came to the hospital to find out the truth.
She had known Gu Qingtong for over a decade and knew her best. When it came to trivial matters, she would make a fuss, but when faced with a major issue, she would speak calmly, like a stagnant pool of water.
The WeChat message did not have the usual three exclamation marks and two pink fox emojis. It was obvious that something was wrong.
Gu Qingtong and her cousin, Yan Song, had just confirmed their engagement last week. Both of them were doing it for the sake of their family’s shares. This kind of business marriage was very common among the rich and powerful families, not to mention the Yan and Gu families, who had been rich and powerful for a long time in City A.
Her best friend had always been a bit clueless in matters of love, seemingly lacking common sense. She approached the arranged marriage with a business-like attitude.
But now…
While thinking about this, Yan Yijia pushed open the door to the hospital room.
And she happened to see the little troublemaker sitting on the bed, tears streaming down her face.
Gu Qingtong had a bandage wrapped around her head, and her usually glamorous face appeared unusually plain. Her tear-stained cheeks resembled pear blossoms, with a reddened nose and the corners of her eyes, almost dyeing the mole near her eye with color, making her stunning face all the more distressing.
She had a typical bold and beautiful appearance, with striking facial features that would stand out even more with a touch of makeup.
The moment she saw the incoming person, Gu Qingtong was startled. She quickly turned her face away and hurriedly grabbed a few tissue papers from the nearby cabinet, haphazardly wiping her face.
She never liked others seeing her crying. She simply felt that having tears and snot all over her face was extremely ugly.
Her carefully cultivated beauty had to be flawless at all times. In the entertainment industry, Gu Qingtong was probably best at being an idol.
“Why are you hiding? I’ve already seen it. You look like this when you cry… Is it Yan Song? Why didn’t you tell me? I’ll definitely get an explanation from him today!”
Yan Yijia slammed the thermal flask heavily on the table, rolling up her sleeves with a determined demeanor.
“What… What’s wrong with that guy? Who cares about that rotten man?” Gu Qingtong felt a sense of gloom just hearing his name.
“Well, Missy, why are you crying then? Didn’t you send me a WeChat message saying you’re not marrying him anymore?”
Gu Qingtong only just remembered this, sniffing because she had just finished crying, her voice soft with a nasal tone.
“I have a concussion and a headache. Does that scumbag Yan Song deserve me? You’ve never had a concussion, so you wouldn’t know how it feels when someone uses a wooden hammer to constantly knock on your head like a woodpecker. It’s incredibly uncomfortable.”
This time, Yan Yijia finally believed her.
Gu Qingtong had a low pain threshold. When she was a child, she would never be seen during blood draws or vaccinations at school. She was delicate and easily bruised from the slightest bump. She was often teased as the “Pea Princess.”
“Fine, so what happened with Yan Song? Sending me a message out of the blue without any context, and when I called, your phone was off! Today is my wedding anniversary with my husband, and I rushed over here without finishing our meal. You better give me a reasonable explanation.”
Just mentioning Yan Song made Yan Yijia angry.
Over the years, many people have asked her if Gu Qingtong saved her life, putting up with all her annoying quirks.
Well, she really did. Gu Qingtong did save her life! Otherwise, she would have bought a train ticket and ran away long ago.
She used to be someone who hated trouble the most, but Gu Qingtong had turned her into a nagging old lady, always talking incessantly.
Being close to this woman would bring misfortune. Either she would annoy you to death, or you would become like her!
Apart from the Gu family, only she could scold and tolerate that woman’s antics.
Upon hearing Yan Yijia’s question, Gu Qingtong found it difficult to put it into words.
Because of her ex-fiancé Yan Song, she had to start with the source of all evil, the car accident.
Yesterday, Gu Qingtong had an accident while rushing to a filming appointment. Fortunately, she was wearing her seatbelt, but she hit her head and suffered a concussion.
Little did she know, this impact triggered a strange memory. She discovered that she was actually a troublemaking supporting character in a tragic romance novel.
In the original story, the male lead Yan Song had an awkward status and was not the legitimate son of the main family. Although he was indeed a proper young master of the Yan family, he was never favored by the patriarch.
In order to enter the family business, he had to give up his beloved main heroine and marry the supporting character, Gu Qingtong, the young lady of the Gu family.
Driven by self-interest, despite his strong aversion to the supporting character, the male lead chose to deceive both women. He married Gu Qingtong while secretly keeping the main heroine by his side.
If one were to say that Gu Qingtong was currently at the point where she had one foot on the treacherous ship of the storyline.
The subsequent plot almost made her spit out blood and curse the author for pure nonsense.
The main heroine discovered that the male lead was already married, and in her despair, she fled to a foreign land. Only after leaving the male lead did she realize she was pregnant. Yes, it was the familiar “pregnancy while running away” trope.
Several years later, the supporting character, Gu Qingtong, found the single mother heroine ahead of the male lead.
At this time, the supporting female character, due to her unrequited love for the male lead, harbored a strong desire to harm the mother and child, resorting to various wicked deeds and stopping at nothing.
After a long series of events where she tries to harm the mother and child but fails to escape from them, the male lead chases after them and the two eventually reconcile.
By this time, the male lead has taken full control of the Yan family’s power, swallowing the Gu family’s business. He ruins the malicious supporting character, Gu Qingtong, causing her to go bankrupt and sending her to a mental hospital. From then on, the main couple lives happily together.
“Do I have nothing better to do than to fall in love with such a scumbag? I have a concussion, not something wrong with my brain!”
When Gu Qingtong sees the scenes from the original story where her character couldn’t attain the love of the male lead, she was so frightened that she woke up from her coma caused by the car accident, a medical miracle, one might say.
The first thing she does after waking up is to hire a private detective to investigate Yan Song’s background and verify her memories.
The efficiency of the private detective is astonishingly high. Having mingled in the elite circles of City A for a long time, they uncovered the dirty secrets of every family. The next day, they sold a package of blackmail to Gu Qingtong.
Only when she saw the unfamiliar girl’s profile, her face, name, and even the school and occupation was identical to the main heroine in her memories, did Gu Qingtong realize the seriousness of the situation.
She swiftly broke off the engagement and blocked the scumbag, Yan Song, and following her principle of saving lives being better than building a seven-level pagoda1Means the importance of prioritizing human life and well-being over material possessions or accomplishments, she sent a private message on the main heroine’s Weibo account, harshly criticizing the scumbag’s actions.
Sitting on the hospital bed, she analyzes her own and the Gu family’s future while suffering from a splitting headache.
Mixed emotions overwhelm her, and soon Yan Yijia sees her with a tearful, kitten-like face.
Gu Qingtong tells Yan Yijia about her investigation into Yan Song and the discovery of the main heroine’s existence, but of course, she hides the part about the plot from the book.
If she were to reveal everything, Yan Yijia would probably suspect that she had damaged her brain and insist on getting another CT scan.
“Aiya, you were complaining about why I didn’t tell you about the engagement right away? I was thinking about the opportunity for compensation to make up for it when I broke off the engagement. I haven’t told anyone else, you’re the first to know. As for turning off my phone… After I broke it off and blocked Yan Song, he kept changing numbers to harass me, so I just turned off my phone. How could I not answer your call? It’s just that I didn’t receive it…”
Knowing that she had disturbed the sweet moment between Yan Yijia and her husband, Gu Qingtong tried her best to explain herself. Acting obediently as if she were a different person from before.
“I was wrong, I promise I’ll explain everything properly next time!”
She admitted her mistake faster than anyone else but unfortunately, “next time” is still a possibility.
Yan Yijia didn’t buy it. She rolled her eyes. “Cut it out. You only told me. Don’t think that I don’t know what you’re planning. You want me to help you deal with the Yan family and Grandpa Gu, right?”
Gu Qingtong’s ulterior motives were seen through. She couldn’t help but sit up straight and nod repeatedly, looking at Yan Yijia with anticipation.
“You wish!”
Just as Yan Yijia’s words fell, her phone rang.
But her expression turned cold the moment she saw the caller ID.
One second ago, she said she didn’t care about Gu Qingtong’s situation, and the next second, she was ready to angrily confront the scumbag Yan Song, pressing the answer button with a grim face.
“Don’t try to get close to me. Are we close?”
“You just found out about her car accident today? Are you hoping she won’t wake up so you can have a sweet relationship with your lover?”
“I don’t care about the rules of the marriage alliance. All I know is that my family’s innocent little sister nearly got framed as a third party by you.”
“Who said we are a family? I’m a member of the Yan family, and you have a conflict with the Yan family, not me.”
“Scumbags like you deserve to die! Get lost quickly. You figure out how to explain this to the head of the Yan family. You’re fully responsible for this break up!”
Gu Qingtong, who was listening at the side, burst out laughing.
Yan Yijia hung up the phone and glared at her.
“Stop laughing. And you, what are you going to do now that you can’t get married?”
As she spoke, she went to fetch the thermos she had brought from home, not forgetting the task that Mr. and Mrs. Gu had entrusted her with.
Gu Qingtong thought of the plot about the Gu family in the original novel … and her face darkened.
But soon she habitually shook her head to get rid of her wild thoughts. As a result, she forgot that she was still suffering from a concussion. She suddenly felt dizzy and cried out in pain, “Oh —”
Yan Yijia laughed mercilessly on the other side.
“If all else fails, sell all the worthless antique art pieces my dad has collected.”
Gu Qingtong felt perfectly justified in her suggestion, clear and straightforward.
Yan Yijia laughed, “Sell your dad’s treasures. Why don’t you sell your own precious clothes and accessories?”
Upon hearing those words, Gu Qingtong fell silent again.
“Well, I guess I could sell them too…” Her voice was drowned out by the sound of Yan Yijia arranging the dishes.
❖❖❖❖❖
In the house of the Yan family.
A woman sat by a window flooded with sunlight, but the cold aura surrounding her remained unaffected by the warmth and light.
She lowered her head and studied the script, with only half of her hand, flipping the pages, visible from the camel-colored cashmere sleeve. The contrast between the blue veins and the sickly pale complexion was stark, and the sporadic needle marks on the veins were even more pronounced.
Feeling the gaze behind her, she lifted her eyes and looked back, her long hair falling onto her cheeks.
Even after countless encounters with those eyes, the butler still felt his breath hitch.
Yan Chi had naturally light-colored pupils that now bloomed like a kaleidoscope due to the change in lighting.
It was as if ice crystals were quietly growing within a transparent glass sphere.
The butler couldn’t sense the warmth that eyes should possess, but those who had seen her works knew that her expertise lay in conveying emotions through her gaze.
Only when he snapped out of his trance did he realize that he had been standing there for quite some time, trying not to disturb Yan Chi.
“Miss, the private detective said he has already handed over the photos and information to Miss Gu. Also…” He paused for a moment before continuing, “Yan Song called and requested to see you.”
“I heard she had a car accident?”
Yan Chi’s voice remained indifferent, as if casually mentioning someone she didn’t care about.
The butler was momentarily taken aback, realizing that the “she” referred to Miss Gu.
Although he didn’t understand what was going on, he clearly felt that something was amiss. It seemed that Yan Chi’s focus wasn’t on her half-brother, who had his eyes set on the family fortune, but on…
“Yes, the accident happened yesterday, and she seems to be fine.”
Since Yan Chi had not previously expressed any concern for Gu Qingtong, the butler had only heard of this news in passing.
“Let’s go meet with her and discuss the marriage alliance.”
Yan Chi stood up, looking up at the sky outside the window, as if gazing at something in the distance.
The butler suddenly realized that he had over-thought things. It turned out that they were going to discuss Yan Song’s matter. It seemed he had been too sensitive, always jumpy.
He shook his head and went to prepare a car for Yan Chi.
