Chapter 51: Baring Hearts

Jiang Zhique answered the phone. After a few beeps, a rustling sound and faint breathing came through the speaker. Jiang Zhique didn’t speak first, and neither did Qi Ran. For a moment, only an all-encompassing silence remained in this ruined room.

After a while, Li Siwen’s voice finally came from the other end, tinged with resignation: “Zhique, bring Miss Qi back. We admit defeat this time. Withdrawing is the safest option. Let’s wait for the next opportunity.”

Jiang Zhique nodded. Qi Ran’s brows furrowed slightly, and she said in a low voice: “So your memory is the same as Jiang Zhique’s?”

Li Siwen let out a brittle laugh: “Miss Qi, I don’t know about this… ghost in your understanding? I’ll just call it the Tao Family Ghost. I don’t know what she told you, but you are clearly exaggerating the Lake Cutter’s methods. If they could truly alter a person’s cognition from a thousand miles away without leaving a trace, what point would this world have in existing? The Lake Cutters could just make a list, distribute it, work together, and directly rule the world, couldn’t they? Why hide in the shadows?”

Jiang Zhique speculated quietly: “Perhaps Qi Ran’s perception of the Lake Cutter was designed by the very Lake Cutter who targeted her, to make her fear them from the bottom of her heart. It’s like—stamping a Thought Imprint, so she feels terror the moment she sees a Lake Cutter.”

“I have a more reasonable guess,” Li Siwen chuckled lightly. “Is it possible that this so-called Tao Family Ghost is the very Lake Cutter who targeted Miss Qi?”

“Impossible.”

Qi Ran closed her eyes and said this softly. Her voice was so light it was less a rebuttal to Li Siwen and more like she was emphasizing it to herself. Many images flashed through her mind: that narrow stripe of blue, a smile, that dazzling nightscape, and the highest point of the city… Her mind’s lake was in chaos, like a ball of yarn after a cat’s played with it.

How could she suspect Miss Ah Qiao? If not for Miss Ah Qiao, she would have died in that car crash… But then she suddenly recalled the hospital nurse’s words: the cars hadn’t hit her at all. Everyone believed that. Only Miss Ah Qiao claimed she had pieced her back together, thus saving her from death.

She suddenly remembered—when the Sheet Woman strangled her into unconsciousness, she’d thought she was dead again. Thinking back now, perhaps the Sheet Woman hadn’t truly killed her, only pushed her into a near-death state, conveniently allowing her to open her lake. Interpreted this way, the logic seemed to fit perfectly.

So Miss Ah Qiao had been deceiving her from start to finish? Was taking the form of Tao Xiao just a way to gain her trust?

She raised a hand before her face, her fingertips trembling slightly.

The entire world seemed to have a glitch. Miss Ah Qiao was like a bug, a massive, jarring bug too blatant to tolerate. Delete her, and everything would become normal.

She suddenly froze.

By the faint firelight, she saw two lines of writing on the palm of her right hand. The first line was a string of numbers—an address. It was the address of the nightclub she had seen in her Mind Lake. The second line was shorter, just eight characters in total: “Wait for me,” “Save me,” and “Don’t believe them.”

Qi Ran stared at her palm, thinking in silence. From Jiang Zhique’s perspective, she just looked overwhelmed, her face buried in her hands.

The two lines of writing were delicate but slightly messy, clearly written in haste. The final stroke of the last character was even stretched out, as if she had suddenly vanished the moment she finished writing it.

She took some time, ensuring she had memorized the address string, before lowering her hand. In a blind spot where Jiang Zhique couldn’t see, she wiped the writing off her palm using the sofa fabric.

Even she couldn’t fully articulate what she was thinking right now. Relief? Or something else? She didn’t know. She hadn’t mentally erased her present suspicion of Miss Ah Qiao, but no matter what, she would go to that nightclub. Even if Miss Ah Qiao really was deceiving her, she had to see it with her own eyes, to truly know the reason for the deception and its purpose.

“Miss Qi, I know what you’re feeling right now. Trust me, I really do.” Li Siwen’s voice suddenly broke in. There was no lightness or mockery in it; it was extremely slow and heavy, each word ground down with broken stones and sand. “The first time I learned about the Lake Cutter business, I was nineteen. I hadn’t gone to the Xie Family yet; I was still scraping by in Zhongnan as a no-name nobody. I had a master back then… Our relationship wasn’t truly like master and disciple, because he was only less than six years older than me, and his methods were crude at best. The two of us were truly poor then—so poor that I was twenty-three when I drank cola for the first time. We bought one bottle back then, taking turns sipping it… In all my years, I’ve rarely given my true heart to anyone. But back then, I truly saw him as my own blood brother. We even talked about when we got married and had families, we’d become godfathers to each other’s kids… We liked to imagine the distant future like that, because when you stretch out the timeline, anything can happen. Maybe we were stone-broke now, but we’d suddenly strike it rich one day, right? At least, that’s what I thought…”

Li Siwen really was a good storyteller, Qi Ran thought. She didn’t know if the story he was telling was true or just made up. But accompanied by the rustling rain seeping into the ruined house from outside, she slowly found herself growing interested in the story’s conclusion. She asked in a low voice: “What happened after?”

“After” was always a bad word, because no matter the story, it meant a huge change was coming. The past would be gone forever; what once was could never return.

“After, we gradually made a bit of a name for ourselves. He suggested we go work for the Xie Family—a big tree provides good shade, and at worst we could earn a meal. I said okay, let’s go to the Xie Family. Unexpectedly, after we went, we actually caught the eye of Old Master Xie… Those days now feel like a dream. The two of us suddenly came up in the world, just like I’d imagined, even better than the imagination. We were brimming with pride and success,” Li Siwen said. “The change happened a year later. By then, I’d made my own name in Zhongnan. The internal conflicts within the Xie Family were growing worse. I didn’t want to waste my time there anymore and wanted to strike out on my own. I discussed this with him privately. But his reaction was completely different from what I expected…”

“He was already controlled by a Lake Cutter?” Qi Ran said with some difficulty, already guessing what came next.

“Yes. He rebuked me, asking why I’d commit such a disloyal and faithless act… Yet I clearly remembered he was the one who once told me that those things were just worthless titles. He told me that in this world, only yourself is reliable, only yourself is trustworthy. A capable, disloyal person is a formidable hero; a loyal person without ability is just a foolishly loyal servant. I remember those words very clearly. It wasn’t until that moment that I suddenly realized—it might have been the Lake Cutter. The great families in those days all kept Lake Cutters on retainer. Perhaps it was one of the factions within the Xie Family that made the move,” Li Siwen said in a low voice. “I told him this possibility, but he wouldn’t listen at all and even wanted to fight me. I had no choice but to subdue him, restrain him with a Pipa Needle and handcuffs, and lock him up… I thought, just give me a little time, find the Lake Cutter who did this, and I could restore everything to normal.”

He took a deep breath. After a moment, having steadied his emotions again, he continued slowly:

“Finding that Lake Cutter didn’t take long. It was simpler than I imagined—less than an afternoon. I brought the Lake Cutter back there. But when I entered the room, I found blood everywhere. He had broken his own thumb to escape the handcuffs, then shoved a pair of chopsticks down his throat… Perhaps in his final moment, he truly believed he was willingly dying for loyalty,” Li Siwen said somberly. “To him, whether dying for loyalty or committing suicide, both were endings more tragic than tragic.”

“I’m sorry to hear that story,” Qi Ran said quietly.

“I know you don’t believe me in your heart right now, but that’s okay. No need to explain. I know it’s the Lake Cutter’s doing,” Li Siwen said flatly. “But this time, I won’t let the tragedy repeat itself. I won’t restrict your movements. Go wherever you wish. I know there must be something in your heart you feel you must do… Of course, that thing is exactly what the Lake Cutter wants you to do.”

He paused briefly, then added: “There’s only one thing I want you to do: take that bug with you. Even if something truly happens to you… at least we’ll know what happened, won’t we?”