Chapter 56

“I used to be.”

Bai Xiangshu leaned back lazily, the corners of her lips lifting. She looked thoroughly pleased with the expression on Jiang Chao’s face, and the pearl chain by her ear swayed with a faint, almost teasing glint.

“Don’t believe me?” Bai Xiangshu asked.

The smile at Jiang Chao’s lips faded. Her gaze settled calmly on Bai Xiangshu’s face.

The atmosphere between them shifted in silence; with just a few exchanged words, the conversation had taken on the sharp edge of a powder keg.

Because Bai Xiangshu had suddenly brought up the so-called “ex-girlfriend,” Jiang Chao belatedly remembered the time at the banquet when Sheng Huaixi had sent her away.

So the first time Sheng Huaixi had chosen to send her off because of someone else was because she had once been with Bai Xiangshu.

Was she worried Bai Xiangshu would tell her something? Or was she worried she might be drawn to Bai Xiangshu’s charm?

Jiang Chao had a headache. She had never once imagined that Sheng Huaixi and Bai Xiangshu had actually been in a relationship.

Now that she was here asking Bai Xiangshu about Sheng Huaixi, even opening her mouth felt awkward. Jiang Chao hesitated, fingers pressing together as her eyes narrowed in thought.

Ask, or don’t ask.

“Miss Jiang is bothered by our relationship?”

Bai Xiangshu sipped her tea. Steam drifted upward, veiling the expression hidden beneath her smile and making her seem distant, almost unreal.

Jiang Chao denied it. “Of course not.”

“That’s good. I only mentioned it to clear up Miss Jiang’s suspicions. If Miss Jiang is willing, I’d like us to talk more about matters between the two of us.”

The implication was clear: there was no need to get information about Sheng Huaixi from her.

She was trying to change the main purpose of today’s meeting with complete ease.

Jiang Chao didn’t know why Bai Xiangshu was doing this, but it didn’t change her original resolve. She had come to see Bai Xiangshu for one reason only, and that was to learn about Sheng Huaixi.

“Since Miss Bai and Sheng Huaixi were once acquainted..."

“Mm, intimately acquainted lovers,” Bai Xiangshu said with a smile, stressing the words.

Jiang Chao’s smile froze slightly. Clearly, Bai Xiangshu’s smile deepened, her fingertips tapping her cheek, her posture relaxed and unhurried.

“Yes. Given that kind of past intimacy,” Jiang Chao said evenly, placing clear emphasis on a few key words, her smile light and polite, “I’d like to know a few things.”

Some things were always better learned from people who had experienced them firsthand, especially people close enough to know.

Bai Xiangshu nodded and lifted her wrist slightly, signaling for her to continue. “Ask.”

“At the banquet, the issue you and Sheng Huaixi avoided talking about—was it related to why she left the Sheng family six years ago?”

Bai Xiangshu’s brows lifted faintly. Her fingertips on her thigh tapped rapidly. Her gaze narrowed; the warm softness in it sharpened into something like a honed ice blade, slowly carving across the skin Jiang Chao had laid bare.

Jiang Chao met her scrutiny without flinching.

That sharply edged aura, utterly unlike her gentle face, swept toward Jiang Chao the instant those words landed. It was the expected kind of forcefulness, and Jiang Chao was not surprised.

If Bai Xiangshu reacted, then Jiang Chao had not asked the wrong question.

What happened when Sheng Huaixi left the Sheng family six years ago was definitely connected to the person Sheng Huaixi was now.

Bai Xiangshu tapped her fingers lightly, and after studying her for a moment, slowly spoke.

“Before I answer your question, I want you to answer one of mine first. One for one—I’m not taking advantage of you. Fair enough.”

Jiang Chao wasn’t surprised that Bai Xiangshu would make another demand. Hearing the condition of a one-for-one exchange, she thought, so that’s how it is.

“Fine. Ask.”

Jiang Chao accepted the condition. She leaned forward slightly, her gaze fixed on Bai Xiangshu’s eyes, waiting naturally and calmly for the question.

“If I said Sheng Huaixi is a terrible person who goes mad easily, who will stop at nothing to achieve her own goals, even if it means sacrificing her life—”

Bai Xiangshu finished in one breath. Her eyes remained on Jiang Chao as her brows lifted a little.

“Even if the answer you hear might shatter the image you have of her, would you still insist that I say it?”

“Yes.” Jiang Chao answered without hesitation.

Their gazes clashed in the air. Jiang Chao was steady; Bai Xiangshu was flippant. Like needles against wheat awns, neither willing to back down, they stared hard at each other.

“So Sheng Huaixi really met someone like you...”

Bai Xiangshu was the first to look away. It was hard to tell whether her muttered words were a sigh or something else, but her fingertips pinched into her palm.

“Yes. It’s related.”

“Thank you for your answer.” Jiang Chao lowered her eyes and stood from her seat.

“Just one question?”

Bai Xiangshu looked up, her fingertips tapping the table as she stared at Jiang Chao with a trace of confusion, her thick lashes trembling lightly. “I thought you’d at least prepared five or more.”

After all, she had already lured the fish in; getting up and leaving after asking only a single simple question seemed a little too much.

Jiang Chao turned slightly. Her eyes were bright yet sharp, like the keenest blade. A polite smile hung on her face, but there was no smile in her eyes.

“I don’t know whether the answer Miss Bai gives me is true or false. But I did hear the contempt and mockery in what you just said toward Sheng Huaixi.”

“As for what I want to know, getting one key from Miss Bai is enough. As for what’s inside the door, I think it’s better if I fill that in myself.”

After saying that, Jiang Chao offered a polite bow, turned away and erased the smile from her face, then left decisively.

Watching Jiang Chao’s retreating back, Bai Xiangshu rested her chin in one hand and looked on from afar, sighing, “What a miserable fate; falling for a madwoman...”

“You called me out just to say this?”

Beyond the partition, a tall, slender figure walked out. Her cold voice carried a low snort, and sharp, unapologetic sarcasm slapped at Bai Xiangshu’s face.

A pristine, cool side profile emerged behind the dark blue fabric; the soft air of the white gauze skirt was forcibly suppressed. As she turned her head and looked up, her deep eyes were stained with a thin layer of anger.

Cold anger from being toyed with.

The remaining warmth from the previous person’s body on the seat had not yet faded. The fragrance drifting in the air grew more intense as she approached, and Sheng Huaixi quietly sat down.

Bai Xiangshu’s expression remained unchanged. The tea in her hand was perfectly still, not even rippling. With a smile in her eyes, she asked, “What did you think we’d talk about?”

“Talk about you. Didn’t you go see Jiang Chao’s mother?” Sheng Huaixi’s eyes were cold, and a mocking smile flickered at the corner of her mouth.

“Since you already dragged Jiang Chao out, why didn’t you talk about what happened six years ago, when you brought disaster on yourself? You and I both took the drug, didn’t we?”

Bai Xiangshu’s expression went cold in an instant. The gentleness vanished; her face darkened like the clouds outside the window, and the gaze she fixed on Sheng Huaixi turned vicious.

The hidden matter was quietly pried open.

“Sheng Huaixi?”

“Bai Xiangshu, you—!”

Two sentences, one after the other, and an exclamation point seamlessly linked them together. Jiang Chao’s voice was cut off abruptly, as if someone had roughly seized her by the neck.

Bai Xiangshu slapped Sheng Huaixi across the face without the slightest courtesy, anger written plainly across her features.

With a crisp crack, the cheek Sheng Huaixi had turned away from flushed red at once, the mark standing out immediately.

In just the few steps Jiang Chao ran over, that fair, jade-like skin was already marked with red.

Jiang Chao reached out and decisively pulled Sheng Huaixi to her side, her eyes full of anger.

“Bai Xiangshu, what do you mean by this?”

Bai Xiangshu let out a cold laugh, her face expressionless. By the time Jiang Chao returned, the fire in her chest had become perfectly clear.

Sheng Huaixi was a smart madwoman. She should have known long ago that when it came to playing with people’s hearts, no one was better at it than she was.

She had calculated Jiang Chao’s return time and deliberately provoked her, using herself as the price to cut off any possibility of Jiang Chao continuing to have contact with her in the future.

“Miss Jiang, before you condemn me, shouldn’t you first ask what rude thing the person beside you said to me?”

Hearing this, Jiang Chao only shielded Sheng Huaixi even more firmly. The crease between her brows deepened, and her protectiveness was impossible to miss.

“Then I’m sorry. I think it’s much more likely that Miss Bai deliberately provoked our Sheng Huaixi. After all, you look a lot like a shameless ex-girlfriend.”

Sheng Huaixi frowned and added as soon as Jiang Chao finished speaking, “Not an ex-girlfriend.”

“...Fine. Now you’re adding deliberate deceit too.” Jiang Chao suppressed the urge to ask Sheng Huaixi directly right then, her eyes narrowing as she stared fixedly at Bai Xiangshu.

What a perfectly coordinated duet. They really did work well together.

Bai Xiangshu forced out a mocking smile and stood up, no longer intending to say another word.

“Wait.” Jiang Chao stepped forward and blocked her path, her eyes darkening. “Apologize to Sheng Huaixi.”

Bai Xiangshu couldn’t help laughing in exasperation. She was already burning with rage over Sheng Huaixi; a single slap was mercy, and besides, Sheng Huaixi had clearly offered her face on purpose.

“Impossible,” Bai Xiangshu said, word by word.

Anyway, her image in Jiang Chao’s eyes was already completely ruined. Bai Xiangshu had nothing left to worry about, and she crossed her legs indifferently as she watched the anger on Jiang Chao’s face.

“Tell me, Miss Jiang, don’t you want to know why I just slapped her?”

Sheng Huaixi narrowed her eyes, and through Jiang Chao’s profile, her gloomy gaze landed directly on Bai Xiangshu in silent warning.

Bai Xiangshu snorted. She didn’t care at all about Sheng Huaixi’s warning. Arms folded over her chest, she lowered her head, long lashes trembling slightly, the dark sweep of her lashes carrying a cool, detached air.

“Sheng Huaixi, she...” Bai Xiangshu leaned down, slowly moving closer to Jiang Chao, a smile in her eyes.

Just as she was about to say something, the person beside her lips was suddenly yanked away, and a cold plate slapped against Bai Xiangshu’s cheek.

Meeting the surprise and fury in Bai Xiangshu’s eyes, Sheng Huaixi opened her hand, gripped Jiang Chao’s wrist tightly, and then used the plate to tap Bai Xiangshu’s face without the slightest courtesy.

Not hard; only the chill from the plate passed into Bai Xiangshu’s heart with each tap, and along with it, her pride was knocked cold.

“Bai Xiangshu, leave,” Sheng Huaixi said as she casually set the plate down. She turned to look at Bai Xiangshu, warning seeping little by little from her eyes. Her voice lowered. “You should go.”

It was a warning, and also a reminder.

If she really angered Sheng Huaixi in front of Jiang Chao, she wouldn’t get any benefit from it.

The anger Bai Xiangshu had been stirred up with was slowly broken apart by her own hands, chewed up, and swallowed down. She gave Sheng Huaixi a long look, then no longer continued to entangle herself in the matter.

Jiang Chao watched Bai Xiangshu leave and did not stop her. Since Sheng Huaixi had decided to let it go like this, she respected Sheng Huaixi’s choice.

What mattered now was checking Sheng Huaixi’s slapped cheek.

“Don’t move.” Jiang Chao gently pinched Sheng Huaixi’s chin and leaned closer to look. Her brows unconsciously drew together.

The wrist of the hand holding her chin was then caught by Sheng Huaixi. Jiang Chao heard Sheng Huaixi ask her with a smile—

“I followed you, and that was the right thing to do, wasn’t it?”