Chapter 78

The grand union between the Su and Shen families ultimately ended with the bride fleeing by car, vanishing without a trace.

The entertainment tabloids had their headlines booked for half a month, loudly declaring the absurdity of this grand wedding.

Shi Jianren once again became the laughingstock of Tang City. He claimed to be resting at home due to a fit of rage, but people still came knocking. The police summoned him to the station on suspicion of commercial crimes.

During the wedding, Shi Jianren had to take that call concerning his other illegitimate son—Shi Meng'en. Shi Yumeng was useless, but Shi Jianren lacked nothing except sons.

Yet this son was even worse than Shi Yumeng!

Shi Jianren's heart throbbed with pain. This waste had ratted out his own father.

With the runaway eldest daughter missing and the gloomy, furious President Shi, the entire Shen household was suffocatingly low. Even the servants dared not breathe loudly, fearing they might provoke Shi Jianren, who sat on the sofa chain-smoking.

The butler held a cup of coffee, hesitating to approach.

Shi Jianren shot him a sharp glare, then stubbed out his cigarette in the ashtray. "What is it?"

The butler's hands trembled as he said, "The eldest young lady is no longer in Tang City. We're still searching for her exact whereabouts."

Shi Jianren burst up, grabbed the coffee cup from the tray, and hurled it against the wall. The cup shattered into pieces, leaving an ugly brown stain on the pristine white wall.

"Useless!"

The butler shrank back, quivering like a frightened quail, afraid that the next moment the tray would come crashing down on his head.

###

The azure sky mirrored in the gem-like, crystal-clear lake, with fluffy clouds and snow-capped peaks sharply contrasted as if reflected on a mirror.

The warm sunlight and the scent of grass wove a pleasant symphony in the air.

The ski resort's crowd gradually thinned. Matteo had only one appointment that day. It was a gentle, quiet Eastern face, taciturn and often lost in immense sorrow, like April snow in Switzerland—sullen and cold, verging on melting but not quite.

From afar, Matteo, dressed in his instructor uniform, spotted Liao Xue standing alone at the foot of the mountain. An unnamed sorrow seeped in like air, everywhere.

"Miss Liao," Matteo called, gesturing for her to look over. "You're late today."

Liao Xue was clad in a pale pink ski suit, her fair silhouette standing as straight as a plum blossom.

"Matteo, good afternoon," Liao Xue said with a faint smile, but her tone was distant and indifferent.

Matteo pretended not to notice the formality. The two sat side by side on a rest bench, the distance between them spanning half the globe.

"Switzerland has been having great weather lately," Matteo casually started about the weather, trying to close the gap with this girl who had left an indelible impression on him after just three days. "After we're done, how about I treat you to dinner? As a local, I could show you around, since you just arrived in Switzerland."

Liao Xue, with her cold, snow-like brows and eyes, looked over, a flicker of confusion in her gaze.

Matteo pursed his lips and awkwardly scratched the back of his head. Was he being too forward?

"Maybe we're already friends..." Matteo was mid-sentence when the cold snow that was Liao Xue was suddenly found by a beam of clear light. Her eyes burst with explosive radiance.

Following her gaze to the end, he saw endless, boundless, lonely snow-capped mountains, occasionally crossed by birds with melodious cries. On the horizon stood a woman in a wedding dress.

Backlit, her features were unclear, but Matteo could sense her predatory gaze. He felt a strange sense of being a thief caught.

Though it was sunny, a summer thunderbolt struck Liao Xue's heart, which had been still, nearly disappointing.

From afar, Shen Qiancheng finally registered the bone-chilling cold, the fragrance of flowers and grass.

There was so much to say, so much she wanted to say.

A few meters apart, words were trapped in silence.

Liao Xue was calmer than Matteo. Breaking through the spring breeze brushing her face, she smiled lightly and said, "Cold? Come home with me."

She had read the headlines from Tang City long ago—today was the day the engagement between the Su and Shen families was set.

Across an eight-hour time difference, the one she loved had raced against time to see her.

"Liao Xue..." Shen Qiancheng's voice, parched for over ten hours, was hoarse and ugly. She tried to say more, but her vision darkened, and she lost consciousness.

###

"Shen Qiancheng, would you dare to jump with me?"

Liao Xue's voice carried the salty tide of the sea breeze. Shen Qiancheng heard it and struggled to open her eyes.

Liao Xue wore a sea-blue long dress, its hem fluttering in the wind.

"..." Shen Qiancheng raised a hand, realizing Liao Xue held her hand. She was about to say something when the grip tightened. A sense of weightlessness hit. Before her was the endless horizon of the sea, and beneath her feet, surging waves.

The ice-cold water that could never be warmed...

A fierce, suffocating truth tangled around her like a nightmare. Shen Qiancheng's eyes snapped open, her pupils dilated so wide they nearly split at the corners.

"Liao Xue—"

Her excited cry echoed in the empty room. Shen Qiancheng's throat immediately lost its voice.

Beneath her fingers, the cotton sheets were cool. Shen Qiancheng curled up her legs and hugged herself tightly.

Liao Xue... where are you?

Shen Qiancheng shook her head, picked up her phone, and saw it was eight in the morning.

Suddenly, her eyes widened. The location was Switzerland!

It wasn't a dream!

Shen Qiancheng sprang up, rushed into her slippers, and the sudden movement knocked over the warm water on the nightstand.

The water was still warm; she hadn't gone far.

"Liao Xue," Shen Qiancheng said, her elbow throbbing from the collision. She bit back the pain and steadied herself against the bed, like a wronged wife abandoned by her husband. "I wasn't dreaming. I saw you. Don't hide."

There seemed to be a faint scent of Liao Xue lingering in the air. Shen Qiancheng closed her eyes, almost pitifully pleading, "Liao Xue, come out. I'm scared."

Shen Qiancheng held her arm. She knew without looking at a mirror that she was a mess, a ghost of herself.

The doorway seemed like an unbridgeable chasm. Shen Qiancheng stood before it. The room was eerily silent, and in the quiet, she heard the steady sound of breathing.

"Shen Qiancheng, do you admit you love me now?" Liao Xue's cruel voice came through the door, carrying an accusation, stabbing straight into Shen Qiancheng's heart like a sword.

When facing the one she loved, Shen Qiancheng always lacked the courage to admit her love.

Shen Qiancheng's voice was even crueler—crueler to herself than to others. "Are you worthy? Liao Xue, the traitor. A visa takes at least a month."

If hatred was renamed in the form of love, how could Shen Qiancheng ever love?

Liao Xue understood, but others might not. So she would be the one to show the way.

"The project failed, and you chose to marry Su Zeye rather than expose me. Shen Qiancheng, that's love." Liao Xue guided gently.

The silence was like a silent virus, corroding the hearts of two lovers who should have been together.

Liao Xue conceded. How could someone be so obtuse?

Liao Xue sighed. "Admit it. You love me to death. You'd ditch your fiancé and travel a thousand miles just to see me."

Shen Qiancheng clenched her fists, biting back the urge to admit, and retorted in a hoarse voice, "I've been too lenient with you, that's why you abandoned me!"

Liao Xue let out a soft laugh. "Isn't that what you wanted? Shen Qiancheng. By denying your love and exposing your flaws, aren't you just luring me in?"

How dare a demon blame others for being despicable?

Shen Qiancheng was startled, her irregular breathing betraying her unsettled state.

She didn't understand what Liao Xue was saying.

Liao Xue continued, "Shen Qiancheng, the sense of security that comes from hurting others is fake."

Shen Qiancheng's pupils dilated. Behind the door, she could do nothing. Panicked, she said, "You... what are you saying?"

"You betrayed me once. You assumed I had ulterior motives for you. You'd think I would betray you once. In your mind, if you hurt someone, you'd be ready for retaliation." Liao Xue laid it out clearly, sealing all her escape routes. Perhaps the moment Shen Qiancheng appeared before her in that wedding dress, her heart had already been given away.

"Isn't that what you did?" Shen Qiancheng's voice trembled.

"You still think that... I thought you came in that wedding dress to propose. Shen Qiancheng, anyone in the world may betray you, but Liao Xue will not. Tomorrow we'll go register our marriage. In Switzerland, where no one knows us, we can be together forever." Liao Xue envisioned the beautiful life ahead. Finally, she had used her strength to pull Shen Qiancheng out of that ghostly vortex, giving it her all.

Shen Qiancheng let out a mocking laugh. Tears fell before words as she said, "Delusional."

The moment she spoke, the door—that unbridgeable chasm—was opened from the outside.

What Liao Xue saw was Shen Qiancheng, collapsed on the ground, hair spread out in disarray.

Liao Xue crouched down and embraced Shen Qiancheng, soothing her in a gentle tone, "Shen Qiancheng, I betrayed you too. Now you have no worries. Can you admit you love me?"

Liao Xue's body was warm. Shen Qiancheng's nose stung, but she refused to admit it!

"I won't admit it. I refuse to answer. You abandoned me. Liao Xue, the sweet taste of revenge, it's satisfying, isn't it?"

Her eyes were red as a rabbit's. Liao Xue let out a deep sigh. Why wouldn't this stubborn-mouthed person say a single soft word?

But if at this moment, Shen Qiancheng smiled and said she admitted, Liao Xue would've thought it fake—that Shen was lying.

A smile speaks falsehood; tears speak the opposite.

Liao Xue's fingertips touched Shen Qiancheng's tears, scalding like fire.

"No. Three years ago, when you left without a word, I hated you. I hated that you made promises but broke them without saying goodbye. I hated you for three years. I wanted to slap you when I met you, to make you feel the heartbreak I felt. But the day we reunited, as you ate the food I cooked, your eyes sparkling—all the hate that had kept me alive in Tang City for three years meant nothing. I forgave you right then. You were the daughter of the Shen Corporation, and I was just a... Who was I to covet the bright, high moon? You were just returning to your normal life. What right did I have to resent you?"

Dissecting herself felt like self-abuse. Shen Qiancheng opened her mouth, forcing out fragmented syllables that the wind scattered.

"I..."

Liao Xue smiled softly, took one of Shen Qiancheng's hands with one of hers, and wiped away the tears at the corner of her eye with the other. She whispered, "Let's call it even, okay?"

Tears flowed like a breached dam. Shen Qiancheng's vision blurred, Liao Xue a mosaic of colors.

Shen Qiancheng buried her face in Liao Xue's hands, her voice choked and stopping and starting, pressed down to the extreme: "Can't be even. Can't be clear."

Liao Xue, from the moment our identities were swapped, we were destined never to untangle.

When you learn that you are the true daughter of the Shen family and that I robbed you of eighteen years of your life, will you still forgive me?