51
Ning Ye began to handle everything calmly.
First, she had to ensure the normal progression of the plot.
Amidst the noise of the New Year, Ning Ye sat peacefully at her desk for a long time, staring at the huge computer screen in front of her.
Right in the center of the monitor, a photograph was enlarged.
She had realized something.
In this fierce battle between parents, she had been fighting against the plot and the female lead as a parent. Therefore, all her focus had been on her own child, only caring about what would happen to Taotao, while almost entirely ignoring another crucial dimension.
—Gu Zixun.
They had hardly ever considered things from Gu Zixun's perspective.
This boy, who was forced into the role of Taotao's twin brother, spoiled by misguided parenting, yet somewhat pitiable, made up the other half of this storyline. The information he held had been completely overlooked under the plot's guidance.
Ning Ye looked at her desktop, which displayed a large group photo from Xialu Kindergarten's middle class admission. Gu Zixun was standing right next to Ning Zhitao.
The two children were not particularly close. Gu Zixun had his chin held high, his skin very pale, but his expression arrogant. Ning Zhitao, on the other hand, was holding Zhang Sijie's hand, smiling with a chubby, innocent face. The two children looked nothing alike in terms of facial features or expressions, because they essentially had no blood relation at all—which wasn't the main point anyway.
However, when Ning Ye shifted her perspective, she finally noticed a subtle, hard-to-detect feeling.
Looking at Gu Zixun's facial features, she felt a faint, almost imperceptible sense of familiarity.
As if... she had seen him before.
Ning Ye's heart skipped a beat as a detailed and complex plan began to take shape.
How could she completely break this deadlock?
Now that the other party had reached for the secret surrounding her child, the most powerful counterattack was not to preemptively announce her relationship with Bian Xun. That would only drag them into a messy fight with the other party's fans, turning it into a war of words where they wouldn't have the upper hand.
Nor could it be exposing Xu Lanyi's threats and true colors behind the scenes. Not only did she lack solid evidence for that, but it would also thrust Taotao into the spotlight of public opinion.
Right now, she couldn't provoke the other party. She had to let the plot progress smoothly to its climax.
And at that moment, the only truly effective counterattack would be to detonate the other party's—
True. Minefield.
Ning Ye stopped going out. Aside from the time spent playing with Taotao, she practically rooted herself in front of the computer for the entire Spring Festival holiday.
She knew clearly that she only needed to do one thing.
Fortunately, as if arranged by fate, there was enough computing power to execute this tedious plan.
On the computer screen, Wujiang's large model was endlessly analyzing information. Varying shades of blue light reflected on Ning Ye's tense, porcelain-white face. At this point, she didn't dare relax for a single moment.
Before the climax of the plot arrived, everything seemed to be building a sort of invisible pressure, and the faint current in the air felt heavy.
She could clearly feel that although Bian Xun acted calm and collected, his face was growing increasingly pale.
The plot was heading toward its climax, binding him ever more tightly.
The technical support of the large model saved Ning Ye a massive amount of time.
By now, she had mastered this tool to perfection. Using Bian Xun's highest clearance, she applied several sets of algorithms, inputted all the meticulously organized information she had gathered, cross-calculated it, and after repeatedly running it through big data algorithms, she obtained a set—the list she wanted.
The portraits on this list would proceed to the next round of facial data analysis.
Her goal was very clear.
She was looking for someone.
Thinking about it carefully, this was actually a very simple logic, just deliberately buried by the plot's guidance.
Ning Ye exported the list, her eyes reflecting unfamiliar names one by one.
What other information... what else could she get?
At this critical juncture, any piece of information could change the situation.
Ning Ye suddenly looked up, pulled out the future photo album she hadn't checked in days, and refreshed it.
The reason the future Bian Xun went to such great lengths to pass this information to them was undoubtedly to help them fight against the plot.
Ning Ye swiped the screen and saw that as time progressed, a few more photos of her had appeared in the album.
In the original timeline, she would now officially be three months pregnant. Bian Xun had taken pictures of every stage, and by this point, her lower abdomen had begun to show a slight bump.
Shot from various angles, it almost recorded every centimeter of change in her belly.
Ning Ye subconsciously touched her currently flat lower abdomen. Taotao pattered over with a paintbrush to draw her dad. Amidst her tense emotions, she felt a trace of softness.
A mother's strength was not about being hard, but rather a soft, resilient state of mind.
Suddenly, amidst the photos documenting her pregnancy bump, Ning Ye saw a different picture.
It was a news snippet, not a formal newspaper report, but rather something with the unpolished feel of a tabloid gossip column.
It recorded a report about certain entertainment stars "partying hard in a group," but the photo was very blurry. Everyone's faces were pixelated, and their names were replaced with surnames and asterisks. Out of nowhere, it stated they were sentenced to over ten days of detention and fined, then rambled on before ending abruptly.
What was this?
She could be certain this had nothing to do with Xu Lanyi.
But the future Bian Xun wouldn't have included this photo for no reason.
A sense of anomaly rose in Ning Ye's heart. The information in her mind was exploding, but it still lacked a fuse. Carrying the list and the photo, she stood up and walked to the living room.
Bian Xun was sitting on the sofa, acting as a portrait model for Taotao.
His lips were pale, his expression occasionally drifting into a daze, and his movements were much slower than usual. Taotao said that daddy had been acting like a robot lately, sometimes even short-circuiting.
Neither parent burst the child's innocent, imaginative bubble.
Ning Ye knew what he was fighting against, and her heart didn't dare relax for a single second.
As the climax drew closer, the plot's control grew stronger.
The man wore simple loungewear, the side of his neck forming a cold, taut line.
At this moment, his dark eyes also fell upon that photo album. His messy black hair lay unstyled, loosely resting against his cold, pale brow bone, his gaze fixed on the photos of the pregnant belly in the album.
So this was what every inch of change felt like when waiting for a new life to arrive. If not for the plot's interference, this was how they should have spent their days.
Hearing Ning Ye's light footsteps, Bian Xun looked up.
Their eyes met, and upon contact, a subtle glimmer that only they understood flashed in their gazes.
...
Yes, after that New Year's Eve, they had confirmed the same thing.
How to detonate Xu Lanyi's minefield?
Before this, because the core of the plot had always revolved around the children, Ning Ye had also focused on the wrong thing.
But was the child what Xu Lanyi had been trying so desperately to hide? No.
She actually didn't care at all if the public knew she was married with a child. What she cared about was whether her marriage was seen as superior, whether her life could make others feel envious and jealous, and whether she could remain an eternally noble and perfect myth.
Therefore.
What she had truly been trying so desperately to hide all along was the child's biological father!
This was actually a very simple piece of logic, only it had been intentionally or unintentionally hidden within the plot.
Throughout the entire original novel, with its multitude of plot events, not a single word ever mentioned who Gu Zixun's real father was, as if all the insiders had completely forgotten about it.
Who exactly was it? Someone Xu Lanyi dared not even mention.
Who was the man that once made her passionately hide her pregnancy for love, yet now was utterly unpresentable?
Undoubtedly, as long as they found this person, once exposed, Xu Lanyi would face a true avalanche of public mockery. Her narrative of having a child for love would become a complete joke.
However, there was no cheap thrill of revenge on Ning Ye's face; she was merely thinking.
Beyond that, was it really that simple?
It was an inevitable fact that Xu Lanyi looked down on her ex-husband, but the flip side of this was that the other party had no idea he shared a child with Xu Lanyi either.
This definitely was not just because Xu Lanyi had not told him.
The reason she dared to be so high-profile, so fearlessly preparing to announce it to the whole internet and find a father for Gu Zixun, was because she had absolute reason to believe the child's biological father would not realize this was his son.
Why?
This was what Ning Ye truly needed to know.
If this ex-husband was now doing so poorly that Xu Lanyi looked down on him, then according to normal logic, this biological father should be even more desperate to latch onto a popular Best Actress.
But there was nothing of the sort. Throughout the original novel, this person seemed to have voluntarily faded away, not bringing Xu Lanyi the slightest bit of trouble.
Ning Ye had intensively processed countless pieces of information over the past few days. Her intuition told her that some crucial information had been concealed.
The fact that Xu Lanyi could give birth for love back then showed that her feelings for him had been quite passionate. But not revealing a single trace of news to him after the birth carried a hidden implication, apart from the fading of affection...
It seemed to carry a hatred of never wanting to see each other again until death.
Like a form of revenge.
Why?
Finding someone deliberately buried within the plotline was not easy.
However, Ning Ye had manually worked backward and deduced that Xu Lanyi spent her late pregnancy and delivery during her eight months of recovering from an injury. The reason her secret remained completely watertight domestically was that she had actually given birth during a two-month trip to the US in the middle of that period, supposedly seeking medical treatment.
This piece of information had no accurate starting point on the internet, but coincidentally—
When they first met, Xu Lanyi had shown off in front of her about her encounter with Bian Xun in the US, and even the location was confirmed.
Her timeline was secretive and vague.
But Bian Xun's timeline was known.
From this time, her pregnancy timeline could be accurately deduced. And even better, she was still carrying out normal celebrity activities at that time. All casting notices, co-stars, directors, attended events, and every staff member she met were traceable. Her fans, fan site managers, and stalker photographers had recorded her daily itinerary.
Xu Lanyi believed that by taking this matter to the grave without leaving a shred of information, it would be impossible to investigate. But in reality, it only required a simple, persistent logic: compile all the industry insiders who had interacted with Xu Lanyi, then filter out those who were doing better now than before, and those she still kept in touch with—
Big data could draw out a thread.
It was the list she now held in her hand.
From the very beginning, since Ning Ye found Taotao, she had said it.
She was not afraid of trouble.
And now that they were here, they needed to take the next step—
Ning Ye looked toward the man on the sofa.
In front of the child, Bian Xun did not show much abnormality. He simply reached out to hold her hand and sat down together. His voice betrayed no clues as he whispered in her ear, The large model technology has been perfected and upgraded. We can import the faces now.
Step two.
Cross-age, kinship-based, facial comparison algorithm—
This algorithm could capture the similarities in genetic features.
The significance of Wujiang Technology being far ahead of the curve was completely revealed at this moment. This social value that Ning Ye had heard about back then, one of the reasons she chose to join Wujiang, had now become the weapon in her hands.
Using technology to screen, and using paternity testing to narrow the scope.
Comparing Gu Zixun's facial features to drop anchor points along the line drawn by big data—
It was so coincidentally destined; Ning Ye had discovered traces of her mother because of Wujiang, and now, she was using Wujiang's power to protect her own daughter.
All of this happened to be Bian Xun, precisely because it was Bian Xun.
Ning Ye squeezed his hand, her eyes clear and calm, and nodded heavily.
Today, we need to let the plot continue.
Bian Xun did not let her notice anything amiss, his tone as usual. Okay.
His back remained stiff. The electric currents from the back of the electronic watch dial had shocked him until he was accustomed to it. The plot was descending every minute and second with a manipulative force far surpassing before. It was as if the closer they got to the climax, the closer they were to a black hole, generating an intense material suction.
He no longer cared about the massive numbers draining from his bank account balance every second—cashing out, draining, evaporating.
Bian Xun's drooping eyelashes shielded his dark gaze as it fell upon the electronic watch. While Ning Ye was buried in the data, he set two additional safety protocols for himself—
One was just in case.
The other was a desperate, all-or-nothing gamble.
If everything collapsed, he could use the most absolute method to gain absolute autonomy.
That was his ultimate insurance.
He could not let her lose; he would not let her lose.
...
That day, in the slice-of-life setting of a nearby supermarket, the dialogue from the original novel took place as usual.
Xu Lanyi pushed a shopping cart and coincidentally ran into Bian Xun. In front of the shelves, she gave an elegant smile. You see, my life is just this simple, just daily necessities.
She looked at the aloof, noble, and extraordinary man.
Bian Xun, everyone has secrets. I won't expose Taotao's secret; that would be too cruel. But, since your daughter cannot prove her origins, and my son equally has no place to belong, why don't we... let these two pitiful children join hands as siblings? We can give them a beautiful future together, alright?
A few meters away, the aloof man wore a watch that felt like it was delivering a hundred thousand volts of high pressure. One surge after another made his back twitch slightly. He forcibly maintained absolute clarity amidst the plot's control and nodded.
Alright.
Also on that day, Ning Ye's large model produced the genetic feature screening results, preliminarily filtering out ten individuals with further investigative value from a vast number of people.
When these faces were lined up in a row, that faint sense of familiarity became even more obvious.
She had a premonition, like a mother's intuition, that they were getting closer and closer to the truth.
Next, breaking through the plot's information cocoon to find the correct data would require a lot of time to maneuver out a result.
But even so, Ning Ye looked at the screen. Every single man here, judging by their current status, was an absolute toad completely out of the Best Actress's league.
Some of them were once well-known actors, but now, stripped of their popularity, they screamed themselves hoarse selling goods on short-video livestreams.
Some were once big shots in film and television companies, went bankrupt after failed investments, and were now starting over by selling mala tang in the United States.
Their life experiences varied greatly, but what they had in common was that, as they aged, every single one of these men had developed the greasiness, worldly cynicism, and mediocrity of approaching middle age.
Ning Ye calmly crossed her arms, looking at this information.
If any single one of them were publicly revealed to be the biological father of Xu Lanyi's son, it would be enough to cause a catastrophic collapse.
Still a little bit short. Ning Ye couldn't shake the feeling that they were still missing something.
Meanwhile, Xu Lanyi finally made her high-profile official announcement.
The anticipated plotline was coming to a perfect close. Plunged into the ecstasy of getting exactly what she wanted, she began accepting various women's interviews and holding lectures.
"From when I entered the industry in my teens until now, I have weathered nearly twenty years of ups and downs. This year is the most special one yet. I have some heartfelt words I want to share with the friends who have always supported and accompanied me, as well as an important, beautiful life update to announce. On a certain date next month, my graceful temporary farewell event will be held at a specific venue. At that time, you will see a happy, sincere, and lighthearted Lanyi..."
For a time, everyone in the world suddenly became a spectator to Xu Lanyi.
Whether it was parents dropping off kids at kindergarten after winter break, or coworkers chatting at the office, everyone was talking about Xu Lanyi's life, as if she were the central focus of the entire world.
"Best Actress Xu is finally going to officially announce the big shot behind her, isn't she?"
"For a woman like her, what kind of man could possibly be worthy of her and make her willing to have a child?"
"Is it that guy? It has to be, right?!"
"Ahhh! Family friends, a perfect match! I am totally shipping them."
At the company, Sister Zhou could not help but look at Ning Ye countless times throughout the morning, not out of gossip, but out of genuine concern.
Although she knew about Ning Ye and Boss Bian's past relationship, they had not actually gotten back together.
In the eyes of the general public, even though Xu Lanyi's reputation had its ups and downs, she was still a Best Actress with three major awards and no massive scandals. How could an ordinary person compete with her?
A woman like Best Actress Xu did not even care for the young master of the Gu family from Fengyu Pharmaceuticals. The man she set her sights on had to be at Boss Bian's level.
But maybe it was for the best. Sister Zhou had always felt that a divorced man with a kid was a bad choice anyway. If Boss Bian really made an official announcement with Xu Lanyi, would not their Xiao Jiang have a chance?
Ning Ye was waiting for a message and did not notice Sister Zhou's overly rich inner thoughts and facial expressions.
It had come down to the final step: manually laying the groundwork to screen all the candidates. A whole team of Wujiang security personnel was conducting deep background investigations into the lives of those ten men, like countless layers of waves beginning to converge.
Ning Ye checked her watch, stood up, and headed to the kindergarten.
With the spring semester starting, today was once again vaccination day at the kindergarten.
She had an important task to do.
That morning, Ning Ye had strictly forbidden Bian Xun from showing up. One reason was that, given the current progression of the plot, it was no longer appropriate for them to appear together. The second reason was that Bian Xun currently looked even paler than the kids who were about to get their shots.
Jiang Xinghe also still came to help out the Sandianshui Hospital. Bian Xun's absence deepened the hidden worry in his clear, gentle eyes.
On the way to the kindergarten, Jiang Xinghe hesitantly looked at Ning Ye several times before finally failing to hold back his question.
"Will those rumors out there about Boss Bian hurt you?"
Ning Ye snapped back to reality, tilting her head with a smile. "Even you have started reading gossip."
Jiang Xinghe pursed his lips, looking a bit embarrassed. He had hesitated over whether he should even say such a thing, as it felt like he was trying to drive a wedge in their relationship.
But right now, Xu Lanyi's quotes could be seen everywhere. After experiencing her ups and downs, she had now become a female icon advocating for the right to choose one's own path in life. Xu Lanyi's fanbase had grown exponentially in a short period of time.
Women had the right not to give birth, as well as the right to give birth. Most importantly, it was all about her making her own decisions on what she deemed worthwhile.
As soon as you turned on the TV, you could see the slogan for the product Xu Lanyi endorsed.
"Girls, you deserve the best."
For a time, it became the motto of countless fans.
The other party's fans were so fanatical and massive. If Ning Ye got involved, how could she possibly deal with it?
What would happen to her and her child?
From Jiang Xinghe's perspective, things were clear. He knew that Ning Ye's child was actually Boss Bian's, yet Xu Lanyi's various publicity stunts made it seem like she was about to completely publicize her and her child's relationship with Boss Bian. This was a classic case of a magpie stealing a dove's nest.
But looking at the frail, solitary girl beside him, she had such a private relationship with Bian Xun, yet she had never asked for a single privilege at the company. She worked diligently every day, trying hard to balance her career and family, and raised her child so well.
The slogan said girls deserved the best, but what if the best meant stealing someone else's? Was that still okay?
Feeling her friend's concerned gaze, Ning Ye felt a warmth in her heart. But she took a deep breath, looked at the kindergarten gates not far away, and smiled at Jiang Xinghe.
"Teacher Xiao Jiang, I am going to take something away later. Just pretend you didn't see it."
Jiang Xinghe froze slightly, but he still nodded.
Inside the kindergarten, the children were lined up. Behind Ning Zhitao was Zhang Sijie, and in front of her was Gu Zixun.
Ning Ye walked among the children.
Just like last time, Gu Zixun was not afraid of the injection at all. With a maturity rare for a child his age, he patted Ning Zhitao.
"What is there to be afraid of about getting a shot? Watch me."
His mother had said that from now on, Ning Zhitao would be his younger sister, but their family would still prioritize him.
Gu Zixun could accept that.
Gu Zixun's nanny squatted nearby, clapping her hands. "Zixun is a big brother, so awesome!"
Ning Zhitao ignorantly clapped her hands too. Gu Zixun was indeed awesome for this, but just because she and Sijie were afraid of shots did not mean they were not awesome, right?
Shielded by her silhouette, Ning Ye slid a sealed bag out of her sleeve. In the instant the used syringe was tossed away, she caught it steadily, sealed it, and tucked it back into her sleeve.
Just then, she turned her head. Gu Zixun was holding a cotton swab to his arm with one hand. Since winter clothes were heavy, getting a shot required taking off the jacket and pulling back one shoulder. This caused his clothes to ride up at an angle, exposing a part of his back.
Ning Ye's gaze swept past, then suddenly paused.
Following her gaze, Jiang Xinghe, who had been standing guard nearby, also saw something and suddenly paused.
In a flash of lightning, Ning Ye's mind seemed to grasp something, but it darted around wildly amidst the massive, explosive volume of information.
On Gu Zixun's pale back, right over his spine, there was a needle puncture mark.
Jiang Xinghe's gaze confirmed to Ning Ye that she had not seen it wrong.
It looked like the puncture mark from some kind of spinal tap.
This piece of information.
It had never appeared in the original novel.
She really wanted to call Bian Xun at this moment, but Ning Ye held back. She stayed with Taotao until the shot was done, not letting the little girl notice anything unusual.
Ning Ye left the kindergarten, crossing the street lost in countless thoughts. Every step felt as though she were treading on a signal of fate.
Information was accumulating.
Right at that moment, she received a call from Yue Shiqing.
Being in the entertainment industry, Yue Shiqing could no longer stand Xu Lanyi's recent maneuvers. After receiving a definitive response, Xu Lanyi had turned around and doubled down on her revenge against the rivals who had kicked her when she was down, making Yue Shiqing utterly miserable.
The two met at a nearby cafe. Yue Shiqing was full of anger. That so-called Time Gala she is doing the day after tomorrow was snatched right from my slot! It was a direct robbery! In the past, even if we were rivals, she would at least pretend to be polite. Now that she's retiring, she doesn't even bother acting anymore. She even told me to watch my step, saying that Bian Yang is just a junior with no real power in the Bian family, and as long as she and President Bian...
Yue Shiqing thought President Bian must be blind, but she didn't dare say it out loud. She just felt it was unfair for Ning Ye. It's fine, Little Ye. The Bian family is annoying to death anyway. A blessed woman like you shouldn't enter a luckless household! Anything that can be snatched away isn't a good thing to begin with. Let your big sister find you more high-quality handsome men in the entertainment industry to be our Taotao's stepdad. I still have a lot of connections in the circle...
As she was speaking, a tall, thin man walked in behind her. He brought Yue Shiqing her coat and then went back outside to wait.
Seeing Ning Ye's gaze fixed on the man, Yue Shiqing laughed, playfully tapped her, and whispered, Hey, I said I'd find you a man, but you don't have to lower your standards this much, do you? This is my assistant—
Perhaps feeling her tone was a bit too condescending, Yue Shiqing remembered her assistant also doubled as her manager and quickly tried to smooth things over. Though my assistant used to do pretty well for himself. He actually studied art professionally and even worked as a director. I didn't even go to a professional school! Usually, I can only vent to him about Xu Lanyi, but unfortunately, he won't join in on cursing her with me...
Ning Ye withdrew her stunned gaze.
This man was among those ten people.
Ning Ye finally realized where her sense of déjà vu came from.
She had seen this person at Yue Shiqing and Bian Yang's wedding.
A sudden wave rose in Ning Ye's heart, like a stone dropping into a lake, accompanied by a distinct thud.
What relationship could be more detached from oneself than a staff member of a rival actress?
Ning Ye calmly picked up her phone, preparing to mobilize all available manpower to focus entirely on investigating this one person.
However, Jiang Xinghe's call came in first.
Ning Ye's fingertips trembled. She had a faint premonition that a massive wave of crucial information was about to hit her.
She temporarily excused herself from Yue Shiqing, maintained her composure, walked to a secluded spot, and answered the call.
Ning Ye, I'm just mentioning this casually, so just listen to it casually.
Jiang Xinghe's voice was very gentle.
Ning Ye understood what he meant. Alright.
Today, when our hospital was giving injections to the children from the nearby kindergarten, I noticed a little boy had a puncture mark on his back. Given the location, there's a high probability it was from a bone marrow biopsy. After I went back, I checked the hospital records and found that during the enrollment physical exams for this class last year, one little boy's blood test was indeed somewhat abnormal...
His hemoglobin was below the normal range for children, but overall it had been controlled. Recalling the bone marrow puncture mark on that child, it is highly likely the child had acute leukemia. However, the cure rate is extremely high, and he has basically achieved clinical remission. This type of disease is mostly due to genetics, exposure to high radiation or chemical substances, or a viral infection.
The latter two are unlikely. The child's condition seems more like it was inherited from the father or mother. But according to my search, the child's mother has no public information indicating she has a history of such genetic diseases, so...
In that instant, the chaotic stream of information suddenly came to a standstill in Ning Ye's mind.
They began to connect and knot together, transforming into a glowing, clearly visible thread in her mind.
A biological father who had to be kept hidden.
An oblivious revenge.
The scandal in the future photo album...
Racking her brains just to secure a high-quality father for the child.
All of this seemed completely disconnected, but if approached with the boldest assumption, everything suddenly had an incredibly absurd explanation.
Why could it absolutely not be made public under any circumstances? Aside from being mocked, was there a reason that made it absolutely impossible?
Why was that news report stuffed into the future photo album, and what exactly was the scandal? Why was the wording on it so vague?
Although punishment was administered, there was no explicit disclosure of the name or the specific actions. One could only find this news in the obscure filler sections of newspapers.
Whoever suppressed it was the one holding the leverage.
Standing in a corner where light and shadows intertwined, Ning Ye trembled slightly as she called Bian Xun.
The call was answered instantly. Bian Xun's deep, crisp voice was the same as always. I'm here.
Bian Xun.
Ning Ye looked up. The LED screen of a distant shopping mall was broadcasting Xu Lanyi's radiant commercial, as if she could embody all the beauty in the world. Ning Ye forced her voice to sound sufficiently calm. Go and check... see if any of the ten people we filtered out have a criminal record...
Looking at the article from the future photo album right beside his hand, Bian Xun replied.
I checked them all.
Bian Xun gave her the answer directly.
There is a once highly talented executive director who smoked marijuana.
A heavy gong sounded in Ning Ye's ears.
At that moment, she seemed to hear a distant explosion, realizing exactly where the path ahead led.
This was the true reason hidden within the plotline!
The biological father of Xu Lanyi's child wasn't just a simple matter of infidelity or emotional betrayal. It was only after the child had grown quite a bit that Xu Lanyi discovered the risks of their passionate trysts. Behind the intoxicating romance and talent lay such an invisible poison.
What was even more tragic was that the man's drug-damaged genes had been passed down through their bloodline, becoming her child's innate illness. Therefore, harboring hatred and resentment as if the whole world owed her, she helped suppress the news to use as leverage, forcing him to completely disappear from her life and eliminating any possibility of this information going public.
Because this would destroy everything she had.
This was the source of her depression.
This was why she had to find a father for her child to cover up all her mistakes.
And yet, the world was actually revolving around such a reason, controlling them to pay the price for someone else's mistakes.
Then the world was wrong.
Her child was indeed pitiful.
But what did my child do wrong?
In that moment, Ning Ye finally grasped the fuse that would detonate the minefield.
With just a single spark, she could blow up everything in this plotline the moment the climax arrived.
— Well... I don't really care what my other half is like.
The large screen in the commercial district was still playing a clip of Xu Lanyi's interview.
Maintaining her perfection, the strong female lead also displayed a happy, delicate posture. Regarding my significant other, I don't care about his net worth, family background, or profession. I believe the most important thing is mutual appreciation, treating each other as equally matched equals. We women must also take control of our lives and not depend on anyone.
The surrounding crowd had stopped to watch, murmuring among themselves.
Amazing, Sister Xu has such great values.
"Am I the only one shipping them? A power couple is so sweet!"
"I can't wait for the official reveal of the man behind the Best Actress!!"
Xu Lanyi looked through the camera lens, elegant and composed, as if she were gazing at someone specific. "To all the girls out there, you must find a future that is worthy of you. I wish you all happiness."
Ning Ye looked away.
It turned out that the man behind Xu Lanyi was worse than a livestream influencer, worse than a street vendor selling spicy hotpot.
He was actually a junkie.
She let out a long exhale. The anxiety of the past few days felt like ocean waves washing over her head and receding, while her stomach still felt slightly bloated from morning sickness.
She finally believed that she could be happy, too.
Turning around, she saw Bian Xun striding toward her.
Night had fallen. He was lightly dressed, his figure lean and tall, but every step he took looked as if he were walking on live wires, gritting his teeth until he stood right in front of her.
According to the plot, he was supposed to stop among the crowd at the intersection right now, watch the short video on the giant screen with everyone else, and then, amidst the praise and anticipation of a bunch of NPCs, give a tacit, knowing smirk.
But Bian Xun stepped over the imaginary gold coins bursting across the ground and insisted on walking straight to Ning Ye, just as she had fought her way through endless turbulence to find that one exit.
"Bian Xun..." Ning Ye tilted her head up, only realizing her voice had gone hoarse when she opened her mouth.
"Mhm."
Bian Xun pulled her into his arms, forcing himself to maintain control. He lowered his head and kissed her slightly chapped lips, before finally revealing a dark, vicious smile.
All the pieces of information were now in place.
Screw this damn plot. I want her dead.
