Chapter 46
Pei Ning’s mind went completely blank.
The cheers and teasing from the surrounding crowd, the lake breeze wrapped in the rich fragrance of roses, Jiang Ling’s gentle and expectant gaze…
Everything, all of it, seemed to blur into hazy illusions, spinning and drifting through Pei Ning’s mind.
For that one instant, Pei Ning almost thought she was dreaming.
It was Lin Zhiqiao’s voice that pulled her back to reality.
[Behind the deep affection is concealment, beneath the gentle exterior is deception, and every mouthful of sweet sugar is laced with a knife coated in deadly poison!]
[The sweeter it looks, the more disgusting the truth is! Sister Pei is too miserable, Sister Pei. She thought she was true love, but Jiang always only saw her as a substitute for the white moonlight in his heart, and she’s been the substitute for a full eight years! Eight whole years!!!]
[That dog scumbag doesn’t actually have you in his heart at all. Every time he gently calls you “A-Ning,” the one he’s thinking of is another “A-Ning.” Every time he says “I love you” with such tenderness, the person appearing in his mind is another “A-Ning”—]
[Since he couldn’t get the real white moonlight, he tried every possible way to win over the substitute instead! What did Sister Pei ever do wrong? She must have had eight lifetimes’ worth of terrible luck to run into a scumbag like President Jiang. And in the future she’ll even be abused emotionally and physically by this scumbag, run away while pregnant, then forgive him after he chases her to the crematorium, and finally end up in a sweet happy ending with him…]
[What kind of deranged brain came up with a script this stupid?!]
Lin Zhiqiao broke down in tears: [Wuwuwu, how can this be! The CP I shipped has collapsed again and again and again, QAQ!!!]
Breaking down along with him were Ji Ran and the others beside him, the ones who could hear his inner voice.
A dull thud suddenly rang out. It was the sound of the research notebook in Gong Tiantian’s hand falling to the ground.
At the same time came a suppressed hiss of pain.
The thick notebook had landed with unfortunate precision right on the toes sticking out of Gong Tiantian’s sandals. Her face changed on the spot, and her eyes reddened instantly from the pain.
—Her toes hurt, but her heart hurt even more.
They had known each other for eight years and been together for seven!
How could it collapse just like that!!!
Gong Tiantian did not want to believe Lin Zhiqiao’s inner voice, but the Double Fire CP, Cheng Xia’s incident, Ji Yuan and her boyfriend, the Harp CP…
Like Pei Ning, Gong Tiantian had followed all of those special melons almost from start to finish and watched them unfold up close, so she knew very well just how uncanny Lin Zhiqiao was.
Up to this point, not once had information revealed by Lin Zhiqiao in this way ever turned out to be wrong.
No matter how outrageous or impossible it seemed, it would always be proven true in the end.
Gong Tiantian’s heart twisted in pain.
Watching an eight-year-old shipped CP collapse was certainly painful, but she knew that the most important thing right now was not sinking into her own misery.
The most important thing was Pei Ning.
Lin Zhiqiao was thinking the exact same thing.
[What is Sister Pei supposed to do, Sister Pei? A scumbag like this… you absolutely cannot say yes to his proposal!!!]
Lin Zhiqiao was frantic with anxiety.
But he had no idea how to stop this proposal.
After the first wave of shock passed, Pei Ning—standing in the sea of flowers—quickly forced herself to calm down.
Lin Zhiqiao’s “spoiler” had come too suddenly. No matter how hard Pei Ning tried, she could never have imagined that the collapse of her relationship with Jiang Ling would come this fast.
—A substitute who runs away while pregnant?
Pei Ning read novels, so of course she knew what that meant.
But…
Now was obviously not the time to panic.
Pei Ning quietly took a deep breath, and not the slightest trace of abnormality showed on her face.
She lowered her eyes and looked at the man in front of her. He was still kneeling on one knee, gazing up at her with deep affection. In the ring box in his hands, the delicate diamond ring sparkled under the somewhat dim moonlight.
Pei Ning held out her hand and softly finished the answer she had only half spoken earlier: “I do.”
In a setting like this, she could not refuse Jiang Ling’s proposal, nor was she able to.
The cool diamond ring was slid onto her finger. It fit perfectly, clearly custom-made to the size of her hand.
Jiang Ling rose to his feet and opened his arms, pulling Pei Ning tightly into his embrace.
Surrounded by the sea of flowers, this young couple—praised all over the internet as a “pair of immortals”—kissed each other.
The cameras could not catch the darkness in Pei Ning’s eyes, and Jiang Ling noticed none of her abnormality either.
Watching the two of them kissing in the flowers, Lin Zhiqiao’s heart hurt so badly he could barely breathe.
Before he had opened this melon, if he had gotten to witness a marriage proposal for a CP he shipped with his own eyes, his screaming would definitely have overturned the entire lake, and he would have been so excited he would not have slept for three days and three nights.
But now, after learning the scumbag truth beneath Jiang Ling’s warm and affectionate persona, all this scene did was make Lin Zhiqiao’s eyes hurt.
Fortunately, this was only a proposal scene, not a marriage registration scene. There was still room to turn things around.
He poked 888 and asked, [Little System if I rushed over right now and told Sister Pei that her fiancé is actually a world-class mega-scumbag, do you think it would help? Would she believe me and immediately cut ties with him on the spot?]
[It would help.] 888 nodded. [Your Sister Pei would probably slap you right then and there and tell you to wake up because you’re dreaming.]
Lin Zhiqiao: […]
Lin Zhiqiao pulled a long face and did not want to talk to 888 anymore.
After the proposal succeeded, the crowd at the scene did not disperse for a long time.
Jiang Ling took Pei Ning’s hand and shielded her through the crowd as they returned to the car.
The seaside walk had only been a pretense. The proposal was the real purpose. Now that the goal had been achieved, everyone headed back toward Pei Ning’s villa.
The car had been warm and cheerful on the way there. No one had imagined that on the way back, among everyone in the vehicle, only one person would be genuinely happy.
Jiang Ling, who could not hear Lin Zhiqiao’s inner voice, was in such a good mood that the corners of his lips never dropped even while he drove.
Pei Ning turned her head slightly. The moment she saw the unconcealed joy on Jiang Ling’s face, she went into a brief daze.
That kind of happy, fulfilled expression did not look fake in the slightest.
If not for Lin Zhiqiao’s revelation, who could possibly have guessed Jiang Ling’s true thoughts?
Of course she was panicking. It was impossible not to.
It was simply in Pei Ning’s nature that even when something like this happened, she could still force herself to remain calm on the surface and keep others from noticing her real emotions.
And besides…
Was Lin Zhiqiao really guaranteed to be right?
Pei Ning could not help developing exactly this doubt.
She had indeed followed Lin Zhiqiao in eating many melons and knew that up to now, he had never once been wrong.
Reason told Pei Ning that there was a ninety percent chance Lin Zhiqiao was right this time too.
But emotionally, she truly could not accept this so quickly—that the man who had been with her for seven years did not actually love her, but had only been treating her as a substitute for someone else.
Seven years, not seven months, let alone a mere seven days.
To pretend in front of another person for seven full years—no, actually eight years, eight years without revealing even the slightest flaw—even an Oscar-winning actor would find that hard to pull off, wouldn’t he?
As if sensing Pei Ning’s gaze, Jiang Ling suddenly turned and curved his eyes at his fiancée.
The car had stopped at a red light and could not move forward.
Jiang Ling moved his right hand slightly and gently clasped Pei Ning’s left hand where it rested on her lap, threading their fingers together.
It was the familiar hand, the familiar warmth. Even the thumb softly rubbing across the back of her hand carried the exact familiar pressure she knew so well.
Pei Ning lowered her eyes. In her dark pupils was reflected the brand-new ring on her middle finger.
The light turned green, and Jiang Ling withdrew his hand and continued focusing on driving.
Pei Ning’s heart was a mess.
Could Lin Zhiqiao… really never be wrong?
And besides, all the gossip he had revealed before had either been objective facts that already happened or things currently happening. But this time, it seemed a little different from before.
This time, the information he revealed included the “future.”
Lin Zhiqiao said that in the future she would run away while pregnant, and that Jiang Ling would torment her emotionally and physically.
Those were things that had not happened yet. They were an uncontrollable future, not objective facts that could be immediately verified and confirmed.
Pei Ning did not know whether she should believe in this kind of “prophecy.”
Just like Pei Ning, whose thoughts were in complete chaos, everyone else in the car was also feeling complicated emotions.
Ji Ran looked at Pei Ning, and the heaviness in his expression had almost solidified.
Of everyone present, he was the only one who had once been the main character in a melon himself, so he could truly empathize with Pei Ning’s current feelings.
Doubt and suspicion were inevitable, but no matter how much she struggled, the final result would be the same.
Yet with Jiang Ling present, Ji Ran could not say anything, nor could he share his experience as someone who had been through it.
Gong Tiantian was anxious to death as well.
Yes, she was a veteran CP shipper, but Pei Ning was her best friend. Compared with seeing a CP collapse, what she absolutely could not accept was Pei Ning really ending up “abused until she was half dead and then forgiving the scumbag.”
Lin Zhiqiao, on the other hand, had calmed down by now.
Since directly telling Pei Ning the truth would not work, then he had to find proof—proof that Jiang Ling had a white moonlight and was treating Pei Ning as a substitute—and then find a way to place that proof right in front of Pei Ning so she would have no choice but to believe it.
Seeing a scumbag’s true face was undoubtedly painful, but that pain was only temporary. It was still better than really ending up running away while pregnant, being abused emotionally and physically, and then somehow still getting a happy ending with the scumbag in the future.
With that thought in mind, Lin Zhiqiao began frantically opening blind boxes. He threw Designated Gossip Cards at Jiang Ling as if they were free.
[Jiang Ling and the white moonlight knew each other from a very young age. They attended the same elementary and middle school. In high school, the white moonlight went to a private high school. After finding out about that, Jiang Ling threw a fit and insisted on transferring to the same school—and even the same class.]
[But his white moonlight didn’t like him at all. For all three years of high school, Jiang Ling showed her favor every single day. Breakfast, gifts, nothing was left out. Unfortunately, the breakfasts all ended up in the bellies of stray cats and dogs, and the gifts all met the same fate in the trash can…]
[LMAO, so he really spent three years being a complete simp, huh? Serves the scumbag right!!!]
[When they graduated from high school, Jiang Ling confessed to the white moonlight, but she rejected him clearly and decisively. The very next day she flew abroad and blocked and deleted all of Jiang Ling’s contact information.]
[Jiang Ling tried chasing her overseas, but the white moonlight had people beat him up brutally and warned him that if he ever showed up in front of her again, she’d have him crippled. Only then did Jiang Ling finally give up.]
Lin Zhiqiao could not help roasting him: [You suck, Jiang Scum-Scum. One threat and you gave up? Your so-called love really weighs that little? Not even worth two liang of meat?]
At the side, Gong Tiantian almost burst out laughing. She hurriedly pretended she had choked, coughed a few times, and covered it up.
[Jiang Ling was completely heartbroken by the white moonlight and from then on decided to sever himself from love forever… but clearly, he failed.]
[Many years later, Jiang Ling thought he had already forgotten the white moonlight. But when he met Pei Ning, he realized that he had actually never forgotten her at all.]
[Pei Ning looks a little like Jiang Ling’s white moonlight, and even one character in her name overlaps. The moment Jiang Ling saw Pei Ning for the first time, he knew he had fallen—]
[If it was destined that in this lifetime he could never get the original, then finding a substitute didn’t seem too bad either.]
Lin Zhiqiao could not stop himself from swearing: [Fuck fuck fuck, how can someone be this cheap! Every single person in this world is unique! What do you mean substitute or not substitute? If you love substitutes that much, why don’t you go be someone else’s substitute yourself?!]
[Oh right, maybe no one else would even want something this disgusting as their substitute. Pah pah pah, what horrible bad luck!!!]
