Chapter 47
Lin Zhiqiao cursed that scumbag Jiang viciously in his heart.
Sitting up front, Pei Ning’s emotions were indescribably complicated.
Jiang Ling had never once mentioned anything to her about a white moonlight, nor had he ever mentioned that he had once had a first love.
Pei Ning had never asked, and Jiang Ling had never taken the initiative to bring it up either.
When she accepted Jiang Ling’s confession and agreed to be with him, Jiang Ling was not yet President Jiang—he was still only Young Master Jiang.
Everyone had told her that there had never been anyone else by Young Master Jiang’s side, that his heart belonged only to his career, and that he was immersed in work all day long.
It was only after her appearance, they said, that Young Master Jiang finally broke that pattern.
At first, Pei Ning had not believed it. It was only after she and Jiang Ling had truly gotten together that she gradually came to accept that version of things.
For all these years, she really had never seen anyone else around Jiang Ling.
His phone had never been off-limits to her. The lock-screen password was her birthday, and Pei Ning had always known that, but because she trusted Jiang Ling, she had never once looked through it.
—If what Lin Zhiqiao said was true, then even if she had looked, she probably still would not have seen anything.
Jiang Ling had lost contact with his white moonlight right after graduating from high school, many years before the two of them had ever even met.
Anything related to that white moonlight was obviously not something Jiang Ling would stupidly keep stored in his current phone.
Pei Ning’s thoughts drifted on and off.
After all, Jiang Ling had been with her for seven years. In those seven years, he really had helped her a great deal, both in life and in her career.
If possible, Pei Ning did not want to judge him with the worst possible malice.
Even if what Lin Zhiqiao said was true, Pei Ning would never wrong herself by continuing to be someone’s substitute—but for the sake of how many times Jiang Ling had once helped her, she would still choose a gentler way to be honest, and part peacefully.
Pei Ning was a very rational person.
Whether it was in her career, her life, or even in love, she was someone extremely rational.
Compared with using emotions to solve problems, she preferred to think things through, to assume every possible option that existed, and then choose the most suitable one—the optimal solution that maximized the benefit from every angle.
Things had not yet developed to the very worst stage. If she could cut her losses in time, Pei Ning did not want to make the situation too ugly.
Of course, the most urgent matter right now was to verify that what Lin Zhiqiao said was true.
Only facts she saw with her own eyes could make her truly give up.
[What first sight love? This is just a fickle heart changing targets. That scumbag Jiang really understands the whole “seeing one person and thinking of another” routine perfectly.]
Lin Zhiqiao cursed Scumbag Jiang until he was completely shredded in his mind. After venting, he opened another round of blind boxes.
[Holy crap? This isn’t even just a scumbag anymore. This is a complete human stain, isn’t it?!]
At the side, Gong Tiantian perked up her ears, anxious to death—
What human stain? What had Jiang Ling done now that was so outrageous?!
Lin Zhiqiao could barely believe what he was seeing. [That time Sister Pei got blacklisted all over the internet and was bullied so badly she almost quit the industry… Jiang Ling actually orchestrated and manipulated the whole thing behind the scenes?!]
[So he secretly planned the whole thing and deliberately made Sister Pei stumble hard, then afterward jumped out publicly and said he believed in her, would always support her, and would help her through the crisis and low point?]
[So Sister Pei only fell because you stuck out your foot and tripped her, right? You knock someone down, then pretend to be the good guy who helps her back up. Were you trying to become the ray of light in Sister Pei’s life? The savior on her road through life?]
[You plotted this whole huge scheme just because you chased Sister Pei for a year and she still wouldn’t accept your confession?! Are you seriously okay in the head? You’re pretty damn good at directing your own drama. What exactly do you take Sister Pei for? Some toy for you to mess around with however you like?]
Lin Zhiqiao was furious and couldn’t help cursing for quite a while in his heart.
Not far from him, Gong Tiantian’s eyes suddenly widened. “?!!”
At the front, Pei Ning’s fingers curled tightly all at once, and even her heart seemed to seize with them. In that instant, the sound of her own heartbeat felt as though it were pounding directly against her eardrums.
The incident Lin Zhiqiao was talking about had happened about a year after Jiang Ling first started pursuing her.
At the time, Pei Ning had only just debuted. She had just finished participating in a singer competition show and had gained a little fame. Her career was in its early rising stage.
Then suddenly, all over the internet, people began exposing her, saying she lip-synced, acted like a diva, had looks but no talent…
Those were only the milder accusations. One of her former classmates even came forward under a real name and said that Pei Ning had bullied him back in school.
The classmate was real. The school bullying was completely fabricated.
The other party spoke as though everything were indisputable fact, while Pei Ning had no way to defend herself. She sought help from multiple sides and got nowhere. Even her company refused to help her, and had even started showing signs that they wanted to shelve her entirely.
At that time, Pei Ning had felt utterly helpless.
Apart from her family and a few very close friends, no one believed her. Every day, her Weibo inbox and comment section filled with tens of thousands of abusive messages.
“Why haven’t you gotten out of the entertainment industry yet?”
“How do you still have the nerve to stand under the spotlight?”
“Why aren’t you dead yet…”
Comments like these—at first, Pei Ning had not even dared to look at them. Later, she had learned to sweep her eyes across them without changing expression.
People always say that the innocent will naturally be cleared, but in a giant dye vat like the entertainment industry, once something like this happened, even the most innocent person would find it hard to wash off such filthy, groundless accusations.
Pei Ning had been driven almost to a dead end.
It was at exactly that time that Jiang Ling stepped forward publicly, said he believed in her character and that she would never do something like that, and?? contacted her to offer help.
By then, Jiang Ling had already pursued Pei Ning for a full year. But because of all kinds of concerns—and because he simply was not her type—Pei Ning had never accepted him.
To be honest, before that incident, Pei Ning had actually found Jiang Ling very annoying.
Even after she had clearly rejected him, he had still continued to pursue her relentlessly and loudly declare his affection, affecting both her life and her career to varying degrees.
That changed only after she was falsely accused of school violence and scolded by the entire internet until she almost left the industry in depression.
Jiang Ling was the first person—indeed, the only person—apart from those closest to her who dared to publicly stand by her with his real name while the storm was at its hottest.
There was no way she would not have been moved.
After making his position clear, Jiang Ling not only rushed to her side immediately, he even mobilized the Jiang Group’s legal team and personally busied himself helping her for a long time.
In the end, of course, the matter was resolved. Pei Ning successfully cleared her name, and the person who had falsely accused her of school bullying received the punishment they deserved.
It was after that incident, when Jiang Ling confessed to her once again, that Pei Ning agreed to his confession, and the two of them officially announced they were together.
Even now, when Pei Ning thought back to that incident, she still felt a suffocating tightness rise in her chest.
She did not dare imagine what her life would have become if Jiang Ling had not stepped forward to help her back then.
Perhaps she would have left the entertainment industry. Perhaps she would have drifted far away from the music she loved. It was even possible that she would have carried the false charge of school bully for the rest of her life.
To the Pei Ning of that time, Jiang Ling really had been like a savior.
And even now, after being together for so long, Pei Ning knew clearly that her feelings toward Jiang Ling contained far more gratitude than love.
If there had never been that internet-wide smear campaign back then, Pei Ning knew that she would never have ended up with Jiang Ling.
But now…
Lin Zhiqiao was telling her that that incident—that very incident for which she had felt grateful to Jiang Ling all these years—had actually been planned by Jiang Ling himself—
Pei Ning’s hands clenched into fists, her nails pressing deep crescent marks into her palms.
This was too absurd, she thought.
If anyone else had told her this, Pei Ning would have dismissed it with utter contempt.
But the person telling her this now was Lin Zhiqiao.
Pei Ning closed her eyes and took several subtle, deep breaths before she barely managed to calm herself down again.
She felt as though her mind had split into two halves.
One half told her that Lin Zhiqiao was probably right. But the other half told her that she had not personally seen any of this, and without evidence, it was not fact.
And yet her thoughts could not stop drifting back seven years.
She remembered that there had actually been many suspicious points in that incident.
For example, the classmate who falsely accused her of school bullying—Pei Ning remembered that during her student days, she had almost no contact with that person at all.
She had never understood why he would do such a thing. Nor had she understood why, after he had clung so firmly to his accusation at first, he changed his story so quickly the moment Jiang Ling stepped in.
At the time, Jiang Ling had told her that human jealousy was a very frightening thing.
Pei Ning had believed him. She had also believed that the classmate changed his attitude so quickly because Jiang Ling’s team was very capable.
She had also suspected that for the matter to receive such a high level of attention in such a short time, someone must have been secretly fueling the flames behind it.
That classmate’s family background was not good; he had no way to afford that much heat, so there had to be someone else involved.
Pei Ning had assumed she must have unknowingly offended someone. Later, once Jiang Ling stepped in and the issue was resolved, the attention naturally died down, and she had not dug any deeper.
There were still more details besides these… Pei Ning ran through them one by one in her mind.
If everything Lin Zhiqiao said was true, then all of those suspicious points now had perfectly reasonable explanations.
From the very start, the entire incident had been stirred up by Jiang Ling, which was why the moment he stepped in, the issue could be solved so easily.
Jiang Ling had merely gone through the motions, putting on a show in front of everyone.
[Damn, damn, damn! I was wondering how someone as clear-headed as Sister Pei could still forgive the scumbag and get a happy ending with him even after being abused emotionally and mentally! So the scumbag used the same old trick again, and Sister Pei got PUA’d by him!!!]
Pei Ning’s thoughts were abruptly yanked out of the past.
[After the white moonlight came back, Scumbag Jiang realized he still liked the white moonlight more—but by then he was already engaged to Sister Pei, and obviously he couldn’t openly pursue someone else while still having a fiancée.]
[So how do you break up with Pei Ning while still preserving your good-man reputation at the same time?]
[Obviously by pushing all the blame onto the other person! As long as Sister Pei is the one at fault, as long as she is the one causing problems in the relationship, then he gets to stand on the moral high ground and keep his good-guy persona forever!]
Lin Zhiqiao was so disgusted he could not help letting out a small dry retching sound.
Instantly, everyone’s concerned gaze turned toward him. Ji Ran beside him hurriedly reached out to pat his back, and Wen Ning quickly handed him an already-opened bottle of water, asking, “Are you okay?”
Lin Zhiqiao shook his head. “I’m fine. Just a little carsick.”
Carsick, my ass, Ji Ran thought. Never mind Lin Zhiqiao—even the rest of them just riding along on the gossip were practically disgusted enough to throw up.
Pei Ning, seated in the front passenger seat, also turned around. She took a mint candy from the storage basket and handed it back to Lin Zhiqiao.
Lin Zhiqiao accepted the candy, eyes glistening with tears. “Thank you, Sister Pei.”
[Such a good person like Sister Pei—how could she end up meeting such human trash, wuwuwu!]
At the side, Gong Tiantian nodded fiercely.
Exactly! Exactly!
Meeting everyone’s complex but concerned expressions, Pei Ning’s heart gradually steadied.
So many years had passed. She was no longer the rookie Pei Ning from seven years ago, someone anyone could twist and control at will.
If Jiang Ling really dared to make a move this time, she absolutely would not sit there and let herself be handled.
