She had already concluded that he was behind everything.
Song Lian had not only plotted against Su Qinghuai and Si Yanjing, but had also plotted against her!
Song Lian placed the tray on the nightstand. Without meeting her dark, scrutinizing gaze, he said lightly, "I'm not sure what you mean. What did I do?"
He was still playing dumb, even now.
"Stop pretending. You showed me those posts on the forum because you wanted me to know, didn't you?" Su Zhiyi let out a cold laugh. "Why did you do it?"
Song Lian didn't answer her question. Instead, he turned to face her, meeting her eyes that were calm but seething with anger. He said to her, "No matter how angry you are, don't hurt yourself. Eat something first. After you've eaten, you can curse me or hit me however you like."
Su Zhiyi couldn't stand him repeatedly pushing her buttons, igniting her anger.
Her fury was lit.
Slap—
The crisp sound and the girl's wrathful voice echoed in the room.
"Do I need to wait for the right time to do what I want?"
Without mercy, she slapped him across his handsome face. The force was so strong that her palm throbbed and stung as if pricked by needles.
Song Lian didn't dodge. The slap sent his head turning to one side, his slightly long black hair covering his expression.
On the fair skin of his right cheek, a patch of red bloomed.
Su Zhiyi's emotions were already teetering out of control.
"I'll hit you when I want to, and when I curse you, you take it. I don't need you to tell me what to do."
She shook her hand, which was red and sore.
A moment of silence.
"Heh... hehe..."
Suddenly, the corners of Song Lian's mouth lifted into an eerie smile. An indistinct, spine-chilling laugh escaped from between his lips.
His hand touched his own cheek, as if still feeling the pain the girl had just given him.
It was a pain... bestowed by her.
Before Su Zhiyi could react, Song Lian dropped to his knees with a thud, startling her so much that she almost kicked him in the chest to push him away.
In his gentle eyes, tenderness, obsession, and pain were intertwined. But the most obvious emotion was the barely contained excitement.
His voice was sticky and sweet, like melted, stringy candy.
"Baby, hit me again, okay? Aren't you angry? Take it all out on me, okay? Let it all out, and then you won't be angry anymore..."
Su Zhiyi silently retracted her half-extended foot, afraid that kicking him would actually turn him on.
When had she never noticed that Song Lian was so...
Hisss...
It was a bit hard to say.
Song Lian let out a couple of laughs, obsession spreading across his face. He was clearly losing control of his emotions because of that slap, completely tearing off the gentle mask he always wore.
This was the first time Su Zhiyi had ever seen this gentle man look so different from his usual appearance.
"Yes. I did it. All of it was me. Hit me, curse me, take all your anger out on me."
"It's not just me who deceived you—they all did. I'm not a good person, and neither are they."
"You being kicked out of the Su family, your engagement being called off—that was Su Qinghuai's doing. He's a filthy creature too."
"A rat who crawled up from the slums, just to grab sunlight that doesn't belong to him. He secretly got the Su family to throw you out, then sabotaged things from behind the scenes to force the dissolution of our engagement. How can I not hate him?"
After cursing Su Qinghuai, Song Lian moved on to Si Yanjing.
His dark eyes shimmered with moisture, suddenly turning fierce. The sound of his teeth grinding was enough to make anyone's heart race.
"As for Si Yanjing, hah, he's the one I despise the most and hate the most."
"He's simple-minded and brawny, so stupid that I'm ashamed to even see him as my rival."
"But even though he's inferior to me in every way, he can stand by your side as if it's his right, and say those damned words to provoke me. Why? Why! Why!"
As he spoke, an unmistakable flush of red crept across his cold, fair cheeks.
Even the slap mark on his face seemed to grow redder and more vivid, excitement and frenzy intertwining on his gentle face.
It was... somewhat pathological.
"So I kept investigating what had happened within the Su family. Eventually, I traced it back to Su Qinghuai, and I learned that you'd been cast out and moved to the slums."
"How disgusting he is. Using his position as the Su heir to dissolve our engagement. Of course I had to retaliate. From the very beginning, I set a trap for Su Qinghuai. I concealed the information I'd learned, pretended to cooperate with him, and watched him fall step by step into the snare I'd laid. Even his alliance with Si Yanjing, and their falling out—I orchestrated all of it."
"Now they don't trust each other at all. And I was the one who exposed your identity. I know how much you value your status as the nominal Su family's eldest miss. I didn't want to make things so tense between us, but why did you have to get engaged to Si Yanjing? Why did you abandon me..."
His voice grew lower and lower, until Su Zhiyi could faintly hear a hint of tears in it.
"If you don't love me, I'll die."
"My dear, please give me just a little bit of your love."
The moment Song Lian finished speaking, Su Zhiyi heard System 030's cheerful voice in her mind.
"Ding-dong! System 030 is back online. Dear host Su Zhiyi, it's a pleasure to see you again. I've finished repairing and upgrading the system!"
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Author's note: The ex-fiancé has turned into a damp and clingy male ghost, hehe.