Everyone in the room was suddenly stupefied, not a single person uttering a sound.

Zhao Ping Jin grabbed his cigarette pack and said before losing control: “I’m going out for a smoke.”

He walked away without looking back.

Qing Qing said from the side: “Xiao Jiang, are you all right?”

Lu Xiao Jiang shook his head, pulling out a tissue to wipe the streak of blood.

Gao Ji Yi asked in bewilderment: “What kind of scene was that?”

Fang Lang Ji said airily: “Huang Xi Tang.”

Gao Ji Yi didn’t react immediately: “What?”

Fang Lang Ji said: “That girl just now.”

Gao Ji Yi was completely dumbstruck.

Lu Xiao Jiang’s face slowly changed.

Only Gao Ji Yi’s wife looked curious: “Who is Huang Xi Tang?”

Fang Lang Ji looked at his phone, somewhat concerned: “Him going out like this, is it okay?”

Ten minutes later, Zhao Ping Jin hadn’t returned. They called him, but at first, he didn’t answer, then his phone was switched off.

Gao Ji Yi came to his senses: “Did he bring a driver today?”

Lu Xiao Jiang was a bit flustered, saying in a low voice: “I saw him in the garage when I arrived. He drove himself.”

Gao Ji Yi had worked in the Propaganda Department for nearly ten years and had handled countless public opinion crises. He was most skilled at finding someone to mediate when incidents occurred: “Don’t panic. Lang Ji, call Shen Min first.”

The meal ended inexplicably. The guests rose to leave. As Gao Ji Yi was seeing Fang Lang Ji out, he said to him in a low voice: “No wonder I didn’t recognize her. The second year after Zhong Qiao passed away, on the anniversary of her death, I saw her at the cemetery. Now that I think about it, something wasn’t right with her face—”

Fang Lang Ji asked: “Who?”

Gao Ji Yi rolled his eyes: “Huang Xi Tang.”

Fang Lang Ji asked strangely: “What do you mean?”

Gao Ji Yi lowered his voice and said: “She was wearing sunglasses at the time, I didn’t pay much attention at first, but later I realized she had a scar at the corner of her eye, looking almost disfigured. Is it possible that Zhou Zi…”

Fang Lang Ji felt a cold shiver down his spine.

Zhao Ping Jin drove out from the garage in Gao Ji Yi’s community, passed through the south gate of Chaoyang Park, sped along Chang’an Street, and continued beyond the Fifth Ring Road. After passing through Changping District, he still didn’t stop, almost reaching the banks of the Wenyu River.

The car roared through half of Beijing city. On the elevated highway, a stream of cars and neon lights flickered until the traffic gradually thinned, and in the distance, the black silhouettes of hills emerged against the skyline.

That tear-stained face kept lingering before his eyes.

He knew about that awards ceremony; it was more than two months ago. An hour before that ceremony, he had a diamond necklace delivered to her management company, and then Shen Min called Ni Kai Lun the CEO of her management company.

She should understand that she owed him, and would always have to repay.

Such a sad song, such mournful deep emotions, she kept crying.

What the hell did she have to cry about?

That year, he was also driving, returning to Beijing via the highway in the early hours of the morning, with her sitting beside him.

The radio was also playing old Hong Kong and Taiwan songs.

At that time, they were arguing furiously. Zhao Ping Jin had a contract to sign in Tianjin urgently, and he was so angry that he simply drove there himself, dragging her into the car, and they continued to argue.

That year, the Beijing-Tianjin Expressway was not yet open, so he took the old Beijing-Tianjin-Tanggu Highway. The road conditions were poor, and he was mentally exhausted. By the time they returned, he was almost at his breaking point.

Huang Xi Tang mercilessly tore away the last fig leaf covering their relationship. Sitting beside him, yet seeming as distant as if separated by several planets, she was like a stranger, only coldly saying with a stern face: “I’m not worthy of your noble family, so don’t be with me.”

Zhao Ping Jin ran his hand through his hair and answered irritably: “Can’t you compromise for me temporarily? This is a detour. First stay with me, get their approval, then you can go out and film.”

At that moment, Xi Tang suddenly flared up: “They don’t like me! Do you think your mother would like me if I got a master’s or doctoral degree? She won’t! Let me tell you, Zhao Ping Jin, your mother looks down on me because we’re from different social classes! Because I’m not someone’s daughter, because I don’t have parents to rely on, because I come from poverty with nothing!”

Zhao Ping Jin replied in frustration: “Can you not be so extreme and arbitrary?”

That night she also cried very sadly, perhaps already sensing that this relationship had reached a dead end.

He was so heartbroken that he didn’t know what to do: “Alright, alright, go and film.”

Huang Xi Tang sobbed: “Then what about you?”

Zhao Ping Jin gritted his teeth and said: “We’ll fight an eight-year war of resistance, never breaking up. Why don’t we just go get our marriage certificate, and you can have a child for me?”

In the early hours of the morning, they made love in the back seat of the car.

Huang Xi Tang buried her face in his shoulder, bit him hard, and clutched his hand tightly. She cried: “Zhao Ping Jin, I love you, I will never let you go in my life.”

Her voice was still familiar, but suddenly it was replaced by a strange face, shedding tears indifferently at an awards ceremony attended by thousands.

Zhao Ping Jin suddenly felt his body growing hot.

What gradually emerged in his mind was her face, unconsciously shedding tears under the bright light: red rouge and white powder, thick eyebrows and a pretty nose, her lips a full cherry color…

It was at that moment that he realized he had accepted that face.

Her soul burst forth, burning brightly before his eyes.

He had never been able to resist her. He wanted to kill her, crush her, pin her to the floor. He wanted to hit her hard. His entire arm was trembling, his heart pounding violently with his blood vessels as if about to burst through his chest the next moment. In a daze, warm liquid trickled down his cheek. At the moment when his love made both their souls tremble, what he last remembered was no longer her face. He bitterly hated her final contemptuous and mocking expression, that kind of look directed at him, as if looking at a pile of garbage.

He overturned the table, and she fell to the floor, the carpet soaking up a patch of tragic red.

For a long time before they broke up, they argued fiercely, yet after each argument, they fell into a deeper, more desperate love. Her film “Orange Boy” was selected for the main competition unit of a film festival, and the crew had to go to France to walk the red carpet. Huang Xi Tang was at home, spreading open her suitcase to pack for the trip abroad, but without the slightest excitement. He still remembered her kneeling on the ground, suddenly turning to look at him, a toothbrush in her hand, saying dolefully: “Zhao Ping Jin, if I want to be an actress, will I never be good enough for you in my lifetime?”

To save this relationship, to be with her, he tried every method. She wanted freedom and dignity, she wanted to pursue her dreams without restraint. He had no choice but to risk everything against his entire iron-disciplined family. He knew deeply that his mother’s prejudice was profound, so he devised ways to approach his grandparents. Whenever he had time, he would tell his grandmother in detail how good she was to him. He was too busy with work, often working late at the company, but she would cook porridge for him every night after finishing her scenes, taking care of even the late-night snacks for Ming Ge and Xiao Min around him… He also rashly asked someone to have Huang Xi Tang’s department head call his grandfather, praising this excellent student who had just brought honor to the country at an international film festival. Then he quietly placed her four years of college transcripts, her scholarship certificates, and Director Lin Yong Chuan’s evaluation of her on his grandfather’s desk.

The old man wore his reading glasses and read in the study for two days, finally relenting. At the dinner table that evening, in front of his son and daughter-in-law, he clearly said, “Zhou Er, bring her home for a meal this weekend.”

He remembered the wild joy of that moment.

But that meal never took place because two days later, the incident happened.

In the end, he finally understood that he was just a ladder that someone stepped on to climb higher, only to be pushed down and ridiculed in the end.

What right did she have to be innocent? What right did she have to put on that sorrowful expression? What right did she have to cry?

How could there be such a hateful woman? He hated her to the extreme, so much that he wished he could simply kill her, yet in the end, there was nothing he could do.

Suddenly, a blinding flash of lights appeared before his eyes, and the intense sound of horns only then reached his ears. Zhao Ping Jin was stunned for a second before instinctively pressing hard on the brake pedal and sharply turning the steering wheel. The next moment, the car instantly crashed into the roadside guardrail with a loud bang of steel. His tears finally flowed freely.

The front seat airbag was deployed. He felt relieved, without even a hint of pain, and hazily lost consciousness.