After Lu Yicheng and Lu Siyan left, Jiang Ruoqiao got busy.

She knew Jiang Yan well enough. If the girl wasn’t a blood sister, a paternal cousin, or a maternal cousin, then she had to be someone very close to him in daily life — otherwise, given his personality, he would never have brought her into a friend group game, let alone told his friends she was his “little sister.” If she was that close, then in this age of digital information, there would inevitably be traces of her on Jiang Yan’s social platforms.

There’s a saying that rings true: when a woman truly sets her mind to something, every woman becomes a detective.

Jiang Ruoqiao genuinely wasn’t all that invested in the “cheating” itself, because regardless of whether it happened, the outcome would be the same — a breakup. And likewise, a man who cheated wasn’t worth her spending energy on a graceful parting.

What she needed to verify now was exactly what kind of relationship Jiang Yan had with this “little sister,” so she could think through her next steps.

*Stars Not Moon.*

She didn’t play games and had no reason to download one just to track down this person.

Jiang Yan’s WeChat moments — she couldn’t see interactions with non-friends anyway.

So she turned to Weibo.

Jiang Yan’s Weibo was practically a ghost account.

He had few followers, rarely posted anything himself, and generally only reposted her content. It was completely inactive.

She scrolled patiently all the way to the bottom without skipping a single comment or repost, and finally, in the “likes” section of a post from two years ago, she found a suspicious trace.

A like from “Stars are Stars.”

Weibo didn’t have a visitor tracking feature yet, but Jiang Ruoqiao was always careful. She switched to her secondary account before clicking into this person’s page.

“Stars are Stars” was a very young female student.

Her follower count wasn’t large, but she liked sharing her life. Jiang Ruoqiao scrolled through every single post and came away with three very useful pieces of information.

First, this girl came from money — she was clearly from a wealthy family.

Second, several of her Weibo location tags placed her at “Prestigious River Residence” — the same villa community as Jiang Yan’s family. What a coincidence.

Third, this girl was currently on the island.

Her posting frequency had been higher over the past few days, and several of her locations were pinned to a certain part of the island.

Could there really be such a coincidence?

More tellingly — two days ago, the girl had photographed a dinner table, and a hand had slipped into frame. Jiang Ruoqiao recognized it at once: it was Jiang Yan’s.

Then there was a set of nine photos from late last year showing fireworks, and in one of them, there was a person’s silhouette in the background.

It was Jiang Yan again.

So this was the “little sister” Jiang Yan had brought into the game.

If Lu Yicheng had been keeping anything from her today, it was probably that this “little sister” was also on the island.

Jiang Ruoqiao hadn’t overlooked a single comment or repost.

It took nearly two hours, but she pieced together that the girl’s name was Ke Xing, she had just turned eighteen this year, and had originally been planning to study abroad. But family elders had been worried about her going overseas alone, so she had stayed in China for university. She had done well enough in her college entrance exams to receive an acceptance letter from a university in Jing Shi.

The girl’s emotional world was delicate and tender. Several posts had been written late at night, carrying a wistful sweetness. Jiang Ruoqiao recognized it immediately — a girl harboring quiet, unrequited feelings. Perhaps it was the preconceived notion she had walked in with, but her instinct told her that the person Ke Xing was silently in love with was, in all likelihood, Jiang Yan.

Youthful longing is always poetic — especially a love that goes unspoken. Even Jiang Ruoqiao, reading it, couldn’t help but feel a pang of sentiment. *How achingly beautiful.*

What a fitting match.

Their backgrounds were probably similar — after all, they lived in the same villa community, and they were vacationing together, which meant the parents had arranged it, suggesting the two families were on comparable social footing.

Ke Xing’s self-portraits and photos showed someone who wasn’t jaw-dropping but had a pleasant, comfortable quality — pure without being plain, with a quiet refinement. Jiang Yan was also strikingly good-looking, and the two of them standing together would surely make a picture: him tall and dashing, her soft and delicate.

Jiang Ruoqiao wouldn’t pretend she felt nothing.

It was just that the hurt was too small to measure.

And what was the point of hurt? Could it be cashed in for anything? Other than making herself look weak and pitiable, what use was it?

Jiang Ruoqiao had been in two or three relationships before this. With Jiang Yan, as with her other past boyfriends, she had genuinely liked each of them — without real feeling, dating purely for the sake of circumstances would be meaningless to her. And at this stage of her life, it was impossible to think as far ahead as marriage. Young people were supposed to enjoy what romance had to offer. But to say her feelings ran very deep? That would be an exaggeration, if she were honest.

Her best friend had once told her: if you truly, deeply love someone, breaking up cannot possibly be peaceful.

Every gut-wrenching love story, without exception, ends in devastating pain when it falls apart. Some people may feel numb at first, even relieved — but with time, those memories begin to float to the surface.

But Jiang Ruoqiao? She hadn’t experienced that.

People who have truly loved and then separated almost always carry the resolve to never cross paths with that person again — to draw an absolute line between themselves and the other person forever.

Her best friend had said: Jiang Ruoqiao, you’ve never truly been in love with anyone.

Jiang Ruoqiao refused to believe it. She called it maturity.

Did a relationship have to be all-consuming and earth-shattering — did a breakup have to leave you shattered for sleepless nights — for it to count as real?

Why put yourself through that? She thought her way of doing things was perfectly fine.

Meanwhile, as Jiang Ruoqiao was working out how to get the breakup on the calendar, over on the island, the sun was sinking toward the horizon. Jiang Yan was walking with his mother along the shore. The two of them rarely had moments this leisurely together — the island scenery was breathtaking. At that hour, orange light poured across the entire earth; walking along the cobblestone path, they could faintly hear waves crashing against the rocks. Coconut palms swayed, the water was clear, the sand was pale — everything was peaceful and lovely.

Jiang Yan’s mother was in her forties, her smooth hair pulled up, wearing a blue-green long dress. The years had left their marks on her face, but she carried herself with ease and grace.

At a certain spot, Jiang’s mother stopped and pointed toward a resort not far away. Her eyes held a deep, weighted longing. “So many years ago, your father brought me here to relax. He always said he wanted to build a resort on that stretch of land.”

Jiang Yan’s expression quieted.

He didn’t look in that direction.

Over the years he had learned what it meant to taste the cold and warm of the world. Jiang Yan’s life could be divided at the age of ten: before ten, he was the only son of Jiang Wenyuan, a self-made entrepreneur who had built his own business empire. Jiang Wenyuan had been successful, his marriage happy, his son clever — yet the tides of commerce could shift in an instant. Jiang Wenyuan lacked the depth of resources and family background to withstand the upheaval when it came. When everything fell apart, he was essentially powerless, able only to watch as his empire crumbled.

Jiang Wenyuan also died in an accident. After his death, the Jiang family disintegrated, and not long after, declared bankruptcy.

The Jiang Yan after the age of ten had no home, and the father he had admired and looked up to was gone.

In the years since, Jiang Yan had no desire to revisit those memories, and even less desire to hear his mother speak of how spirited and proud his father had once been.

They both needed to accept the present.

Jiang’s mother sighed softly. “I hardly dream of him anymore. Now that you’re in university and an adult, there’s not much I can manage about your affairs. But, Ah-Yan — don’t forget your father. He loved you most of all. And don’t blame him — he had no choice. If he could have chosen, I believe more than anyone that he would have wanted to see you grow up.”

“That’s enough,” Jiang Yan cut her off. “Mom, I know you’re not entirely happy. Why don’t you quit your job?”

After the Jiang family collapsed, Jiang’s mother hadn’t fallen to pieces — she still had her son. Just at that time, a close friend from her past needed an assistant, and called to ask if she was willing.

The two had been at school together, and Jiang’s mother had always been the most brilliant among them. Now she was to become an assistant to someone who had never outshone her in any way. Jiang’s mother had deliberated for a long time, but in the end she agreed — because she didn’t want to leave this circle. Working as Lin Madam’s assistant still allowed her to accompany Lin Madam into circles ordinary people couldn’t access; she could stay sharp and attuned. And Lin Madam’s salary was genuinely generous, enough to give her son a slightly better life.

Lin Madam allowed her to live in the Lin family villa, in her own private suite. Her son could live there too.

She didn’t want her son to drift away from this world.

She didn’t want her son to become someone unremarkable in the vast crowd of ordinary people.

And so she had made sure her son grew up embedded in the Lin family — watching how the Lin family’s two heirs conducted themselves, how they spoke, how they dealt with people. Every yuan of her monthly salary she spent not a single cent of on herself, instead buying her son understated, quality brand-name clothing. Whenever she accompanied Lin Madam on shopping outings, she would bring her son along — letting him see what it looked like to spend money without a second thought. She needed this job, because only here could her son still be seen by those who didn’t know better as the high-born, untouchable only son of the Jiang family.

But she would never let her son know the extent of her calculations.

In her son’s eyes, and in everyone else’s eyes, she was simply a devoted mother who had given everything for her child.

“Quit?” Jiang’s mother smiled and shook her head. “I’ve been at the Lin family for ten years. I’m used to it now. And if I quit, where would the two of us live? Ah-Yan, don’t worry about me — I won’t be a burden to you. I’ll keep saving money to support you when you’re ready to start your own family.”

Jiang Yan didn’t know what to say to that.

But his mother had a point — she had spent ten years at the Lin family and had grown accustomed to that life. If she quit and they moved out to rent a place, she might not be able to adjust.

Jiang’s mother had been about to bring up Lin Kexing, but swallowed the words before they came out.

The time wasn’t right yet.

She wanted her son to follow in his father’s footsteps and reclaim his former glory.

She knew better than anyone that her son was deeply capable — he had both ability and talent. If her son was a blade, then right now he was a blade yet to be honed.

All he still needed was the whetstone.