Jiangg Yao didn’t have the courage to rush in and stop them. She stared blankly for a long time, watching how happy Chen Yuan looked… The love in his eyes was so thick it seemed about to overflow.

The way he caressed Jiangg Ning’s cheek was so gentle.

It was as if he feared the slightest pressure might hurt her.

Yet, that gentle gesture struck Jiangg Yao’s heart with a devastating blow, and she felt it tremble.

‘What should I do? Rush in, screaming and shouting? Cry and throw a fit?’

‘Tell him the one getting close to you right now isn’t your girlfriend, but her twin sister?’

‘Force them apart, scream hysterically, and let him see me at my absolute ugliest?’

None of that was possible, just as she had realized earlier in the living room.

Between her and Jiangg Ning, only one could ever appear before Chen Yuan. The other was relegated to being a bystander, forced to do nothing but watch with her own two eyes.

There was nothing she could do!

From the moment they started hiding the truth, she and Jiangg Ning had backed themselves into a corner. There was no other path to take. The life they’d built on a lie was too wonderful to abandon, but it came at a heavy price.

This all began over seven months ago, when Jiangg Yao handed her phone to her sister and asked her to pretend to be his girlfriend for a bit, just like how they used to swap identities for trivial things as children.

This outcome had been set in stone.

Jiangg Yao could now feel exactly what her sister had gone through. To see the one she loved being taken by another—the pain was heart-wrenching.

The crack in the door was a sharp dividing line between two different worlds.

She couldn’t watch anymore. She turned, clamped a hand over her mouth, and fled.

…

Jiangg Yao hid in her room and cried her heart out, burying herself under the covers as tears streamed down her cheeks, soaking the pillow.

Her heart was filled with a bitter sorrow, and her mind was flooded with the scene she had just witnessed. She couldn’t calm down at all.

“Wan, I…”

It was the middle of the night when Wan suddenly received a call from Jiangg Yao. She was still groggy with sleep and hadn’t fully come to her senses when the sound of crying on the other end of the line forced her awake.

“What’s wrong, Yaoyao? What happened… Don’t cry.”

“I’m so miserable. I don’t want to cry, but I can’t control myself. It hurts so much…”

Her overwhelming sadness had no outlet. A heavy feeling was stuck in Jiangg Yao’s chest, and she had to talk to someone, even if just for a few words.

It was so late, and the two people closest to her were the very source of the incident.

The only person she could confide in was Wan.

Jiangg Yao was different from her sister. Her sister would choose to bear it all alone, keeping it bottled up inside, while she would seek strength elsewhere to support herself.

Wan had no idea what had happened. Listening to Jiangg Yao’s sobs, she felt an inexplicable sadness and comforted her in a soft voice, telling her not to cry.

Jiangg Yao kept crying but wouldn’t say what it was about. Thankfully, having Wan to talk to for a bit made her feel much better. They continued to talk on and off like that.

That night, some cried while others laughed. Some drifted off into sweet dreams, while others lay awake all night.

Humanity’s joys and sorrows are not universal.

…

…

The first ray of morning sun crossed the windowsill, passed through the gap in the curtains, and strolled along the edge of the bed.

Jiangg Ning woke up.

A sharp pain in her head lasted for a while, making it almost impossible for her to open her eyes. She felt the world spin, and her whole body ached as if her bones had been dismantled and then reassembled.

The day after getting drunk was undoubtedly the worst. The more fun you had while drinking, the more you suffered when you woke up.

Jiangg Ning deeply regretted drinking so much yesterday. Everything after a certain point was a blur, and now she couldn’t remember who had brought her home.

‘That’s right, who brought me home?’

Jiangg Ning frowned. Her train of thought was broken. She had to try very hard to get her brain to function normally again.

“AHEM—”

She coughed a couple of times. After about ten minutes of grogginess, the chaos in her mind began to subside, and she could finally push herself up to get out of bed.

But before she could even sit up completely…

Jiangg Ning suddenly felt a warm body next to her. Her eyes widened in astonishment as she looked to her side.

That one glance.

Jiangg Ning was dumbfounded!

The face so close to hers, its features magnified. She could even clearly count his eyelashes. This familiar face—who could it be but Chen Yuan?!

She froze, staring for a long time as countless questions flooded her mind.

Coming back to her senses, her gaze swept across her surroundings.

‘This unfamiliar room…’

Everything that happened yesterday flashed before her eyes in fragmented scenes. Though incomplete, Jiangg Ning pieced them together and instantly understood what had occurred.

A whirlwind of emotions crossed her face.

After a long moment.

‘Fuck!!!’ Jiangg Ning cursed inwardly.

If she couldn’t swear, she’d truly have nothing to say.

The scenes she recalled were hard to believe. Had last night really not been a dream? It had actually happened. She was stunned for a few seconds before her face instantly turned red.

Covering her face, she wished she could find a hole in the ground and crawl into it.

‘I got drunk, had Chen Yuan pick me up, slept in the same bed with him, and even kissed him?!’ Jiangg Ning was so ashamed she wanted to find a pond and drown herself. ‘Was this even me?’

How could she have been so irrational?

This was the absolute height of embarrassment.

Jiangg Ning’s mind was in turmoil. She looked down at Chen Yuan. He was still sleeping, his expression serene. His head was nestled lazily on the pillow, only half his face visible. A beam of light shot through the gap in the curtains, stroking his neck.

The more she looked, the more she felt the urge to cry. She had been determined to stay away from him, even submitting her resignation letter, but now their relationship was getting more and more complicated. How was she going to explain this to her sister!

Jiangg Ning didn’t want to lie. As she was thinking, she suddenly had a horrible thought. ‘I didn’t lose myself last night, did I?!’

At this thought.

She quickly checked her body. Although she was sore all over as if she’d been taken apart, there was no other unusual feeling. Her clothes were still on, though her stockings and shoes had been taken off. Her panties were fine!

Jiangg Ning let out a long sigh of relief!

‘What do I do? Should I just sneak away?’ Jiangg Ning wondered with what little reason she had left. Right now, that seemed to be the most urgent thing to do. Shame could wait—first, flee the scene of the crime!

“You’re awake?”

Just as she turned to get out of bed, the voice beside her made Jiangg Ning jump.

Her whole body went stiff.

“I’m… I’m awake.”

“What are you getting up for?” Chen Yuan looked at her, puzzled, his eyes not yet fully open. He looked exhausted. “Are you looking for some water?”

Although he was tired, Chen Yuan still grabbed the cup of water from the side, sat up, and handed it to her.

“Yes, I was looking for water.”

Jiangg Ning’s cheeks flushed as she took the cup and drank in small sips.

As she drank, she thought, ‘How can the timing be so perfect? I was just about to run and he wakes up. Talk about a timing master…’

She finished the water, put the cup aside, and was just trying to think of an excuse to escape when, the next moment, a pair of warm hands reached out, held her shoulders, and gently forced her to lie back down.

Then, she was pulled into a warm embrace, and the blanket was pulled over her.

“Sleep a little longer. You don’t have class. You drank so much, you should get some proper rest.” Chen Yuan’s voice was gentle, mixed with the heavy, raspy tone of someone who had just woken up. It was enough to make her melt.

Jiangg Ning melted instantly.

Her desire to escape immediately diminished.

‘Women… We just can’t resist gentle words, especially when they come from the person we like.’

‘Well, it’s already come to this. In for a penny, in for a pound. Lying here a little longer won’t make a difference,’ a guilty thought popped into Jiangg Ning’s head. She blushed and snuggled into Chen Yuan’s embrace.

In that moment, feeling his warmth, his hot breath on her neck…

She actually felt… happy.

She had never been held by a boy like this before. Jiangg Ning felt endlessly shy, but nestled in his arms, she suddenly wished this moment could stretch on forever so she could greedily enjoy it a little more.

Nothing else mattered.

Jiangg Ning’s heart fluttered. In contrast to her gloominess over the past few days, her cheeks were now rosy, like a flower in full bloom. For a moment, she looked even more beautiful.

They lay together like that for a long time.

The bedroom was quiet, with only the sound of clothes rustling when they moved. Pushing everything else to the back of her mind, Jiangg Ning actually felt incredibly happy.

If it weren’t for the alcohol, she probably would have never taken this step in her entire life.

Nor would she have experienced the feeling of being immersed in boundless love.

Savoring the memory of last night’s kiss, more images came to mind: Chen Yuan’s endless doting, the helpless look in his eyes as she babbled nonsense, the shy look on his face when she had him pinned beneath her.

She remembered it all.

One such experience was enough to leave an indelible mark on her heart.

Jiangg Ning’s heart was in complete chaos. It seemed she was even more intoxicated than she had been last night.

“I’ll make you breakfast later, so your stomach won’t feel so bad.”

“Ah… You, you know how?” The “don’t” she had wanted to say came out as “you know how?”

‘Seriously, Jiangg Ning, are you leaving or not? If my sister finds out, we’ll be trying to rip each other’s heads off again!’ She inwardly cursed her own weakness as the words on the tip of her tongue changed.

“Of course I do. I’ll make you some congee with century egg and pork.”

“O… Okay.”

“Um, actually, I wanted to ask you, how was my performance yesterday?”

‘Performance?’ Jiangg Ning thought, freezing for a moment.

“It was good, not bad. I don’t know how to put it, mainly because I don’t have much experience either… Let’s not talk about this.”

“Huh? You don’t have any experience with public speaking?” Chen Yuan asked, surprised.

“Public speaking? I do! Oh, you meant the speech…”

“Yeah. What else did you think I was talking about?”

“Nothing, just the speech. That’s what I meant too. Your performance was great.” Jiangg Ning wanted to dive under the covers and never show her face again.

‘How can a simple conversation be this embarrassing?! Please, just stop thinking dirty thoughts. This is so improper.’

Jiangg Ning pinched her thigh with all her might, fighting to keep from making a sound. It was incredibly difficult.

“Then why didn’t you look at me? I kept looking at you from the stage. If you had looked at me, I would have had more courage. I love secretly meeting your eyes at school,” Chen Yuan said softly. “The lighting was dim where you were sitting yesterday, but I thought you were beautiful. My heart has never pounded like it did in that moment.”

“Really?” Jiangg Ning’s head snapped up, unable to believe what he was saying.

“Really. The ‘you’ at school is even more beautiful than the ‘you’ in private. It’s a very special feeling, and holding you feels so surreal. Sometimes I’m still surprised that you’re my girlfriend, and it makes me feel incredibly content.”

Jiangg Ning frowned. What Chen Yuan was saying didn’t match what Jiangg Yao had told her at all.

She sensed it again.

Chen Yuan went on, and his warm words left her stunned for a long time.

Jiangg Ning calmed down within seconds, thinking carefully, sorting through everything that had happened from the very beginning and all of Chen Yuan’s reactions.

A long, long time passed.

「The sun was high in the sky.」

Finally, she reached a conclusion that was terrifying the more she thought about it!

Her fists clenched tighter and tighter.

‘So that’s how it is, Jiangg Yao!!!’

‘You’re so cruel!’

‘So absolutely heartless!’

Jiangg Ning was about to go mad with anger. She wished she could go next door right now and punch her sister so hard her head would end up in her stomach! Nothing else could quench the hatred in her heart!

…

「Next door.」

Jiangg Yao hadn’t slept well all night. With two dark circles under her eyes, she looked like a panda.

The passing hours hadn’t calmed her down; instead, her resentment had only deepened.

Thinking of the scene from last night.

She was about to go mad with anger. She wished she could go next door right now and punch her sister so hard her head would end up in her stomach! Nothing else could quench the hatred in her heart!

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep