There was a soft click.

The door to the next room opened, and a small child peered through the crack, looking around curiously.

Ji Fan turned her head, and their eyes met.

The child was startled by the wetness in her eyes and quickly closed the door.

There were three apartments on each floor here.

The noise must have alerted the neighbors.

After all, this place was different from their previous residence. The apartments were far apart, and they could make as much noise as they wanted without worrying about being heard by the neighbors. But now, with only a wall separating them, even the slightest sound could be heard throughout the entire floor, especially since Jiang Cha wasn’t the only resident.

The turbulence in Ji Fan’s emotions gradually subsided.

After all, Jiang Cha was a celebrity, and it would be a bad influence if any of her private matters were exposed.

She could only keep knocking on the door.

She knocked for a long time, her knuckles aching, but there was no sound from inside.

“I’m leaving,” she said softly, standing outside the door.

There was a long silence, followed by the sound of high heels fading away and then the elevator door opening and closing.

On the other side, Jiang Cha was sitting on the floor, leaning against the door.

The floor was cold.

She didn’t know what she was waiting for.

Her phone dinged.

Ji Fan had sent her two words:

“I’m sorry.”

Jiang Cha looked at the two words quietly and smiled wryly.

It was like a self-mockery.

She didn’t need Ji Fan to feel any apology, pity, or sympathy towards her.

Jiang Cha stood up, tossed her phone aside, and calmed down. She turned on the lamp and began to read the book that Song Baiwei had lent her.

The cover felt very textured, and the content must be interesting.

Whenever she encountered something she didn’t understand, she would take a photo and send it to Song Baiwei.

At this moment, a red dot appeared at the bottom of her WeChat contacts.

Jiang Cha clicked on it and was slightly surprised.

It was Bai Yihan.

Her profile picture was a white rabbit lying quietly on the withered gray grass in autumn.

Innocent and pure.

Jiang Cha’s white finger hovered over the screen, hesitating slightly, unsure whether to accept her friend request.

The Bai Yihan she remembered could be summed up in two words: clean.

She always wore loose white school uniforms, and her slender figure made her look like a living clothes rack. She liked to keep her hair shoulder-length, and it was very healthy, black, and shiny. Her skin was fair, her jawline was slender, and her gaze was always clear, with a slight smile as she looked at you, her eyes seeming to be filled with tiny stars.

She had been a child when the concept of “the four major pits of biology, chemistry, environment, and materials” didn’t exist. Bai Yihan had been very interested in biochemistry since she was young, and her family fully supported her.

Later, they sent her abroad.

And then there was no more news.

She left behind only a leaf vein bookmark as a birthday gift.

A table lamp was lit on the desk, casting its light on the leaf vein bookmark sandwiched in the book.

It was no longer the one Bai Yihan had given her back then.

But the veins were thin, the patterns were intricate, and there was a slight hint of brown, making it equally beautiful.

Should she accept it?

Jiang Cha hesitated for a while, still uncertain.

Procrastination got the better of her, so she simply put it aside and decided to go wash up.

But she forgot all about it after washing up.

Wrapped in a bath towel, she returned to her room. Opening the closet to find pajamas, she rummaged through it and pulled out a white shirt.

Under the wooden hanger, the soft fabric was slightly transparent in the soft light.

The closet was made of camphor wood, which was insect-proof and had a faint, soothing scent.

The shirt had also taken on that faint, comforting fragrance. Jiang Cha habitually leaned in and buried her nose in the shirt, noticing a familiar scent.

It was more like sandalwood than camphor wood.

A cool, slightly cold scent.

After putting it on, Jiang Cha suddenly realized something was wrong.

It seemed a bit too big.

The size was a bit large, and it was slightly loose around the waist and chest.

This shirt seemed to belong to Ji Fan.

How did it end up here?

Jiang Cha lowered her eyes, and a complex look flashed in her clear eyes.

She stared at it indifferently for a long time and then took it off.

It was just too eye-catching to leave it here. Jiang Cha held the collar of the shirt with her index finger and was about to throw it in the trash can.

But her finger stopped above it.

She seemed a bit hesitant. Such a clean shirt would be a waste to throw away.

She sighed.

Forget it, she would just hang it back up.

••••

The elevator stopped on the first floor. Ji Fan, slightly wrapped in her hands against the chilly night, waited for the driver.

The community backed onto a mountain and faced the bustling city. Even at night, she could still faintly hear the slight sound of the crowd outside. Ji Fan didn’t like this kind of place before; it was too noisy. In a noisy place, one was more likely to feel their loneliness compared to a quiet and secluded place.

But if she could be neighbors with Jiang Cha, it wouldn’t be bad to move here.

Should she move here?

But what if Jiang Cha didn’t want to see her and moved to another place after she moved in.

Ji Fan realized belatedly that she was now like an expired patch, unable to stick anywhere.

She had never felt so miserable when Luo Yan wanted to break up with her.

Jiang Cha didn’t like her.

No one in the world liked her anymore.

Her phone lit up, and Xu Qingzhu called to inquire about the situation.

“So, how did it go?” Xu Qingzhu asked curiously, “What did you say to her?”

Ji Fan lowered her eyes and said indifferently, “Not good.”

“I asked her when she would go home with me. Jiang Cha said, ‘No. It’s better if we break up.'”

Ji Fan, carrying a bag in one hand and the phone in the other, suddenly felt incredibly tired in the night breeze:

“She just wants to break up with me.”

After listening for a while, Xu Qingzhu asked in confusion, “Have you ever confessed your feelings to her?”

Ji Fan’s long eyelashes trembled, and a hint of bewilderment flashed across her expression.

“No.”

Xu Qingzhu chuckled: “What were you thinking? You’ve never confessed to anyone else, so why do you expect her to like you? That doesn’t make sense! And besides, rushing up to someone and asking them to go home with you, any normal person would say no!”

Ji Fan lowered her eyes.

Pursing her lips, a blush crept up her fair ears.

Confess.

How could she?

How could she say those words?

Ji Fan hung up the phone, feeling that Xu Qingzhu, this love guru, was just a troublemaker. She disagreed with her on everything, and she never had any good ideas, just a bunch of bad ones.

Her phone dinged, and Xu Qingzhu, the troublemaker, sent her another message:

Xu Qingzhu: How do you usually interact with her? What do you call her?

Ji Fan: Just like that.

Xu Qingzhu: Have you ever called her “Baby Chacha” or something like that?

Ji Fan’s finger trembled: …

She sent a long string of ellipses.

That was too cheesy.

Xu Qingzhu: Okay, okay, I know you can’t say it. But you can do something, right?

Ji Fan: ?

Xu Qingzhu: Send flowers. Roses, a big bouquet of roses, blue eternal roses, whatever she likes.

Xu Qingzhu: Then get a small card, something subtle. You can copy a love poem or something.

Sending flowers was a good idea.

She could simply order a bouquet and have someone send it to her, and she wouldn’t even have to show up. This would avoid many awkward and embarrassing situations that she would find difficult to handle.

Buying flowers was easy. Ji Fan, being a person of action, directly ordered a bouquet of 99 preserved red roses, arranged in a heart shape, and sealed in a transparent box.

A love poem?

Ji Fan thought for a moment and picked up a pen.

She left neat handwriting on the card.

Her strokes were slightly connected at the fingertips, but it was a standard and elegant regular script.

You,

Sometimes look at me,

Sometimes look at the clouds.

I feel that,

When you look at me, it’s far away,

When you look at the clouds, it’s near.

That’s Gu Cheng’s “Far and Near.”

Ji Fan couldn’t write poetry, but she thought of this poem in an instant.

It was quite apt to describe them.

Ji Fan lowered her eyes.

Her heart was beating unusually fast.

What would her reaction be when she received it?

••••

On the other side.

“Is the press release ready?”

A woman’s voice.

“It’s done. We can just buy a trending search.” Another person replied, “Shall we put it up now?”

“Yeah.”

Less than an hour later.

#JiFanJiangChaSuspectedRelationshipBreakdown#

[Reporter captured Jiang Cha not wearing her wedding ring on her left hand, the two are suspected of being separated, Ji and Jiang may have divorced.]

There were three pictures below.

The first picture was taken in the restaurant where they had dinner yesterday. Jiang Cha was holding a silver utensil in her left hand, cutting a steak, and there was no jewelry on her ring finger.

The second picture showed Jiang Cha at the entrance of her apartment complex, with her hair tied in a high ponytail, wearing a white baseball cap, black sweatpants, and carrying two bags of freshly bought vegetables in her right hand. The white plastic bag had the logo of the supermarket next to the apartment complex printed on it.

The third picture was of Ji Fan knocking on the door in the corridor, while the door was tightly closed.

Ji Fan would definitely not live in a place like this.

It was obvious that Jiang Cha was not living with Ji Fan, and the two were separated.

And Jiang Cha was not wearing her wedding ring on her left hand.

Even a passerby who didn’t know the ins and outs could guess what had happened.

Either they had already divorced or their relationship had broken down.

But wasn’t it too soon?

It’s only been so long!

How could they get married and divorced so quickly?

On the other side, someone else revealed that the “Honeymoon Trip” program team had invited Jiang Cha to join, but was rejected by her agent.

With multiple pieces of information combined, the seemingly true and false news suddenly became much more believable.

The rumors spread more and more widely, and so far, neither party has come forward to clarify.

“Jiang Cha must have cheated in the marriage.”

“She gained a lot of fans by coming out before, but now look, haha.”

“A straight woman pretending to be a lesbian? That’s so fake.”

“It can’t be that bad, right? At most, she just wants to get a divorce and split some of the property. Just think about how big the Ji family’s fortune is.”

“Tsk tsk tsk.”

••••

Jiang Cha had just finished washing her hair, wrapped in a towel, and was about to step out of the bathroom when she was bombarded by a series of messages.

She looked at the bunch of unread messages on WeChat, her heart tightened, and her heartbeat suddenly quickened.

Then her phone rang.

It was Yang Yan.

She swiped her finger and answered the phone, stopping the hand that was wringing the towel.

“Hello?”

“Your relationship with Ji Fan has been exposed.”

Her voice was a little tense. “I don’t know who did it, but the situation is not good right now. I’ve written a clarification letter with the company, and I’ll send it to you now. You can see if it’s okay.”

---

T/N: I guess Ji Fan is quite pitiful in this chapter. Sigh… She deserves it.