Regardless, Jiang Cha’s personal posts were too private and unsuitable for public viewing, so Ji Fan had the hot search removed.

Whether or not to delete the posts would depend on Jiang Cha’s opinion.

Her phone screen lit up for a moment.
Xu Qingzhu sent her a message.

A long string of condemnations:

“My god, what have you done?”

“I felt so heartbroken reading Jiang Cha’s posts.”

“You’re such a monster.”

“Leaving you is like escaping from hell for her.”

Ji Fan used to think that emotions were a matter of personal choice. She hadn’t asked Jiang Cha to like her, and no matter how much she thought about it or fell for her, it was her own business and had nothing to do with her. She had no responsibility or obligation to respond to someone else’s feelings.

But now, she only felt ironic.

Because now, it was Jiang Cha who had no responsibility or obligation to respond to these feelings.

Their roles had switched, and they had both tasted the bitterness of it.
It was a truly unpleasant taste.

“By the way,”

Ji Fan sent her a voice message.

“I want to find out which media outlet first reported the rumors about Jiang Cha and me having relationship problems. Do you have any connections?”

Xu Qingzhu’s father was a famous journalist, and since they were both in the media industry, their connections among colleagues were much closer than Ji Fan’s, an outsider.
“Sure, I’ll help you find out.”

A moment later, she sent another voice message.

“Actually, we can guess. Who do you think would lose if Jiang Cha became famous through this movie?”

“Her competitors, I guess. But there are too many of them.”

“We can’t possibly check them all one by one. Why don’t we think about who would be most affected if Jiang Cha really became a big star?”

Ji Fan hadn’t paid much attention to Jiang Cha’s interpersonal relationships before, but when Xu Qingzhu mentioned it, she suddenly thought of someone.

“Luo Yan?”

“Two people who look too similar are indeed the most direct competitors.”

Ji Fan’s black pen paused briefly on the paper, leaving a dark ink blot.

Xu Qingzhu smiled lightly, “We’re just guessing, after all, we don’t have any clues right now.”

Ji Fan sighed and shook her head.
Her thoughts were in a mess.

Ji Fan stood up, grabbed her long coat from the office sofa, put it on, took her black crocodile skin handbag from the coat rack, slung it over her shoulder, and went downstairs to go home.

••••

Jiang Cha had no idea.

In just one day, the online sentiment had completely changed.

The defamatory remarks had disappeared. Not a single one remained.

Instead, the barrage of verbal attacks had shifted from Jiang Cha to Ji Fan. She was the one suffering now.

Overnight, three pieces of negative news about Ji Fan had surfaced.

The first one was titled: “#JiFanApologizesWithFlowers”

Attached to it was a dimly lit video clip.

Jiang Cha’s clear eyes widened in disbelief as she stared at the video. Her fingers trembled as she clicked on it.

It was from the night Ji Fan had sent her flowers. The beginning and end had been cut out, leaving only the middle part. Someone had deleted the parts where she didn’t answer the door for a long time, where she threw away the roses, and where the box was smashed, as if they were afraid of causing her any harm.

With the title, the video was clearly guiding public opinion.

Who did it?

Jiang Cha lowered her eyes and quietly watched the person in the video.

Her expression was somewhat complex.

The light outlined a tall figure. A woman with long, dark curly hair, slightly thin, holding a large transparent box awkwardly behind her.

A side profile, full of embarrassment and unease.

Her finger touched the screen, she paused it, and slowly slid her finger, gently outlining a vague silhouette.

Jiang Cha’s long eyelashes trembled, and her calm eyes, like an autumn lake, were suddenly ruffled by the wind, rippling gently.

Then she saw Ji Fan’s apology letter.

Jiang Cha hovered her index finger over the screen, hesitated for a moment, and then clicked on it. She read the letter quietly from beginning to end.

A smile lingered on her face.

The more she read, the colder her expression became.

If she was only feeling guilty and had a change of heart, then there was no need for this.

What she wanted to hear wasn’t “I’m sorry.”

It was something else.

As for what, Jiang Cha was a bit confused and simply put it aside.

She clicked on the forward button, typed a lot of words on the blank screen, paused for a moment, then deleted them one by one. She looked at it indifferently for a moment, and finally didn’t say a word.

What was there to say?

Ji Fan was just feeling guilty.

What was there to talk about?

The comments kept pouring in.

“Why is there only one forward?”

“It’s obvious what it means. It’s like saying ‘I’ve read it.'”

“So Jiang Cha accepted her apology? I don’t think so.”

“Of course not. Didn’t you see that Chacha didn’t even bother to reply to her? She probably just forwarded it as a formality.”

“I think so too.”

On the other side, Ji Fan stared at Jiang Cha’s response, lost in thought.

What did it mean?

Had she forgiven her?
Or not?

How difficult it was to guess someone’s mind.

Ji Fan furrowed her brows slightly and picked up her cup with her long, slender fingers, taking a sip of coffee.

But she must have read the letter she wrote.

Ji Fan lowered her eyes, her white fingers curled up slightly, feeling a little awkward.

She picked up her pen and wrote an arrow next to the name “Jiang Cha” in her notebook, and noted beside it: “Completed: Apology letter; To be completed: Send rabbit.”

Ji Fan asked her driver to take her to a pet store in the commercial pedestrian street.

The area was very lively. New buds were sprouting from the trees on both sides of the asphalt road, looking like a layer of light green floating from a distance, and the sky was blown clean and blue by the wind.

The car stopped in front of a small shop.

It was a store that specialized in selling rabbits.

The pet store was not large and sold various types of pet rabbits, lop-eared rabbits, long-haired rabbits, and cat-like rabbits. They were jumping around in transparent cages, kicking their hind legs. Their long ears twitched, and their little paws rested on the cage wall, looking around curiously. Their eyes were round and bright black, with the innocent and harmless quality of herbivorous animals.

Ji Fan entered the store.

“Hello. Which one do you like?” the clerk asked enthusiastically.

Ji Fan thought they were all cute. She bent down slightly and habitually stuck her index finger through the round hole in the cage wall.

Immediately, a pure white lop-eared rabbit came over and licked her fingertip gently with its little tongue.

Ji Fan smiled lightly

“Wow, what a coincidence,” the clerk said with a smile. “The rabbit licking you means it likes you.”

Hmm.

Her long eyelashes drooped.

The rabbit continued to obediently lick her finger, warm and soft.

Ji Fan looked at it and suddenly lowered her long eyelashes, feeling that it was surprisingly similar to someone.

Jiang Cha used to like this a lot.

Her heart moved:
“I’ll take this one.”

••••

The rabbit was temporarily settled in her house.

It’s very well-behaved. It loves to eat rabbit food and Timothy hay. Occasionally, it will nibble on a molar biscuit and often nudges the cage door with its nose, trying to escape.

When it’s hungry, it will frantically paw at the cage wall, summoning the servants to feed it.

Rabbits are so cute, Jiang Cha will like it, right?

But as for how to give it to her, she still has no idea.

At night, Ji Fan couldn’t sleep. She got up in her nightgown and had a glass of wine before going back to bed. Half-drunk and half-awake, she had a dream.

In the dream, she was in a coffee shop.

It was just a hundred meters from the school gate, a left turn out of the gate.

When they were together during college, they hardly had normal dates. The only place they met frequently was this coffee shop.

The shop was of a moderate size, and the outdoor terrace was covered with thin, dark brown wooden strips. Two retro small lights were lit in front of the door, burning day and night. The inside was always filled with the aroma of coffee, mixed with the smell of freshly baked bread, a strong fragrance.

It snowed that day, and the road outside was slippery and slightly muddy.

Jiang Cha was sitting next to her, quietly doing her homework. When she was focused, she had a very gentle and focused demeanor. She would only occasionally look up, her eyes bright as she glanced at her, and then lower her long eyelashes in great satisfaction.

The dream was so strange.

It felt like the current consciousness had slipped into the body of the past me, Ji Fan.

Back then, she always kept my head down to read and didn’t pay much attention to the girl next to her.
But in the dream, she was almost greedy.

Ji Fan just quietly looked at Jiang Cha, her gaze wandering inch by inch. She pinched Jiang Cha’s fingers, then her wrist, her index finger touching the pulse, the pale blue blood vessels, warm and soft.

Jiang Cha looked up, her dark and bright eyes staring at her quietly.

So obedient, so quiet.

Allowing others to do anything to her.

The dim light added a touch of ambiguity.

It had been a long time since Jiang Cha had looked at her like this.

Ji Fan leaned in slightly, her breath trembling, and kissed her white forehead.

Jiang Cha dodged as if ticklish.

Ji Fan smiled lightly and held back, doing nothing else.

I don’t know how long it had been, but she took Jiang Cha out.

The night was deep, and two small lights hung outside the coffee shop.

Snowflakes were falling under the lights, blown around by the wind, one by one, quiet and clean.

Jiang Cha’s pointed chin shrank into the cashmere scarf as if afraid of the cold, revealing a pair of extremely beautiful eyes. The white corners of her eyes were slightly red, and her eyes were filled with a watery haze.

“Let’s not go back to the dorm,” Ji Fan held Jiang Cha’s hand and said softly.

Jiang Cha didn’t refuse, her downcast eyes were very delicate.

She led her for a long walk, the night was silent, and there was almost no one on the road.

It was very cold, so she wrapped her hands around hers.

The scene in the dream switched very quickly and without logic.

The light turned dim.

Jiang Cha straddled her, her naked body pressed against her, breathing into her ear like she was drowning. A pair of small, white hands climbed onto her shoulders, scratching lightly in an unbearable way.

Ji Fan kissed her ear.

Her white and bony hands were dripping with water droplets, very flexible and wanton.

“Why don’t you make a sound?”

In the dream, she leaned in to ask, “Scream.”

“You won’t let me.”

A pair of aggrieved eyes, stained with tears.

Ji Fan was startled and woke up.

The pillow was empty, and the quilt was cold.

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