The cruelty and darkness within people are bound to surface. Before Chen Jing, Lin Mei had never harbored such malice towards anyone.
Her parents had always taught her to be magnanimous. While she had encountered unfriendly people throughout her life, most had been kind. Only Chen Jing had drawn all her animosity, wishing her dead without any deep-seated hatred.
A memory of Chen Jing slapping her flashed in Lin Mei's mind. She stepped forward, raised her arm, and delivered a fierce slap to Chen Jing.
Bound, Chen Jing could not retaliate despite her fury. She could only glare hatefully at Lin Mei. Lin Mei paid no mind to her gaze, delivering a second slap after the first, her palm growing numb.
Lan Lan came forward and pulled Lin Mei back. Seeing Lin Mei's reddened palm, she said, "Take a break, I'll do it."
Lan Lan was far more skilled at fighting. Unlike Lin Mei, who relied on brute force, Lan Lan was a technician, each strike calculated for angle and impact. She could torment someone to the point of wishing they were dead without expending much strength.
Within minutes, Chen Jing had gone mad. She shrieked like a lunatic, "Lin Mei, you idiot who can only rely on men!"
"Still talking back, you bitch? I'll slap your mouth until it's unrecognizable today!" Lan Lan delivered another slap to Chen Jing.
Chen Jing became even more unhinged. She roared at Lin Mei, "You're a fool! My brother never saved you. You treated him like a savior, like an idiot, and gave our family over a million yuan, hahahaha, you stupid bitch!"
The room fell silent. Lin Mei froze in place, Lan Lan stopped her assault, and Feng Feng looked at Chen Jing with a stern expression.
A minute later, Feng Feng picked up a basin of ice water and splashed it onto Chen Jing's face. "Are you awake now?"
Chen Jing's face contorted. "You think I'm lying?"
Feng Feng asked, "What do you know?"
Chen Jing was clearly not in her right mind, but her words held significant credibility. Likely driven to extreme despair and with no other recourse, she sought to retaliate against Lin Mei in this manner. If her words were true, a more detailed truth could be uncovered.
Chen Jing had gone to see Lin Mei. Upon seeing her distraught state, she laughed even more arrogantly and blurted out, "You got together with my brother because you thought he saved your life, didn't you? All these years, you've seen him as your savior, haven't you? Haha...! Stupid bitch! He never saved you; he just happened to be passing by the hospital. But you, like a fool, decided it was him and stayed with him for over six years. Serves you right!"
Chen Jing had known this all along. Previously, she had intended to use the "life-saving grace" to morally blackmail Lin Mei into working for the Chen family, so she had never revealed it. Now that their relationship had soured, there was no need to conceal it.
She simply wanted to witness Lin Mei's reaction upon realizing she had wasted over six years of her life – the prime of a woman's years. Lin Mei believed she was with her savior, unaware that it was a lie from beginning to end.
Lin Mei stepped forward and grabbed Chen Jing's clothes. For the first time, a ruthless look appeared in her eyes as she interrogated Chen Jing like a prisoner, "Who saved me?"
"Who the hell knows? Probably another idiot like you, played for a fool!"
Chen Qi himself didn't know who had saved Lin Mei. Chen Jing had asked him, and Chen Qi had said he had intentionally gone out to find the person to avoid being implicated if discovered, but he couldn't find anyone. After waiting for a few days, the person never appeared, and Chen Qi felt at ease.
Lin Mei, Lan Lan, and Feng Feng moved to a separate private room, closed the door, and sat down. Lin Mei's head throbbed. She rubbed her temples, the sound of Chen Jing's hysterical cries echoing in her ears…
The person who saved her back then was not Chen Qi!
Lin Mei was not regretful about having mistakenly invested six years of her youth. Her relationship with Chen Qi had already ended, and that period could no longer evoke strong emotional responses from her. What she wanted now was to know who had saved her back then, and whether this matter was somehow related to Xing Zheng.
"Are you okay?" Feng Feng patted Lin Mei's shoulder and asked.
"Do you remember when I lost my student ID card in college?" Lin Mei asked a question unrelated to the current conversation, bringing up their college days. Feng Feng and Lan Lan had been close to Lin Mei since their first year, and there were almost no secrets between them, so they naturally remembered this.
Lan Lan replied, "I remember. You lost it the day your asthma acted up and you were sent to the hospital. I went with you to the student union to get a replacement."
Lin Mei's breath trembled. "A few days ago, I saw that student ID card in Xing Zheng's study…"
"The student ID card you lost?" Feng Feng's expression faltered. They all understood the implication.
Lan Lan's eyelids twitched. She blurted out, "The student ID card you lost on the day of your accident is at Xing Zheng's place? How could he… Could it be that he saved you?"
Lin Mei and Feng Feng had the same thought. Neither of them responded to Lan Lan, lost in thought, trying to find clues from fragmented memories. However, they found nothing. Finally, Feng Feng confirmed with Lin Mei, "You didn't misidentify it?"
Lin Mei was certain. "I didn't misidentify it. I don't even have a duplicate of that photo myself."
"If he saved you, why didn't he appear, allowing Chen Qi to seize the opportunity?" Feng Feng couldn't understand this. If Xing Zheng had been interested in Lin Mei back then, he should have appeared after saving her. Xing Zheng wasn't the type to do good deeds and remain anonymous; he even paved the way for others!
"Wait, you had your accident at the beginning of your second year, right?" Lan Lan seemed to have pieced something together. "Ming Zhou mentioned that Xing Zheng went to Binzhou at the beginning of his second year. Am I remembering correctly?"
Feng Feng replied, "You are."
Not only that, Ming Zhou had also revealed that Xing Zheng was forcibly sent away by his family at the time, meaning he lacked freedom of movement when he left Nanjiang University.
Connecting these pieces, Feng Feng deduced, "Is it possible that after taking you to the hospital, he was taken away?"
Otherwise, there was no reason for him to be absent for so long, allowing Chen Qi to benefit from the situation for no reason.
Lan Lan snapped her fingers. "And then he couldn't forget about you. After settling abroad, he hired people to track you, monitoring your and Chen Qi's lives daily… Ugh, it's a bit creepy, but it seems to explain why he had those photos."
Lan Lan's reasoning this time was quite logical, and Feng Feng agreed. Without daily surveillance, it would be impossible to have such complete photos. However, she couldn't comprehend Xing Zheng's methods, likely due to her inability to empathize with a mentally disturbed person.
"Holy crap, I just thought of something else," Lan Lan grabbed Lin Mei's arm. "Could it be that the women Chen Qi was involved with were also arranged by Xing Zheng?"
Lin Mei's mind buzzed, her brain feeling as if it had crashed, unable to process anything. "But why would he do that? I don't even know him."
Feng Feng stated her conclusion, "I suspect he had his eyes on you much earlier."