After Flirting with the Wrong Stand-in, I Overturned (GL) - Chapter 57

This room…

Lin Shuyan’s finger lingered before the door.

She suddenly turned her head away and closed her eyes in pain. The image of Ren Xuan nodding slightly had flashed through her mind countless times; even after an entire night, she hadn’t been able to rid herself of that picture.

Feeling somewhat dazed, she pushed the door as if possessed. There was resistance. Shuyan looked down, a bitter smile overflowing on her lips. Of course, the door had a key; how could it be opened so easily?

A stand-in… so I’m really just a stand-in?

Then who is the one Ren Xuan actually loves? Shuyan clenched her fists, her fair fingers straining tight. Her entire body was trembling.

No, I can’t think about this anymore. Shuyan gasped for air, leaning painfully against the door. Her heart, however, was completely out of her control. She felt waves of pain in her abdomen, and her body slowly slid down to the floor.

“Miss Lin!” Butler Wang hurried upstairs and saw this scene. Completely ignoring his old bones, he rushed over.

The Eldest Miss had gone straight to the company without even eating breakfast, and the Young Miss had only been persuaded not to look for “Sister Yan” with great effort. When Ren Xuan returned yesterday, Ren Ke had already fallen asleep. She knew her sister was back, but she hadn’t seen her yet.

Ever since Shuyan had been resting at home, Ren Ke’s breakfast was always shared with her. Butler Wang had made an excuse to coax the Young Miss to school without letting her bother Shuyan. He never expected to find Shuyan here right after he finished.

“Uncle Wang…” Having not slept all night, Shuyan’s face was pale. She stood up staggeringly with his support, waving her hand to indicate she was fine.

How could Butler Wang believe her? How did two people who were always so close suddenly become like this—a pair of lovers who were clearly so intimate just a day ago?

“Miss Lin,” Butler Wang felt that a major event was happening in the household. Seeing the Eldest Miss’s avoidant attitude, he didn’t dare to offer advice rashly. “I’ve prepared silver ear porridge downstairs. It’s your favorite. In the whole wide world, the stomach is the most important thing.”

Shuyan still shook her head; she had no desire to eat at all. This time, however, Butler Wang seemed to have a premonition. He pulled her downstairs directly and brought up the steaming porridge, giving her no reason to refuse.

“The Eldest Miss,” Butler Wang, the informant, immediately sent a message to Ren Xuan the moment Shuyan started eating the porridge.

“Thank you, Uncle Wang.” Ren Xuan was at the company, but almost none of the words on the documents entered her eyes. She had been sitting there dazed since the morning. Seeing the message from Butler Wang, a trace of a smile finally appeared on her face.

It was normal for Shuyan to be sad, heartbroken, or even hateful—as long as she didn’t punish or harm her own body.

Shuyan probably doesn’t want to see me right now, does she? Ren Xuan leaned back in her chair, lost in thought.

Suddenly, Ren Xuan’s eyes sharpened. How did Shuyan find out? Who told her? The fact that the original Ren Xuan had a “White Moonlight” was only known to a few friends. It couldn’t be that they told her.

Unlikely. Ning Yinman wouldn’t speak. Jian Hua was very dissatisfied, but if she were to really expose this to Lin Shuyan… Ren Xuan dismissed them one by one; the possibility was low.

Where did it go wrong? Connecting it to Ning Yinman’s hesitation before she returned, Ren Xuan’s brow furrowed. Ning Yinman had let it slip.

No, Ren Xuan quickly negated that answer. She returned yesterday, and the phone call with Shuyan before her return was normal. The trouble started from…

Her pale knuckles tapped on the sandalwood desk. Ren Xuan narrowed her eyes. It was the outing yesterday—Lin Shuyan went out with Rong Yu!

Ren Xuan picked up her phone and dialed a number. The person who answered soon spoke with a sleepy, hazy voice, “Xuan, what’s wrong so early in the morning?”

“You’re hiding something from me,” Ren Xuan said, her tone certain.

Ning Yinman’s sleepiness vanished by seventy or eighty percent. Daring not to be negligent, she said reflexively, “No.”

It was a complete “protesting too much” performance.

“Lin Shuyan knows,” Ren Xuan said.

“Knows what?” The tense Ning Yinman didn’t react immediately. When she realized the implication, she covered her mouth in shock. “Impossible!”

The rumors were spreading widely, but they were restricted to certain circles. Shuyan had no way of knowing. According to what Ning Yinman had gathered, Shuyan had been staying at the Ren residence. The Ren family had no close relatives in Yecheng; even if someone wanted to gossip to Shuyan, they couldn’t enter the house.

Her worry had been that things wouldn’t be hidden once Shuyan started working and filming again—but definitely not now.

“The person who went out with Lin Shuyan yesterday was your girlfriend, Rong Yu!”

This was even more impossible. The denial was on the tip of Ning Yinman’s tongue, but she pulled it back. Right, she had forgotten about Rong Yu. Given the relationship between Rong Yu and Shuyan, Rong Yu would definitely tell Shuyan the moment she heard the rumor.

But she had also been careful to avoid Rong Yu.

“This…” Ning Yinman’s throat bobbed. Sensing her friend’s current mood, she feared Ren Xuan would take it out on Rong Yu. “She didn’t do it on purpose.”

“I’m not looking for Rong Yu,” Ren Xuan said. “I just want to know exactly what you were hiding from me.”

“It’s…” Ning Yinman knew Ren Xuan was serious. “Since Shuyan knows anyway, I’ll tell you the truth…”

Ning Yinman told Ren Xuan the rumors in full detail, her heart suffering. Where was the original source? Could it really have leaked from someone close?

“Rong Yu, she…” Ren Xuan paused mid-sentence, making Ning Yinman’s heart jump again. “Xuan, Rong Yu really didn’t do it on purpose.” Besides, in this matter, Ren Xuan was clearly the one in the wrong.

“I’m not talking about that,” Ren Xuan said with a lack of confidence. “I want her to go to the Ren residence to accompany Shuyan.”

“Huh?”

“Oh, oh, oh!” Ning Yinman suddenly reacted. “I’ll go ask Rong Yu what she thinks right away.”

“Thank you.”

“Why are the two of us saying things like that!” Ning Yinman hung up and asked Rong Yu. Having not rested well, Rong Yu was also in a daze. Hearing Ning Yinman’s footsteps, she murmured, “I think I made a mistake.”

“Xuan asked if you could go to the Ren house to accompany Lin Shuyan.”

Rong Yu turned her head sharply, understanding everything in an instant. Without waiting for Ning Yinman to ask a second time, she jumped up from her chair. “I’ll go right now.” She didn’t want to wait a single moment; she wanted to see how Lin Shuyan was doing.

Rushing out like an arrow and knocking on the Ren family’s door, Rong Yu was received by Butler Wang. Because he had been told in advance, he recognized immediately why Rong Yu was here.

“After finishing breakfast, Miss Lin went back upstairs.” Butler Wang led Rong Yu to the second floor.

“Miss Rong?” Not hearing footsteps, the butler looked back. Rong Yu had stopped at the final step of the stairs.

“I…” Rong Yu shook her head, suddenly feeling cowardly. She was the one who personally shattered Shuyan’s beautiful dream. Even if it didn’t come directly from her mouth, would seeing her remind Shuyan of the person who let her know about the nightmare?

At this time, perhaps she shouldn’t appear before Lin Shuyan at all.

“Butler Wang,” Rong Yu retreated until she was back in the living room, standing awkwardly on the floor. “I… I’ll just wait for Lin Shuyan here.” The butler didn’t force her, ordered tea to be served, and opened the conversation.

“Miss Rong, can you tell me exactly what happened?”

Rong Yu was startled.

“I truly don’t know,” the butler said.

“Ren—” Rong Yu didn’t even know how to address Ren Xuan anymore, so she used ‘she’ instead. “Did she have a lover before?”

“A lover?” Butler Wang looked blank; he had never heard of one.

“Miss Lin wouldn’t be like this over that. The Eldest Miss has no…” No, Butler Wang knew Ren Xuan. If there were truly no such person, the Eldest Miss would have denied it directly yesterday; the two wouldn’t be in this state.

Did the Eldest Miss really have someone! The butler was shocked. “I… I’ve never heard of it.”

“Let me think.” Butler Wang scratched his head, his face full of disbelief as he paced the living room. As someone who had watched Ren Xuan grow up and was practically family, he had never seen Ren Xuan involved with any boy or girl.

At school?

That didn’t seem right either. Even if the Eldest Miss had an ex, it should be normal; it shouldn’t lead to this current situation.

Butler Wang’s heart received another blow. What on earth is a ‘stand-in’? There’s actually a thing like that?

Seeing the butler’s reactions, if she hadn’t heard the conversation between Ning Yinman and Ren Xuan with her own ears, Rong Yu would have doubted she had it wrong. If the butler who raised her hadn’t noticed a thing, how secretive must Ren Xuan’s “White Moonlight” have been? No wonder the rumors had spread for so many days and the “White Moonlight” herself never appeared.

“I,” Butler Wang stumbled until he finally recalled an answer. “Upstairs… there is a room upstairs that the Eldest Miss never let me touch.”

“That room,” the butler slapped his thigh anxiously, “I don’t have the key either. The Eldest Miss keeps it herself.”

Could the Eldest Miss really be…? Butler Wang sighed, completely unable to understand. Miss Lin was such a good person; seeing her dazed state this morning while picking at her porridge, with both eyes bloodshot… if this was true, the Eldest Miss had done something truly too excessive.

No one noticed the figure flashing past at the corner of the stairs.

Lin Shuyan turned and ran toward the room they shared, practicedly pulling a key from a drawer. Ren Xuan never guarded against her; finding a key was easy.

Aiming the key at the lock, she turned it gently. A voice in the bottom of Shuyan’s heart seemed to be telling her: Stop. Don’t go any further. She had a vague, terrifying premonition that if she took just one step, an abyss would be waiting.

Shuyan gripped her hands tightly, gathered all her courage, pushed the door, closed it behind her, and then raised her eyes to look around.

The room, devoid of any light, was very dark. Heavy curtains hung there, and the air was noticeably oppressive. Shuyan felt for the switch and turned on the lights. The walls were covered in photographs.

Everywhere her eyes reached, there were photos.

The person in the photos was sometimes playing the piano, sometimes dancing, or quietly reading by a window…

They were all of the same woman.

Shuyan’s footsteps stopped before the largest painting. A girl reading under a tree. It was a side-profile shot. That face… it was so familiar…

Shuyan covered her mouth tightly, not letting a single sound escape. She suddenly wanted to run—to run out and never stop for a single moment.