Xia Xiwei also fell silent, then chuckled softly, "Yi, what are you talking about? When I wanted to act, out of all the people around me, you were the only one who supported me. How could we become strangers?"
"But your actions now, they are pushing me away..."
Ding Yi’s voice carried a hint of grievance.
"Relax, I just find this person interesting and want to be friends with him."
"He’s not someone suitable for friendship, Sister Xixi. You don’t understand him."
Ding Yi insisted.
Xia Xiwei blinked, "Is that so? But I feel like, actually, I might understand him a bit more than many people... That day I overheard Dad and Uncle Ding talking on the phone. Wow, it’s hard to imagine, the name of a recent college graduate appearing in their conversation."
In the end, Xia Xiwei meaningfully said,
"Yi, you also hide things well. If I hadn’t overheard that call, I wouldn’t know you even had a boyfriend like this in college."
"Not a boyfriend, but someone I’m very close to, so Sister Xixi, that’s why I made this call to you!"
"Really close?"
Xia Xiwei laughed at this moment, "If you’re really close, then why would he keep things from you, Yi? Maybe I don’t understand him, but I know you too well. Such actions would leave you confused, especially since you’re such a proud person."
Ding Yi’s silence this time was even longer, and only when Xia Xiwei couldn’t help but try to speak again, Ding Yi suddenly laughed:
"Anyway, Sister Xixi, if you can promise me, I will be very grateful to you... I won’t bother you anymore. I wish you all the best!"
After Ding Yi finished speaking, she hung up the phone. Xia Xiwei was slightly stunned, listening to the busy tone on the phone, and couldn’t help but mutter to herself:
"Did that little girl just break down... Does Zhou Wang have such a great charm, huh, I am even more curious now!"
...
On the other side, 1,200 kilometers away in Beidou.
Near Houhai, in a certain courtyard.
Ding Yi, who had just put down her phone, stared at the patterns of light and shadow slanting through the classical-style lattice window, zoning out for a moment before standing up and walking out of the room.
Arriving at a locked study, Ding Yi unlocked it with her fingerprint and pushed the door open to go in.
The sensor lights came on automatically, illuminating the room. Ding Yi’s footsteps didn’t stop as she walked past two bookshelves, finally stopping at a slightly messy desk.
Piled haphazardly on the desk were various paper documents, including cut-out newspapers, web page screenshots, and an investigative report from a certain agency...
All the documents were in English.
Of course, with Ding Yi’s almost expert-level English proficiency, as her eyes scanned the text on these documents, they automatically converted into lines of familiar content:
"Experts Reveal the Mysterious Background of ’Cloud Trust,’ Possibly Originating from Huaxia"
"This Is Not a Celebration, but a Hunt—Beware of Huaxia Capital Exploitation"
"Detailed Background Investigation Report on Cloud Fund (Second Edition)"
"Is There Really Such a Genius in the World? The Mastermind Behind the Gigantic ’Cloud Trust’ Is Allegedly a 20-Year-Old from Huaxia, Experts Say This Might Just Be an Illusion..."
...
Ding Yi’s complex gaze swept over those documents one by one. Finally, she threaded her slender fingers through the files and picked up a photo hidden underneath the desk.
The photo wasn’t very clear; it seemed like a screenshot from a surveillance camera, so the figures in it were a bit blurred.
The background of the photo was a foreign street, where a well-dressed young man from Huaxia was stepping out of an elongated Lincoln limousine...
He had his head slightly lowered, but it was not hard to see the trace of a smile at the corner of his mouth.
Confident, flamboyant, as if everything was under control...
It was such an unfamiliar smile, especially when it appeared on someone Ding Yi considered herself to know very well.
In the upper right corner of the photo, there was the timestamp of the surveillance screenshot, which was more than two years ago, the time when Zhou Wang was at his lowest and often absent from school.
It seemed that everything matched up.
So...
"Zhou Wang, how much have you hidden from me, or should I say... which version of you is the real you?"
Her ivory fingers brushed over the face in the photo, and the girl’s slightly bewildered murmur slowly floated through the room.