Chapter 5: The Secretary’s Final Secret

In the tiny rented room, the air grew thick enough to explode. Madam Zhou stood still for a long time, then finally let out a heavy sigh, as if setting down a burden she had carried for ten years.

“All right… I’ll tell you the whole truth.”

She pulled up a chair and sat down, her trembling hands clasped together.

“Ten years ago, I wasn’t the one who saved you from the accident, as you’ve always believed. I was the one who took you away from the scene right afterward, hid you, and changed your entire identity.”

“Why?” Xiaoyue asked, her voice hoarse from crying.

“Because back then, there were people hunting down your entire family. If you had kept your real identity, you wouldn’t have survived a single week.”

Madam Zhou paused, a flicker of hesitation in her eyes, as if weighing whether to reveal her last and greatest secret.

“But there’s one thing I’ve never dared tell you.”

“What?”

“Your real father, Tang Baichuan, never died.”

Xiaoyue felt the whole world spin before her eyes.

“He’s still alive,” Madam Zhou went on, her voice shaking with fear and guilt. “And the one behind everything, the one who staged the accident, who has been manipulating both the Tang and Xie families for ten years to take back control of Hongsheng…”

She stopped and looked Xiaoyue straight in the eye.

“It isn’t Chengyan’s father.”

“It’s your own father.”

Xiaoyue staggered back into the bed frame, barely able to stay on her feet.

“That’s impossible… Why would he do that? Why would he fake his death, why let me live as an ordinary person for ten years, if he’s alive and still pulling the strings?”

Madam Zhou burst into tears, her voice choked:

“Because you’re his only weakness. You’re the last card he kept in reserve, in case every plan failed. He let you live an ordinary life, far from all the fighting, just to make sure that whatever happened, one heir of the Tang bloodline would survive in safety.”

Just when Xiaoyue felt she would collapse completely under the weight of that brutal truth, Chengyan stepped forward and stood in front of her like a solid wall. He gently took the old silver bracelet from his pocket and placed it in her palm.

“Xiaoyue, look at me.”

She looked up, her eyes red and lost.

“I never came to you just to use you.” His voice was warm but firm. “It’s true that at first, I sought you out because I had learned part of the truth about the accident, about the connection between our families. But the more time I spent with you, the more I realized… you were no longer just a link in my plan.”

“I want you to have the right to decide your own life, not to become anyone’s pawn. Not your father’s. Not even mine.”

Xiaoyue looked at him, tears still on her cheeks, but one question kept circling in her heart without an answer: after all these layers of secrets, all these lies piled on top of each other, who could she still trust in a world so full of schemes?

At that moment, Chengyan’s phone suddenly rang, shattering the suffocating silence in the room.

He held it to his ear. On the other end was a man’s low, menacing voice:

“Chengyan, if you want Xiaoyue to stay safe, bring her to the exact spot where the accident happened all those years ago. Alone. Within one hour.”

The call ended abruptly. Chengyan’s hand clenched the phone so hard his knuckles went white.

Xiaoyue looked at him, her eyes strangely resolute despite still being wet with tears.

“We’ll go together.”

— THE END —