Did the Tsundere Miss Get Slapped in the Face Again Today? - Chapter 96

Chapter 96: “What’s Wrong With A Little Lie?”

“Look, look right here,” Lin Yishu pointed at a specific chat log. “She sent you such a long message, clearly telling you she was jealous and sad. How did you reply? You just typed ‘hahaha’ back at her.”

Lin Anran stared at the message, tilting her head as she tried to recall the moment.

At the time, she had hung up on Jiang Zhi to take a call from Chu Yuening because of work, and then, because she was so busy, she hadn’t called back immediately. When she finally saw the “I’m very unhappy and sad” text, she had blinked in surprise, but a secret delight had bubbled up in her heart.

Jealous? She’s actually jealous! Jiang Yi actually knows how to be jealous? I have to tease her. I have to make fun of her.

And so, Anran had done exactly that.

“Are you jealous?”

“Hahahaha… Look at you, being so pathetic.”

It had been a tiny interlude to her; she hadn’t taken it seriously at all. If Yishu hadn’t singled it out now, she wouldn’t have even remembered it happened.

“She confessed to you! She said she minded you hanging up on her for Chu Yuening. In that situation, you should have at least explained yourself and shown her some importance. What was with the constant mocking? Were you afraid she wouldn’t overthink? Afraid she wouldn’t misunderstand? Afraid she wouldn’t stay sad?”

“Is such a small thing… really as exaggerated as you’re making it sound?” Anran froze. She started by doubting Yishu, then quickly spiraled into doubting herself.

Yishu smiled and set the phone aside. “Let me give you an example. Suppose the roles were reversed. Suppose Jiang Zhi made a friend over there and talked to you about this friend every single day. How would you react?”

Anran’s expression shifted slightly.

“And if she hung up on you because of this new friend, what would your reaction be?”

What reaction? If Jiang Zhi even mentioned she had a new friend, Anran would probably be trying to bite or hit her through the screen.

Seeing the hypothetical was working, Yishu pressed on: “In that moment, you’d definitely scold her. And if, after you scolded her, she treated it like it was nothing and kept playing with that friend, what then?”

Anran’s brow furrowed. Just imagining the scene made her breathing turn shallow and ragged.

Yishu picked up the phone again and pointed to Jiang Zhi’s paragraph. “When she said this, you should have comforted her. You should have explained. You should have called immediately or even gone to see her. Do you understand now?”

Anran looked at the screen and fell into deep thought. She began to see the breadcrumbs leading to the sudden breakup. The reasons were there; she just hadn’t looked.

Yishu continued scrolling. Suddenly, she saw another section and felt her vision go dark with frustration.

Jiang Zhi: “You haven’t mentioned your friend lately. What happened? Did you have a falling out?”

Anran: “No. I know you don’t like her, so I stopped telling you about her.”

Yishu stared at the reply, her head throbbing. “Tell me. What was going through your mind when you sent that?”

Anran looked at her own reply, appearing genuinely confused. “Is there something wrong with it?”

“Something wrong? You have the nerve to ask that? Were you trying to kill her with anger? I’ve realized your breakup wasn’t a tragedy—it was justice. You brought this entirely on yourself.”

Anran’s eyes widened, sparks of fury flying. “Whose side are you on anyway?!”

Yishu scoffed. “Based on that reply? I’m on her side.”

“What’s wrong with what I said? She didn’t like me talking about her, so I stopped. Isn’t that considerate?”

“You’re so considerate. To a normal person, that message says: ‘I’m still getting cozy with Chu Yuening, but I’m just not telling my girlfriend the details anymore. I’m continuing our flirtation in secret.'”

Anran jumped off the bed in a rage. “Who’s flirting?! That Chu Yuening is a liar! She said she was Jiang Zhi’s fan, but I found out later she doesn’t even follow her account. She’s a total fraud.”

Anran felt humiliated for being played by someone like that. So, when Jiang Zhi had asked why she wasn’t mentioning her, Anran had instinctively tried to brush the topic aside as quickly as possible to hide the embarrassing truth of being tricked.

It was a classic collision of errors. Anran was afraid of looking foolish; Jiang Zhi thought she was being unfaithful.

Summing it up, Yishu finally saw the whole picture.

“You simply don’t know how to speak. You take a simple sentence and wrap it in a hundred layers of nonsense. You always assume Jiang Zhi can read you perfectly, but she doesn’t have superpowers. She can’t read your mind, and she can’t always translate your ‘Anran-speak’ correctly.”

“At the end of the day, your personalities are just too far apart. One is a fake-gentle basket of nerves, and the other is a truly spoiled brat. It looks like a good match on the surface, but it’s fundamentally incompatible.”

Anran lowered her head, picking at her bedsheets. “We aren’t incompatible,” she whispered.

Yishu sighed at the sight of her. “You knew two years ago that she was sensitive—that tiny things cause her to spiral internally. You told me back then how much you regretted saying that her car looked cheap. You tried to build her confidence with the red dress at the banquet. I thought you truly understood her. Maybe you did when you first reunited, but as time passed, you forgot.”

Anran looked down, her voice small. “I was just too busy. I didn’t forget.”

“Only you know if you forgot or not. I’ve analyzed the reasons for you. So, what are you going to do?”

Anran stopped picking at the sheets and looked up. “All you’ve done is list my mistakes. Doesn’t she have any fault? She breaks up the moment there’s a problem—she makes it look so easy and casual! Doesn’t she have a problem too?!”

“Of course she does. Her problem is being too polite and too gentle when she speaks. She should have been more explosive; she should have cursed you out the moment she was unhappy. If she handled things with more intensity, it wouldn’t have reached this point.”

“I think she’s a bit crazy too. She came to break up with you but still brought you a cake. It’s bizarre.”

Anran’s brow twitched.

Yishu smirked. “I say two bad things about her and you’re already getting defensive? Fine. I’ve given you the post-mortem. Think about it yourself.”

With that, she stood up, brushed off her clothes, and gracefully exited the room.

Anran picked up her phone. She scrolled through the sections Yishu had highlighted over and over again. She scratched her head, then her face, then tilted her head in deep contemplation.

In the living room.

Lin Han returned from a long day of work and sat on the sofa, rubbing her tired temples.

“How is she?” Lin Han’s voice was icy.

“Sister, I didn’t know you actually cared. You’re actually asking?” Yishu teased.

Lin Han glanced at her, then toward the upstairs. “She’s turned the whole house upside down over a relationship. She’s grown in height but not in maturity. It’s a habit you fostered by spoiling her.”

Yishu shrugged. “So now it’s all my fault? Fine, I’ll take the blame.”

“I talked to her today. I think she’s figured out a few things. She’s mulling it over. She’ll get it eventually; the problem is she probably can’t bring herself to swallow her pride and beg for forgiveness.”

Anran was obsessed with “face.” Once or twice was fine, but this was the third time. A proud person like her would find it nearly impossible to bow her head again.

Lin Han let out a cold snort. “Is Jiang Zhi such a big deal that Anran has to be the one to yield? Why can’t she come here and yield for once?”

Yishu: “You make it sound so easy. Jiang Zhi is incredibly stubborn and sensitive. There is zero chance she will take the initiative. If she had the courage to do that, she wouldn’t have broken up in the first place.”

Lin Han picked up her phone from the coffee table and scrolled through her contacts to find Jiang Zhi. “This is too complicated. This relationship is making the house atmosphere toxic. I’ll just have her come over now.”

Yishu tensed up. “What are you doing? What do you plan to do?!”

Back at the village, in front of the earthen grave.

Jiang Zhi sat cross-legged on the ground, staring blankly at the distant peaks. She had thought that after the breakup, she would be devastated—that she would cry until she couldn’t breathe. But there was nothing. Her heart was a wasteland, devoid of emotion.

Instead, she felt a strange sense of relief.

She had spent so long terrified of losing her, living in a state of constant anxiety. Finally, the sword that had been hanging over her head had fallen. It was a relief. She was light.

Zhaocai was jumping between trees nearby. Jiang Zhi called the cat, and it leaped into her lap. Sometimes she felt Zhaocai was a spiritual cat; it ignored her most of the time, but when she truly needed it, it was always there.

She stroked the cat’s head. “From now on, it’s just the two of us. That should be good news for you; you never liked her anyway.”

Zhaocai licked her hand.

“Are you comforting me?”

“Meow.”

Jiang Zhi sighed deeply. “It’s nothing. I’m just going back to living alone. From now on…”

From now on, I never want to touch something like love again.

The joy is too intense, and the pain feels like being flayed alive. Once is enough. She would never dare to try again.

Jiang Zhi’s gaze fell on the red cord around her wrist. “Grandmother, the thing I gave away… it came back again.”

After all that circling, how did it end up back on her own wrist?

She wasn’t sure if it was an illusion, but the clear sky seemed to darken. A sharp crack sounded from above. The sound of wood snapping.

Jiang Zhi looked up in confusion just in time to see a branch falling straight toward her.

Snap! It hit the ground right by her feet, kicking up dust.

Zhaocai ran off in a fright. Jiang Zhi waved her hands to clear the dust. She turned to look at the grave mound behind her. She looked puzzled. Was that an accident? Why did it feel like Grandmother was trying to smack me with a branch?

Jiang Zhi shook her head and smiled at the absurdity of the thought. “What am I thinking?”

Just then, the phone in her pocket rang. It was an unknown number. She pressed answer and held it to her ear while kicking the fallen branch away.

“Hello? Who is this?”

“Lin Han.”

Jiang Zhi’s expression froze. Her grip on the phone tightened.

By the time the call ended, Jiang Zhi was scrambling to her feet in a panic. She ran so fast she even tripped and fell once. Without a moment to think, she booked the first available flight back to Mucheng.

Lin Residence, Living Room.

Yishu: “Sister, aren’t you just talking nonsense? Our little sister is definitely depressed—she won’t go to the office or leave her room, and she’s crying under the covers—but she hasn’t reached the point of doing anything ‘stupid,’ or going on a hunger strike, or being so emotional she’s going to jump off a building…”

Lin Han: “Isn’t it better if they just meet? It saves us from this constant drama; it’s giving me a headache. As for whether what I said is true or false—does it matter? Besides, I’m already the ‘evil sister-in-law’ figure. What’s wrong with a little lie?”

Yishu: “…”

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