I Heard That I am a HeartBreaker - Chapter 98

Upon hearing Qiu Shuang’s words, Xin Zhu let out a helpless smile. She looked at the other woman, seemingly searching those beautiful eyes for some other emotion, but they remained as flat as always. Or rather, they even lacked the trace of concern that had been there back when they were still “friends.”

“Now that I’ve discovered your true colors, Senior, you don’t want to pretend at all anymore, do you…?”

The turning point for Xin Zhu discovering the truth was never that interrogation in the dark room; it was much further back, at the moment she decided to pursue her.

She had done her research beforehand. Like a solitary, brave knight, she had traveled north to that distant city—though she only watched from afar.

Xin Zhu had never known what the North was like. She had imagined much and looked up plenty of information online, but none of it was as real as the scenes she witnessed after landing.

It took a long time of observation and investigation before she found where her Senior lived. When she saw Qiu Shuang going to her summer job, Xin Zhu spent her time in the coffee shop across the street, watching her.

There, Xin Zhu saw a different version of her Senior. At school, Qiu Shuang appeared friendly and kind to everyone, willing to help many.

But in reality, at her workplace, the woman was icy, possessing a numbness that kept people at a distance and ignored many things.

Xin Zhu understood, of course, that people have two faces or two modes of interaction. In the giant melting pot of society, few can remain truly sincere and friendly toward everyone indefinitely.

Furthermore, work itself is a delicate thing. If you treat others with too much kindness, more often than not, you are viewed as a “soft bun”—an easy target to be bullied.

Xin Zhu observed her for a full week and reached a conclusion: to some extent, they were the same kind of person.

Xin Zhu had always assumed the other was reclusive, even thinking Qiu Shuang was someone with deep-seated psychological issues. When she learned about Qiu Shuang’s so-called friend, Song Ya, she uncovered many truths.

Was it a desire to control someone’s social circle out of fear of not being their “only” one? Xin Zhu was intimately familiar with such things. As someone skilled at manipulating hearts and emotions, she understood Song Ya’s methods perfectly—only, the other girl’s execution was clumsy and she hadn’t cleaned up her tracks well.

Xin Zhu had been looking forward to how devastated Qiu Shuang would be when she discovered the truth, wondering if she would throw herself into Xin Zhu’s arms because of it. Yet, she didn’t get the reaction she imagined. Instead, she encountered another piece of trash—or should she say, “thing”?

She watched Qiu Shuang grow busier by the day. People always say those who work hard possess a different kind of charm; at least, that was how it was for Xin Zhu. She found it hard to explain the feeling hidden deep in her heart.

Perhaps at the start, it was curiosity toward the person her long-time imaginary rival loved. Later, she thought the woman was beautiful and wanted her body. And after that? Even Xin Zhu couldn’t say for sure.

Perhaps sometimes, when a person pretends for too long, it becomes hard to change. Just like how, in order to win her over, Xin Zhu sincerely helped her and considered her needs for a long time.

Once this sort of thing starts, it seems impossible to stop. So much so that for a long time afterward, Xin Zhu would find herself inexplicably clicking on a course schedule that didn’t belong to her major, memorizing one time slot after another.

Walking down familiar paths, she would inexplicably want to reach out and tuck her arm into that of a person who wasn’t there.

Xin Zhu had little sense of morality; she only considered what was in front of her. During those seven days in the North, she seemed to have gained a lot, yet also seemed to have gained nothing at all.

So, Xin Zhu left that place alone.

She had set up a telescope and observed Qiu Shuang for seven straight days. Before this, the other woman had no idea.

To be honest, the feeling was very novel. It was like excavating a treasure; while everyone else was shocked by the beauty of the gold mine and couldn’t help but dig, only you had discovered the precious treasure hidden deep beneath the gold.

During that long holiday, Xin Zhu saw many things. She saw Qiu Shuang arguing with people, even threatening others to get her wages back. She should have known.

How could someone who looked so weak and fragile, yet never allowed herself to truly suffer a loss, be the legendary “weak white lotus”?

Xin Zhu was born in an orphanage and had worked many jobs; no one understood the difficulties better than she did. To put it simply, someone who could find a summer job lasting only a few months and manage to snatch their wages back was not a pushover.

She saw Qiu Shuang weaving through streets and alleys, wandering slowly alone. Her aura was completely different from how it was at school. For some reason, when Xin Zhu saw her enter a dark alley, an inexplicable feeling rose in her heart.

She felt the woman was born to be like this—bold, wandering, icy, and ruthless.

Xin Zhu had looked up a lot of data on her, especially her past honors. She looked at the consistently excellent grades, but noticed that these seemed to come to an abrupt halt after high school.

She wanted to know more about her, so she walked the streets and alleys, hoping to find more precious information.

And indeed, she found it.

“You mean that weird woman? Don’t know what she’s thinking. Back in school, I thought she was strange, always keeping to herself. Even when people tried to talk to her, she wouldn’t say a word.”

“You mean that kid? I remember her. Her grades were exceptionally good. Back in middle school, she was the top student in our district.”

“Her family was always fighting. That kid seemed a bit eccentric. She looked icy back then; her eyes would stare at you like a ghost’s. It was quite creepy.”

Xin Zhu listened to these fragments of Qiu Shuang from the mouths of others and smiled. She looked at the files she had recorded one by one and silently marked a question mark.

So? My dear Senior.

You, who were always at the top of your class in middle school—why did you suddenly start falling behind and stop studying in your first and second years of high school?

And those parents of yours, who used to demand excellent grades—why did they stop pressuring you under those circumstances?

Xin Zhu knew that something must have happened to Qiu Shuang in middle school. She intended to continue her investigation…

The result was actually quite simple. When she saw those findings, Xin Zhu already knew the source of all the oddities. But she said nothing. After all, the other person had actively buried that past.

She shouldn’t be someone who lacks a sense of timing by digging them up.

More importantly, Xin Zhu understood that the other woman didn’t want anyone to know these things and never cared about them anyway.

Qiu Shuang was a lonely island. She allowed herself to be tiny, wandering, and exiled in the vast ocean; she also allowed seeds, hope, and far-flying birds to rest upon her land.

“Senior, why are you such a complicated person? Why is it that after learning so much about your situation, I’m still so obsessed with you?”

Xin Zhu felt she had found the most precious thing in her life: a mysterious woman who seemingly had no end to what could be uncovered. She was the well-known “good person” to the public, the famous “soft bun” among friends, and a cold beauty in the eyes of strangers. But in reality, only Xin Zhu knew what was hidden beneath that skin.

She wasn’t at all the “normal person” who was supposedly being cornered and persecuted by “madmen” like them.

People say that normal people are driven mad by madmen. But between them, wasn’t it Qiu Shuang who drove them all crazy?

They craved her beauty, talent, tenderness, and those glowing things. But those things were like a faint flame; sometimes they shone with a light that brought joy, and sometimes they suddenly extinguished, driving people to distraction.

In that cycle of giving and taking away, people were driven to chase her like mad, eventually dying within that flame.

They could only be moths to a flame.

Xin Zhu skillfully pulled out the “strategy” she had prepared before and took Qiu Shuang to a restaurant. As “contractual girlfriends,” this was how they always operated. Qiu Shuang didn’t know what to do, but she relied on what Chen Jining had taught her.

She followed the other’s lead step by step, maintaining the surface appearance of a couple, except there would be no intimate physical interaction between them.

Xin Zhu looked at the other’s face under the light. Truth be told, that face was truly easy to obsess over; otherwise, she wouldn’t have been so crazy as to desperately want her contact information.

Now, when paired with these unparalleled secrets, that face was like Pandora’s box, radiating a lethal allure.

“Senior, sometimes you’re really quite annoying. I’m always wondering… why can’t you like me a little more?”

Qiu Shuang looked up at her, seemingly confused about what standing Xin Zhu had to ask such a question.

She had long since seen through the essence of humanity, but in the realm of love and affection, she was like a newcomer—as ignorant as an infant. Qiu Shuang understood the pursuit of interest and the ugliness between people, but she didn’t understand the starting point of those questions.

Qiu Shuang had seen people commit suicide for love, and she had seen people abandon a long-time companion for a so-called mistress.

What exactly is love? Is it the blinding of one’s heart by greed, or physical chemistry, or being moved by someone’s appearance at first sight?

Qiu Shuang truly had no real awareness of her own face. Or rather, she hadn’t been able to establish a correct set of values regarding it in her youth. She didn’t know exactly what kind of beauty she was; she only knew she wasn’t ugly.

She only remembered the inexplicable mockery from her childhood peers and the biting sarcasms from friends with whom she had finally managed to build close relationships.

But at this moment, Qiu Shuang seemed to understand a little. At least, she watched these people inexplicably go crazy for her. Even if she didn’t fully get it, she simply treated everyone earnestly according to her own logic, yet somehow became the “only one” in their eyes.

Thinking of this, Qiu Shuang smiled. She felt she was a bit outdated, or perhaps left behind. Was it really the case that simply being a normal person—with standard values, a sense of morality, and a wealth of sympathy—would make people so obsessed?

If so, this world really is rotten to the core.

“You probably don’t want to hear that kind of answer from me. I hope you won’t bring up questions like this again. You know exactly what kind of relationship we have. I don’t want a single trace of true emotion mixed into this fake relationship. Perhaps it sounds provocative, but in reality, it’s nothing more than an insult to love.”

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