GV – Chapter 87

Along with the realization that I am Song Zhiqing came a question: Who is Ye Yuhuan?

And then, a more important question followed: The Song Zhiqing I remember—who is she?

Or rather, does she even exist?

After waking, Song Zhiqing asked these questions intermittently, her voice hoarse.

Outside the window, a gentle breeze rustled, birds chirped, and sunlight filtered through the light-colored curtains, dappling the hospital room with specks of light. Plants were diligently photosynthesizing. This world looked just as real as the one before.

And for that reason, to Song Zhiqing, they were both equally unreal.

The nurse looked uneasily at a woman with a refined face standing beside her. The woman didn’t keep the nurse waiting long. She answered Song Zhiqing’s questions swiftly, professionally, and coolly. “I’m sorry, Miss Song. In order to restore your will to live, we created a character in your therapy that matched your aesthetic preferences—the one you call Song Zhiqing. The reason we swapped your name and identity with hers was in the hope that you could view your own past from a third-person perspective, break free from it, and rediscover your passion for life.”

The implication was that the person “Song Zhiqing” did not exist, just like that world.

Song Zhiqing stared intently at the woman. After being comatose in bed for so long, she had wasted away to skin and bones. Her once-sparkling peach-blossom eyes now held a hint of near-madness.

“What’s your name?”

If this person was Ye Yuhuan… she thought.

But the woman shattered her fantasy. She presented her ID badge. “Ye Mo. I am your attending psychologist.”

“Ye Mo.”

Song Zhiqing repeated the name.

There was something familiar about this woman, but it was too faint—so faint that Song Zhiqing suspected it was a delusion born from her frantic longing for Song Zhiqing.

Frantic longing for Song Zhiqing?

Song Zhiqing covered her face and began to laugh. As she laughed, tears started to seep through her fingers.

“By using a false image to wake me up like this, aren’t you afraid I’ll fall into an even worse state?”

Song Zhiqing couldn’t see Ye Mo’s expression, but Ye Mo’s unhurried voice slowly reached her ears. “It was only important that you woke up first. If you have further issues, I will help you treat them. After all, no patient is more difficult to treat than one who is unconscious.”

“But I’ll die,” Song Zhiqing’s voice was so low it seemed to vanish into the dust.

This time, Ye Mo paused for a moment before replying, “I hope you won’t. Life is precious, and there are many people in this world who care about you.”

“I only want Song Zhiqing.”

“You are the only real Song Zhiqing in the world.” Ye Mo seemed very insistent on this point.

Song Zhiqing fell silent. She curled up on the hospital bed, whimpering like a defeated, lone wolf.

Ye Mo sighed and then left.

Villainess Supporting Female Character. She thought of the term again—the cause of everything, the process of everything, the result of everything.

After waking from that dream, had she ever doubted the reality of this world? Of course she had. She had just let it go.

She had subconsciously believed that she had no place in that more real world.

So she had only one reality, and therefore, no falsehood to speak of.

But in fact, in fact…

Song Zhiqing laughed out loud.

She had been deceiving herself.

Her subconscious, her memories—they had all been in service of this beautiful dream.

“But is that wrong?” Song Zhiqing asked herself in a low voice.

“Was I wrong?”

No one knew.

Perhaps the machine that had brought her that beautiful dream knew.

Yes, Song Zhiqing admitted that from Shen Wei and Shangguan Xianxian’s perspective, she was indeed a villainess.

Relying on her status as Qinglin’s school tyrant, she had pursued Shangguan Xianxian with great fanfare. To what extent?

Probably to the point where even the cafeteria ladies at Qinglin knew that a girl named Song Zhiqing was chasing another girl named Shangguan Xianxian.

Her pursuit contained not a shred of consideration; it was all about grand gestures, like an old prank show that disregarded the subject’s feelings for the sake of effect.

So, of course, she had troubled Shangguan Xianxian and earned Shen Wei’s disgust.

A rather brainless villainess.

This doctor named Ye Mo certainly knew their story from back then well enough to write that book so convincingly.

But that was always Shangguan Xianxian and Shen Wei’s perspective, not hers.

However, if she were the protagonist and the story were told from her point of view, it probably wouldn’t sell well. It lacked foreshadowing, character arcs, a climax, and a conclusion.

The story was bleak from beginning to end.

A story of repressed revenge.

And the target was her father.

Her father, Song Chen, was not as good as the Song Chen that Ye Mo had created in the dream. If any character in that therapy resembled Song Chen, it was Ye Chu.

Ah, really, they had completely swapped her life with someone else’s.

But they hadn’t swapped out the most fatal part.

She still received all the damage from her original family. However, Ye Chu was still a bit better than Song Chen. Perhaps they were the same in essence, but a person’s resources have a great impact on their capacity for evil.

Song Chen, as a rich man, was deadly.

If Ye Chu was just a poisonous mushroom that was harmless as long as you didn’t eat it, then Song Chen was a cobra, constantly watching for a chance to strike.

This snake hadn’t targeted Song Zhiqing—she was his daughter, after all. The snake had been coiled around her mother Gao Yiren’s neck the entire time.

After using his wife’s fame and resources to build the second-largest film and television company in the country, he was still not satisfied.

He wanted to be number one.

But the vine he had used to climb had been squeezed dry.

Then, Song Chen had a flash of inspiration. It could still be used as firewood.

And so, the internationally acclaimed actress Gao Yiren began to take on a large number of television series of varying quality and films that looked like they were for money laundering and, in fact, mostly were. Song Chen made a fortune, while Gao Yiren’s reputation was gradually depleted. It took only five years for her to go from being the eternal Best Actress to a has-been star who could only coast on her past achievements.

If it had just been exploitation at work, she might have been able to bear it. After all, Gao Yiren truly loved him.

But Song Chen began to cheat.

To be precise, he began to cheat without restraint.

Given Song Chen’s social status and the resources he possessed, getting young, beautiful girls to offer themselves to him, or forcing them to do so, was an exceedingly simple matter.

And he had delayed doing such a simple thing for over a decade, transforming from a handsome young man into a pot-bellied middle-aged entrepreneur. He had restrained his philandering nature, and his occasional transgressions were carefully hidden from Gao Yiren, all for the sake of weaving a giant net to ensure this rare and precious butterfly would dance only for him.

Song Zhiqing discovered that her family was actually a complete mess on the inside when she was fifteen.

It was far, far too late. That day, her mother jumped from a building in front of her.

The tangled mess smothered Song Zhiqing’s face. Its accumulated stench and dust of years made her want to vomit.

She didn’t remember what state of mind she was in when she walked to the window from which Gao Yiren had jumped, but she remembered that many photographs were scattered there—all of them were bed photos of Song Chen with various women.

They were selfies.

There was also a note that read: Are you really not going to get a divorce?

Song Zhiqing recognized it. It was Song Chen’s handwriting.

She immediately fled the scene and vomited violently in her apartment near the school.

Gao Yiren had never told her anything. Her acting was too good. She could pass off antidepressants as supplements, explain her father’s increasing absences as being busy with work, and attribute her own increasingly haggard appearance to preparing for a new role.

Song Zhiqing had believed it all.

But her mother had jumped from a building.

If she hadn’t had to go home for something that day, her mother would have hidden even her suicide from her.

From then on, Song Zhiqing was trapped in a long nightmare.

She wished everything could start over. She wished her mother would show her true self to her. She imagined this scene countless times in her dreams. She thought she would be willing to endure all of her mother’s emotional outbursts.

Then, when she became Ye Yuhuan, it all came true. She had a mother who was constantly on the verge of a breakdown.

And in the end, she still died.

Still because of her father.

Song Zhiqing wanted to tell Ye Mo that the dream she designed was not beautiful at all.

But the thought that Ye Mo had shattered her dream filled her with disgust, and she stopped thinking about anything at all.

The next day, Ye Mo entered the hospital room and saw her patient staring at the ceiling with wide-open eyes. Ye Mo’s steps faltered for a moment before she slowly walked in.

“I heard you didn’t sleep last night.”

Song Zhiqing didn’t reply.

Ye Mo pulled a chair over to the bedside and continued, “If the treatment has caused you psychological trauma, I apologize. But I hope you can understand that under the circumstances, we didn’t have many options.”

At this, Song Zhiqing finally tore her gaze from the blank ceiling and looked at this strange woman.

“Who hired you to be my attending physician?”

“Mr. Yu Cheng.”

Ah, Uncle Yu.

She had an Uncle Yu, too.

Song Zhiqing gave a self-deprecating chuckle, buried her head in her knees, and said in a low voice, “So, you all thought I tried to kill myself over love.”

And that’s why they concocted such a story.

It made sense. She had never told anyone about her plans for revenge, nor did anyone know she had witnessed her mother’s suicide. In others’ eyes, she was just a young lady who knew nothing of the world’s hardships. What else could she die for, if not love?

And yet, when she wanted to be impulsive for love, love itself vanished like a bubble.

How ironic.

Ye Mo maintained her unhurried demeanor, like a deep lake that could calmly face any extreme emotion. “Based on all the signs at the time, that was the only conclusion we could draw. However, judging by the fact that you were able to wake up, it wasn’t an incorrect judgment.”

Wrong. Utterly wrong.

Song Zhiqing roared, “The reason I woke up wasn’t because of your damn peeping tom and one-drink-drunk settings! I woke up because of Song Zhiqing!”

“And now you’re telling me Song Zhiqing doesn’t exist!”

The room fell silent, the way there is always a moment of quiet after an explosion.

The nurse ran out, probably to get a sedative.

Song Zhiqing was inexplicably reminded of a scene from her past—not the past in the dream, but her past as Song Zhiqing.

She was six years old, and Gao Yiren had taken her to a talk show. She wore a pink dress and little white leather shoes, and the makeup artist had done her up like a little princess. The look was certainly effective; when she appeared on stage, the audience smiled kindly.

The host asked what she and her mother usually did together. This question was supposed to be answered by her mother, who would say they painted together. But the host interrupted Gao Yiren, and whether out of kindness or deliberation, threw the question to her.

Song Zhiqing hadn’t memorized the script, so she didn’t know the answer.

Oh, she did know. The answer was that she usually didn’t see her mother.

But her mother hadn’t given that answer, which meant she shouldn’t either.

Even then, Song Zhiqing was very mature for her age.

She looked at the curious strangers, gave a sweet smile, and mimicked the sugary voice of a cartoon princess. “Mommy also helps me braid my hair.”

Gao Yiren was stunned for a moment, but in less than a second, she broke into a gentle smile, nodded, and lightly stroked her hair. “Qingqing loves to be pretty.”

The audience smiled kindly.

After the interview, Gao Yiren looked at her again with that apologetic gaze. At her young age, Song Zhiqing didn’t understand the emotion behind that look. She only knew that whenever her mother looked at her like that, she lost her appetite even for small cakes.

It was an uncomfortable feeling, like a stone in her stomach.

Her agent was calling for Gao Yiren to return to the set. She called several times, and eventually even asked Song Zhiqing to persuade her.

Song Zhiqing ignored her.

Because her mother was braiding her hair.

Gao Yiren had probably never braided a child’s hair before. Her hands were clumsy, and it took a long time. The result wasn’t particularly pretty.

It was just a little bit better than when Song Zhiqing did it herself.

After braiding her hair, Gao Yiren left. Before she did, she said, “Mommy will braid your hair often from now on.”

Song Zhiqing was very happy to hear that.

But unfortunately, Gao Yiren couldn’t keep her promise. Her film offers increased, and later, variety shows were added to the mix. She didn’t even have enough time to sleep, let alone braid her daughter’s hair.

So, is this how my life is destined to be?

Finding truth in falsehood, only to return from truth to falsehood, and in the end, to have nothing, as always.

The young psychologist was not frightened by her patient’s sudden emotional outburst. It was as if she had wrapped Song Zhiqing’s shouts and tears in a cover and thrown them away. Her voice remained gentle, like a continuous spring rain. “Miss Song, I apologize for taking the liberty of separating your personality and identity. My original intention was to allow you to view your life from another perspective. As for the Song Zhiqing who appeared during the therapy, she is not a real individual. You can think of her as a dose of medicine, or an NPC. If you developed deep feelings for her, it could also be your subconscious, unaffected by the electrical currents, naturally showing a preference for your own self-image.”

She softened her voice even more. “Trust me, you will gradually get better.”

“You have now rediscovered your love for the world. Every day from now on will be better.”

Song Zhiqing pointed a finger at the door and said coldly, “Get out.”

She pulled the covers over herself again. She didn’t know what kind of therapy this was. Saving someone who wanted to die, and killing someone who wanted to live. There was nothing more absurd.

She held her breath.

She held her breath with all her might.

She hoped, she longed for…

No, she couldn’t.

In that world that had died, there was no “Song Zhiqing” either.

Suddenly, a hand rested on the top of her head. Song Zhiqing trembled all over, terrified, and she screamed.

But the hand didn’t move away. It soothed her gently and firmly. The touch, muffled by the blanket, was indirect and almost futile, but Song Zhiqing gradually quieted down.

“You didn’t leave?”

“I will stay with you.”

“…Ye Yuhuan… was she fictional too?”

“…Yes.”