Chapter 125: Learning the Truth

“It was that car accident…” Wen Yiming’s voice was rough and unpleasant. Lin Xi only caught the words ‘car accident’ before she slipped into a dazed and confused state, slowly closing her eyes.

A thunderous roar exploded in her mind, as if something had shattered apart. Deeply buried memories surfaced in fragmented images, flashing through her consciousness like a tidal wave, swiftly engulfing her. An overwhelming sense of suffocating terror swept over her.

She shivered uncontrollably, her face pale, lips trembling slightly. Her stomach clenched painfully, her head ringing, thoughts nearly impossible to grasp. Her chest felt hollowed out, as if a gaping hole was letting the cold wind in, making each breath unbearably difficult.

It had been in the dead of night, when a violent thunderstorm struck Long City.

Heavy raindrops poured down like beans, lightning slashed across the night sky, and deafening thunder clapped repeatedly. Young Lin Xi sat in the back seat with her mother, Qin Peier. Afraid of the thunder, she was carefully held by her mother, who covered her ears. Her father, driving, tried to cheer her up.

But then, “Screech—” a piercing sound tore through the night, clear and sharp in the darkness.

It was the colossal crash of colliding vehicles. Along with the sound, Lin Xi heard her mother’s tense, sharp cry: “Mumu!”

Their car was violently thrown aside. Lin Xi felt herself lifted into the air, firmly shielded beneath her mother’s embrace, then plunged into darkness. She would never forget the despair she felt then—no matter how she cried out for her parents, there was no response.

When she opened her eyes again, she witnessed a scene too horrific to bear—the thick stench of gasoline filled the air, the guardrails twisted and battered, shards of glass littered the ground. Her parents were bloodied, trapped inside a completely overturned and mangled car. The rain quickly washed away their fresh blood, only for new blood to seep out again, staining the road crimson.

Terrified, Lin Xi’s eyes widened in horror as she clung to a traffic officer, helplessly watching her parents fade away amidst the storm and blood.

Blinding headlights cut through the dark and rain like lightning, swallowing everything whole.

The memory slammed into Lin Xi’s heart like a knife. She finally understood the truth her brother had desperately tried to hide—the truth that forced her to flee Long City. The air around her seemed to form an impenetrable barrier, suffocating and despairing.

She snapped her eyes open, her heavy breaths causing her chest to rise and fall violently, her heart aching painfully with every beat. At that time, her brother was only eighteen; two and a half children, forced alone to face this cruel world.

Signs of her illness flickered faintly again, but Lin Xi forced herself to remain calm. Now everything was clear.

“It was you! You orchestrated the car accident back then!” Lin Xi’s gaze pierced Wen Yiming as she interrogated him.

“Hahaha, little girl, you remember now?” Wen Yiming spoke with nonchalance, his eyes caressing the photo in his hands as he muttered softly, “Peier, my Peier, do you see? The daughter you risked your life to save looks just like you. I know you sent her back to me again. I will take good care of her!”

His words churned Lin Xi’s stomach with nausea.

“It was you who killed my parents!” Her eyes darkened, her entire demeanor turning cold and fierce in an instant, radiating a sharp, commanding presence. She wished she could tear this man to pieces right then and there.

Watching Wen Yiming’s madness, Lin Xi deftly untied the ropes behind her back without revealing a hint of emotion and continued coolly, “So you also ordered Jiang Ziqi to throw acid on me?”

“Impossible!” he suddenly exploded in rage, pointing viciously at Jiang Ziqi. “That foolish woman was just someone I picked up randomly. She disobeyed me! I only wanted her to teach you a lesson, but she dared to touch your precious face. She deserves to die a thousand deaths! Don’t you know? Your beautiful face looks just like my Peier’s. How could I ever destroy it? This face belongs to me!”

He stared at Lin Xi’s face with a near-obsessive madness, a twisted smile curling at his lips.

Then he roughly pulled the silent, trembling Jiang Ziqi forward, who was pale as death, her tongue frozen, unable to speak.

Pointing at her face triumphantly, he boasted, “Look! I’ve avenged you. Her face is ruined; now she’s a monster! Hahaha!”

Suddenly, Lin Xi understood why Jiang Ziqi always hid herself under a black mask.

“You’re truly insane,” Lin Xi said emotionlessly, merely stating a cold fact.

In that moment, her entire aura darkened, chilling and terrifying, like a fierce warrior descending upon the world to wreak havoc.

Though seated, her expression was detached and serene as the moon, embodying the elegant nobility unique to those in high positions.

Jiang Ziqi was too shocked to speak, trembling with fear at the malevolence radiating from Lin Xi. She had never imagined this sheltered heiress could harbor such a cold and dreadful side.

Suppressing her fury, Lin Xi began to reveal the hideously ugly truth bit by bit, asking coldly, “Why did you orchestrate the car accident that killed my parents?”

Before she finished, Wen Yiming suddenly burst into a chilling laughter. Then his gaze sharpened, and he said coldly, “If it weren’t for that fool Lin Zhaolun, my Peier would never have died! The accident was meant to kill him, but my Peier was also in the car.”

The truth was finally laid bare.

Back then, after Wen Yiming’s mother died in childbirth following a business alliance marriage, he unexpectedly fell in love with Lin Xi’s mother, Qin Peier, who comforted him gently at his ex-wife’s funeral. But she was already married and rejected him. Lin Zhaolun, Lin Xi’s father, never took him seriously. Frustrated and twisted by unrequited love, Wen Yiming plotted to kill Lin Zhaolun, hoping that Qin Peier would then love him. He arranged for someone to crash into Lin Zhaolun’s car.

What he never expected was that Lin Zhaolun had gone on a business trip alone to a neighboring city, but Qin Peier and Lin Xi spontaneously decided to accompany him.

The accident left only Lin Xi alive. Wen Yiming fled the scene hastily, and due to heavy rain and other circumstances, the incident was ruled an accident.

After Qin Peier’s death, he was devastated, drowning his pain in nightly revelry at bars. Wen Corporation nearly collapsed, but everyone praised the deep love he bore for his late wife. Two years later, he met a woman resembling Qin Peier—Sun Yao—and married her immediately, fathering Wen Sipei.

He then absorbed his ex-wife’s family’s business into his own, ruling almost unchallenged except by Starlight.

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