Volume One Chapter 80: Overwhelmed

"Wenzhou."

Lin Zhi hurried after him as Lu Wenzhou strode away from the private room without a backward glance. His long legs carried him swiftly toward the temple’s entrance. His expression was grim, his face clouded with displeasure. His dark eyes darted rapidly about, clearly searching for someone.

It was obvious that they hadn't run into Jiang Wan when they arrived. The tension in his bearing was palpable, a clear reaction to Ji Jiali’s retelling. As he walked, Lu Wenzhou kept dialing his phone, but after several failed attempts, he hung up. At last, he called Qi Mo.

"Wait at the entrance. If you see Jiang Wan, take her—" Halfway through, he caught himself and changed his words. "Follow her."

Without looking back, he exited the temple, intent on taking the cable car down the mountain.

Seeing this, Lin Zhi quickened her pace and caught up to inform him, "Jiang Wan probably didn’t take the main path. I saw her come up via the side trail near the back gate."

At her words, Lu Wenzhou, who had been striding ahead, suddenly stopped. He frowned at her, displeased.

"It’s probably because the cable car was just recently repaired. I’m guessing she doesn’t know and is taking the side trail down," Lin Zhi explained.

As dusk crept across the sky, Lu Wenzhou’s face darkened further.

"Lin Zhi." He stood beside her, uncharacteristically calling her by name. Before she could respond, his dark eyes, sharp and menacing, bore into her with a chilling warning.

"You’d better hope you didn’t do this on purpose today," he said, his words laced with a bone-deep coldness. "If anything happens to her, you’ll be the first person I come after."

With that, Lu Wenzhou withdrew his gaze and, without a moment’s hesitation, walked away from Lin Zhi. The air still vibrated with the residue of his displeasure—enough to make anyone’s heart tremble.

Lin Zhi stood rooted, watching his resolute figure disappear. She bit her lip in frustration but soon gathered herself. Her hands clenched tightly at her sides, foxlike eyes turning toward another part of the temple—toward Ji Jiali’s location.

*

Jiang Wan left through the side gate of the temple, making her way down the mountain with furious, hurried steps. Betrayal, deceit, being used—her anger propelled her forward, leaving no room in her mind for anything else.

Because the path was little used, she had only passed a handful of tourists on her way up. Now, as she descended, she found herself utterly alone.

It was still bitterly cold on the mountain, but inside her, a fire raged—her blood pounding straight to her head.

Jiang Wan hurried on. Before long, her phone rang in her pocket. She didn’t bother to check; she knew it had to be Ji Jiali. No doubt she’d calmed down and was ready to lie to her again.

Jiang Wan bit her lip. Now that she knew the truth, she replayed every past interaction in her mind. She felt like a fool—a clown, kept in the dark and played for a fool. She’d even worried about Ji Jiali’s health and delivered her a gift. Yet when she’d given her the butterfly brooch, the signs had already been there.

As the memory resurfaced, two more figures appeared in her mind—Lu Wenzhou and Zhai Honghui. Not only Ji Jiali and Lin Zhi, but even those two had known long before she did. Yet not a single one of them had told her. Everyone was keeping it from her.

Thinking of this, Jiang Wan involuntarily lifted her gaze to the sky. The side trail was lined with towering trees, their canopies blotting out much of the sky. Through the branches and leaves, she glimpsed the gray, overcast heavens, and her heart ached with a dull pain.

"Father, did you already know too?" she murmured, her voice raw, as if each word dragged over razor blades.

She remembered two years ago, in the early winter, when her father had called to tell her that her mother was pregnant. Over the phone, she couldn’t see his expression.

He had said, "It’s good. Your mother finally got what she wanted. Jiang Wan, don’t be upset with her. We need to respect her choice."

His tone had sounded calm, but she could feel it—every word trembled. She couldn’t imagine the storm raging in his heart at that moment, but she knew: that was the final straw that broke him.

He had accepted the divorce and her mother’s remarriage. He’d even thought that if he worked hard enough to restore the Jiang family’s fortunes, perhaps one day he could win her mother back. Until she became pregnant.

His one true love was carrying another man’s child—their child. That fact shattered the feelings he’d suppressed for years and destroyed his last hope. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have chosen to end his life just over a month later.

The twin blows of heartbreak and failure had broken his spirit, leaving him unable to go on.

To this day, Jiang Wan could hardly imagine the journey her father had endured alone in Rong City in those final days—the thoughts and pain that led him to end his life. Whenever she dwelled on it, she felt suffocated.

And now, Ji Jiali was pregnant once more. With the weight of the past and the pain of the present, Jiang Wan, gazing at the sky, suddenly felt she could understand her father. The pain she felt now must be a hundred, a thousand times less than what he had suffered.

Even after all this time, she could neither forgive her mother’s betrayal nor come to terms with her father’s death.

"Father, I can’t give my blessing," Jiang Wan whispered to the sky, her vision blurring as tears welled up.

She bit down hard on her lip, forced herself to look away, and pressed on. Perhaps her emotions were too unstable, or perhaps she was simply moving too fast—but her foot slipped on a patch of ice beside the steps.

There were no railings along the path. She lost her balance and tumbled from the steep steps.

The world spun wildly, filled only with the sound of her body crashing through branches and dead leaves.

At last, she slammed into a massive boulder, finally coming to a stop. Pain exploded from her right ankle, so fierce she couldn’t move, couldn’t even breathe without agony.

Jiang Wan lay on the ground, forcing herself to stay calm. When the pain ebbed enough, she tried to sit up, but the moment she did, her right foot throbbed with unbearable pain.

She looked up. Beyond the branches, the path was nowhere to be seen—she must have fallen at least a hundred meters.

The sky was growing steadily grayer. She knew time was running out.

She reached for her phone to call for help, but her pocket was empty. Her phone was gone—lost somewhere as she tumbled down the mountain.

Without rescue, how could she get out of here? Even aside from everything else, the temperature at night would drop even further—she might very well freeze to death on this mountain.

Gritting her teeth, Jiang Wan forced herself to endure the pain and began to crawl, inch by agonizing inch, back toward the place she had fallen from.