CH 98.3

Li Xiaoxing had already propped up into a sitting position when Ji Fanyin entered the room. His gaze had been fixated on her from the moment the door opened.

“Mr. Li,” Ji Fanyin greeted him and closed the door behind her. She walked towards the bed and observed his current appearance.

He had resembled a pretty doll previously. Now, he was not only broken, but had transformed into one that came from a horror series.

“Have you lost the ability to move your hands?” Her gaze shifted towards his fingers. She reached out a hand but before her hand came into contact with his, she stopped, her hand hovering 1 centimeter above the back of his hand.

Ji Fanyin paused for a moment in that position and observed Li Xiaoxing’s reaction. However, his fingers did not even twitch.

Ji Fanyin raised her eyebrows. She dragged a chair towards the bedside and sat down. She said with a smile, “The way you look at me has changed.”

“...” Li Xiaoxing stared at her, as though he could uncover a scam operation through her facial expressions.

“Is it because you found out I’m not the angel from your childhood?” Ji Fanyin asked further.

“That’s impossible.” Li Xiaoxing finally spoke. However, his voice was hoarse. He continued, “At most, you could be another personality of hers.”

To use science to view the situation, that was indeed the only explanation.

Ji Fanyin was unfazed. “The people on my client list, I believe you are already aware of who they are through your investigations. Out of the three of you, you are the only one I have admitted this matter to. Does Mr. Li know why that is so?”

“... Why?”

“That’s because you are different from them.” Ji Fanyin interlaced her fingers and placed them on her lap. Leaning forward, she looked at Li Xiaoxing. “The catalyst for Bai Zhou and Song Shiyu’s change is my existence. If not for me, they would never realize their mistakes. But you are different. My existence meant the loss of the thing you crave the most.”

“You do not know what I really crave,” Li Xiaoxing refuted.

“You have been chasing the shadow of someone who has already left this world.” Ji Fanyin ignored his denial and continued questioning, “What? Didn’t Ji Xinxin tell you about how she had ganged up with others to suppress and bully your angel, to the point she commited suicide?”

Li Xiaoxing’s breathing hastened.

“When you found out about your mistake, the first thing you did was put all the blame on Ji Xinxin.” Ji Fanyin added, “Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying she’s innocent but you are not blameless either.”

There was a huge difference between ‘I mistook someone else for my benefactor and knowing I could have saved her a few years ago’ and ‘Someone intentionally impersonated my benefactor and I was one of the victims of her fraud’.

Everyone had a defensive mechanism in them to protect their sanity. To protect himself, Li Xiaoxing had ignored the first possibility and gone for the easier latter.

This was even reflected in the way he handled the matter subsequently. To dream about possessing both Ji Xinxin and Ji Fanyin… It was merely him trying to seek compensation for being the ‘victim’ of this fiasco.

Even now, it was possible Li Xiaoxing had not realized his mistake.

That was his deep-set perception. Ji Fanyin had known about it from the first time she set eyes on him.

Therefore, to break his defenses, she had to use his own vulnerability against himself.