My Dearest General: It Has Always Been You

"You're going to be okay. Here, just put on this earpiece and go inside to listen to what she wants to say." Xu Binchen nagged again for the third time. "No need to feel scared. She will be monitored thoroughly and her hands are handcuffed."

Shi Nian slipped the earpiece on and laughed. "I know. You have already said it three times. I'm not afraid, Binchen Gege. Moreover…" 

Li Qing's death. Should Shi Nian be happy to hear that Li Qing didn't commit suicide voluntarily? Perhaps this was a residual guilt gnawing on her, or perhaps what she needed was this closure. Whatever it was, as soon as she heard Ruo Tingran wanted to meet her, she instantly agreed without further thoughts.

"Moreover what?" Xu Binchen noticed that her hair got caught between the cable and reached out to help her loosen it. However, before his hands could reach, another hand landed on Shi Nian's shoulder from behind and pulled her backward.

"You're not wearing the earpiece properly." Jiang Jinyan said quietly and tucked her hair behind the ear. His eyes met with Xu Binchen, sparks flying and electricity buzzed. In the end, Xu Binchen slowly lowered his arm and withdrew his gaze.

"Oh! Thank you." Shi Nian beamed sweetly and scanned him with worried eyes. "Are you sure you're okay? Your leg doesn't hurt?"

"It doesn't." He patted her head, relishing in the warmth and silkiness of her hair. "Don't worry about me. How can I leave you alone?" There was something Jiang Jinyan didn't add though. How could he leave her with Xu Binchen here when she had just gone to the cemetery with some childhood friend and only notified him after returning?

Up to this moment, Jiang Jinyan still got the urge to sulk whenever he recalled it.

"Why are you sighing?" Shi Nian cupped his cheek softly. "Tired?"

"No." He shook his head and pushed her forward. "Go. I will be waiting for you here."

Shi Nian nodded firmly and took a deep inhale. 

"Are you ready?" Xu Binchen asked.

"Yes, I am." Shi Nian swept his gaze over the monitor room. There were Jiang Jinyan, Xu Binchen, Qin Weizhe, Ru Meiqi and Wang Chengbing there. Of course, Jiang Jinyan wasn't invited at the beginning but he went out of his way to get permission from Xu Binchen. Thus, here he was.

"We will be seeing you from here." Wang Chengbing waved. 

Ru Meiqi gave her a smiling nod whereas Qin Weizhe pumped his fist. "You can do it!"

Shi Nian nodded in return and went in next door, sitting on the chair. Behind her was a mirror that occupied the whole wall, but she knew that everyone was looking after her from there. The door opened in the next moment and a police officer came in with Ruo Tingran dressed in jail uniform trailing behind.

Shi Nian stood up and bowed politely. She had never seen Ruo Tingran ever since their final confrontation in the classroom when she spread the voice recording. The talk of Ruo Family's doom had spread through the school but Shi Nian didn't expect that it would be so severe. 

The Ruo Tingran in her memory was no more. What remained was only a thin, pale and terrified young girl. The eyes that exuded arrogance and confidence were replaced with timidity and nervousness. Her straight back became hunched. 

Shi Nian couldn't even point out any similarities between them except for the same face and name.

"Sit." The police officer pointed toward the empty chair in which Ruo Tingran went to obediently. "You only have an hour to talk, okay? Don't waste your time."

The police officer soon left, leaving Shi Nian and Ruo Tingran behind in a tense and awkward atmosphere.

They weren't friends to begin with and now that the situation had ended up like this, it was even more impossible for them to talk harmoniously.

Shi Nian sighed inwardly and decided to be the one to break the silence. "You called me, right? Do you have something to say?"

Without the police officer's presence, Ruo Tingran slowly calmed down and her tremble subsided. Her head hung low, messy hair obscuring her face. At Shi Nian's question, she timidly lifted her eyes and lowered it again in the next second when their eyes met.

"I…" Ruo Tingran fixed her eyes on the handcuff around her wrist. Dry, calloused fingers wrung nervously together. "I'm sorry."

Shi Nian couldn't resist sighing. "Apology accepted."

However, what good was a sorry did? The harm had been done and the situation couldn't be reversed anymore, Shi Nian thought. However, she still went along with what Ruo Tingran wanted. She had never known that an hour could feel this long before.

"I don't know why I called you either." Ruo Tingran started quietly. "The first person that came to my mind was you. Maybe because I was envious of you. Not only me, but also Li Qing…She talked about you once. She was envious of how you could always lift your head high even though you're poor, how you could blend in the class so fast when she needed years to do so. She was envious of how likable you are. You're the type of person whom everyone can't help but be drawn into…" She trailed off.

Shi Nian waited for a moment but it seemed like Ruo Tingran was immersed in some kind of reminisce. The girl's eyes wandered blankly, it was unknown what she was thinking about. 

"You're saying that someone drove Li Qing to commit suicide? It wasn't because of drug overdose?"

Ruo Tingran snapped out of her thoughts and shook her head slowly. 

Shi Nian leaned forward in nervousness. "...Who is it?"

"I don't know who he is." Fear surfaced in her eyes. "Actually, the one who bought Li Qing's villa is not me, but him. He's the one who transferred the land deed to me. He's also the one who prepared the money and told me to keep it from Li Qing's hands. I don't know…I don't know that my act would lead to Li Qing's death." She hugged herself and started crying. "He has always been monitoring me. When I went home that day, he's also there. He said 'Well done'. What…? Well done for successfully killing Li Qing?"

"C—Calm down…" Shi Nian was bewildered and confused as she wasn't clear on the matter regarding Li Qing's death. What villa? What money? "Calm down first, okay?"

A slight rustle came from her earpiece and Ru Meiqi's voice came through. "Ask her the chronology. How she found the villa deed. How she got in touch with that person. What she saw that day, everything."

Shi Nian relayed the question one by one after Ruo Tingran recomposed herself.

"I received it in my mailbox one day. It was a proof of transaction under Li Qing and my name. I was confused, I never knew Li Qing had a villa nor did I pay for it. I thought it was a fake deed and was ready to report it to the police but there's a letter inside. It wrote [This is my gift for you. Please accept it. Let's teach Li Qing a lesson, shall we? Send the money to her by installment so that she can't get her drugs.]"

Shi Nian cut her off. "Where's the letter right now? Did you save it?"

"No. I was afraid that someone would find out so I burned it."

Disappointment flooded Shi Nian's chest. If…If they could get the letter, maybe they could have found something. "Okay, continue please."

"I thought it was a prank so I went along with it. Li Qing was too much. No one expected her to get addicted for real. The others only consumed it for fun once in a while." She smiled wryly. "At first, I had my suspicions. The only people who knew about Li Qing taking drugs were only my group. I asked around privately but received no positive answers. The one who manipulated everything wasn't them but someone else…"

"I got scared and in fact, I was ready to dump the money and land deed to Li Qing because it didn't concern me anyway what she wanted to do. But…But…" She started trembling again, this time even more violently. "He sent me a text. Right when I was ready to go…as if he was keeping an eye on me and tracking my movement. I knew from then that things had started to spiral out of my control." She buried her face into her palms and sobbed. "I'm sorry. I'm so scared. I couldn't do anything and he assured me that the police couldn't track anything back to me as long as I listened to him. I really had no choice…"

Shi Nian let Ruo Tingran's rambles seep into her brain slowly. She massaged her brows, feeling a headache coming. "How did you two communicate? Do you still have the conversation history on your phone?"

"It's always one sided." Ruo Tingran spoke in murmur. "He texted me and after a while, the message naturally disappeared from my phone. I have gone to some expert to ask about it but they have no idea about it either. There's no trace at all. I really don't know how he did it…"

In the monitor room. 

As Ruo Tingran's words fell, Wang Chengbing stood up from his seat abruptly, toppling the chair upside down. Curses flew out of his mouth like fountains. "Damn it, damn it, damn it!"

"What the hell is wrong with you?!" Xu Binchen slapped the back of his head.

Wang Chengbing couldn't care less. He pointed toward Ruo Tingran's tears soaked face. "What she said…" He breathed rapidly, furious. "The disappearing message—it's a program I made!"

"What?!" Everyone exclaimed in shock.

The fatty wailed and pulled on his head in frustration. "And guess what? I also sold it to Jia Renyu a few years ago!"

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A/N: Wang Chengbing you... (;￣ー￣) Well, he practically reaped what he sowed though right now lol

Oh and the way Jiang Jinyan is wary of Xu Binchen lol