PANT - Chapter 22
Chapter 22
The room was terrifyingly quiet. Shi Ning didn’t answer, simply watching Su Wanxing with those perpetually nonchalant eyes of hers. At this moment, however, her gaze was filled with a clarity that saw through everything.
Su Wanxing’s breathing grew ragged. Her hands, clutching the mug, were turning white. Overcome with emotion, she shed a few more pretty tears. “Shi Jiejie, are you saying… that Jiang Ningran, she…”
Shi Ning said firmly, “It’s a hypothesis. After all, many things in this world have multiple possible outcomes. Don’t they?”
Su Wanxing bit her lower lip and took a sip of milk, as if trying to use its warm, sweet flavor to calm her nerves and steel herself.
She was thinking.
She was replaying everything that had happened that day.
She had been shocked to see Shi Ning at home that day. She’d pushed the door open, intending to leave, and ran into Jiang Ningran at the entrance. Jiang Ningran was holding her textbook, wanting to return it, and also asked her out for coffee. Su Wanxing remembered that she had agreed to get away from Shi Ning, and she also wanted to talk to Jiang Ningran about the temporary marking incident during the camping trip.
At that time, although she had already seen the “future,” she still didn’t see Jiang Ningran as a bad person. After all, Jiang Ningran had been her junior since high school. They had both gotten into the same arts university—she studied photography, and so did Jiang Ningran.
You could say that Jiang Ningran was a part of her youth, her best friend.
Su Wanxing had told Jiang Ningran about her adolescent crushes, sharing with her the bittersweet feelings of a young girl and the troubles in her life.
She had thought, perhaps, that Jiang Ningran wasn’t like the person in the “future.”
But later, at the coffee shop…
She drank the coffee, and then she seemed to lose control again.
The sudden onset of her heat almost caused a commotion, so she begged Jiang Ningran to take her to the hotel next door to hide.
And then?
Then… Jiang Ningran gave her a suppressant, and she passed out. When she woke up, she was naked, and so was Jiang Ningran. Her body’s reaction told her that something had likely happened between them.
In that instant, watching Jiang Ningran sit nonchalantly to the side, scrolling through her phone, she realized that perhaps, just perhaps, the Jiang Ningran of the present was the same person from the “future.”
The lunatic who would imprison her, dig out her gland, and torture her.
But the things in her head had appeared too suddenly, and they were all too absurd. Seven Alphas? Su Wanxing was on the verge of going mad. Her small brain, already short on processing power, was about to crash from being stuffed with all this information. So even when Jiang Ningran told her that the suppressant had failed and that she had clung to her and…
She couldn’t refute it.
After all, in the “future,” Su Wanxing had seen herself, wretched and begging for pleasure, when she lost control during her heat.
She resigned herself to it. Fine, maybe she was like that now, too.
Su Wanxing had suggested going home. Despite the instinctive fear she now felt toward Jiang Ningran, she couldn’t bring herself to refuse her forcefully.
In the end, that led to everything that happened later, with Jiang Ningran coming to the Su family home.
Su Wanxing was so immersed in blaming herself after learning about the “future” that she never stopped to consider how much of what Jiang Ningran said was true and how much was false.
Jiang Ningran said she had been the one to initiate it, that she had clung to her, that she had pleaded endlessly.
But…
Noticing Su Wanxing’s increasingly grave expression, Shi Ning tapped the coffee table, the glass making a crisp sound. “So, have you remembered anything?”
Su Wanxing wanted to drink more milk, but when she lifted the mug, she found it was empty. She set it down, covered her forehead with her clasped hands, and spoke in a voice thick with exhaustion and panic. “I don’t know.”
“I’ve realized I can’t remember anything at all.”
Because she had foreseen the “future” and had seen herself in that state in her mind, she hadn’t had the courage to question or refute Jiang Ningran’s words.
She started crying again, little pearls falling one by one.
Shi Ning sighed. “If you keep this up, when your sister gets back and finds your eyes all swollen from crying, she’ll probably chew me out.”
Su Wanxing sniffled. “She won’t. My sister doesn’t scold people.”
Shi Ning, who had been scolded by Su Tianxue countless times: …Really? So getting scolded is a special treatment reserved just for me?
Su Wanxing spoke timidly, and Shi Ning could hear her voice trembling. When she looked at her, the young woman was shaking with fear. “Shi Jiejie, I’m saying, I’m just saying if.”
“If Jiang Ningran really did slip me something… can I, can I make her face the consequences?”
“Of course,” Shi Ning said without hesitation. “I’m here.”
Su Wanxing said in a small voice, “I don’t mean for you to beat her up. I mean… will she be punished by the law? What she did was wrong, right?”
Shi Ning was about to answer “yes” immediately, but then she remembered her previous discovery that the laws in the two worlds were different. She quickly took out her phone and searched for the relevant statutes. After skimming them, Shi Ning knew what to do.
“Yes. That’s obvious,” Shi Ning said, looking at Su Wanxing with a serious expression.
Su Wanxing felt she must be too dizzy or too overwhelmed, because right now, even the most unreliable-seeming Shi Ning looked like someone she could depend on. It was as if Shi Ning’s gaze could give a person strength.
Su Wanxing felt herself being soothed.
“But Su Wanxing, I have to remind you,” Shi Ning said. “If you choose to resolve this through legal channels, everyone—and I mean everyone you know and everyone you don’t—they will all find out about this. And they will judge you for every single detail that comes out during the disclosure process.”
“Are you willing to go through with it, even so?”
Su Wanxing hesitated. “I don’t know.”
“I’m scared. I’m scared that things really are just like Jiang Ningran said.”
Shi Ning looked at her, knowing full well the torment such a lawsuit could inflict on a person, and the immense courage it required.
She asked, “Do you really not remember anything? Where did you and Jiang Ningran have coffee?”
Su Wanxing thought for a moment. “…The one in Chengnan, next to the hotel. It’s called something Yi, Yi…”
Shi Ning said, “Yinian?”
Su Wanxing’s eyes widened. “Yes, that’s it! How did you know?”
This time, Shi Ning let out a genuinely relaxed smile. “Of course I know.”
“That coffee shop is mine.” If Su Wanxing hadn’t reminded her, Shi Ning would have almost forgotten that her identity after transmigrating wasn’t a lawyer, but a top-ranking CEO on the rich list. “Oh, and the hotel next door is mine, too.”
The thought made Shi Ning feel that things would be much easier to handle.
“Wait a moment,” she said to Su Wanxing.
Su Wanxing nodded dazedly, her eyes and nose red from crying.
Shi Ning stood up and paced as she made a call. “Hello, I need you to check something else for me.”
The person on the other end replied, “CEO Shi, go ahead.”
“I’m sending you photos of two people. I need you to find all the surveillance footage of them at the Yinian Café in Chengnan and the hotel next door as soon as possible.”
Normally, an ordinary person couldn’t just request surveillance footage from a commercial establishment. But when those establishments all belonged to Shi Ning, such rules didn’t apply.
The person replied respectfully, “Of course. CEO Shi, what time frame do you need?”
Shi Ning opened the calendar on her phone, checked the travel time from the Su residence to Yinian Café, and thought about the time Su Wanxing had suddenly returned home that day. She calculated a rough timeline and said calmly, “After 9:30 PM on the 7th. I’ll give you thirty minutes. Can you find it?”
The person pondered for a moment. “Ten minutes, CEO Shi. I’ll have everyone in my department look for it together.”
“Good,” Shi Ning said. “Thank you.”
“You’re too kind, CEO Shi. It’s what we’re supposed to do.”
Shi Ning hung up and looked at Su Wanxing, who had been watching her the entire time. “It’s handled. Just wait.”
“Okay.” Su Wanxing let out a sigh of relief.
Those ten minutes were perhaps the most difficult ten minutes of Su Wanxing’s life. She felt like she was sitting on pins and needles, unable to sit or stand still. She could only wring her hands anxiously, picking at the dead skin on the side of her index finger and tearing off a large piece without even feeling the pain.
Ding-dong.
Shi Ning’s phone received a message. Su Wanxing looked at her and asked nervously, “Did they find it?”
Shi Ning nodded.
The truth was right in front of her, but Su Wanxing was afraid.
She bit the inside of her cheek. “Shi Jiejie, you look first.”
Shi Ning asked, “You don’t want to watch?”
Su Wanxing gave a bitter smile. “I’m scared. Scared of seeing that things are exactly as Jiang Ningran said.”
Shi Ning said, “And so what if they are?”
Su Wanxing hadn’t expected that kind of response. “Huh?”
Shi Ning smiled and explained, “If things are exactly as Jiang Ningran said, then Su Wanxing, I’ll be happy for you. Because that would mean what happened between you and Jiang Ningran was truly consensual. It would also mean you didn’t experience a nightmare that no one knew about. And if it is true, it doesn’t define you in any way. Su Wanxing, the world already demands enough of you; don’t put shackles on yourself.”
“Alright, let’s watch the video.”
Su Wanxing mustered her courage. “Then, Shi Jiejie, can I still watch with you?”
“Of course.” Shi Ning placed her phone flat on the coffee table, pushed it to the space between them, and angled the screen toward Su Wanxing. “This is your life. Of course you can watch.”
Su Wanxing nodded lightly. When she looked at the phone, she first saw Shi Ning’s chat history with the other person.
Other Person: [Video]
Shi Ning: [Transfer: 200,000]
Shi Ning: Thanks for the hard work. Please accept this and share it with the department. Also, your department will receive an extra bonus this quarter. Thank you.
Seeing this, Su Wanxing thought that Shi Ning was probably the most polite boss in the world to her employees.
Seeing Su Wanxing still in a daze, Shi Ning asked, “Do you want to press play yourself?”
Su Wanxing gritted her teeth, reached out, and lightly tapped the video on the screen.
The video immediately went full-screen, and the footage began to play—
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