1 It Was You?

Fan Lingxin rushed towards the Li household in the middle of the night. "Let me in, I want to see Li Xia."

The locked gate prevented her from entering, and the guards pretended that she was not there.

Looking at the aloof guards, Fan Lingxin felt like something inside her broke. She cried at the top of her lungs, "Li Xia, listen to me! It was not me! Grandma's death had nothing to do with me! When I came to, she was already gone!"

Seeing the burnt face of the girl's desperate shouting, the guards shook their heads in pity.

"Drop it," a soothing voice spoke. The gate separated Fan Lingxin from the origin of the voice. A woman, who looked about twenty six years old, stood behind the metal gate. Her figure was beautiful, her face even more so. "Li Xia is currently mourning his grandma's death. He needs to be alone right now."

Fan Lingxin's expression turned even more sullen at the sight of the woman.

She was the mistress of her husband, the one who Fan Lingxin thought to be her best friend, Tang Xinyue.

For the past six years, this woman was the one who held Li Xia's hand wherever the two went. From the public's perspective, Tang Xinyue had become the actual wife, while they degraded her to a mistress.

Tang Xinyue walked down the stairs in a slow pace. Her every step exuded ethereal gracefulness. The guards opened the gate at her arrie , "Ms. Tang."

The contrast in treatment of the two women made Fan Lingxin resent Tang Xinyue even more.

"You two, I want to speak to her alone."

The two guards glanced at each other, nodded, then left.

As the guards' figures became more distant, Tang Xinyue spoke, "Can you behave yourself? Li Xia just lost his grandmother, while here you are making a ruckus."

"But I did not kill grandma!" Fan Lingxin insisted.

Hearing this, the corner of Tang Xinyue's lips curled upward as she said, "Of course you didn't kill her."

She walked across the street, toward the obscure pond with careful steps.

The lamp was too dim, it was hard to see where Tang Xinyue exactly was. Even so, Fan Lingxin followed her. She felt that there was something suspicious in her words.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, it is impossible for you to kill her. After all, I knocked you out that time." Tang Xinyue smiled as she pat the approaching Fan Lingxin on her head.

"Knock me out? So... it was you?" Fan Lingxin's eyes widened.

"Shush..." Tang Xinyue put her finger over Fan Lingxin's lips.

"It really is you!" Fan Lingxin glared at Tang Xinyue. "You bitch! Grandma was so good to you, how could you..."

"Good?" Tang Xinyue scoffed. "If it wasn't because of that old hag, I would be the one to marry Li Xia! She had known me since I was a little girl, but not once did she ever like me. If you ask me, her death should have come sooner!"

"You are so treacherous, I will tell them about this!"

Tang Xinyue did not flinch at all as Fan Lingxin was about to run. She smiled coldly and said, "Go do that then. Let's see if anyone will believe you..."

Fan Lingxin stopped in her tracks.

"It will be the same result as when you tried to tell that you did not drug Brother Xia."

Turning around, Fan Lingxin looked at Tang Xinyue in disbelief.

Tang Xinyue felt pleased when she saw the expression on Fan Lingxin's face. "It will also be the same as when you told everyone that you did not spike Grandma's drink."

"What do you mean, Tang Xinyue!" Realization struck Fan Lingxin. "That, that was you as well!"

"Wow, you are so smart, Fan Lingxin." Tang Xinyue sneered, "Yes, it was me. But so what? Do you remember that time when you left Brother Jiahao's home? He almost suffocated due to gas leaks. You told everyone that you had nothing to do with it. And what about that time when Xia was kidnapped in an abandoned mansion? I saved him from the blazing fire, and you were found at the site unconscious. Both of those times, you claimed you had nothing to do with, but who believed you?"

Hearing the disasters that happened long ago, Fan Lingxin subconsciously touched her face.

She tried her best to help Li Xia escape from the scorching flames, but in the end, she herself did not get out. The fire burnt half of her face, and the rest of her life!

She was the unlawful daughter of the Fan household.

When she was taken in by her family at seventeen years old, she knew she would be married to someone named Li Xia. Yet, she had no idea that that man already had a childhood sweetheart named Tang Xinyue.

She married him at nineteen years old, at the expense of her being humiliated and compared to Tang Xinyue.

Tang Xinyue was a magnanimous and kind woman. Fan Lingxin was rude.

Tang Xinyue was a beautiful and generous woman. Fan Lingxin was scheming.

Tang Xinyue was well-educated and finished studying abroad. Fan Lingxin was uncultured and did not finish school before marriage.

She also trusted Tang Xinyue and treated her as a best friend, from seventeen to twenty-five. All the while, she was scheming behind her back and destroyed her life.

The general knowledge was that Fan Lingxin, the wife who Li Xia just married, drugged him on their wedding night to irk Tang Xinyue. When Tang Xinyue almost died, she was the one who lit the fire. She even slip voluntarily on the stairs to lose her baby to set Tang Xinyue up.

The public's stigma against her made them blind to all she had done to match her husband, Li Xia.

When she risked her health in order to help Li Xia with his files and fell ill, they said she was hypocritical.

When she practiced her own cooking to help Li Xia with his stomach problems, they said she was calculative.

When she tried grant her grandma's wish of having a great grandchild and stayed at home to take care of the fetus, they said she was lazy.

When the Fan family went bankrupt, they said she was a gold digger and a social climber, relying on her husband's status.

When she had a miscarriage, they said that she got what she deserved as she got too much karma from doing evil. Even the heavens didn't favor her.

As time passed, she developed an unnatural dependence on Tang Xinyue. She was always wrong, while Tang Xinyue was always right.

Of course, yesterday, she changed her mind, when she was spotted unconscious next to grandma's corpse. When she woke up, she was apprehended under the suspicion that she was the murderer.

"You bitch! Why, why did you do this?" Fan Lingxin felt tears flow out of her eyes, and she threw herself on Tang Xinyue insanely.

Tang Xinyue practiced martial arts, so she was able to dodge Fan Lingxin's assault.

Caught off guard, Fan Lingxin felt a hand push her into the pond.

"Save..." Fan Lingxin struggled, drowning in the deep body of water. "Save-"

Bubbles rose up.

Tang Xinyue glared at the pond with an ice cold gaze. "You go in peace. I will become the new Mrs. Li."