On the Eve of the Rupture (Dedicated to sandyzhang2009 for the Diamond Tier update)

"...Mo Zhicheng panted softly, yet he did not stop there. That night, he claimed her over and over again. In the end, he held her tightly from behind, resting his chin against her shoulder and back. Linglan's body was still trembling, and afterwards, she looked as though she had been bathed in sweat. Exhausted by his endless passion, she was too tired to keep her eyes open, weighed down by an overwhelming, all-night drowsiness.

When she startled awake, dawn had already broken. She instinctively felt for the other side of the bed; the empty space indicated that the man was gone. She shot upright, scanning her apartment until the sound of running water drifted from the bathroom. She sighed and let herself fall back onto the mattress. Mo Zhicheng emerged just then, carrying a faint, refreshing scent. Having just washed up, he looked completely invigorated and full of energy.

Ye Linglan buried her face near the pillow to watch him. Catching her gaze, Mo Zhicheng smiled, walked over, and sat right beside her. Instinctively brushing a lock of hair from her face, he asked, "What is it?"

"Just looking..."

"Is there something on my face?" Mo Zhicheng smiled.

"You indulged a bit too much last night, and you were clearly bullying me," she said with a smile.

Mo Zhicheng looked at her in brief surprise, then asked, "Your complexion doesn't look too good. What's wrong?"

Ye Linglan instinctively touched her face, simply feeling utterly exhausted. Noticing the faint bruised shadows under her eyes, she said, "I'm both tired and sleepy." She pressed a hand to her lips and let out a yawn.

"Stay home and rest today. You don't need to go to work..."

She hurriedly moved to get up. "How can I do that?" But Mo Zhicheng reached out and stopped her, saying with a hint of displeasure, "Sleep!"

Unable to argue with him—and feeling her body still aching and limp from the countless times he had taken her the night before—she burrowed back under the covers and drifted into a heavy, hazy sleep. She did not know when Mo Zhicheng left, only dimly hearing the rustle of him picking up his keys and the gentle click of the door closing, a sound that oddly brought her peace. Unsure of what was happening to her lately, she crawled out of bed, reached into the inner pocket of her bag, and retrieved a medicine case. Looking down at the rows of white pills resting in her palm, she hesitated. This time was different from her usual episodes, yet her attacks had been recurring frequently of late. She pressed a hand over her heart, put the medicine case back, and sank back into a deep slumber.

Linglan was woken up by a ringing telephone. On the other end, a man's voice sounded extremely anxious. Linglan listened, still dazed—it was a call from Bai Yuchen. He had presumably just received the seventy million she had wired him. Bai Yuchen demanded without preamble, "Where on earth did you get so much money?"

Yesterday, she had hastily pawned the "Star of Sierra Leone" and immediately wired the funds to Bai Yuchen. When dealing with loan sharks, letting a debt drag on even for a single day caused the interest to snowball. Linglan pulled herself up. "Never mind where the money came from! Did you see the message I sent you yesterday? Hurry up and redeem the house at Tao Yuan!" she urged anxiously.

"Was this money gotten from Mo Zhicheng?" Bai Yuchen asked in a daze.

Ye Linglan remained silent, which was met by the man's dry, mirthless laugh. "He really does love you. Seventy million... seventy million isn't something anyone can just wave a hand and give away!"

Ye Linglan felt a cold sinking in her chest. The money had come from pawning the jewelry he had given her; if Mo Zhicheng were to find out, she didn't even dare to imagine the consequences. Seventy million was nothing to Mo Zhicheng, but what mattered was that it was a gift from him.

Linglan brushed past his comment and simply warned, "Brother Yuchen, do not make any investments with that money."

Bai Yuchen instantly grew wary, probing cautiously, "What do you mean?"

Ye Linglan frowned, knowing her words carried profound meaning. It was impossible for Bai Yuchen not to pick up on it, but...

She struggled inwardly, feeling as though she were caught in a grueling tug-of-war. "Didn't you say the old master doesn't know that the house at Tao Yuan has been mortgaged? That's why I told you to redeem the house first!"

"Linglan, are you hiding something from me?" Bai Yuchen pressed, his voice sharp with vigilance. "Are you?"

"No."

"Do you know something? Linglan, tell me, do you?"

Ye Linglan clenched her fists, fighting the urge to break as she forced out the words: "I don't know. I don't know anything, Brother Yuchen!"

Sensing her resistance, Bai Yuchen lowered his voice. A brief silence hung between the two ends of the line. Still worried, Linglan asked, "Are you alright, Brother Yuchen?"

"The old master is in poor health. I've arranged for my mother to take him to the hot springs for recuperation. I don't want to worry him anymore about the affairs of the Bai family. Shenghans and I are holding the line, but Shenghan's condition is bad. He has lost his former fighting spirit, a soul walking without a body. The two of you once lived in each other's hearts—you hid your adoration for him because of your natural flaws, not wanting him to know your feelings; he held back his love for you because of his family's mission, refusing to let himself see it. Sometimes, a single thought makes all the difference. Paths that were meant to cross brush past one another, and then drift further and further apart along their separate tracks..."

Linglan paused. The faces of herself, Young Master Ye, and Bai Yuchen seemed to materialize before her eyes. From their youth to the present, time had slipped quietly away through the gaps between her fingers, never to return.

She sat on a high-swinging swing, gazing into the distance, her bright laughter echoing through the pure sky. Suddenly, a soft shout came from not far behind her: "Linglan..." She turned her head abruptly, and the young man smiled, his lips curving upwards as if time had frozen, never to fade away!

Linglan shed bitter tears, lowering her head unconsciously.

Bai Yuchen continued, "Linglan, protected by the old master all my life, I've never really tasted hardship. But this time, I am truly terrified. Linglan, I have nowhere else to vent these feelings. You might think I sound soft and pathetic—I myself feel completely useless when I hear it. But I'm truly terrified that the Bai family will collapse just like that. Mo Zhicheng won't let the Bai family go, and he won't let Ye Shenghan go. The humiliation the Mo family suffered back then—Mo Zhicheng is going to exact it back with interest. I know I've been a fool, and I know what the old master did to harm the Mo family and hurt Uncle Ye. Mo Zhicheng's father was driven to desperation by loan shark creditors and jumped to his death. Uncle Ye, fearing that Mo Zhicheng's mother would use her maternal family's influence, paid people to drive her mad. The old master was the one who hired those thugs from the underworld. Those men, lusting after her beauty, raped her. In the end, his mother lost her mind, and the entire Mo family was destroyed."

Ye Linglan buried her face deep in her hands, trembling uncontrollably. Amidst Bai Yuchen's intense, emotional voice lay a deep sense of guilt, yet he choked out, "Linglan, I know the Bai and Ye families wronged the Mo family back then, but protecting the Bai family and safeguarding our ancestral assets is also my inescapable duty, Brother Yuchen. So, Linglan, I'm begging you, tell me how Mo Zhicheng intends to destroy the Bai family. Please, tell me!!"

"Brother Yuchen, stop, don't say anymore..." Linglan bit her lip hard. "How could I possibly be important enough for him to tell me all this?"

"He loves you! Because he loves you so much, he spent a fortune without blinking an eye—seventy million in jewelry—and placed it on you in front of all the media. Don't lie to me anymore. I know you must know the inside story, otherwise you wouldn't have stopped me from investing that money into the Bai family and insisted I redeem the title deed to Tao Yuan instead. You must know, right?!"

"I don't know," she shook her head. "I really don't know..."

In the end, Bai Yuchen let out a heavy sigh, the tense air dissolving back into silence. He said no more...

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Finding no more sleep, Ye Linglan threw on a thin coat and made a trip to Jingning Temple. Every time she came, she performed the ritual of taking three steps and bowing at every single one, climbing all the way to the feet of the great Buddha. The compassionate Buddha maintained a serene smile, as if dissolving all the grievances and hatreds of the mortal world.

Linglan prayed devoutly, kneeling silently beneath the statue. She prayed for Mo Zhicheng to spare the Bai family, and hoped Bai Yuchen could hold the family enterprise together. Yet, deep down, she felt she already knew the outcome.

It was dusk by the time she hurried back from Jingning Temple. She prepared dinner for Mo Zhicheng, and as they shared the meal, he remained extremely busy, taking call after call. After eating a couple of bites, he sat back down at his computer desk to work. During this time, he mentioned plans regarding the Bai family; everything remained strictly under his control.

Ye Linglan cleared away the bowls. While washing the dishes, she vaguely overheard him mention that the contract between the Bai family and the Liu family was scheduled to be signed in a week. A porcelain bowl slipped from Linglan's hand, shattering across the floor. As she hurriedly crouched down to pick up the pieces, she accidentally sliced her finger. Letting out a sharp gasp of pain, Ye Linglan frowned, staring at the beads of blood welling up from her fingertip, while her heart fluttered wildly with unease and dread.

Mo Zhicheng finished reviewing the contract in his hands and placed it near the computer desk. As usual, Linglan poured him a cup of warm water and gently placed it before him. Mo Zhicheng instinctively picked it up, took a small sip, frowned, and looked up at her. "Why is it plain water again?" he murmured in a deep voice, "Tasteless!"

Linglan lowered her gaze slightly, and said with mild displeasure, "Drinking strong tea at night is bad for your health. You really should change that habit."

Mo Zhicheng smiled at her, reached out to flick the tip of her nose, and when he withdrew his hand, his eyes caught the band-aid on her index finger. Seizing her hand, he frowned and asked, "What happened here?"

Linglan tried to pull her hand back, but he held it firmly. She confessed, "I accidentally dropped a bowl just now and cut myself!"

His frown deepened as he asked with concern, "Why are you so clumsy? Does it still hurt?"

Hearing him speak in such a tone made her eyes mist over, warmth flooding her heart. He pulled her onto his lap and carefully peeled back the band-aid. "The cut is deep," Mo Zhicheng said with displeasure. She offered a faint smile, and he asked, "Did you disinfect it?"

"It's just a small cut, it's fine."

Yet, when it came to certain things, this man could be terribly stubborn. Before she could finish speaking, Mo Zhicheng stood up to get some antiseptic. Linglan withdrew her gaze, her eyes inadvertently falling upon the contract left on the desk. Instinctively alert, she glanced through it and realized it was the secret cooperation project between Tiancheng and the Liu family. Ye Linglan scanned the page in a flash, her fingers tightening involuntarily.

"What is it?" Mo Zhicheng asked when he returned.

Linglan snapped back to reality, turning to give him a small smile. "Nothing."

Mo Zhicheng took her hand. Because her apartment was small, the computer desk had been placed in the bedroom. He had her sit on the edge of the bed, then crouched down before her, looking up at her from below for the first time as he gently cleaned her wound. "Be more careful next time. Stop being so careless."

Linglan gave a bittersweet, dazed smile. "I know!"

Over the next few days, Ye Linglan remained deeply unsettled, living in a state of constant anxiety. The day for the Bai and Liu families to sign the contract drew closer and closer. Finally, on that fateful day, she received a call from Bai Yuchen: the paper could no longer wrap up the fire—the Bai family's crisis could no longer be kept from the old master. Upon learning the truth, the old master suffered a sudden heart attack from the shock and was rushed to the hospital for emergency treatment.

Ye Linglan told Mo Zhicheng that the father of an old college classmate had fallen ill, and she was going to visit him.

Mo Zhicheng simply stroked her hair and said softly, "Go on then, and call me if anything comes up."