Translator: Atlas Studios Editor: Atlas Studios

The instant the other party picked up her call, her eyes immediately brightened up, full of either hope or relief.

An entire night of waiting has created so much grievance in her heart that at this moment, she was on the brink of tears. However, she straightened her neck and barked harshly, “Zi Chuan, where the hell are you? Do you know that I—”

“Xiao Qiao.”

His voice, on the verge of changing due to puberty, interrupted hers.

Even though he had only said a couple of words, his voice gave Qiao Lian a sense of foreboding.

She stopped yelling, as though she was afraid of what he was about to say next. Instead, she smiled and said, “Zi Chuan, how are you? Did something happen?”

Tears rolled down her face as she forced a smile. “Zi Chuan, could you come to see me, please?”

Once she finished speaking, he stayed silent for a while before uttering the last sentence one says in a relationship, “Xiao Qiao, I’m never going to see you again.”

Beep, beep, beep…

As he finished, he hung up the phone without giving her a chance to speak.

Qiao Lian immediately froze on the spot.

She widened her eyes and stared at her cell phone unbelievingly. She bit her lips and said, “You won’t see me again? Do you think just because you said that, we won’t ever see each other again?”

She called him again. Just as the call connected, the receiver hung up again.

When she called over again, the phone had already been switched off.

He had actually switched his phone off…

Qiao Lian stared at the phone in her hands, dazed. She had cried so much that her voice was already hoarse.

That incomprehensible abandonment experience associated with youth and unfathomable romance that she had just experienced had turned her entire world upside down.

Her mother’s words before she left her house rang in her ears again, “Xiao Qiao, he can’t be trusted. What if he is a con artist?”

What if he was a con artist? What should she do?

Her online romance with Zi Chuan had lasted approximately two and a half years. For two years, they had talked for almost half an hour every day, yet now, she was being told that Zi Chuan could be a con artist?

She could not believe it and picked up her phone to call him again.

His phone was still switched off.

Only then did she realize that she knew nothing about him, other than the fact that his name was ‘Zi Chuan’.

She wanted to wrest an explanation out of him, but did not know how to find him.

Afterwards, for many nights, she called that familiar phone number. However, after her call connected, the answering machine would tell her that the number she called was no longer in use.

Even after so many years, each time she thought about the despair that she had experienced that night, she would have a sense of haziness and confusion.

She stared at the cafe in front of her, and at Song Yuanxi and the man. They were chatting with each other animatedly. She frowned.

Were online romances… really reliable?

Just as she thought about this, she turned her head and saw that Shen Liangchuan was also in a daze, as though he had also reminisced about some event in the past.

What was on his mind?

As she thought about this, she saw Song Yuanxi and the man walk out of the cafe. She hurriedly looked in front of her and saw the couple get into car. Then, the car drove away.

She did not know why, but she kept feeling as though something was not quite right.

She hurriedly pushed Shen Liangchuan. “Mr. Shen, chase after them, hurry up!”

Shen Liangchuan still seemed to be in a daze. He stared at Qiao Lian and suddenly asked, “Why?”

Qiao Lian immediately said, “I still think online romances are unreliable, so we should follow them to see what they are planning to do next.”

Online romances are unreliable.

That sentence again.

Shen Liangchuan’s gaze was so deep that it seemed an entire person could get sucked into it. “So, has it always been fake?”

Were her feelings for him fake from the beginning just because they had been in an online romance?