The Day She Never Asked Me to Get Back Together - Chapter 6
Chapter 6
I plugged the USB drive into the computer in the lounge and found two video clips and a scanned copy of a handwritten testimony.
The first clip was surveillance footage from the clubhouse parking lot.
The timestamp was the afternoon of the day we broke up.
In the frame, Qi Zhaoyuan’s grandmother was handing me that kraft paper bag.
The second clip was from much earlier.
It was a backup of old surveillance footage from the entrance of a repair shop near the scene of the accident twenty years ago.
The resolution was blurry, but I could still clearly see my father rushing over to stop a man in a dark suit before the car departed.
The man’s back was tall and broad, bearing a striking resemblance to the current Qi Tingshan.
Following that was a piece of testimony that had never been made public.
The statement claimed that the braking system of the vehicle involved in the accident had been tampered with before the crash.
And my father was not the mastermind behind the accident.
He had been driving for someone else; after discovering the abnormality, he tried to raise an alarm, but he was forcibly suppressed.
I stared at the screen, my hand shaking so hard I could barely hold the mouse.
The door was suddenly pushed open.
The person who walked in was none other than Qi Tingshan.
He was in his fifties, his hair combed perfectly without a single strand out of place, but his smile sent a chill down my spine.
“Xiao Peng, are you satisfied with what you’ve seen?”
I stood up abruptly.
“You did this?”
“Young lady, don’t be so aggressive.”
He walked in and closed the door, his gaze falling on the computer screen as if he were looking at a piece of boring, old news.
“It happened twenty years ago. There’s no point in digging it up now.”
“If there’s no point, then what are you afraid of?”
He laughed.
“Me? Afraid?”
“I just don’t want to see Zhaoyuan being led around by the nose by a woman for three years, only to have his household disrupted over a dead man.”
My nails dug into my palms.
“What exactly do you want?”
“It’s simple. If tonight’s engagement concludes smoothly, I’ll act as if these things never existed.”
“And if I don’t agree?”
“Then I’m afraid your mother’s days at the nursing home won’t be very peaceful.”
My blood ran cold.
This man knew where my mother was.
He also knew exactly what I feared most.
He took a step forward and lowered his voice.
“Peng Qingchuan, you were quite sensible three years ago. Don’t start acting foolishly now.”
I raised my hand, wanting to hurl the computer at him.
But at that moment, the door was kicked open from the outside.
Qi Zhaoyuan stood at the doorway, his expression terrifyingly grim.
Ding Qichen followed behind him.
Qi Tingshan’s expression shifted for a moment before he quickly regained his composure.
“Zhaoyuan, what is the meaning of this?”
Qi Zhaoyuan didn’t even look at him. He walked straight up to me and began prying my fingers open one by one, which I had clenched until they were white.
His palms were very warm.
“Did I not tell you? Don’t meet with random, suspicious people alone.”
My nose stung, and my voice was unsteady. “How did you get here?”
“If you’re out of contact for twenty minutes, I should be here,” he said calmly.
But I knew him too well.
The calmer he was, the more he was suppressing his rage.
Qi Tingshan sneered from behind us. “Are you really going to turn this engagement banquet into a joke for the sake of a woman?”
Qi Zhaoyuan finally turned around.
“Third Uncle, you’ve got it wrong.”
“The biggest joke tonight was never her.”
