Love in the Midst of Mistaken Identities

“That’s what I thought…” Cheryl put his arm around Xia Yixuan’s shoulders. “This gentleman here. I don’t care what your relationship with Xia Yixuan was, but I just want to say that she’s my lover now, not yours.”

The smile on Xia Yixuan’s face stiffened.

Amongst everyone present, only that big fool didn’t know what Xia Yixuan meant by those words and really thought that she had remembered wrongly. Rather, she had recalled correctly. It was just that she couldn’t remember the name.

Xia Yixuan peeked carefully at Chu Lui’s face and realized that he was basically expressionless, and yet this was when he was the scariest. One could never imagine what he was actually thinking about right now, whether it was to kill one or tear one apart.

Chu Lui’s thin lips curled slightly, without much curvature. He was silent for a long time and a little speechless. He did not expect that the woman he had loved for years, one who he thought was innocent and lovely, would deceive him like this.

He stood up tall in front of Xia Yixuan, making her shrink back slowly. “Brother… Lui… I’m sorry… I know I was wrong, I’m sorry…” She continued to cower, her forehead breaking out in cold sweat.

The pressure from this man was always so scary and petrifying.

“You mean you faked your own death to disappear because you realized you loved someone else?” He asked word by word.

Xia Yixuan hunched her shoulders and nodded.

“You mean you schemed everything yourself, and Xia Ruoxin was merely just a scapegoat for you to cover people’s eyes and ears with?”

His voice became colder.

Xia Yixuan nodded again.

That was because—at that time—there was no one else she could find to take her out other than that stupid sister, and she feared that if she faced Chu Lui, he would see through everything.

“You’ve been living a free and easy life outside for four years, but do you know how long that innocent woman has borne the weight of your death?” Chu Lui clenched his hands tightly; otherwise, he couldn’t guarantee whether he would choke that selfish woman to death. Did she even know? Did she know what that woman had gone through because of her ‘death’?

So she was always innocent. She really had not done anything, but no one believed her.

Even her marriage was a trap that he had devised to make her life a living hell.

Then, what did this make Chu Lui? What did this make his revenge?

His revenge four years ago was unnecessary. He had hurt an innocent woman for someone like this.

“Give it to me!” Chu Lui stretched his hand out, glaring at the amulet hanging at her neck with unfeeling black eyes. It was time she returned that to him, for she was no longer worthy of it.

She wasn’t the Xia Yixuan in the past, and neither was he.

Their relationship had long ended four years ago.

“Give… what?” Xia Yixuan recoiled from Chu Lui’s outstretched hand like a bird frightened by a bow. A simple action from him was enough to make her blood drain from her face. After all, she felt guilty, extremely guilty.

“My amulet.” Chu Lui’s hand was still outstretched. If not for their childhood past and if not for the fact that he had waited for her for so long and loved her for so long, he would have yanked the amulet from her neck if she did not give it to him soon.

He would make all those who deceived him die a tragic end, no matter who. He wouldn’t even leave their corpses.

“This… amulet?” Xia Yixuan placed a hand on her neck. Was he talking about that? How could the amulet she had worn for over twenty years be his? Wasn’t it…?

“Give it back!” Chu Lui clenched his fists, not willing to say any more to her. All he wanted now was his amulet. His mother had personally gotten it for him, and he loved it very much so he wanted to take it back now, along with all the love and memories he had with her. Including the memory of the day he had personally put the amulet around her neck.

From now on, Xia Yixuan would not exist in Chu Lui’s life.

Xia Yixuan pulled the amulet off her neck frantically and placed it in his palm, and yet when she placed the amulet down, she felt a kind of reluctance. After all, she had it for over twenty years and had never once taken it off.

Her neck felt empty, and for some reason, her heart felt empty as well—such that she wanted to cry.

Chu Lui retracted his hand, clutched the amulet tightly, and then walked outside with huge strides. If he had not come here, he would have never imagined that there would be a day he—Chu Lui—would fall for someone’s trick.

Manipulation was his forte. He manipulated everyone, but he never thought there would come a day when others could manipulate him.

“Brother… Brother Lui…” Xia Yixuan suddenly asked, her hand around her suddenly bare neck.

“What else do you want?” Chu Lui stopped in his tracks, his fingers still tight around the amulet. The corners of the amulet dug into his palm with raw pain and anger.

“Brother Lui, is that amulet really yours?” Xia Yixuan asked tentatively, feeling something was strange.

“Why, have you forgotten?” Chu Lui smiled coldly at her. “This…” He opened his fist and held the amulet up its string. The small amulet dangled from his finger and swayed like a pocket watch used in hypnotism, eerily cold.

He continued to speak with the amulet in his hand swinging from side to side, his every word piercing and chilling.

“I put it around your neck when you were young, and I said that I’d be back to find you. I kept my promise, but you didn’t.”

As his words fell to her ears, Xia Yixuan’s face changed suddenly; and so did Shen Yijun’s. She looked at her hands suddenly and started to sob.

Chu Lui was not too concerned about Shen Yijun who was acting peculiarly. His vision was fixed on Xia Yixuan’s face.

She suddenly felt ridiculous.

She asked, slightly baffled, “You mean… what you were looking for was the amulet the whole time, not Xia Yixuan, is that right?” She slumped onto the sofa weakly, feeling overwhelmed. She did not love Chu Lui anymore, but she hadn’t wanted to be a substitute.