Chapter 48
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Chapter 48: The Truth Is Only One!
When Ye Xiao returned home, she was immediately faced with an intense interrogation from Ye Youran and Shen Yunchu.
“Xiao Xiao! As a girl, how could you stay out all night? What if something had happened? And I heard from Yunchu that this isn’t even the first time!”
Hearing Ye Youran’s lecture, Ye Xiao felt her ears about to grow calluses.
“Yes, yes, I know. Geez, big sister, you’re even more nagging than Mom.”
“By the way, Xiao Xiao, didn’t you go to get investment funding? How did that go?” Shen Yunchu asked cautiously.
Truth be told, even though she’d invested the least, Shen Yunchu was the most worried about Ye Xiao’s game project falling through.
“Investment, huh…”
Ye Xiao tilted her head upward at a 45-degree angle, gazing toward the sky. This way, the tears wouldn’t fall… not that she had any. She just felt that this pose looked kind of cool and dramatic.
However, to the two taller women, who were both over 160 cm, seeing this 142 cm little girl tilt her head and squint looked very much like when Ye Xiao would lean in for a kiss after getting close to Shen Yunchu.
Ye Youran just found the pose strange, but Shen Yunchu was already blushing.
“Xiao Xiao, don’t do that… Sister Youran is right here.”
“What’s this about ‘doing that’? Are you two hiding something from me?” Ye Youran asked, baffled.
“N-No, Sister Youran, there’s nothing going on, right, Xiao Xiao?”
“Nuh-uh, big sister, aren’t you the one with secrets? Got anything you’re not telling us?”
Ye Xiao didn’t seem the least bit fazed. She realized her pose might have looked a bit too much like a girl asking for a kiss, so she lowered her head and smiled at Ye Youran.
“Something seems fishy, though. So… how did the investment go?”
“As for the investment, it’s—”
Ye Xiao deliberately dragged out her words, building suspense. Shen Yunchu and Ye Youran leaned forward in excitement.
When Ye Xiao had first explained her idea, she’d told them that developing this game would need a minimum of 50 million, so their company would be looking at a huge influx if the investment came through.
Ye Youran, a bit older, was the first to calm down. As the oldest in the room, she needed to keep her cool.
On Ye Xiao’s end, seeing the hopeful looks in Shen Yunchu and Ye Youran’s eyes, she couldn’t bring herself to say the next word… but still, she shrugged helplessly.
“It failed…”
Shen Yunchu and Ye Youran’s faces both froze.
They’d been envisioning lives of newfound wealth after the game’s success. But in a flash, their moods dropped from soaring high to plummeting low.
“Ye Xiao, are you just playing around? If it failed, you could have just told us! You got us all worked up and then said it failed—what’s that about?”
“Sister Youran… don’t be too hard on Xiao Xiao. I’m sure she’s the one who feels the worst about it. She probably just wanted us to take the news a bit lighter…”
Shen Yunchu tried to speak up for Ye Xiao.
Ye Youran thought it over. It was true: if the investment attempt had failed, the person most upset would be Ye Xiao. After all, both she and Shen Yunchu hadn’t contributed much beyond the initial idea. Ye Xiao had done it all, from designing to drafting proposals and writing the business plan.
“I have an important announcement!” Ye Xiao said, capturing their attention.
Shen Yunchu and Ye Youran instantly quieted down.
“Since the investment failed, I’ve decided to abandon the ‘Phantom Beast Pallu’ project!”
Ye Xiao’s serious tone made it clear she wasn’t joking.
“Abandon it?”
Ye Youran couldn’t believe her ears.
“Ye Xiao, are you sure you said ‘abandon’?”
“That’s right, big sister. I’m shelving ‘Phantom Beast Pallu’ for now~”
“But, Ye Xiao, weren’t you so confident about it at first? And your designs are fantastic. How can you give up so easily? Even without outside funding… couldn’t we all pitch in and work on the game together?”
Ye Youran clenched her fists. She’d been there from the beginning, watching as Ye Xiao poured her heart into the project, even creating all the illustrations, proposals, and plans by herself. Yun-Xiao might have been founded by all three of them, but she and Shen Yunchu had barely done anything to help.
And now, Ye Xiao was suddenly saying she was going to abandon it.
To Ye Youran, Ye Xiao didn’t owe anyone anything by stopping. The only person she was letting down was herself.
“Big sister…”
In truth, seeing her sister so upset at her decision to shelve the project filled Ye Xiao with warmth rather than guilt. It proved just how much her sister cared about her.
If that was the case, then there was no way her sister, Ye Youran, was the one who’d messaged Ye Xiao before returning to the country, asking her to ruin Su Ruoxue’s reputation.
That meant there was only one possible answer to the mystery…
Gu Tingyuan.
Detective Ye Xiao was now on the case!
Considering how much Ye Youran cared for her, she’d never ask Ye Xiao to do something so risky. Whether it succeeded or failed, it would offend both the Su and Gu families.
For Ye Xiao, a naive college student, to pull it off cleanly was nearly impossible.
According to the information Su Ruoxue had gathered, the Su family had also investigated the incident but couldn’t find the man who was supposed to meet Su Ruoxue under dubious circumstances.
Afterward, Ye Xiao had tried to contact the guy but found that he seemed to have vanished without a trace.
The biggest clue had gone cold…
But, if Ye Xiao hypothesized about the future, it suggested that, despite no longer liking Gu Tingyuan, Ye Youran would still end up with him.
That didn’t make sense unless Gu Tingyuan had done something Ye Xiao wasn’t aware of to make her sister change her mind.
So, there was only one conclusion!
Gu Tingyuan was behind everything.
Ye Xiao’s suspicion of Gu Tingyuan arose from clearing Ye Youran’s name first.
But why would Gu Tingyuan do something that would damage his own family’s reputation just to be with Ye Youran?
Could he really like her so much that he didn’t mind harming the family’s honor?
None of it made any sense…
The truth of Su Ruoxue’s story had nothing to do with a tragic romance!