novelraw Chapter 0128 The Sealed Memorandum
Chapter 0128 The Sealed Memorandum
Time seemed to stand still in the study.
Jiang Ci sat at his desk, his eyes fixed on the old phone that was charging.
The red battery icon in the center of the screen is slowly jumping, one segment at a time.
Every second of waiting felt like torture to him.
five minutes.
ten minutes.
at last.
The screen flickered.
The familiar mobile phone brand logo lights up, and the boot animation slowly rotates.
Jiang Ci's fingers curled up unconsciously.
Hold your breath.
The interface has finished loading.
The screen lights up.
The first thing that struck Jiang Ci's retina was the wallpaper.
That's not scenery, nor is it a celebrity.
That was a photo taken secretly.
The background is the window of the old library at University A.
A young man in a white shirt is looking down at a thick textbook.
Sunlight shone on his profile, and his silver-rimmed glasses reflected a soft glow.
The boy's expression was aloof, yet it carried a sense of serene tranquility.
That was him during his freshman year of college.
At that time, they didn't know each other.
Or rather, without his knowledge, her gaze had already fallen upon him.
Jiang Ci's heart suddenly clenched with pain.
If it's just vanity, why use this photo as your wallpaper?
If it was for money, why hide him, who was at his most innocent and penniless, in this dark and hopeless box?
He held up his finger.
My fingertips trembled slightly as I unlocked the screen.
Password required.
Jiang Ci hesitated for a second.
He entered Wen Ning's birthday.
【0618】.
"Incorrect password".
He paused.
As if possessed, I entered my own birthday.
【1012】.
"Click".
Unlocked successfully.
In that instant, Jiang Ci felt all the blood rush to his head.
Her phone was password-protected using his birthday.
It's like some kind of secret, silent confession.
He didn't look through the photo album or read the text message.
Guided by his intuition, he clicked on the yellow icon labeled "Memo".
Open the app.
The list contains hundreds of records arranged in a dense, orderly fashion.
No title.
Only the date is available.
From the day they met until the day she left.
And in the pinned position.
There is a folder named—
[Atonement Diary]
"Atonement?"
Jiang Ci frowned deeply as he looked at those two words.
Why is it atonement?
What did she do wrong?
His finger hovered over the folder.
He suddenly hesitated to open it.
He was afraid of seeing a truth that he couldn't bear, yet he was also afraid of seeing another deception that would leave him in despair.
But he still clicked on it.
Article 1.
It happened shortly after they met, in the autumn of that year.
November 9, 20XX
Jiang Ci remembers this day.
That day in the art gallery, she "accidentally" spilled water on one of his sketches.
That was a rare work that he was satisfied with. Although he said "it's okay," he was actually a little disappointed.
That day she cried and said it was trash, and that it was dirty so she threw it away.
He opened the diary entry.
Contents:
"Today the system gave me a task, telling me to splash brush wash water on his painting. It said if I didn't, it would make me ugly... I'm sorry, Aci, I really didn't mean to... I'm a bad person, I really hate myself like this."
Jiang Ci's pupils suddenly contracted.
system?
task?
disfigure?
The combination of these words is so absurd it's like a joke.
But looking at these words, and at the overflowing guilt and self-reproach between the lines, I realized that they were truly moving.
He couldn't laugh.
He continued scrolling down.
My fingers slid faster and faster, and my breathing became more and more rapid.
Article .
November 10, 20XX
That was their first date, at the mall.
That day, she pointed to the necklace in the shop window and insisted that he buy it, and even offered to transfer money to him, but he refused.
Diary entries:
"Today I called him a penniless pauper and forced him to buy that ridiculously expensive necklace. But he's the richest person I've ever met, and his talent is priceless. I want to buy him the best things in the world, I want to pluck the stars from the sky for him. But the system won't let me... The system forces me to say those vicious things, forces me to be a gold digger. Ah Ci, don't believe it, please don't believe it, I'm not that kind of person."
Article 3.
November 11, 20XX
That day, he stayed up all night at the studio, and she insisted that he go buy oden in the pouring rain. Later, she complained that peeling shrimp was too much trouble.
Diary entries:
"He's staying up all night again. I want to bring him soup, I want to hug him. But the system tells me to cause trouble, to act unreasonably. I can only pretend to mess up the files, pretend to dislike the shrimp he peeled... Seeing his frown, I feel like dying. Jiang Ci, I'm sorry for making you so tired."
One after another.
shocking.
Each date recorded here represents a moment in his memory when she was "acting up," "being unreasonable," and "being materialistic."
And in these words.
There was no disdain, no vanity.
There is only overflowing love, and bottomless pain and helplessness.
She called him "Aci" in her diary.
She apologized to him a thousand times, ten thousand times, in her diary.
In her diary, she said she was forced into it, and that an invisible "system" was controlling her.
"system……"
Jiang Ci stared intently at those words.
The veins on the back of his hand bulged.
He was a science-loving engineer who never believed in ghosts or gods.
But looking at these words filled with blood and tears, and these psychological confessions that are completely contrary to reality, is quite a contrast.
And then, recalling what she cried out during her high feverish nightmares last night—
"Don't shock me," "I'm doing a mission," "Don't hurt him."
An absurd yet unique truth that could explain all the irrationality exploded in his mind.
original.
This is the truth.
It wasn't that she wanted to cause trouble.
It wasn't that she wanted to do something bad.
Something was pressuring her.
There was something he couldn't see, touch, or even understand, that was forcing her to hurt him, and also forcing her to hurt herself.
Behind every instance of her unreasonable behavior lies the fact that she is being tortured.
Every time she said those hurtful things, her heart bled.
Jiang Ci's hands trembled violently.
I could barely hold the phone steady.
He thought he was tolerating her bad temper.
I don't know.
She loved him with her life.
"Wen Ning..."
Jiang Ci's voice choked with emotion.
He looked at the densely packed diary entries on the screen.
It's as if I can see her alone in the dark during those three years, crying, repenting, and struggling helplessly in front of her phone.
And what about him?
He knows nothing.
He also thought she was spoiled.
Jiang Ci felt as if a piece of his heart had been ripped out while he was still alive.
That pain was more intense than all the suffering he had endured in the past three years.
He took a deep breath.
He was barely holding back his emotions as he was about to break down.
My fingers trembled as I slid to the last entry in my diary.
That date.
He will never forget it, even if he dies.
That was three years ago, the day before Limitless's victory celebration.
It was also the night before she left.
If the previous ones were just "acting up".
That day.
What exactly happened?
What kind of mission forced her to leave him so resolutely?
Jiang Ci's finger hovered above the screen.
I hesitated to click.
A tremendous fear gripped him.
His intuition told him so.
Hidden within this is a secret powerful enough to destroy him.