After My Childhood Friend and Fiancé Broke Off Our Engagement

In City B, news that a prominent business owner's son had embezzled public funds and withheld wages continued to spread. Also exposed was the scandal of his son bullying a classmate. The news was the talk of the town, and for a time, the Ran family mother and son became the targets of everyone's condemnation.

Ran Shuyang's world changed in an instant. He had to cooperate with the investigation and clear his name, comfort his mother as she teetered on the brink of collapse, get along with the illegitimate son who had been acknowledged by the family, deal with his classmates and friends treating him differently, and... face his childhood friend and fiance, Tong Jiacheng.

[Jiacheng, I'm downstairs]

[No need, just take care of your own business. I'm almost there]

After that day, they never went to school together again.

On social media, Tong Jiacheng deleted all their photos together. Someone left a comment: "Isn't this Young Master Ran's fiance?"

His newly arrived younger brother, Qin Xiao, immediately appeared in the comments: "Jiacheng is a victim too, and he's already cut ties with Ran Shuyang."

The comment was never deleted. A few days later, Ran Yichao's comment showed the label "Liked by the poster."

When a movie about standing up against bullying, with a new love interest winning over the childhood sweetheart, premiered, Qin Xiao posted a whole screen of pointed reflections to his social media. In one corner of the accompanying photo, Tong Jiacheng's clothes were unmistakable.

Tong Jiacheng's name stood out painfully among the long list of people who liked the post.

After their engagement was called off, Ran Shuyang ran into Tong Jiacheng and his friends at a restaurant. From inside the private room, he heard them loudly celebrating Jiacheng's escape from a lawbreaker and the start of his new life.

For a moment, he stood there stunned. Through a crack in the door, he saw Tong Jiacheng raising a glass, smiling with ease and relief.

The night before leaving City B, Ran Shuyang still opened their chat and typed: [Want to go to the library together on Saturday?]

After a long time, the other side replied: [I have plans this weekend, so I can't go.]

Ran Shuyang replied at once: [Okay.]

That was the last word he ever sent in their chat.

Two years later, officials in City B were arrested, and the truth came to light. It proved that all the accusations against the Ran family mother and son had been slander.

As Tong Jiacheng stared at the chat window, where it seemed no one would ever reply, he gradually sank into despair.

On a street in City H, when they met again, he saw someone else beside Ran Shuyang and nearly fell apart.

"Actually, every 'I'm sorry' I've ever said to you was a lie. They all meant 'I love you.'"

2024.12.22

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