Jiang Lan shuddered violently. She opened her mouth to argue, but not a word came out.
Her reaction only confirmed Yue Xiaofei's suspicions.
"Godmother, do you know something?"
Yue Xiaofei kept his voice low, but every word carried unmistakable force. "You know something about my mother, don't you?"
"I... I don't! I don't know anything!"
Jiang Lan snatched her hand back as if she had been burned and shook her head frantically.
"Xiaofei, please stop asking. Listen to your godmother and let the past stay in the past! You're young. You have a bright future ahead of you. Don't throw it away over something that happened years ago!"
The more she acted this way, the more certain Yue Xiaofei became that she was hiding an enormous secret.
A secret she feared so much she hardly dared touch it.
"Godmother!"
Yue Xiaofei's voice grew firmer. "She was my mom! My own mother! If I can't uncover how she died, what kind of son am I?"
"You and my mother were best friends, as close as sisters. Can you really bear to let her death go unexplained while whoever killed her walks free?"
His words struck Jiang Lan like a hammer blow.
"Wah..."
She covered her face and slumped against the sofa, her shoulders shaking as stifled sobs escaped through her fingers.
Yes. Ye Qingmei had been her dearest friend.
Ye Qingmei, whose smile was as warm as the sun, who had always been so kind and so strong.
How could Jiang Lan bear it?
For the past year, whenever she woke in the middle of the night, she had thought of it. Not a day had passed without guilt and anguish.
The only sounds in the living room were her muffled sobs and the rustle of Su Guohua pretending to turn