Xie Mi's casual words drifted into Xu Shuangrong's ears along with the sea breeze.
She stood there with her back to the moonlight, her entire face shrouded in shadow, her expression impossible to make out.
The last layer of her elaborate disguise had finally been stripped away, exposing her black heart to the light for the first time.
Yet Xu Shuangrong didn't lose her composure in the slightest. Instead, her lips curved upward. It was no longer that standard eight-tooth smile, but an unrestrained, brazen, aggressive grin, her eyes brimming with malice.
"I'm done pretending."
"You're really hard to fool."
Xie Mi raised an eyebrow, unsurprised by this side of Xu Shuangrong. Or rather, this was her true face.
"Couldn't you have done this from the start? You made me spend forever arguing with you."
"You're a little calmer than I expected."
Xu Shuangrong said, "I thought you'd panic at least a little when I exposed the fact that you could hear my conversations with the system."
"I did panic a little when you kept calling my name in the cave like you were summoning my soul."
Xu Shuangrong chuckled, but the amusement gradually faded from her eyes.
"You can travel into the past too, can't you?"
"Travel? No idea what you mean."
"Really?"
Her smile deepened. "Whatever. If you're determined to keep pretending, there's nothing I can do. Judging by my previous failed attempts to test you, you're better at pretending than I am."
"If you like playing weak to catch people off guard, go ahead. But I won't underestimate you again."
"Xie Mi, from now on, we'll each rely on our own abilities. I'll take back everything that should have been mine."
Xu Shuangrong turned to leave, the smile vanishing from her face in an instant.
But Xie