Chapter 4
Chapter 4: The Seven-String Qin, Formation-Breaking Tune
Ye Wan Lan lifted her head slowly. She rolled up her sleeves and stepped forward alone.
“Wen Li,” she said, calm and casual, “wait here. I’ll be right back.”
One minute.
That was all she needed.
“Smart.” The leader looked satisfied.
They did not actually want to drag her away by force right at the entrance of River City No. 1 High School. It would look bad, and it would damage the Qin Family’s reputation.
“You—” Lin Wen Li tried to stop her, but she was already walking.
He watched Ye Wan Lan follow the Qin Family guards into a narrow alley, brows knitting hard.
Even if he hated her, he was not heartless enough to watch her die.
He pulled out his phone, fingers tightening, ready to call the police.
One minute passed.
Ye Wan Lan walked back out of the alley as if she had only stepped away for air—hair unruffled, white shirt still clean.
Only then did Lin Wen Li notice the blood.
It slipped down her index finger in slow, bright drops against pale skin.
Her finger bones looked like jade. The red was vivid, almost sinister.
Lin Wen Li jolted forward—then saw into the alley.
Five of the Qin Family guards lay in a heap, coughing blood, faces swollen and bruised. They looked like they’d been beaten past the point of mercy.
It was not a fight.
It was a massacre.
Ye Wan Lan wiped her hands lightly, as unconcerned as if she had rinsed dust away. “It’s handled. Let’s go home.”
Lin Wen Li did not move.
He could not understand it. The Ye Wan Lan he remembered had bowed and scraped in Zhou He Chen’s circle, desperate to please.
So why…
“They wanted to hit me,” Ye Wan Lan said, lifting her eyes. Then, as if thinking it through, she added, “But they had bad luck. They fell.”
Lin Wen Li stared at one guard with a leg bent at a sickening angle. “You’re saying they fell into this?”
“Yes.” Ye Wan Lan nodded with complete conviction. “I told you. They were like this the moment they went in.”
Lin Wen Li said nothing.
He was certain now.
Ye Wan Lan had lost her mind.
And it was none of his business.
He shoved his phone away and walked off, expression set like stone.
The two of them continued—one in front, one behind.
Silence stretched.
Irises swayed in the evening wind as Ye Wan Lan said, “I’m living at home again.”
Lin Wen Li stopped so abruptly Ye Wan Lan nearly bumped into him. He turned, eyes sharp with mockery.
“Home? Didn’t you say if I couldn’t buy you a Jadica bag, then it wasn’t your home?”
His memory was precise.
He remembered the day Lin Huai Jin found Ye Wan Lan on the street and urged her to return to school—only to have a luxury bag thrown into his face.
“What’s the point of going back to school?
“Even if I work my whole life, I still can’t buy a Jadica bag. Do you know how much this one costs?
“With the required purchase history, it’s 1.2 million!
“Can you afford that for me?
“Get lost!”
The words still burned.
Lin Wen Li’s gaze turned colder. He did not believe her.
Ye Wan Lan lowered her lashes, voice cool. “I threw those away.”
Lin Wen Li let out a short, cold laugh and quickened his pace.
They reached home around 7:30. The smell of food hit them the moment they stepped inside.
“Dad. Mom. I’m back.”
Lin Wen Li nodded slightly, dropped his backpack, and went to wash his hands.
Ye Wan Lan turned to Xu Pei Qing, who had returned not long before them. “Hello, Aunt.”
Xu Pei Qing did not look at her. She did not speak. Her fingers tightened around her chopsticks, eyes dark with restraint.
Lin Huai Jin broke the silence. “Eat.”
The four of them ate with different thoughts tangled in their throats.
When Ye Wan Lan finished, she carried her empty plate toward the kitchen.
“Don’t touch it. Let go!” Xu Pei Qing’s voice finally snapped. “This isn’t your business!”
“Aunt—”
“I said let go!”
Crash!
The plate hit the floor and shattered.
Silence dropped like a curtain.
Ye Wan Lan stared at her hands, lashes trembling slightly, as if she could not quite believe what she was seeing.
“Enough.” Lin Huai Jin sounded exhausted. “Sit down. I’ll wash the dishes.”
Xu Pei Qing sucked in a sharp breath, then stormed into the bedroom and slammed the door.
Lin Wen Li’s face remained blank. He looked at Ye Wan Lan and said, “You shouldn’t have come back.”
Ye Wan Lan crouched and picked up a shard. She closed her hand around it, letting blood seep into her palm.
After a long moment, she said quietly, “I’m going to the attic.”
—
“Pei Qing.”
Lin Huai Jin pushed the bedroom door open and stepped inside, voice low. “Don’t be angry. It’s not good for you.”
“Why is she here?” Xu Pei Qing spun around, tears bright in her eyes. “Lin Huai Jin—did you forget the pain as soon as the wound healed? Did you forget what she did to you?”
For four years, Ye Wan Lan had ground their kindness into mud again and again.
Xu Pei Qing could not stand the thought of living under the same roof with someone like that.
Lin Huai Jin was silent for a moment. “I think she’s really back this time. Like she was six years ago—when she was twelve. When she…”
Xu Pei Qing wiped at her tears, voice hard. “I don’t believe it. Yesterday the Zhou Family sent people here looking for her. How do you know she wasn’t dumped by some Zhou Family young master and came back because she had nowhere else to go?
“You’re just her backup plan.
“And you still believe her.”
Ye Wan Lan’s role as Zhou He Chen’s stand-in had stirred endless gossip across River City. Xu Pei Qing knew about all the times Ye Wan Lan left and then crawled back.
So what were they?
A stage prop in Ye Wan Lan and Zhou He Chen’s flirtation?
They were people too. Their hearts were made of flesh.
After a long, heavy silence, Lin Huai Jin finally said hoarsely, “Pei Qing. One last time. I promise.”
Xu Pei Qing closed her eyes. “Fine. I can pretend she doesn’t exist. I only have one condition—she cannot affect Wen Li.”
Whatever Ye Wan Lan’s future was, she no longer cared.
—
Up in the attic, Ye Wan Lan cleaned.
Dust lay thick on old boxes and forgotten clutter—almost all of it her belongings.
After taking over her body, the Transmigrator never returned to the Lin Family home. She would not even know this place existed.
Among the books and stored junk, the most eye-catching object was a Seven-String Qin, dulled with dust, clearly untouched for a long time.
Ye Wan Lan wiped the instrument down and cleaned the strings carefully, then plucked one.
Zheng.
The string trembled. The sound was pure and vast, as if it swallowed the room whole.
She brushed dust off the score beside it. As the gray film drifted away, three words emerged:
Formation-Breaking Tune.
The Transmigrator would never have guessed it. Shen Zhou’s greatest lost classical piece—ranked first among the top ten—was hidden in an ordinary attic. It was the very treasure the World Intangible Heritage Center had spent years searching for.
Ye Wan Lan put the score away and carried the Seven-String Qin down to her bedroom.
When she returned that morning, she had noticed it immediately: though she had been gone four years, Lin Huai Jin had kept her room. While she went to pick up Lin Wen Li, he had even prepared fresh sheets and bedding.
Ye Wan Lan’s expression stayed calm.
A dead end was nothing to her. She had always loved clawing her way out of desperate situations—loved the clean thrill of surviving, then striking back.
Her phone vibrated.
A new message popped up.
Cheng Qing Li: “Sister Lan, my dear ancestor—what did you do?!”
Cheng Qing Li was her new agent. They had not even met yet.
Ye Wan Lan tapped the attachment.
A screenshot of a social post.
Someone had uploaded a photo of a Qin Family guard beaten bloody, with the caption: “Since when is Young Master Zhou’s pet this wild?”
Comments stacked below it:
“No way. Did she go crazy because she loved Young Master Zhou so much it turned into hate?”
“So what if she goes crazy? One beckon from Young Master Zhou and she’ll come running. It’s just playing hard to get.”
“Sister Yun Yi is back. Does she really think she can compare to the real one?”
At the bottom was Zhou He Chen’s reply:
“Wishful thinking.”