Chapter 526: Chapter 526

The man’s tone didn’t sound like he was asking a question. Instead, there was a certainty in his voice, as if he had already made up his mind about the truth of this matter.

Song Qiao was momentarily stunned. By the time she realized what Chu Munan was saying, her complexion started to slowly grow pale. Then, biting her lip, she flatly denied, "No." ɪꜰ ʏᴏᴜ ᴡᴀɴᴛ ᴛᴏ ʀᴇᴀᴅ ᴍᴏʀᴇ ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀs, ᴘʟᴇᴀsᴇ ᴠɪsɪᴛ novel※fire.net

The hand by her side clenched tightly into a fist, and her facial expression turned somewhat suppressed, as if she was holding back her emotions.

Chu Munan’s gaze was fixed on her profile the entire time. Song Qiao wasn’t looking at him but slightly lowered her head, staring at her own shoes. He knew she was avoiding his gaze.

For a moment, Chu Munan suddenly regretted the question he had asked. He shouldn’t have just bluntly put it to her, for whether she had suffered from depression in the past, it was already history.

Yet, for some reason, he had subconsciously blurted out the question.

His hand landed on Song Qiao’s shoulder. He could see that the suppressed look she was trying hard to maintain seemed to be losing control. The feeling of regret surged stronger as he hastily apologized, "I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to ask that. I apologize to you..."

However, as soon as Chu Munan finished speaking, Song Qiao had already looked up at him. Their eyes suddenly met, and her face was devoid of any smile.

Her expression was indifferent as she spoke calmly, "I did suffer from depression in the past, but not many people knew about it. I have no idea how you found out..."

She paused, then continued, "Perhaps, your status makes it easy for you to investigate things others can’t, so it’s not surprising that you know. But Chu Munan... I’m not afraid of you knowing. I’m just scared that others, knowing I once had depression, would look at me differently..."

Hearing Song Qiao’s words, Chu Munan was utterly stunned, promptly speaking out again, "Song Qiao, I won’t."

Song Qiao’s expression remained unchanged, likely feeling that his words have lost their significance. She continued with her usual indifference, "Do you know? What I actually had wasn’t depression, but autism... And the reason I got autism was that when I was in college, I almost lost my virginity, nearly raped by a group of thugs..."

Chu Munan’s pupils constricted sharply, unable to imagine the ordeal she had gone through...

After Song Qiao finished sharing, she felt much more relieved. This incident had always been repressed in her heart. If Ning Wan hadn’t felt something was amiss when she didn’t return and came looking for her, appearing timely at the scene, Song Qiao might have been ruined then and there.

Even though she remained untouched, the violence inflicted on her by those thugs as she resisted—slapping her and kicking her—led to her frequently waking up from nightmares in the middle of the night for nearly a month, with the scene of the incident lingering in her mind for a long time.

After the incident, when she was discharged from the hospital and returned to her rented place, she acted very normal. Ning Wan also had no idea that she was repressing the incident. Ning Wan never brought it up, to avoid reminding her of those terrifying experiences, and she never told anyone the details of the event.

It can be said that Chu Munan was the first one to hear her story.

And the reason why she developed autism was probably due to the long-term repression after that incident, causing her to subconsciously lock herself in her own world later on.

Chu Munan listened to Song Qiao talk about her narrow escape from sexual assault, how she continuously repressed her emotions afterwards, and he also heard her meticulously describe how she later developed autism.

He did not interrupt her, no matter how shocked he was by what she had initially encountered; he did not break her narration to comfort her.

Because he knew... she now needed a listener.

Meanwhile, in An City, news about Lu Jingchen and Song Qiao was saturating every magazine and newspaper, even dominating the headlines. Weibo’s trending topics were also abuzz with their story, not diminishing any time soon, with netizens’ various speculations emerging one after another.

Later on, no one knew exactly who brought up Lu Jingchen’s recent car accident, the news that he and Li Man had topped the headlines with. That incident had been slowly fading from public attention but suddenly started to surface again.

When Lu Jingchen woke up, it was already dusk, and the sunset outside the hospital room window shone directly in, bathing the room in a hazy golden light that gave it a comfortably serene atmosphere.

But if one could overlook the figure sitting on the sofa of the hospital room, occasionally looking up at the hospital bed with a somewhat stifled air, Lu Yulin, then that serenity might seem real.

Zuo Yuqing sat on the other side of the sofa, glanced up at Lu Yulin, slightly raised her eyebrows, and directly reminded him, "Lu Yulin, your second uncle’s health has not fully recovered yet, and he has just undergone surgery. Be careful with your words later, don’t let him know that your second aunt sent over divorce papers."

Zuo Yuqing had gotten slightly injured during a wire stunt while filming last night, so she took a few days off under the pretext of recuperating at the hospital.

Indeed, she was resting in the hospital, but because staying in the hospital room was too boring and both her agent and assistant had to deal with work, she felt that she might end up driving herself crazy if she continued to stay alone. So, she simply made her way to Lu Jingchen’s hospital room.

Li Man had also planned to visit the hospital, but she wouldn’t have been able to make it anyway. With the news about the car accident she had with Lu Jingchen now flaring up, she had to look after herself and couldn’t possibly visit Lu Jingchen at the hospital. She probably wouldn’t have made it out of their community before being blocked by paparazzi.

Upon hearing Zuo Yuqing’s words, Lu Yulin, who was already in a bad mood, found it difficult to suppress his emotions and directly said, "Why should I? If it weren’t for my second uncle’s insistence on divorcing, Mu Shinian wouldn’t have gone abroad with my second aunt. It’s all second uncle’s fault."

He never expected that Mu Shinian would actually just up and leave.