Reborn to Outshine My Ex and His White Moonlight-Chapter 281: Recognized Him

Lin Zhiyi woke up, surrounded by darkness.

The air was thick with a mix of blood and damp saltiness, which choked her when she tried to breathe heavily, making her want to vomit.

"Ugh."

Eventually, she couldn’t hold back and reached out to dry heave.

Once she calmed down, she realized she was holding onto iron bars, feeling something sticky in her palms.

Her fingertips trembled, and she instinctively let go and drew back.

Suddenly, a dim overhead light turned on right above Lin Zhiyi, illuminating her surroundings.

Upon seeing where she was, her heart tightened.

She had been locked in a cell-like compartment.

In her panic, Lin Zhiyi noticed the sticky substance in her palm—it was blood!

She froze in fear.

Just then, a rough voice came from the darkness outside the bars.

"I told you, you can’t escape."

Accompanying the voice, He Yao’s figure gradually approached.

Lin Zhiyi shrank into a corner, trying to calm her voice, "Mr. He, what do you mean by this? Illegal detention? If I don’t return on time, my mom will call the police."

He Yao sneered, "Call the police, why? You’re my fiancée now. I can just say we went abroad for a vacation, would the police chase us internationally?"

Hearing this, Lin Zhiyi covered her head, trembling with fear.

Seeing her so vulnerable, He Yao’s smile deepened.

He straightened his suit and casually approached the iron bars.

"Now scared? It’s too late. You shouldn’t have ignored me, nor should you have ruined Xiao Ran’s wedding."

Lin Zhiyi whimpered, "You... you like Miss Sang? Then why did you agree to marry me at President Wen’s request?"

He Yao slowly squatted down, his fists cracking.

"President Wen said I’m not worthy of her, but I can be her guardian deity, and nobody can destroy my vision of the goddess. Understand?"

"I... I understand, please, don’t hurt me, I’ll obey, I’ll definitely obey," Lin Zhiyi sobbed.

He Yao watched Lin Zhiyi beg, scoffed coldly, and quirkily stared at her curled-up legs.

"Don’t worry, I won’t touch you now."

With that, He Yao walked back into the darkness.

Lin Zhiyi cried while listening to He Yao’s footsteps, estimating the size of the room.

It wasn’t until she heard the sound of the door locking that she stopped crying, though her heart sank.

The room was so large; what kind of place was this?

It didn’t seem like an ordinary villa.

Lin Zhiyi stood up with the support of the wall and found the locking mechanism.

She touched the keyhole and sighed in relief.

Then, she pulled a hairpin from her hair, inserted it into the keyhole, and began to pick the lock following an online tutorial.

For half an hour, her fingertips reddened and ached from twisting the thin hairpin.

But fortunately, she had practiced at home before, so she finally managed to unlock it.

Stepping out of the cramped space, the encompassing darkness and chill made her legs tremble.

Relying on her memory, she walked in the direction He Yao had gone.

Suddenly, she bumped into something cold to the touch; panicking, she stepped back and accidentally stepped on a plug on the floor.

With a click, a light suddenly flashed on in front of Lin Zhiyi.

She immediately raised her hand to block it, and after adjusting to the light, she slowly lowered her hand and finally saw what was in front of her.

An operating table.

But it was a modified operating table with four handles, looking as if it had been scratched repeatedly, with many marks.

Lin Zhiyi’s instincts screamed for her to stay away as she moved the lamp in another direction.

The first thing that caught her eye was a wall covered in photos.

After clearly seeing the photograph, Lin Zhiyi suddenly covered her mouth, her eyes brimmed with horror.

She remained stunned for a few seconds, then slowly leaned towards the wall of photographs, supporting herself against the lamp.

They were all photographs of different women’s legs.

From the initial sneak shots to later amputated limbs, and then to He Yao personally cutting off someone else’s legs, despite being mentally prepared, Lin Zhiyi still found herself breaking out in cold sweat.

Her hand holding the lamp trembled, causing the light to also quiver, making everything on the photographs eerily terrifying.

But she couldn’t back down, otherwise all her prior efforts would be wasted.

Lin Zhiyi moved closer to the photographs, searching for usable information.

When the light shifted, she saw photographs on another wall, but with only one subject.

Sang Ran.

From the first time He Yao met Sang Ran until now, he had been recording every single move of Sang Ran.

Each photograph was marked with a timestamp.

Even though Lin Zhiyi had never paid attention to Sang Ran’s treatment abroad, she could clearly see from these photographs how Sang Ran had steadily picked herself up from her dejection.

The hardship was palpable in every smile and every frown.

It had to be said that He Yao truly loved Sang Ran; he decorated the photograph wall as if it were an art exhibition.

After looking through them, Lin Zhiyi suddenly froze and shone the light back on Sang Ran’s photographs.

In several of them, Sang Ran wasn’t wearing her prosthetic, so the stump of her leg was very clear.

Although Sang Ran’s wounds had healed, the scars on her leg seemed very familiar to Lin Zhiyi.

After a moment of contemplation, Lin Zhiyi turned back to those photographs of legs.

After He Yao got to know Sang Ran, the wounds on those legs almost looked like hers, except Sang Ran’s were due to an accident, while He Yao had cut the others himself.

Comparing two photographs side by side, a scene suddenly flashed through Lin Zhiyi’s mind.

"Miss Lin, it’s going to be difficult to stitch your mother’s leg wounds, we might have to secure them another way."

"... Okay."

Inside the funeral home, Lin Zhiyi numbly nodded.

A formerly vague conversation with the staff suddenly came back to her.

"How strange, what could have caused these wounds? They look rugged, yet oddly uniform."

"It might be from parts of the car, who knows? Let’s get moving."

"Sigh, such a pity, covered in injuries all over, and missing a leg."

Covered in injuries all over.

Injuries...

Lin Zhiyi lifted her gaze back to the photograph wall and found the photographs of He Yao’s four ex-wives.

Unlike other women, they were covered in similar types of wounds.

These matched the injuries on Liu He.

So Liu He had not died in a car accident in her past life, but had been... killed by He Yao.

He Yao’s unrequited love for Sang Ran was obviously unknown to her.

But from his just-now remarks, it wasn’t hard to realize that Wen Qing had long discovered his feelings and even had him play a knight protecting Sang Ran.

Hence, when He Yao talked about Wen Qing, there was an extra touch of compliance.

Connecting the dots to what happened in the past wasn’t hard.

However, Lin Zhiyi found it hard to accept for a moment.

Her face deathly pale, she stared fixatedly at the photograph wall, the light flickering gently on her face but unable to illuminate the darkness in her heart.

So in the past life, Gong Chen had already known how Liu He died.

Liu He had suffered so many inhuman tortures, yet he lightly passed it off as a car accident.

Just watching her suffer in guilt and sorrow, sending off her loved ones one by one.

And he kept his cooperation with Wen Qing, and Sang Ran.

If Lin Zhiyi hadn’t recognized He Yao the first time she saw him,

perhaps she would have been one of those in the photographs already.