[GL] I'm Just A Side Character... So Why Is The Heroine Chasing Me?! Chapter 65: Blood?

Sun ihua found Lan Yue the next morning.

Not by accident. Not through coincidence. She appeared at the herb garden where Lan Yue was reviewing her notes on Qin Wen’s ssenger schedule, materializing from behind a row of dicinal jasmine like she had been planted there along with the flowers.

"You have been busy," Sun ihua said.

Lan Yue closed her notebook. "Can I help you with sothing?"

"Possibly. Possibly I can help you." Sun ihua sat down on the stone bench across from her, arranging her robes with the practiced elegance of soone who turned every seat into a throne. Wei Dong and Hu Lian were nowhere in sight, which was unusual. Sun ihua without her accessories ant she wanted a conversation no one else would hear.

"I will be direct," Sun ihua said. "I know what Qin Wen did."

Lan Yue’s expression did not change. Bethany’s training. Never react to information until you understand why it is being given to you.

"That is a broad statent," Lan Yue said.

"The pills. The modification. Wen Hao. The setup against Zhao Lingxi." Sun ihua examined a jasmine blossom near her shoulder, touching it with one fingertip as if testing its quality. "I also know about the quarterfinal. Shen Zhiran was enhanced with the sa compound. Your little group intercepted a sample before delivery. Clever."

Lan Yue’s pulse spiked. She kept her voice level. "You seem to know a great deal for soone who was sitting in the stands comnting on the scenery."

"I sit in the stands because that is where you see everything. The pavilion is for people who want to be seen. The stands are for people who want to watch." Sun ihua dropped the blossom and looked at Lan Yue directly. "I have been watching Qin Wen for two years. Long before you and your ice princess arrived."

"Why?"

"Because he destroyed my cousin."

The words landed without drama. No trembling voice. No tragic pause. Sun ihua delivered them the way she delivered everything, clean, precise, wrapped in silk.

"Lin Shu. My mother’s sister’s daughter. She was a talented formation specialist. Top of her year. She caught Qin Wen manipulating exam results for three inner sect disciples and reported it to the academic council." Sun ihua’s voice did not change, but her fingers, resting on her knee, pressed down hard enough to wrinkle the fabric. "Within a month, she was accused of cheating on her own examinations. The evidence was flawless. Forged assignnt records. Testimony from two classmates who had been bribed. She was expelled and blacklisted from every major sect in the region."

Lan Yue said nothing. She waited.

"She works in a tea shop now. In a border town where no one knows her na." Sun ihua smoothed the wrinkle from her robe. "She was sixteen."

The herb garden was quiet. A bee drifted between the jasmine blossoms, oblivious to the conversation happening beneath them.

"I am sorry about your cousin," Lan Yue said. She ant it.

"I do not want your sympathy. I want his head on a plate." Sun ihua smiled. It was the first genuine expression Lan Yue had seen from her. It was not pleasant. "Figuratively speaking. Though I would not object to the literal version."

"What are you proposing?"

"An exchange. I have two years of docuntation on Qin Wen’s activities. Social connections, financial flows, favor networks, and three instances where his involvent in academic sabotage left traces that even he could not fully erase." She held up a hand before Lan Yue could speak. "I know what you are thinking. Why would I share this? What do I gain?"

"The question had crossed my mind."

"I gain justice for Lin Shu. And I gain standing. When Qin Wen falls, and he will fall, the person who helped bring him down gains enormous political capital. I am not pretending this is selfless. I want him destroyed and I want credit for the destruction. Both things can be true."

Lan Yue studied her. Sun ihua t her gaze without flinching. There was no deception in her expression. There was calculation, absolutely, the wheels turning behind her eyes were practically visible. But calculation was not the sa as dishonesty. Sun ihua was telling her exactly what she wanted and exactly why. That was more transparency than most people offered.

"How do I know your docuntation is real?" Lan Yue asked.

"You do not. That is why I am proposing you verify it before committing to anything. Have your researcher, the one with the glasses who never smiles, review my materials. If they hold up, we move forward. If they do not, you lose nothing except an hour of reading."

"And if I say no?"

Sun ihua stood. She adjusted her sleeves and tilted her head, and for a mont the polished socialite mask slipped just enough for Lan Yue to see what was underneath. Not ambition. Not pettiness. A cold, patient fury that had been burning at a controlled temperature for two years.

"Then I continue working alone, and eventually I find another way. I have waited this long. I can wait longer." She paused. "But I would rather not. He is hurting people, Lan Yue. Every season there is a new target. A new disciple who gets too close to sothing Qin Wen wants hidden. Lin Shu was not the first, and Zhao Lingxi will not be the last."

She turned to leave.

"Sun ihua."

The woman stopped.

"Yesterday in the stands. The comnts about Zhao Lingxi. The insinuations about Wen Hao. Was that part of your strategy?"

Sun ihua glanced back. Sothing that might have been sha crossed her face, so quickly Lan Yue almost missed it. "I needed Qin Wen to see as useful. As soone who amplified his narrative without being asked. If he thinks I am a tool, he does not think I am a threat."

"You were playing stupid."

"I was playing loud. There is a difference." She smiled again, sharper this ti. "The loudest person in the room is never the one people suspect of keeping secrets."

She walked away through the jasmine, her footsteps silent on the garden path, and disappeared around the corner.

Lan Yue sat alone on the bench and turned this new piece over in her mind. Sun ihua was not an ally. She was an opportunist with a vendetta and a two year head start on intelligence gathering. Trusting her completely would be foolish. Dismissing her completely would be worse.

She found Bai Xuelan in the research room that afternoon and relayed the conversation word for word. Bai Xuelan listened without interrupting, which ant she was taking it seriously.

"Two years of docuntation," Bai Xuelan said when Lan Yue finished. "If even half of it is verifiable, it would strengthen the imperial inquiry significantly. Pattern evidence. Multiple victims. Repeated thodology. The investigators could establish that Wen Hao and Zhao Lingxi were not isolated incidents but part of a systematic operation."

"You think we should trust her?"

"I think we should use her. Trust is a separate question." Bai Xuelan adjusted her glasses. "Have her deliver the materials tonight. I will review them before dawn. If they are fabricated, I will know. If they are genuine, we add them to the evidence package before Mo Tian submits the imperial request."

"That gives us less than two days."

"Then I will read fast."

That evening, Lan Yue t Sun ihua at the abandoned ditation caves. A neutral location. Private. The kind of place where two people could exchange a sealed box of scrolls without anyone noticing.

Sun ihua handed over the box. It was heavier than Lan Yue expected. Two years of ticulous record keeping, carried in a container the size of a bread loaf.

"Everything is organized chronologically," Sun ihua said. "Cross referenced by target, thod, and outco. I color coded the financial records."

"You color coded them."

"I am thorough."

Lan Yue tucked the box into her spatial storage. "If this checks out, you will be included in the inquiry submission. Your na attached. Your cousin’s case referenced."

Sun ihua’s composure cracked. Not much. A tremor at the corner of her mouth. A brightness in her eyes that had nothing to do with ambition and everything to do with a sixteen year old girl working in a border town tea shop.

"That is all I wanted," she said quietly.

She left without her usual flourish. No fan wave. No parting remark. Just a woman walking away from a cave in the dark, lighter than she had been in two years.

Lan Yue watched her go and thought about the strange, uncomfortable truth that people were rarely only one thing. Sun ihua was vain and calculating and sharp tongued and petty. She was also a cousin who had spent two years quietly building a case against the man who destroyed soone she loved.

Both things were true. Both things mattered.

She headed back toward the sect grounds. The red thread on her wrist was warm. Steady. Sowhere across the compound, Zhao Lingxi was resting before the semifinal, and the thread carried the faintest echo of her heartbeat.

Two days until the imperial request. Three until the semifinal. The evidence was growing. The net was tightening. And for the first ti since this began, Lan Yue felt like they were not just reacting to Qin Wen’s moves.

They were making their own.