The Hidden Novels and a Troubling Discovery

“What?”

Chen Ran was utterly bewildered by Jiang Zilin’s words.

A puzzled expression settled on Chen Ran’s face.

Being pulled back to the sofa, Jiang Zilin then leaned in conspiratorially, whispering into his ear.

“Haven’t you noticed anything unusual about Cold, Xiaoran?”

“No, not at all.”

Recalling his days with Cold at school, the girl had seemed entirely normal: studying, eating, attending club practice, then more eating and studying.

Cold’s daily routine was meticulously consistent.

Each morning, she would go to school with him, participate in club activities after classes ended at three in the afternoon, read at the library in the evening, head to the study room at seven, and return home after school dismissed at nine.

Even after returning home,

she would have a late-night snack, shower, and precisely at ten o’clock, retreat to her room to continue studying until she slept at midnight.

Her self-discipline was frankly terrifying.

“Then what could it be? No, that’s not right…”

Jiang Zilin mumbled, arousing a hint of urgency in Chen Ran.

“What exactly is going on, Sister Xiaolin?”

“Hmm… Xiaoran, look at this…”

Pulling him into the kitchen, Jiang Zilin opened a drawer beneath the stove, revealing a stack of spice jars and bottles, alongside… several notebooks adorned with cute cartoon stickers on their covers.

Chen Ran recognized them instantly.

One of them was precisely the novel Jiang Zilin had previously unearthed from Cold’s room—stories written by Sister Cold in her childhood.

In fact, it wasn’t just one; all the notebooks before him were hers.

“Sister Xiaolin, you hid them all? If Sister Cold finds out, she’ll definitely give you a hard time!!”

Chen Ran’s immediate thought was this:

while cleaning the house, Jiang Zilin had once again discovered her sister’s hidden “treasures” and secretly taken them, stashing them here.

If Cold were to discover this,

she would undoubtedly give her sister a severe beating.

“That’s not it at all!!”

Jiang Zilin exclaimed, flustered.

“You found them in an outdoor trash can, Sister?”

“Huh?”

Chen Ran was even more confused.

After Jiang Zilin’s frantic, lengthy explanation, Chen Ran finally understood: that morning, while taking out the trash, she had discovered these very notebooks placed inside a roadside bin.

“But Sister Cold hasn’t thrown out any trash these past few days, neither when leaving nor when coming home at night.”

Chen Ran recalled that he had gone out and returned with Cold every morning and evening.

“That girl must have secretly gotten up in the middle of the night to dispose of them.”

Jiang Zilin knew her sister all too well.

“But why would she throw them away?”

Chen Ran was puzzled.

The novels in these notebooks were Cold’s earlier “works,” weren’t they? While seeing them might be a bit embarrassing (TL Note: A Chinese slang term, ‘shè sǐ,’ referring to intense social awkwardness or humiliation, often to the point of feeling like one wants to die.), it hardly warranted throwing them away.

“Exactly! I’m puzzled too. She treasured these things immensely; no one was allowed to touch them!”

“Hmm…”

Chen Ran also began to sense that something was amiss.

“That’s why I’m asking you, Xiaoran. Has something happened to Cold at school?”

Jiang Zilin spoke with a deep sense of melancholy.

“That child is just like that. She never tells anyone at home when something happens—not me, not Mom. She even got into a fight at school in middle school! I clearly saw the injuries on her hands when she showered, yet she stubbornly refused to say what happened.”

“She worries me to death!!”

Despite her words, Jiang Zilin’s spirits quickly deflated.

This was because…

she knew her sister never spoke of such things at home, fearing that if she and their mother knew, they wouldn’t be able to help, and would only silently grieve.

This was also why she hadn’t mentioned it to their mother just now—she was afraid of worrying her.

Recalling these memories, Jiang Zilin was on the verge of tears.

Seeing the woman begin to sob, Chen Ran quickly offered a comforting reply.

“It’s alright, Sister Xiaolin. I’ll go ask Sister Cold.”

“Mm…”

“Don’t overthink it. Go back to your room and get some sleep first.”

After seeing Jiang Zilin back to her room,

Chen Ran stood in the second-floor hallway, gazing at Cold’s room across the way. He considered knocking, but decided against it—given Sister Cold’s personality, directly asking her now would likely yield no results.

Therefore, he would have to wait until tomorrow at school…

****

The next day.

Upon arriving at school, Chen Ran sought out Cold’s close friend during lunch break—the one she usually hung out with.

This was the same girl who had encouraged him to try archery the day before.

She was slender and dark-skinned, with short hair and an exceptionally cute smile. Chen Ran had later asked Cold and learned her name was Fan Xiaoting.

“What’s wrong, Xiaoran?”

“Well…”

Chen Ran briefly recounted what Jiang Zilin had told him the previous day, and then…

“I know what it is!!”

Fan Xiaoting instantly became furious, as if she understood the entire situation in a flash.

Then,

she immediately led him to Cold, who was still sitting in the classroom.

“Cold!!”

“Hm?”

Cold was clearly puzzled as to why he and her best friend had come over together.

She then heard the slender girl demand sharply,

“Cold, did that person plagiarize your book again?!”

“!!!”

A rare look of tension flickered across Cold’s pretty face.

She then lowered her eyes and shook her head.

“Xiaoting, you…”

“It definitely is!!”

Fan Xiaoting then turned to Chen Ran and clarified the entire story.

It turned out that…

ever since the beginning of the school year, Cold had been secretly submitting manuscripts to the school’s literary club. As an aristocratic academy, their school’s literature department not only published its own periodicals but also collaborated with numerous literary magazines and journals.

However, none of the novels the girl wrote had ever been accepted.

It would have been fine if they simply hadn’t passed.

Yet, one day, Cold discovered her own novel published in an external literary magazine.

After a bit of “investigation,”

she found that the person who submitted the manuscript to that literary magazine was a member of the school’s literary club.

“Good heavens! That person truly has no shame at all!!”

Fan Xiaoting gesticulated wildly, making it clear to Chen Ran just how furious she was.

“They didn’t change anything in Cold’s novel, just the author’s name, and passed it off as their own! How can someone be like that?!!”

“It’s not even plagiarism; it’s practically copy-pasting!!”

The situation this time was much the same.

One of the shortlisted new works for the “New Literary Talent Competition Lecture” that Rinzi was scheduled to attend on Saturday—the very event he had mentioned to Cold—was, in fact, a piece plagiarized, or rather, copy-pasted, from Cold by that same girl.

The girl had discovered this herself when she privately searched for details about the event on her computer, after hearing him mention it.

Which was why…

“Come on! Let’s go confront that person!!”

The fiery Fan Xiaoting grew angrier with every word, pulling Cold up from her desk and storming out of the classroom…