MY PRINCE HUSBAND HAS SEVEN WIVES AND I AM HIS FAVOURITE!

Hua Jing chuckled again, this time louder, the sound like silver bells that only made Lin Qian’s blood boil hotter. Without hesitation, Hua Jing stepped closer and casually raised her hand, patting Lin Qian’s shoulder as if the two of them were the oldest, dearest of friends.

Her touch was maddeningly familiar, confident, and intimate.

"There’s no need for you to be ashamed," Hua Jing murmured, her grin widening into something almost wicked. "Come on, you can thank me. Go on, say it. You can thank me."

The way she leaned in, lips curled in shameless triumph, made Lin Qian’s fists twitch at her sides. She really wanted to punch this woman—just one clean punch to send her flying several feet away, that smug grin wiped off her face.

But she couldn’t.

Because behind that grin, beneath the teasing lilt of her voice, Lin Qian knew very well there was a sincerity that made her heart clench.

Grinding her teeth, she forced herself to calm down. Taking a deep breath, she changed the subject. "How long have you been back?"

Hua Jing smirked, lifting her hand lazily and motioning with her fingers. "Well over a week."

Lin Qian’s eyes widened. A week? She had been back a week already?

Her shock was plain on her face. She scanned Hua Jing from head to toe—her pale skin glowing with health despite its unnatural undertone, her perfect posture, the poise of a star who had never once faltered. Lin Qian had expected to see weakness, frailty, some trace of the long coma Hua Jing had endured. Instead, standing in front of her was someone who looked like she had never even been away.

"It’s been a week," Lin Qian muttered, half to herself. "And you’re already running around like this?"

"Of course." Hua Jing’s grin grew impossibly wider, her voice brimming with self-assurance. "I am not like everyone else. Even if I stayed in a coma for five years, I would still come back to myself in a matter of days."

Her words were clearly self-praise, a shameless boast delivered without hesitation.

Lin Qian almost rolled her eyes, but before she could retort, a faint rustle drew both their gazes.

Fu Jingrong.

He had been sitting quietly to the side this entire time, his long fingers folded neatly on his knee, his expression unreadable. Now, however, he finally lifted his gaze. His dark eyes, sharp and calm as a blade’s edge, settled on Hua Jing with a questioning weight.

He didn’t say a word. He didn’t have to. His gaze alone carried the unspoken question—Are you really fine?

And for once, Hua Jing faltered.

That smile of hers flickered for a fraction of a second, as if caught off guard, before she turned her face away almost too quickly, refusing to meet his eyes. She raised her chin, deflecting his silent probing, and turned her focus back to Lin Qian instead.

"It’s been a year," Hua Jing said smoothly, her voice cooling, her playful tone thinning into something sharper. Her eyes narrowed. "But I didn’t expect that when I finally woke up, I’d find you in such a pathetic state."

The words were like knives, slicing without hesitation.

Lin Qian’s lips parted, and her hands clenched. Hua Jing’s bluntness struck deep—it wasn’t mockery for mockery’s sake. It was the truth, a truth Lin Qian had been trying to ignore for months. She wanted to push this woman away, to scream at her, to tell her to stop cutting her open the moment she had returned. But what use would it be? Hua Jing’s words always carried weight because they were true.

So Lin Qian sneered instead, her voice dripping with bitter irony. "Don’t I have your good sister to thank for that? She played her cards so well that even a veteran like me had to step back in order to give her room."

Hua Jing froze.

Her eyes narrowed, her smile vanishing like sunlight behind storm clouds. Coldness descended over her features as she processed the name unsaid. Hua Ling.

A memory flickered in Hua Jing’s mind—her sister’s face, smiling sweetly while twisting daggers behind backs. That face she had once loved and trusted. That betrayal she could never erase.

Her voice dropped, icy and cutting. "But you..." She turned her gaze back to Lin Qian, her eyes sharp as blades. "You have a very powerful backer, don’t you? Is that man of yours so useless that he can’t even salvage your reputation?"

The words landed like a hammer.

Lin Qian’s lips twitched, her face flushing. Shame pooled in her chest, hot and suffocating. She hated this—the way Hua Jing’s words exposed the whispers everyone already knew. It was no secret that she had a powerful backer in the industry. Everyone gossiped about it. Everyone speculated.

But this time, even that powerful man hadn’t been able—or hadn’t wanted—to act against Hua Ling.

Lin Qian pressed her lips together, staring at the floor. She couldn’t tell Hua Jing the truth. She couldn’t say that it wasn’t that the man couldn’t act—he absolutely could, and with a ruthlessness that terrified even her. It was that she had told him not to.

Because she had been waiting.

Waiting for Hua Ling’s downfall, waiting for the right moment to let the viper coil around its own throat.

But how could she explain that? How could she tell Hua Jing that she had chosen to endure humiliation, waiting for a revenge that would cut deeper when the time came?

Her throat tightened.

She said nothing.

But the silence itself was an answer, and Hua Jing saw it clearly.

Her grin returned, slow and cold, lips curling as if she had peeled away another layer of Lin Qian’s carefully guarded mask.

Hua Jing could naturally understand Lin Qian’s predicament.

The news of her removal from the performance list had been too abrupt, too clean, leaving no room for rebuttal. It was obvious that Hua Ling hadn’t spared any effort in pulling strings to ensure that Lin Qian would not have a stage tonight. The efficiency of it, the ruthlessness—it spoke volumes.