Chapter 66: What Is True? What Is Real?

Chang's fingers trembled as she held the damning photos, unable to stop herself from looking at each one closely. Every picture was of Jian with other women. Stunningly beautiful women.

The first one she saw was of him sitting at a restaurant with another woman, enjoying a night between the two of them from what it looked judging by his expression. Neither of them was touching in it, but just the way the woman looked at Jian made her stomach tie in knots.

Feeling her eyes burning, Chang stared at the photos as she went through them one by one, unable to stop herself.

In a few of the photos, he was drinking with a group of other men and a bunch of beautiful, barely dressed ladies. While they were hard to look at, she could wave them off as business-related, knowing what she did. A few others though seemed too intimate, too personal, like the first.

In one he was holding a woman, her head nestled deep in his arms at night as they stood by a vehicle. Another showed him dancing, dressed to the nines while holding his beautiful partner close. The last showed him kissing the hand of another, while she looked down at him with a delighted expression.

At first, it seemed like a string of different women, all drop-dead gorgeous, but she noticed one of the women was actually in several. Looking through them all closely, Chang recognized that one woman, in particular, showed up in four of the seven photos.

She was also the one in all the more intimate ones. Chang could not see the woman's face in the picture where he was embracing her, but she could tell it was the same one again.

Looking at the woman's beautiful graceful features, Chang started comparing the two of them, unable to help herself. The other woman was slim and elegant, like a graceful willow tree. The woman in the pictures held herself gracefully with perfect posture, her refinement showing through even in 2D.

Chang had fairly good posture from years of dance and doing martial arts with her father, but she was not raised to be a noblewoman like that woman was. Not only her demeanor; her clothes and jewels showed that she was of a way higher standard than Chang could ever hope to be.

Dancing with Jian she was smiling, showing a row of perfect white teeth as she gazed up at him, her black crystal-like eyes shining. She was shorter than Chang, but it only made her look more demure, more well-fitted in Jian's arms a bitter thought added, remembering her gawky years.

In her champagne-colored sleeveless halter-necked dress and Jian in his well-fitting black tuxedo, they looked like a couple, a perfectly matched pair in every way.

Seeing the hateful image Chang wanted to tear it up into a million pieces and never see it again, but she could not stop staring at it. It felt like someone stabbed her with a bunch of knives in her stomach and heart, and bitterness had started slowly seeping into her bones from the wounds.

'What is this? Why are you with all these women? Who is this woman? Am I not his only one, Jian what's real, do you really care for me?' Chang's head pounded and she held in between her hands trying to stifle the pounding pain.

'This can't be real... Jian... where are you? I want to see you. I want you to hold me...' At the thought of holding she saw in her mind him kissing the hand of that woman and holding her in his arms. Holding her gently and doing things like had been doing before he left, but with that beautiful woman instead of her. Maybe he already had or was right now?

'No!!' she screamed in her mind banishing the image before it could fully form.

Chang started to break down earnestly seeing the devastating images her mind played out for her, crumpling into a ball, her fists on her head. As she lay there she felt a hand rest on top of her head. Chang swatted away the hand, wanting to be left alone.

There was only one person she wanted to talk to right now and she was not even sure if she did want to. The images kept flashing in her eyes torturing her further, and she began to sob harder. She heard the footsteps leave, a few minutes later she heard a few coming back, including the heavy tramping of a man's boot.

"Lady Dumont!" The guard called out to her, distressed at the sight of her curled up on the ground.

'Great,' she thought bitterly to herself, still laying on the ground. Not wanting to show her tear-stained face, Chang lay still, refusing to look up yet.