My Online Girlfriend Has a Twin Sister

Chapter 495: Chapter 317: A Never-Before-Seen Jiangg Ning: Her Coquettish Other Side

Who was he supposed to choose?

The unutterable answer was the forbidden fruit hanging high on a tree in the Eden Garden. Amid their blissful lives, soaking in the sun and rain, the two Spiritual Snakes living in the garden would always look up at that fruit.

No one knew what it tasted like, but the less they knew, the more they wanted to taste it—even if picking it would hurt them both.

But that was always the way of the world.

You have to lose to gain, and you have to be hurt to grow. No one could live this arduous life in peace, no matter how privileged their background or how kind their heart.

Jiangg Ning and Jiangg Yao were such good girls who deserved to be treated well by life, yet they were still enduring pain and struggle. From a dark childhood to a brighter adulthood, from being withdrawn and ostracized to healing each other’s wounds. They held each other close, hoping for a better tomorrow. As twins, closer than blood itself, they shared the purest affection for one another. But fate insisted on placing them at the same crossroads, stripping them of their right to lean on each other.

"Is this the only way?" Chen Yuan asked, his voice hoarse, as if something were caught in his throat.

Jiangg Ning stood just a few steps away, yet he couldn’t move forward. Until he had a real answer, he could never reach her side. It wouldn’t matter if he walked quickly, slowly, or even broke into a desperate sprint. She never left, a constant shadow by his side, yet always just out of reach.

But that was Jiangg Ning.

There was light and shadow beneath the streetlamp. In the dim glow, he could just make out Ningning’s profile, half-hidden in the darkness. Her long eyelashes slowly lowered, veiling her eyes.

She didn’t answer Chen Yuan. Instead, she blinked and asked a question of her own.

"So, what do you want?"

"I..."

To Chen Yuan, Jiangg Ning and Jiangg Yao played two completely different roles in his life. He could clearly feel the vast differences in personality, life philosophies, and values between the two, despite them being twins.

He was confident he could gradually change Jiangg Yao. If it took one year, fine. If it took two, or even three, he believed that one day he could get Yaoyao to accept his outrageous idea. In Yaoyao’s eyes, love and compromise were inextricably linked.

But in Jiangg Ning’s eyes, Chen Yuan could always see her stubbornness, her resolve, and countless unshakeable principles—including her very definition of the word "love."

Chen Yuan was suddenly overcome with frustration, a splitting headache blooming in his skull. Her questioning tone, which held no room for compromise, was the final straw. In that moment, he felt intensely selfish. His smug satisfaction over the past several days now seemed like a clown’s act.

The things buried deep in his heart were like an animal carcass in a flowerpot. He had heaped dirt on it, shovel by shovel, carefully tamping it down. He’d breathed a sigh of relief at the smooth, undisturbed surface. But the moment he watered the soil, a rotting leg instantly poked through.

Now, all he wanted to do was yank the entire ugly corpse out.

He didn’t want to be selfish. He didn’t want to hurt anyone. He had already wracked his brain for a solution.

But why did everyone expect an answer from him?

Why did Jiangg Ning and Jiangg Yao have to be twins?

Why did he have to give one of them up?

Why did he have to be at such a powerless age?

Why did all of this have to happen so quickly?

They stood facing each other. On the surface, Jiangg Ning was calm and composed, her long, beautiful eyes fixed on Chen Yuan, searching for an answer. But she didn’t notice that her fingers were unconsciously twisting the hem of her pure white shirt until it wrinkled.

"I don’t want to give you up," Chen Yuan said earnestly. "And of course, I could never hurt Yaoyao. I really like her."

"And then?"

"Can’t we just slow down and talk about this later? I know, Ningning, you don’t think it’s right for the three of us to live like this, but don’t you also think it’s... interesting? And haven’t we been a source of warmth for one another? It’s not as absurd as it sounds. It’s been happy, it’s been wonderful. I don’t want it to end so soon..." Chen Yuan forced a stiff smile. "Maybe in a little while," he coaxed, "if we wait a bit longer, we can find a perfect solution that doesn’t involve hurting each other."

This was the first time he had ever spoken so openly to Jiangg Ning about his feelings.

Chen Yuan was nervous, of course. He kept his eyes fixed on Jiangg Ning’s, terrified she would have a major emotional outburst, or worse, reject him outright and laugh at how absurd he was being, causing their heart-to-heart to collapse entirely.

He hadn’t even said these words to Jiangg Yao.

He originally planned to handle Yaoyao first, because her heart was a simple equation: X (her) plus Y (Chen Yuan) equaled a complete home. Maybe it could be x+1, or x², things that were perhaps negotiable.

Even if she couldn’t be persuaded, it’s not like she’d slap him across the face for it.

With Jiangg Ning, on the other hand, Chen Yuan had no confidence he could solve the equation at all. So he’d always avoided it, only managing to write down "Solution:" and leaving the rest blank.

To his surprise, Jiangg Ning gazed at him for a long moment before turning away and saying softly:

"Happy and wonderful? You only feel that way because we’ve been compromising for you. If we didn’t truly love you, who would be willing to share their boyfriend? It’s almost laughable, isn’t it?"

Her words struck him.

He froze on the spot, his mouth hanging open, but no words came out.

Meanwhile, a relieved smile touched Jiangg Ning’s lips, and her steps seemed to grow much lighter. Clutching her loose sleeves, she walked ahead alone. The evening wind lifted the long hair at her temples, and the gray twilight of the sky seemed to sink and dissolve into the bottomless river below.