The Happy Family program was still rolling, the cameras fixed on the massive screen as the story unfolded.
The male host, Hai Tao, sat frozen, his jaw slightly open.
"This…" he muttered.
He felt it in his bones—this wasn't coincidence. This was design. As if someone had laid out a flawless plan years ago, arranging each moment like pieces on a chessboard.
But that was impossible… wasn't it?
---
On stage, Sophia said nothing. She listened quietly as her headset buzzed with the voice of the production team.
"We've tracked down the woman in the white dress," the voice told her. "The one who told you the story by the sea. She'll be appearing shortly."
Sophia's lips pressed tightly together. She hummed faintly, neither agreeing nor disagreeing, but disbelief glimmered in her eyes.
For the first time, her heart wavered.
It couldn't be coincidence. Could it?
---
The audience was notified.
One minute passed.
Then five.
Then ten.
Finally, a woman in her forties appeared. She was older now, her beauty faded, her shoulders heavy with depression. The years had painted loneliness into her features.
And yet, Sophia recognized her immediately.
It was Clara White.
She still wore a simple white dress, reminiscent of that night fifteen years ago. The dress fluttered as she stepped onto the stage, fragile but deliberate.
"My name is Clara White," she introduced herself, her voice trembling. "I never thought I would play a role in your life. To me, this is the biggest ripple I've ever caused."
Clara's eyes flickered toward Sophia, but she quickly looked away. The international star's brilliance was too blinding.
"I couldn't believe it at first," she admitted. "When the show invited me, I asked over and over—is it really Sophia, the global superstar? I felt like a speck of dust. And yet, fifteen years ago, I brushed shoulders with the clouds themselves."
---
"It's you," Sophia said, her voice calm but her eyes burning.
Clara had not changed at her core. She was simply older now, wearier, her sadness deeper.
But back then, she had been one of Sophia's inspirations. The story she told, her aura of sorrow, had seeped into Sophia's young heart and become part of Under the Sea.
Yet Sophia couldn't shake the doubt.
Was it really chance? Or had someone orchestrated everything?
"What happened back then?" Sophia demanded. Her tone was sharp, piercing, as though it could burn through the woman before her.
---
Clara lowered her head, then slowly lifted it, her eyes clouded with nostalgia.
"A man approached me," she began.
"He wore plain clothes. He wasn't rich, but he looked sharp, even handsome. He told me I could earn a hundred yuan if I pretended to be a depressed woman by the sea. He asked me to tell a story to a little girl."
The stadium gasped.
Clara's voice softened. "He said I had the right temperament, that I looked like someone carrying sorrow. Then he handed me lines—a story of a girl in a white dress, walking into the sea, overwhelmed by grief. He explained it to me, and under his guidance, I felt the pain as though it were my own. I memorized it, and then I told it… to you, Sophia."
The crowd erupted in murmurs.
---
The screen replayed the moment.
The little Sophia at the shore.
Clara in white, delivering her story with aching sadness.
The wide-eyed child, drinking in every word.
And then—the spark of inspiration that would become Under the Sea.
Boom.
It struck Sophia like a hammer to the chest.
Her shield cracked.
Her pride faltered.
Had her most cherished creation… been orchestrated by her father?
---
"You don't look like someone who could write that song," Sophia said bitterly.
But even as she said it, she remembered too clearly.
The man's tone, his logic, his calmness. She knew it.
Victor.
He spent his days with men at the bottom of society, men who cursed and spoke crudely. But when he spoke seriously, his words carried order, calmness—something deeper.
Clara nodded faintly. "When Victor spoke to me, his words were measured, calm. It didn't feel like a script. It felt… like his own story. Like he had lived it."
The hosts, the audience, the historians at the Baijia Forum—everyone stared at the screen, waiting.
---
The scene shifted again.
A cold night. The wind howled through the alleys of Iron City.
Sophia, five years old, had just returned from the lakeside. She locked herself in her tiny bedroom, her desk bathed in dim orange light.
In front of her sat her mother's painting—a girl in a white dress running toward the sea.
And in her mind, Clara's story replayed endlessly.
Sophia began to write. Slowly, carefully, revising again and again.
Under that faint glow, the little girl shone.
---
Meanwhile, downstairs, Victor leaned against his electric bike, charging it. He took quiet sips from a bottle, his face shadowed.
Spectators jeered in the live barrage.
"Look at him, drinking again."
"This is the start of his downfall."
"How could such a man raise such a brilliant daughter?"
---
At Riverdale University, Professor Chen Shan adjusted her gold-rimmed glasses and sighed.
She had once suspected Victor might possess real literary depth. But seeing him now, bottle in hand, she shook her head.
"It must have been her mother," she typed into the live chat. "Don't forget Sophia's mother. Victor never had this ability. He was normal before, but once he declined into alcoholism, it was impossible. It must have been someone else—perhaps the Liu family."
Her students nodded, agreeing.
"Yes, exactly. He reeks of alcohol."
"He was always downstairs, charging his bike with a bottle."
"He has no merits. Sophia must be blessed by God alone."
---
The criticism spread across headlines.
On the show, former contestant Samuel added fuel.
"The Liu family must have been behind it. Victor couldn't have arranged this."
Host Nana nodded in agreement.
Even Charles, who had once doubted Sophia's father, found himself wavering. Could a shabby courier, a supposed drunkard, truly have orchestrated something so perfect?
---
But Clara White didn't nod.
She didn't shake her head either.
She remembered too clearly.
That night at the lake, when Victor explained the story to her, the entire world seemed to grow quiet. His voice had been heavy with grief, but also with a strange dreamlike clarity.
"When he spoke, I felt the sea itself grow still," Clara whispered. "It was as though he was revealing his own heart. I couldn't reject it."
It was a shocking contrast—his ragged clothes, his frail body—and yet words that pierced straight into the soul.
To her, he hadn't seemed like a drunkard at all. He had seemed like… a hermit.
And so, unlike the others, Clara chose not to dismiss him.
---
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