Ste looked at Joshua, her lips parting as if to say something, but her throat felt constricted, and no sound came out.


    As if reading her mind, Joshua didn''t look away. He met her gaze directly. "My intentions in approaching you were not pure. Just as Rachel said, I was looking for some entertainment."


    Ste finally found her voice. "Andter? Why did you help meter? Was that just another part of your game?"


    "You must know by now about Rachel pretending to be the girl from my past, right?" Joshua said. "The truth is, I knew she was a fraud long before she came back to find Haynes. The reason I helped her back then wasn''t because I was deceived, but because I thought it might turn into an interesting spectacle. So, I watched with a smile as she carried out her clumsy n, asionally stepping in to help her when she was about to be discovered."


    He paused, a faint smile on his lips. "What I didn''t expect was for the world to be so small. The person Rachel was impersonating turned out to be you."


    At this, not only Ste but also Foreman and Haynes were speechless. The one thing they''d heard most from Rachel was


    Joshua''s supposed obsession


    his "first love." Rachel had always believed Joshua stopped helping her because he''d found out she wasn''t the real one. Only now did she, and everyone else, realize he''d known she was lying from the very beginning. The truth left her frozen on the spot, eyes wide with disbelief.


    Ste pressed on. "So, you helped me out of guilt, aspensation? Or was it because I was this so-called girl from your past?"


    Ste knew he was telling the truth. He wasn''t making excuses or ming Rachel for fooling him. With Joshua''s intelligence, Rachel might have tricked him for a short time, but never for that long. He was admitting it freely-he did it because it was fun, because it was interesting.


    "Both were factors," Joshua said, "but they weren''t the main reason. Guilt and the memory of that girl ounted for maybe twenty percent."


    Joshua gave a slight, wry smile. "I only thought of her because my headaches had returned. I was curious to see if finding her might alleviate them Besides her music back then truly die soothe me and offer somefort. I won''t deny that hearing that melody again felt like seeing a glimmer of light. But..."


    He looked straight into Ste''s eyes, his voice as rational and clear as a cool stream. "The darkness around me was too vast, and that light was too faint to illuminate everything. So, I didn''t mind giving her the help she wanted. For me, it was a trivial matter. Moreover, I never even saw her face back then. The idea that I would fall in love with someone over a single piece of music, to the point where I would do anything for her, is absurd. You ask why I helped you? It''s notplicated. I helped you because I felt like it. It had very little to do with whether you were the one I was looking for. I''m not a good person. And I don''t have much of a conscience."