Volume One, Chapter Four: A Disgusting Scene

Aunt Yang gave me a helpless smile. “Zhengnan can’t come back today. He just returned to the country and a bunch of friends invited him out for dinner. He barely had time to say a few words to me. Xiaoyue, why don’t you stay for dinner?”

“No, no, Aunt Yang. I have something to do and need to hurry. I’ll come again next time,” I quickly waved my hand, feeling a wave of relief wash over me.

I was afraid of seeing Xu Zhengnan, afraid of becoming a laughingstock.

We used to be the best of friends and had planned to take the entrance exam for the same university. Back then, I even joked with him, asking if we could try dating if we both got into the same school.

He was wearing a white shirt then, his eyes sharp and clear, a smile playing at the corner of his lips. “Sure.”

But in the end… I broke my promise. I fell from being a good girl to a delinquent little troublemaker.

I had no face to meet him, and I certainly didn’t want him to know the truth about Shen Yixiao and me now.

I slunk away like a rat fleeing the street.

After I got home, I wasted the entire afternoon in despondency until Su Ying called. “Xiaoyue, come with me to meet someone in person. That guy is waiting for me at the Lin’an Grand Hotel!”

“I’m a bit tired, I don’t want to go,” I refused outright.

“Come with me. What if something happens to me alone? It’s so dangerous for a woman to meet a stranger alone...” Su Ying nagged without stopping.

After her persistent pestering, I finally relented.

I disliked her, yet I wanted to witness the darkness within her heart.

At half past seven in the evening, Su Ying and I met outside the Lin’an Grand Hotel. She wore a black leather dress with thin straps, fiery and seductive. The moment we met, she hooked her arm through mine, displaying a closeness that felt almost intimate.

“Let’s go,” she said, leading me to the private room we had reserved.

—

While Su Ying was chatting eagerly with the man she was meeting, I quietly slipped out of the room to get some fresh air.

At that moment, I heard Shen Yixiao’s voice from the next private room. “She can’t hold her liquor, don’t encourage her.”

“Mr. Shen, I don’t even know how to drink...” came the soft, weak voice of Lu Xiaoyun.

I turned and noticed that the door to the next room, which had been tightly closed, was now open just a crack.

I walked over and peered through the gap.

Seven or eight people sat around the round table, laughing and chatting.

Shen Yixiao wore a black shirt, his handsome face breaking into an uninhibited smile. One arm draped around Lu Xiaoyun, while the other hand prevented the others from toasting.

Lu Xiaoyun hid in his embrace, her small face showing two parts panic, three parts helplessness, and five parts pity.

A secretary who can’t drink while entertaining the boss is almost laughable.

But Shen Yixiao adored her innocent, naive demeanor because it reminded him so much of the me he once was.

He had dragged me into the mud with his own hands, then turned around and poured all his guilt onto other women, calling them replacements.

“Mr. Shen is really a gentleman. It’s said in the industry that you’ve got a treasure of a secretary and won’t let her suffer any hardship. Seeing her today, it’s true,” someone teased.

Shen Yixiao immediately let go of Lu Xiaoyun, his smile fading. “Who’s making up nonsense? I have a wife. I don’t let Secretary Lu drink just because I don’t want a group of men bullying her. If you say such things and my wife hears them, I wouldn’t be able to explain.”

The others exchanged looks, then quickly changed their tone. “Mr. Shen’s love for his wife is well-known. Of course, we wouldn’t say such things. Come, drink!”

Lu Xiaoyun tidied her disheveled collar, her expression tinged with a hint of grievance.

Unexpectedly, in the next second, Shen Yixiao grabbed her chin, tilted her head back, and kissed her.

That scene nearly made me lose my footing.

He kissed Lu Xiaoyun’s lips with a hunger that stunned everyone nearby into silence.

Lu Xiaoyun responded to his passionate kiss, both of them restless as if intoxicated.

Shen Yixiao’s hand had even slipped inside her clothes, the boldness of which exceeded anything I could have imagined.

It turned out that the instructions he gave in the past concealed many disgusting details.

“You’re all respectable people; no one’s spotless outside. Surely you wouldn’t use my little matter to gossip, right?” Shen Yixiao released Lu Xiaoyun’s lips reluctantly, a playful smile on his face as he asked the others.

Lu Xiaoyun seemed stirred, panting heavily, her cheeks flushed, her eyes moist and dreamy, utterly captivating.

She lowered her head and hid in Shen Yixiao’s arms like a quail.

He stroked her head as if petting a small animal, then curled a strand of her hair around his pinky finger.

In that instant, my stomach twisted, and waves of nausea surged up my throat.

I turned and stumbled away, overwhelmed by physical revulsion and mental fury, tears streaming uncontrollably.

I dashed into the restroom and vomited violently.

In my mind, Shen Yixiao’s little gestures—playing with Lu Xiaoyun’s hair—replayed in slow motion, triggering a fresh wave of acid reflux.

After an unknown length of time, exhausted, I emerged.

Tears washed my face as I cried shamelessly while walking.

I wanted to storm into that room and slap Shen Yixiao hard, but doing so would ruin my plan to leave him.

He would surely find a way to apologize, to hold me back, and use extreme methods to trap me by his side.

Just then, a group of people came toward me.

Through my tear-blurred vision, I saw Xu Zhengnan. Compared to the youthful face I remembered, he had matured greatly. Still wearing a white shirt, his refined, handsome features had lost their boyishness and gained the confident air of a mature man.

He was talking with someone beside him as he passed me.

“Xu... Zhengnan,” I instinctively called out his name.

He paused. Someone asked him, “Zhengnan, do you know her?”

He smiled. “No, I don’t. Let’s go.”

I watched his retreating figure, bitterness swelling endlessly in my heart. The pain magnified, and tears would not stop.

I was a completely different person from before. It was normal that Xu Zhengnan didn’t recognize me.

I walked out of the hotel like a living corpse.

Just as I reached the entrance, Xu Zhengnan appeared before me again. He handed me a pack of tissues, his expression detached. “Shen Yixiao is dead? You’re crying so hard.”

I stared at him, stunned.

“Thank you.” Only after a moment did I accept the tissues.

Xu Zhengnan’s eyes were sharp. He looked at my tearful eyes for a few seconds, then without a word of greeting, turned and walked away.

He only offered me the tissues out of the old friendship we once shared.

But the tears I shed now were for all the foolishness I had once harbored.

I returned to the car and sat quietly for a while before dialing Shen Yixiao’s number.

“Wife,” he answered quickly. The background was utterly quiet.

Presumably, everyone was cooperating with him.

“Shen Yixiao, I think I have a fever. I feel terrible,” I murmured with a congested voice.

“Fever? I’m coming back right now!” Shen Yixiao said without hesitation and hung up immediately.