After Being Cheated, I Had a Flash Marriage with My Ex's Aunt - Chapter 43

Shuyi let out a soft chuckle as she lay down gently beside Li Sui, their hands tightly interlaced as if she never wanted to let go.

The room was far too quiet.

Only the sound of their intertwined breathing remained. Li Sui closed her eyes, her mind drifting into a chaotic whirl of thoughts, until eventually, she drifted off to sleep.

Listening to Li Sui’s steady breathing, Shuyi’s lips curved into a wide smile. Perhaps her adrenaline was pumping too hard, but she couldn’t fall asleep; her heart felt as sweet as honey. Everything that happened today felt like a dream—she and Li Sui had actually kissed. It was hazy and beautiful, making her heart pound in her chest.

Blackouts are actually quite nice, she thought.

Shuyi immediately felt a bit silly for thinking so childishly, but she couldn’t help wanting to kiss Sui Sui just one more time. Her eyes had adjusted to the darkness, allowing her to faintly see Li Sui’s face. Her finger instinctively reached out to brush against Li Sui’s lips—they were slightly upturned, feeling soft and cool to the touch, like jelly.

A sudden surge of heat rose within her. Shuyi felt her mouth go dry, and a searing, restless fire burned in her throat, making her feel as if she might start smoking. She couldn’t stay here any longer.

She needed to walk it off.

Thinking this, Shuyi quietly withdrew her hand from Li Sui’s, lifted the covers, and tiptoed out of the bedroom. Once she stepped out, the internal heat finally dissipated a little. Yet, her mind remained flooded with the image of kissing Li Sui in the dark, making her feel like she needed to jump into a cold shower immediately.

In the bed, the peacefully sleeping Li Sui seemed to be dreaming of something wonderful, her lips constantly curved upward, occasionally letting out a soft murmur.

She dreamed she was holding hands with Shuyi, walking through a grand wedding ceremony. The venue was decorated perfectly to her taste, filled with her manga works and merchandise. Even some of her readers were there, cheering for her. Both she and Shuyi wore custom-made white wedding dresses, their faces glowing with happiness.

Shuyi looked at her with eyes full of deep affection, as if she were the only thing in the entire world. All the friends and family Li Sui knew were congratulating her, saying how lucky she was to have found someone as perfect as Shuyi. Even their two cats were dressed up like little flower girls in pretty dresses, behaving perfectly for their owners.

The happy, perfect family Li Sui had always yearned for had finally become a reality. She looked up at the sky and whispered in her heart, “Mom, Dad, I’m getting married to Sister Shuyi today. Can you see us from heaven?”

No matter how difficult her life had been in the past, her future would be full of joy.

But suddenly, the scene shifted. The person she loathed most, Liang Xiaona, appeared. Just as Li Sui and Shuyi were about to exchange rings, Xiaona burst in.

“You call me a cheater?” Xiaona shouted, clearly there to cause trouble. “Li Sui, you were the one two-timing while we were dating! You seduced my aunt just for her money and status. I have all the evidence!”

Li Sui frowned, looking at what Xiaona was holding. It was a collection of gifts they had exchanged and photos that looked incredibly intimate. Xiaona continued to scream that Li Sui was the unfaithful one.

Li Sui shook her head in anger, stepping forward to argue. “You’re lying! You were the one who cheated!”

She had already taken back the gifts when she went to see Xiaona with Shuyi. As for the photos, they shouldn’t exist—they rarely took pictures together, and any intimate ones had to be fakes.

The most terrifying part was that Shuyi, who had been holding her hand, suddenly let go. Shuyi looked at her with a calculating, distant gaze, as if asking: “Sui Sui, is she telling the truth? Did you betray our vows?”

Li Sui felt a sharp pain in her chest. With tear-filled eyes, she tried to explain, “No, Sister Shuyi, you know the truth… I had already broken up with her when we met! Liang Xiaona is the one lying!”

She tried to pull out the photos and audio she had prepared to expose Xiaona, but to her horror, they had all turned into evidence of her own infidelity. No matter how much she explained, the guests began to point and hurl insults. Everyone stared at her with malicious eyes.

Xiaona grew even more arrogant, taking control of the large screen that was supposed to show the wedding video. Instead, it began playing the old footage of Li Sui reporting her stepfather, Sun Youwei, for domestic violence.

The guests gasped in shock.

“So that’s her background? She’s the one who reported her own stepfather?”

“What was the Bai family thinking, marrying into a family like that? Terrible taste.”

“It was just domestic violence; did she really have to send him to prison?”

“She was this calculating ten years ago? No wonder she cheated.”

“The Bai family should kick her out of Gan-Du immediately…”

Li Sui trembled violently under the weight of their accusations. She was defenseless. Her greatest fear was people using her past with Sun Youwei against her. She knew she hadn’t done anything wrong, yet the judgment of others always followed her.

In the crowd, she saw Shuyi standing next to her grandmother. Her grandmother seemed to be saying something, but Li Sui couldn’t hear her. She felt herself swaying, about to collapse.

“It’s not like that… I didn’t cheat. I wasn’t wrong to report him. Sun Youwei was the one in the wrong. Why won’t you listen to me?”

Li Sui muttered louder and louder, wanting the voices to disappear. But as she struggled, the vision changed again.

Now, she was at an outdoor wedding. The guests were the same, but they were all cheering. Li Sui saw Shuyi on the lawn, holding hands with a stunning woman whose face she couldn’t see. They walked to the center of the stage to thunderous applause.

“My little sister searched for her for over ten years,” Zhixue’s voice rang out over the crowd. “She even hired hackers to find her, and she finally did. My own marriage was a failure, but I still believe in love. My sister and her will definitely be happy.”

Li Sui stood frozen in shock. So this was the wedding of Shuyi and the woman she had been searching for? Who was this woman? Why was Shuyi marrying her? Did their own marriage no longer count?

She walked toward the stage, desperate to see the woman’s face.

“Sui Sui, don’t go there.”

Liang Xiaona appeared in front of her, blocking her path. “You and my aunt were never a good match. The age gap, the status… you wouldn’t have been happy together anyway.”

Li Sui tried to speak, but no sound came out.

“I know the truth,” Xiaona whispered in her ear. “You only married her so she could inherit the Bai Group shares. Can’t you see? There was never any love between you.”

The noise grew into a deafening roar in her ears. Li Sui closed her eyes and covered her ears, refusing to believe it. With a surge of resentment, she screamed, “Shut up! You’re so loud!”

Ring! Ring! Ring!

The sharp trill of her phone startled Li Sui awake. She sat up in bed, gasping for air.

A nightmare? Why would she have such a nonsensical, disjointed dream? She knew the Shuyi she knew would never doubt her.

Li Sui’s eyes were dazed as she looked around the unfamiliar bedroom, feeling a strange sense of detachment between reality and the dream. She felt exhausted—physically and mentally drained. She could only remember fragments of the nightmare.

She remembered the power going out before they slept. When did it come back? And where was Sister Shuyi?

As her mind cleared, she remembered she had work to do. She frantically turned off her alarm. Reaching for her phone on the nightstand, she saw a message from her assistant, Wenwen.

Wenwen: Sui Sui-jie, the brand livestream is at 9:00 PM on the Adou platform. You just need to join the stream with your account. I’ve already cleared the script with the brand team.

[Document: XXX Livestream Script]

[Emoji: Little girl giving flowers]

Li Sui bit her lip and quickly replied. She ruffled her hair in frustration; she only had half an hour until the event started. She had to get up and do her makeup.

She scrambled out of bed and pulled out her makeup bag. At the same time, she sent a message to Shuyi asking where she was, while trying to memorize the script Wenwen had sent. The brand was a children’s book publisher with a great reputation that her studio had worked with for a long time. Usually, Tan Xiao handled these, so Li Sui wanted to make sure she didn’t mess it up.

As she was applying her makeup, a knock at the door made her heart leap with hope. But when she opened it, she felt a flicker of disappointment.

“Wenwen? Why are you here?”

“Sui Sui-jie,” Wenwen said with a smile. “Since you haven’t done one of these joint livestreams before, I thought I’d help you get familiar with the setup. I hope I’m not disturbing you?” She showed her the livestream interface on her phone.

“No, come in.” Li Sui appreciated Wenwen’s diligence. She hadn’t been required to come on this trip, but she had volunteered to help out and had been incredibly helpful the whole way.

Li Sui suddenly remembered something. “Wenwen, I just woke up… the power was out earlier. I don’t see Sister Shuyi. Do you know where she went?”

“I’m not sure,” Wenwen said, looking around the room. “Maybe she went out for some fresh air?”

Li Sui looked out the window at the rain and the whistling wind. Fresh air? Surely she’ll be back soon.

When Bai Shuyi walked out of the guesthouse, she realized how ridiculous she was being.

Initially, she held an umbrella in one hand and her phone’s flashlight in the other, wandering aimlessly along the road like a total fool. The fresh air had indeed cooled the internal fire that had been burning earlier, but she soon realized she didn’t recognize her surroundings. Lost in her thoughts, she hadn’t paid attention to where she was going. Realizing she had been out for twenty minutes, she decided she couldn’t go any further.

But just as she turned to head back, she heard a faint cry for help. It was a child’s voice, weak and muffled by the steady rain. She listened closer; it was definitely a child sobbing.

In the middle of a dark, stormy night, with the power out across the district, a sound like that was enough to make anyone’s heart skip a beat. Shuyi tensed up, gripped her phone tighter, and pointed the beam of light toward the sound.

What if someone is really in trouble? Driven by instinct, she bravely hurried toward the source.

Ten minutes later.

Shuyi was slumped on the side of the road, drenched to the bone. In her arms, she held a little girl covered in mud. The child was crying with a sound like a tiny, pitiful kitten. This was the scene Secretary Li and the guesthouse manager found when they rushed to the spot.

Secretary Li had been nearly asleep when her phone rang. Shuyi’s voice had come through, urgent: “Xiao Li, I found a little girl near the parking lot. I’ve called an ambulance. Get the guesthouse staff out here and find out whose child this is.”

That had jolted the sleep right out of her.

Now, under the flashlight’s beam, Secretary Li saw a large patch of blood near Shuyi, looking vivid and terrifying as the rain washed over it.

“Boss, are you okay?” Secretary Li draped a raincoat over Shuyi’s shoulders, her voice trembling. “The ambulance is on the way. Can you stand up?”

The manager, Mr. Wu, was half-dead with fright. He was relieved the child had been found, but terrified of the liability. He immediately ordered his staff to carry the little girl back.

Secretary Li tried to help Shuyi up.

“I twisted my ankle,” Shuyi said, her voice strained.

She had found the girl facedown in a ditch. Knowing that in this torrential rain, the child wouldn’t survive much longer if left there, Shuyi had scrambled down to get her. In her haste, her foot had slipped, and she’d fallen into the ditch herself, badly spraining her ankle in the process. She’d managed to keep her cool, call for help, and pull the girl up, but she was exhausted.

As the rain blurred her vision, Shuyi’s pain was momentarily eclipsed by a sudden flash of worry. “Is Sui Sui awake?”

Li Sui had been sleeping when she left. But then she remembered the 9:00 PM alarm she’d set for her wife. Sui Sui was probably in the middle of her livestream. If she finds out I’m hurt, she’ll be so upset, Shuyi thought.

“You’ll see when you get back,” Secretary Li replied. She had seen the lights on in Li Sui’s room earlier but hadn’t wanted to disturb her while she was looking for Shuyi.

“Use the stretcher!” Mr. Wu called out. They carefully loaded Shuyi onto a stretcher and carried her back toward the guesthouse lobby.

Upstairs, Li Sui was in the middle of her livestream, but her eyelids were twitching. She felt a nagging sense of unease, as if something was wrong.

The host was skillfully managing the flow. “Speaking of classical art, I’m sure our Great Master Sui Sui has some unique insights. Sui Sui, would you like to share a few words?”

Li Sui forced a smile. “Of course. Actually, this piece is…” For two minutes, she spoke eloquently from a professional perspective. The chat was flooded with “bullet comments” and virtual gifts.

They were live on Adou, and with over 100,000 viewers, the interaction was staggering. Many people were seeing Li Sui’s unedited, filter-free beauty for the first time and were mesmerized.

[OMG, she’s a goddess!!]

[Finally, a face reveal! She’s so pretty I’m crying.]

[Her voice is as beautiful as her face.]

“Thank you, Sui Sui-jie,” the host chirped. “I’m seeing a lot of private messages from fans, so I want to ask a personal question on their behalf.”

Li Sui smiled. “Ask away, though hopefully nothing too personal?”

“Not at all,” the host said warmly. “We’ve heard rumors that you’re in a relationship. Can you share a sweet story or an update?”

Li Sui didn’t hesitate. A soft glow appeared on her face. “I actually got married recently. We’re actually taking our wedding photos today.”

The host blinked in surprise before beaming. “Wow! Congratulations!”

Beside the setup, the assistant, Wenwen, heard a knock and opened the door. It was Secretary Li, soaked to the skin.

“Where is the Boss’s wife?” Secretary Li whispered.

Wenwen pointed to the bedroom where Li Sui was wrapping up. “She’s live. She’ll be done in a minute. What’s wrong?”

Secretary Li looked distressed. “The Boss sprained her ankle. She’s okay, but we have to go to the hospital. We’ll be back late. Just tell her there’s an important meeting. Try to hide it for now.”

“What?” Wenwen was stunned. How am I supposed to hide a sprained ankle? But Secretary Li was already gone.

By the time Li Sui finished the stream and saw her follower count had jumped by 50,000, she noticed Wenwen looking like she was about to cry.

“Wenwen? Was I that bad on the stream?” Li Sui asked, a spark of nervousness hitting her.

“No! You were amazing,” Wenwen said quickly. “It’s just… Secretary Li was here.”

“And?” Li Sui’s brow furrowed. She looked at her phone; no messages from Shuyi or Secretary Li. It was nearly 10:30 PM. “Where is Sister Shuyi?”

Wenwen swallowed hard. “Um… Secretary Li told me to hide… I mean, she said the Boss went to the hospital—no, wait—” Wenwen was a terrible liar. Her face turned beet red. “I’m sorry, Sui Sui-jie! Shuyi sprained her ankle and they went to the hospital. They didn’t want you to worry!”

Li Sui was speechless. A sprained ankle, and they tried to hide it from me? She knew Shuyi must have been the one to order the secrecy.

She began frantically packing her things. “Which hospital?”

Just then, there was a knock. Wenwen opened the door and gasped with relief. “Sui Sui-jie, they’re back!”

Li Sui rushed out of the bedroom, only to freeze at the sight of Shuyi sitting in a wheelchair.

“Sister Shuyi, you…”

Shuyi looked pale but was still trying to smile. The irritation Li Sui felt vanished, replaced by a sharp, stinging ache in her chest. “Does it hurt a lot?”

She cried over a small cut in the kitchen. A sprain must be agony, Li Sui thought.

“I’m okay now,” Shuyi said gently. “Sorry for worrying you. Xiao Li took me to get it bandaged.”

Secretary Li and Wenwen made themselves scarce, leaving the two of them alone. Li Sui knelt down to inspect the bandage, her heart finally settling. Then she noticed the half-packed bag on the bed.

“Are you packing?” Shuyi asked.

“I am,” Li Sui said, her voice carrying a rare edge of complaint born of worry. “I wake up and someone is missing. Something happens and they try to hide it from me. I might as well pack up and go home. Who wants to stay in a place like this?”

Shuyi panicked, reaching out to grab her hand. “Sui Sui, I just didn’t want to worry you. I apologize.”

“That’s it?” Li Sui saw the tactic was working. She narrowed her eyes. “Hmph. That apology lacks sincerity. I don’t accept it.”

Shuyi let out a soft laugh. She actually loved it when Sui Sui acted a little temperamental with her. “Then… punish me. However you like, as long as you’re not angry.”

The memory of their kiss in the dark flashed through Li Sui’s mind. She looked away, a small smile tugging at her lips. “Fine. Then your punishment is… no more stealing kisses from me.”

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