After Failing To Tame The Scumbag - Chapter 25

“It’s time to break up.”

“Ji Jin, you lost.”

A familiar figure wove through the crowd.

Mrs. Ji wore a faint smile and waved her hand. Her housekeeper, a woman of equally distinguished temperament, understood the cue and approached the stunned guests, politely ushering them away with a few brief words.

“You follow them too,” Yun Chuxiu said, nudging Lin Xing, who was shrinking behind her.

Lin Xing shook her head. She looked at the despondent Ji Jin, then at the cheerful Mrs. Ji, and said firmly, “No. If I leave, you’ll be all alone.”

Yun Chuxiu couldn’t help but laugh. She patted Lin Xing’s head, her voice softening instantly. “It’s alright. They aren’t going to do anything to me.”

Lin Xing remained uneasy. “But…”

“There is no ‘but’,” Ji Jin suddenly looked up, her eyes terrifyingly bloodshot. “As long as I am here, I won’t let anyone treat her poorly.”

The “anyone” being referred to let out a cold snort. “Rest assured, I am not that base.”

“…Okay.”

Lin Xing gave a raspy response. She took three steps and looked back once as she left their line of sight. Seeing this, Yun Chuxiu’s mood inexplicably brightened.

“Axiu,” Ji Jin pursed her lips. She carefully hooked her finger around Yun Chuxiu’s dangling pinky. Her eyes were wide and shimmering with tears, looking as though she might break down at any moment.

“Why did you…”

“I’m not going to let you win every single time,” Yun Chuxiu pulled her hand away. Her eyes curved, her pupils appearing washed clean of gloom, as if the clouds had finally parted to reveal the sun. “You were too impatient.”

“But…”

“Does it not matter even if the price is her going on blind dates with others?” Mrs. Ji suddenly interjected. She couldn’t stand seeing Ji Jin so subservient, and she still held a grudge over their previous meeting. Her tone was deliberately malicious. “Miss Yun is truly magnanimous.”

Yun Chuxiu froze for a moment. The fingertips she had just pulled away felt hot. “So that’s how it was.”

“A-xiu! Let me explain…” Ji Jin panicked completely. She reached out to grab Yun Chuxiu’s hand, but her grasp fell empty once again.

“The moment she used me as a bet, she should have considered the consequences of losing,” Yun Chuxiu turned slightly to avoid her, ignoring Ji Jin’s panicked gaze. She simply looked down calmly, the corners of her mouth twitching into a brief smile. “I am not being magnanimous. I just suddenly feel that going on like this is quite meaningless.”

“…Stop talking.”

“Stop talking…” Ji Jin pleaded, unable to hold back the large tears falling down her face. They blurred the necklace around her neck, melting the bright blue into unrecognizable fragments. It felt like a yoke around her throat, stabbing into her heart until it was drenched in blood.

She looked somewhat pitiful.

Yun Chuxiu stared blankly at Ji Jin’s broken state. She cupped Ji Jin’s face with both hands and, slowly and calmly, wiped away the tears that continued to roll down.

“I simply don’t want to see you like this,” Yun Chuxiu whispered. She pretended not to see Ji Jin reaching out again, her voice gentle yet firm. “But I can no longer continue to turn a blind eye.”

The time they had spent together was too long, so long it had changed everything. So long that the Ji Jin who once held an umbrella for her on a rainy night had been domesticated by a restricted love into a “puppet of affection.”

“Was that all there was to your bet?” Yun Chuxiu lightly picked up the ring Ji Jin was clutching. The beautiful pink diamond sparkled under the cold light, but she didn’t seem to care. “Just whether or not I would say yes?”

Mrs. Ji guessed what she was about to do, and the corners of her mouth slowly flattened. “No…”

She looked aside. Ji Jin’s gaze was burning, like a piece of failed porcelain, outwardly intact, but ready to shatter at the slightest breeze.

“Forget it,” Mrs. Ji thought, why bother arguing with a young girl?

She nodded, unwilling to admit to this moment of soft-heartedness. “…That was it.”

“Mother…?” Ji Jin looked at her blankly, wanting to ask why she had suddenly relented, but stopped when she saw the helpless look in her mother’s eyes.

“I’m not some kind of monster,” Mrs. Ji sighed. She really couldn’t stand the way Ji Jin looked like her world was collapsing. She added flatly, “If you accept her proposal, I won’t interfere further.”

Regardless, certain things were set in stone the moment Yun Chuxiu made her decision. Ji Jin would have to hit the wall herself. Mrs. Ji didn’t necessarily have to be the villain in this play.

Ah, young love… Hah.

“Then I accept,” Yun Chuxiu said in a flat tone, not sounding like someone who had just agreed to a lifelong commitment. “Now, this matter is completely over.”

“Can you give us a moment alone?”

Mrs. Ji shrugged. She glanced at the dazed, pathetic state Ji Jin was in and, unable to look any longer, let out a cold snort and walked away quickly.

Only two people remained in the vast room.

Yun Chuxiu toyed with the ring for a moment. Under Ji Jin’s sparkling gaze, she pried open Ji Jin’s clenched fingers and tucked the ring back inside.

“This is the last time,” Yun Chuxiu said. “Now that I’ve accepted your proposal…”

“We should break up.”

“…What?” Ji Jin’s face went pale. She thought she was hallucinating.

What did she mean, “We should break up”?

“A-xiu, you’re mistaken. I’ve already booked the honeymoon. We can go get registered right now. Didn’t you just accept my proposal? …Stop joking.”

The look in Ji Jin’s eyes shifted wildly. Her hand rose stiffly, trying to return the ring to its owner. “This isn’t funny at all, A-xiu. Don’t play with me like this.”

“It was never a joke,” Yun Chuxiu avoided her again, correcting her calmly. “And I have no intention of asking for your opinion.”

“Our breakup is an unchangeable result. Or did you think that because you grandly threatened me with a ‘bet,’ I would just obediently submit?”

Yun Chuxiu gave a faint sigh. She placed her hand under Ji Jin’s chin with mock affection, just looking at her without letting go or moving further.

“Ji Jin, I gave you many chances.”

“It’s just a piece of paper. Whether you accepted it or rejected it… as long as you were honest with me once, as long as you gave me a clear reason, I wouldn’t have held onto it.”

“I was waiting for your answer,” Yun Chuxiu laughed softly, using her other hand to straighten Ji Jin’s messy collar. The sadness in her eyes became clearer. “But what you gave me was a new question.”

“If both people are full of doubts, how can they keep going?”

Ji Jin opened her mouth, a sound like crying suppressed deep in her throat. “A-xiu, I…”

“You don’t need to answer me,” Yun Chuxiu shook her head. She pressed her hand against Ji Jin’s trembling body, calmly touching her heart. “Ask yourself.”

“To have reached this point, we are both at fault… so, this is the end.”

She took a step back. Her skirt fluttered in the wind like a sharp blade, instantly severing the close distance between them.

“Think about it carefully, Ji Jin.”

Clack. The ring she failed to catch hit the floor with a crisp sound.

Yun Chuxiu turned and walked toward the door. At the same moment, Ji Jin’s hand froze in mid-air. Her gaze was frozen, she didn’t dare move forward, yet she couldn’t retreat.

Until… even the last corner of Yun Chuxiu’s clothes vanished from sight.

“A-xiu…” Ji Jin curled up on the floor. She reached out cautiously to pick up the ring that had already lost its warmth. Before she could touch it, her shoulder brushed against the sharp corner of a table, sending a sting through her.

The pain actually cleared her head.

She realized with agonizing clarity what she had lost.

The end… how could it be the end?

Ji Jin sat paralyzed on the floor, replaying every word Yun Chuxiu had said, not even noticing that the edge of the ring was digging deep into her palm.

…Under the circumstances, they both needed a calm environment, Ji Jin thought to herself. Within seconds, she was driving back the way she came.

Indeed, there was a limit to self-deception. What “calm and composed”? Just thinking about Yun Chuxiu’s indifferent gaze made it impossible for Ji Jin to breathe.

She couldn’t just let her leave. Even just staying a little longer would be fine…

The car stopped.

Ji Jin looked out through the glass. The sky was misty, and the door was tightly shut. There were no lights, no signs of life.

Everything was exactly as it was when they left.

Yun Chuxiu hadn’t come back. It was as if she had abandoned her, she hadn’t even stopped here.

Ji Jin slumped back into her seat, clutching her phone. The blue light of the screen flickered. She remained silent, hesitating for a long time before she dared to dial the number she knew by heart.

What if….she had been blocked?

She looked down and opened another app, her gaze dark and unreadable.

Yun Chuxiu never intended to go home from the start.

She knew Ji Jin too well. She guessed that if Ji Jin regained her senses, there was a 100% chance she would be waiting at the door.

To be pestered immediately after a breakup was too much, even on an accelerated timeline.

Yun Chuxiu sighed. She declined Lin Xing’s company and stepped on the gas, heading in the opposite direction.

She didn’t care where she went, she just wanted to get away from familiar faces and think. If her alcohol tolerance were better, drowning her sorrows in a drink would have been a simple solution.

But it wasn’t.

Yun Chuxiu didn’t want to risk passing out after one drink. So, she could only feel every gust of warm wind as she drifted through the city’s traffic, unable to stop for a moment.

…How did it end up like this?

Yun Chuxiu decided on a hotel where she frequently stayed. When she reached the entrance, she felt too tired to go up. She leaned back and lit a cigarette.

Time seemed to freeze for a moment.

She bit down on the cigarette, her mind empty. She didn’t bother with the lack of air circulation in the car, as if she were intentionally using physical discomfort to crowd out the swelling negative emotions.

Knock.

Knock knock.

Knock knock knock.

Thinking it might be the hotel staff, Yun Chuxiu put out her cigarette and lowered the window without any defenses.

“A-xiu.”

A face she knew all too well appeared.

Yun Chuxiu was stunned. Just as she was about to close the window, a sigh slipped through the gap.

“Why are you smoking again?” Ji Jin pressed half her face against the glass, her hands gripping the edge, looking somewhat aggrieved. “I finally worked up the courage, but you won’t even answer your phone…”

“I looked for so long… Is it just because we broke up that you never want to see me again?”