After Failing To Tame The Scumbag - Chapter 41

“Yun Chuxiu is different.”

“So it really is you,” Ji Jin said as she entered the private box. She casually pushed the little girl out, clicked the door shut behind her, and offered a faint smile. “Mother.”

“Using even a little girl as a tool… if you truly wanted to see me that badly, you could have just said so. There was no need to go to such lengths.”

“Ji Jin,” Madame Ji set down her teacup. She seemed surprised by Ji Jin’s sudden appearance, but she quickly regained her composure, immediately turning the tables to seize control of the conversation.

“You speak a good game. You don’t answer my calls, you don’t return my messages. I started to think you’d forgotten you even had a mother.”

“And another thing…” She drawled with visible disdain, looking her over with a critical eye. “What on earth are you wearing? It’s bad enough that you’re acting out like this, but where is that ex-girlfriend you traveled thousands of miles to chase back?”

“She has a name,” Ji Jin sat down opposite her, her expression cold. Though she used polite honorifics, there wasn’t a hint of submissiveness in her tone. “My phone died. Regardless, people who truly need to reach me always find a way.”

“So, the fact that I couldn’t reach you is my fault?”

Madame Ji let out a frustrated laugh. Seeing Ji Jin reach for the prepared drink on the table, she rapped Ji Jin’s knuckles with her chopsticks. “That wasn’t prepared for you,” she huffed.

“If it wasn’t for me, then who?” Ji Jin feigned surprise, pointing at the drink. “That’s grapefruit on top. A-xiu is allergic to grapefruit.” After a pause, she smiled thinly. “You’ve prepared a regular ‘Hongmen Banquet’ for her, haven’t you?”

She emphasized the words “Hongmen Banquet,” as if to pierce right through her mother’s ill intentions.

Madame Ji fell silent. She truly hadn’t known about the allergy and felt a momentary flash of embarrassment. She pushed the drink toward Ji Jin, covering her lapse with a cold face. “Fine, just drink it and shut your mouth.”

“Since it wasn’t meant for me, I wouldn’t dare drink it,” Ji Jin’s voice grew colder. She leaned one hand on the table, a mocking smile playing on her lips. “You didn’t travel all this way just for this, did you?”

“I told you, I didn’t come for you,” Madame Ji frowned deeply at her daughter’s current state. She massaged her temples several times to calm her emotions before finally compromising. “…Fine. Talking to you works just as well.”

She got straight to the point: “When do you plan to return to the company and clean up your mess?”

“The people at the old family estate have already sent word to warn us. Ji Jin, you are in the position closest to the Old Master. If you don’t want it, there are plenty of others who do.”

Madame Ji’s expression darkened, clearly displeased by the reprimands she had received. However, considering Ji Jin’s late-blooming “rebellious phase,” she forced herself to be patient and reason with her.

“You’ve already reached this level. You’re on the verge of moving even higher. Why throw everything away for one woman? To put it bluntly, once you take the Old Master’s place, you can have as many obedient women as you want.”

“I only want Yun Chuxiu,” Ji Jin replied. Her expression remained blank, adopting that same indifferent tone she’d picked up from Yun Chuxiu, yet her resolve was unyielding. “As for everything else, if it’s lost, it’s lost.”

“Win some, lose some. That’s what you’ve taught me since I was a child. Of course I understand.”

“You’ve truly gone mad,” Madame Ji gasped, her voice growing heavy with pressure. “Who do you think gave you everything you have? It’s not up to you to just let go whenever you feel like it!”

“Without the support of the Ji family, you are nothing,” Madame Ji said, her face severe. Her words were like a sharpened blade, aiming to stab into Ji Jin’s heart and shatter whatever “love struck” brain had recently grown there. “Don’t you hate Jiang Fanyin the most? How do you think you’re able to stand on equal footing with her right now? Ji Jin! With that tiny pittance of an industry you own… don’t come crying to me when you’re treated with cold indifference.”

“You’ve already experienced that feeling yourself, haven’t you?”

Ji Jin tilted her head and laughed. Her eyes were downcast, like stagnant water that would never ripple again. “The one who truly cares about those things… who is it, really?”

“Does Yun Chuxiu just sit by and watch you degenerate like this?” Madame Ji was choked for words. Refusing to back down, she turned her sights on a new target with a cold sneer. “If you hadn’t met her, you wouldn’t be like this. Shouldn’t she take some responsibility for this?”

Responsibility? For what? Who should take it?

“Mother,” Ji Jin felt as though she had misheard. A sudden chill spread from her body to her brain. She looked at the woman before her and said, syllable by syllable, “What kind of relationship do you think Yun Chuxiu and I have right now?”

“It’s rare for exes to even remain friends. Usually, they either never speak again or they hope the other person ends up in the gutter, never to stand up again.”

“Yun Chuxiu is different,” Madame Ji instinctively countered, the image of that cold, aloof figure appearing in her mind.

Madame Ji didn’t know the “real” Yun Chuxiu, but she knew that Chuxiu’s concern for Ji Jin, even if left unsaid, overflowed in every action. No matter the situation, Chuxiu remained rational and always sought to save Ji Jin from embarrassment. Someone like that… even if they chose to let go, they could never truly stand by and watch Ji Jin sink.

“She is indeed different,” Ji Jin agreed naturally. She knew better than anyone that if it weren’t for the sliver of softheartedness Yun Chuxiu refused to admit, Ji Jin would never be able to “peacefully” pester her like this.

“But taking advantage of her kindness to repeatedly push for more… that is called being despicable.”

Ji Jin spoke as if reminding herself, weighing every word heavily.

Madame Ji was startled by the sudden darkness in Ji Jin’s gaze. After a long silence, she let out a sigh. “Is love really that important to you?”

As if she couldn’t live without it.

Where did these genes come from? Neither I nor that man were ever love-struck fools.

Madame Ji found the situation increasingly incomprehensible.

“It’s only normal,” Ji Jin lowered her head, staring quietly at the surface of the grapefruit juice. She spoke softly. “If my feelings weren’t important to me, how would you have found such a convenient opportunity to drive a wedge between us?”

Madame Ji was stunned. She tasted a hint of profound bitterness in those words, but the unfamiliar emotion was so fleeting that before she could even process it, she was interrupted by a knock at the door.

Knock. Knock. Knock.

Three polite taps.

Ji Jin realized who it was. Before she could get up to greet them, the sound of the lock turning preceded her.

“Pardon the intrusion,” was the first thing Yun Chuxiu said as she opened the door.

She stepped into the room, seemingly oblivious to the frozen atmosphere. Her expression was calm, her posture graceful.

Madame Ji’s face relaxed slightly, and she gave a quiet nod in greeting.

“Yun Chuxiu…”

“Why is there grapefruit juice?” Yun Chuxiu ignored the hesitant look on the host’s face. Her eyes fell on the untouched drink, and she frowned with displeasure. “Has your brain turned to mush? Have you forgotten you’re allergic to grapefruit?”

Allergic?

Madame Ji snapped her gaze toward the glass.

The refreshing color of the grapefruit struck her again. She tried to recall any clues about Ji Jin’s allergies, but no matter how she searched her memory, that section of her heart that should have held such knowledge was empty. She found nothing.

“I just… didn’t sleep well today,” Ji Jin chuckled awkwardly, standing up to join Yun Chuxiu as she gave a vague explanation.

“I ordered it,” Madame Ji regained her senses. She partially shielded her face, not denying her mistake. She mocked herself quietly, “It seems… I really shouldn’t have come on this trip.”

When Ji Jin mentioned the grapefruit earlier, the anomaly was written all over her face, yet as a mother, Madame Ji had only cared about herself and noticed nothing.

In all the years they had spent apart, such “small things” must have already piled up into a mountain.

Madame Ji refused to think further. She closed her eyes, suddenly afraid to meet Ji Jin’s gaze.

The room fell silent.

Yun Chuxiu hadn’t expected this turn of events. Though she found the situation somewhat absurd, it wasn’t her place to say much. She simply nudged Ji Jin’s arm with her elbow, signaling her to say something.

“A-xiu, are you hungry?”

Ji Jin clearly misread the signal. Checking the time, she said with self-reproach, “I didn’t realize I’d kept you waiting so long. Why don’t we go to a different room and order some food now?”

Yun Chuxiu: “?”

Yun Chuxiu found this baffling, but seeing that Ji Jin wasn’t merely putting on a brave face, she didn’t press the matter.

“Mm,” she allowed Ji Jin to move into her personal space, keeping her tone as distant yet gentle as possible. “That guest was easy to talk to, so I came to find you first.”

Yun Chuxiu had considered giving Ji Jin the cold shoulder, but she was genuinely worried that the situation here might escalate into a “physical altercation,” and she didn’t want to have to bail anyone out of a police station.

Since Ji Jin was playing these little tricks, who would have thought the visitor was Madame Ji?

What a mess of a day.

“A-xiu, were you worried about me just now?”

Having endured the cold shoulder so many times, Ji Jin was extremely sensitive to any slight change in Yun Chuxiu’s attitude.

Yun Chuxiu was always softhearted at times like this.

In the past, Ji Jin would have taken the opportunity to act spoiled. Such moments often created a small window of freedom where she could get her fill of affection.

But that was then.

“It’s okay,” Ji Jin lightly hooked her finger around Chuxiu’s and gave it a small tug before obediently letting go a few seconds later. She continued naturally, “I already have so much. Win some, lose some, it’s nothing to be sad about.”

Yun Chuxiu raised an eyebrow. “I’m not sad for you. I’m just a bit surprised.”

She was an orphan with no parents, she had received far less emotional support than Ji Jin ever had.

Except….

Except she was just a bit surprised.

Yun Chuxiu kept a cold face, walking past her into the inner room, refusing to admit her momentary flash of selfishness.

Ji Jin didn’t need her to admit it. She happily followed her, not even caring about the red wine stains on her clothes.

“Here,” Yun Chuxiu took a bag from a server and pressed it against Ji Jin’s chest, frowning. “Have her take you to change. Your clothes are soaking wet, and the extra color completely ruins the aesthetic.”

Ji Jin: “…It probably won’t wash out.”

“Then just buy another one,” Yun Chuxiu smiled thinly, clearly making things difficult on purpose. “The clothes are gone, but isn’t the shop still there?”

Ji Jin replied, “Actually, I think this one can still be saved…”