After Failing To Tame The Scumbag - Chapter 42

“I’m here to join you.”

Despite saying that, Yun Chuxiu had no intention of continuing to torment her with “color theory cultivation.”

Both of them knew very well that it was just a random excuse Yun Chuxiu had found to mess with her; even without clothes, there would have been something else.

…She just wants me to let go voluntarily, Ji Jin thought, a bitter realization aching in her heart, yet she dared not utter a single word of refusal.

A billionaire who has everything has the greatest ambition, but a traveler dying of thirst in the desert only needs a single drop of water. Just a tiny illusion of closeness is enough to keep one moving forward, even if it is merely a mirage.

Ji Jin pressed her dry lips together, still prepared to face any hardship, even eager: “Then later, we…”

“Later, you go back to the hotel and stay there,” Yun Chuxiu said calmly, cutting her steak without looking up, making the decision directly. “Charge your phone properly. If you don’t want to face things, then just go missing online. Only children do that.”

“What about you?” Ji Jin’s wrist paused, sensing the intention of “isolation.” She wanted to press further but didn’t quite dare. “Aren’t you going back to rest?”

“I have an appointment.”

Yun Chuxiu took a slow bite before looking up, her gaze sweeping over her like a splash of cool water. “I’m not forcing you. Of course, you can choose not to listen to me.”

In Ji Jin’s mind, the second half of that sentence automatically translated to “Get lost.”

“I’ll stay put,” she said, daring to be anxious but not to speak out, instead taking her frustration out on every innocent piece of meat, her fork clicking sharply against the plate.

Yun Chuxiu ignored it. The sunlight filtering through the glass rested on half of her face, trailing down her hair like a soft, romantic veil.

…She’s so beautiful.

Ji Jin stole a glance and couldn’t look away. She privately wanted to record the moment with her phone but feared Yun Chuxiu would be unhappy about her crossing the line.

“Finished with your tantrum?”

Yun Chuxiu smiled faintly. The sunlight in her eyes thinned, and her naturally pale pupils caught a lingering warmth, like a flowing sea.

Ji Jin: “Ah, finished…”

She stared absentmindedly at Yun Chuxiu’s face, not even realizing what she was responding to before the topic flatly ended.

“Then let’s go,” Yun Chuxiu said, wiping her mouth with a napkin and rising from the table. “I can see you don’t really cherish your food.”

Ji Jin flinched at the remark and instinctively shoveled the remaining bits of meat into her mouth.

The summer sun was always bright.

Looking down at her somewhat gluttonous display, Yun Chuxiu couldn’t help herself and pushed the water on the table toward her.

“Slow down, no one is snatching it from you.”

Ji Jin swallowed the water and looked up at her. At that specific angle, the sunlight fell directly into her eyes, making even the faint trace of water at the corner of her mouth seem significant.

It was just… a bit of a dorky smile.

Yun Chuxiu almost broke her composure. She faltered for a moment, then simply turned her head away.

Ji Jin’s smile deepened. She picked up a napkin, stood before her, and began to wipe slowly.

Yun Chuxiu thought: Maybe I should just do those red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet clashing color outfits, at least then I wouldn’t notice her face.

“Let’s go,” Yun Chuxiu said, manually removing the person from her line of sight and walking toward the front desk to pay.

“A guest has already settled the bill for you.”

The server pointed to the now-empty private room nearby and smiled. “That guest topped up a lot of money on a card. She said if you come back to eat, the expenses should be charged to her account.”

It was merely a lack of preparation; Madam Ji didn’t lack money for a few meals. To her, using money to cover up a sliver of guilt was playing the game on “Easy Mode.”

Yun Chuxiu looked at Ji Jin.

Ji Jin remained silent for a moment, twitched the corner of her mouth, and paid for the meal according to the menu anyway.

The server was stunned and couldn’t help but remind her again: “Guest, that side already deducted the payment, you are…”

“Then refund it exactly as it was,” Ji Jin said expressionlessly, her voice calm and polite.

The server sensed this was something she shouldn’t get involved in and nodded repeatedly. While processing the refund, she couldn’t help but peek at their expressions.

Noticing this, Yun Chuxiu gave her a polite smile. “Sorry for the trouble.”

Caught in the act, the server blushed, but her mood inexplicably improved. “It’s no trouble. It was our fault for not asking in advance… Take care, you two.”

Yun Chuxiu nodded. As the conversation ended, the noise of the Western restaurant faded away.

“I’ve ordered daily necessities to be sent to the hotel,” Yun Chuxiu said as they reached a fork in the road, shaking her phone. Her eyes narrowed slightly against the harsh light, giving her a lazy air. “Consider it a return for the lunch you treated me to. The clothes are nothing special, if you’re not satisfied, go buy them yourself.”

“They called you that urgently?” Ji Jin grumbled, looking as if she had chewed on a lemon, the sourness was practically overflowing. “It’s the hottest part of the day. Don’t you need a nap?”

“Ah,” Yun Chuxiu thought of her fabricated friend. Considering that the more she said, the more mistakes she’d make, she just brushed it off. “That doesn’t matter. Since we haven’t met in a long time, I have to accommodate her schedule.”

Ji Jin slandered: “Then she’s very impolite.”

Yun Chuxiu: “…”

Yun Chuxiu felt subtely poked. She moved away even faster.

The summer heat was indeed hard to ignore, but the bright sea breeze compensated for it slightly.

Yun Chuxiu found a bookstore with few people to stay in. Her original travel plans had been completely derailed by Ji Jin’s arrival. Given the way the other woman clung to her the moment she opened her eyes… she needed to think carefully about what to do next.

A blunt rejection might make the girl go crazy and become even more obsessed, but if her words weren’t blunt enough… Ji Jin had a thousand ways to pretend she didn’t hear, with her IQ seemingly regressing to preschool levels.

If she really could change…

Yun Chuxiu brushed away the chaotic thoughts. Resting her chin on her hand, she leaned against a wooden sofa. After turning only a few pages of her book, several water droplets had already slid down her coffee cup.

Before long, she was nearly asleep when hurried footsteps echoed from the other side of the bookshelf.

Yun Chuxiu instinctively turned to look.

The woman who walked in wore a knee-length skirt with a string of bright little bells hanging from her waist. The style of the bells looked familiar, likely from a shop by the beach.

The woman muttered: “It’s deathly hot. Though it’s fun, I feel like I’ve been tricked. Does this even count as effective… wait.”

The voice stopped abruptly.

The footsteps drew closer and stopped right at the bookshelf opposite Yun Chuxiu. Through a narrow gap, an eye peered through the gap between the book spines, looking over with clear intent.

“Yun Chuxiu?”

Recognizing her, Yun Chuxiu was stunned. Before she could figure out where a familiar face would come from here, the empty seat beside her was suddenly occupied.

“Persistence pays off,” the somewhat familiar woman said, raising an eyebrow. She grabbed the thin drink menu to use as a fan and started striking up a conversation: “Long time no see! You haven’t forgotten who I am, right? Back then, you rejected me so harshly. I never thought we’d have the chance to sit together quietly after graduation.”

Actually, it wasn’t very quiet.

Yun Chuxiu: “…And you are?”

“Hey, hey, no way!” The woman’s beautiful eyes widened, and she glared before huffing: “Xie Qinghan! The one who used to bully you!”

Is that really something to be proud of…

Yun Chuxiu sighed. Once the scope was narrowed, she actually remembered her.

It wasn’t that the “bully” label was particularly unique, quite the opposite.

This young lady probably had a good upbringing. Although she constantly claimed she was bullying people, she mostly did things that were more ridiculous than mean. For example, she would intentionally gather a group to “steal” Yun Chuxiu’s usual seat in the library. She never raised a hand or used harsh words; if she saw others being excessive, she’d even step in to stop them, then continue to act tough.

“You remember now, don’t you?” Xie Qinghan said triumphantly, her neck arched like a victorious white goose. “I knew you couldn’t possibly forget me.”

This was a difficult conversation to navigate.

Yun Chuxiu paused and asked vaguely: “Did you come looking for me specifically?”

“Of course,” the eldest Miss Xie said, leaning over the table, overly familiar. Her voice was lazy. “The Ji family has put the word out. You’re a hot topic right now.”

Yun Chuxiu’s hand holding the coffee cup stiffened.

“They said as long as someone can get Ji Jin to agree to a marriage alliance, there are huge benefits… My younger sister was so excited. If she wasn’t already in love with someone else, she would have come to try herself.”

“So, she pushed me, the older sister who’s a total parasite at home, to come.”

Xie Qinghan didn’t find this hard to say. It was a fact that her sister had more business acumen and had taken over the family business early. Furthermore, the Xie family had been poorly managed for two generations and had long since declined. Her sister hadn’t yet won the power struggle, so their elders would likely interfere in her marriage. Rather than wait for them to arrange a random match, she figured she’d put in some effort herself to snag the title of Ji Jin’s fiancée first.

Xie Qinghan complained: “You are really hard to find. I’ve been staked out at places you’ve appeared all day. The hotel was empty.”

“You should look for Ji Jin directly,” Yun Chuxiu suggested kindly.

Xie Qinghan waved her hand. “No, I can’t compete with those other ambitious people. It’s more cost-effective to find you.”

Yun Chuxiu didn’t quite understand her logic, assuming she was asking for “success tips” or something. She refused directly: “There’s nothing I can do to help you. She and I have broken up.”

“I know.”

Xie Qinghan rubbed her ear, her head shifting on the table as she turned gloomily toward Yun Chuxiu. “I’m not surprised you broke up with her. What surprises me is that you were rejected three times before you finally ended it.”

She made a “how could you” expression and criticized her bluntly: “When the news got out, I was stunned. You used to be such a ‘high-altitude flower.’ If someone said one bad word, you wouldn’t even look at them… I even placed a bet that you’d end up alone.”

In the end, she lost that bet thoroughly.

“But you don’t need to care too much,” Xie Qinghan added, seeing her expression was off and assuming she’d poked a sore spot. She shifted to comfort her: “The Ji family is indeed hard to enter. Especially Ji Jin’s parents, who knows what rattled them, but they value ‘matching social status’ far too much.”

“Losing you is definitely their loss…”

“What exactly are you trying to say?” Yun Chuxiu’s head hurt from the noise. She didn’t even care about the messy secondhand rumors Xie Qinghan had heard; she just wanted to end this. “If you don’t get to the point, I’m leaving.”

“Don’t!” Xie Qinghan sat up straight, grabbing her hand with sparkling eyes. “I’ve been looking for you for ages.”

“I’ve thought it through. Ji Jin likes you so much, and you’re being hassled by her parents because of your status… It seems like a big problem, but it’s actually very easy to solve.”

“And that is, I’ll just join you two.”

Yun Chuxiu nearly spat out her coffee.

However, the young lady’s idealism continued.

“I’ll jump in and become Ji Jin’s fiancée. Not only does that give my sister time to seize power, but I can also get actual benefits from the Ji family,” Xie Qinghan fantasized happily. “And Ji Jin won’t be hounded to break up with you anymore. Since I’m just a fiancée, I’ll help you two stall. Once she fools them and gets more of her inheritance, then being with whoever she wants is just a matter of her saying so.”

Yun Chuxiu: “…”

Yun Chuxiu was so shocked by this logic that she was momentarily speechless.