After Failing To Tame The Scumbag - Chapter 43

“I will do as you wish.”

“Wait, wait…”

Yun Chuxiu rubbed her forehead and took a breath, interrupting in disbelief. “You mean, you’re afraid you can’t compete with the others, so you’re planning to drag me onto this ‘pirate ship’ with you?”

“How can you call Ji Jin a pirate ship?” Xie Qinghan pouted, refuting unhappily. “You were with her for seven years. Even if you ignore her family background, it’s impossible for her to be a bad person, right?”

Yun Chuxiu felt both annoyed and amused, her voice strained with exhaustion. “You really have that much faith in my judgment?”

“Not entirely,” Xie Qinghan pinched her chin, putting on a mysterious air for a second before breaking character. “I heard that…”

She leaned into Yun Chuxiu’s ear, her words as soft and slow as peeling a candy wrapper. “Ji Jin was originally the successor her grandfather favored most. It’s only because of her handling of ’emotional issues’ that he’s been holding back her power… Her father was driven to desperation this time.”

Many people who should have been screened out were selected. On the surface, he still talked about matching family status, but his actions looked more like a cornered dog jumping over a wall, anyone was worth a try, as long as it wasn’t Yun Chuxiu.

Heaven knows what Yun Chuxiu actually did to him.

If it was “rage born of humiliation,” it would be quite a long delayed reaction to explode only now. It was more likely because Ji Jin had become completely uncontrollable.

Xie Qinghan thought about it and felt her plan was excellent. “If you don’t trust me, that’s fine. I can sign an agreement with Ji Jin. You have to trust her, at least?”

“This is a win-win-win strategy. After all the years Ji Jin has struggled, do you think she’d really give up just like that…”

Yun Chuxiu fell into a long silence. Her mind was a mess of conflicting thoughts, but under such “righteous” persuasion, anything she said felt wrong.

How did it come to this?

A “win-win-win” strategy… what a beautiful way to put it.

Yun Chuxiu lowered her gaze, somewhat regretting that she had chosen this bookstore to kill time. “Yes, you make it sound very nice.”

Xie Qinghan’s eyes lit up.

Yun Chuxiu smiled and added, “But isn’t there an even simpler way? As long as I… wait a moment.”

The phone lying face down on the table suddenly vibrated. Yun Chuxiu signaled for silence, staring at the name “Lin Xing” for a long time. Her right eyelid was twitching incessantly.

“Sister Xiu,” as soon as the call connected, the voice on the other end rushed through, sounding shaken.

“A group of people just came to the bar… they’re very strange,” Lin Xing breathed heavily, trying to hide the trembling behind the word “strange.” He lowered his voice and said, “They look like street thugs. They started smashing things as soon as they entered…”

“Are you okay?” Yun Chuxiu’s expression turned solemn, her fingers pressing harder against the pages of her book. “If things are broken, they’re broken. Are the employees and customers hurt?”

“They didn’t hurt anyone,” Lin Xing was barely holding it together. Recalling the scene made him sound like he’d lost his soul. “But a lot of things were smashed. Luckily, Meng Lin was there to help stop them, and President Jiang and Ji Jin also sent people over.”

“But everyone is terrified. Sister Xiu, I don’t know what to do. They said this was just a warning…”

“Don’t be afraid, don’t be afraid,” Yun Chuxiu’s eyes darkened. She easily connected the current situation with the bar incident. The veins on the back of her clenched hand bulged.

Xie Qinghan, watching from the side, was startled and racked her brain for something to say to calm her down, but Yun Chuxiu regained her composure first.

“Distribute mental distress compensation to the other employees. I don’t know the specifics, so use your judgment. It all comes out of my account. Also, give extra compensation to anyone who wants to resign.”

Soothed by her attitude, Lin Xing’s voice steadied. “I understand. But Sister Xiu, they seem to be coming for you. Should you stay away for a while?”

“I can’t hide from it.”

There was no hiding.

Yun Chuxiu curled her lips into a smirk and took a deep breath. She pressed her fingers against her temples, trying to discard distractions and find a better solution.

…In the end, she couldn’t bypass one person.

“Keep the bar closed for now. You haven’t had a vacation in a long time, take this chance to find a good place to holiday,” Yun Chuxiu suppressed the negative thoughts pounding in her mind. Her tone softened slightly. “Consider it a gift from your sister to go enjoy life.”

“I’ll come back tonight to handle this.”

With that, she hung up before the other side could refuse.

Xie Qinghan sat motionless, hating both her sharp hearing and her clumsy tongue. Her mind was spinning, but she could only squeeze out one sentence: “How… how are you going to handle it?”

“By handling the person who created the problem?” Yun Chuxiu made a flat, cold joke. Her gaze shifted, sparking with sudden anger. “Get out here.”

Huh? What?

Xie Qinghan nearly jumped off the sofa. After the initial shock, she realized the command wasn’t directed at her.

“Is there someone else here…” She patted her chest, and just as she was about to speak, a shadow suddenly appeared by her feet.

Xie Qinghan turned her head stiffly.

Ji Jin watched them in silence, her dark eyes like hollow pits that absorbed all light.

“I… I think I’ll leave first…”

Xie Qinghan, truly unable to play the role of the “third wheel,” looked pale. She gathered her clinking bells and scurried through the gaps, afraid that making a sound would ignite a fuse in the room.

“I’ve already paid the owner to temporarily close the shop,” Ji Jin spoke, her voice so raspy it sounded like it was leaking wind. She pleaded in a tiny, mosquito like voice: “It’s just the two of us now. The surveillance is off. You can take all your anger out on me… just don’t ‘handle’ me.”

Yun Chuxiu tilted her head, gazing at her calmly. “Do you think I’m a madman driven by emotion?”

“That’s not what I meant,” Ji Jin knelt on the ground, looking up at Yun Chuxiu. She added, “I’ve cut off the extra funds he was taking from me. I promise something like this will never happen again.”

“But you anticipated this, didn’t you?”

Meng Lin appearing at the scene might have been a coincidence, but Ji Jin and Jiang Fanyin were definitely taking a test with the answers already in hand.

Ji Jin lowered her head further, her voice muffled. “It’s easier to take action with a pretext. I just wanted to solve everything at once.”

Along the way, she wanted to clear out those extra spies. She knew what kind of expectations she carried, and she knew that letting these entanglements continue would only pull the distance between her and Yun Chuxiu further apart.

You can guard against a thief for a day, but not for a thousand days.

Ji Jin forced a reassuring smile, her voice low and soft. “I’m working hard to move toward you, A-xiu. Don’t listen to Xie Qinghan’s nonsense. Just wait for me a little longer. I will definitely give you a stable future.”

“Then I can travel everywhere with you. If you like the sea, we can buy a house where you can see the ocean and the sun the moment you look up… and even if you don’t want to get back together, it’s okay. As long as we stay together, I’ll accept any status…”

“Ji Jin,” Yun Chuxiu interrupted her calmly. Just like countless times in the past, she didn’t say yes or no. She simply patted Ji Jin’s head quietly. After a long while, she let out a sigh.

Ji Jin’s heart leaped into her throat.

“It sounds like a very beautiful life,” Yun Chuxiu smiled. The curve of her lips in the warm window light looked like the faded page of an old book, plain, yet carrying an unavoidable sadness.

“But that is no reason for you to actively seek a downward path,” she said. “A day, two days, a year, two years… love is fleeting. Even if you stretch this interlude as long as possible, you can’t guarantee you’ll never regret it.”

“At that time, how am I supposed to live with myself?”

Yun Chuxiu stroked her face, wiping away the tears falling from the corners of her eyes. “Ji Jin, I’m just an ordinary person. I don’t have much ambition, and I can’t shoulder the weight of another person’s future.”

“I was too indecisive. I kept wanting to end things in a more dignified, gentle way, but I forgot… I am just your kind.”

If she truly had the power to manage all of this, things wouldn’t have been pushed to this point.

Ji Jin had given her too much dependence, so much that it blurred her vision and made her forget she was also a character in this story, not a creator who could easily turn the tides.

They couldn’t bypass it.

As long as “Yun Chuxiu” existed in Ji Jin’s sight, the problems Ji Jin wanted to solve would never go away.

Ji Jin was forever being “changed” and “shaped”… whether she felt it was for better or worse.

It was all wrong.

Everything she had been busily handling until now was still wrong.

“Stop thinking about what I’ve said. Go back to your own life.”

“Don’t be like this…” Ji Jin froze, her hand trembling as she reached for Yun Chuxiu’s face. Her eyes were clouded, but her mind knew more clearly than ever that she was losing her.

“Don’t be like this… don’t scare me!”

This was the one thing she absolutely could not lose.

Ji Jin touched the moisture at the corner of Yun Chuxiu’s eyes. She wanted to roar, to beg, to pounce and press those lips tight so they couldn’t utter another sad word.

But she couldn’t do it.

Yun Chuxiu’s pain was too real. It was as if she were holding a sharp blade and hiding in a dark tunnel, bleeding but refusing to let anyone see.

How… did it end up like this…

Ji Jin slumped weakly onto the floor. she had no idea which muscle in her face to use to produce a natural smile. She could only cover her face in panic, refusing to look at those wounded eyes.

Each word felt like it was squeezed from between her teeth, aching with bitterness.

“I will do as you wish. I will.”

As I wish.

Yun Chuxiu closed her eyes, thinking that this sounded exactly like a curse she could never shake off.