After Failing To Tame The Scumbag - Chapter 44.1

“Fine,” Yun Chuxiu’s cold voice rang out. “Since you’ve put it that way, if I don’t agree, I’d be the one who doesn’t know what’s good for me.”

“…What?”

Suddenly hit by a “pie from the sky,” Jiang Fanyin blinked. She processed the words over and over in her head before finally reacting. “You mean, you’re going to say yes to me?”

Her eyes lit up instantly. In her excitement, she reached out to grab Yun Chuxiu’s hand on the table.

Yun Chuxiu shifted her body to avoid her. She looked at her for a long time, her tone remaining cold. “Yes. But the prerequisite is that you can satisfy my requirements.”

Jiang Fanyin smiled, a feeling of “as expected” rising in her heart. She raised an eyebrow. “Normal requirements are, of course, fine.”

“Mm,” Yun Chuxiu nodded and reached out her hand directly. “Then first, give me your phone.”

“24-hour GPS tracking. All work schedules, including travel and meal times. Hmm… also the contact information for your assistant and driver.”

Jiang Fanyin’s brain stalled. She thought she had misheard. “What you’re saying…”

“That’s not all,” Yun Chuxiu tilted her head. Her ending note rose slightly, sounding like a cat’s purr, but her eyes were chillingly calm, like a cocked gun. “If you are with me, you have to adapt to my lifestyle. For example, a curfew.”

“That’s just the simplest part. Occasionally, I’ll want to look through your phone on a whim. If you want to change your password in the future, you’d better tell me in advance.”

Jiang Fanyin was silent for a long time. She stared at the empty palm of Yun Chuxiu’s hand. The hand holding her phone pulled back slightly, her lips curling into a helpless arc. “This is a bit excessive, isn’t it? Why must Miss Yun intentionally make things difficult for me?”

“Is it excessive?” Yun Chuxiu swirled the clear liquid in her glass. She looked down, not at the other woman, but murmured to herself: “But that’s exactly what Ji Jin did.”

Jiang Fanyin’s expression stiffened further. She instinctively wanted to retort: “How is that possible…”

“I am a control freak,” Yun Chuxiu said nonchalantly, her tone not changing at all. “Have you forgotten? You once mocked Ji Jin because of her curfew.”

“You’ve observed us for so long, you couldn’t possibly be unable to determine the truth of these things. But you seem to have never considered it.”

“Why?” Yun Chuxiu pressed, her fingers brushing the warm light on the table, curling as if grabbing something tight.

She said: “Was it because you were certain I wouldn’t make you follow those rules? Or did you think that as long as you could catch me, everything afterwards would naturally be up to you?”

“That won’t do,” Yun Chuxiu drawled. Though her spirit was exhausted, her eyes remained frighteningly clear. “In a home, how can there be two control freaks?”

“That’s a bit of an exaggeration,” Jiang Fanyin wiped non-existent sweat from her forehead. While she was captivated by Yun Chuxiu’s rare sharpness, she regretted her hasty decision to push her. She could only try to gloss over it. “How is it at the level of a control freak? Life requires adjustment. Being by my side is naturally a different lifestyle than being by Ji Jin’s.”

“If you generalize everything, life loses its sense of novelty.”

“No,” Yun Chuxiu’s face was flushed. Her wrist pressed against the table as she extended an index finger and shook it gently. “It is you who wants to be by my side.”

She locked eyes with Jiang Fanyin. Without waiting for the other to come up with more rhetoric, she moved her chess piece, checkmate.

“This is the lifestyle I want. If we go by your logic of seeking ‘novelty,’ then since we’ve known each other for so long, you aren’t ‘novel’ anymore either.”

Jiang Fanyin was left speechless.

She dazedly picked up her glass and took a sip. She had intended to just muddle through this topic regardless of the cost, but her gaze unexpectedly drifted to the hand holding the glass opposite her.

Wait, was that drink at that level just now…

In her hesitation, Yun Chuxiu took another sip. The flush on her face deepened.

Jiang Fanyin: “…”

Jiang Fanyin slapped her own face, finally discovering the second thing she regretted today. She had truly been undone by a single drink.

…Even if the alcohol content was likely very low.

“Yun Chuxiu, wait a minute,” Jiang Fanyin stood up and pressed down on the hand still holding the glass. Her voice was tight. “Be good, let go, okay? Your tolerance is so poor, stop drinking…”

It wasn’t working. Not at all.

Jiang Fanyin looked into those watery, misty, beautiful eyes and felt both a headache and helplessness.

“Forget it, I’ll take you back to rest first. You…”

“Smack!”

A hand shot out from the side and slapped her arm hard.

Jiang Fanyin looked up in shock. Her view was completely blocked by a woman who had suddenly appeared.

“Meng Lin?!” Jiang Fanyin was flabbergasted by this sudden intruder. “Weren’t you taken on a business trip by Wen Shuyu? Why are you here?”

“Naturally, because I was called here.”

Just as she was preparing for the trip, she received a plea for help from Lin Xing. She had skipped out on the trip and come straight here.

“I’ve been watching you for a long time,” Meng Lin’s voice was calm, but her eyes burned with a fire she was struggling to suppress. “Getting someone drunk and then trying to get physical. Jiang Fanyin, you’ve betrayed Chuxiu’s trust.”

Jiang Fanyin: “???”

Jiang Fanyin was incredulous. “You’ve been watching for so long and you couldn’t tell I didn’t force her?”

“But without the alcoholic drink you provided, she wouldn’t be drunk at all,” Meng Lin remained unmoved, her gaze heavy. The butterfly at the corner of her eye looked ready to come alive and slap her. “Do you dare say you didn’t have any ulterior motives from the start?”

Who would have thought her tolerance was that bad!

It was meant to be flirtation, she had deliberately chosen something with very low alcohol!

“Fine, I won’t explain it to you,” Jiang Fanyin quickly calmed down. She broke free of the other’s grip and gave a mirthless smirk. “Second Miss Wen, if you want to stay here and be a laughingstock, be my guest. I need to get Yun Chuxiu back in one piece, so I won’t be staying.”

“Trying to provoke me is meaningless,” Meng Lin blocked her path again with a cold sneer. “I don’t trust you to take her back. She specifically reached out to me.”

Actually, she hadn’t. But no one here would expose Meng Lin’s lie.

Jiang Fanyin’s expression changed instantly. Thinking of Yun Chuxiu’s compliance in the car, her gaze sharpened.

“So it really was a preparation she made in advance,” Jiang Fanyin talked to herself. Her anger flared in the tense atmosphere, then cooled and melted away like snow.

…She even had to use this method to get away from her.

Jiang Fanyin gave a bitter smile, accepting her defeat to Yun Chuxiu. “Take her away. I’ll have someone handle the situation here.”

A joke was one thing, but if any photos actually leaked, it would be a mess for both parties.

“I’m doing this for her sake,” Jiang Fanyin watched as Meng Lin picked the other woman up. After a moment of silence, she warned: “Second Miss Wen, get her home safely. Don’t get any crooked ideas.”

Meng Lin sneered: “Nonsense. I’m not like you.”

“A while back, what happened between you and her at the bar… do I really need to remind you?”

Jiang Fanyin crossed her arms. After a brief loss, she instantly regained the upper hand.

“Think whatever you want.”

Meng Lin carried the woman out. Yun Chuxiu, who was by no means short for her age, curled up in her arms looking delicate and fragile.

If only that wasn’t a lie.

Moving out of the restaurant’s light, Meng Lin carefully placed the “awake” woman on a wooden bench nearby. She looked visibly guilty.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to lie. I knew you weren’t drunk; I just wanted to get you out of there.”

“It’s okay,” Yun Chuxiu discarded the sticky napkin in her hand and actually laughed. “I saw you. I guessed Lin Xing called you, so I did it on purpose.”

Her patience had run out today. She really didn’t have the energy to deal with Jiang Fanyin’s silver tongue, so she resorted to this plan.

“Thank you,” Yun Chuxiu thanked her politely. She calculated the distance from the restaurant to her villa and decided to walk back, using the breeze to clear her cluttered mind.

Meng Lin responded. The scattered streetlights made her expression hard to read. She didn’t speak, but quietly followed behind Yun Chuxiu like a silent shadow.

“You don’t have to follow me,” Yun Chuxiu said, hanging her head slowly. “I know this path very well; I won’t get lost.”

“But you probably don’t want to be alone right now.”

Meng Lin spoke equally slowly. Having learned from Jiang Fanyin’s mistakes, she chose her words with extreme care. “I won’t talk, and I won’t stay too close. I’ll just walk this stretch with you.”

“At least when you don’t want it to be quiet, there’s another sound of breathing.”

Yun Chuxiu fell silent again.

She was used to internalizing her bad moods. Had she not been pushed to the brink, she wouldn’t have lost control like this.

Yes, loss of control.

Yun Chuxiu’s throat tightened. All the suppressed emotions finally burst through the dam at this moment, sobbing, like the desperate sound of wind whipped up by sea waves.

Meng Lin kept a respectful distance. Hearing that sorrowful sound, her heart felt as if it were being squeezed, making it hard to breathe.

The walk wasn’t long. She wanted to reach out countless times, but each time she stopped to question herself.

After seeing the other woman home, she leaned against a thick tree, looking up at the moon in a daze.

If, if it was just those requirements…

Why couldn’t the person standing by Yun Chuxiu’s side be her?

Meng Lin breathed heavily, her gaze gradually becoming determined.