After Getting Married to My Obsessive Older Sister - Chapter 46

Chapter 46

Tan Ze flipped through several more apps, but all she saw was information she already knew.

Chu Yiqiao was truly an open book, and no matter how much Tan Ze searched, she couldn’t find any hint of Chu Yiqiao being a “bad kid” that would allow her to feel justifiably at ease.

If she had to name one problem, it was only that Chu Yiqiao “loved too deeply.” However, Tan Ze didn’t see this as a flaw.

Tan Ze put her phone down, wrapped her arms around Chu Yiqiao, and deliberately turned slightly to spoon her, sleeping pressed against her until she could clearly hear Chu Yiqiao’s healthy heartbeat and smell her reassuring scent. Only then was she somewhat satisfied and closed her eyes, preventing herself from falling into a vortex of emptiness and terror.

That night, Tan Ze had a dream.

Like an old movie reel playing in a darkened theater, she sat in the dark with countless film strips fluttering before her. Every frame, every strip, was a detail of her time with Chu Yiqiao. Memories from the past played in a loop as flashbacks some were projections of reality, others were fabrications of the dream.

First year of junior high. Zhao Jingxing wasn’t around yet. Chu Yiqiao went to a painting class. Before leaving, Tan Ze promised Chu Yiqiao that she would come to pick her up as soon as possible, warning her not to wander off or take a taxi alone; she must wait for her. Chu Yiqiao nodded excitedly and said, “Then, Jiejie, you have to be the first one to come for me, okay?” Tan Ze casually replied, “Mm.”

As it turned out, a sudden downpour hit that afternoon, and Tan Ze had a very important meeting to attend. By the time she realized it, an hour had passed since Chu Yiqiao’s class ended. Chu Yiqiao had called three times, and then stopped. When Tan Ze called back, the phone was off.

Due to the heavy rain and bad road conditions, it was two more hours before Tan Ze and her assistant rushed to the location. The art studio’s doors were closed, and there was no one in sight. They searched the vicinity for a long time and finally found Chu Yiqiao under a bus shelter, curled up, holding her bag, waiting alone.

Tan Ze walked over, prepared to face whatever tantrum Chu Yiqiao might throw.

“Chu Yiqiao.”

Chu Yiqiao looked up at the sound. Her bangs were wet and stuck to her forehead, making her eyes look even brighter.

Chu Yiqiao said, surprised, “Jiejie, you’re here!”

She then held out a clenched fist to Tan Ze, opened it, and revealed two coins. Chu Yiqiao looked down, a little troubled: “Someone gave me this and told me to go home, but I’ve never taken the bus before, and the rain is too heavy, I couldn’t flag one down either…”

Tan Ze took the warm coins from Chu Yiqiao’s ice-cold hand and led her back. “I’ll teach you tomorrow.”

“Okay-dokie.” Chu Yiqiao hugged her bag and climbed into the back seat with Tan Ze.

Only inside the car did Chu Yiqiao suddenly realize that Tan Ze’s jacket was completely soaked. Because it was uniformly wet, she hadn’t noticed until they got inside, and now water was dripping steadily from the jacket, wetting Chu Yiqiao’s pants as well.

Noticing this, Tan Ze took off her jacket and placed it next to her. Chu Yiqiao watched her silently, holding her bag.

Tan Ze suddenly spoke: “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Chu Yiqiao didn’t seem to mind at all. She frowned slightly, but her complaint was directed at herself: “I should have brought a power bank when I left!”

“How did your phone run out of battery? I remember it was full when we left,” Tan Ze tried to keep her tone from sounding like an accusation.

“Playing games uses up too much battery…” Chu Yiqiao smiled guiltily: “The teacher’s theory class is really boring.”

Tan Ze abruptly cut her off: “Do you still want to play now?”

Chu Yiqiao nodded.

Tan Ze handed her own phone over.

Chu Yiqiao excitedly exclaimed, “Wow!” and, as an act of generosity, let Tan Ze watch her play, then pulled Tan Ze to watch videos of cute little animals.

Three days later, Zhao Jingxing joined Mingsheng.

Tan Ze remembered many similar incidents. From very early on, Chu Yiqiao had been the most jumpy, discordant note in Tan Ze’s strictly measured composition.

Tan Ze had high standards for herself. In her world, things operated in a cruel way with a near-zero margin for error.

Only by being the best could one receive praise. Only by never relaxing for a moment could one succeed. Every second felt like walking on a tightrope; one wrong move and everything was lost.

Being Chu Yiqiao’s sister was the most difficult and the task she was least skilled at in her 28 years of life.

If every interaction between them was considered a test, Tan Ze barely passed any of them.

Yet, despite her poor performance, she received the unconditional love of Chu Yiqiao, a love worth far more than 100 points. Tan Ze found this baffling; she didn’t believe in anything unconditional in this world. Everything she gained came with a price.

Because of Chu Yiqiao’s existence, Tan Ze inwardly had to delete that line from her personal resume about “being self-disciplined and able to resist temptation,” replacing it with “good at XX,” and “good at YY.” Honestly.

Tan Ze subsequently had many fragmented dreams.

She dreamed of making Chu Yiqiao plain vegetable noodles, and Chu Yiqiao ate them tearfully: “Jiejie, this is so delicious.”

She gave Chu Yiqiao a finished ring, and Chu Yiqiao looked blissful: “Jiejie, it’s so beautiful.”

She gave Chu Yiqiao a love that wasn’t pure, and Chu Yiqiao flew over to hug her: “Jiejie, I love you most in the whole world.”

Then, in a flash, all of it disappeared. Tan Ze was still Tan Ze, not anyone’s “sister.”

Tan Ze was startled awake, realizing she was covered in a cold sweat. Her entire back was drenched, sticking to her uncomfortably.

Chu Yiqiao was awakened by the movement beside her, groggily opening her eyes. The first thing she saw was a magnified face—Tan Ze’s eyes were lowered, her expression somehow melancholic, and a hint of frenzy lurked in the depths of her eyes.

Tan Ze was kissing Chu Yiqiao, moving from her forehead all the way to her lips. She pressed down on her, her hands fiercely gripping Chu Yiqiao’s waist, slipping underneath the loose pajamas. She needed to feel the warmth beneath her palms to be satisfied.

Chu Yiqiao was so sleepy she couldn’t keep her eyes open, half-squinting and cooperating with Tan Ze’s string of kisses, yawning several times in a row, and asking vaguely, “Jiejie, what time is it…”

Tan Ze spared a precious 0.2 seconds to check her watch: “7:30.”

“Why do we have to do… it so early,” Chu Yiqiao complained, though in reality, she was happy to do anything her sister wanted, because it was someone she liked very much, so there were no taboos.

But verbal reassurance was still necessary: “Jiejie, do you like me a lot?”

Tan Ze didn’t really want to answer that question directly, so she just continued kissing Chu Yiqiao.

Chu Yiqiao took this as an affirmative. She was still too innocent, firmly believing that sexual desire was a byproduct of love, unaware that the world has both “make love” and “make angry” or “make sad.”

They had done it last night. Tan Ze didn’t consider herself a good person, but she wasn’t so bad as to wake someone up the next morning just to do it again. So she just simply kissed, touched, and licked, only this time the area of attention expanded from her small face to her whole body.

Chu Yiqiao was genuinely sleepy, keeping her eyes closed the whole time, occasionally making small noises from her throat that sounded like mumbling in her sleep. She was also genuinely cooperative; after Tan Ze finished one side, she automatically rolled over to the other, like a self-turning grilled fish.

Tan Ze sat on Chu Yiqiao’s soft lap. Chu Yiqiao hugged a pillow, lying on her side, half her face buried in it, revealing a small tuft of thick eyelashes.

Tan Ze thought that Chu Yiqiao was actually a people-pleaser. Luckily, she had met herself, and unluckily, she had met herself.

There was no early-morning class on Thursday. They had an Introduction to Art History class at ten o’clock. Chu Yiqiao loved painting but hated this kind of theoretical class the most. She wasn’t lazy, she just got a headache whenever she saw text; she couldn’t help it.

Chu Yiqiao was lying on her stomach, holding her phone, hesitating over the WeChat chat interface. It was only 9:00 AM. There were 45 minutes left before the first period ended. If she asked the counselor for leave now, it would likely be approved.

Just as she was agonizing over whether to ask her sister to help her fake “a very serious fever and illness,” the bedroom door opened, and Tan Ze walked in dressed in a formal suit. Her hair was especially styled, more serious than if she were attending a charity gala.

Chu Yiqiao sat up in bed and even smelled a faint, elegant fragrance sandalwood with cardamom, a blend of steady mystery and a hint of gentleness.

“Jiejie, did you put on perfume?” Chu Yiqiao sat up, looking up at Tan Ze.

Tan Ze expertly threw the clothes Chu Yiqiao needed to change into onto the bed and said, “Change your clothes first. Bai Lü is here.”

Chu Yiqiao, still facing Tan Ze, unbuttoned her pajamas and asked while dressing, “Why did Sister Shaoman come?”

“To sign the prenuptial agreement.”

Only now did the word “marriage” feel real to Chu Yiqiao.

Oh right! Her sister proposed to her last night, and she said yes!

She was getting married! She was getting married! Woo-hoo!

Chu Yiqiao sprang up from the bed, frantically getting dressed. She had never been in such a rush in her life.

Wait, the day she rushed to the company to kiss her sister was also this urgent.

“What are you so excited about?” Tan Ze raised her hand, pressing the frantic Chu Yiqiao back onto the bed, helping her unbutton the misaligned buttons one by one, and then slowly buttoning them back up: “We’re not getting married immediately, this is just the prenuptial agreement, to notarize the assets in both our names.”

Chu Yiqiao murmured, “Mhm, mhm, mhm.”

Tan Ze could see that Chu Yiqiao wasn’t paying much attention, so she patiently began to explain the series of procedures before the marriage.

Tan Ze’s patience for the entire world was concentrated solely on Chu Yiqiao. She could be very gentle when she wanted to be, explaining the necessity and points of caution for every single step in detail, and reminding Chu Yiqiao which specific columns to pay attention to when looking at the contract later.

Tan Ze was still in “lecture mode,” looking down, starting to smooth out the wrinkles on Chu Yiqiao’s shirt.

“If you have any questions, ask me. Don’t keep them hidden…”

Smack!

Mid-sentence, Tan Ze was planted with a solid kiss by Chu Yiqiao. She looked up, and Chu Yiqiao was smiling at her goofily, like the kind of movie protagonist who would elope with their lover.

Chu Yiqiao was inspired by Tan Ze’s sense of ritual, deliberately dragging out her simple wash-up routine to three times its normal length.

Tan Ze leaned against the bathroom door frame with her arms crossed, watching Chu Yiqiao floss, and kindly reminded her, “Chu Yiqiao, you haven’t eaten anything yet today.”

Chu Yiqiao glared at Tan Ze resentfully, meaning, Jiejie, you simply don’t understand me.

After the whole ordeal, the two of them left the room half an hour later. Chu Yiqiao took a deep breath, solemnly pushed the door open, and was dumbfounded.

“Where is she?” Chu Yiqiao looked at the empty living room, then turned to ask Tan Ze: “Jiejie, didn’t you say Sister Shaoman was already here?”

“Wait a moment.” Tan Ze took the key from her jacket pocket and, under Chu Yiqiao’s gaze, unlocked the study door.

The next second, Bai Shaoman walked out like an irritated ghost, clutching two white contracts.

“Normal people let their lawyer wait in the living room,” Bai Shaoman ground out, “President Tan.”

Tan Ze: “The study is perfectly fine to sit in, didn’t I get you a glass of water?”

A joke! There was no way she’d let Bai Shaoman wait in the living room. What if Chu Yiqiao walked out of the room without being properly dressed?

Tan Ze had decided not to unnecessarily lock Chu Yiqiao up anymore, so there was no choice but to lock up Bai Shaoman.

Bai Shaoman forced a smile, took her “Prenuptial Agreement v5,” and walked to the dining table. She placed the two copies, one for Tan Ze and one for Chu Yiqiao, and began to explain the clauses.

Every clause in this agreement had been reviewed by Tan Ze. Bai Shaoman’s explanation now was mainly for Chu Yiqiao’s benefit.

After all, this concerned the division of all assets in their names. Bai Shaoman had handled similar projects before, and in her many years of practice, almost everyone paid serious attention when this point was addressed.

Given the complicated relationship between these two, and the fact that the agreement was over 20 pages long, Bai Shaoman was mentally prepared to spend at least an hour on the explanation before she even started.

She began.

She finished explaining the first clause: Real Estate.

“Signed.” Chu Yiqiao suddenly spoke, closing the pen cap with a flourish.

Bai Shaoman frowned in disapproval, looking puzzled: “Why so fast?”

Chu Yiqiao’s expression was even more puzzled than Bai Shaoman’s.

“Because my name only has three characters.”

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