After the Divorce, I Ended Up with My Ex-Husband’s "White Moonlight" [Transmigration] - Chapter 16

It was 5:30 PM in C City, mid-summer. The scorching sun still hung high in the sky, and people on the streets hurried to and fro.

Ning Qi held her parasol, feeling a rare sense of lightheartedness. She even found Lu Mingze slightly more tolerable to look at now.

Lu Mingze’s face remained livid. At this point in the story, he wasn’t yet the inscrutable “Dominant CEO” he would eventually become in the book; his thoughts were still written plainly on his face. Ning Qi shot him a sidelong glance and entered the Civil Affairs Bureau without hesitation.

When the staff questioned them about the distribution of assets, they initially thought the couple hadn’t reached an agreement. Ning Qi gave the worker a bright smile. “We’ve settled everything. There are no problems.” She then signed her name with a flourish, and Lu Mingze picked up another pen to do the same.

Stepping out of the Bureau, Ning Qi felt as light as air. She tucked her divorce certificate and the other documents into her bag.

“Where are the original photos?” Lu Mingze blocked her path.

“Relax,” Ning Qi said, perfectly composed. “I have no interest in those photos of you. Now that the marriage is over, I’ve naturally deleted them.”

“Why should I believe you?” Lu Mingze sneered.

“Fine.” Since he didn’t believe her, Ning Qi felt no obligation to convince him. She simply started walking. “That’s your problem.”

“Stay where you are!”

“Lu Mingze,” Ning Qi said with a touch of exasperation. The sun was too hot for her to stand here arguing in circles. “If you don’t trust me, it doesn’t matter if I say I deleted them a thousand times. What’s the point?”

Lu Mingze had no retort, but he stood his ground, clearly indicating he wouldn’t let her leave.

“Then again,” Ning Qi said with a playful grin, “even if I didn’t delete them, what exactly can President Lu do to me?”

Danger! Ning Qi saw it in his eyes. This was the “Dominant CEO” of the novel; if she pushed him too far, he truly might resort to something drastic. After all, he wasn’t above breaking the law in the original plot.

Ning Qi understood that a cornered dog will bite. Besides, she never intended to do anything further with those photos.

She pulled out her phone and, right in front of him, deleted the compressed file from her local storage.

“I didn’t save them anywhere else. Relax—that was the only copy. Lu Mingze, I have no interest in your disgusting, messy affairs.”

Meeting his fierce gaze, Ning Qi calmly tucked her phone away. “I only took what I was owed. Don’t assume everyone is as low as you are!”

“Don’t let me ever see you again!” Lu Mingze seemed to snap out of it, no longer obsessing over the photos.

“Don’t worry, I don’t want to see you either. Are you even as handsome as this guy?” Ning Qi pointed randomly at a screen nearby and laughed.

“You—”

Ning Qi looked him up and down, her gaze exactly like one inspecting a piece of merchandise—no, it was even colder. At least with merchandise, there might be a look of appreciation.

“Lu Mingze: average looks, mediocre talent, master of cold violence, a wife-beater, and an adulterer. Tell me, do you have a single redeeming quality? Do you think you’re a hundred-dollar bill? That people should be obsessed with you twenty-four hours a day?”

“You—” Lu Mingze pointed a finger at her, clearly shaking with rage.

Ning Qi didn’t give him a chance to speak. “Every day I spend away from you is another day I get to breathe fresh air!”

With that, she turned on her heel and left. Lu Mingze remained on the spot, gripping his divorce papers so tightly they crumpled. The sight was so terrifying that his driver didn’t even dare call out to him to get in the car.

Humming a light tune, Ning Qi went happily into a plant shop. From this moment on, she was a free woman!

She liked living in the Nanyuan complex and didn’t want to move just yet. Since she was staying, she decided to decorate. By adding a little something every day, even someone as clueless as her could eventually make the place feel like home.

“Miss, what kind of flowers are you looking for? We have—”

The shop assistant stopped mid-sentence. Ning Qi had been looking at the plants, but now she looked up at the person. It was Yun Shu!

What a surprise to see her here. Should she call it “fate” between the cannon fodder and the heroine? Ning Qi offered a small smile. “Miss Yun, we meet again!”

Yun Shu, however, couldn’t manage a single word, let alone a polite smile. Since “that night,” she had been hiding here for three or four days. On one hand, she was hiding from Lu Mingze—she knew he was looking for her—but on the other hand, she was even more afraid to see Ning Qi.

She had spent days trying to convince herself: Senior Lu already had a wife, and his wife was better than her. But another part of her heart kept insisting it shouldn’t be like this. Even if Miss Ning was good, Senior Lu didn’t love her at all; a marriage like that could never be happy.

After that day, Senior Lu had explained that he had been forced to marry Miss Ning. She had even thought that perhaps she could have a proper talk with Miss Ning—that two people who didn’t love each other shouldn’t be together. But she never imagined that, in her drunken state, she would actually cross that line with him!

She… she never intended for that to happen!

Ning Qi didn’t know the turmoil in Yun Shu’s heart; she was just surprised the girl was staring blankly again. She still had plants to buy!

“Miss… Miss Ning…” Yun Shu finally stammered a greeting after a long silence.

“Mmh.” Ning Qi’s attention was entirely on the greenery. This Kaffir Lily looked nice, but she’d never raised flowers before—would she kill it?

The bonsais were also lovely, but she didn’t know how to prune them. After a lap around the shop, she thought: I heard cacti are the easiest to keep. Maybe I’ll just take a cactus for now and think about the others later?

“Miss Ning, I have something I want to say to you,” Yun Shu said, summoning her courage. She decided to be honest.

“Go ahead,” Ning Qi replied, still inspecting the plants.

“I…” Yun Shu felt she couldn’t get the words out. “I… Miss Ning, can we speak privately?”

“Just say it here.” There was no one else in the shop. Yun Shu thought for a moment and finally spoke. “Miss Ning, I want to say… I’m sorry.”

“Huh?” Ning Qi shifted her gaze from the plants, looking genuinely puzzled.

“I…” Yun Shu couldn’t bear the look of surprise in Ning Qi’s eyes. She knew what she was about to say was something difficult for any woman to hear. “I’ve wronged you. Three days ago, something happened between me and Senior Lu that shouldn’t have happened…”

“And what exactly is this ‘something that shouldn’t have happened’?”

“I…”

Yun Shu couldn’t say it. Ning Qi, however, began to laugh. “Miss Yun, has anyone ever told you that as a ‘Third Party,’ you should be a bit more low-key?”

When she first saw those two photos, Ning Qi didn’t have much of a feeling toward Yun Shu.

Admittedly, she had read the book and knew the future conflict between them, but currently, they had no beef with each other. The person who had made her life miserable was the male lead. But she truly hadn’t expected the female lead to be such an eye-opener as well!

“I…” Yun Shu’s tears began to fall immediately. “I’m not a third party.”

Unfortunately, she was standing in front of Ning Qi, not Lu Mingze or some admiring suitor.

“Could you please stop crying?” Just looking at the girl gave Ning Qi a headache. From childhood to adulthood, Ning Qi never cried. After countless injections and surgeries, she had always grit her teeth and endured, rarely even making a sound.

Naturally, she found it hard to understand why the person in front of her started weeping at the slightest provocation. What problem did crying ever solve?

“Whether you’re a ‘Third Party’ or not has nothing to do with me!” Ning Qi couldn’t stop the sobbing, so she turned to leave.

“Miss Ning,” Yun Shu blocked her path. “I… I know I’ve wronged you—”

“You know that, yet you’re still blocking my way?”

“I…” Yun Shu took a step back. “Miss Ning, I know the reason you and Senior Lu got married. I just want to tell you that this is a new era. Everyone should be free to pursue love. You and Senior Lu…”

Ning Qi cut her off. “So, that’s your justification for the two of you having an affair?”

“Miss Ning, please do not use those words to describe Senior Lu and me!”

Ning Qi wanted to laugh even more now. How could someone say that with such self-righteousness? “So, should I praise you instead?”

“Your pursuit of ‘true love’ and ‘freedom,’ your brave spirit in breaking the shackles of family… it’s truly worth learning from. You’re a real role model for society. Should I go to C University and spread the word? Maybe your school can give you an award for it?”

Yun Shu’s face turned white instantly.