Beautiful Fools Were Born to be Spoiled by Their Husbands - Chapter 9

Zhou Gangxun led Ruan Zhijuan out of the construction site to the shade of a nearby tree.

Exhaling a cloud of smoke, he held a cigarette in one hand while the other rested casually in his trouser pocket. He stood with his shoulders slightly hunched, leaning forward as he looked down at Ruan Zhijuan. “What is it?” he asked.

Though Zhou’s clothes were stained with dust and grime from the bricks, his striking looks and physique remained impossible to ignore. Standing there with Ruan Zhijuan, the pair naturally drew the wandering eyes of every passerby.

“How can two people look that good?”

Bai Zhiqi had just stepped out of an audiovisual shop when she spotted the two across the street. “They look like a couple. Are they dating? Maybe they’re about to kiss?”

“It feels like they’re filming a TV show. Look at the composition, the setting, the lighting,” Ji Haiping remarked, instinctively assuming it was a film set. He immediately began scanning the area around Zhou Gangxun and Ruan Zhijuan. “Wait, where are the cameras?”

“Filming a show? It has to be! The Overbearing Laborer Loves Me? Or maybe Prince Turned Frog? Hey, if I stand here, will I be in the shot? Haiping, check for me, do I look good on camera?” Bai Zhiqi stood facing the pair across the street, straightening her clothes with perfect posture and flashing a sweet smile.

“No, I should walk back and forth a few times, specifically crossing behind them.”

“You’ll just be a nuisance. Who knows which director is behind this? If you run into one with a short fuse, they’ll chew you out. You’re better off preparing for your screen test in a few days. Let’s go, my future movie star.”

On the other side of the street, the “actor” himself, Ruan Zhijuan, tilted his chin up. “Zhou Gangxun,” he said, sounding perfectly entitled, “I didn’t get to eat the peaches you bought yesterday. I only had a tiny bite, so you owe me.”

Didn’t get to eat them? Right. Those two and a half peaches were eaten by “transformed rat spirits,” certainly not by Ruan Zhijuan.

It was truly impressive; some people woke up and chose malice from the very first breath.

Fearing Zhou Gangxun might refuse, Ruan Zhijuan brought out his trump card, arguing with righteous indignation. “You… you lost your mind on me before, doing such beastly things. You turned my whole backside red…”

Mid-sentence, Ruan Zhijuan hurriedly licked a glob of melting ice cream, his small mouth working quickly. “So, it’s only right that you spend your money on me. Why shouldn’t you buy me a peach? Can you even give me back my perfectly fine, unbruised backside?”

Zhou Gangxun’s gaze darkened as he looked at Ruan Zhijuan, who looked like a feisty little chick with his arms poised as if ready to flap his wings and take flight.

He tuned out the noise Ruan Zhijuan was making, took a drag of his cigarette, and asked flatly, “You like toads?”

Zhou Gangxun figured that, besides money, there was no ruling out Ruan Zhijuan’s personal taste.

“Yeah, I want to eat pea— Toads? Toads?” Interrupted, Ruan Zhijuan blinked in a daze. Huh? Why are we talking about toads all of a sudden? Didn’t I say peaches?

Was Zhou Gangxun only twenty-seven and already losing his hearing?

How could he possibly live with a man like that?

“You’re the one who likes toads,” Ruan Zhijuan muttered, his face growing serious as he began to think.

He was only nineteen, so much younger than Zhou Gangxun. Not only was Zhou an “old cow eating tender grass,” but once he got old, would Ruan be stuck cleaning up after him and nursing him?

What a poor, calculating old dog of a man.

Zhou Gangxun had no idea his “wicked” wife was thinking such things. His eyes settled on Ruan Zhijuan’s beautiful eyes, and he waved his free hand in front of them with mock concern, as if testing a blind man. “Is there something wrong with your eyes?”

Otherwise, how could he have brought himself to bite that “toad” yesterday?

Or did his wife naturally possess some saintly, self-sacrificing quality?

But to Ruan Zhijuan, the phrase “something wrong with your eyes” meant something else entirely.

His eyes widened and he blinked in disbelief. How did Zhou Gangxun know? Neither the butler nor anyone in the Ruan family had ever noticed.

The truth was, Ruan Zhijuan was a bit nearsighted. It was a leftover from his past life, caused by doing odd jobs for his parents, like gluing on fake eyelashes.

After dinner at home, all the lights would be turned off except for those in his younger brother’s room.

His parents said it saved electricity.

But his brother’s room was too small for three people, so he had to work in the living room in the dark. If he was lucky, he could see a bit by the light from a neighbor’s window or the moon.

Over time, his vision blurred.

When he first entered the body of the “fake young master,” his vision had been clear. He could see the veins on leaves, the fine details of a person’s face, and the numbers on license plates.

But perhaps because he was so used to squinting or leaning in close to see, this body eventually started having problems too, and things began to blur.

He didn’t dare tell the Ruans. He was afraid eye treatment would cost a fortune and they would throw him away.

Back when he told his biological parents his eyes were failing, they had stopped what they were doing and stared at him in silence. Their eyes were cold and predatory, like a person deciding which chicken or duck to slaughter for dinner.

Terrified, Ruan Zhijuan had woken up the next morning claiming his eyes were fine. He insisted he just hadn’t rested well the day before, and now that he was better, he could get back to work. Only then did the terrifying look in his parents’ eyes soften.

As his vision worsened, he simply relied on guesswork.

Hearing Zhou Gangxun’s question now was like having his deepest secret exposed.

He assumed Zhou was picking at his flaws, like a customer haggling over damaged goods to drive the price down! He thought Zhou was saying he wasn’t worth much just to avoid buying him peaches!

“Your eyes are the ones that are bad! Mine are perfect!” Ruan Zhijuan puffed up like a punctured ball, launching into a “medical diagnosis” of Zhou Gangxun. “Your heart, liver, spleen, lungs, and kidneys! They’re all bad! You’re rotten inside! Rotten to the core!”

He listed every organ he could think of in the moment.

“Is that so? I’m that far gone?” Zhou Gangxun took a slow drag, pulled out the money he’d earned from moving cargo the night before, plus what was left from selling those cufflinks and the suit and waved the stack in front of Ruan Zhijuan’s face.

Ruan Zhijuan immediately stopped his medical exam. His throat made little whines of desperation as his eyes locked onto the wad of cash. “Actually… you’re not… you can… you can still live.”

That’s such a thick stack of money. How much is it?

Ruan Zhijuan hadn’t actually seen much cash in his life. In his past life, there was none; in the Ruan family, he never needed it, he just swiped a card or asked, and things appeared.

Zhou Gangxun pulled out a twenty-yuan bill. Recalling the peach pits gnawed clean in the trash can, he added a ten, handing Ruan Zhijuan thirty yuan in total.

The thirty was meant to cover lunch as well. Usually, three or four yuan could buy a meal with two meats and two vegetables, and an extra two yuan could get another meat dish. This way, Zhou wouldn’t have to head back to cook; he could just nap in the corrugated metal dormitory at the site.

“I’m heading back.” As Zhou Gangxun turned, his eyes caught the clothes Ruan Zhijuan was wearing—his own clothes. They fit him well, but on Ruan, they were cavernous. From the side, you could practically see right down the shirt.

What, is the “treasure” on public display now? No more keeping it hidden?

Is he showing it off to find a new buyer?

“Don’t dress like this anymore,” Zhou Gangxun said coldly. He pinched the side of the tank top Ruan was wearing and pressed his glowing cigarette butt against the hem. “Don’t move.”

“You…  you’re going to burn me!” Ruan’s eyes bugged out in terror. “Ahhh! It’s catching! It’s on fire! I’m going to burn up, Zhou Gangxun!”

“If you burn, we’ll just have roast suckling pig.” Zhou Gangxun quickly pinched the fabric between his fingers to fuse the hole shut. He looked at the whimpering, terrified Ruan Zhijuan and muttered a “Stupid” under his breath. He blew on the fabric until it cooled, then let go.

He finished the other side, shot Ruan another look, smirked, called him “Stupid” again in his head, and walked away.

Ruan Zhijuan beamed at the money in his hand, not even sparing a glance for the departing man. He didn’t care. It was Zhou Gangxun’s shirt anyway; he wasn’t the one who had to wash it or feel bad if it got ruined. He wasn’t changing back.

Besides, Zhou Gangxun was actually quite generous, giving him thirty whole yuan.

Ruan Zhijuan had no real concept of money. His parents never gave him an allowance, though his brother surely got one. With the Ruans, money didn’t exist for him—if he wanted something, it just appeared the next day.

The reason he thought Zhou was generous was simple: thirty times thirty is nearly a thousand.

And a thousand yuan was the exact amount of the “bride price” his parents had received for selling him to the old blind man.

He had no idea that back when he was a young master, a single plate at home cost hundreds or thousands of yuan—either kiln-fired porcelain or custom-made glass from abroad. In his effort to be a “villain” for the system, he had already smashed dozens of them.

He was still feeling guilty about breaking what he thought were five-yuan bowls.

Zhou Gangxun was even worse. Even a high-end, custom black umbrella of his cost over a thousand.

A luxury umbrella, depending on the fabric and handle, could cost tens of thousands. His own, with a solid silver handle, a beechwood shaft, and his English initials engraved on it, had cost nearly twenty thousand yuan.

The moment Zhou Gangxun stepped back onto the site, Wang Fucai stuck to him like a leech.

“Gangxun,” Wang said, using a familiar tone as if he were an older brother figure. “I saw your wife wearing your clothes just now. That’s not right, man. How can your own wife not even have a decent set of clothes? If he were my wife, he’d have whatever he wanted…”

Your wife? Zhou Gangxun zeroed in on those words from Wang’s ramblings. He looked at the man with an unfiltered, direct gaze. The veins in his arm throbbed with irritation, and his dark eyes grew cold and predatory.

Unaware, Wang Fucai continued, his spit flying as he talked. “How about this? I’ll take your wife to the mall later and buy him some clothes. Consider it a gift for our first meeting. I’ll even take him for a good lunch. Look at how thin he is…”

It wasn’t until the chill radiating from Zhou became impossible to ignore that Wang Fucai finally shivered and swallowed hard, his throat dry.

When he stopped talking and Zhou didn’t respond, the air became thick with an abrupt, heavy silence.

Feeling an instinctive wave of panic, Wang Fucai looked up at Zhou Gangxun.

He found Zhou watching him with a faint, unsettling smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “You like my wife that much?”

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