Hooking Away the Male Lead’s White Moonlight, the Best Actress - Chapter 5

As soon as Jing Yanqing spoke, the lingering warmth and mirth in Hua Yanqiu’s eyes vanished instantly.

If she had managed to maintain a baseline of professional courtesy toward Shen Manyu in the past—never quite losing her temper despite Shen Manyu’s repeated provocations—she was now the complete opposite. Facing the persistent, clinging Jing Yanqing, she was as cold and ruthless as an autumn wind sweeping away fallen leaves.

Even the refined upbringing etched into her bones couldn’t force her to maintain a polite facade for this particular investor.

“What are you doing here?” Hua Yanqiu asked indifferently.

The stark contrast in her tone compared to how she had just spoken to Shen Manyu clearly stung Jing Yanqing. His face turned deathly pale, devoid of any color. He lowered his head submissively, murmuring, “Huahua, I just wanted to see you. Is even that not allowed?”

This wasn’t the first time Shen Manyu had heard that nickname, but she still winced, feeling a wave of nausea. As for Hua Yanqiu, her expression grew even icier, her voice sounding like it was laced with frost. “If you can’t speak normally, then leave immediately.”

Jing Yanqing panicked and quickly softened his tone. “I heard that Shen Manyu was here making trouble for you again, so I came over specifically to deal with her for you.”

“You’re too kind-hearted to stoop to her level, letting her act so insolently toward you,” he continued, “but I can’t stand by and watch.”

As he spoke, he couldn’t stop his mind from replaying the scene he had just witnessed. The two of them—passionate, excited, pressed tightly together, kissing without restraint. Shen Manyu had even… she had even buried his beloved’s face in her chest…

How dare she! How dare she defile his “White Moonlight”!

She had defiled the idol he had carefully pursued for years, the woman he adored as a hardcore devotee. He didn’t dare direct his anger at Hua Yanqiu, so his frustration festered in his chest with no outlet. Catching Shen Manyu watching him out of the corner of his eye, he shot her a vicious glare. His look was predatory, as if he wanted to tear her apart.

Shen Manyu, caught in the crossfire, put on a look of total innocence and gave him a little shrug. She acted as though she had no idea what she’d done wrong, and her lack of remorse made Jing Yanqing’s lips twitch before his expression twisted into something truly menacing.

Shen Manyu stopped smiling. Her eyes drooped, the corners of her mouth turned down, and tears quickly welled up.

Jing Yanqing was stunned by her lightning-fast transition into a “damsel in distress.” In that split second, a voice in the back of his mind screamed that things were about to go south.

Sure enough, a moment later, Shen Manyu began to sob, tears streaming down her face. Gasping for breath, she wailed piteously, “Sister, he… he’s being mean to me!”

“I am not! I didn’t even say a single—” Jing Yanqing’s rage flared.

At the same moment, Hua Yanqiu’s cold voice cut through: “Apologize.”

The rest of Jing Yanqing’s words, along with his surging anger, were choked back into his throat. Having just been figuratively “cuckolded” by the scene he walked in on, he hadn’t even had time to process the shock before this massive, undeserved accusation fell from the sky, nearly suffocating him.

Jing Yanqing possessed a near-pathological obsession with being humble and lowly before Hua Yanqiu. He didn’t mind if others called him a lapdog she kept on a leash. To the outside world, he was the high-and-mighty scion of a massive corporation, a man of power and wealth—the center of the universe. Yet, to Hua Yanqiu, he was nothing.

The more she ignored him, the more she treated him like air, the more he desperately craved her acknowledgment. Even if he had to wag his tail and beg for a single glance, just to have his distant goddess acknowledge her devoted believer, he would feel deeply satisfied.

He loved her so much—or so he believed—that if she told him to apologize, he would. Despite his intense resentment and a stinging sense of jealousy, he bowed his head to Shen Manyu and muttered, “It was my fault. I shouldn’t have taken my anger out on you…”

Wait… that’s not right!

A jolt went through him as he suddenly snapped back to his senses.

As a noble young master of a major corporate group, he had driven dozens of kilometers in the middle of the night in a fit of exasperated rage. His sole purpose was to settle the score with that scoundrel, Shen Manyu!

The fire in his heart burned even more fiercely, but with Hua Yanqiu present, he couldn’t disregard her pride. He could only swallow his anger for the moment, glaring at Shen Manyu with eyes full of malice.

Gritting his teeth, he spat out, “It was my fault! I shouldn’t have been mean to you! Even if you dared to hang up on me, dared to send me those kinds of messages, and dared to blacklist all my contact information! I… I!”

The more he spoke, the more aggrieved he felt. Every word felt like it was being squeezed out from between his teeth. He couldn’t even finish his sentence, instead giving Shen Manyu a chilling glare that seemed to say: Just you wait!

Immediately after, he regained control of his expression and turned to Hua Yanqiu, becoming tender, affectionate, and fawning.

The sheer span of his emotional shifts and the speed of his transformations made him look exactly like a schizophrenic patient who had just escaped from a mental asylum. Even Shen Manyu couldn’t help but be impressed by the spectacle.

“Huahua, I did everything you said. Huahua, I’m really doing this for your own good. Shen Manyu is no good; you’d better stay away from her.”

One moment he was apologizing to her, and the next he was telling someone else she was “no good.”

Shen Manyu’s fractured gaze flickered. She was actually quite amused by his words, and a hint of a smile uncontrollably leaked from the corners of her eyes.

What a dog of a man.

This fellow, Jing Yanqing, really was a piece of work.

Evidently, his words also caused Hua Yanqiu to fall into a brief silence. She finally fixed her gaze on Jing Yanqing, her eyes tinged with weariness as she said helplessly, “Truly, you should go see a psychiatrist. If the Jing family doesn’t have a suitable candidate, I can recommend one for you.”

“Why would I see a psychiatrist? My mind is perfectly normal!” Jing Yanqing dismissed it entirely. He was accustomed to being overbearing and conceited; his chauvinism was rooted in his very marrow, and he couldn’t tolerate the slightest doubt from others.

He quickly changed the subject, returning to his usual tired rhetoric:

“Huahua, acting is so exhausting. You work so hard and yet you barely make any money. Why don’t you just stop? If you marry me, the entire Jing family will be yours.”

“With the group backing you, you won’t have to worry about food or clothes for the rest of your life. There’s absolutely no need to work this hard. You just need to stay peacefully at home and bear my children. You won’t need to show your face in public like this anymore and ruin your reputation.”

Hua Yanqiu was truly exhausted now.

Due to her personality and upbringing, she had been strictly disciplined since childhood. She was habitually rational and restrained, rarely showing even strong emotional fluctuations.

Jing Yanqing was the first person in her life who made her feel that she “couldn’t afford to provoke him, but couldn’t even hide from him.” And unfortunately, Shen Manyu had been added to that list today.

Her previous confrontations with Shen Manyu had already left her drained. Now, Jing Yanqing’s persistent pestering—and his casual dismissal of the career and ideals she had struggled for—made her expression turn utterly frigid.

“Marry you?” All the unspeakable anger and reproaches transformed into a cold, mocking laugh.

She sized Jing Yanqing up from head to toe, her derisive gaze leaving him at a loss, completely unaware of how he had provoked her. “Stay peacefully at home? Bear children?”

Her tone was quite calm. Though she was furious, she maintained her upbringing and refrained from direct insults.

No matter how stupid Jing Yanqing was, hearing her repeat his words made him vaguely sense that something was wrong. Hua Yanqiu’s anger clearly stemmed from this, yet he had no idea what he had said wrong.

He stared at her blankly and continued, “You women, showing your faces in public and running around just to make a living… it’s so hard. Especially filming—you’re freezing in winter and baking in summer, and a single shoot takes months of your life.”

“Earning money is a man’s job anyway. You don’t need to work this hard. As long as you’re willing to marry me, my money is your money.”

“But that’s your money. It belongs to the Jing family. What does your money have to do with me?”

All expression vanished from Hua Yanqiu’s face, leaving only an extreme, indifferent coldness.

Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed Shen Manyu leaning lazily against the wall with her arms crossed and a smile on her lips, having enjoyed the show for quite a while.

A sudden urge for revenge surged within her. Without a second thought, Hua Yanqiu decided to drag her into the mess:

“If the choice is being with you, I’d rather go be gay with her!”

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