Married The Crybaby Childhood Crush First, Then Fell in Love - Chapter 17

In the car, Lin Wanqing’s phone kept buzzing.

Yan Qiu tidied the small black soft hat Lin Wanqing had given her while looking in the mirror. “A lot of people are looking for you.”

Lin Wanqing quickly put her phone on silent. “It’s almost time for the exams, and classmates want to borrow my notes.”

Yan Qiu raised an eyebrow: “Classmates?”

Lin Wanqing: “My classmates…”

After a moment of silence, Yan Qiu: “…So popular.”

Lin Wanqing didn’t catch the hint of jealousy in Yan Qiu’s tone. “It’s alright, only about twenty or so.”

Yu Fei felt the suffocating atmosphere in the car.

Seeing Yan Qiu close her eyes and remain silent, Lin Wanqing quietly opened her phone to deal with the unreturned messages.

The constantly popping red dots stimulated Yan Qiu’s delicate nerves.

Lin Wanqing accidentally pressed a voice message,

“Qingqing Jie, could you let me peek at the dress bodice you made in class? Thank you, Qingqing Jie, I’ll treat you to milk tea tomorrow~”

Yan Qiu: “You even lend out the clothes you made yourself for others to see?”

Lin Wanqing: “…These clothes are class assignments. It’s normal for classmates to exchange opinions.”

Yan Qiu’s eyes were gloomy, her eyelashes trembled, and she didn’t speak further.

Lin Wanqing: “.”

She seemed to have said the wrong thing.

Yan Qiu: “Don’t lend them out next time.”

Lin Wanqing was confused but still nodded.

She felt Yan Qiu had been a bit strange lately.

The sedan stopped at the entrance of a high-end shopping mall. Lin Wanqing and Yu Fei took the wheelchair out of the trunk.

Yan Qiu skillfully transferred from the car to the wheelchair, the whole movement was fast, making it hard to believe she was a person with disabled legs.

She wore a small black soft hat on her head, which complemented her long, slightly curly hair.

As the weather grew colder, Lin Wanqing was wrapped in a coat, which made her already slender body look like catkins that would drift with the wind.

When she didn’t smile, she was aloof and distant, and only those close to her knew she was shy and not good with words.

Yan Qiu had Yu Fei buy two cups of milk tea, and the steaming hot milk tea was placed in Lin Wanqing’s cold hands.

The sweet milk tea had a small cream snowcap on top, with a small rabbit chocolate holding a strawberry stuck into the cream.

Yan Qiu: “It’s cold, warm yourself up with it first.”

Lin Wanqing’s face flushed, and she nodded softly.

They came to the mall this time to buy a gift for the old man of the family. They were going to the old residence tomorrow to formally meet Old Master Yan.

Yan Qiu: “Have your parents been causing you trouble recently?”

Lin Wanqing bit into a mouthful of cream, the white cream resting on her soft, pink lips.

“My mother mentioned that the external public opinion is very unfavorable to the Lin family and asked me to plead with Qiuqiu Jie.”

The wheelchair stopped at the entrance of a luxury goods store.

Yan Qiu smiled faintly, looking at her. “So, Tiantian plans to ask for my mercy. I can delete all the online opinions, pay the compensation, give the factory new orders, and let this matter be completely over.”

Yu Fei went into the store to pick up the items the boss had ordered.

She stood inside the store and watched the two, one sitting and one standing, with a tense atmosphere. Her brain, which was addicted to shipping couples, only felt they were flirting.

Lin Wanqing was afraid but firm. Having married Yan Qiu, it was impossible for her to side with the Lin family in everything.

“The Lin family’s factory facilities are outdated, and the personnel management is terrible. There are serious instances of kickbacks, ‘ghost employees,’ and bribery. My mother arbitrarily arranges relatives in the factory, and the management style is extremely chaotic.”

Lin Wanqing: “Such an enterprise cannot go far.”

A flash of amazement crossed Yan Qiu’s eyes. Lin Wanqing looked at her nervously.

Yan Qiu signaled her to bend down with her finger and used her finger to wipe the white cream from the lips of her little rabbit.

The soft and sweet cream melted on her fingertip, and Yan Qiu licked it off with her crimson tongue.

Lin Wanqing’s face instantly flushed even more.

Yan Qiu: “Very sweet, very delicious.”

Lin Wanqing’s mind completely stalled. After a few seconds, she said, “I thought someone as serious as you, Jie, wouldn’t like milk tea.”

Yan Qiu: “I wanted to taste what you ‘little friends’ like.”

“Little… little friend…” Lin Wanqing murmured, so embarrassed that her nose and cheeks were crimson. She tightly gripped the milk tea, her mind in a daze until they entered the reserved restaurant, where she still hadn’t completely cleared up.

Yu Fei: “Is Miss Lin possessed?”

Lin Wanqing looked lovesick. “Your boss… doesn’t she have mysophobia?”

Your boss is so flirtatious, how is she so skilled!

Her budding girlish heart fluttered like a startled deer.

Yu Fei pondered for a moment. “Perhaps she overcame it for love?”

Lin Wanqing clutched her palpitating heart in despair. “But we have a contractual marriage! Where is the love!”

Yu Fei: “But Miss Lin has already given the boss a token of affection, and she’s wearing it on her head.”

Lin Wanqing: “That was a class assignment!” She just thought it suited Yan Qiu, so she gave it to her.

She couldn’t reason with the secretary. When Yan Qiu returned to the private room, the atmosphere was very peculiar.

Yan Qiu ordered a table full of Lin Wanqing’s favorite dishes. “Do you have a fever?”

Lin Wanqing: “…No.”

Yan Qiu: “Then why is your face so red?”

Lin Wanqing: “…Ying”

The little rabbit was both annoyed and shy, seeing Yan Qiu’s expression, her mind was full of the coaxing look when she called her ‘little friend.’

She took out a napkin and silently wiped the tears from the corners of her eyes.

The waiter brought all the dishes to the table. Lin Wanqing quietly ate the two dishes closest to her.

She never dared to forget that marrying Yan Qiu was to repay her parents’ kindness in raising her, and she had never met the other party in the past twenty-plus years.

No matter how harmless or friendly Yan Qiu appeared, it could not bridge the gap in their identities.

Yan Qiu put a piece of Squirrel-shaped Mandarin Fish into her bowl with her chopsticks. “The Huaiyang cuisine here is very well-made. Tiantian grew up in Jiangnan, so you should be used to eating it.”

The exterior was sweet and crispy, and the fish meat inside melted with a single bite.

Lin Wanqing nodded reservedly: “It’s delicious.”

It’s delicious, but she won’t actively pick it up.

Yan Qiu frowned. “You are so thin, you should eat more.”

Lin Wanqing gently hummed in agreement, still only picking at the two dishes in front of her.

When she ate at the table with her parents and sister, the best food was always left for her sister. Her mother wouldn’t care about her preferences, and if she took a chopstick of the good food, her sister would get angry and cry.

Whether as a mistress’s daughter in her mother’s eyes or a sister who should be sensible and yielding in her father’s eyes, she would be severely reprimanded.

If eating was only to fill her stomach, then the taste didn’t matter. Lin Wanqing couldn’t recall her dietary preferences from when she was little in Jiangnan.

Yan Qiu poured a bowl of Fish Maw Chicken Soup and placed it in front of her, carefully removing every fish bone.

“Little friend needs to grow, eat a little more.”

“…I probably won’t grow taller at this age.”

“That’s because you don’t eat enough.”

Under Yan Qiu’s supervision, Lin Wanqing finished all the fish stacked like a small mountain in her bowl.

The phone on the table rang with a buzzing vibration. Yan Qiu put down her chopsticks and picked up Lin Wanqing’s phone.

“Your mother is calling.”

Lin Wanqing’s face showed forbearance. “I’m sorry, I’ll go out to take a call.”

Yan Qiu didn’t return the phone to her. Instead, she pressed the answer button and placed it by her ear.

Qiao Lihua’s sharp and mean voice came through the earpiece. “Lin Wanqing, don’t forget whose family you belong to! I told you to go to Old Master Yan to resolve the public opinion, and you ignored me?! Your sister is being ostracized at school; how can you, as her older sister, just stand by and watch?”

Qiao Lihua waited for two seconds, and hearing Lin Wanqing’s silence, her anger grew even more.

Yan Qiu: “What do you want Lin Wanqing to ask the Old Master for?”

As soon as Yan Qiu’s voice sounded, Qiao Lihua was instantly choked.

“Yan, President Yan, you… you misunderstood, that’s not what I meant.”

Yan Qiu: “Madam’s new yellow diamond necklace is very beautiful. The people at the auditing bureau are also very curious about the value of the Madam’s necklace.”

Qiao Lihua immediately covered the necklace on her neck. She had privately bought it with the investment Yan Qiu gave the factory. If the auditing bureau found out, she would be jailed.

She wanted to gain a foothold in the circle of wealthy wives, and she wanted her youngest daughter to attend the best schools and receive the best education. Every expense relied on Yan Qiu’s investment, so she could only instruct the factory to use inferior materials, forcing workers to work overtime and squeezing their wages.

Yan Qiu directly hung up the phone.

Lin Wanqing stared blankly at the scene, the little deer in her chest fluttering again.

Yan Qiu deboned the shad for her, sounding a bit guilty: “Do you… mind if you and your sister can’t take civil service exams in the future?”

“To be precise, you won’t pass the political background check.”