My Arranged Marriage Partner Is Always Pretending to Be Straight [Transmigrated into a Book] - Chapter 7

No Love, But One Can Still Be a Rich Woman

“I’ll get back on my own,” Qiao Mengdi replied to Qiao Mengyang’s message.

“Save those words for the old man, okay?” The Sun Dislikes Smiling replied instantly. “Be straightforward—what time tomorrow?”

“Isn’t tomorrow Monday? You have classes. I’ll go back myself.”

“Please, don’t set me up to die.”

Qiao Mengdi understood Qiao Mengyang’s meaning. Qiao Chengrong was quite ruthless; he had plenty of ways to deal with disobedient children. Even the lawless Qiao Mengyang feared him.

“Tomorrow evening then,” she said. He shouldn’t have classes at night.

“What time tomorrow evening?”

It was hard to tell if Qiao Mengyang had a bit of OCD or if he was truly being driven to the brink by Qiao Chengrong.

“Nine o’clock,” Qiao Mengdi gave a random time.

In truth, she didn’t want to go back. However, looking at Qiao Mengyang’s pitiful state—his lifeblood currently gripped by Qiao Chengrong—she felt a strange surge of sympathy for this younger brother she hadn’t even met yet.

Even if this escape were successful, Qiao Chengrong had plenty of ways to find her and bring her back.

This thought floated clearly into Qiao Mengdie’s mind: there was no running away. The only way out was to successfully call off the engagement.

She planned to face it head-on and tell Yao Chiyue directly that she wanted to break off the marriage.

Though she was loath to do it—she truly admired Yao Chiyue’s beauty.

But she understood that liking someone was one thing, and marriage was another.

Was it really that supernatural? Qiao Mengdi stared at the phone, remembering what she had said outside the restaurant: “You have to tell me the truth; only if you tell me is there a way out.” Adhering to the philosophy of brevity, she drafted the message: “I want to break off the engagement,” and quickly hit the send button. She gripped the phone tight, eyes squeezed shut.

She took a deep breath. When she opened her eyes again, the phone interface suddenly jumped from “Sending” to “Message failed to send.” She clicked resend, and this time a prompt popped up: “System busy, please try again later.” She didn’t give up; no matter how difficult the task, she always tried three times. Ultimately, the message simply would not go out.

Qiao Mengdi tossed the phone aside, her scalp tingling with frustration.

Could it be that marrying Yao Chiyue was an inevitable, inescapable plot point of the novel?!

She suddenly remembered that the original owner hadn’t told her to break off the engagement; instead, she had said, “Please, live well.”

Could it be that the original owner didn’t lose her life because she fell in love with that destructive cousin, but rather as a price for trying to flee the marriage? From this perspective, was the main storyline of the novel truly irreversible?!

“Damn it!” Qiao Mengdi couldn’t help but swear. Combining all the accidents that had happened, this inference seemed logical. The original owner indeed insisted on a divorce to no avail, and then met her end, didn’t she?!

The cost of resisting an arranged marriage was having one’s body, mind, and everything related to them restrained. Qiao Mengdi had experienced this personally today and believed it. And for the original owner, the price of trying to escape the fated union was—crack! Qiao Mengdi shuddered at the clear sound in her mind. Her situation of transmigrating into the book felt a bit like a “recasting” of a role.

It seemed the only way to survive was to behave and marry Yao Chiyue.

Truly a melodramatic novel! Damn it all!

Now, the original owner’s words “Please, live well” were suddenly easy to understand. Only by contentedly accepting the marriage arranged by the novel could she survive.

Logically, this wasn’t too difficult for Qiao Mengdi. She liked women to begin with, and Yao Chiyue was very, very much her type. Even though that sentence—”I don’t like women”—was annoying to hear, well, people can change. Even if she didn’t change, looking at it from another angle, it was a hundred times better than being under Qiao Chengrong’s control.

Besides, even if she luckily succeeded in breaking the engagement, Qiao Chengrong would likely have plenty of other “Yao Chiyues” waiting. He simply wanted his daughter to follow his arrangements and live the so-called smooth life he envisioned. If next time she were sent to marry a man—

Eugh! Qiao Mengdi didn’t dare think further. It seemed Lin Linfeng was right; there weren’t many matches like Yao Chiyue in all of Luzhou.

Once she thought it through, Qiao Mengdi decided to stop making meaningless resistance. She no longer planned to waste her energy trying to break the engagement or run away.

Marry to survive. Before lying down, she reached this realization.

Even without love, one could still be a rich woman, right?

After marriage, the worst-case scenario was that they each did their own thing. No loss there.

Thinking of this, she took the secondary card Yao Chiyue had given her out of her bag—the black gold card.

She looked at the credit card and smiled. Even before getting married, it seemed her food and clothing were already taken care of.

The grief of losing her family eased slightly for Qiao Mengdi.

Maybe she was just the second half of the unfinished novel? The gender-flipped content she had been expecting while reading but which had never arrived.

Qiao Mengdi was naturally an optimist. Now, her only regret was that she had dropped the book so early.

If only she had caught a glimpse of the ending. Now she desperately wanted to know if she and Yao Chiyue would eventually have a “Happy Ending” (HE).

The HE with Yao Chiyue is all up to me now!

Before sleeping, Qiao Mengdi gave herself a pep talk. Her mind was filled with the image of Yao Chiyue looking breathtakingly beautiful in her white suit. Due to the excitement, her originally pale face regained a bit of color.

The next morning, when Qiao Mengdi got up, there was a note on the old lady’s dining table next to the breakfast:

“I’ve gone on a date; won’t be back for lunch. Give Sandun a bath—I’m leaving that to you.”

Heh, women! Claiming they aren’t close, yet she’s quite adept at ordering people around.

“Sandun! Sandun!” Qiao Mengdi stood by the table and called out twice. The Corgi suddenly lunged out from somewhere, looking so joyful it seemed it didn’t have a single worry in the world.

Before sitting down, she glanced toward the living room and saw the general on the wall with his piercing gaze. “Sigh! Your wife went on a date. Aren’t you going to do something about it?”

Sandun let out a few whimpers.

Qiao Mengdi irritably gave its chubby rump a light kick, but the dog stayed put.

The whole house was actually quite peaceful.

Sunlight filtered through the windows, making the old house glow.

After finishing the breakfast the old lady left, Qiao Mengdi opened the door and let Sandun out into the yard.

A dog set free—everyone knows that wild energy. It dived headfirst into the thicket in the corner, leaving only its back half visible.

She walked down the steps and sat on the wooden chair by the Queensland Umbrella Tree. Remembering she hadn’t replied to Yao Chiyue’s message last night, she took out her phone, copied her number, and clicked the search bar in WeChat. Found her. Add.

In the friend request message box, she pondered for a moment and wrote: “Life Partner.” Originally, she wanted to mock the arranged marriage, but after sending it, she felt a sudden deflation, thinking Yao Chiyue would surely laugh at her for being immature.

Perhaps not! Didn’t she say last night she wanted to discuss the engagement and the wedding preparations?

Whether she liked women or not, she was quite serious when it came to business.

Although they hadn’t discussed much last night, Yao Chiyue had indeed shared her general ideas, such as the venue, the scale of the wedding, and when to register the marriage.

Qiao Mengdi hadn’t really responded, so she hadn’t continued.

Perhaps because she had been distracted while these things were being said, Yao Chiyue had teased her that way when they left the restaurant.

Since Yao Chiyue was so serious, Qiao Mengdi felt she probably wouldn’t laugh at such a friend request message.

Marriage was a bit beyond the scope for the current Qiao Mengdi.

She hadn’t even had a proper romantic relationship. To her, getting married was like jumping straight from a primitive society into a socialist one!

Suddenly, a scritch-scratch sound echoed. Qiao Mengdi looked over and saw Sandun digging frantically in the grass. She hurriedly stood up to stop him, and her train of thought was broken.

“You dog!” Qiao Mengdi raised her hand in a mock threat, and Sandun finally stopped.

Its nose and front paws were covered in dirt. Now, there was no getting out of giving it a bath.

She coaxed it back into the house, wiped off the dirt first, and then prepared for the bath.

As for adding Yao Chiyue as a friend, she forgot all about it the moment the request was sent.

Tending to Sandun left her nearly half-soaked as well. After blow-drying the dog, she took a bath herself, and the morning slipped away.

Taking Sandun out for lunch and walking back leisurely afterward, Qiao Mengdi ran into Yao Chiyue.