My Clingy Fiancée Is Forcing Me to Marry Her Again - Chapter 26.2

“They are.”

“Heavens! Guan Xiaoyu?”

“It’s her.”

Besides Guan Xiaoyu and Bai Shao, there were the Scummy A’s creditors, but it seemed no one else would be looking for her. Li Fangge stood up, took the empty bowls, and told Bai Shao, “You can heat up the rest of the porridge when you’re hungry. It’s best to finish it today.”

“I have to ask, are you serious about her? Did you two actually do it that night?” There was no one else in the room, yet Bai Shao strangely lowered her voice.

“I’m going to give it a try,” Li Fangge said.

“Well, nothing happened, tch!” Bai Shao showed a look of disdain.

“I was answering your first question.”

“Oh, really?” Bai Shao took a moment to process. Although Guan Xiaoyu was flawless, could Li Fangge really pull it off? She was genuinely worried for her.

“Do you want to know what I think of your breakup?”

“You’d better not say it.”

“Goodbye. Get some good sleep.”

Bai Shao walked Li Fangge to the door. While waiting for the elevator, she said, “I just crawled out of a fire pit, and you’re about to jump into one. We sisters and those sisters, we’re truly endlessly entangled—”

“The elevator is here.” Li Fangge interrupted her cousin and stepped in. Just as the elevator door was about to close, she suddenly put out her hand to stop it. “Sis, although it might not apply to you and Guan Xiaoyan, if two people who have no future love each other, perhaps they can create one together.”

“Who cooked that ‘chicken soup’ for you? Looks like you’ve had a lot of it.”

“If you need it, you can give it a try too. It tastes pretty good.”

Li Fangge smiled, withdrew her hand, and the elevator door slowly closed.

Because of her cousin’s situation, when she returned home and saw Guan Xiaoyu in the kitchen learning to make small cakes, a warm spring breeze seemed to blow through Li Fangge’s heart at that moment…

After a long wait, Guan Xiaoyu, who had run out saying she would return after taking her inhibitor, still hadn’t come back. Li Fangge got out of bed, changed into a light blue shirt, and left the room.

As she went downstairs, she saw Chen Qiaoyi approaching and asked, “Sister Yi, have you seen Guan Xiaoyu?”

“She’s in the kitchen with Xiao You.”

“Okay.” Li Fangge nodded and passed Chen Qiaoyi.

Li Fangge had become significantly brighter recently, and the nihilism and gloom in her eyes seemed to have faded a lot. Chen Qiaoyi was momentarily unsure if it was because of Guan Xiaoyu. She stared for a long time at Li Fangge’s receding, graceful figure, knowing she must report this positive change truthfully to Mr. Li.

At the kitchen doorway, Li Fangge saw Guan Xiaoyu and Xiao You chatting and laughing.

“Sister You, which flavor does Sister Li prefer more: yogurt cherry or blueberry honey?”

“Miss Li is here, why don’t you ask her yourself—” Seeing Li Fangge appear at the kitchen door again, Xiao You quickly redirected Guan Xiaoyu’s question to her.

“Sister Li, the cupcakes Sister You taught me to make are ready!”

“Did you forget something?” Li Fangge didn’t go in but watched them from a distance.

The kitchen was spacious and bright. The afternoon sun slanted through the white curtains. The faint smell of milk and butter drifted into Li Fangge’s nostrils, and her stomach let out a soft rumble. She’d only had fruit porridge for lunch, which clearly wasn’t enough.

“Oh, that—” Guan Xiaoyu laughed, her smile as bright and lovely as a white rose. “I just ran into Sister You. She said the cakes were almost ready, so I wanted to wait and bring them up for Sister Li to try. I didn’t realize you came downstairs too.”

“Miss Li, where would you like to have them? The dining room, or the tea room?”

“The tea room, please. Brew a pot of black tea.”

“Alright.”

Soon after, the refreshments were prepared. Xiaoyou smiled and left. When Li Fangge wasn’t looking, she gave Guan Xiaoyu a secret fist-pump of encouragement. Guan Xiaoyu blinked her bright, dewy eyes at her gratefully.

The warm, fragrant, and sweet black tea, paired with the delicate cupcakes, made the atmosphere in the tea room incredibly cozy. It had been a long time since Li Fangge had enjoyed such a relaxed afternoon tea. For the past half year, she had either been on the road or on stage. This kind of leisure afternoon was simply precious to her. Moreover, she had a sight for sore eyes—the Delicate Flower—in front of her, smiling softly and sweetly, which made her feel cheerful.

“Why are you looking at me? Drink your tea.”

“Compared to drinking tea, I prefer to look at Sister Li.”

“Can you—be a little more subtle?”

“I can’t. If I’m subtle, Sister won’t know that I prefer—”

Li Fangge picked up a cherry cupcake and timely blocked Guan Xiaoyu’s mouth. Guan Xiaoyu backed away, and the tea room was suddenly filled with her sweet, wind-chime-like laughter. The sight of the two of them teasing and laughing was indistinguishable from a couple deeply in love.

This made Chen Qiaoyi, standing at the doorway, feel quite complicated. It had been a long time since she had seen Li Fangge laugh so heartily, and she was hesitant about whether to call her yet.

Spotting Chen Qiaoyi out of the corner of her eye, Li Fangge stopped laughing and turned her head to ask, “Sister Yi, is something wrong?”

Chen Qiaoyi quickly hid the document in her hand behind her back. “Nothing—”

Her action gave her away. Li Fangge’s heart was already eight or nine tenths certain. “Bring it over.”

“But—” Chen Qiaoyi looked at Guan Xiaoyu, whose eyes were full of curiosity, and hesitated. Li Fangge was very conscious of her image. Would handing the document to her so abruptly, causing her to lose face in front of her fiancée, provoke her anger?

Just then, Guan Xiaoyu’s phone rang. She excused herself and left the tea room with the phone. About seven or eight minutes later, she returned, the smile completely gone from her little face.

“Sister Li, I—I should go back.”

It seemed like something more serious than her father checking up on her. Li Fangge didn’t ask for details. She nodded and stood up. “I’ll see you out.”

Guan Xiaoyu stared at Li Fangge blankly for a moment, then said, “If I didn’t ask, would Sister have not planned to tell me what Sister Yi was looking for you about just now?” She could tell that Li Fangge’s calm expression was hiding something.

“It was just a small matter,” Li Fangge said carelessly. She didn’t want Guan Xiaoyu to know about that kind of thing.

“Is that so?” Guan Xiaoyu did not hide her disappointment; she didn’t believe it. “I really hope Sister Li can open up to me more, but I’m very satisfied today. What I want to tell Sister is, please don’t be a stranger to me. That way, others won’t have a chance to separate us.”

“Who wants to separate us?”

“It’s annoying. There’s a banquet tonight. It originally had nothing to do with me, but—” Thinking of her father, Guan Xiaoyu got particularly angry. “My sister has been brainwashed by my father after all—now I have to accompany my sister.”

“Just go. What’s the big deal?”

“If they didn’t even invite Sister Li, what kind of coveted banquet for all the prestigious families in Ludu is it!”

“You know, Sister is currently—” Li Fangge suddenly remembered that Guan Xiaoyu wouldn’t allow her to be self-pitying or even self-deprecating, so she changed her statement, “Even if I were invited (politely), I couldn’t go.”

This kind of banquet was, simply put, social networking within the upper circles. Li Fangge’s parents were influential figures in Ludu; based on credentials, she would certainly be fine. Usually, for match-making banquets, a genetic-grade threshold was an unspoken rule that everyone knew: low-grade Alphas, Omegas, and Betas were not invited. This was no longer a secret.

“You go and have a good time.”

“Sister Li!”

“No crying.”

“How can I have a good time if you’re not there?”

“…We both have our own lives, don’t we?”

“Sister is still unwilling to tell me what Sister Yi was looking for you about?”

“A debt collector.”

She had expected to feel mortified saying it out loud. Instead, Li Fangge realized that revealing her most shameful side wasn’t as unbearable as she had imagined. Rather than trying to cover it up only to fail to conceal it completely, being open about it felt more candid and relaxed. Li Fangge actually had no great complaints about the Scummy A’s debts. She was now using her body, living the life that belonged to her, and she had met the “Hong Kong fortune teller” she had been inexplicably thinking about. Bearing some of her debts was only right—