My Idol Turns Out To Be My Ex-Girlfriend - Chapter 40

He Wenyu sat on the sofa, elbows propped on her thighs and fingers buried deep in her hair, looking utterly distressed.

“You’re making this really difficult for me. Since you like her this much, I’m basically forced to help you out.”

Tang Hengzhi let out a small smile and offered a gentle reminder. “Are you going to help me steal He Ye’s girl?”

He Wenyu glared at her. “I want to kill you, seriously. You know I can’t just stand by and watch you act like this.”

Tang Hengzhi nodded. “You don’t have to get involved. I’ll find a way to settle it myself.”

“Settle it? My ass! Look at you, you’re a mess.”

He Wenyu looked frustrated, her shoulders slumping in defeat.

“To be honest, I never really thought He Ye and Lin Sanyuan would end up together. That guy doesn’t put any heart into their relationship, you probably saw that at dinner. At first, I had some selfish thoughts. Little Sanyuan is quite patient with He Ye, and it’s hard for him to find a girl so suited for marriage. But seeing you like this, I’m thinking, why should she have to settle for him? He Ye might not even be right for her.”

Perhaps realizing her earlier gloating was a bit much, He Wenyu offered a half-hearted consolation. “Actually, when I walked into your room earlier, I got the feeling Little Sanyuan might still like you a bit.”

Tang Hengzhi’s eyes flickered. Her voice was very soft, as if afraid of shattering the moment. “Really?”

Lies.

From beginning to end, Lin Sanyuan’s eyes had been vacant. She looked like a blank slate. Besides, who could have acting skills that good? To reunite with an ex and act like a total stranger?

Still, seeing Tang Hengzhi clinging to that tiny, cautious shred of hope, He Wenyu felt a pang of pity for her.

“Do you know anything about Sanyuan’s family situation?”

Tang Hengzhi swallowed, a delayed bitterness seeping into her heart. “I never asked about her family.”

It was a matter of habit and politeness for her; she rarely interfered in such private matters. But looking back now, she realized she probably should have.

“Serves you right!” He Wenyu snapped. “No wonder you got dumped. Being like that makes people feel incredibly insecure.”

Tang Hengzhi remained silent, pressing her lips together.

He Wenyu knew her friend was a bit of a “wooden block” when it came to emotions, so she didn’t bother lecturing her further. “You probably don’t know this, but Sanyuan’s parents started arranging blind dates for her when she was only nineteen. I heard this from He Ye.”

Tang Hengzhi looked down. “I… I knew a bit about that.”

“Then do you know why her mother was in such a rush?”

Tang Hengzhi shook her head.

He Wenyu wasn’t surprised. She gave a dry laugh. “Of course. An eldest daughter from a prestigious family like yours could never understand the ‘besieged city’ of women trapped by feudal thinking in rural areas. Even in modern society, the preference for sons over daughters is still deeply rooted in the countryside. It’s terrifying. Sanyuan’s family isn’t well-off. she has a younger brother. She had to finish school early, start working early to earn money, and be married off early. It’s all because of the ‘bride price’ tradition in rural marriages.”

Tang Hengzhi didn’t particularly want to learn about these things, they were so far removed from her world. But she had to, because this was Lin Sanyuan’s world. She didn’t interrupt, listening quietly.

“Their hometown is near Jiu City. You might not know, but for ordinary people there, the bride price is practically astronomical. If a guy wants to get married, the basic requirements are a car and a house paid in full, plus hundreds of thousands in cash for the bride price. It’s an amount of assets that three generations might not be able to scrape together. Having a son basically ruins a family financially, yet rural families still demand boys. They’ll keep having children until they get one.”

“And if they can’t afford the bride price? They can’t let the only male heir stay single, right? But it’s okay, because there’s an older sister. If the sister marries out and brings in a bride price, it solves more than half of the family’s problems.”

Tang Hengzhi fell into a long silence.

He Wenyu gave a light, bitter laugh. “Honestly, hearing you talk about this, I really admire Lin Sanyuan. How did she have the courage? With a family like that and such a heavy burden, I can’t imagine the pressure she was under to be with you for three years.”

Tang Hengzhi had never imagined that the biggest mountain standing between them would be poverty. Poor people, it seemed, didn’t have the luxury of romance or chasing ultimate emotions.

In this day and age, being gay isn’t exactly a taboo word. In the era of the internet, people even become famous by marketing BL or GL elements. Supported by a certain economic foundation, alternative love can seem romantic enough.

Tang Hengzhi wasn’t someone who chased love excessively, because to her, love felt too fragile. Lin Sanyuan didn’t chase love either; Tang Hengzhi had never even sensed a longing for it in her. Because to her, love was too much of a luxury.

She felt like… she had finally found the root of the illness.

Tang Hengzhi took a deep breath and buried her face in her hands, her voice finally showing a shift in emotion. “We were together for three years and rarely had an argument. Neither of us likes fighting. But once, we had a conflict.”

He Wenyu guessed something, her lip twitching. “Because she was a ‘brother-helper’?”

It wasn’t like Tang Hengzhi was short on cash.

Tang Hengzhi shook her head. “The money she earned at nineteen was indeed sent home regularly, which often put her in a difficult spot. But after we got together, she stopped doing that. Actually, she had several arguments with her family behind my back because of it.”

Tang Hengzhi had never experienced such things. Since birth, she had never had to worry about money. So at the time, she couldn’t understand. Even though she was only nineteen, she already had the independence and self-awareness of an adult. She couldn’t understand why Sanyuan’s parents would fight with her just because she wouldn’t hand over her salary. Perhaps they really did need the money.

Tang Hengzhi was very serious and careful about the relationship. She had considered the realistic gap in their family backgrounds, so she never spoke much about their families. She didn’t like making things complicated. Back then, Lin Sanyuan never hid her income from her, even though as a newcomer to the workforce, it wasn’t very high.

So, Tang Hengzhi once suggested that she could provide financial help for Sanyuan’s parents to avoid the fighting, and that Sanyuan could save her own money if she wanted.

But Lin Sanyuan refused.

To the point where Tang Hengzhi sometimes wondered, when she discussed it with her, was her delivery, tone, or look somehow wrong? Had she unintentionally hurt Sanyuan’s pride?

But when Lin Sanyuan refused her, she looked so ordinary. It was only later that things felt off. From then on, Lin Sanyuan showed an intense craving for money.

That sounds very worldly, but Tang Hengzhi didn’t actually mind. She even hoped, at times, that Sanyuan would show more of a worldly side in front of her. But that craving for money wasn’t directed at Tang.

Sanyuan would rather work part-time day and night, taking on jobs she didn’t want to do. It was during the boom of web novels. From then on, she became busier and busier, writing part-time, doing design drafts, and exhausting herself.

Tang Hengzhi didn’t dislike her doing those things. Since her student days, Lin Sanyuan had a hand for storytelling. Tang had read her stories, seeing the vivid strokes from the words to the sketches. Small, independent stories would take shape, building the world she imagined.

Tang Hengzhi liked interpreting these little stories to slowly understand Sanyuan’s inner world. In the afternoons or at night, she would analyze the “Little Sanyuan” through her writing and vivid comics. It was one of the few processes she enjoyed besides painting. It was a version of Sanyuan carefully building her own world.

But later, she gave up her own stories. She started taking commissions, shelved her pen name, and used an alternate account to write the kind of “face-slapping” power fantasies that Tang Hengzhi would never have touched in her life if not for Sanyuan.

Endless chapters of filler, the same recycled trashy stories, fast-food novels meant to cater to the market. Keywords like “Soldier King,” “Miraculous Doctor,” or “Matrilocal Son-in-law”—Tang Hengzhi had even ridiculously searched for them. They were like commercial products from an assembly line.

Tang Hengzhi understood it even less. Instead of making things so complicated, she clearly had better options. She could have easily reached out to her, so why did she push her further away for such boring things?

The traffic generated by trashy filler required a lot of time to grind out results. The time Tang Hengzhi spent with her each day became negligible. She had once asked if Sanyuan could stop doing that, stop writing things she didn’t like.

She never thought Lin Sanyuan was particularly sensitive, but even so, Tang always spoke to her with caution, leaving plenty of room. Yet Lin Sanyuan could always accurately capture the meaning she was trying to convey.

Back then, she just shook her head and smiled. “Making money isn’t a shameful thing.”

Tang Hengzhi was a person who knew her boundaries. She only discussed it with Sanyuan once. Even though it didn’t lead to the desired result, the matter ended there, and neither of them mentioned it again.

He Wenyu found it bizarre, but she quickly understood. Her gaze turned complex. “I can’t quite tell what Sanyuan’s attitude toward you is now, but I’m certain of one thing: during those three years, she really saw you as someone important.”

“Really?” Tang Hengzhi’s knuckles tightened slightly against her leg.

He Wenyu massaged her temples. They say love makes you lose your self-confidence. It was true. Tang Hengzhi had asked “Really?” twice today.

He Wenyu let out a massive sigh. “You wooden head, couldn’t you tell that Lin Sanyuan would feel inferior in that situation?”

Tang Hengzhi fell into a deep silence.

He Wenyu rubbed her brow again. “But honestly, if it were me, I wouldn’t have noticed either. Even Sanyuan herself, if she really felt inferior, she probably didn’t realize it. It’d be a miracle if an outsider could tell.”

Tang Hengzhi frowned, unhappy. “Why say that about her?”

“Don’t be so quick to protect your cub. Do you admit it or not? Sometimes Sanyuan’s reaction time is really long. She probably did feel inferior back then, but the timing was off. By the time she processed what you were saying during those serious talks, you were already done speaking.”

“She might have seemed fine at the time, but who’s to say all that psychological weight didn’t hit her once she got into bed? People are most prone to internal conflict in the dead of night. The key is, she’s so spacey and seemingly light-hearted. She sleeps on it, reboots her brain, clears the cache, and she’s back to factory settings. What could you possibly see then?”

Tang Hengzhi: “…”

From this interaction with Lin Sanyuan, He Wenyu had realized the girl was very good at self-regulation. But that wasn’t necessarily a good thing.

“Alright, don’t just sit here overthinking it. Take it as a lesson learned and start over. This emotional talk is too heavy, let’s chat about something lighter.”

He Wenyu leaned in, draping an arm over her shoulder and grinning. “Hey, speaking of which, this was your first relationship, right? You couldn’t even handle a little cabbage like her and let her ‘turn straight’ again? That’s so useless. Are your… skills… just that bad?”

She then reached for Tang’s fingers. “Tsk tsk, what a waste of such beautiful fingers. How about you pay a tuition fee and I’ll teach you? Hey, you are the ‘top,’ right?”

Tang Hengzhi pulled her hand back and gave her a flat look. “Are you bored?”

He Wenyu laughed like a little mouse that had stolen some oil.

“How could I be bored? Who would’ve thought you were such a wolf in sheep’s clothing? I thought you didn’t know anything about this. Don’t pull away! It just so happens I’m ordering a few boxes of finger cots. Seeing how miserable you are, maybe I’ll buy two for you. You might need them soon.”

Tang Hengzhi frowned. “Do you have to build your curiosity on someone else’s privacy?”

“This is called mutual progress. If you hadn’t been working in isolation behind closed doors, would your girlfriend have run away? The experience of a sex life is very important, you know.”

“Wait, you know what finger cots are, right?” He Wenyu suddenly thought of something. “Sanyuan looks so fragile, you have to be extra careful with hygiene and health. When you were ‘top’-ing her, did you know to use those?”

Tang Hengzhi took a deep breath. “I didn’t use them.”

He Wenyu yelled, “Holy crap! You scoundrel, you only cared about your own pleasure and didn’t care if she lived or died? No wonder your girlfriend ran away.”

“I didn’t let her use them,” Tang Hengzhi added.

“Mhm… Wait… WHAT?!” He Wenyu’s brain felt like it had been emptied by a pump, only for a few dozen frogs to be tossed in, croaking loudly at the empty pond.

It took her a long time to react. She replayed those five words in her head until she reached a terrifying conclusion.

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