Transmigrated as the CEO's Top-Tier Stand-in - Chapter 101

Chapter 101: Extra Chapter

“Life After Leaving the Industry”

Ji Yu’s song Us from the farewell concert trended on the day of Dream9’s disbandment. Paparazzi revealed that the apartment she moved into after leaving the industry was owned by Meng Rendong.

However, since she had announced her retirement, she made no response whatsoever to any deductions or inferences people drew from her lyrics or actions, disappearing completely from the scrutiny of the entertainment industry. It was rumored that only her charity work continued.

Naturally, her fans (Fishballs) wished for her return and voiced their reluctance online. Inevitably, there were voices of contempt, calling her relationship with Meng Rendong disgusting and even suggesting crudely that she was merely clinging to Meng Rendong’s wealth, expecting to be dumped when Meng Rendong tired of her.

But at some point, an article circulated within the “Mendong-Yu” (Menyu CP) fandom that vividly recounted the story of Ji Yu and Meng Rendong from childhood to the present, becoming so popular it went viral outside the fandom.

After reading the article, passersby concluded that if this story was true, then… if a love that endured such hardships and struggles could not be considered true love, then perhaps there would never be another enviable love in this world.

Ji Yu herself paid little attention to the noisy public opinion. She remained focused on finding happiness. After leaving the industry, she seriously managed several restaurants, running them quite successfully.

It was several years later when someone focused on the depression community and sought her out to film a promotional video. In that video, the Fishballs belatedly noticed:

Ji Yu had a rosy complexion, unlike her former gauntness. She was still as beautiful as ever, but her face held an added sense of peacefulness that came with time. She seemed… very happy.

And she was wearing a beautiful wedding ring.

“The Outstanding Hulusi Lesson”

After Ji Yu began living with Meng Rendong, she spent a long time in self-cultivation, learning flower arrangement, painting, cooking, and yoga. This filled her life without leaving her idle and allowed her to recuperate, slowly improving her condition. They did not spend half a month wantonly rolling around in bed, but rather settled into the slow rhythm of an old married couple.

Until one day—the yoga teacher had an emergency, disrupting Ji Yu’s plans. Returning home, she found Meng Rendong had hired a five-star chef to cook dinner at home. After thoroughly enjoying the meal, the dishes were handed over to the dishwasher.

Ji Yu was completely restless. She became clingy, constantly hovering around Meng Rendong, as if unable to be alone. First, she meticulously prepared a beautiful fruit plate, insisting on peeling grapes and feeding them directly to Meng Rendong. A moment later, she eagerly went to pour tea, and then she subtly snuggled into Meng Rendong’s lap while the latter was reviewing documents.

Meng Rendong pulled her into her arms, absentmindedly stroking her hair, her eyes still focused on the computer. Ji Yu tilted her head and kissed Meng Rendong’s neck. The kisses were wet and ticklish, disrupting Meng Rendong’s breathing and raising her body temperature. Meng Rendong lowered her head and bit the part of Ji Yu’s shoulder where her clothing had unintentionally slipped:

“Such high spirits today?”

Ji Yu looked at her, innocent and clueless. She pushed Meng Rendong away slightly: “No, no, no. I’m just a little bored today, so I’m seeing what you’re doing.”

“Weren’t you going to take the Corgi out for a walk?”

“Pfft, you know him, right? He’s a mature dog; he can walk himself now.”

Meng Rendong chuckled: “Is that your reason for coming here to flirt indiscriminately and then not letting me satisfy myself?”

Ji Yu: “…”

To avoid being so idle that she constantly sought intimacy from Meng Rendong, her eyes darted around. She suddenly said: “I remember you have a Hulusi (gourd flute) hanging in your room, the one Si Tian bought for you. How about I teach you to play it?”

Meng Rendong actually had a proposal she hadn’t finished reading, but she didn’t want to spoil Ji Yu’s mood. She finished the document seriously while listening to Ji Yu’s beautiful tune, then closed the laptop and actively looked over—Ji Yu was teaching enthusiastically.

“This is the index finger, the thumb presses here at the back… the middle finger, ring finger placed down corresponding to the holes…”

Meng Rendong narrowed her eyes, her gaze not on the Hulusi at all, but rather focused on Ji Yu’s luminous eyes at such close range.

Ji Yu taught her for a few minutes, then eagerly took the sheet music to her, wanting her to play a simple tune to see if she had learned it. Instead, Meng Rendong pushed the sheet music and the Hulusi aside, and instead pressed Ji Yu down onto the sofa, her warm breath falling onto Ji Yu’s ear:

“There are other ways to check if I’ve learned it.”

“Just now you said where does the thumb press? Here?”

“Index finger, middle finger, ring finger, placed down sequentially?”

Ji Yu was speechless, biting the cushion on the sofa, her eyes welling up with tears, because if she opened her mouth, she wouldn’t be able to control her voice.

That day, Meng Rendong curiously attempted to play the Hulusi, but in less than twenty minutes, the “teacher” impatiently declared the lesson over. For a long time afterward, Ji Yu kept the Hulusi in a corner of the study, forbidding Meng Rendong from seeing it again, lest it remind her of some odd, tiring tricks.

“Chinese New Year”

Ji Yu and Yu Su communicated through traditional letters for a long time, and their mother-daughter relationship gradually improved. Unfortunately, Yu Su tried to reveal some truths in front of Chu Huaide, but each time her husband looked at her with a strange expression, as if saying, “Your illness is getting worse,” or “Where did you hear that story?”

Later, Ji Yu and she reached a tacit understanding. During festivals and New Year’s, the mother and daughter would exchange gifts, and they would arrange to have a meal and meet on the third or fourth day of the Lunar New Year. This was the trace of their slowly recovering family bond.

As for Meng Rendong, she also disliked returning to the Meng family on Lunar New Year’s Day. Sometimes, she would attend the annual meeting of the Meng Corporation as one of the shareholders, but at the meeting, her father and older brother always treated her with indifference. The three of them lived like business superiors and subordinates. Her father philandered outside, replacing the young women around him one after another. As for the next young President Meng, he chose a commercial marriage with the daughter of a more powerful conglomerate.

Affection barely existed in their family, and no one cared if Meng Rendong went home for the New Year. Over time, Ji Yu and Meng Rendong spent Lunar New Year’s Day and the second day together. They formed a small family. Sometimes they would travel to tourist spots, and sometimes they would quietly stay at home, cooking New Year’s Eve dinner together, going out to buy festive goods, listening to the fireworks and firecrackers outside and the TV Gala inside, and saying to each other:

“Happy New Year!”

Please continue to keep me company in the new year too!

“About Getting Married”

The matter of whether or not to get married was something Ji Yu never seriously discussed with Meng Rendong.

Both seemed to implicitly agree that they would spend the rest of their lives together, making formal ceremonies less important.

In the second year after Ji Yu left the industry, during her birthday week, Meng Rendong took her to visit all the scenic spots Ji Yu had mentioned wanting to see. Ji Yu tried flying low over the Australian ocean to admire the view, and also stayed overnight in a beautiful manor near the Alps. Snow mountain hotels, mirror lake scenery—Meng Rendong cleared her company schedule in advance to accompany her on the trip. On her actual birthday, they spent the whole day relaxing in a luxury hotel.

That night, as they slept, Ji Yu was scrolling through her phone, curiously checking recent news. Somehow, she found herself reading an emotional advice channel. When Meng Rendong finished her evening routine and was about to pull up the blanket to sleep, Ji Yu suddenly asked in a cautious whisper:

“Rendong…”

“Mhm?”

“Do you want to…”

“What?”

Ji Yu hesitated for two seconds before slowly continuing: “Marry me?”

Meng Rendong, who was almost asleep, had just draped her arm around Ji Yu’s waist, preparing to pull her into a hug. Hearing the question, she was quiet for a moment, then suddenly sat up in bed and walked towards the luggage area.

Ji Yu sat up on the bed in a daze, watching her rapid movements: “What are you doing?”

Meng Rendong rummaged through the suitcase, found the pouch where she kept her documents, and, while unzipping it, looked back at Ji Yu:

“Didn’t you say marry me?”

“I’m checking if I brought my household register.”

Ji Yu: “…”

She seemed a little shocked by Meng Rendong’s swiftness, but upon realizing, she understood that Meng Rendong seemed constantly prepared for this. Her first reaction to Ji Yu’s spur-of-the-moment question was to look for her household register.

Ji Yu felt both touched and amused. She sat there in a daze for a long time before slowly saying:

“We don’t need a household register to get married abroad, do we?”

Meng Rendong, who was usually exceptionally smart and calm, seemed to have lost all intelligence at that moment. She knelt by the suitcase for a while and replied: “I don’t know. Why don’t you look it up?”

The two inexplicably stayed up late, looking up the procedures for getting married abroad.

At one in the morning—Meng Rendong forcibly pressed the excited Ji Yu into the bed. After hearing Ji Yu couldn’t sleep, she resorted to some “very necessary methods” to exhaust her into sleeping. Afterward, for the first time acting like a ruthless capitalist, she called her assistant in the middle of the night and dumped the related matters and arrangements for marriage registration onto them.

The next day. They went directly to the local registration office abroad.

Ji Yu still hadn’t fully recovered, staring blankly at the registration form filled with foreign languages for a long time before signing and filling out the information at Meng Rendong’s urging.

After finishing the bewildering process, she stood alone near the church and started smiling. Meng Rendong was slower in submitting the documents. When she came out and saw Ji Yu smiling there, she asked: “Happy?”

Ji Yu nodded, then shook her head: “I suddenly realized that… I didn’t propose to you, I didn’t buy you a ring, and you haven’t even done a prenuptial agreement—how did I manage to trick you onto this ‘pirate ship’?”

Meng Rendong reached out and pinched her nose: “No talk of prenuptial agreements. Don’t mention that.”

As for the ring and the proposal ceremony—Meng Rendong thought that she had indeed been too abrupt.

So, for the next six months, she personally bid on a pink diamond at an auction, hired someone to design and craft the wedding rings, and spent every day reviewing proposals from wedding design companies with her assistant.

The wedding dress, wedding shoes, wedding home, dowry… She methodically prepared everything, intending to give Ji Yu a grand and romantic ceremony.

Midway through, Yu Su, somehow learning the news, secretly prepared Ji Yu’s dowry under the guise of a family member and sent them many wedding gifts, without letting Ji Yu know.

Si Tian, Wang Luoshui, and the former D9 members volunteered to be bridesmaids, striving to make their small-scale wedding ceremony perfect and solemn.

By the time Ji Yu realized what was happening—she was surrounded by her former friends. Ling Lan brought forward her personal makeup artist. Jiang Lianque smiled as she explained the wedding procedures. Rong Bai seriously discussed with Jin Huang how suits suited her better, but was pushed into the dressing room with the reason that “she wasn’t allowed to look cooler than the two protagonists today.”

Ji Yu blinked, feeling as though she was floating on a cloud. When she finally stepped out of the room and saw the wedding venue, her breath hitched. The decorations here were too exquisite—she felt like Alice accidentally wandering into Wonderland.

Natural green elements were perfectly integrated into the venue. Gardenias, lilies, and many beautiful green leaves and small flower baskets that she couldn’t name trailed from corners and walls.

Sky and clouds and mountains and water. A clear expanse of blue.

Crossing the lawn and shrubbery, she soon saw the figure of her partner draped in a wedding dress at the end.

Ji Yu smiled—

In the first row of the audience. Yu Su sat there, slowly clapping. Si Tian stroked the Corgi, unconsciously sighing:

“I wish I could have such a cute dog too.”

Wang Luoshui said: “No dog, but can a cat suffice?”

Si Tian gasped in surprise, about to say something, but Wang Luoshui turned her head and told her: “The main characters are here.”

So Si Tian looked over with anticipation—

Everyone’s eyes were on them. Filled with blessings. Filled with smiles.

Wishing them a long life together, hand in hand for the rest of their days.

—End of the Main Story—

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