When the Heartthrob Meets the Cold-Hearted Ex - Chapter 14

The most awkward thing in the world is bringing up past romantic history in front of an ex especially when that history involved shameless persistence on your part.

Tang Yeran was now filled with regret. She shouldn’t have been so reckless with her words just to provoke Su Yang.

Heaven knows, when she mentioned that fight, she’d only meant to have the last word absolutely not to reminisce about old times.

Her pure intentions were as clear as day, but some people just loved reading too much into things.

The meaningful look on Su Yang’s face right now was unbearably uncomfortable.

They stood there staring at each other, neither willing to speak first.

A childish voice broke the silence.

“Flowers for sale! Fresh lilies! Would you like to buy some, miss?”

A girl of about eleven or twelve stood holding a bamboo basket filled with dozens of lilies in various colors, some still with dewy leaves attached truly fresh.

Tang Yeran was grateful for the interruption and immediately shifted her attention.

She picked up one of the flowers and sniffed it. “How much are these?”

Seeing her interest, the girl enthusiastically explained, “These are perfume lilies, symbolizing eternal harmony eight yuan each. The yellow ones represent lasting friendship ten yuan each. And these spider lilies stand for wealth and honor thirteen yuan each. Buy three, get one free! You should get some, miss they’re great for home decoration or as gifts.”

As she spoke, she glanced meaningfully at Su Yang beside Tang Yeran, hinting that either of them could buy them as gifts.

Su Yang was about to speak, but seeing Tang Yeran’s keen interest, he quietly waited, stealing glances at her and the flowers.

Tang Yeran had only asked casually, but the girl’s detailed explanations actually caught her attention.

Her gaze shifted to the flower seller, a young girl a full head shorter than her, wearing faded but clean denim and a T-shirt. Those sparkling eyes easily stirred compassion.

Suddenly, for reasons unknown even to herself, Tang Yeran declared grandly, “How much for the entire basket?”

The girl paused briefly before expertly categorizing the flowers and calculating aloud, including the buy-three-get-one discount.

“Miss, there are thirty-two flowers total. With eight yellow lilies as free gifts, that comes to 243 yuan.”

Tang Yeran was impressed by the quick math, ruefully acknowledging that kids these days had sharper minds than adults.

She scanned the payment code with her phone, and the girl kindly included the basket for carrying the flowers.

As the girl walked away, Tang Yeran stood holding the basket, glancing at Su Yang who still carried her fruit tea. She gave him a look.

Understanding, Su Yang moved to take the flowers so he could set down the tea, but Tang Yeran shook her head.

“You can have both teas. I need to take these flowers home.”

Su Yang looked surprised. “You’re going to keep all these flowers yourself?”

“No problem. I happen to have plenty of vases.”

With that, Tang Yeran walked off with the flower basket without looking back.

Back home, Tang Yeran dug out several long-unused white porcelain vases for the flowers.

All these were impulse purchases she’d made during last year’s 618 shopping festival. After gathering dust for so long, they finally came in handy.

She sorted the flowers by color and arranged them according to her preferences. Thirty-two flowers fit perfectly into five vases.

The meanings behind the flowers didn’t matter, what she wanted was a riot of colors.

Tang Yeran arranged the five vases in a diamond shape, quite pleased with her aesthetic. She took out her phone, snapped photos from several angles, and posted them on her social media.

After finishing all that, she opened her laptop and began organizing yesterday’s interview notes.

Her phone rang with a cheerful tune, it was An Xin, a close friend from college. Tang Yeran answered, only to be met with an immediate barrage of questions.

“What’s going on, Tang Yeran? Did you and Su Yang get back together?”

Tang Yeran: “Huh?”

An Xin spoke rapidly, her words firing off like bullets from a machine gun.

“I just saw your post! When did you two reconcile?”

“This time, did you chase after her, or did she come back to you?”

“I always felt bad when you two broke up, but I didn’t want to bring it up in case it upset you.”

“And here you are, quietly getting back together without a word.”

“You’re seriously the worst, how could you not tell me something this big?”

Tang Yeran’s head throbbed from the onslaught. Finally managing to cut in, she said, “Hold on, let me check my post first.”

Without waiting for An Xin’s inevitable follow-up rant, she hung up and opened the app.

Half an hour had passed since she posted, and she’d already received dozens of likes including one from Su Yang.

That wasn’t unusual. But as she scrolled, she noticed that Su Yang had liked every single one of her recent posts.

What’s more, Su Yang’s long-standing four-leaf clover profile picture had been replaced with a lily, one of the very flowers from Tang Yeran’s latest upload.

Fuming, Tang Yeran sent Su Yang a message: Why are you stealing my photos?

Meanwhile, An Xin wasn’t done. Less than two minutes later, she called again, eager to pry into her friend’s love life.

Despite Tang Yeran’s firm insistence that she and Su Yang had only reconnected professionally, exchanged WeChat for work, and were absolutely, undeniably just friends, An Xin refused to believe it.

After hanging up again, An Xin continued bombarding her with messages, determined not to let up until the two were back together.

Honestly, An Xin’s enthusiasm wasn’t unwarranted. Back in college, as the only mutual friend who knew about Tang Yeran and Su Yang’s relationship, she had proudly taken on the role of their “love guardian.”

In modern terms, she was a hardcore shipper after all, who wouldn’t love seeing two beautiful women together?

When she had left to study abroad half a year before Su Yang, she’d been heartbroken to hear about their breakup.

She remained friends with both but had to carefully avoid mentioning one to the other, afraid of reopening old wounds.

Now that they were reconnecting on their own, her shipper’s heart no, her duty as a love guardian was reignited.

Tang Yeran, already emotionally sensitive from Su Yang’s sudden reappearance, now had someone buzzing in her ear nonstop.

She felt like a pufferfish on the verge of exploding.

The phone lay face down on the table, its WeChat notifications still incessantly beeping “ding-ding-ding.”

Unable to bear the disturbance any longer, Tang Yeran opened the chat window and unleashed a furious voice message.

“You’re so annoying! An ambitious woman’s aspirations lie beyond the horizon only fools would revisit past relationships these days!”

After sending this, she immediately muted her phone. Two minutes later, having calmed down and realizing how harsh she’d sounded, she reopened WeChat.

An Xin’s avatar bore a glaring red “8” apparently none of those messages had been read.

But what truly caught her eye was the “1” next to Su Yang’s name at the top of her contacts list.

A sinking feeling in her stomach, Tang Yeran tapped to view the message.

Su Yang: ?

Above it were two fresh messages.

Su Yang: I thought the composition of this photo was quite beautiful and wanted to use it as my profile picture. Since it’s not for commercial purposes, it shouldn’t count as copyright infringement, right?

The next message was Tang Yeran’s own 4-second voice clip. She didn’t need to play it back to know exactly what it contained.

The two-minute window for recalling messages had already passed.

Her face twisted in dismay as she typed out a new message: What if I told you I was just watching a drama with a friend and ranting about the plot, and I sent it to the wrong person would you believe me?

Su Yang: I believe you.

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