Chapter 34

“Didn’t misjudge him,” the young lady said when she saw the transfer. “Didn’t even haggle. Just paid up. Truly worthy of the title ‘Number One Playboy of Beicheng’, spends money like water.”
“This million, you keep it. It’s yours.”
“I can’t do that,” Wen Jiu yelped.
Back in the summer, the main reason she’d accepted that first million from the young lady was because Qin Yao had finally gotten her wish and married the male lead. This was different, this time there was no grand karmic reason. She couldn’t just pocket it for nothing.
Her eyes were practically glued to the transaction record, but the last few functioning brain cells she had vetoed her love of little money signs.
“How can you not? I said you can, so you can.” The young lady put on a mock-angry face.
“Fine, fine.” Seeing Wen Jiu still look so conflicted, she suddenly sprang to her feet, arms folded, shoulder-length curls bouncing as she spoke. “Then keep it on you and hold onto it for me.”
“If you want to invest it, go ahead. Anyway, when I ask you for it, I’ll only ever take back the one million principal.”
Wen Jiu: !
She didn’t have the brain for investing, but she knew that even if you just dumped a million into a WeChat or Alipay balance fund, with an annualized seven-day yield of a little over one percent, you could get over nine hundred yuan a month in interest.
And since the principal wasn’t hers, she could honestly say this was money falling from the sky.
The young lady was too considerate…
Even if she refused the money outright, the young lady still found a way to give her extra income.
“Young lady, ”
“That’s enough. You’re not allowed to say that kind of over-the-top stuff again, I’m going to rest.” The young lady cut her off.
As soon as she boarded the plane, she headed straight for the bed. Wen Jiu hurried after her, cupping her hands around her mouth like a megaphone and shouting, “Qin Yao is the best young lady in the world!”
Already on the plane, Su Yaoyao poked out a fluffy little head at the deafening shout, then nodded fiercely, agreeing from the bottom of her heart. “Yes, yes, I think so too.”
“Yao Yao is the best young lady in the world.”
The young lady almost tripped over her own feet.
This time she didn’t run away. She turned back to look at Wen Jiu and Su Yaoyao.
Her gaze landed on Su Yaoyao first, that quick glance practically saying: You, a Haishi young lady, are calling me ‘young lady’ too?
She drew her eyes back, a little smug. “As long as you know I’m good. From now on you’ll both be my good little followers.”
“No problem, young lady,” Wen Jiu replied instantly, like she’d just filled in the answer on an exam.
After all, Qin Yao was the first person she’d met in this fictional world, and the one who’d dragged her out of the mud of wage-slave despair and back into the sunlight. Of course she meant to treat her sincerely.
She didn’t even know when it had started, but she’d stopped thinking about whether the young lady was paying her or not. Somewhere along the line, she’d quietly decided she wanted to protect her for a lifetime.
“I’m in too. No problem for me either,” Su Yaoyao chimed in, falling into step behind them.
As soon as she got on the plane, she started tapping away at the tablet. She’d said she wanted to write a novel, and her execution was terrifyingly fast.
With that much passion, she could get excited about writing any genre.
“Can I see what you’re working on?” Wen Jiu asked.
“Sure. I’m still outlining, so you can look at the pitch and give me some suggestions.”
Su Yaoyao was writing a high-society revenge novel. The blurb wasn’t full of flowery phrases, it just described a scenario. But that short paragraph crammed in: a fake-and-real older brother, a stand-in sister-in-law, vicious in-laws, a little brother who steals the bride…
It was thunder and dog blood from every angle, yet somehow genuinely addictive. She’d absolutely nailed the essence of melodramatic web fiction.
It was the “dead mom, gambling dad, sick grandma, and broken lover” kind of fresh start.
Su Yaoyao thoughtfully explained, “The vicious father-in-law is based on my dad, the sharp-tongued mother-in-law on my mom, the fake-and-real twin big brothers on my big brother, and the brother-who-steals-the-bride on my little brother. The stand-in sister-in-law is the heroine. I’ve got all their character frameworks set.”
Wen Jiu opened her mouth, then closed it again.
In the end, she couldn’t hold it in. “So in your mind… are your dad, mom, brother, and little brother all this awful?”
Without even thinking, Su Yaoyao shook her head and answered firmly, “I really like my dad and mom and big brother… and my little brother. They’re the cutest family in the world. I’m just borrowing their clothes, habits, and routines for reference, their personalities will absolutely be different in the book.”
“After all, I hardly ever go out. I don’t know how other rich parents dress or act in their daily lives.”
Wen Jiu was silent for a moment. “…That’s amazing.”
The everyone-loves-her young lady was very filial.
Having received her approval, Su Yaoyao dove happily into her writing.
At that moment, Wen Jiu had no idea that this dog-blood novel of Su Yaoyao’s wouldn’t just become popular, it would blow up.
When they landed in Haishi, Ji Yujing was already waiting on the tarmac, hair thoroughly ruined by the wind.
The city night was ablaze with light; neon exploded through the darkness. There were no stars overhead, but you could still catch the fading tail end of the drone fireworks show.
The young lady stepped down the stairs in comfortable flats, aura easily two meters eight. She lifted a hand and cut off whatever Ji Yujing had been about to say. “It’s late. I’m taking my two followers to rest. Thank you for waiting here to pick us up. You can go now.”
Wen Jiu followed half a step behind, perfectly positioned to look like a flunky holding up the train of an imperial dress.
It really did feel like the empress was returning to the palace with her personal maids, waving a hand to dismiss the eunuch waiting at the steps.
Ji Yujing hadn’t even gotten a word out before he was blocked. His breath caught halfway in his chest. “No, I-”
“You’re planning to interfere with my rest?” the young lady asked lazily, giving him a sideways look.
One eye widened and the other squinted; Ji Yujing was literally glaring at her cross-eyed. “You’re twisting my words!”
The young lady let out a soft, disdainful laugh. “Oh? You can actually use idioms? I heard you were illiterate.”
Ji Yujing: “…”
Insulted and with no comeback.
Wen Jiu swept along at the young lady’s side and crooked a finger at Su Yaoyao with her free hand. “Come on.”
Su Yaoyao jogged two steps to catch up.
As they passed Ji Yujing, Wen Jiu’s gaze landed on his exploded, windblown hair. “Young Master, that hairstyle is… really something. But it’s late, so we won’t stand around admiring it. Let’s talk about the breakup in the morning.”
“Break up? I’m not breaking up with anyone, don’t frame me. I’m dissolving the engagement!”
Watching Wen Jiu stand in front of her like a human shield, Su Yaoyao bit down on her lip, steadied herself, and bravely took her first step forward.
She lifted her chin high, striding forward with all the momentum of someone charging into battle, yet there was still a faint, timid quiver beneath it all. Two completely opposite emotions clashed on her body, but her stunning looks simply steamrolled over everything else.
Under the lights, all that was left was that porcelain-white, luminous face, swaying slightly as she moved.
Whatever Ji Yujing had been about to say got stuck in his throat.
It wasn’t exactly heartbreakingly moved, he was, after all, a man with his heart already set on someone else. But no one had warned him before he came that Su Yaoyao looked like this. It made him feel a little… like a bully.
Those peach blossom eyes shimmered with a thin layer of tears, but that was just Su Yaoyao’s nerves, her eagerness and tension leaking out. Ji Yujing thought she was about to cry and immediately panicked.
Did he really come all the way to Haishi just to ruin his reputation for life?!
What kind of man makes a girl cry at a meeting like this? If Lin Yu heard about it, she’d definitely use it as another reason to turn him down.
Su Yaoyao’s eyes were bright with tears, but the corners of her lips curved up. She imitated Wen Jiu’s aggressive swagger about eighty percent correctly and declared, “I’m the one calling off the engagement. I’m the one dumping you!”
Ji Yujing: ???
“Young Master, step aside, you’re blocking the way.” Wen Jiu flicked her hand in a shooing motion, and Ji Yujing instinctively moved out of the way, clearing a path.
“Wait, why did I move?” he muttered, frowning.
“Wen Jiu, you call me ‘Young Master’ to my face, but you treat me like some dog you whistle at and drag around. Is that it?”
Wen Jiu raised both hands. “I didn’t say that.”
Silence counted louder than words. It sounded like agreement, and it made his already windblown hair stand on end even more.
“Go, go, go.” Wen Jiu grabbed the young lady with her left hand and Su Yaoyao with her right, tossed out one last line, and took off at a run. The young lady’s bodyguards followed at a respectful distance behind them.
The young lady and Su Yaoyao matched Wen Jiu’s speed, the three of them running like they really did have a dog chasing them.
When the dust settled, only Ji Yujing was left standing there alone.
He wiped a hand over his wind-chilled face, frozen in place and doubting his life choices.
Why had he come to pick them up again?
Every time he ran into Wen Jiu, he never got a peaceful night’s sleep.
The more he thought about it, the more suffocated he felt. He decided he’d get his face back the next day.
On Wen Jiu’s end, the young lady had her legal team flown in, ready to help Su Yaoyao dump Ji Yujing properly.
When Ji Yujing saw the line of lawyers in impeccably tailored suits behind Su Yaoyao, and the row of double-door-sized bodyguards, then looked at his own side, just one assistant he’d yanked off his big brother, he nearly choked on his water.
“Our witness isn’t here yet.” The second he remembered his trump card hadn’t arrived, his mood brightened.
The door opened again, and in walked a man whose aura was very similar to Chu Yan’s.
Wen Jiu was the first to turn and look.
The man wore a custom-fitted suit, shoulders straight, posture perfect. His face was sharp and austere, carrying a natural edge that made people want to glance away. Especially his jawline, like something a romance author would describe as “cut by a blade.”
Unlike Chu Yan, who was cold on the outside but at least softened around the young lady, this man’s gaze was so frigid it almost wiped out how handsome he was.
From every angle, Wen Jiu felt he looked familiar.
She mentally flipped through the people she knew, one by one, until it clicked.
He looked like Su Tan, if you stripped away the last trace of youth a few years down the line.
By that logic, this had to be… Su Heng? Su Yaoyao’s big brother.
Su Yaoyao pinched Wen Jiu’s sleeve.
It was almost December, so even with the heating on inside, everyone was still wearing long sleeves.
As Su Heng drew closer, Su Yaoyao inched even nearer to Wen Jiu.
“Older brother must have been really worried when he couldn’t find me these past few days,” she whispered.
“It’s fine. He couldn’t find you before this either. I’m guessing Su Tan never let you talk to him on the phone,” Wen Jiu replied casually, and, unexpectedly, nailed it.
“That’s true.” The more Su Yaoyao thought about it, the more it made sense. Her taut nerves finally relaxed.
She wasn’t the same Su Yaoyao anymore. If there was blame to be had, her brother could carry it this time.
“Big Brother is here as our witness for dissolving the engagement.”
Barely had Ji Yujing finished speaking when Su Heng’s icy gaze landed on him, colder than the wind howling outside.
Young Master Ji shivered and forcibly corrected his address: “Big Brother Su Heng is our witness for dissolving the engagement.”
Technically, the engagement had been arranged by the Su parents, but Su Heng had been running the Su family for a long time and his word carried weight.
Su Heng withdrew his gaze and sat down.
His eyes swept across the room and locked onto Su Yaoyao with pinpoint precision. “Yaoyao. Come here.”