"What's going on with you? How could you let your girlfriend sprain her ankle?" The doctor looked up impatiently and fixed Yun Xiaoran with a piercing stare.
"I... she's not my girlfriend." Yun Xiaoran accepted the criticism, but he still had to clear up the misunderstanding.
"Hmm?" The doctor seemed deeply dissatisfied with his explanation.
"Doctor, I'm his wife." To everyone's surprise, Shen Jin spoke first and told the doctor their actual relationship.
What the hell!
Yun Xiaoran turned and gave Shen Jin a long, searching look. She looked smug, as though she had just evened the score.
The doctor cast Yun Xiaoran a disdainful glance, as if to say, You don't even have the courage to admit that?
"In that case," the doctor replied without looking up:
"Apply this to the injured area. It'll take about two to three days. Massage it as well, and it should heal completely. Luckily, you came in early." The doctor kept giving Yun Xiaoran instructions as though he were the injured one. Yun Xiaoran nodded repeatedly, silently taking it all.
Shen Jin, whom Sister Hua had helped over, sat on a metal hospital chair. Watching the doctor scold Yun Xiaoran, she couldn't help letting a barely perceptible smile slip onto her face.
Counting everyone who had accompanied her to the hospital, Yun Xiaoran was only the second person besides her father.
"Let's go. I've bought the medicine." Yun Xiaoran waved the medicine in front of Shen Jin.
"Oh, okay." Bundled up in a hood and hat, a white mask, a white sweater, and a skirt, Shen Jin had only her alluring eyes exposed. She stared straight at Yun Xiaoran. For a moment just now, she had actually drifted off.
"Qingxi, we'd better take care of your throat. The doctor said there wasn't anything seriously wrong with it. Practice your singing over the next three days, and get some rest so you can perform your best in three days."
Holding the throat medicine in one hand, Liu Yi headed toward the hospital exit.
Liu Yi was confident they would win the overall championship on I Am a Singer, even though all the paid commenters she had arranged the night before had been a waste of money. Instead, people had taken it as evidence that I Am a Singer was rigged.
Still, even if they hadn't inflicted any real damage, dragging the other side through the mud had been useful enough.
"Isn't that Yun Xiaoran?" Li Qingxi had still been basking in the joy of defeating Shen Muge, but when she looked up, she spotted Yun Xiaoran nearby, supporting a limping woman as they headed toward the hospital exit.
She could clearly see concern in Yun Xiaoran's eyes and reproach in the woman's, but it was all in Li Qingxi's head.
Yun Xiaoran had found someone new just three days after breaking up with her.
Li Qingxi could hardly believe it, but when Yun Xiaoran turned his head, that sharply defined jaw and handsome face left no doubt. It was definitely him.
Liu Yi narrowed her eyes slightly and watched Yun Xiaoran and the two women get into an Audi and drive away. Then she looked at Li Qingxi beside her, whose eyes were brimming with tears, and an idea occurred to her.
"Qingxi, it looks like you were right to break up with him. Look, he's found someone new in just three days. Is that even possible? He's only just graduated from college. Why would a girl want to be with him?
"He must have been chatting with her behind your back for ages. She just waited until you broke up to climb aboard." Li Qingxi's eyes widened in disbelief.
"Yun Xiaoran, he..."
It would have been a lie to say she had no feelings for Yun Xiaoran after four whole years together, but she had never expected him to find someone new so quickly.
Liu Yi waved the camera in her hand, showing the photos on it. "Don't worry. I already took pictures of those two getting cozy. When the day after tomorrow comes, we can even save that five hundred thousand."
Li Qingxi stared at the photo on Liu Yi's camera.
A missed connection.
Sometimes love was strange like that. Who would have thought that one brief encounter, or even a single scene, could negate every effort that had come before?
Back home.
Before leaving, Sister Hua repeatedly warned Yun Xiaoran that he had to take good care of Shen Jin. If he didn't, she would skin him alive.
Because Shen Jin had sprained her right ankle, she now had to rely on Yun Xiaoran for everything, even something as simple as eating a piece of fruit or taking a sip of tea.
So Yun Xiaoran moved his workspace from the bedroom to the living room, sitting to Shen Jin's left.
"What are you doing here?" Shen Jin asked, eating freshly washed green grapes as she watched Yun Xiaoran type away.
"I'm writing a novel," Yun Xiaoran said without hesitation. She didn't know the novel's title anyway, so he wasn't worried about exposing his pen name.
"Oh." Finding him so dull, Shen Jin said no more. She pursed her lips, stroked Fu Bao in her lap, then opened her phone and put Blue and White Porcelain on repeat, looking for something to talk about with Yun Xiaoran.
"Have you heard this song?"
"Of course. The wording in this song is very carefully chosen." Yun Xiaoran kept working on his novel without blushing or missing a beat. He even looked rather pleased with himself, a barely perceptible smile touching his lips.
Shen Jin suddenly leaned closer to Yun Xiaoran and asked curiously, "What's your VA Site username? I can follow you. Don't you like music? You must have posted some videos there."
Although their marriage was fake, it was perfectly reasonable for a wife to take an interest in her husband's work, wasn't it?
"Well..." Yun Xiaoran immediately stopped typing and turned to Shen Jin, who was blinking at him as she waited for an answer. "Could you move back a little first? I can hear you."
"No. My foot got hurt because of you. How can you treat me like this?" Shen Jin kept up her pitiful act.
"No. What's your phone number? I'll save it." Only then did Yun Xiaoran remember that, although he and Shen Jin had been married for three days, he still hadn't saved her number. Ridiculously enough, they had only communicated through WeChat.
"Wasn't it on the business card I gave you?" Shen Jin stared at him with wide, almond-shaped eyes. His words left her stunned and a little disappointed. She hadn't expected Yun Xiaoran to care so little about her.
She owned a company and was the Top Diva of Chinese Entertainment, adored by everyone. Yet this obsessive fan in front of her hadn't even bothered to save her number right away.
"I was going to, but the card got torn up." Yun Xiaoran continued typing.
"Torn up?" Puzzled, Shen Jin fixed her beautiful eyes on Yun Xiaoran in a fierce stare. She hadn't expected him to tear up her business card.
"You tore it up. After you got drunk that day, you kept looking for your business card for some reason. I thought you hated me."
Yun Xiaoran turned toward her, his bright eyes filled with confusion, as though he could see right through her.
"Well..." Shen Jin had been puzzled, but his reminder made everything clear. At the same time, panic filled her, and she feared he might figure something out. That afternoon, she had seen Yun Xiaoran pocket the business card of the woman opposite him. The resentment she had felt had erupted that night when she got drunk.
That was how she had ended up frantically searching for the business card.
Before you continue