The Vicious, Vain Stepsister (Fourteen)

Ever since that last incident, Su Jiu had unilaterally started a cold war. She wasn't at home, wouldn't go to the office, and didn't reply to messages.

Jiang Huaiyu knew he had done wrong and wanted to apologize, but he couldn't find her. In desperation, he even asked Jiang Xuefu.

[Jiang Xuefu: ? Did you two have a fight?]

Even through the phone screen, Jiang Huaiyu could practically imagine the gloating in her voice.

He must have lost his mind to think of asking her where Xiao Jiu was.

[Jiang Huaiyu: Never mind.]

[Jiang Xuefu: Don't be like that. Tell me about it. What if I do know?]

[Jiang Huaiyu: You know?]

[Jiang Xuefu: Only if you have dinner with me~]

Jiang Huaiyu frowned. Although he knew this might be one of her sly traps, he agreed anyway.

At the restaurant.

After finally waiting for Jiang Xuefu to finish her leisurely meal, Jiang Huaiyu stared at the woman's delicately innocent, breathtakingly beautiful face with a complicated look. Only after a long while did he ask, "Where's Xiao Jiu?"

"That's easy." Well fed and having learned that Su Jiu had gotten into a fight, Jiang Xuefu was delighted.

She got up and sat in the seat beside Jiang Huaiyu, opened her phone, and leaned against him. Then, with a click, she snapped a photo of the two of them.

It happened so quickly that it was over before he could react.

"Why did you take a picture?"

"To help you find Xiao Jiu."

Jiang Xuefu kept her head down, doing something on her phone.

"Oh, right, I sent you a copy of the photo too, so you won't miss me too much when you can't see me."

"Too?" Jiang Huaiyu picked up on the word at once, and a bad feeling suddenly rose in his heart.

"Ding-dong." "Ding-dong." "Ding-dong."

His phone suddenly sounded three WeChat notification chimes.

Jiang Huaiyu opened WeChat and saw that the first message was the photo Jiang Xuefu had just taken. He didn't open it, though, because the other two messages were from Su Jiu.

A long breakup message and a picture.

After hurriedly reading the message, Jiang Huaiyu's expression changed. Paying no heed to the woman watching the show across from him, he grabbed his suit jacket and strode out, calling Su Jiu as he went.

The call didn't go through, so he could only send her a voice message on WeChat.

"Xiao Jiu, did you see the photo Jiang Xuefu sent you? She took it out of nowhere. I didn't even have time to react. Please don't break up with me, okay? We can talk about anything, or if you're really angry, you can scold me. I'll let you scold me as much as you want, okay?"

Su Jiu still didn't reply. By the time he drove to the apartment she rented elsewhere, everything that belonged to him inside had been packed up and placed together.

Looking at the woman on the sofa, Jiang Huaiyu said hoarsely, "Su Jiu, have you thought this through? You're breaking up with me over some groundless misunderstandings?"

Su Jiu had just had a good cry, and her eyes were red. Even so, she forced herself to bear the sadness and hurt in her heart, refusing to let her tears fall in front of him.

"I've never misunderstood anything between the two of you, and I trust you too. But search your heart, Jiang Huaiyu. In all the time you've spent with her, have you really never fallen for her?"

"Do you really hate her, or are you afraid to admit you like her?"

"Those unusual emotions exposed what was in your heart long ago, and your instinctive actions don't lie either. I know you too well."

"That's exactly why I don't want us to reach a point where things can't be salvaged, where we can't even be friends."

Once, she had sunk deep into the pain of heartbreak because of Lu Zhiyan. Only after meeting Jiang Huaiyu had she slowly come out of it.

She had told Jiang Huaiyu everything she had gone through in the Su family, as well as everything Jiang Xuefu had done to bully her over the years.

And so she had gained her first friend, a friend who would hate Jiang Xuefu alongside her.

Later, at that New Year's Day party, it was also because of him that she had found the courage to go onstage, and the courage to turn to the piano after the strings broke.

She could only say that time and fate had brought them to this point. She didn't blame him.

After leaving Su Jiu's home, Jiang Huaiyu picked a bar at random.

Bizarre, dazzling lights flashed as men and women on the dance floor swayed freely to the music, letting off steam.

After ordering a drink, Jiang Huaiyu sat alone in a booth, his mind drifting. Amid the lively noise, he began to recall every little moment he had spent with Su Jiu.

Yet at the end of those memories, another face appeared, one he both hated and loved.

He abruptly downed a glass of liquor. The cold liquid went down his throat with a faint bitterness, and only then did he remember the photo Jiang Xuefu had sent him, the very culprit behind his breakup with Su Jiu.

In the photo, the man and woman sat intimately together. The woman looked at the camera, smiling sweetly and happily.

The man, meanwhile, had instinctively turned his head, as though he wanted nothing to do with her.

Yet his reddened ears and the corners of his lips, unconsciously curving up ever so slightly, betrayed his true feelings.

Su Jiu was right. He really was a coward, using outward disgust to hide a deeper affection.

When exactly had it begun? Jiang Huaiyu couldn't say anymore.

He really had hated her at the beginning...

He leaned back against the booth and raised an arm to cover his eyes, taking a long while to collect himself.

Suddenly, he wanted badly to hear her voice.

Jiang Huaiyu picked up his phone. After hesitating for ages, he typed and deleted words in his chat with Jiang Xuefu before settling on: What are you doing?

The message showed that it had failed to send, with a red exclamation mark beside it. Had she deleted him?

Frowning, he sent her another friend request.

The request was quickly rejected, and a message came with the rejection: "Get lost. She's not someone you can covet."

The words were full of possessiveness. They had obviously been sent by a man, perhaps her boyfriend.

Jiang Huaiyu smiled bitterly and let the matter go.

He understood that it had all been a dream, and it was time to wake up.

Meanwhile, Jiang Xuefu, the woman on his mind, was being held firmly down on the bed by a man, their bodies pressed close together. She watched helplessly as Lu Zhiyan took her phone, unable to do a thing because she couldn't move.

"Lu Zhiyan, you bastard!" Jiang Xuefu protested.

But the more the man looked through her phone, the darker his face grew.

Finally, Lu Zhiyan lowered his head and slapped the woman's rounded bottom twice with his large hand, as though venting his anger. He spoke through gritted teeth: "So this is what you meant when you said you missed me?"

"I just thought it was fun. It's not like I really like him." Jiang Xuefu wrapped her fair arms around the man's broad back and leaned in to kiss his Adam's apple and then his collarbone. "We haven't seen each other for half a month. I've missed my husband so much."

What a little seductress! Lu Zhiyan's Adam's apple bobbed, and the lust in his eyes grew deeper and more dangerous.

Since she loved playing so much, he would play with her until she had her fill.

This time, he was rougher than ever before. At the height of their passion, he bit the woman's earlobe with obsessive tenderness and whispered, "Fufu, I'm yours. You must never leave me."