“C-cheating?”
Song Yunfei’s eyes widened. She couldn’t quite keep up with his train of thought.
She raised a finger and pointed at her own nose. “Me?”
“Then how do you explain the changes in you lately?”
“I—”
Song Yunfei looked helpless, half laughing, half exasperated. “I’m not cheating.”
Chu Jinhan gazed at her quietly, as if trying to see straight through her.
Being stared at like that made her scalp tingle, and her eyes instinctively began to dodge his.
She was just about to figure out how to explain herself when he suddenly spoke again.
“Song Yunfei.”
She looked up and met his serious gaze. “What?”
“If you’ve found a better option,” Chu Jinhan said evenly, “you can tell me. Just don’t lie to me.”
Her heart skipped hard.
For a split second, Song Yunfei almost thought he knew the truth—that he was the one being deceived.
She forced a smile. “You really hate being lied to, huh?”
“No one likes being lied to.”
“…True.” She laughed awkwardly. “You’re overthinking it. How could I possibly lie to you?”
She raised three fingers solemnly. “I swear—really. If I ever lie to you, I… I…”
She thought for a long time before blurting out the harshest vow she could live with.
“—I’ll be infertile for the rest of my life!”
Chu Jinhan’s eyelid twitched.
Song Yunfei blinked at him, the two of them locked in a staring contest.
She knew very well that Chu Jinhan didn’t like her.
What he hated was being deceived—and even more, being cuckolded.
He was already insecure because of poverty. If he couldn’t even keep someone like her, how pathetic would that make him look?
Seen that way, it made perfect sense why, for over half a year, he’d endured everything and waited on the original Song Yunfei without complaint.
Because aside from guilt, there was also inferiority.
They say insecurity is a man’s best dowry—but his insecurity was self-inflicted. And the more insecure he felt, the more afraid Song Yunfei became.
If the accusation of cheating were to stick…
She honestly couldn’t imagine how much of a survival chance she’d have in the future.
She grabbed Chu Jinhan’s hand and looked at him earnestly. “Don’t overthink it. I just feel like… I used to be too immature.”
“I lazed around at home every day, lived off you, relied on you for everything. These past few days, I practically starved myself and brushed past death. So now I’ve figured it out—I’ve woken up.”
“I can’t just depend on you alone. I need to take responsibility too.”
“We’re both still young. If we work hard together, we’ll have a house, a car—everything eventually. What’s an air conditioner compared to that?”
Chu Jinhan paused, then turned to look at the woman delivering her passionate speech. “Is that so?”
Under his unwavering gaze, she guiltily looked away, steeling herself as she mumbled, “Of course it is.”
He stared at her for a long time, impossible to tell whether he believed her or not.
Only when her scalp was about to catch fire did he finally end the topic.
“Eat first. You’ll be late for work.”
She let out a long breath of relief in her heart, nodding like a pecking chick, and hurried back to finish breakfast.
After eating, the two of them went downstairs.
Chu Jinhan wheeled out his little electric scooter. It had been charging all night and was still only at seventy percent.
Looking at the beat-up secondhand scooter, Song Yunfei couldn’t help feeling sorry for him.
When he got paid, they really should buy a new one.
Electric scooters weren’t bad, actually. When everyone else was stuck in traffic or crammed onto buses, you could still zip right through.
Chu Jinhan dropped her off at the entrance of the sales office and handed her bag over.
She smiled as she took it, then suddenly remembered something. “When you get off work tonight, are you coming home to eat, or are you delivering food?”
“I’ll deliver first,” he replied.
She flashed an OK sign. “Got it. Go ahead.”
He nodded slightly and rode off.
Watching his retreating figure, Song Yunfei sighed inwardly. Once you’ve been rich before, your aura really is different.
Aura was a strange thing—hard to describe. But some people, even if they were picking up trash, still stood out at a glance.
“Xiao Song, you’re early today.”
A woman stepped out of a BMW beside her—it was the same woman from yesterday.
Song Yunfei finally remembered who she was.
A coworker.
She nodded. “Morning.”
As the woman clipped on her badge, Song Yunfei caught her name—Li Shan. Everyone called her Shanshan.
They walked inside together as Li Shan said casually, “I just saw your boyfriend dropping you off.”
“Yeah. Didn’t your boyfriend drop you off too?”
“That’s different,” Li Shan said, curling her lips. “Your boyfriend is handsome. Mine…”
She trailed off, clearly disdainful, but stopped when she remembered the man was still behind her.
Song Yunfei’s mind flashed with Chu Jinhan’s face. She nodded in agreement. “He is pretty handsome.”
Li Shan twitched her mouth. Wow, she really ran with that.
The two chatted idly as they entered the office. Three people were already there.
They gathered to gossip.
Whoever wasn’t present became the topic. If everyone was there, they gossiped about clients instead.
Clients buying houses for mistresses, wives suing to get the property back.
Clients bringing mistresses home for threesomes.
Male models marrying rich women and inheriting hundreds of millions after their deaths.
Song Yunfei couldn’t help listening along. Truly—there was no such thing as the most outrageous, only more outrageous.
“Oh, by the way, did you hear about Xiao Shuang?” someone whispered.
“What about her?”
“I know! Didn’t she have that ‘rich second-gen’ client last month? Turns out he was fake. She got played for a whole month.”
“Damn. Still too young. People actually fall for that?”
As they talked, a woman not much older than Song Yunfei walked in.
The moment she arrived, the gossipers quickly dispersed.
Song Yunfei returned to her workstation and continued reading her materials.
At nine-thirty sharp, Zhang Tao came downstairs for the meeting.
Same process as yesterday—review, then chanting slogans.
So embarrassing. She already wanted to quit.
After the torture ended, Zhang Tao called Xiao Shuang into his office for a private talk.
Everyone shot looks at Xiao Shuang’s back—eyebrows waggling, schadenfreude written all over their faces.
The workplace atmosphere was, frankly, awful.
Song Yunfei was certain that if she’d arrived any later, she’d have been the subject of gossip too.
While the sun was still mild, she grabbed the flyers on her desk and went out to distribute them.
In crowded areas, most people refused to take them. Some took them and immediately tossed them on the ground.
Some used them as makeshift fans. Others glanced at them briefly.
All of it was exactly what she expected. After all, she used to treat flyers the same way herself.
How the tables had turned.
She squatted by a roadside utility pole, staring at this unfamiliar world, feeling oddly empty inside.
Suddenly, her phone vibrated.
She took it out—and saw a message from Chu Jinhan.
More precisely, it was a transfer.
Fifty yuan.
Song Yunfei stared at the fifty-yuan transfer for a long moment before slowly typing a single question mark.