In the span of just two hours, Tang Qingyun used five different numbers to place his fourteenth call to Ruan Qingxiao.
This time, Ruan Qingxiao blocked the unfamiliar number before the second call could even ring through.
Li Mengjue finished pruning the flowers on the balcony and carried the trash bin back into the living room, just in time to catch the flash of impatience on Ruan Qingxiao’s face. She couldn’t help but feel a flicker of sympathy in her heart—for Ruan Qingxiao.
In reality, the situation was almost the exact opposite of the original “plot.”
In the plot, the “villainous second female lead” was the one who wouldn’t stop chasing the male lead. In the name of being his fiancée, she tried to interfere with all his social activities, checking in on him as regularly as one eats three meals a day. It was a common occurrence for her to harass her fiancé using different phone numbers. The male lead was so annoyed by this that, in a fit of rage, he would even throw his phone into a sink.
Yet, the fiancée remained undeterred.
Judging solely by that segment of the plot, Li Mengjue would have felt a second of sympathy for the male lead—having a controlling, “governess-style” guardian was indeed suffocating.
Now that the tables had turned, she naturally felt that Ruan Qingxiao, being constantly harassed, had it truly rough. Even if Tang Qingyun was only harassing her for the sake of his “True Love.”
After putting the trash bin back, Li Mengjue’s observant gaze became more open. She washed her hands and sat on the sofa, not far from Ruan Qingxiao. The midday news was playing on the TV, which had just been repaired by the after-sales service that morning. However, neither of them was in the mood to pay attention to the screen.
Ruan Qingxiao, brow furrowed, called Assistant Zheng. Assistant Zheng had boarded a plane two hours ago and had just landed; Ruan Qingxiao couldn’t wait to dump this trouble onto her. Even sitting on the other side of the sofa, Li Mengjue could vaguely hear Assistant Zheng’s sigh over the line.
Ultimately, Assistant Zheng agreed. Upon hanging up, she would contact Young Master Tang to discuss the matter of the stalker. Ruan Qingxiao immediately sent her a “red envelope” (monetary gift) via her phone.
Over the next few hours, Tang Qingyun indeed stopped harassing her.
Ruan Qingxiao let out a sigh of relief.
“You really hate him?” Li Mengjue asked.
“What?” Ruan Qingxiao looked at her with a hint of confusion, seemingly not understanding the premise of the question.
“Your fiancé,” Li Mengjue paused slightly, then corrected herself as Ruan Qingxiao’s brow instinctively knitted together, “Your former fiancé.”
“It was just a childhood betrothal arranged by our parents,” Ruan Qingxiao explained quickly. “From the time my mother passed away until university, we hardly saw each other. We aren’t actually that familiar.”
Later on, they had grown to mutually detest one another.
Ruan Qingxiao didn’t really want to discuss Tang Qingyun. Even mentioning the name brought up an almost instinctive revulsion. However, in front of the person she secretly liked, she didn’t want Li Mengjue to misunderstand that there had ever been any genuine affection between them.
“That guy… although I don’t remember everything clearly, you only need to ask around to know he’s a scoundrel. He’s been playing with people’s feelings since primary school… He just relies on his family background to keep people flocking to him, and he accepts them all.”
Suppressing her annoyance, Ruan Qingxiao listed Tang Qingyun’s various faults: he was a womanizer, a hedonistic heir, a “mommy’s boy,” conceited, and lacked any respect for women. He had even been caught fooling around with an older female secretary in his own father’s office…
This aligned almost perfectly with the image Li Mengjue had summarized of the male lead from the plot. Of course, that was his image before meeting the female lead.
Even before the male lead reformed himself for the heroine, two points were enough to offset all his flaws: he was wealthy and he was handsome. Thus, despite his notorious reputation over the years, there was always a steady stream of people throwing themselves at him.
Unfortunately, neither of these “advantages” held any attraction for Ruan Qingxiao. Tang Qingyun wasn’t the only marriage candidate who was rich and good-looking.
Ruan Qingxiao’s eldest brother had previously tried to persuade his sister to switch to a more reliable marriage partner. Although it was out of selfish interest, the person the brother introduced was no worse than Tang Qingyun and far more stable—a top-tier student with excellent character.
At the time, Ruan Qingxiao had refused immediately, which led people to believe she was deeply in love with Tang Qingyun.
—This was what Assistant Zheng had told Ruan Qingxiao later.
Since the engagement was broken, the eldest Ruan brother’s ambitions had flared up again, and he had been dropping hints to Assistant Zheng. On the surface, he maintained the image of a caring older brother, worried that his sister had suffered an emotional blow. As the saying goes, the best way to move on from a past relationship is to start a new one.
To put it bluntly, the brother’s desire to “sell” his sister for an alliance was still very much alive. However, he didn’t dare speak to Ruan Qingxiao directly; he was somewhat afraid of her getting angry and throwing a public tantrum that would leave him embarrassed. He chose to test her attitude first.
His intuition was correct: if Ruan Qingxiao hadn’t lost her memory, the next time she returned to the family home, a second vase would have likely been smashed over his head.
The brother had asked Assistant Zheng to pass on a message, earnestly advising his sister not to “hang herself on a single tree.”
Even with amnesia, Ruan Qingxiao was sharp enough to detect the wrongness in that phrase.
“Does my brother also think I can’t let go of that bastard?”
Assistant Zheng nodded with a somber face, indicating that Ruan’s brother wasn’t the only one who thought so. Many others who were waiting to laugh at the engagement were shocked by the clean break for the same reason.
Sometimes, “liking someone” and “being willing to let go” are two different things. In alliances based on pure profit, mutual affection is rare; more often, it is a matter of mutual respect—or mutual loathing.
Ruan Qingxiao and Tang Qingyun were undoubtedly the latter. No one believed Ruan truly liked him, but few expected her to actually discard the engagement so decisively.
Li Mengjue wasn’t part of that social circle, so she hadn’t heard any inside gossip. But she had read the plot. Frankly, she didn’t believe the “villainous second female lead” truly loved the male lead either.
Rather than “liking” or “love”—purely positive emotions—what the villainous lead possessed was more like a paranoid sense of possessiveness. Her fiancé was her “property.” She couldn’t allow anyone to steal what belonged to her. Moreover, the “thief” in her eyes was a low-class “nothing.” It was the ultimate insult to her pride.
So, as long as I don’t compete for the male lead, it will be fine.
That was what Li Mengjue had once thought. It was also one of the reasons she had lowered her guard against Ruan Qingxiao in the beginning. But she hadn’t expected Ruan Qingxiao to discard the male lead entirely.
Seeing how normally Ruan was acting now, Li Mengjue had assumed it was because the “plot” hadn’t officially started. Who could have guessed that the heroine had changed, and the story had taken a sharp turn toward the “Marriage Finale”?
Since it was related to her own well-being, Li Mengjue was naturally curious.
“Why?” Li Mengjue asked out of the blue.
“Hmm?” Ruan Qingxiao didn’t fully understand the question. After a moment of hesitation, she replied, “I don’t remember the exact reason clearly, but I suspect it was simply unnecessary.”
Ruan Qingxiao explained why she had only recently broken the engagement.
“I hate him, and he doesn’t like me. We were never going to actually end up together; we confirmed that back in university. But at the time, he hadn’t met his ‘True Love,’ and I was still staying at the Ruan house. Neither of us wanted to deal with a new marriage candidate, so we just let it drag on.”
Ruan Qingxiao frowned and added a bit reluctantly, “Besides, in the beginning, he wasn’t as annoying as he is now. Later, he found his True Love, and I…” She hesitated, her voice dropping slightly, “I felt that dragging it out was beneficial to me.”
Though she couldn’t remember that period, she had amnesia, not a loss of intellect. Her past logic was carved into her instincts. Ruan Qingxiao could easily reverse-engineer the reasons for her actions.
—It was, of course, to extract more benefits from Tang Qingyun.
Ruan Qingxiao was a little worried that Li Mengjue would be unhappy. Sister Li was a good person, yet she herself seemed to always prioritize profit. Fortunately, Sister Li didn’t look disappointed.
Ruan Qingxiao glanced up quickly, only to see a thoughtful expression on Li Mengjue’s face.
“So you really don’t like that Young Master Tang?” Li Mengjue asked.
“I don’t!” Ruan Qingxiao denied it firmly.
“It was an engagement left by your mother when she was still alive… Are you truly willing to let it go just like that? Especially when it was ‘stolen’ by someone like her,” Li Mengjue followed up gently.
Mercifully, this question didn’t cause the Eldest Miss to take offense.
“There’s nothing to be unwilling about. A rotten lid for a rotten pot; I can’t wait for them to stay far away from me,” Ruan Qingxiao replied without a second thought.
The further from Li Mengjue, the better.
It would be best if they never appeared before us again.
This powerful thought easily eclipsed the minor lingering resentment. When someone treats you like trash, acts annoyed, and views your engagement as something to be discarded—only to turn around and treat actual trash as a treasure—anyone with self-respect would be displeased. Eldest Miss Ruan was more sensitive than most in this regard.
And that was one of the reasons she detested Tang Qingyun even more.
If there were no Sister Li… if there were no Li Mengjue…
Ruan Qingxiao wasn’t sure if she would have chosen revenge out of a momentary rage. But that question was no longer important. The reality was that Li Mengjue was sitting right beside her, and she didn’t want to have the slightest connection to that pair of annoying trash ever again.
If possible, she even wanted to hide Sister Li away—
Ruan Qingxiao met Li Mengjue’s observant gaze. Her heart skipped a beat, and she shifted her eyes away, feeling inexplicably guilty.
For an instant, a flash of surprise crossed Li Mengjue’s face, followed by thoughtfulness, and finally, relief.
Since she gave up on the male lead so easily, she probably won’t continue to ‘blacken’ (become a villain) later, right?
That was the only thought left in Li Mengjue’s mind. Perhaps the threat of the “plot” could finally be brought to a close here.
It was good news.
Li Mengjue couldn’t help but smile slightly.
Ruan Qingxiao’s ears turned red. After her eyes darted around for a bit, she asked, pretending not to care, “Do you… care about that person, Sister?”
“No,” Li Mengjue replied in a light tone. “I have no interest in rummaging through trash cans.”