Chapter 125 The First New Year's Eve

Xie Yiyi was stunned, and when she looked up, she saw Lu Bingchen's gentle yet rebellious handsome face.

The security guard in charge of maintaining order at the scene was very tactful and carried the man, who was grimacing in pain, out.

Lu Bingchen raised his wrist, revealing the Rolex watch Xie Yiyi had given him for her birthday this year. His gentle voice was coaxing, "Wife, it's only been 25 minutes. I found you within 30 minutes. Don't be angry, okay?"

Xie Yiyi frowned as she looked at his gentle and doting expression. "How did you know I was here? What boss lady? Are you the owner of this bar?"

Isn’t Lu Bingchen not valued by the Lu family and doesn’t even have a very small stake in the Lu Group?

On the surface, he is a psychiatrist, but he runs dozens of high-profile companies abroad and still has the energy to open a nightclub?

Lu Bingchen raised his eyebrows, his thin lips curled slightly, and he strode out from behind the booth and sat down next to Xie Yiyi with a bold gesture. "Yes, I am the main shareholder of this nightclub. Not only that, I have more or less participated in the investment of 70% of the nightclubs in Beijing."

Xie Yiyi was surprised. No wonder Lu Bingchen could easily find her every time she was drinking in a bar or nightclub.

Xie Yiyi said coldly, "You came to me to ask me to go back and apologize to your mother and Su Yuan?"

Lu Bingchen reached out, grabbed her little hand and touched the back of it, which was a psychological comforting gesture.

The live music was deafening. Lu Bingchen leaned over to Xie Yiyi's ear and smelled the pleasant rose fragrance in her hair. His Adam's apple couldn't help but slide.

The man's voice was gentle: "Of course not, I'm here to coax you home for dinner."

Xie Yiyi's body stiffened slightly, and she pushed him away. "No, we're just having a fake marriage, not a real marriage. It's a big holiday, I have no obligation to go to your house and be a punching bag!"

Xie Yiyi was furious when she thought of the completely different attitudes Lu's mother had towards her and Su Yuan.

As daughters-in-law, Su Yuan is a treasure, while Xie Yiyi is just a weed.

Where is Su Yuan?

On the surface, she is gentle and virtuous, and has a deep love for Lu Zhizhang. She is a good daughter-in-law of the Lu family and a good sister-in-law to Lu Bingchen.

In fact, he has a strong possessiveness towards Lu Bingchen.

She had only stayed with Lu Bingchen at the Lu family for two days, but she had already heard her "inadvertently" reminisce about the past with Lu Bingchen several times.

Xie Yiyi suddenly felt a little breathless.

Since they loved each other so much back then, why did they break up?

With Lu Bingchen's personality, how could he bear to let his beloved woman marry his own elder brother and become his sister-in-law?

"What are you thinking about?"

Lu Bingchen looked at Xie Yiyi, who looked angry but a little distracted, and suddenly felt that she was a little cute.

Even though her hand was coldly shaken away, she was not annoyed. She gently held it again and rubbed her palm with her fingertips. "I didn't say I was going back to the Lu family."

Xie Yiyi asked coldly, "What do you mean?"

Lu Bingchen smiled and said, "Yibaoer, tonight is New Year's Eve, and this is the last dinner of the year. Of course we have to be happy and have a comfortable meal. There are a lot of ingredients in the apartment, we can have hot pot."

Yesterday, Lu's mother was discussing what to eat on New Year's Eve in the living room. Xie Yiyi suggested eating hot pot, but Lu's mother directly rejected it, saying that Su Yuan didn't like heavy-tasting food.

Xie Yiyi was stunned again, "You're not going back to the Lu family for the New Year?"

Lu Bingchen held her little hand tightly and pulled it with a little force, and Xie Yiyi fell towards him due to inertia.

"But I want to spend the New Year with you even more."

"Xie Yiyi, this will be our first New Year's Eve together."

“Boom boom boom!”

For a moment, Xie Yiyi heard his own heartbeat.

Since she and Lu Bingchen have been together, they have been flirting with each other, saying many sweet words to each other in a joking tone and pretending to be affectionate.

But both of them knew that those words did not count.

This was the first time Xie Yiyi heard Lu Bingchen say in a serious tone, "Xie Yiyi, this will be our first New Year's Eve together."

The first one, then will there be a second, a third, a fourth...

-

Night falls quietly and a pink Maserati travels through the streets.

Fireworks are prohibited in Beijing all year round. Perhaps the control was relaxed on New Year's Eve, but Xie Yiyi could still see the brilliant fireworks occasionally bursting into the night outside the passenger seat window.

Very romantic.

But romance is always fleeting.

Xie Yiyi looked at her own shadow on the car window, her thin lips curved up, unsure whether her relationship with Lu Bingchen would also be like these fireworks, romantic and then fade into silence in the night.

Half an hour later, the two returned to the apartment where Lu Bingchen lived.

There were a lot of food in the refrigerator that the two of them had stocked up on at the supermarket. Xie Yiyi turned on the TV in the living room. This year's Spring Festival Gala hadn't started yet, but they were still playing the warm-up for the Spring Festival Gala in previous years, with the sound of gongs and drums, and it was lively.

Although there are people who complain about the Spring Festival Gala every year, Xie Yiyi still quite likes watching it. The content is not important, the main thing is to enjoy the lively atmosphere of New Year's Eve.

The familiar voice of the skit teacher came from the TV, "Dear audience friends, I miss you so much!"

In the restaurant and kitchen, Xie Yiyi arranged the ingredients for the hot pot and placed them on plates. Lu Bingchen, wearing an apron, added onions, ginger, garlic and various seasonings into the hot pot to enhance the flavor of the already delicious hot pot base.

The oil was sizzling in the pot. Lu Bingchen poured a spoonful of water into it. With a "sizzling" sound, the spicy aroma of the seasoning and hot pot base spread instantly.

“It smells so good…”

Xie Yiyi couldn't help but look back at Lu Bingchen. She saw the man standing tall and straight, holding a steaming iron pot in both hands and walking towards the restaurant. He carefully poured the hot pot soup in the iron pot into the copper gong hot pot on the dining table.

Under the bright light, the man moved skillfully. He was wearing a loose long-sleeved shirt, and because he was wearing an apron, his inverted triangle figure with broad shoulders and a narrow waist could be seen.

I feel a little bit happy.

A thought suddenly popped up in Xie Yiyi's mind. Was it the same when Lu Bingchen and Su Yuan were together?

The tip of the kitchen knife in his hand accidentally slipped against his fingertips. The slight pain made Xie Yiyi, who was distracted, hiss and look at his fingertips with a frown.

Bright red blood slowly seeped out of the white fingertips.

"What's wrong?"

Before Xie Yiyi could do anything, Lu Bingchen rushed to her side, pinched her fingers gently, and sighed: "Hey, my eldest lady, why are you so careless?"

Xie Yiyi raised her eyes to look at him, only to see the man frowning slightly. He pulled her to the faucet, adjusted the water setting to warm, and placed her fingertips in the running water to rinse.

"come over."

Lu Bingchen dragged her into the living room again, took out a sterilized iodine cotton swab from the medical box, disinfected the wound interface, and carefully put on a Band-Aid.

"Yes, yes, yes."

After finishing everything, seeing that Xie Yiyi didn't say anything, Lu Bingchen said jokingly in a lazy voice: "It's my fault. I shouldn't have let the young lady work. You just sit down and wait for the meal. I'll go cut the potato chips."

Xie Yiyi looked at the tip of her index finger which was bandaged tightly. The wound didn't hurt at all. She even suspected that the wound had healed automatically while Lu Bingchen was doing this series of bandaging measures.

Xie Yiyi watched him go to the kitchen and ordered, "Cut the potato slices thicker. I want to eat soft and sticky potatoes after cooking."

"Yes, my wife~"

Xie Yiyi chuckled, "Slick old man."

After more than ten minutes, the soup base in the copper pot had already boiled, and Xie Yiyi put some hard-to-cook meatballs and vegetables into it.

After Lu Bingchen prepared two batches of the base sauce with his exclusive secret recipe, the two began to cook mutton and beef slices.

The thin slices of meat cooked very quickly. Xie Yiyi hadn't eaten anything at Lu's house, so she was very angry.

Then I went to the bar and drank two glasses of fruit wine on an empty stomach. Now, smelling the fragrant smell of the meat slices, my appetite suddenly increased.

"Be careful of the heat."

Lu Bingchen poured her a glass of Coke, and watching her impatiently stuff the meat slices in the dipping dish into her mouth, he reminded her with a smile.

Not to mention, her love for food is exactly the same as her niece's.

"Wow, this dipping sauce is so fragrant, fragrant but not greasy!"

Xie Yiyi's eyes lit up as she looked at the seemingly plain dipping sauce in the bowl, then raised her eyes to look at Lu Bingchen, "How did you make this? What's in it? It's even better than the one I asked the manager to make for me at the hot pot restaurant before."

Lu Bingchen's thin lips curled into a smile, his eyebrows raised in triumph. He used chopsticks to pick up a piece of meat from the steaming pot and placed it on an empty plate beside to cool. "This dipping sauce is my exclusive recipe, never shared with anyone else."

Xie Yiyi ate another piece of meat and said, "You are too stingy."

"Am I stingy?"

Lu Bingchen laughed and said, "It's not like I won't give it to you. Whenever you want to eat, there's always a ready-made dipping saucer in front of you. Why do you want to know the recipe? Are you planning on having hot pot with other men in the future and telling them my recipe? And then those men will use my recipe to flirt with other girls?"

Xie Yiyi was amused by him.

There was a time before when I often saw similar videos on Douyin. One or two years after breaking up, my ex-girlfriend suddenly contacted me, not asking for a reconciliation, but asking for the recipe of hot pot dipping sauce.

Xie Yiyi took a sip of iced cola to moisten her throat and asked curiously, "If one day, we break up and I ask you for the dipping sauce recipe while eating hot pot in the middle of the night, will you give it to me?"

Lu Bingchen paused in picking up the food, looked at her curious eyes, and smiled, "No."

Xie Yiyi shook her head, "Stingy old man!"

Basically all the men on the Internet gave it to me.

As soon as he finished speaking, a resentful voice sounded from the other side, "Can I come over and adjust it for you personally?"

Xie Yiyi, "Is the dipping sauce recipe your life?"

Lu Bingchen glanced at her without saying a word, and continued to put meat slices into the copper pot with the serving chopsticks.

The two of them ate and talked, eating very slowly.

Before we knew it, this year's Spring Festival Gala began.

Xie Yiyi looked at the screen where the whole family, young and old, happily gathered together to make dumplings. She pursed her lips and asked, "Aren't you going home to have a reunion dinner with your family tonight?"

Lu Bingchen paused for a moment, then said with a hint of mockery, "It makes no difference whether I have it or not."

Xie Yiyi frowned slightly and glanced at the phone that Lu Bingchen placed aside.

Not sure if he turned his phone to do not disturb mode.

Since returning from the bar, Lu Bingchen's phone has not rang once, nor has he looked at it once.

"To be honest, your parents are biased, especially your mom. She's so biased towards your eldest brother that it's almost reaching the Pacific Ocean."

Xie Yiyi playfully asked, "Lu Bingchen, you weren't picked up, were you? You're not my biological child?"

Logically speaking, in a family, it is more common to favor boys over girls and love the youngest son.

But in Lu Bingchen's family, Lu Bingchen did not have any congenital defects that made the Lu family give up on him, so why did everyone favor Lu Zhizhang and ignore him?

After just a few days of getting along, Xie Yiyi could even feel that the whole family was deliberately ignoring Lu Bingchen.

Did he commit some horrible mistake?

Lu Bingchen smiled.

As an excellent psychologist, he is very good at observing people's words and expressions and capturing subtle emotions in their eyes, expressions and behaviors.

Although Xie Yiyi spoke in a joking tone, her suddenly shrunken pupils, slightly stagnant breathing, and stiffened forearms all told him that Xie Yiyi cared about him, felt unfair for him, and thought his family shouldn't treat him like this.

From childhood to adulthood, he has rarely received fair treatment with his elder brother, let alone favoritism.

He picked up some soft and sticky potatoes for Xie Yiyi and said with a gentle smile, "You guessed wrong. I am my mother's biological child, but my eldest brother is not."

"Um?"

Xie Yiyi was surprised. What mother wouldn't love her own biological son but favor her adopted son?

Lu Bingchen told her the story in a gentle tone, "My eldest brother is the son of my father and my aunt, and he is also my mother's twin sister."

"When my mother was young, she was diagnosed with congenital heart disease and anemia, and she relied on my aunt for blood transfusions. Later, my aunt married my father through an alliance with the Lu family, but she died unexpectedly while giving birth to my eldest brother. ...Later, before she died, she made a will, giving her heart to her biological sister, my mother. Before the operation, she held my mother's hand and asked her to take care of her biological son in her place."

"Because we are twin sisters, the heart transplant surgery went very smoothly. After my mother recovered, she chose to marry my father as a concubine in order to better take care of my eldest brother. In the third year of their marriage, I was unexpectedly born."

"My mother decided to abort me at the time because she was worried that if I had my own child, I wouldn't be able to take care of my eldest brother wholeheartedly for my aunt."

Xie Yiyi's heart sank. Why could Lu Bingchen still laugh?

"Then why did you stay?"

Lu Bingchen smiled and said, "Because of my elder brother."

"My eldest brother said he hoped my mother would give birth to this child so that he would have a playmate."

"So, I was fortunate enough to come into this world because of my eldest brother's words. I should be grateful to him."

Xie Yiyi's brows furrowed even tighter.

It goes without saying that the phrase "I am so grateful to my elder brother" is the PUA that Lu's mother has been using on Lu Bingchen.

What is worrying is not the lack of wealth but the inequality.

This has been the case throughout history.

Xie Yiyi didn't know how Lu Bingchen had managed to survive the past thirty years without being favored.

Her heart clenched.

So, is this also the reason why Su Yuan became his sister-in-law?

Xie Yiyi hesitated again and again, gritted her teeth, and finally asked, "You and Su Yuan, did you give up because you wanted to express your gratitude to your eldest brother?"

"Do you still love her in your heart?"

As soon as the words fell.

Lu Bingcheng's cell phone, which had been on the dining table and hadn't rung all night, vibrated.

The screen lights up automatically.

"Su Yuan".