Chapter 41 Serves Him Right

The only sound inside the car was the electronic voice of the navigation system.

Suddenly, a sneer broke the silence.

"Oh."

Ling Wei didn't even raise an eyebrow, still gazing at the rapidly receding night view outside the window.

"You were quite the talker when you were badmouthing people behind their backs," Qu Chen said with his usual coldness. "Now you're so stingy with words?"

"You've disguised yourself quite well, even managing to make someone like my uncle... completely bewildered, but don't think that this will earn me my approval."

Ling Wei finally turned her face slowly, her eyes filled with pity for someone who was an idiot: "Is it something to be honored to be acknowledged by someone as dim-witted as you?"

Qu Chen tightened his grip on the steering wheel.

Ling Wei didn't give him a chance to catch his breath and continued to spew insults: "Clumsy eavesdropping, and even now they're still unrepentant, daring to speak ill of me like this."

She looked him up and down, her disdain almost overflowing, "I have to say, you're so shameless. Did your Qu family use all their education funds to build up your shamelessness?"

Qu Chen's breath hitched: "That wasn't wiretapping, it was a security audit. Anyone who poses a potential threat must be assessed. And... after the second time, I stopped data collection."

“Oh—” Ling Wei drawled, “Should I write a thank-you letter to commend you for the high degree of self-control you showed during the illegal intrusion?”

Qu Chen pursed his lips, no longer looking at her, his gaze fixed on the dark road ahead.

Oh, so you shut up if you can't win an argument?

Ling Wei pressed her advantage, "In your black-and-white mind, does everyone who gets close to your Qu family have to be scanned by your 'security system' first? Where do you get the confidence to think the whole world is plotting against you?"

Her gaze seemed to pierce through his feigned composure. "Or is it that you simply can't distinguish between normal social distancing and crossing the line?"

Qu Chen's jawline tightened, as if a sore spot had been touched, and his voice deepened: "You don't understand anything at all... How could someone like you, living in the sunlight, possibly understand..."

"Oh, you don't know anything at all," Ling Wei said sarcastically, then said seriously, "Stop the car."

The car immediately pulled over to the side of the road, and Qu Chen, in the driver's seat, unlocked the car.

Ling Wei remained seated, saying, "I'm not getting out of the car. I'm just afraid that if we keep talking, someone will get so angry that they'll drive recklessly."

"You say I don't understand? What, did you experience something bad when you were a child?"

Qu Chen abruptly turned his head away, his rapid breathing betraying his turbulent emotions.

Looking at his tense profile, Ling Wei naturally opened her arms. "Do you want a hug? I feel so sorry for you~"

Qu Chen's breathing suddenly stopped.

His gaze involuntarily fell on the open embrace, and a scene from not long ago flashed through his mind: under the moonlight at the bottom of the pit, she was also straddling her uncle, her arms around his neck, intimately close, and the blurry yet burning sounds coming through the headphones once again assaulted his senses.

A surge of shame and an indescribable heat rushed to his head, and he awkwardly shook his head away, his ears turning uncontrollably red.

Just as he was reeling from the shock, Ling Wei suddenly withdrew her arm, the gentleness in her eyes fading and replaced by a familiar sneer.

"You don't really think I'm going to hug you, do you?" she chuckled. "Wake up."

“I don’t care about you at all. If you had acted like a normal person when we first met, you might have been able to win my favor. Unfortunately, my first impression of you was terrible, and it only got worse afterward.”

"I have no obligation to understand you."

She mimicked his tone: "I don't understand? Yes, I really don't understand how you can rationalize voyeuristic behavior..."

"I'm not!" Qu Chen's voice suddenly rose, filled with defensive anger that had been pierced to his core. "I just need to make sure everyone is safe! Make sure no one can..." His words trailed off, as he forcefully pressed those dark memories back into his heart.

"Security?" Ling Wei scoffed. "The sense of security gained by trampling on other people's boundaries is no different from robbing a bank and claiming it's for economic independence. Listen to yourself, does that logic even hold water?"

Qu Chen pursed his lips, his face grim, but he couldn't find the words to refute her.

Ling Wei seemed to have lost interest and waved her hand: "Forget it, for your uncle's sake. There won't be a next time. You should be glad I didn't pursue it, you perverted criminal."

A suffocating silence spread through the car.

After a long while, Qu Chen finally spoke in a dry voice: "You think it's easy for me to be discovered?"

Ling Wei casually finished his sentence: "You don't mean to ask what you would do if your goddess Bai Wanqing found out, or if she has already found out but pretends not to know, right?"

“She wouldn’t…” His voice lowered, tinged with hesitation, “Sister Wanqing…she’s very innocent.”

"So naive that you can't notice the phone's unusually low battery? So naive that you're completely oblivious to the extra attention you, a computer genius, receive?" Ling Wei mercilessly shattered his illusions. "Do you think she's too naive, or do you prefer to believe she's naive rather than face the possibility that she's been watching you perform like a clown all along?"

Ling Wei's previous words were at most thorns stuck in the skin, and Qu Chen could still stubbornly refute them. But her heart-piercing remarks about Bai Wanqing just now went straight to the heart.

His face was completely drained of color, and he even lost the strength to argue, as if even breathing had become difficult.

“What is this…” he muttered to himself.

Ling Wei chuckled, "You deserve it."

All of Qu Chen's previous sharp defenses and anger vanished. He leaned back in the driver's seat, his superior profile revealing a sense of brokenness.

Several seconds passed before his low, hoarse voice finally broke the silence of the enclosed carriage, like a last, feeble attempt to utter a sentence:

"You... you call yourself an idol?"

These words struck Ling Wei squarely in the wrong direction. Seeing how devastated he looked, she was ready to back down.

Forget it now.

"It doesn't matter, I'm not your idol," she said coldly. "The reason you deserve it is because you sold swords first."

"Just because you've suffered misfortune, you have the right to censor others? Why don't you hide in the rainforest and become a savage instead of coming to human society?"

"They don't owe you anything."

"You are arrogant and foolish, demanding that others must have perfect sincerity to be worthy of approaching you—in the end, you only love yourself and are extremely selfish."

"Stop pretending to be a redemption novel protagonist and stop acting all pitiful."

Ling Wei deftly unbuckled her seatbelt, got out of the car, slammed the door shut, and planned to walk back.

Before leaving, seeing Qu Chen's dejected appearance, she added an extra international friendly gesture.

"What your uncle and I did was out of humanitarian concern, it's nothing. You can leave your fake mother-in-law act to someone else."

"That's all. You and your sensitive skin can have the large portion!"