Chapter 152 Side Story: The Lost Manor
Snap—
A crisp slap rang out in front of her, and Li Yufei's hand was raised in mid-air, her palm burning and numb.
The air was filled with chaotic heavy metal music and cheers. Young men and women surrounded her, laughing, shouting, and clapping, "Sister Fei is awesome!" "Li Yufei is amazing!"
Li Yufei was momentarily stunned.
Wasn't she waiting at home for Cheng Yuzhou to come back for her birthday? Where is this?
The air-conditioned KTV room was brightly lit, with no other lighting except for a central disco ball and a screen in the distance. She couldn't quite see who was around her, but a young man was standing in front of her.
He was slapped across the face, his black hair slightly disheveled, and in the dim light, his superior jawline and tightly pursed thin lips were faintly visible.
This blurry profile looks quite handsome.
He stood there patiently, his demeanor strikingly similar to Cheng Yuzhou's, so Li Yufei could immediately tell that he was trying his best to suppress his emotions.
An arm suddenly landed on her shoulder, and the teenagers on either side laughed excitedly, "We didn't expect you to be telling the truth!"
"One more, Li Yufei, one more!"
Slap him!
One more? What kind?
Li Yufei was surprised. Whose little brat is this? He's not even fully grown yet, and he dares to flirt with a young woman.
This society is so chaotic.
She and Cheng Yuzhou have started preparing for pregnancy. After having a child, culture and art will be secondary; they must focus on physical fitness so that the child won't be bullied like Cheng Yuzhou was when he was a child.
Li Yufei was taken aback when she pulled the rabbit paw off her shoulder.
Her ring! Her ring is gone!
No, not only is it a ring, but this hand isn't hers either!
The manicure on her hand was a style that was popular ten years ago. Upon closer inspection, this hand was even more delicate than hers.
"What's wrong, Yufei? Does your hand hurt from that hit?" Seeing her staring blankly at her hand, a handsome young man with blond hair immediately took her hand and said, "Let me rub it for you."
“Yes, yes,” another young girl chimed in, “Let’s not just use our hands, how about we find a tool?”
Li Yufei frowned. For some reason, this scene seemed familiar, as if she had seen it somewhere before...
The rioting thugs, the vicious beauty who bullies others, and the handsome young man who gets beaten up—
Ah, I saw him in Cheng Yuzhou's study!
His study was filled with novels like these!
The villainous female supporting character bullied the villainous BOSS since childhood. One day, during one of her bullying sessions, the female protagonist, who had read this novel, transmigrated into the female supporting character's body. She was so frightened that she immediately stopped and began to comfort the pitiful young villain.
The two gradually became friends, but the villain was not reformed and grew into a bloodthirsty and cruel villain, developing a paranoid possessiveness towards the female lead who had given him warmth...
Cheng Yuzhou, that love-obsessed guy, loves watching this kind of stuff, and she's memorized it by heart.
So, which novel has she transmigrated into now?
Li Yufei subtly surveyed her surroundings, trying to recall...
I can't remember anything.
Even if you tell her the book title and the names of the male and female protagonists directly, she still can't remember what was written.
She had forgotten most of the textbooks that her teachers had taught her word by word, so how could she possibly remember the contents of a novel?
Let's first take a look at what this seemingly tragic villain looks like.
Li Yufei scrutinized the teenager who was supposedly the one who might kill her, the "supporting female character."
He's so tall, and he's not a child anymore. He didn't even fight back when he was hit. What a coward.
She doesn't care about the plot. A stunning beauty like her, a famous blogger, and a shareholder of the Cheng Group, would never date a loser.
She has a husband.
The waste looked up, revealing her husband's face.
“…” Li Yufei.
She picked up her phone and brought up the front-facing camera.
The screen showed her 19-year-old face.
She was so sure she was 19 because that was the only year she dyed her hair green.
Yes, it looks good. She can pull off any color.
Li Yufei put down her phone and realized where that sense of familiarity came from.
The group of young people who were egging her on were her cronies from over a decade ago.
It wasn't time travel, it was rebirth.
However, the current storyline is not one of "a villainous woman who bullied the male supporting character who loved her deeply since childhood, but after being reborn, she suddenly realized her mistakes and started to treat the male supporting character well."
Li Yufei remembered what had happened today.
She stared at the young Cheng Yuzhou, whose left cheek was red from her slap, and whose lip was cut by his manicured nails, from which two beads of blood oozed out, making him look miserable and wretched.
Snap—
She slapped him on the right cheek as well!
The surrounding teenagers immediately erupted in cheers and applause.
As they laughed, Li Yufei turned around suddenly, her fox-like eyes wide open, revealing a fierce glint. Even in the dim and chaotic light, her vicious and ferocious expression could not be hidden.
"Shut up, what are you yelling about!" she shouted angrily. "Go home and do your homework!"
Silence fell instantly around them.
The private room was instantly filled only with deafening music.
The boys were stunned, not understanding why Li Yufei suddenly took her anger out on them, while Cheng Yuzhou, who had been slapped again, remained unfazed.
He covered his lips with the back of his hand and coughed lightly, "Feifei, don't be angry."
Li Yufei became angry when she remembered what had just happened.
When she was furious, he casually said, "Don't be angry."
She's so angry!!!
Li Yufei's rare moments of rationality allowed her to save Cheng Yuzhou some face.
She glared at the kids watching the show behind her, then grabbed Cheng Yuzhou by the collar and dragged him outside.
Go home and pack.
Cheng Yuzhou obediently followed Li Yufei's lead and walked out.
Once outside, the music fades away, and the environment immediately becomes quiet.
Li Yufei released Cheng Yuzhou and asked curtly, "How did you get here?"
Cheng Yuzhou paused for a moment, a hint of doubt appearing on his face: "We came together."
Li Yufei couldn't recall the details from over ten years ago. She asked, "Your car?"
Cheng Yuzhou narrowed his eyes. "Mm."
"Let's go then." Li Yufei headed towards the elevator. "You haven't had any drinks, have you?"
"No." Cheng Yuzhou followed behind her, slowing his pace slightly. "Feifei, aren't you taking Siqi with you?"
"who?"
"Siqi".
Who is Siqi?
Li Yufei was puzzled, searched her memory for a while, and then suddenly realized.
Siqi, her 19-year-old boyfriend, a game streamer, is the one who just rubbed her hand.
Did they talk for two months or one month?
Although the time was short, Siqi was still quite special in Li Yufei's life.
He was her first man.
It wasn't because he was handsome, rich, or outstanding; he was fortunate enough to be her first man, and it had nothing to do with who he was.
Tonight, she, who had just turned 19, tried to provoke Cheng Yuzhou with Siqi.
But clearly, between her and Cheng Yuzhou, she was the one who was in control.
A group of teenagers were playing Truth or Dare, and Li Yufei chose Dare.
After several rounds of drinks and reaching their peak, fueled by the atmosphere, someone, seemingly out of nowhere, suggested that she spend the night with a man.
For Li Yufei at that time, this was a perfect opportunity to provoke Cheng Yuzhou.
"There are so many men here, how am I supposed to choose?" She raised an eyebrow and glanced casually at the corner. "Cheng Yuzhou, why don't you choose for me?"
The boy in the corner was silent for a moment, then smiled at her and said, "Feifei, as long as you like it."
"No, I want you to choose." Li Yufei stood up, walked up to him, and said each word forcefully, "You choose."
A mocking and surprised gaze fell between them. Cheng Yuzhou clenched his fists tightly on his knees.
He didn't answer, and Li Yufei stared intently down at him.
Neither of them spoke easily; the noisy, chaotic heavy metal drowned out all their voices, but they could all hear each other's every breath.
The breathing on both sides was like a tug-of-war, each suppressing intense emotions.
After a moment, Cheng Yuzhou smiled and said, "Then, go with your boyfriend."
That statement deserves a slap in the face.
Nineteen-year-old Li Yufei only hit one, her hands trembling and eyes red with anger, "Fine, Cheng Yuzhou, I'll do as you wish!"
At 32, Li Yufei is more mature and rational. There's no need for her to hurt herself by accepting a pushover just because of Cheng Yuzhou's words.
They should go and hurt Cheng Yuzhou.
One slap isn't enough to vent your anger, so let's slap you again.
It's a small matter; once you've calmed down, it's fine.
More than ten years have passed, and Li Yufei still remembers Cheng Yuzhou's outrageous words, but has forgotten the name of the other male protagonist in the incident.
Cheng Yuzhou had just been slapped twice, and now he was bringing up that man in front of her again. Li Yufei kicked him in annoyance, "What are you waiting for? What are you thinking about? Go drive your car!"
Cheng Yuzhou staggered two steps before barely regaining his balance.
He walked ahead, glancing back out of the corner of his eye at Li Yufei with a puzzled look.
He sensed something was wrong, but the tone of that sentence and the force of that kick confirmed that it was indeed Li Yufei behind him.
Upon reaching the car, Cheng Yuzhou opened the back door, and Li Yufei opened the passenger door and got in.
She fastened her seatbelt and saw Cheng Yuzhou standing blankly in front of the back door, showing no intention of getting into the driver's seat. She was surprised and asked, "You want me to drive?"
What does it mean that he's standing there? Of course, she can drive, but she can be the driver and Cheng Yuzhou can sit in the back seat?
presumptuous!
How dare he!
"No, no." Cheng Yuzhou snapped out of his daze and quickly got into the driver's seat.
He drove out of the underground parking garage as if in a dream, glancing at Li Yufei frequently along the way.
Has she forgotten?
After getting engaged at 17, Li Yufei never went out with him alone again. Whenever she asked him to pick her up, she always brought her boyfriend along, and he would drive while the two of them sat in the back seat.
On one occasion, he took her to the airport to pick up her boyfriend. He opened the passenger seat for her, but she ignored him and went to the back seat on her own.
What's wrong with me today...?
Li Yufei sat down and started scrolling through her phone; she had many things to confirm.
As the car drove onto the main road, she heard Cheng Yuzhou ask, "Feifei, where are we going now?"
"Going home." Good heavens, is this her account?! She has less than 10,000 followers!
"An apartment?"
Good heavens, is this her account?! All her funds, stocks, fixed-term deposits, and gold are gone!
"What apartment? Go home now."
"Where are your aunt and uncle?"
"Are you crazy? Of course he'll come back to us..." Li Yufei snapped out of her resentment at being back to square one and suddenly realized that the Cheng Yuzhou beside her wasn't her husband.
"I'll go to your place," she quickly changed her mind, "I'll sleep there tonight."
Cheng Yuzhou's probing eyes widened instantly, and he jerked the steering wheel, causing the entire car to sway slightly.
"Ouch..." Li Yufei was jolted and scolded playfully, "Drive carefully!"
"I'm...I'm sorry." Cheng Yuzhou's Adam's apple bobbed, his eyes staring blankly ahead.
After a while, he asked her in a trembling voice, "Feifei, are you going to sleep at my place?"
"What's wrong? Are you having trouble?"
"No, no..."
Li Yufei entered the apartment next to Cheng Yuzhou's company, an apartment that Cheng Yuzhou had owned since he joined the company at the age of 15.
After he turned 15, he rarely returned to Fang Yuzhou's villa and mostly lived alone in this apartment until they started living together after the ghost stories. After that, no matter how late he worked, Cheng Yuzhou would always go home.
The vacant apartment was rented out, and Li Yufei handled the lease agreement.
What does this apartment look like now?
On several nights, Li Yufei would wake up groggily and suddenly see Cheng Yuzhou staring at her intently in the darkness.
What was even stranger was his expression.
She scolded him for not sleeping, and he, with a dazed smile, reached out to her, murmuring in his sleep, "Light..."
Li Yufei was completely confused. She thought he wanted to turn on the light and was about to touch the switch when Cheng Yuzhou stopped her.
He laughed with rapt attention, "It's bright enough."
Cheng Yuzhou always turns off all the lights and draws the double-layered curtains before going to sleep.
He liked to be with Li Yufei in the pitch-black darkness.
Li Yufei pressed him for the reason, and he only revealed his experiences from his youth after they got married.
Back then, Cheng Yandong would often go crazy in the middle of the night, dragging him into a windowless, dark room and locking him up night after night.
It was a completely dark room, and through the door, one could hear the father howling like a wild beast.
At first, Cheng Yuzhou cried and banged on the door to beg for mercy, but it was no use. So he tried to imagine what Li Yufei looked like in the dark.
Day after day, year after year, one day, suddenly the dark room lit up and light appeared before his eyes.
He saw her.
Li Yufei stayed by Cheng Yuzhou's side from then on. He began to like confinement and dark rooms, as the dark and quiet places better highlighted her dazzling brilliance.
Li Yufei belatedly realized why there were so many frames filled with her portrait hanging in the castle.
So her face is like a light bulb.
The eight-foot mural is the main light, the A5 is the secondary light, the ten-inch is the small light, and the miniature portraits hidden in handles, knobs, and furniture are like little nightlights.
Following this line of reasoning, Cheng Yuzhou must be experiencing his loneliest period right now; his apartment must be plastered with her photos...
There wasn't a single one; it was a bare, fully-furnished apartment.
"What's wrong with you!" Li Yufei pointed at the TV, computer, and Cheng Yuzhou's phone wallpaper. "There's not a trace of me in the house! Cheng Anxue has so much more stuff than I do!"
Cheng Anxue is the female protagonist of a heart-wrenching urban romance novel that Cheng Yuzhou likes. He has dragged out nine books on such trivial matters between men and women, and he has even bought a whole stack of related merchandise.
Cheng Yuzhou was stumped by the question.
He spoke, bewildered, "...I don't quite understand what you mean."
"What are you pretending to be, an AI?!"
"Feifei, I don't understand." Cheng Yuzhou looked at her in confusion. What was wrong with her? Why was she suddenly being so gentle with him?
Is it a new game?
And who gave her the idea to coax him for two days, and then send him back to hell when he got carried away?
"You don't understand?" What's there to not understand? Which sentence is unclear?
She's made it so clear, and he's not happy or excited? Doesn't he understand?
“Okay, you’ll understand everything soon.” She took off her coat. “I’m going to take a shower. Go get me something to eat.”
I drank all night, and my stomach was burning. I also smelled strongly of alcohol.
Once she has settled her body and stomach, she will tell him about her rebirth and let him understand it properly.
“Wash…” The boy’s dark eyes opened slightly, then he said in a panic, “I didn’t prepare any clothes for you, I’ll go buy some now.” He had never thought she would come to this apartment, so he hadn’t made any preparations.
"It's so late, don't bother, it's unnecessary." Li Yufei took off her sweater. "Just go and make me some midnight snack."
She took off her sweater, leaving only a low-cut, ultra-thin undershirt, revealing her beautiful figure to Cheng Yuzhou. She was still somewhat immature, yet already exuded a touch of allure.
His mind was spinning, and Cheng Yuzhou suddenly turned around and fled out the door in a panic, shouting, "I...I'll be right back!"
Li Yufei peeked out from under her sweater collar and glanced sideways at Cheng Yuzhou's disheveled figure.
What others may not know is that Cheng Yuzhou truly is a die-hard youth.
A man in his thirties behaves like he did when he was a teenager.
She tossed her clothes aside and glanced down at herself.
Well, after all, it's her, so his reaction is only natural.
She unceremoniously opened Cheng Yuzhou's wardrobe and rummaged through it.
Don't be so polite, it's all joint property, it's all hers.
...
Cheng Yuzhou had been sitting in the car for ten minutes.
There were several clothing bags on the passenger seat. Li Yufei said she was hungry, so she also brought back a box of yakitori and some desserts.
But he didn't go back for a long time.
With his hands on the steering wheel, Cheng Yuzhou sat quietly with his eyelids half-closed.
Over the past three years, his relationship with Li Yufei has plummeted to its lowest point. Li Yufei's emotions are as vivid as her soul; when she loves, a single glance from her can turn mountains and forests red, and when she doesn't love, she is sharper than most.
Looking through the interior rearview mirror, Cheng Yuzhou glanced at the empty back seat.
That seat has been occupied by several of Li Yufei's boyfriends.
They were all mediocre and incompetent, they all tainted her… No, he shouldn’t be jealous. He had promised her that he would respect her and not interfere with her.
Cheng Yuzhou knew that the turning point would come at the engagement.
If they hadn't gotten engaged, their relationship wouldn't be in such a bad state now.
But he couldn't give up his identity as her husband, because only this identity could maintain his long-term connection with her. Friends and lovers were unreliable. Like this back seat, which had hosted three or four new brides in just one year.
My gaze returned to the rearview mirror, where I saw a hollow, lifeless black pupil reflected in it.
The boy hung his head and slumped over the steering wheel.
How much longer can he endure this...?
He didn't care how Li Yufei treated him; just seeing her was good enough. But those things around her... their filth was almost suffocating her. He was about to lose his temper and sweep away the trash around her feet.
He had to be patient, he had to be patient. Compared to losing Li Yufei, this amount of patience was nothing.
Tonight was supposed to be another tough test, but things changed after she slapped him twice.
She... Yufei, Feifei, she... is in his apartment right now?
Cheng Yuzhou lowered his face, revealing his burning red ear tips.
She's using his bathroom...wait, her towel? What kind of towel is she using?
Buzz—the phone suddenly rang, and Cheng Yuzhou trembled.
When he saw the caller ID, he stopped breathing and froze for two seconds before hurriedly answering the call.
"Why aren't you back yet!" A loud, reproachful voice filled the car, instantly breaking the silence and bringing life to the room.
Her voice carried a hint of anxiety, "Are you alright?"
"N-nothing," Cheng Yuzhou swallowed hard, his voice strained. "I'm coming up now, Feifei, you..."
"hold head high?"
He cautiously confirmed, "Are you done washing?"
"You've been talking nonsense for so long. Hurry up and come up, don't make me worry."
She hung up the phone, her last complaint tinged with an unconscious air of coquettishness. Cheng Yuzhou was stunned for a moment, then opened the recording and listened to it again.
Twice.
Three times...
He covered his lips with his fingers, his face and ears turning completely red.
Did she just act cute towards him?
After calming down for a while, Cheng Yuzhou carried his things upstairs.
The phone call threw him into disarray, causing Cheng Yuzhou to forget a crucial question:
Li Yufei's clothes are still in his hands, so what is she wearing now?
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A note from the author:
[I'm speechless] I didn't expect the last unit to be so long, even the extra chapter. There's another chapter tomorrow.
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