Chapter 22 Ex-Girlfriend
That bit of warmth turned into a raging fire in our little nest that night.
Lin Yan demonstrated with practical action the scope of his licensed position as a "legal breeder," which clearly encompassed certain unspoken "physical training" and "spiritual comfort." Specifically, I was given the unprecedented "honor" of being able to move on top myself—a treat comparable to a goblin finding a rare treasure. Unfortunately, as a terminally lazy person, I only moved a few token steps before finding this work more tiring than final exam review. I grumbled and walked out: "I can't take it anymore... Lin Yan... are you a fucking perpetual motion machine? Switch! I'm going to lie down..."
The consequences of the strike were predictable. I was dealt a harsh hand, worse than being surrounded and scolded by a hundred Zhao Leis. By the end, I was rolling my eyes, my voice so hoarse I couldn't even utter the Zaun jargon, only a few discordant sobs. In the dim light, Lin Yan's usually gentle face was filled with an aggressive focus and possessiveness. Sweat trickled down his taut jawline, dripping onto my scalding skin, burning my very soul.
I tossed and turned until almost midnight. I felt like a thoroughly rubbed, flattened, and baked rag. I didn't want to move a finger. My last thought before my consciousness sank into darkness was: "Fuck this early morning! Even if the sky falls, I won't get up!"
The sky hadn't fallen, but the sun was already high in the sky. When I opened my eyes again, the sunlight filtering through the gaps in the curtains made me squint. I reached for my phone and saw, wow, it was 12 noon!
There were several messages from Lin Yan on the phone screen:
"Are you awake? I've asked for leave for you."
"The takeaway will be here in half an hour. It's from that pickled fish place you were talking about."
"Remember to wash up. If you don't, you'll have extra training tonight."
The last sentence was followed by a gentle smiling emoji.
"..." Fuck you! I threw my phone away in anger, gritted my teeth, supporting my waist that felt like it had been run over by a ten-ton truck, and staggered out of bed. Damn, that animal Lin Yan... Just wash up! For the sake of the pickled fish!
I had just reached the bathroom door, barely put my toothbrush in my mouth, when my phone started vibrating like a death knell. It was the fourth child.
"Brother Rui! Help! Come to school immediately!"
"Urgent! Master Lin's ex-girlfriend is here to kill him! She's blocking his way downstairs in his lab!"
"Looks like they're up to no good! Hurry up!"
My head buzzed, and the remaining sleepiness and backache were instantly replaced by a nameless anger. Ex-girlfriend? What the hell? Lin Yan's ex-girlfriend had the nerve to come to my house and block me?!
An inexplicable surge of irritation and anger shot up from my head, even more intense than the one I'd felt the day before, when Zhao Lei had provoked me. Without even bothering to wash, I slapped on a T-shirt, ruffled my messy hair (my newly dyed hair now looked more like a bombarded bird's nest), and, despite the vehement protests from my hips and waist, I rushed out of the house in an awkward and impulsive manner, heading straight for school.
The entire way there, my mind was racing. Lin Yan's ex-girlfriend? Zhou Xiaowei? What did she say? Where's Lin Yan? What's his attitude? Damn it, I'll see who dares to poach me! I instinctively rubbed my still-aching waist, a simmering fire welling up inside me—was Lin Yan's "training intensity" last night related to this ex-girlfriend? Shit!
I practically scrambled to the building where Lin Yan's laboratory was located. From a distance, I saw a girl standing by the flower bed at the entrance of the laboratory building. She was wearing an exquisite dress and had done a lot of makeup. She looked much more innocent than the last time I saw her.
Zhou Xiaowei was pacing back and forth with an impatient look on her face, surrounded by a few students who were eager to watch the fun.
I paused, took a deep breath, and, with my hair disheveled and a slightly disheveled appearance from my haste, I bravely walked over. Before I could speak, Zhou Xiaowei's sharp gaze swept over me, sizing me up and down, her eyes filled with undisguised contempt and ridicule.
"Oh," she scoffed briefly, the sound quiet but clear enough to reach my ears. "Are you Chen Rui? Lin Yan's current...that?" She paused deliberately, a sarcastic smile forming at the corner of her mouth. "He doesn't look that great either. Lin Yan's taste is really getting worse."
My brows knitted together, and my anger rose to my throat. Just as I was about to unleash my Zaun liberal arts prowess and show him what a master of verbal attacks looks like, Zhou Xiaowei spoke again, her tone tinged with condescending pity.
"You know what? When Lin Yan was with me before, he was never so... high-profile." She glanced at my messy look meaningfully, as if she was looking at some unsightly garbage. "He officially announced you? That's really strange. But I advise you not to be too proud. Men always think that what they can't get is the best. Maybe you are just a substitute that he used to make me angry on a whim. After all, we broke up because of a small misunderstanding..."
"You're fucking bullshit!" I finally couldn't hold it in any longer. My temples were throbbing, my fists were clenched, and the curse words were about to burst out. What substitute? I'm one of a kind!
"Substitute?" A cold and calm voice, like an ice spring, suddenly sounded behind me, instantly extinguishing the volcano that was about to erupt.
Lin Yan had stood behind me without me noticing, one hand resting naturally on my tense shoulder. His gaze, sharp as a knife, was directed at Zhou Xiaowei, his face expressionless. Even the corners of his mouth held a gentle curve, but the aura he exuded was so chilling that the onlookers subconsciously shrank their necks.
"Zhou Xiaowei," Lin Yan's voice was low, but it carried an undeniable penetrating force. "I thought I made it very clear when we broke up. It's over, it's over. There are no misunderstandings, and there's no such thing as 'angry at you'. Your current behavior has seriously disrupted the normal life of me and my boyfriend."
He paused, his eyes sweeping over the other woman's meticulously dressed clothes and makeup. His tone was as flat as if he was stating a fact, but every word was piercing: "Also, please take back those disrespectful words you just said about my boyfriend. He's not a replacement. He's Chen Rui, my only choice now and in the future. Your 'little misunderstanding' and your existence itself are already a thing of the past and meaningless to us. If you still have any self-respect, please leave and don't humiliate yourself here."
Lin Yan's words were logically coherent, his tone even polite, yet each one was like a needle tempered by ice, piercing the very spot the other person cared about most. The phrases "pointless" and "self-humiliation" were especially devastating, rivaling the destructive power of my Zaun combo.
The color drained from Zhou Xiaowei's face instantly, her carefully maintained expression completely shattered. She stared at Lin Yan in disbelief, at his calm yet distant and cold eyes. Then she looked at me, protected by Lin Yan behind her—although embarrassed, I definitely had someone's backing. A surge of grievance and embarrassment washed over her. Her eyes quickly reddened, tears streaming down uncontrollably, her face brimming with tears, a pitiful expression.
Unfortunately, the two men in front of her, one with a heart as hard as stone, the other with a heart and eyes filled with only pickled fish and back pain. Lin Yan didn't even glance at her. He just lowered his head and said gently to me, who was still on the verge of exploding, "It's okay, let's go." Then he put his arm around my shoulders, ignored the suppressed sobs behind me and the complicated gazes of the crowd, and turned and left.
Later, according to the vivid account by Lao Si, a "frontline reporter," Zhou Xiaowei was simply furious. When Lin Yan was with her, he was incredibly low-key and reserved, his WeChat Moments even emptier than mine, not to mention any official hand-holding photos. Yet, now that he's with me, he's publicly displaying his affection on WeChat Moments, with all the sweet background photos, as if he wants the whole world to know that Lin Yan is taken. The contrast was so jarring that it completely unbalanced the ex-girlfriend, who impulsively rushed over to make a name for herself. Only to be taught a lesson by Lin Yan, leaving her completely humiliated.
After hearing all the gossip, the rage inside me didn't die down, it only intensified. I grabbed the collar of Lin Yan, who was standing next to me with a look of "I'm so awesome, give me some praise!" and punched him viciously several times (although my back was sore, my punches were weak): "Lin Yan! You're a bee-attracting central air conditioner! My back is almost broken, and I still have to deal with your ex-girlfriend! You owe me ten meals of pickled fish! No! Twenty!"
Lin Yan let me hammer him, the gentle smile on his lips deepened instead, with a barely perceptible indulgence in his eyes, thinking that I had finally come to my senses and realized I was jealous: "Well, it's my fault. Are you hungry? I'll take you to eat..."
"Hungry! I'm starving!" I immediately let go of him, clutching my growling stomach, a look of despair on my face. "From last night until now, I've been hanging on by a breath of spiritual energy! Hurry up! Pickled fish! Add spicy and numbing ingredients! Double the fish fillets!"
Lin Yan: "..." Okay, Bai was touched. In my goblin's brain, food always comes first.
The fourth brother, who hadn't walked far away, witnessed the whole thing, shook his head, and sighed to the air: "It's over, it's over. Brother Rui's ability to be spoiled and act like a spoiled brat has really been perfected by Boss Lin! I can't bear to watch it, so I'm running away."
To appease my frightened (and hungry) boyfriend (mostly my stomach), Lin Yan decisively took me to a highly-rated Sichuan restaurant in the city center. I pored over the boiling sauerkraut fish pot, my forehead sweating and lips swollen, my face a look of contentment and happiness, as if the previous incident had never happened. Lin Yan slowly and methodically removed the fish bones and placed the snow-white fish meat in my bowl. He casually said, "You're really careless. You're not even curious about what she said to me?"
I was busy struggling with a slippery piece of fish. Hearing this, I didn't even look up, my cheeks bulging with food, and mumbled, "Tsk, what else can I say? It's nothing but clichés like 'I regret it,' 'I was ignorant back then,' 'You're so nice, but I didn't cherish you.' It's all been played eight hundred times in TV dramas. There's no creativity." I swallowed the fish, took a sip of iced Coke, and burped with satisfaction. "Besides, what's the fuck does she say to me? I just have pickled fish to eat!"
Lin Yan couldn't help but chuckle at my carefree expression. Under the warm yellow light, his eyes behind his glasses were incredibly gentle, filled with an indescribable cherishment. He suddenly put down his chopsticks and, through the lingering heat, looked at me seriously: "Chen Rui."
"Huh?" I was picking up a piece of bean sprouts with chopsticks and looked up in confusion.
"Do you know that you are really precious?" Lin Yan's voice was very soft, but it was like a feather gently brushing across my heart.
My hand holding the bean sprouts paused, a look of shock on my face that said, "Are you okay?" "Precious? Me? A shadowy, crawling goblin? Boss Lin, is this filter of yours inlaid with 800 carats of diamonds? I'm thankful I'm not disliked by anyone, how can it be precious?"
Lin Yan ignored my self-mockery and just muttered to himself with a barely perceptible sour tone: "I'm taking good care of you now... your skin is whiter, your complexion is better, you look more pleasing to the eye... I feel like there's more and more attention on you." Thinking of those glances yesterday and Zhou Xiaowei's appearance today, the possessiveness in his heart began to take over again.
I rolled my eyes, stuffed the bean sprouts into my mouth, chewed them with a crunching sound, and mumbled, "Isn't that all because of you? Keeper Lin? Without your meticulous feeding and abnormal sun protection supervision, I might still be the Goblin Chief in some corner!" My tone was disdainful, but there was no impatience in my eyes.
Lin Yan looked at me with such openness and composure, and the bitterness in his heart was strangely smoothed out. He shook his head and said nothing more, but just picked up another large piece of fish and put it in my bowl: "Eat it quickly, it will get cold and fishy."
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