Chapter Sixty-One
The airport was teeming with people.
Tan Yuze, Lu Yi, Zhu Yu, and Bai Chuan, four men with very different styles, stood together like a beautiful sight. They were all waiting for one person—Li Ranyi, Tan Yuze's childhood sweetheart.
Tan Yuze didn't like her that much; he was mostly annoyed by her.
Xu Li stood beside Tan Yuze, her fingers lightly hooking his sleeve, her gaze calmly sweeping across the arrival gate. She knew Li Ranyi didn't like her, but she hadn't expected the other party to be so impatient.
"Yuze!" A sickeningly sweet voice rang out.
Li Ranyi, dragging her suitcase and wearing a white dress, smiled like a harmless jasmine flower. She rushed over and threw herself into Tan Yuze's arms, as if she hadn't seen Xu Li at all.
"I miss you so much," she said, looking up with teary eyes. "No matter how good it is abroad, it's not as good as you."
Tan Yuze frowned and distanced himself, but Li Ranyi refused to let go of him. He turned to look at Xu Li, a smile playing on his lips.
"Get up, are you spineless? If you want to die, then go die somewhere else." He pushed Li Ranyi away with almost disgust.
Li Ranyi's eyes were red. "Yuze, why are you saying that to me? I didn't do anything."
Turn your head.
"This is... Xu Li, right?" She looked him up and down, her tone surprised. "So Yuze likes this style. It's quite... unique."
Xu Li smiled but didn't reply.
Li Ranyi, however, seemed to have opened a floodgate of words. She took Tan Yuze's arm and spoke in a voice that was neither too loud nor too soft, just loud enough for those around to hear: "I've heard that some girls these days will do anything to get ahead. Yuze, you'd better be careful."
The air fell silent instantly.
Lu Yi raised an eyebrow, Zhu Yu looked down at his phone, and Bai Chuan burst out laughing.
Xu Li remained calm, took out her phone, and played a recording.
"...She's a prostitute. I saw through her a long time ago. She pretends to be innocent, but who knows how many men she's slept with behind the scenes..."
The recording features Li Ranyi's voice, which is crystal clear.
Li Ranyi's expression changed: "Where did you come from—"
"After working in this industry for so long, everyone seems like one of us. If you have good performance, you speak with confidence."
“Oh, I forgot to mention,” Xu Li smiled, “My friend just happened to record what you said at the bar earlier. Would you like to hear the full version? Including the part where you said, ‘Tan Yuze will be mine sooner or later, what is Xu Li anyway?’”
Li Ranyi's face turned pale, and she reached out to grab the phone.
Xu Li stepped aside, her tone gentle: "Don't rush, it's not over yet. Don't worry, I'll make sure you remember it forever."
She clicked on another video—it contained intimate photos of Li Ranyi with different men abroad, with a clear timeline, and even some of them were bed photos of her with married men.
“I didn’t want to release it,” Xu Li sighed, “but you forced me to.”
Tan Yuze's face darkened completely. He turned to her and said, "That's disgusting. You'd better think about how to explain this to your uncle and aunt."
The call was from her father, and she answered it.
"Damn it, what have you been doing all these years? How could you be so disgusting? Seduce married women! I don't have a daughter like you. You've made me lose all face. How am I supposed to go out and face people? Tell them my daughter seduced married women? Ugh, where am I supposed to hide my face? Just like your mother, you little bastard, you're both sluts."
The sound of her father smashing things echoed throughout the room. Her mother went to pull him away, but was kicked away. "You get the hell away from me too! If it weren't for you, would she be like this now?"
The call ended.
Her mother called again, saying, "You little slut, if it weren't for you, your father wouldn't have treated me like this. It's all because of you. If you hadn't messed around like this, would he have treated us like this? Do you still have the face to come back to this house? Do you still have the face to our ancestors?"
She didn't dare say a word and simply hung up the phone.
Li Ranyi panicked: "Yuze, let me explain, none of this is real, she photoshopped it—"
"Photoshopped?" Xu Li stepped forward and stood in front of Tan Yuze, chuckling. "Then explain why what you said at the bar last night matches the timeline of these photos perfectly?"
Lu Yi whistled: "Brilliant."
Bai Chuan clapped: "Xu Li, I would call this a game-winning move."
Zhu Yu put away his phone and casually added, "By the way, I also recorded what you said last night. High definition, lossless."
Li Ranyi finally broke down, crying as she tugged at Tan Yuze's sleeve: "I just love you too much..."
Tan Yuze took a step back, his tone as cold as ice: "You're too dirty."
He took Xu Li's hand and turned to leave.
Behind her, Li Ranyi's cries were drowned out by the noise of the airport.
Tan Yuze didn't turn around, but gently squeezed Xu Li's fingers and smiled, "Let's go home."
"Mm," she responded softly. "From now on, don't let her get close to you again."
"Don't worry," Tan Yuze smiled, "she has no chance."
The air pressure was a bit low in the car when I got back.
Xu Li sat leaning against the car door, arms crossed, not saying a word. The streetlights outside the window swept across her profile, illuminating her slightly pursed lips. Tan Yuze gripped the steering wheel, glancing at her three times out of the corner of his eye—she didn't look at him even once.
The car stopped at a red light. Tan Yuze unbuckled his seatbelt, turned to the side, and reached out to touch her fingertips, but she gently dodged him.
“Don’t be angry,” he whispered, “I’ve never even held her hand.”
Xu Li hummed in agreement, her tone as flat as plain water: "But when she hugged you, you didn't push her away."
Tan Yuze was speechless. He was indeed a beat slow, it was a habit—when Li Ranyi cried as a child, he would rush to her side, and he always gave in. But he hadn't expected that this slight delay would upset Xu Li.
The light turned green. Tan Yuze didn't step on the gas; instead, he activated the hazard lights and pulled the car over to the side of the road. Unbuckled his seatbelt, turned to her, and said solemnly, "I was wrong. Making you uncomfortable is my fault."
Xu Li looked up and met his gaze: "What I want is not an apology."
"I know." Tan Yuze reached out and firmly gripped her wrist this time, his palm warm against her pulse. "What I want to give you is a sense of security."
He leaned down and took a still-warm glass of strawberry milk from the back seat—she always drank this when she was jealous, and he had secretly bought it before leaving. He inserted the straw and held it to her lips: "Calm down first, then listen to my explanation, okay?"
Xu Li bit the straw, didn't say anything, but didn't try to dodge anymore.
Tan Yuze adjusted the seat back, pulled her onto his lap, and held her close in his arms.
His voice was low and slow: "I still have some connections with my parents regarding Li Ranyi, so I didn't confront them on the spot. But from today onwards, she will no longer appear in our lives—I have already asked Zhu Yu to pack up the recordings and photos and send them to her parents, and they will pick her up tomorrow morning."
He paused, his forehead pressed against hers: "In my life, Tan Yuze will only have one girlfriend. I feel disgusted if anyone else touches me. If you're unhappy, I won't even go to class reunions anymore—you're the only one in my eyes anyway."
Xu Li felt a little breathless from his embrace, but the sourness in her heart gradually melted away. She poked his chest: "Easy for you to say. What if I hadn't recorded anything today?"
Tan Yuze grabbed her finger and kissed it: "Then I'll check the surveillance footage myself. If I can't find it, I'll call the police and accuse her of defamation. Xu Li, you can always have confidence—because you're not fighting alone."
The streetlights outside the car window suddenly softened. Xu Li lowered her head, her voice muffled: "From now on, if you're within ten centimeters of me, you have to disinfect yourself first."
Tan Yuze laughed out loud, his chest heaving: "Okay, let's take a bath together when we get home, and I'll check you over from head to toe."
Xu Li's ears turned red, and she reached out to punch him. Tan Yuze grabbed her hand, their fingers intertwined, and he fastened his seatbelt again: "Sit tight, girlfriend. I'll coax you when we get home, coax you all night."
"Oh dear, I've been coaxing you all night." Lu Yi just keeps acting like a jerk.
"Aren't you tired of coaxing Brother Ye?" Bai Chuan teased him.
Tan Yuze laughed, "Get lost. Can't you see someone trying to coax their wife? You have no sense of propriety. Get lost."
The car rejoined the traffic, its taillights casting a warm line. Xu Li leaned back in the passenger seat, finishing her strawberry milk, letting out a barely audible mutter.
"Tan Yuze, if you dare to be even half a beat slower, I'll..."
"What will you do?"
"...I'll lock you to the headboard, and you're only allowed to look at me."
Tan Yuze smiled and agreed, gently pressing the accelerator as if he couldn't wait to take her home and fulfill his promise to "coax her all night."
Just as the car came to a stop in front of the apartment building, and Tan Yuze was about to lead Xu Li upstairs, three whistles suddenly rang out from the side.
Lu Yi leaned against a streetlamp, laughing nonchalantly: "Oh, all appeased? The three of us were worried we'd have to call 120 for emergency help."
Zhu Yu draped his coat over his shoulder and said in a nonchalant tone, "No first aid needed, but I bet a cup of hand-drip coffee that Xu Li will make you kneel again within ten minutes."
Bai Chuan shook the takeout bag, the four cans of ice-cold beer clinking inside: "I bet five minutes. The loser will pack up Li Ranyi's messy affairs and send them to her whole family tonight, along with the message 'Don't ever come back to China.'"
Xu Li's ears were still red, and upon hearing this, she deliberately put on a stern face: "You guys have a lot of free time?"
Lu Yi raised his hands in surrender: "I'm not free, I'm just afraid you'll cry from being annoyed by Lao Tan's slow reaction. After all, he didn't even learn 'you should give a girl candy when she cries' when he was a kid."
Zhu Yu added, "That's why I put strawberry milk in the car beforehand—Old Tan will reimburse me, double the amount."
Bai Chuan shoved a beer into Tan Yuze's arms: "Let's go upstairs. We'll wait downstairs for ten minutes. If Xu Li gets angry again, just open the window and throw an empty can out. We'll rush up and sing 'Conquer' for you right away."
Tan Yuze took the beer with one hand, while still holding Xu Li's fingertips with the other. His tone was lazy but confident: "In less than ten minutes, all she wants to hear now is me sing 'Lovely Woman'."
Xu Li, her thoughts exposed, pinched his palm: "Stop being so vain."
Lu Yi laughed so hard his shoulders shook: "Did you hear that? That's called romance. Let's call it a day, or we'll get our wages docked."
Before turning around, Zhu Yu suddenly turned back and said, "By the way, I backed up the surveillance footage. If Li Ranyi dares to cause trouble again, I'll send her straight to the top of the trending searches—the title will be 'The Returning Childhood Sweetheart's Car Crash Story'."
Bai Chuan winked at Xu Li: "Sister-in-law, if you want to teach someone a lesson next time, just say the word, and the three of us will be there anytime."
The three figures disappeared into the night, but the whistling still echoed.
Xu Li chuckled to herself, and Tan Yuze took the opportunity to pick her up and carry her up the steps: "Did you hear that? Your fan club is even crazier than mine."
She wrapped her arms around his neck, her voice softening: "Why don't you go a little crazier too?"
“I’ve gone mad.” He bit her earlobe. “So mad that I want to hide you in my pocket and not let anyone see you.”
The elevator doors closed with a "ding," and as the number jumped to "3," Xu Li suddenly remembered something and reached out to poke Tan Yuze's Adam's apple.
"Hey, those three brothers of yours... are they really keeping track of time downstairs?"
Tan Yuze chuckled, his chest vibrating so loudly it made her ears tingle: "They won't keep track of the time, but they must have set up a betting pool—betting on whether I'll be kicked out to sleep in the hallway tonight."
"So which side are you betting on?"
“I’ll bet myself.” He lowered his head, his nose brushing against her earlobe. “I’ll bet that I can make Xu Li’s heart soften so much that she won’t want to close the door.”
Xu Li scoffed, and as soon as the elevator doors opened, she stepped out first, standing with her hands behind her back at the door: "Mr. Tan, where are your bargaining chips?"
Tan Yuze took out his keys from his pocket, but instead of opening the door, he knelt down on one knee, pulled a can of beer from the bag he had just been holding, and snapped the tab open with his fingertips—a small cluster of pink, cold flames emerged from the edge of the aluminum can, like miniature fireworks.
“These are prank props that Bai Chuan gave me,” he looked up at her, “but I think they’d be great for proposing.”
Xu Li was stunned: "You—"
"Don't agree yet." He grasped her wrist and slipped the pull tab onto her ring finger. "I know the size is wrong. I'll take you to get a real one tomorrow. Tonight, we'll wear a fake one and let Lu Yi and the others lose everything."
The words had barely left his lips when the emergency exit door was pushed open a crack, and three voices rang out in unison—
Lu Yi: "Holy crap, a pull-tab proposal? Old Tan, you're incredibly stingy!"
Zhu Yu: "I recorded it, and when I edited it into a vlog, I titled it 'Plastic Love is Still Love'."
Bai Chuan: "Sister-in-law, don't agree! Make him kneel for at least three minutes!"
Xu Li chuckled, raised her hand and turned the pull ring halfway, just enough to catch her knuckles. She called out through the crack in the door, "Three minutes is too short, I request to be extended to a lifetime."
The next second, Tan Yuze actually knelt down on one knee, looked up and shouted, "Deal!"
The three people outside the door clapped in unison, and Lu Yi even whistled: "The betting is settled! I bet on 'Xu Li will laugh,' odds 1:5, Lao Tan, remember to transfer the money."
Tan Yuze didn't even turn his head: "Fine, turn your head then."
The door slammed shut, shutting out all the commotion. Xu Li leaned against the door, shaking the pull ring on her finger: "It's plastic, what if the color bleeds?"
"If it fades, just buy another bottle." He held the back of her neck and kissed the corner of her lips. "I'll keep wearing it until your ring finger is calloused and you can't take it off."
Outside the window, the night wind swept by, and downstairs, three people squatted in the green belt, looking up and counting the stars.
Bai Chuan: "The lights are on, it's stable."
Zhu Yu: "That's a wrap. Remember to send Li Ranyi a package tomorrow morning, with the same pull tab included."
Lu Yi laughed so hard his shoulders shook: "I've already thought of a title—'Plastic sisterhood, even metal is too dirty'."
"Tan Yuze, you're being horny again." Seeing him get closer, she said, "I won't let you kiss me. I have things to do tomorrow, so I'll hold back for now."
He listens to his wife very much.
They didn't do anything.
the next day.
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