The pretty girl who plays with people's feelings is going to be severely punished.

Yu Lian stayed at the Lu family home for the entire weekend.

This week, Lu Zehui went on a business trip to another province, and Yu Sihui went with him, leaving only Lu Jiefei and Yu Lian at home. Yu Lian had originally gone back to her father's place because she knew she would be living alone with Lu Jiefei and was afraid of feeling awkward, but she ended up being lured back by Lu Jiefei with a game console.

Humans have this inherent flaw: they lose interest once they get something. She hasn't touched the game console at all these past two days; she's been spending all her time with the Sagittarius guy.

The Sagittarius man scanned the QR code and logged into the account the day after he agreed to tag Yu Lian. Without Yu Lian having to ask, he automatically turned on screen sharing and streamed live for her, as if he had been instructed by someone before.

Yu Lian was impatient watching others play games, so she pretended to watch but actually kept the game running in the background while playing her own.

Her microphone was always off during screen sharing; she only turned it on to chat briefly when the Sagittarius man initiated the conversation. Even then, it was clearly just perfunctory talk, with only "uh-huhs" and "yeahs," completely unaware that others could tell she was lying. She seemed to think she was a great actress and knew how to manipulate men.

"I refused when that jungler invited you to play ranked last time, because I haven't finished my peak ranking yet." He spoke quickly and unclearly, the content of his words slipping through Yu Lian's smooth cerebral cortex.

"Huh? Oh, then refuse." Yu Lian was replying to Pei Shaoyuan's WeChat message and answered casually, not even hearing what he was saying.

She doesn't admit to being single-minded; it's just that Pei Shaoyuan is too difficult to deal with. These past two days, he's stopped acting and inexplicably asks her personal questions like what school she attends, what her major is, and when she's going back to school. Yu Lian tries to brush him off with one answer, but there's always another one to come.

After she finished speaking, the archer seemed to be in a good mood and chuckled, but she didn't quite hear it.



Lu Jiefei is very busy. Every day, he has to rush to school after making breakfast for Yu Lian. Considering that Yu Lian can't stay up too late, he will make all the breakfasts and put them on the table before 5:30.

After Yu Lian finished breakfast, she took a nap. When she woke up, Lu Jiefei came back from school to cook dinner, showing even more care than Yu Lian's parents.

On the phone, Yu Sihui jokingly teased Yu Lian, saying that the biological brother she wanted might not be able to take such good care of her.

The awkwardness that was expected when a man and a woman were alone in a room did not occur at all. Instead, Yu Lian was fed well, and her attitude towards Lu Jiefei improved a lot, like a little animal that will not bite once it has been fed enough.

Lu Jiefei taught herself to cook; it wasn't really a hobby, but purely a survival skill.

His mother divorced and left when he was very young. Lu Zehui worked hard to start his business, while Lu Jiefei stayed at home, eating only bread and milk every day. For a long time, he didn't even have a hot meal.

While children of the same age crave the toys and snacks shown on TV, Lu Jiefei craves warm food.

As he grew older, that longing naturally faded as he cooked more often. With his studies getting busier, he started to just eat whatever was available and spent more time in the lab than in the kitchen.

Until Yu Lian came to the house.

He still remembered the expression on Yu Lian's face when she first ate his cooking. Her eyes were round and bright, and her voice was much softer than usual, a tone he had never heard before. She only said, "You can actually cook," as if she had placed all the praise in the world on him.

Lu Jiefei lowered his head, unable to taste the food as he ate it. The tingling sensation of being energized spread from his chest to his fingertips.

For a moment, I wondered if everything I experienced as a child was just so he could hear such a sentence.

Long-forgotten desires are beginning to stir again.

  



Yu Lian returned to school on Sunday afternoon. She had only gone to sleep at six in the morning and woke up at four-thirty in the afternoon.

The phone had only 10% battery left, and the screen displayed a call screen that had lasted for more than an hour. Even when Yu Lian opened her eyes, the call countdown was still ticking.

A very familiar string of numbers.

+852 6***8888.

Yu Lian opened her mouth, her voice hoarse from not having drunk water for a long time.

"Jian Xingyu?"

There was silence on the other end of the phone. Yu Lian thought he wasn't listening and was about to hang up when he spoke.

Most people on Hong Kong Island speak Cantonese and have an accent when they speak Mandarin, but his Mandarin is very standard. His voice is as gentle as water, with a slight breathiness, and has a faint sense of melancholy and brokenness.

His voice was a little hoarse than usual.

"woke up?"

"Who did you talk to on the phone last night? You're so tired."

"Doesn't he let you sleep?"

Yu Lian curled her lips slightly, not liking his sarcastic tone: "What's it to you? We've already broken up."

Her tone was soft and coquettish, almost like she was pleading. If you weren't really familiar with her, or if you didn't pay too much attention to the content of her words, you might have been coaxed into it again.

"...What does this have to do with me?"

Jian Xingyu slowly exhaled, and even chuckled, suppressing his emotions, every word trembling.

"Yijia came to break up the relationship with me first, why did you hang up too late?"

Yu Lian didn't understand, so she frowned and quickly turned the volume down two notches.

There was a few seconds of silence on the other end. The voice stopped trembling and began to utter some things that were difficult for normal people to understand, as if he were having a fit.

A chill seeped out little by little from between the words.

"Why don't you say it when you call me husband, why don't you say it when you call me * on the phone, why don't you say it has nothing to do with me when you see me *? You've ruined me, I have nothing left, absolutely nothing, and you're still pretending it has nothing to do with me."

"Yeah, we broke up. We broke up. You were saying that even before we broke up, weren't you?... Was breaking up your weapon against me?"

"I know perfectly well that I'll hear it."

It ended abruptly. The unfinished words seemed more like an attempt to expose his wounds and elicit pity. He didn't want her pity.

"Yu Lian".

I wish I could kill you.

Upon hearing the last sentence, Yu Lian felt a chill run down her spine, and her breathing became weak.

Actually, she didn't quite understand what Jian Xingyu was breaking down about. He'd just made some money, and when his lust got the better of him, he'd asked him to film some custom-made videos, but he made it sound like his life was ruined. She only said such abstract things as "everything is gone" when she was joking.

But he didn't seem to be joking.

Having seen news reports about crimes of passion before, I thought I had really encountered a mentally ill person. I was so scared that my fingertips went cold, and I opened my mouth to say a few words to comfort him against my will.

Suddenly I heard a very soft sob.

"...Am I being shameless?"

"Baby, what should I do? Tell me, teach me... just let me die in your hands."

Jian Xingyu's eyes were very red, but not a single tear came out. Facing the screen, he made a performance-like sound of breaking down and sobbing. The frequency of each word was almost perfect, and it was transmitted to the other side of the microphone in a real and clear way.

No matter what it is, even pity, he can't really lose everything.

The buzzing alarm bells in Yu Lian's mind stopped, and she breathed a shameful sigh of relief. Across from her was still the familiar Jian Xingyu.

He had begged Yu Lian not to speak, but now that Yu Lian had actually stopped talking, he seemed to panic again.

"Baby, are you still listening...? Please answer me, okay?"

"Just one sentence..."

"But please don't mention breaking up, I really... can't take it anymore."

The last four words were so soft they were barely audible.

Yu Lian touched the hot back of her phone with her fingertips, slowly pulled over the charging cable and plugged it in, avoiding any discussion of Jian Xingyu's feelings.

She's really not very good at handling other people's emotions.

"Did you call me?"

"No." Her voice had a calming effect, and Jian Xingyu forced a relaxed tone. "...It was you who called me. Did you forget to turn off your phone again?"

He seemed very familiar with Yu Lian's habits, after all, Yu Lian really did do this kind of thing often. She would play on her phone until her eyes were too tired to keep open, then casually toss the phone onto her pillow and fall asleep, often leaving a bunch of gibberish text popping up in the chat window where her cheeks were sticking out.

When they were deeply in love, Jian Xingyu would receive a message that was clearly a mistake, yet he would still reply to it very seriously.

Yu Lian: ndxhejsbb

He: Okay, bb

Yu Lian: [Various cute emojis flooding the screen]

He: Why haven't I received a few? Explain it to me when you wake up.

When they were talking, he used simplified Chinese input method so that Yu Lian could read it easily, but after they broke up, he immediately switched back to traditional Chinese.

Yu Lian belatedly realized that she had been retaliated against, and it was by switching the font.

"Why did you answer my call?" Yu Lian was in a bad mood. "Phone bills are so expensive, top them up for me later."

"I'll top it up for you." Jian Xingyu agreed as expected, his voice so soft it was almost like he was coaxing her. He was taken aback by her matter-of-fact attitude and tentatively asked, "The day before yesterday, what about the husband you mentioned in the text message…"

Unexpectedly, he still remembered this. Without even thinking, Yu Lian tossed her phone onto the pillow to change her clothes and mumbled, "Oh, um, it's true."

I'm in a relationship.

There was silence on the other end of the phone.

Yu Lian reached into the closet and rummaged around, glancing at her phone, which was still connected. She casually asked, "What should I wear today?"

Their tone was so natural, as if they were still dating.

Even though she said such hurtful things, her voice was still damn sweet.

Her voice was so sweet, yet her words sounded as vicious as if she wanted to torture someone to death.

It's true, it's so vicious.

Why can they completely disregard and not care?

Jian Xingyu gripped his phone tightly. It wasn't in a case, and the metal edge of the phone left deep marks on his palm. He tried to suppress the throbbing pain in his heart with the pain, but it hurt everywhere.

The pain is unbearable.

He took a deep breath; the air he inhaled was cold, and his teeth ached.

"Wear black."

"Like a widow."

Yu Lian paused, "My husband is still alive?"

"Didn't one die already? Me."

Jian Xingyu's tone turned somber and sinister.

"Your current one won't last much longer either."