Chapter 64
Chapter 64
Lu Dong stared at Bai Xue in shock, feeling as if he had just heard something utterly ridiculous. “Xiao Xue, what are you talking about? You were clearly the one who hinted at it. With something like this, if you hadn’t given me the green light, who would dare make the first move? Lao Pei isn’t stupid. Do you really think he’ll believe you if you say that?”
“Bullshit!” Bai Xue snapped, furious. “Have you ever looked in a mirror? Me, hinting at you? You were the one with dirty thoughts, always finding excuses to get close to me. It was like that before, and it’s the same now. Don’t forget, I was the one who dumped you back then. You think I’d come looking for you? You really know how to flatter yourself!”
No matter how good-tempered Lu Dong was, he couldn’t take being cursed to his face like that. His expression turned livid with rage. He probably had never imagined that the lover who had been wrapped up in sweet intimacy with him just a few hours ago would turn around and attack him with such vicious words.
“You!” Lu Dong turned to glance at Su Jin, who had been silent beside him. He tried to grab her hand and explain, but Su Jin avoided him with a cold expression.
“Honey, don’t listen to her nonsense. She was the one who seduced me. I only fell for it because I wasn’t strong enough in the moment. I really didn’t start it. You have to believe me!”
Bai Xue was so angry she laughed. Thinking of how attentive Lu Dong had been every time he asked her out, then comparing that to the shameless sophistry on his face now, she suddenly wished she could slap herself twice. She had clearly experienced his sweet talk before getting married. The stupid part was that even after her marriage, she had still fallen for it again.
“I seduced you?” Bai Xue was so furious she no longer cared where they were. She stood up, threw away the napkin in her hand, pointed at Lu Dong, and cursed, “Why don’t you take a piss and look at your reflection? With that kidney-deficient face of yours, if it weren’t for the fact that the things you gave me were worth a bit of money, even one extra glance at you would hurt my eyes. Look at yourself. From your looks to your education, what part of you can compare to my Lao Pei? I must have been blind to fall for your tricks!”
“It was mutual. Why are you making it sound like I forced you?” Lu Dong knew that explaining in front of everyone now would never make Su Jin listen, so he might as well focus on dealing with Bai Xue. He couldn’t let her dump all the blame on him and then walk away clean. “Yes, I gave you things, but if you didn’t mean anything by it, you could have refused them. You accepted them, and you hinted that I should keep asking you out. Isn’t that the truth? It takes two to tango. If you hadn’t agreed, could I have dragged you out by force?”
“What a load of crap!” Seeing Lu Dong insist on dragging her down with him made Bai Xue so enraged she nearly lost control. “I meant your damn uncle! You were clearly the one who kept pestering me!”
Although the two of them went back and forth, saying nothing that Pei Yuming wanted to hear right now, the argument still revealed quite a bit of information.
There had to have been some trigger at the beginning. To Pei Yuming, even though Bai Xue had betrayed him, she was still ultimately one of his own. So he was more inclined to believe that Lu Dong had been the one to test the waters first under the pretext of giving her gifts. As for Bai Xue, she had been used to being pursued by men since she was young. Naturally, she would immediately pick up on that kind of attentive flattery. After enough back and forth, it was inevitable sparks would fly between them.
Besides, Pei Yuming glanced at Lu Dong’s jacket draped over the back of the chair. In the inner pocket was that phone, and inside it were an astonishing number of lovers. Could all of them really have been the ones who approached him first?
Clearly, Lu Dong was not telling the whole truth.
However, Pei Yuming did not join the argument again this time. He had already had his rage. Now, even though listening to the two of them push blame onto each other was grating, his heart remained fairly calm overall.
The complete opposite of him was Lu Dong. Bai Xue’s ruthless about-face had enraged him completely. Even his usual gentle, refined tone had changed, and every word out of his mouth was more vicious than the last. “Me, pestering you? You flatter yourself. Do you think you’re still some girl in the bloom of youth? You’re past your prime now. What makes you worth all that effort?”
“Bang!”
This time, Bai Xue answered him with a glass. Without the slightest warning, she raised her hand and hurled it at him. But she was so furious that her whole body was shaking, and, unsurprisingly, her aim went wide. The glass smashed straight into the wall.
Given Bai Xue’s explosive temper, however, simply throwing something was nowhere near enough to vent her anger. Seeing that the glass had missed him, she rounded the table and charged toward him, clearly intending to get physical.
She was seated in the deputy guest-of-honor seat. Pei Yuming was on her right, and her brother-in-law was on her left. Seeing her about to make a move, the two brothers each grabbed one of her arms from either side. Pei Yuming was the first to try to talk her down. “Hey, calm down first!”
Pei Yucheng, meanwhile, sounded suspiciously like he was taking sides. “Sister-in-law, just talk it out, okay? Getting physical is going too far!”
“I’m going too far?” Bai Xue stared at her brother-in-law in disbelief. “Whose side are you on, exactly?”
Pei Yucheng gave her an awkward grin and muttered under his breath, “You were in the wrong to begin with. No matter how you put it, you cheated on your husband. Take that anywhere and you still don’t have a leg to stand on.”
His words left Bai Xue somewhat guilty, but she quickly realized why he had that attitude. She immediately sneered, “Ah Cheng, don’t think I don’t know what you’re after. What, Lu Dong still hasn’t given you the twenty thousand yuan you asked him for a couple days ago, has he? What are you doing here pretending to be such a loyal brother? You make it sound like you’re speaking up for your big brother, but aren’t you really just sucking up to Lu? Whoever gives you money is your daddy, isn’t that right? You sure are making your big brother proud!”
“Hey, Sister-in-law, don’t make things up! When did I ever ask Dean Lu for money?”
Bai Xue shot Lu Dong a cold look and asked, “Lu, am I making things up?”
Lu Dong’s lips moved, but he did not directly admit it. He even seemed to be trying, to some extent, to defend Pei Yucheng. “Ah Cheng borrowed that money from me. He’ll pay it back later. It wasn’t like you said, as if he just asked me for it outright.”
“Heh.” Bai Xue had not expected the two of them to turn from enemies into allies at a time like this, and she found it absurdly laughable. She turned to Pei Yucheng and threatened, “Say it yourself. Was it asking or borrowing? Or do I have to expose every rotten thing you’ve done?”
Pei Yucheng swallowed nervously. After weighing money against brotherly loyalty, he ultimately did not dare make a sound.
Seeing his silence, Bai Xue took it as his firm decision to stand on Lu Dong’s side, and she immediately burst into abuse. “You ungrateful wretch! Men really are all the same, colluding filth!”
Then she turned and shouted at Pei Yuming, “You still don’t know, do you? Your wonderful little brother went behind your back and used my affair with Lu Dong to blackmail me for money. And he didn’t just ask me for money. He asked Lu Dong too. See that? This is your own brother. You raised him for so many years. Even a dog would know gratitude by now. In the end, all he sees is money. Where is there any place in his eyes for you, his big brother?”
Even though he had prepared himself in advance, hearing Bai Xue expose the matter so bluntly again, right here and now, still made Pei Yuming’s expression darken. He shot his younger brother a vicious glare, then avoided the main issue and asked, “If you needed money, why didn’t you come directly to me?”