Chapter 23
Chapter 23
A sudden clap of thunder exploded in the sky.
Huang Yuanrui shuddered.
At some point, the sky had turned overcast, and rain was now pouring down in sheets.
Huang Yuanrui fell silent for three seconds before speaking with a smile. “Oh, you mean my mom. My brain just glitched for a second; I was wondering which auntie you were talking about.”
Xixi said, “You scared the life out of me. I thought you’d actually forgotten about that…”
Huang Yuanrui replied, “Don’t be ridiculous. If I could forget something like that, I really would be possessed.”
“Then what was going on with you at the bar yesterday?” Xixi asked.
“I’ve been under too much psychological pressure lately. I needed to do something crazy to blow off some steam. I probably just had too much to drink last night and blacked out a bit, so I started acting like a local drunk.”
Xixi breathed a sigh of relief. “Sigh… as long as you’re okay.”
Huang Yuanrui said, “It wasn’t easy for you to come all this way to chase me down. Don’t leave tonight. I’ll take you out for something good to eat.”
Huang Yuanrui took Xixi to a seafood restaurant and ordered a table full of food. The two of them chatted as they ate.
Xixi said, “I still think you should come back with me. Men… they’re fine for a bit of fun, but do you really want to be with him long-term?”
“I have my own plans; I’m not just making choices passively,” Huang Yuanrui replied. “Out of all the options available, I chose him.”
“But why choose a married man?” Xixi asked. “There are so many great unmarried young men out there. Why are you turning a blind eye to them?”
“You’re my friend, so you see me through a filter,” Huang Yuanrui said. “You always think I deserve the best. But people nowadays are incredibly realistic. If you put me on the matchmaking market, I have no degree, no job, and no wealthy family background… Oh, I don’t even have parents.”
“Don’t say that,” Xixi urged.
“It’s the truth. My dad ran off, so I consider him gone. My mom is truly gone. What does someone like me have? A pretty face and a bunch of luxury goods to my name. I look impressive, but in reality, I’m just a layer of paper. One poke-pop-and I’m torn.”
Xixi argued, “Beauty itself is a great card to play! What rich man wouldn’t want a beautiful woman to improve the family’s genetics?”
Huang Yuanrui countered, “Medical aesthetics and plastic surgery are so common now, and people who know how to use makeup are everywhere. There are too many beautiful women; beauty is just the entry ticket. Rich people aren’t fools. What they want is the ‘upgraded version’-the educated beauty, the beauty with a respectable job, the high-EQ beauty, the beauty from a good family. That lane is already overcrowded. People like me can only take what they leave behind and become their husbands’ mistresses.”
“Is it really that complicated?” Xixi asked. “You don’t necessarily have to find a rich man. You could just find someone ordinary, like Nian Gao did. Have a simple romance, live a steady life together, find someone who treats you well… wouldn’t that be good?”
Huang Yuanrui sighed. “It’s hard to go from luxury to frugality. I’ve grown used to being waited on these past few years. If you want me to go back to supporting a boy while he struggles from scratch, helping him pay off a mortgage or even renting an apartment-maybe even carrying a vegetable basket to the market to buy groceries and cook… I couldn’t stand it.”
“But,” Xixi said, “from what I’ve heard, if a man hasn’t even thought about divorce within a year of having an affair, there’s an eighty percent chance he never will.”
“Where did you get such a ridiculous theory?” Huang Yuanrui asked.
“…Weibo.”
Huang Yuanrui: “…”
Xixi continued, “There are so many stories like that on Weibo! And there’s this true story from about twenty years ago. There was this man, also from the north, some kind of official, I think. He got involved with a young, beautiful waitress at a guesthouse. They were together for years, maybe over a decade-surely that’s deep enough feelings, right? The man bought her a car and a house and even arranged jobs for her whole family. Later, the waitress started pushing for marriage. The man couldn’t take it anymore, so he stuffed explosives into her car seat and blew her sky-high!”
Huang Yuanrui said, “Even if I gave Qin Song ten times the courage, he wouldn’t be capable of something like that.”
“Also, stop defining yourself and deciding you’re only one kind of person,” Xixi pleaded. “Our lives have all sorts of possibilities. You’re only in your twenties; you can choose any kind of life you want! You could find a job, sleep early and wake up early every day, exercise more, and get a few certifications to bolster your resume. We could live a positive, sunny, healthy new life…”
Huang Yuanrui laughed. “And then what? Someone will take an interest in my positive, sunny, healthy attitude and want to marry me? Those are all ‘software.’ Marriage still depends on the ‘hardware.’ I’ve thought about these issues countless times already. My final conclusion is always the same-I’m only suited for the shortcut of stealing someone else’s man. Qin Song and I have been breaking each other in for two years now; he’s very easy to use. I’ll stick with him.”
“I can’t talk any sense into you,” Xixi said. “So, what’s next?”
“What’s next… we’ll see,” Huang Yuanrui replied. “You go back to your normal life, and I’ll stay here and properly plan how to convince him to get a divorce. Wish me luck.”
“Then you have to keep in touch with me,” Xixi said. “The moment something feels wrong, we’re going back to our hometown immediately.”
“OK.”
That night, Huang Yuanrui sent a message to Qin Song telling him not to come over, as she was sleeping with Xixi.
After Xixi fell asleep, Huang Yuanrui went into the bathroom and sat on the toilet to smoke.
Regarding her mother… she remembered everything now.