chapter 4

Xu Chen actually made me get out of the car while I was still nodding off.

He looked irritated and sped away, though he did remember to transfer a thousand yuan for my taxi fare. That soothed most of my anger.

I happily accepted the money and was about to unlock a shared bicycle when a Porsche shot past me. It braked a few yards ahead, then reversed.

The window came down. Shen Xiao was behind the wheel.

“What are you doing?”

“Going home?”

“Weren’t you in Xu Chen’s car?”

I improvised. “He said I talked too much and told me to find my own way home.”

“Oh.” Shen Xiao got out and opened the passenger door. “Get in.”

I had barely lowered half my backside onto the seat when he said, “The fare is two hundred.”

He grinned at my expression. “You’re my friend’s fiancée. We should keep things proper.”

I shot upright. What kind of robbery was this? I would rather ride a shared bike.

With a cheerful chime, someone unlocked the last bicycle nearby. My phone died at the same moment.

I gritted my teeth. “Twenty.”

His smile widened. “Deal.”

I had offered too much. He probably would have accepted ten.

When we arrived, I climbed out, but he stopped me with a strange warning.

“Su Ruan, marriage isn’t a game. Think carefully.”

He must have pitied me. Marrying someone who did not love me did sound tragic.

Unfortunately, Xu Chen was simply paying far too much.

I sighed with theatrical sorrow. “It doesn’t matter if he doesn’t love me. Marrying him will make me the happiest woman alive.”

The words nearly made me gag.

When I entered the house, Xu Chen was waiting on the sofa, phone in hand.

“Why couldn’t I reach you?”

“My phone died.”

“Shen Xiao brought you home?”

I nodded.

He gave a chilly laugh. “He certainly knows how to take advantage of an opening.”

Were these two not supposed to be brothers?

Xu Chen shoved a cake box toward me. “Stay away from Shen Xiao. He isn’t a good man either. Someone as foolish as you will get cheated down to the last bone.”

What was his problem?

I carried the cake into my bedroom. Where else could I find a life this good? No job, no nine-to-five schedule, two hundred thousand every month, and no interference in each other’s lives. In a year, I would receive another twenty million.

I did not even consider that money compensation for emotional distress. I did not love Xu Chen, so where was the distress?

Just thinking about it made me smile.

Over time, however, Xu Chen found more and more reasons to dislike me. He complained that I laughed too loudly in my dreams and woke him through the bedroom wall.

He was obviously looking for trouble, but for the sake of money, I endured.

Fortunately, he was usually busy. His company took up plenty of time, and his “girlfriend” took even more.

Yin Ranran and he had officially gotten together.

One morning, my phone died while I was in the bathroom. Xu Chen had fallen asleep in front of the television, so I borrowed his phone to watch videos. It had no password because he believed he had no secrets worth hiding from me.

The moment I opened the app, a message from Yin Ranran appeared.

“Chen, I know your marriage is fake, but it still makes me uncomfortable. Never mind. Look at our new matching profile pictures. Don’t they suit us?”