Chapter 1
“You know, if a cruise ship suddenly starts giving out free ice cream, don’t get too happy too fast.”
“Because that means someone on the ship just died.”
“They need to clear space in the freezer for the body.”
“If they’re already using the dessert freezer, it means way more people are dead than you think.”
The moment we got on board, Guo Bin started telling me this bit of morbid trivia he’d just seen online.
I rolled my eyes. “Dude, this is an ultra‑luxury cruise. All the food is free. The ice cream is all‑you‑can‑eat.”
Guo Bin is my boyfriend in the flesh.
He’s a brainless college guy, a sports major, with nothing going for him except his muscles.
He’s hot‑tempered and impulsive, and he loves blurting out the most inappropriate things.
This ultra‑luxury cruise trip lasts thirty‑three days and crosses several countries.
There are only thirty luxury suites on board, so the ship can take at most a hundred passengers.
Each ticket costs sixty thousand US dollars-an astronomical figure.
For the entire month‑long voyage, all food and entertainment are free.
Five‑star dining and amenities don’t come cheap.
Guo Bin can’t afford this kind of money, and I definitely don’t have that kind of vacation budget.
The money came from my other boyfriend, Xu Jiacheng.
Xu Jiacheng is my boyfriend in spirit. He gives me anything I ask for.
Right after I started dating him, he offered to give me two hundred thousand a month.
Don’t get the wrong idea. He’s not some old guy, and this isn’t him “keeping” me.
He’s a rich, never‑married older guy. Seems like he went through some kind of childhood trauma, so he’s been single all this time.
He said it wasn’t until he met me that he understood what true love really is.
He said I healed his emotional wounds, and that this money is what I deserve.
He’s in his thirties and looks decent enough.
So at first, I really didn’t feel at ease taking that money.
It’s like someone suddenly wants to hand you a few million with no strings attached.
You’d be thinking, How about you slap me a few times so I can at least feel like I earned it.
But after dating Xu Jiacheng for more than two years, I realized that money really is something I deserve.
He couldn’t perform.
At the beginning, I thought he just wanted a pure, chaste romance with me-which, fine, I could accept.
But a year went by, with the money showing up in my account on time every month, and I started to feel like I ought to give something back.
So one time when he took me on vacation, I changed into some really sexy lingerie, ready to do what men all love to do.
He turned me down.
When I asked him why, he hemmed and hawed and couldn’t give me a straight answer.
I glanced down at his lower half. It was big.