Chapter 9

Ye Wanqing had thought she would suffer from insomnia, yet she slept through the night without dreams.

When she got up from the bed she discovered Ye Mingzhu curled up on the bed, pitifully clutching only a small corner of the quilt. Most of the quilt had slid onto the floor; she looked thoroughly frozen.

Ye Wanqing shook her head, picked up the quilt, and covered Ye Mingzhu with it.

Unexpectedly Ye Mingzhu suddenly opened her eyes. There was not the slightest trace of sleepiness in them. Instead, with a look of satisfied delight she hugged Ye Wanqing and acted coquettishly. “Sister, you’re so good to me!”

Ye Wanqing: “……Is this interesting to you?”

She straightened up and looked at Ye Mingzhu speechlessly.

Ye Mingzhu hugged the quilt and sat up, covering her mouth as she yawned. “I don’t care. You have to keep treating me this well in the future.”

“Depends on your performance.” Ye Wanqing lowered her eyes.

“Hehe.” Ye Mingzhu gave a shameless smile and rolled back onto the bed. “I’m going to sleep a little more.”

When Ye Wanqing came out of the room, Ye Xiangdang and Liu Lizhen were eating breakfast.

Besides what they were eating, there was still a bowl of untouched clear porridge on the table and a plate with two steaming buns. It looked like just enough for one person.

Ye Wanqing was a little unsure what this meant.

For her?

For Ye Mingzhu?

She was about to go wash up when Ye Xiangdang suddenly called out, “Hurry over and eat. The buns will get cold.”

“……No need. I’m in a rush to leave.” Ye Wanqing thought for a moment and still shook her head.

From the time she finished washing up until she left the house, the two of them did not speak to her again.

Only at the moment she closed the door did she clearly hear the dull sound of chopsticks being slapped onto the table. She could not help shaking her head again.

Not getting involved with the Ye family was the correct choice.

The moment Ye Wanqing left, Liu Lizhen could no longer hold it in.

“What is she acting like?! No matter how we are, we are still the parents who raised her to this age! Apart from this job inheritance and the Wang family’s marriage, when have we ever shortchanged her? I think she treats us completely like enemies!”

“It’s normal for her to have resentment in her heart. Think about what that younger brother of yours did. Is that something a person would do?”

Liu Lizhen’s face looked a little awkward. “Wasn’t it just to scare her a little? They wouldn’t actually bully her.”

“It went too far.”

Liu Lizhen thought for a moment and forced out a sentence: “What do you mean ‘my younger brother’? He’s also Ye Wanqing’s real maternal uncle! Even if she goes back and acknowledges Liu Lixiu as her mother, won’t she still have to meet this uncle during festivals and holidays?”

Ye Xiangdang shook his head. He looked down on Liu Guanghui.

With parents above him and three older sisters spoiling and shielding him, Liu Guanghui was simply a good-for-nothing who only knew a few petty thieving tricks and could not appear on the proper stage.

While Ye Xiangdang was thinking about these things, Liu Lizhen suddenly poked his elbow again. “Old Ye, do you think Wanqing’s stall really makes that much money? She used to hand over all her wages to the family. The income from the stall shouldn’t stay entirely in her own hands either, right? She’s young—she won’t be able to save it!”

“……” Ye Xiangdang was stunned for a moment. “I’m afraid she won’t agree anymore.”

“Even if she doesn’t agree she has to agree. We raised her for so many years; she should repay her parents. Besides, the reason she was able to rent that stall at the bus station was still because of our faces, wasn’t it? If she weren’t a family member of a station employee, that stall couldn’t have been rented!”

“Then you talk to her later.”

A calculating light flashed in Liu Lizhen’s eyes as she nodded firmly. “I do have to ask her.”

Ye Wanqing walked through the bus station as usual and discovered that quite a few station employees were discreetly pointing and commenting about her, making her feel uncomfortable both psychologically and physically.

But with the experience of her previous life she had already prepared herself mentally.

Yesterday Liu Lizhen had red-mouthed and white-toothed called her a thief. It was like pouring paint onto the ground. Pouring the paint took no effort, yet wanting to wash the paint clean would take who knew how much work, and traces would always remain.

Moreover, for most people the truth was sometimes not important. What they needed was fresh material that could serve as conversation topics after meals.

Ye Wanqing walked alone through the cold air. Only when she saw Ge Yuan’s tall, upright figure did her eyes light up.

“You’re here so early again.”

Ge Yuan stuffed the buns he was holding into her arms, then easily lifted everything else with one large hand. “You told me yesterday you wanted dried osmanthus and rock sugar. I got them for you.”

“Really?” Ye Wanqing’s almond eyes filled with pleasant surprise. She had not expected Ge Yuan to act so quickly.

Most of the ingredients for making sour plum drink, such as black dates and licorice, could be bought at the pharmacy, but the dried osmanthus and rock sugar that were needed were hard to find and hard to buy. She had been worrying about them.

Seeing her happy, Ge Yuan also gave a low laugh. “Really. You’ll be able to see them when you go back this evening.”

The matters she entrusted to him—of course he took them to heart.

“All right. Tonight I’ll make something delicious to reward you.”

Ge Yuan immediately nodded. “Then I’ll go get more ingredients. You can make whatever you want.”

“Okay.”

The two of them chatted for a few more sentences. When Ge Yuan saw other stall owners arriving he lowered his head, said something to Ye Wanqing, and hurriedly turned away.

Ye Wanqing simply assumed he had something to do and did not pay it much mind.

With the sour plum drink settled, Ye Wanqing had a sudden flash of inspiration in the morning and thought of another delicious and affordable food item that would sell well. Because of this matter her mood remained quite good the entire day.

In the morning Ye Wanqing was the first to arrive to set up the stall; in the evening she was the last to leave. After she finished packing everything up, Ge Yuan’s figure appeared punctually at the entrance of the waiting hall.

The two of them walked out of the waiting hall together. Unexpectedly they ran into Sun Guixiang who was hurriedly returning.

“Yo…… who is this? Seems like that one from last time?” Sun Guixiang took a step back. Her small eyes looked Ge Yuan up and down, clearly wearing an expression of watching a good show. “Are you two freely in love and deliberately hiding from us when you meet? This young man is tall and big—really not bad. It’s just that he looks…… tsk, which family in our station is he from?”

Ye Wanqing smiled openly and gracefully. “He’s not from the station. He’s a friend of mine. My strength is small, so he comes over to lend a hand.”

“Friend?” Sun Guixiang did not believe it. “You’re just too embarrassed to admit it, right? What friend would put in so much effort?”

“Since you know I’m embarrassed, Sister Sun, don’t tease anymore. If you dropped something, hurry and go look for it so it doesn’t get taken by someone else. My friend and I will leave first.”

Ye Wanqing neatly ended the topic, raised her eyes toward Ge Yuan, and saw that he had already strode forward several steps. She quickly chased after him.

Looking at the two successive retreating figures, Sun Guixiang “tsk-ed” and turned to walk inside.

Ge Yuan was tall with long legs. Even carrying things in both hands he still walked very fast.

Ye Wanqing had to jog for a while before catching up to him. “Why are you walking so urgently? That person has a loose tongue. Are you unhappy?”

“No.” Ge Yuan’s voice was a little muffled. “Afraid of affecting you.”

“What could you affect about me? You, just agree early to be my boyfriend. Then in the future I can introduce you to others openly and generously without having to insist on saying you’re a friend. Look, I said you were a friend and people still didn’t believe it.”

“You……”

“Oh, you’re going to say I’m not reserved again, right?” Ye Wanqing’s smile was bright. A pair of almond eyes as clean as an autumn lake, the smile like little ripples on the water surface.

“No…… I just feel that I’m not worthy of you.”

“About that……” Ye Wanqing nodded in agreement. “I also feel that you and I are a bit mismatched.”

Ge Yuan’s eyes widened abruptly as he looked at her, as if he had been struck by a heavy blow.

Ye Wanqing laughed secretly in her heart. She touched her own fair, tender cheeks and let her gaze circle around his face. “Look how clean and refreshing I am, and then look at you—you insist on keeping so much stubble. You don’t look like a good person at all. Tell me, when are you going to change your image?”

So it was this……

Ge Yuan’s shattered heart automatically glued itself back together. He wanted to touch his own beard again.

However, he still had to defend himself a little. “You clearly kissed me before—and you were the one who took the initiative.”

A kiss right on his chin—wasn’t that still quite nice?

Ye Wanqing: “Didn’t I also tell you that your beard is prickly?”

Ge Yuan lowered his eyes and glanced at her.

But she still kissed him.

Ye Wanqing understood that proud yet slightly bashful look in his eyes and helplessly rolled her eyes. “You think I particularly treasure your stubble and specially went up to kiss it, right? That’s really not it. I…… I just……”

I’m just short!

But this sentence Ye Wanqing did not want to say.

When the day came that she truly could no longer endure this block of wood’s stubble, tied him to the bed, and personally used tweezers to pluck it out, he would know her true feelings!

When they were almost at Ge Yuan’s small courtyard, Ye Wanqing saw a small pharmacy and wanted to buy some other ingredients for making the sour plum drink. Thinking that boiling the sour plum drink would still take time later, she told Ge Yuan to go home first, steam the rice, and also prepare the ingredients.

That way they could save time.

She came out of the pharmacy carrying several large packages of things and walked toward Ge Yuan’s house. Just as she was about to knock on the door she suddenly heard a burst of children’s playful laughter mixed with a little girl’s suppressed, weak crying.

Her heart tightened. Ye Wanqing quickly walked toward the source of the sound.

“My mom said your mom is a big slut and you’re a little slut. You’re a bastard your mom gave birth to with some other man……”

“From now on you’re not allowed to leave your house. Every time we see you we’ll beat you!”

“Her older brother is also a hooligan who specializes in bullying people! My dad said their whole family are not good people!”

“Beat her to death!”

“So shameful!”

“……”

Turning a corner around a house, Ye Wanqing saw several children pinching mud and small stones and throwing them at Ge Yue, who was curled up at the base of the wall, while laughing and cursing her.

Still at an innocent age, yet doing vicious things without realizing it.

Perhaps when they grew up and looked back they would still feel this was only children’s play, but who knew what kind of harm these insults and bullying would cause Ge Yue?

Thinking of Ge Yue’s later cold, withdrawn appearance, thinking of the scars of self-harm on her wrists one after another, Ye Wanqing only felt a sharp pain in her heart.

She was still so young!

“What are you doing?” Ye Wanqing rushed over, waved the children away with one hand, and protected the trembling Ge Yue.

The children were unwilling to let it go and still wanted to strike again. Ye Wanqing looked around and found no convenient tools, so she angrily grabbed one of the little troublemakers with her hand and “pa pa pa” spanked his bottom.

“Waa!” After only two or three hits the little troublemaker began to cry and make a fuss.

The other children were thoroughly frightened and scattered in a rush.

Hearing the child’s earth-shaking howling, the parents who had originally seemed as if their ears were deaf hurriedly pushed open their doors. They pointed at Ye Wanqing’s nose and immediately assumed the posture of starting a shouting match.