Chapter 43: Does This Count as a Confession?

"Shut up!"

Yang Bingyu was already in a bad mood, and the truck driver’s incessant nagging only made her feel more agitated. After roaring at him, she frantically checked on Ye Xuan’s condition.

"Ye Xuan, Ye Xuan, are you okay? Are you hurt? Let me see."

Yang Bingyu inspected Ye Xuan’s body as she spoke. Discovering no obvious injuries, she finally let out a heavy sigh of relief.

"SOB... Ye Xuan, you really scared me to death! I thought... I thought..."

Still reeling from the shock, Yang Bingyu threw herself into Ye Xuan’s arms. Large teardrops soaked his clothes. Ye Xuan gently patted her back, smiling as he comforted her.

"Silly, how could anything happen to me? You’re all grown up now. Crying like this will only make people laugh at you."

Hearing Ye Xuan’s laughter, Yang Bingyu’s cheeks flushed red. Embarrassed and annoyed, she lightly pounded his chest a couple of times.

"You have the nerve to laugh! I’ll beat you up!"

Her fists hitting Ye Xuan didn’t hurt at all; it was like a kitten scratching him. Ye Xuan laughed even harder.

"My dear lady, how long do you plan to lie on me like this?"

Reminded by him, Yang Bingyu finally snapped back to reality. They were still lying on the side of the road! This time, her face turned genuinely beet red. A crowd of onlookers had gathered around them, giving the pair knowing, suggestive looks.

"God, this is mortifying!" she thought. Being watched by so many people, Yang Bingyu wished the ground would open up and swallow her whole.

"Hurry up and get up!"

Blushing furiously, she pulled Ye Xuan up from the ground, not daring to meet his eyes.

"Listen here, young lady, young man. It’s normal for couples to fight, but you need to pay attention to your surroundings. Arguing on the main road is incredibly dangerous. You nearly scared the life out of me just now!"

Seeing that the two of them were truly unharmed, the truck driver’s heart finally settled back into his chest, and he couldn’t help but start nagging again. Already feeling shy, Yang Bingyu’s ears turned completely red at his words.

"G-got it. We’ll be careful from now on."

She stammered out a reply, then grabbed Ye Xuan and quickly ran away. If she stayed there any longer, she really would die of embarrassment.

"What are you running for?" Ye Xuan asked, his eyes full of amusement as he looked at the panting Yang Bingyu.

"Y-y-you’re not allowed to laugh!"

For some reason, looking at Ye Xuan’s faint smile actually made Yang Bingyu’s heart race. She hurriedly looked away, not daring to make eye contact.

"What’s wrong? Still mad at me? I really wasn’t defending Lin Aoxue; I was just stating the facts. Even though the public opinion favors the Lin Family, Lin Aoxue herself is also a victim in this.

"She has always been proud and aloof. Even if she really had some grievance against us, she wouldn’t resort to such despicable methods. Bingyu, just stop targeting her."

The thick-skulled Ye Xuan didn’t notice Yang Bingyu’s unusual reaction at all. Seeing her turn her head away, he thought she was still angry and hurriedly explained himself.

Yang Bingyu felt a knot of anger in her chest. This man was completely clueless when it came to romance, and he just had to bring up the one thing she didn’t want to hear. She had been about to forget all about the Lin Aoxue situation, but he just had to dig it back up again.

Proud and aloof? He made it sound like he knew her so well! Besides, who was she targeting Lin Aoxue for? Wasn’t it to stand up for him? And now, it had somehow become her fault.

The more Yang Bingyu thought about it, the angrier she got. She turned her head and yelled at Ye Xuan.

"I swear, you’re going to be the death of me! If your heart aches so much for Lin Aoxue, then go back to her! Why are you still following me? Why did you even save me just now? You should have just let the truck run me over and d—MMPH..."

Before she could finish the word "die", Ye Xuan covered Yang Bingyu’s mouth with his hand. She blinked her large eyes at Ye Xuan, her face full of confusion.

"You are not allowed to say such things. I am staying by your side as your bodyguard to keep you safe. You are very important to me. Even if I have to die, I will never let you die."

Ye Xuan looked at Yang Bingyu with a solemn expression, his tone more serious than ever before. That single phrase—"You are very important to me"—made Yang Bingyu’s heart flutter wildly once again. She felt like her heart was going to leap out of her chest.

"What is this? A confession?" she wondered. "This is way too sudden. I’m not mentally prepared for this at all."

Dumbfounded, Yang Bingyu nodded to show she understood. Seeing her so obedient, Ye Xuan assumed she had grasped his meaning and lowered his hand. However, he was completely unaware that Yang Bingyu had entirely misinterpreted his words.

Ye Xuan’s original intention was to convey that Yang Bingyu was White Tiger’s only living relative in this world. Before he passed away, he had urged Ye Xuan to find his sister no matter what. Therefore, he would take the deceased White Tiger’s place and keep Yang Bingyu safe. Her identity was very important to him because of the promise he had made to White Tiger.

Before long, the incident of Yang Bingyu causing a scene at Lin Aoxue’s company hit the trending searches once again.

Yang Zhennan was infuriated reading the news, which painted his precious granddaughter as a willful, unreasonable, and uneducated shrew.

"What is the meaning of this? Didn’t I tell you to suppress the news? You bunch of useless trash!"

Yang Zhennan slammed the newspaper onto his office desk, roaring in fury at the group of employees gathered before him. His subordinates stood trembling to the side, too frightened to speak.

This couldn’t be blamed on them! After the eldest miss had caused a scene at Lin Aoxue’s company yesterday, they had indeed notified all the major media outlets. They had warned them that anyone who dared to write nonsense would be making an enemy of the Yang Family. And those media outlets had promised not to fabricate any more stories.

But someone had made a post online, exposing the entire incident. At the same time, they had hired internet ghostwriters to flood the comment sections with malicious remarks. The matter instantly skyrocketed up the trending charts and spread like wildfire across the internet. By the time the company’s PR team discovered it, the situation had already spiraled completely out of control.

"President Yang, I believe someone must be pulling strings behind the scenes. Their goal is clearly to ruin the eldest miss’s reputation and damage our company’s prestige," Yang Zhennan’s secretary said with an indignant expression.

"Do I need you to tell me that? If you know someone is doing this on purpose, then hurry up and investigate! I want to see who has the sheer audacity to orchestrate public opinion against the Yang Family!"

Yang Zhennan was no fool; how could he not know that someone was intentionally plotting in the shadows? But this public opinion storm had been raging for nearly half a month, and his subordinates had yet to uncover a single clue. They were simply a bunch of useless trash!