Lu Jinbei seemed not to care, and his gaze lowered as he continued staring at his phone and sucking on his lollipop. He said, “How does her character matter? In any case, after we marry… we can both continue playing around!”
“Atrocious!” Lu Jinnan’s father couldn’t suppress his rage, clenching his teeth tightly. “Then you might as well not get married! You should just spite me to death! You can get married to anyone, but this girl… no way! Absolutely no way! A lousy character… is taboo!”
Lu Jinbei shifted his gaze away from his phone and looked up. “Weren’t you pretty happy when you tried on the clothes she bought you just now?”
“If she’s my future daughter-in-law, I’m happy. To me, she’ll be my future caring darling. But if there’s a problem with this person’s character, I’d rather die than accept such a daughter-in-law!” Lu Jinnan’s father said fiercely.
In the kitchen, Cai Jingyao stood very close to Lu Jinnan, the perfume on her body floating towards him indistinctly. This was Bai Xiaonian’s favorite scent!
But after she got pregnant, she had stopped using perfume, afraid it would have adverse effects on the child.
Clearly, Lu Jinnan liked this scent very much previously. But today, that same scent choked up his senses…
“Miss Cai, you’d better get out! The kitchen is small, and it’s a hindrance to have an extra person around!” Lu Jinnan sounded cold.
He had spoken harshly, so if the girl had so much as a tiny bit of pride, she would have gotten out of the kitchen. But Cai Jingyao remained standing by his side, a smile on her lips, looking as if she couldn’t understand what Lu Jinnan was saying. She said to him, “Brother Jinnan, you seem to have an opinion of me…”
“We’re not family yet. Miss Cai, you may simply address me as Mr. Lu or Lu Jinnan.”
Lu Jinnan was quick to keep a distance from Cai Jingyao.
Cai Jingyao smiled as she stood next to Lu Jinnan with a plate in her hands, waiting for Lu Jinnan to be done cooking. She said, “Bai Xiaonian probably spoke badly of me in front of you, right, Brother Jinnan? Such as… how many boyfriends I snatched from other people back then. Such as how she treated me as her best friend, but I slept with her boyfriend. Right?”
Lu Jinnan narrowed his eyes and glanced sideways at Cai Jingyao, waiting to hear what she had to say.
Cai Jingyao handed the plate to Lu Jinnan, unflustered. She said with a smile, “Brother Jinnan, you’re Bai Xiaonian’s husband, and you love her so much. It’s naturally right for you to believe her. But I have my own grievance too. I don’t wish for others to misunderstand me…”
Seeing that Lu Jinnan wasn’t taking the plate from her, Cai Jingyao set the porcelain plate next to the stove and said with a smile, “I used to regard Xiaonian as my best friend, the bestest kind! Xiaonian and I had known each other for a longer time than Xiaonian knew Lin Nuan. Same for Song Yao. But Song Yao wasn’t as important as Xiaonian to me. In my heart, Song Yao could only be ranked number two…”
Lu Jinnan picked up another plate and plated the food, then tossed the plate Cai Jingyao touched into the basin. He drew two kitchen towels and wiped his hands.
Cai Jingyao didn’t seem to mind at all. Standing beside the basin, she washed the plate Lu Jinnan tossed in and slowly wiped it dry with a kitchen towel.
“But after the incident happened, Song Yao continued to stay in touch with me behind Bai Xiaonian’s back. Brother Jinnan… do you think it’s because my character is unsound?” Cai Jingyao smiled bitterly at Lu Jinnan. “Song Yao’s such a clever person. If I had deliberately fooled around with Lu Jinbei to upset Bai Xiaonian, would she have stayed in touch with me?”
“Excuse me…” Lu Jinnan ignored Cai Jingyao and took the oil bottle from the condiments rack, pouring oil into the wok.
While waiting for the oil to heat up, Cai Jingyao refused to give up, continuing to tell Lu Jinnan her sob story…
“I know… you will say that, back then, I was the one who exposed my recording with Song Yao, right?” Cai Jingyao’s expression was sorrowful. “If I say it wasn’t me, perhaps no one would believe it. But the one who released the recording to the public was Cen Mo! Back then, it was also Cen Mo who found me. He wanted to make use of me to make Song Yao jealous, to make Song Yao become aware of her own feelings and thus get together with him!”
Seeing Lu Jinnan focus on cooking and not planning to respond to her, Cai Jingyao handed the bowl with the scallions to Lu Jinnan.
“Later, Cen Mo released the voice recording. But he made preparations in advance so that he could step out to help Song Yao after the matter blew up. He did that so that Song Yao would be devoted to him! I was the scapegoat! After all… in school, my reputation already stank after I got tangled up with Lu Jinbei. If he said that it was me… Song Yao would surely believe it!”
Lu Jinnan pretended not to hear Cai Jingyao’s choked voice, so it was as if Cai Jingyao was doing a solo act on her own. Furthermore, she seemed really engrossed in the act, looking all sad and everything…
“But when I got tangled up with Lu Jinbei back then, it was because I saw Lu Jinbei hooking up with other girls. I told Xiaonian, but she refused to believe me, and I didn’t have evidence!” Cai Jingyao said in a choked voice, then continued, “I know how much Xiaonian loved Lu Jinbei. He was a part of the future she dreamed of. She had planned on marrying Lu Jinbei after graduating. She said she was going to bear a boy and a girl for Lu Jinbei. The girl’s name would be Lu Diai, whereas the boy’s name would be Lu Weiyi. When you combine the names together, it sounds like ‘only love’!”
Lu Jinnan narrowed his eyes. Sowing discord?
Cai Jingyao lowered her gaze. “No matter how I urged her, it was futile. Later, I found out that Bai Xiaonian had, under Lu Jinbei’s aggressive tactics… decided to give her virginity to Lu Jinbei, and I panicked! I told Bai Xiaonian that I saw Lu Jinbei kissing another girl, but she would rather believe him over me!”
As Bai Xiaonian’s husband, Cai Jingyao didn’t believe that Lu Jinnan didn’t mind something like this at least a bit!
Moreover, Cai Jingyao indeed wasn’t lying about this matter. She did tell Bai Xiaonian something like this, but Bai Xiaonian had responded this way…
Bai Xiaonian said she would surely follow in her mother’s footsteps in the future. She knew that the path ahead would be as dangerous as the path her mother had taken… perhaps even more so in the current day and age!
Hence, she would marry Lu Jinbei as soon as possible after graduation, then give birth to a boy and a girl. The girl’s name would be Lu Diai, whereas the boy’s name would be Lu Weiyi, and when one combined the names together, it would sound like ‘only love’… Her work was her only love!
She wanted to give birth as early as possible, and she also wanted two children, because she hoped that if something were to happen to her, Lu Jinbei’s family could take a child, whilst the other child could be raised by her father. This way, her father wouldn’t be sad and lonely after she died, nor would he give up hopes of living because she was gone.
Although she hoped nothing would happen to her, she had to plan for the worst. If something were to happen to her, she hoped to use her child to give her father hopes to continue living…