NOVEL NEXT
Chapter 29
"Are you...still single?" Meng Xulin asked hoarsely after a long silence.
Yu Shu pushed the glass vase on the table - what a stupid question, wasn't it obvious enough!
"I asked you the same question before," Meng Xulin lowered his eyes with a faint smile, "and you told me back then, 'I'm not alone, or have I become a dog?'"
It was the first New Year's Eve after their breakup, and every year before that, they had spent it together, counting down to the arrival of the new year hand in hand, hugging and kissing.
The last second of the previous year and the first second of the new year, they were together.
"At that time I was drinking water, and when I saw your message I sprayed it everywhere, coughing for a long time and scaring my roommate." Meng Xulin was still talking to himself, "I just... missed you too much, I just wanted to know if you were okay."
"You actually..." Yu Shu mimicked his tone, "just didn't find anyone more suitable."
Yu Shu leaned back in the wicker chair, adjusting to a more comfortable position, her expression mocking: "In fact, you saw me that day, didn't you? But you pretended not to see me and went to celebrate Lanfangyu's birthday instead. Didn't get the girl on New Year's Eve, so we broke up, or were you trying to play both sides?"
"Yu Shu! Is that what you think of me?!"
"What else?" She was unmoved.
The eagerness and greed in Meng Xulin's eyes yesterday when he realized the bag Lin Fangyu gave him was genuine, not a high quality replica - she saw it all clearly.
Meng Xulin hurriedly said goodbye and fled in panic.
Yu Shu used to have expectations for Meng Xulin, after all he was the one she fell in love with during the most beautiful years. After returning to school, she even dreamed that Meng Xulin would stop her under her dorm building on her way to class, telling her that he still loved her and wanted to be with her.
Her thinking was extremely rational, but emotions had inertia - even slamming on the brakes, it wouldn't stop immediately.
It took her two months to get rid of their mementos one by one, emptying a wardrobe in her dorm, and also emptying her feelings.
The first year she didn't spend New Year's with Meng Xulin, she realized the school organized a New Year's garden party every year. Talent shows, lantern riddles, food making, cosplay, haunted house experiences... endless variety, couldn't finish touring in one night. The school cafeteria even roasted 5 whole lambs as a must-snatch experience every year...
When Yu Shu received Meng Xulin's message, she was regretting not snatching a whole roasted lamb voucher, so she replied somewhat resentfully.
It was then that she clearly realized her heart would no longer stir because of Meng Xulin.
Ye Ping walked into the room with an ugly look on her face. Without waiting for her to speak, Yu Shu took the initiative: "This won't work, next."
Ye Ping: "What next?"
"Tsk, going through so much trouble to set up a matchmaking corner at home, and you only line up one? You gotta get me 180 a day, at least."
"Stop being sarcastic! I'm doing this for your own good, you..."
"I'm going out if there isn't another one."
Ye Ping grabbed her: "Stay right there! Where are you going?!"
"To get rid of bugs." Yu Shu shook off her hand, "I really don't understand, none of the men in your life were ever reliable, yet you still have expectations for men."
"Your dad wasn't..."
"I don't want to hear it."
Yu Shu changed into an all-black down coat and hand-knitted wool shoes, loosely tying up her hair as she headed out the door with a bag of melon seeds towards the gossip pavilion in the square.
There was an octagonal pavilion in the corner of the square, originally for people to rest, but it gradually attracted groups of middle-aged and elderly women with children, and eventually became the famous "gossip pavilion" of the whole county.
The best first-hand gossip in the county could all be found here.
"Haven't seen you here before, girl."
Yu Shu generously shared her roasted melon seeds with several aunties: "I just got married here, my husband brought me back for New Year's."
The auntie smiled, eyes curving: "No wonder. Which part of town do you live in?"
"That small complex right across the square."
"Oh, do you know the family on the top floor of Building 3?" The auntie lowered her voice mysteriously.
"Is it the one who bought the penthouse?"
"Penthouse? What penthouse, I don't understand. Anyway their home is the most expensive in the complex. Over a million, enough to buy 3-4 normal apartments. Aiya, real spendthrifts."
Yu Shu quickly steered the conversation back: "What about that family?"
"The money that family has, it was all earned by the daughter."
"That capable huh?" Yu Shu sounded surprised.
The auntie sneered disdainfully: "Capable my a**. That young girl, just out of college for a couple years, how could she afford both a car and an apartment?"
Another auntie cut in: "It's from doing that!"
The aunties exchanged knowing looks and laughed.
Yu Shu: "Doing what?"
"That, uh... aiya, silly girl, that is, the hair salon street by the north bus station, selling, you know."
"It's just being a prostitute, why beat around the bush. "
"Not everyone is as uncouth as you, speaking daintily as a young lady but becoming a foul-mouthed shrew after getting married, even more shameless with age."
"You and your self-righteousness. Last time when you were cursing on the street..."
Yu Shu placated them for a bit, prompting the aunties to say even more.
In summary, the Zhou family's moral baseline was much lower than she had imagined.
According to their loud proclamations, Yu Shu only got through college on Zhou Yan's money. She shamelessly fooled around in college, and made money by selling her body to pay him back. After graduation she became even more unscrupulous, being a mistress and call girl, and all her money was dirty.
Then, Zhou Yan was a tragic romantic, insisting on marrying her and live or die with her, claiming Yu Shu wasn't bad at heart, just lost in the material world. Marriage would set her straight.
Listening to all this made Yu Shu want to vomit. She didn't know whether to say this family was cunning or stupid. Their methods might have worked decades ago, but now, as long as she was cold and hard enough, could they really drive her to death?
If they got their way and Yu Shu married into the Zhou family, then in others' eyes, Zhou Yan would be a honest loser who took in used goods. From then on, no matter how he abused, imprisoned, tortured Yu Shu, people would say she deserved it.
Heh, she had always believed in an eye for an eye.