"The aromatherapy is lit, can we begin?"
Su Yanxi stopped struggling, instead narrowing her slender eyebrows and smiling calmly.
“Okay.” The scented candle burned on its own, and Su Yanxi spoke softly, her voice rising at the end, “Let’s begin, ‘Innocent Young Man’.”
Later, Su Yanxi had only one thought in her mind: innocent young men are terrifying.
Indeed, adults must be responsible for their words and remember: never tease a wolf that is disguised as an innocent dog!
But since he was the one who started the trouble first, he had no choice but to suffer the consequences. He should learn his lesson and not give this nemesis another chance to take advantage of him.
"Honey, does your back hurt? Do your legs ache?" Bie Yunzong asked solicitously, his voice brimming with delight. "Shall I give you a massage?"
Su Yanxi's temples throbbed from the shouting, and she kicked Bie Yunzong, saying, "Take your foot away first."
Bie Yunzong quickly moved his foot and apologized obediently, "Oh dear, I accidentally touched it; I didn't even realize it. Are you alright? Did you fall on anything?"
Su Yanxi snorted and stretched her limbs: "I don't know where you got this bad habit, always sleeping on top of me. When you're seventy or eighty, you can keep pressing down on me and see if my bones break."
Chapter 84
Su Yanxi's original intention was to curse her darling, but this darling always managed to divert attention from the problem, and with a chuckle, he hugged Su Yanxi again.
"I understand, my wife wants to stay with me until we're old and gray!"
"That's wonderful! Su Yanxi is going to stay with me until we're old and gray!"
The two of them wrapped themselves in a blanket, rolling and frolicking around for a while. The blanket was wrapped tighter and tighter, and the two of them were pressed as close as they could possibly be.
Holding his soft, loving wife in his arms, Bie Yunzong suddenly had a strange thought and asked, "Yanxi...? Wife, I've always been curious, why did you change your name to this?"
"If Yanxi means 'deriving hope,' then Yanxi means 'wearing out hope,' how strange, this doesn't seem like a name a mother would give her child."
“It wasn’t Mom who chose it; I asked to change it myself.” Su Yanxi cupped Bie Yunzong’s face in her hands. “Because of what happened to Dad, I was indeed tired and irritable about positive and beautiful words like the future, miracles, and hope.”
"My father was an honest and upright official who was wholeheartedly devoted to serving the people—even his name contained the words 'love the people.' But such a good father ended up in jail for 50,000 yuan. Isn't that absurd and ridiculous when you think about it?"
It's utterly absurd and laughable. Reality is always more ironic than fiction; and yet, this very irony happened to Su Yanxi.
Bie Yunzong nodded knowingly, then asked, "Will changing the name be effective? It's just changing one character, can it really protect privacy?"
"It does have an effect. A name is a symbol of a person's life in society. Past events and information are often accompanied by this unique symbol. Once the symbol is changed, most of the traces of that person's past life will be erased."
At least for Su Yanxi, the name change was quite useful.
One aspect is protecting his privacy and hiding his unpleasant past; the other is changing his work style and mindset.
Back then, when he was still called Su Yanxi, he was happy and content. Although his father didn't earn much, it was enough for the family of three to live on. In kindergarten and primary school, he was respected by his classmates and cared for by his teachers. He even had the opportunity to appear on local television with his handsome and distinguished mayor father.
How glamorous, how carefree!
Everything changed after Dad was framed. His classmates scorned him, his teachers targeted him, and his neighbors looked at him strangely. Left with no other choice, after the bribery investigation, Mom took him and fled their home overnight to a remote town where no one knew them.
Su Yanxi thus became Su Yanxi.
The word "dislike" signifies that he no longer believes his father's saying, "If you repay kindness with kindness, others will repay you with kindness." He becomes extremely goal-oriented, learning to use his good looks and the wonderful first impression he's good at creating as weapons to attack and achieve his objectives. There's no such thing as repaying kindness with kindness; there's only the saying, "If someone offends me, I will offend them tenfold."
“I really like my current name. Although my dad originally gave me Yanxi, which was also very good, this one suits me better now—it's more like me.”
"Mmm." Bie Yunzong unconsciously tightened his arms, almost pulling Su Yanxi into his embrace. "I think so too. Yanxi, Yanxi, Yanxi is you."
Su Yanxi was being held so tightly he could hardly breathe. Just as he was about to ask the big, smelly dog to loosen its grip a bit, a lightbulb went off in his head: "I think I've got it? The reason why we can't find Qi Xiang'an's past information."
"That guy may have also changed his name and identity and lived under a different identity."
"uncertain."
Bie Yunzong was also thinking. He realized that he had only asked his older brother and sister-in-law to help with the search from beginning to end, so the scope of the search was always limited to the entertainment industry.
"It's also possible we're going in the wrong direction. Didn't the agent say that this guy surnamed Qi has money laundering rumors? To be bold, could his backer be...?"
Bie Yunzong didn't finish his sentence, but Su Yanxi understood what he meant.
Su's father was wrongfully imprisoned because of local factional struggles. The sudden connection between the two events surprised and horrified Su Yanxi, but also filled her with excitement and a sense that the truth was within reach, something she could grasp with a mere step.
"What should we do if that's the case?"
"What are you afraid of? I still have my brother!" Bie Yunzong reached out from under the covers, skillfully picked up his phone from the bedside table, and prepared to dial his grumpy older brother's number. "I've raised my brother for a thousand days, now's the time to put him to use!"
"Come on," Su Yanxi hurriedly pressed her husband down. "That's not your 'brother-supporting'! It's clearly your older brother supporting you!"
"No, no, it's already one in the morning, don't bother your brother. I'll ask him for help in person when we have a family gathering in a few days."
Before Bie Yunzong could respond, he heard a loud knocking on the bedroom door. Thinking it was a hallucination, he paused for a moment before answering.
"The dinner party is next week, will you make it? That guy surnamed Qi is lurking in the shadows, watching you like a hawk. You really dare to—"
The loud knocking on the door started again, and this time Bie Yunzong and Su Yanxi heard it clearly.
Bie Yunzong glanced at the time on his phone, speechless, threw off the covers and got out of bed, pulling on a pair of pants and a shirt: "Damn it, is it really one in the morning? Who would be knocking on your door at one in the morning?!"
Don't let this temper flare up. Disturbing him for anything else is fine, but disturbing his time alone with his partner will truly make him hate you to the point of wanting to tear you to pieces!
"Wife, don't come out. Just lie there and don't move. I'll go." Bie Yunzong angrily opened the bedroom door and went straight to the shoe-changing area in the entryway.
Su Yanxi couldn't just lie there motionless. As she got up and dressed, she listened to the conversation outside the room through the crack in the half-open door.
"Who is it?" Bie Yunzong opened the door and asked the person in a deep voice.
The man let out a disgusting burp: "I...I...I'm looking for...Su Yanxi. Is he here?"
Chapter 85
Upon closer inspection, it turned out to be Cheng Zhuo's voice!
Su Yanxi realized that her opportunity had arrived! This was exactly what Lin Xiaohai had guessed: "Qi Xiang'an's test"!
“He’s not here.” Bie Yunzong’s voice deepened several degrees, and he seemed to be on the verge of anger. “Go back to where you came from, or I’ll make you come here by force.”
Su Yanxi thought his dog was in perfect spirits! After getting dressed, he peeked through the bedroom door and called out in a coquettish tone, "Honey, who is it?"
After shouting, he frantically mouthed to his nemesis, telling Bie Yunzong: "Swear at me!"
Go ahead and scold me!
Author's Note:
I'm here, hehe~ This should be an extra chapter from yesterday, but I couldn't finish writing it last night qwq I'm only releasing it now!
There will be more updates tonight!
39# Her husband, always his
Bie Yunzong was clearly stunned for a moment, still not recovered from Su Yanxi's sweet "darling".
He thought to himself, "Great! My wife calls me 'darling'!" They've been together for seven years, and his wife has always called him by his first name or even his full name; when they were dating, she would at most call him "baby," but now she's unlocked a new way of addressing him—she calls him "darling"!
Bie Yunzong didn't want to be hooked either, but his beautiful wife actually called him "darling"!
The drunkard at the door was persistent, even grabbing Bie Yunzong's shoulder as he spoke: "Who are you? Let me see Su, Su Yanxi, I have so much—so much to say to him."
Su Yanxi, in her haste, abandoned lip reading and whispered to Bie Yunzong, "What are you standing there for? Hurry up and get back to my scene!"
Bie Yunzong looked puzzled, and after a moment of confusion, he finally understood what his wife meant.
"What could you possibly have to say to him?" Bie Yunzong retorted awkwardly to the drunk Cheng Zhuo, "Knocking on the door of a fellow artist in the same group so late at night, what... what do you mean by that?"
Su Yanxi's heart skipped a beat. She thought to herself, "No matter how much I try to persuade him, his mother was also the former director of the editorial office. How come Bie Yunzong didn't inherit any of his mother's talent and his acting is so terrible?"
He then added fuel to the fire by speaking in a low voice: "Darling, hurry up and send him away, I'm still waiting for you."
That shout made Bie Yunzong's bones melt.
Young Master Bie, the tyrant, dared to try anything in his life, except for scolding his wife. He turned to look at Su Yanxi with pleading eyes, indicating his grievance: Wife, I just can't bring myself to scold her!
Su Yanxi cursed the dog under her breath for being "useless," then rolled her eyes and continued to play along with her husband's act: "It's...it's Cheng Zhuo, right...? Darling, don't believe him, there's really nothing between us!"
"I've already explained those photos; they're all lies!"
While throwing out the scene, Su Yanxi also frantically gestured with her chin to the locker on the side, which had photos of items that had been opened and then repackaged.
He thought to himself, "This play is so simple and easy to pick up. I've even prepared all the props for you. You can't possibly still not be able to pick it up, can you?"
If he still can't get it right, then he'll keep repeating those three devilish words in Bie Yunzong's ear every day: You can't do it, you can't do it, you can't do it!
The tipsy Cheng Zhuo finally understood and, forcing himself to stay awake, provoked Bie Yunzong: "So you're Su Yanxi's 'sugar daddy'? Wasn't the incident last time enough for you to see him clearly?"
No matter what Su Yanxi said or how she tried to persuade him, Bie Yunzong didn't get angry. But when Cheng Zhuo opened his mouth, he really got furious and instantly became emotional!
"Whether I can see through someone or not is none of your business." Bie Yunzong picked up an envelope from the locker. "I have my own judgment about what's between Su Yanxi and me."
Cheng Zhuo was already half a head shorter than Bie Yunzong, and after getting drunk, he stood crookedly, completely losing his imposing presence. If Bie Yunzong raised his voice even slightly, Cheng Zhuo would be so frightened that he would wet his pants.
“You…” Cheng Zhuo was unwilling to give up, clinging to the door frame and constantly peering inside, “At least let me see Yan hope once.”
"Yanxi?" Bie Yunzong sneered, then turned to look at Su Yanxi inside the room. "He was calling her that quite intimately, wasn't he? What, someone came to your door at one in the morning, and you still have the nerve to say it's a misunderstanding?"
These two sentences were delivered very well because of the anger in them! Su Yanxi understood that Bie Yunzong was probably genuinely unhappy, but acting is always half technique and half emotion.
Su Yanxi gave her husband a thumbs up, then said in a affected, high-pitched voice, "It really is a misunderstanding! Darling, you have to believe me!"
"Didn't you understand what I said? I can make my own judgment." Bie Yunzong turned around coldly and threw the envelope in his hand at the person outside the door. "Get out! What happens between Su Yanxi and me is none of your business. I'm in a bad mood right now. Go back to where you came from!"
After finishing speaking with suppressed anger, Bie Yunzong slammed the door shut, ignoring Cheng Zhuo's panic and helplessness—that was it!
"call--"
Bie Yunzong let out a long sigh, took a breath, and, imitating the protagonist in the God of Gamblers movie, ran his fingers through his hair and raised an eyebrow at his wife.
"Honey, how was my acting just now?"
"Not good at all." Su Yanxi shook her head mercilessly, giving an objective evaluation, "She didn't inherit any of our family's acting genes. In the entertainment industry, she'd be at the level of an 18th-tier web series."
Bie Yunzong rubbed his temples and muttered softly, "Is it really that bad? I actually think quite well of myself..."
"Yes, not that much of a difference." After giving her comments, Teacher Su Yanxi stepped forward, pinched Bie Yunzong's cheek, and gave him a kiss as a reward. "Although it's not great, it's enough."
At least, it's enough to deceive Qi Xiang'an. The whole performance just now will definitely be relayed to Qi Xiang'an through Cheng Zhuo.
Previously, Qi Xiang'an was in the shadows while he was in the light; after this incident, will Qi Xiang'an be unable to resist stepping into the open on his own initiative?
After patting her dog's head, Su Yanxi pushed the dog back into the room.
"Go back to sleep, there's probably going to be a good show tomorrow."