After Being Scummed – Chapter 11
by Little PandaThank You
After Yin Bai muttered this to herself, she realized she had said a bit too much. She immediately shut her mouth, leaning against the wall with her cane, saying no more.
Zuo Jingyou stood beside her, restraining herself for quite a while before managing to hold back the surging tears.
Crying inexplicably in front of someone unfamiliar always brought a certain peculiar awkwardness. Zuo Jingyou tilted her head up, using the handkerchief Yin Bai had given her to blot away the excess tears. Only then, eyes red, did she look somewhat sheepishly at Yin Bai. “Sorry, Director Yin, I’ve made a fool of myself in front of you.”
Yin Bai thought of her own experience more than three months ago and could very much understand Zuo Jingyou’s situation. She pressed her lips together, trying her best to reply naturally, “It’s alright. Likewise.”
Zuo Jingyou quickly understood Yin Bai’s meaning. She dried her tears and revealed a smile, “In short, thank you anyway, Director Yin.”
Yin Bai waved her hand, saying dismissively, “You’re welcome.”
Zuo Jingyou lifted the bag of storybooks in her hand, a faint smile playing on her lips, “Thank you for this too, Director Yin.”
Yin Bai glanced at her, hesitating before speaking, “That… you don’t need to thank me for that either. It’s actually my fault the kids climbed my wall.”
Zuo Jingyou looked at her, somewhat surprised. Yin Bai took a deep breath and finally mustered the courage to say, “Well… they were really noisy playing ball, always coming over and disturbing me. After I scolded them a few times, they didn’t dare ring the doorbell to pick things up anymore.”
Zuo Jingyou understood. “Oh, well, that was their fault too, actually. Even so, they shouldn’t have climbed the wall.”
Yin Bai nodded in agreement. “That’s true. Safety is most important.”
Zuo Jingyou smiled, her eyes exceptionally gentle. “So, I still have to thank you, Director Yin.”
Being thanked several times in a row by her made Yin Bai feel a bit awkward. She lifted her cane and unconsciously tapped it tap-tap on the ground a few times. “I already said you don’t need to thank me. This is my apology gift.”
Zuo Jingyou nodded. She looked up, gazing at Yin Bai’s strikingly exotic grey-blue eyes, thought for a moment, and continued, “Then I still must thank you, Director Yin. For the film project.”
“Thank you, Director Yin, for being willing to invest in my film.”
Yin Bai looked at Zuo Jingyou, her eyes filled with astonishment. She saw Zuo Jingyou wink at her, smiling gently. “Thank you for your appreciation, Director Yin.”
Yin Bai lowered her gaze, feeling a little embarrassed. She wasn’t really good at making polite conversation. Just uneasily tap-tap-tapping her cane, she said somewhat shyly, “Um… well… let me congratulate Miss Zuo in advance on becoming Director Zuo, may the movie be a huge success, and bring me along to earn some money.”
Zuo Jingyou smiled faintly. “That’s quite a down-to-earth thing to say, Director Yin.”
Yin Bai nodded earnestly. “Of course. I quite like the feeling of making money.”
Seeing that Zuo Jingyou’s emotions had calmed, and she could even joke around, Yin Bai relaxed slightly. She straightened up, leaning on her cane, and began to bid farewell. “I’ll head back first. You go in and check on the little one. Goodbye.”
Yin Bai walked towards the elevator, leaning on her cane. Zuo Jingyou watched her retreating back, subconsciously took a step forward, and called out to stop her, “Director Yin…”
Yin Bai turned her head, looking at her with some confusion.
Zuo Jingyou smiled, speaking very gently, “Thank you for today, Director Yin, thank you for everything. Director Yin, take good care of yourself when you get back. Remember to take your medicine, drink plenty of water, get lots of rest, and get well soon.”
“Mm, I will.” Yin Bai nodded, limping into the elevator on her cane. Once inside, Yin Bai carefully mulled over Zuo Jingyou’s words, feeling like something wasn’t quite right.
A while later, as Yin Bai walked out of the elevator, she happened to see a young mother naggingly reminding her sick son to drink water and take medicine, and only then did she realize what kind of demeanor Zuo Jingyou had just displayed.
Damn!
Zuo Jingyou had actually used that doting mother look meant for dealing with children on her!
Could it be that her true childish nature had been seen through? Even though she was clearly wearing the thick disguise of an adult the same age as Zuo Jingyou!
Thinking this, Yin Bai felt that Zuo Jingyou was truly a woman capable of seeing into people’s hearts. Tap-tap-tapping her cane, she walked straight out of the hospital building in one go, fleeing home in a panic.
Perhaps due to the severe cold, after Yin Bai got home and took her medicine, she fell into a drowsy sleep.
The medicine and her body’s immune system worked simultaneously, starting to drive out the virus within her, leaving her feeling completely groggy.
Wrapped in the soft quilt, Yin Bai was sweating all over. Between reality and illusion, she dreamed of many bizarre and motley things. One moment it was how Xiao Nian looked when she first met her, the next it was the scene of Xiao Nian letting go of her hand and running towards Lu Qing.
Half-dreaming, half-awake, she seemed to return to the past again. To a time when she was sick, and Xiao Nian stayed by her side, constantly wiping the cold sweat from her forehead.
In that genuine, soft care, Yin Bai seemed to feel a faint trace of affection. She uncontrollably reached out, grabbing Xiao Nian’s wrist tightly, murmuring, “Xiao Nian… I love… I love you…”
The words that had never been said, said too late, were I love you.
As Yin Bai’s hand tightened its grip, the Xiao Nian in her grasp instantly dissolved into an illusion, leaving only her lying empty on the bed. In that instant, Yin Bai felt as if falling into an abyss and woke with a start.
In the darkness, Yin Bai opened her eyes, enveloped by boundless loneliness and cold. Yin Bai turned her head, looked at the empty space beside her, and let out a sigh that seemed resigned to fate.
There was no Xiao Nian anymore. She would never come back.
Thinking this, Yin Bai reached out, clicked on the room light with a pat, and pushed herself up from the bed. Grasping the cane beside the bed, she stumbled towards the bathroom.
After washing off the sticky sweat, Yin Bai nestled comfortably in the large bathtub, picked up the phone she kept in the bathroom, and sent a message to Jin Xiangyu.
Ever since Xiao Nian left her, Yin Bai had no one looking after her again. Coupled with Zhang Yu going on vacation, she finally realized how inconvenient her life had become.
So Yin Bai instructed Jin Xiangyu to have HR help find her a live-in Auntie1 and a personal assistant. Usually, she didn’t think there was anything wrong with only having Zhang Yu around, but now that Zhang Yu was away, Yin Bai felt having two assistants was quite necessary.
Otherwise, just as Jin Xiangyu had said, with no one watching her, she could die one day and nobody would even know.
Jin Xiangyu received the notification and quickly arranged for people to start looking for candidates for Yin Bai.
After arranging these things, Yin Bai opened a social media app and happily started scrolling through Weibo.
But clicking open the hot searches, she found the hashtag #ZuoJingyouDivorce# trending right at the top, appended with an ‘Exploding’2 tag.
Yin Bai went “Oho!”, raised a long eyebrow, and clicked on the hashtag, immediately seeing the divorce announcement issued by Zuo Jingyou’s studio. When she saw the line in the statement “Miss Zuo Jingyou and Mr. He Zhiwen registered their divorce on April 17, 20XX,” Yin Bai couldn’t help but smile and crisply tapped the ‘like’ button.
Yes, this is how it should be! State clearly when the divorce happened, and whoever is responsible should bear it, not one less!
That night, the news that Zuo Jingyou was divorced and Lin Xiao was the little three3 spread throughout the entire internet. For a time, both He Zhiwen and Lin Xiao were utterly discredited.
The author has something to say:
Giving out red envelopes4 to the first fifty commenters~
Starting today, chapters will be a bit shorter, until the 25th when it goes VIP5, aiming for a daily update of 6k characters (maybe)
LP: Re-translated on May 01, 2025
Footnotes
- 阿姨 | āyí | Lit. “Auntie”; common term for a middle-aged woman, often used for domestic helpers/nannies.
- 爆 | bào | Lit. “explode/burst”; Used on social media like Weibo to indicate a topic has gone viral or is extremely hot/trending.
- Original: 小三 | xiǎosān | Derogatory slang for the third party in an extramarital affair.
- 红包 | hóngbāo | Lit. “red packet”; Traditionally contains money given as a gift. In webnovel contexts, often refers to small monetary rewards or points given to readers/commenters.
- 入V | rù V | Entering VIP status; Refers to when a webnovel becomes pay-to-read after a certain number of free chapters.
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