After Being Scummed – Chapter 3
by Little PandaOh Dear, the Weird Auntie Next Door Is Really Scary.
Seeing Zuo Jingyou, Yin Bai inevitably thought of Xiao Nian again.
Come to think of it, it was also at the Thorn Flower Awards ceremony six years ago that Xiao Nian and Zuo Jingyou were both nominated for Best Actress. But in that battle, Xiao Nian had lost by a hair.
Zuo Jingyou, only twenty-four years old at the time, had accepted director He Zhiwen’s marriage proposal right after winning the award, stepping into the bonds of matrimony.
He Zhiwen was a few years older than Zuo Jingyou, and it was said the two could barely be considered childhood sweethearts. Six years ago, when He Zhiwen had loudly declared to countless media outlets that Zuo Jingyou was “my muse1,” he had been just as smug as Lu Qing was a few days ago.
Announcing one’s life partner right after winning an award—that was a trend He Zhiwen had started.
Yin Bai had been present the day Zuo Jingyou was proposed to. Only, back then she hadn’t had time to watch the stage. She had just been holding Xiao Nian’s hand, stiff-faced and clumsily trying to comfort her: “It’s okay. There’s always next time.”
Xiao Nian had looked at her, her expression even more relaxed than Yin Bai’s. “Mm, there’s always next time. It’s just that I didn’t win this time. I must have let you down.”
Yin Bai had still been rather taciturn back then. In her heart, she was thinking things like, No, you haven’t let me down. In my heart, you’re the best. But what came out of her mouth was only a stiff, awkward “Mm.”
Thinking of this now, Yin Bai wished she could go back in time, grab her younger self by the collar, and shake her violently, asking just how much water had been in her head back then.
“You should have praised her, praised her!”
Not even able to offer a single stingy word of praise or compliment, making one wrong choice after another, time and time again—no wonder she’d been dumped.
Looking back now, every single thing she had done to Xiao Nian made her regret it so much she could bang her head against the ground.
Yin Bai took a deep breath, trying to shake off these heartbreaking memories, and refocused her attention on Zuo Jingyou.
Zuo Jingyou’s husband, He Zhiwen, was the second son of the Laida Group. The man had a bit of artistic talent; he’d directed several literary films, won awards, and was considered a famous young director in the industry.
More importantly, as the second son of the Laida Group, he was rich. Very rich.
The Laida Group was in real estate. In Yin Bai’s mind, people in the real estate business were basically “capitalists” who bled the people dry. She looked down on them a bit, so she had little interaction with the He family.
The He family was so wealthy that, because He Zhiwen had entered the film industry, they had even founded a film company. Although its influence couldn’t compare to Yin Bai’s, it was more than enough to invest in Zuo Jingyou’s films. With such a powerful backer, Zuo Jingyou had no reason to come looking for her for investment.
Unless the real estate industry had become a bubble economy, the He family’s stock had evaporated, and they’d gone bankrupt?
That couldn’t be right. If that had happened, she would have heard the wind of it long ago and told Jin Xiangyu to ruthlessly go after acquiring the He family.
Unable to resist her own morbid curiosity, Yin Bai opened her browser and typed in a search: “He Zhiwen’s family went bankrupt!”
But instead of news of bankruptcy, she found a trending topic that had just exploded today: Lin Xiao’s secret rendezvous with a rumored love interest.
Yin Bai was utterly baffled.
She knew Lin Xiao—a male actor who had debuted a few years ago and had even acted with Xiao Nian before.
What did Lin Xiao’s secret rendezvous with a rumored love interest have to do with Zuo Jingyou’s husband, He Zhiwen? What was wrong with this browser? How could it make such an association? No wonder this internet company was going downhill day by day, its stock price falling all the time!
But soon, Yin Bai discovered that the two were indeed connected. Because Lin Xiao’s rendezvous partner seemed to be none other than Zuo Jingyou’s husband, that award-winning young director, He Zhiwen.
Yin Bai suddenly felt a toothache.
She had seen both Zuo Jingyou and Lin Xiao in person. Even if she and Zuo Jingyou had their differences, she had to admit that, whether in appearance or temperament, Zuo Jingyou was leagues ahead of Lin Xiao.
So was He Zhiwen blind? He had such a beautiful woman at home, and he still had to go out and fool around. She had been with Xiao Nian for seven years, and countless fluttering butterflies had thrown themselves at her, yet she had remained unmoved!
Men really were all dogs! Blind, ugh!
Bored and in the mood for some gossip, Yin Bai opened Weibo and clicked on the trending topic. The trending feed was full of photos of Lin Xiao and a man—holding hands ambiguously, linking arms, embracing, and cuddling in front of hotels, in cars, and in public places.
Probably out of fear of the He family’s power, the man’s face in the photos was always blurred—either a profile or a back view.
Yin Bai clicked on a photo to look closely and found one taken over three months ago, at the exact private banquet she had dragged Xiao Nian to.
She remembered that at that private banquet, Zuo Jingyou hadn’t appeared with He Zhiwen. But in this photo, He Zhiwen and Lin Xiao were shown getting off a van one after the other, holding hands and entering the venue discreetly.
From the sweet side profiles of the two in the photo, it was clear these two dogs were in the throes of a passionate affair.
Yin Bai clicked her tongue softly, involuntarily thinking back to that night when she had been dumped by Xiao Nian, collapsed on the floor in despair, and received a helping hand from Zuo Jingyou.
That had been her first private contact with Zuo Jingyou. In such an awkward situation, Zuo Jingyou had been remarkably tolerant and composed.
Yin Bai remembered the handkerchief Zuo Jingyou had offered her, and for a moment, a flicker of sympathy arose in her heart for Zuo Jingyou.
So, at that time, had Zuo Jingyou known that the person sleeping beside her was already cheating? Did she know, or didn’t she?
If Zuo Jingyou had known, then when she saw her being dumped by Xiao Nian, had she reached out to help her out of a sense of shared misery, two people adrift in the same boat?
Once this thought arose, it seemed to ease the embarrassment Yin Bai had felt at having her awkward moments witnessed by Zuo Jingyou twice.
She held the mouse and scrolled down the page, just in time to see a marketing account comparing the proposals of Lu Qing and Xiao Nian with those of He Zhiwen and Zuo Jingyou.
Finally, they brought up He Zhiwen’s suspected extramarital affair, snidely expressing the hope that Lu Qing and Xiao Nian’s same-sex marriage was true love and would last to the very end.
When Yin Bai saw the words “same-sex marriage,” she nearly died of anger!
What the hell was “same-sex marriage”! Xiao Nian and Lu Qing weren’t even married yet! They might even break up! Where did this “same-sex marriage” come from!
Yin Bai’s heart was choked with frustration, and all her desire for gossip vanished. She simply closed the Weibo window and focused her attention on the script.
Maybe that’s just how people are. Once someone you’re slightly resistant to has a similarly tragic experience to your own, your negative feelings toward them diminish quite a bit due to empathy.
At this moment, looking at Zuo Jingyou’s name, Yin Bai thought that she had probably already known about her husband’s affair. Otherwise, she wouldn’t have come to her for investment.
Thinking of this, Yin Bai couldn’t help but feel a little wistful.
Because she had been following Xiao Nian’s various metrics for years, Yin Bai knew a little about her old rival, Zuo Jingyou. If Xiao Nian, with her overly dazzling face, was hailed as a “worldly flower of wealth and nobility,” then in the hearts of movie fans, Zuo Jingyou was a white moonlight, a narcissus, an elf—a peerless beauty on earth and a flawless angel.
Look, even someone like Zuo Jingyou, who had so many accolades, had a husband who cheated. It just went to show that being good enough wasn’t a guarantee of finding true love.
Yin Bai sighed as she reflected, feeling that Zuo Jingyou might also be considered a member of her heartbreak alliance army.
She thought of Zuo Jingyou’s handkerchief and those two sentences that had bothered her so much—”I didn’t see anything”—but now, looking back, they felt like a kind of understanding and relief.
Yin Bai thought it over and replied to the email. She decided to invest in this film, but the exact amount would have to wait until Jin Xiangyu went through the process and provided an evaluation plan before a decision could be made.
After handling all the emails, the private doctor Jin Xiangyu had booked for her also arrived at the villa.
The female doctor examined Yin Bai’s eyes, prescribed some eye drops, and told her to rest more before leaving. After the doctor left, Yin Bai burrowed into her covers and slept like a log all night.
When she woke up again, the morning light was already filtering in through the curtains.
Yin Bai lay in her nest, squinting at the sunlight seeping in, and felt that her eyes, which had just rested, were even more painful.
With something weighing on her mind, she hadn’t actually slept very soundly that night. Her body was still tired. Yin Bai rolled over, pulled the air-conditioned comforter over her head, and tried to go back to sleep.
But after lying in bed for a while, she felt the sunlight at her back following her like a shadow, so bright it made her restless. She endured it, and endured it again, but in the end, she couldn’t take it anymore. Throwing off the covers, she got up, jumped out of bed, and finally went to the bathroom to wash up.
After asking for breakfast to be sent up, Yin Bai, with nothing to do, brewed a pot of black tea, grabbed a small cake and a book, and went to the wisteria trellis in the back garden to read.
It was already the end of April. The well-trimmed roses in the garden were blooming in a riot of purple and red. Sitting under the wisteria trellis, Yin Bai flipped through the poetry collection in her hand, trying her best not to think about Xiao Nian, and managed to find a rare moment of peace.
But that peace didn’t last long. It was soon shattered by the playful noise of the neighbor’s children.
It was the weekend, and the weather was beautiful. The old professor next door’s grandson and granddaughter seemed to have come to visit. On a big weekend, the two kids were playing ball in the backyard, having a wonderful time.
Just a wall away, the children’s cheerful voices drifted over: “Give it to me, give it to me. Throw it higher.”
“Ah, I can catch it!”
Listening to the children’s young voices, Yin Bai felt like a flock of ducks was quacking in her ears, giving her a terrible headache. In her mind, children were the most troublesome creatures, bar none.
She looked down at the line of poetry on the page: “From tomorrow on, I will be a happy person. Grooming horses, chopping firewood, traveling the world. From tomorrow on, I will care about grains and vegetables. I have a house, facing the sea, with spring blossoms.”
Alright, she decided she would fly to her private island abroad tomorrow and spend a weekend without children.
Yin Bai took a deep breath, closed her book, picked up her cane, and, clutching her book, limped back toward the villa.
But just as she had barely walked out from under the wisteria, a white badminton bird suddenly flew over the two-meter-high wall, heading straight for her.
Hearing the sound of wind behind her, Yin Bai instinctively dodged to the side, only to end up catching the badminton bird with the back of her head.
The bird was blocked for a moment, bounced back, and landed not far behind Yin Bai.
Struck by the blow, Yin Bai felt a sting at the back of her head. Leaning on her cane, she turned around and looked at the badminton bird lying on the ground, squinting her eyes.
What the hell was this? A killer badminton bird?
Leaning on her cane, she walked over, bent down, and picked up the bird from the ground. Just then, two childish voices drifted over the wall to Yin Bai’s ears: “Oh, Tongtong, the ball flew over. What do we do?”
A little girl said, very anxiously: “The auntie next door is really weird. My little paper airplane flew over last time, and when I went over to ask for it back, she kept staring at me really fiercely.”
Yin Bai’s hand, holding the badminton bird, froze. Auntie? Really weird? What the hell was a “weird auntie”? She was clearly a fairy!
Gripping the badminton bird, Yin Bai decided that if those little brats came over to ask for it and didn’t speak nicely, she definitely wouldn’t give it back!
Just then, another girl’s voice, soft and gentle: “Sister Wenwen, is she really scary? It’s okay. I have an idea.”
Listening to the girls’ soft, gentle chatter, Yin Bai clutched the badminton bird and snorted coldly. She was going to hear what kind of idea those little brats had.
So, leaning on her cane, Yin Bai walked back to the wisteria trellis and shamelessly eavesdropped on the children’s conversation.
The author has something to say:
Your daughter is here!
Yin Bai makes me laugh sm
Yin Bai makes me laugh sm
haahahaah😂😂😂😂 those are your daughters by the way YIN BAI…..and you are the weird mom while ZUO JINGYOU is the favourite mummy
haahahaah😂😂😂😂 those are your daughters by the way YIN BAI…..and you are the weird mom while ZUO JINGYOU is the favourite mummy