On the Wedding Night, I Transmigrated to After the Divorce – Chapter 50
by Little PandaConfrontation and Collapse
Do you want to be kept that badly?
She bent over, her voice soft and gentle, but she wasn’t asking for Yu Yan’s opinion. Before Yu Yan could react or state her view, the woman was already helping her up by the arm and leading her outside.
Clearly, she was acting on a very serious, non-negotiable command.
“Huh? What?”
“I didn’t quite hear you. What did you say? Who—who’s waiting for me outside?”
Yu Yan was completely baffled, letting herself be led along like a fool. An Qiu stood up to stop them, but Dan Lin ignored her. The woman who called herself a driver patiently repeated, “Teacher Fu. Fu-jiejie is waiting for you outside.”
This Miss Driver was obviously well-acquainted with Yu Yan. She knew Miss Yu’s temperament and the intimate way she addressed Teacher Fu, so she deliberately used “Fu-jiejie” to coax her out.
At the same time, she was breaking out in a cold sweat for Miss Yu.
Fu-jiejie… Fu Yunqing?!
The realization hit Yu Yan, and her eyes flew open. She began to struggle. “I don’t want to go! I don’t!”
She tried to wrench herself free from Dan Lin’s grip, but the driver’s arms were pure muscle, and her strength was astonishing. In her hands, Yu Yan was like a cat with its paws pinned, unable to break free no matter how much she yelled and thrashed.
Fu Yunqing’s driver? Fu Yunqing was outside? The terrifying implication of this fact couldn’t penetrate the paste-like muddle of Yu Yan’s brain.
“Didn’t Fu Yunqing want nothing to do with me?! What’s she doing here looking for me!” she demanded haughtily, even with the back of her neck in a firm grip.
Dan Lin said in a low voice, “She’s here to take you home.”
“She’s got it wrong!” Truly so drunk she couldn’t tell north from south, Yu Yan began to earnestly explain the situation to Dan Lin. “I didn’t ask her to come get me. I’m going home with Teacher An. Go tell her. She’s got it wrong, she’s mistaken!”
“Miss, please don’t…” One hand supporting Yu Yan, the other pushing open the bar’s heavy glass door, Dan Lin’s expression stiffened. She had just wanted to tell her not to say such things, but the door was already open.
A biting, cold wind swept in. Yu Yan shivered, the chill sobering her up a few degrees. She lifted her head and met a pair of eyes even more piercing than the winter wind. Fu Yunqing’s.
Her gaze was as cold as if devoid of all emotion, yet her eyes were rimmed with red, making them seem to simmer with a kind of hatred.
Yu Yan froze.
“Fu—”
“Get her in the car.” Fu Yunqing’s gaze shifted away, landing on the woman who had followed them out.
“What are you doing?” An Qiu demanded as she caught up, her voice sharp and urgent.
Fu Yunqing’s eyes were impassive. The corner of her lips hooked up slightly as she said softly, “Thank you for looking after her, Ms. An. I’m here to take her home.”
Dan Lin bundled Yu Yan into the black commercial vehicle parked by the road.
“If I remember correctly, aren’t you two divorced?” An Qiu had run a background check on Yu Yan. She knew she had an ex-wife with the surname Fu—the eldest grandchild of the Fu Corporation’s chairman. It was indeed the woman standing before her.
But they were already divorced. They were no longer family. What right did Fu Yunqing have to say she was taking her home?
“And you?” Fu Yunqing retorted. “How many days have you known her? Who are you to her? And where were you planning on taking her?”
On closer inspection, the slender woman’s face was worn with fatigue, dark circles heavy beneath her eyes. Her hair was a mess in the wind, making her look even more haggard. But she radiated an immense power from within. She stated her case to An Qiu calmly, her voice thin and light. Though her expression was cold, the protectiveness she showed toward Yu Yan was so natural it seemed to exist in her very blood and bone—a deterrent so powerful that one dared not offend it.
“She will always be my child,” she told her.
Because of this incomparable, intrinsic feeling, this self-evident ownership, An Qiu had no right to keep Yu Yan from her.
Inside the car, Yu Yan was settled into a seat. Dan Lin fastened her seatbelt and locked the doors. After a wave of dizziness, Yu Yan opened her eyes, suspecting she’d been kidnapped. She was shocked and terrified, sitting rigidly in her seat, body cold, hands and feet sweating, not daring to breathe as she racked her brain for a way to save herself.
Until the car door opened again.
The woman who had stood in the cold wind for five minutes got in, bringing with her the biting chill of the air and the lingering scent of smoke. Yu Yan looked at her, and Fu Yunqing turned to look back.
“You…” Yu Yan’s brows knitted in discomfort.
“What are you doing?” Finally recognizing the person before her as Fu Yunqing, her sense of being kidnapped instantly diminished. “Where are you taking me???”
Fu Yunqing didn’t answer, acting as if she hadn’t heard a thing. Her eyes were deep and somewhat hollow.
“Drive.”
Dan Lin started the car on her command. Feeling ignored, Yu Yan protested, “I want to get out!”
Based on the knowledge that Fu Yunqing wouldn’t actually bring her to any harm, and fueled by her anger toward her, she grew brazen. “Let me out, Fu Yunqing! What right do you have to take me away?”
A drunk person knows no danger. She unbuckled her seatbelt and tried to open the door. Fu Yunqing frowned and grabbed her. “Put your seatbelt back on!”
Yu Yan refused, wailing, “What right do you have to lock me in? Let me out!”
She even tried to be clever. “I feel sick. I’m going to throw up in your car!”
Fearing she really was about to be sick, and knowing it was unsafe to continue like this, Fu Yunqing had Dan Lin pull over. Who would have known that the moment the door was unlocked, Yu Yan would shove it open and run?
She staggered, nearly falling to the ground. Does she have any idea how dangerous that is? Fu Yunqing chased after her and grabbed her arm. She brought a hand down on her bottom with a sharp smack. “What do you think you’re doing?”
Fu Yunqing hadn’t held back. A stinging pain spread from her rear, and Yu Yan froze. “You…”
She actually spanked her? What right did she have to spank her?
“Let go of me! You’re kidnapping me! I’m calling the police… Do you know you ruined my good fortune? What’s your problem…” Humiliated and furious, Yu Yan tried to shake Fu Yunqing off.
“Ruined your good fortune?” The woman held her fast, demanding, “What good fortune of yours did I ruin?”
Her tone was frigid, laced with suppressed rage and a biting sarcasm. Under the influence of alcohol, Yu Yan’s defiant and rebellious nature was magnified. She hated seeing Fu Yunqing act so cold. She stood her ground, retorting with the recklessness of someone smashing a cracked pot1, “So what if I want to be kept by her? She’s gentle and rich, not like you… You’re not my anything, what right do you have to control me? What right do you have to hit me? I don’t want to go with you, let me go, I want to go back to her…”
The words hung in the air. Both Dan Lin, standing by, and Fu Yunqing froze.
Fu Yunqing’s pupils trembled, her heart plummeting into a bottomless abyss. Utterly oblivious, Yu Yan kept badmouthing her, saying Fu Yunqing was mean, saying she was annoying, even saying Fu Yunqing was kidnapping her, wailing until she herself was nearly out of breath.
All she knew was that Fu Yunqing was being domineering, dragging her off to god-knows-where. All she knew was that Fu Yunqing was ignoring her, giving her the silent treatment. She had no idea how much Fu Yunqing was suppressing, no idea of her pain or her rapidly crumbling defenses. Yu Yan knew nothing. She was willfully dragging a knife across her heart, again and again.
Her vision was blurring so badly she couldn’t stand. She squatted down on the ground, right at Fu Yunqing’s feet.
Suddenly, her phone rang. She reached into her pocket, pulled it out, and answered. In the silence of the roadside, An Qiu’s voice was exceptionally clear. “Yanyan, are you okay?”
Hearing her voice, Yu Yan wanted to cry. “Sob… I’m not okay at all.”
Right in front of Fu Yunqing, she was playing the wronged, weak victim to someone else. Right in front of Fu Yunqing, she was saying she wanted to be kept by someone else, that she wanted to leave with someone else.
What right do you have to control me? What right do you have to hit me? What right do you have to take me away?
The next second, her phone was snatched away by Fu Yunqing. Yu Yan instinctively reached for it, but Fu Yunqing pressed the hang-up button without hesitation.
“Give me back my phone!”
Fu Yunqing felt like she was being driven mad.
“What right do you have to hang up on my—”
Reason suddenly shattered. Fu Yunqing, incandescent with rage, pulled a card from her purse and, without another word, flung it at Yu Yan. “Isn’t it money you want?” she roared.
“Do you want to be kept that badly?”
She had no spare rationality to control the angle or the force. With a sharp thwack, the card struck Yu Yan’s face. Yu Yan froze, her drunken tantrum and the argument coming to an abrupt halt.
The black card fell at her feet. Yu Yan lowered her gaze to look at it. Fu Yunqing froze, too.
Yu Yan blinked, staring blankly down at the card, and said nothing more.
Dan Lin hurried over to help her up. Fu Yunqing’s breathing was shaky. She ducked her head, taking a ragged, deep breath, and said in a trembling voice, “Go back.”
Dan Lin soothed Yu Yan as she led her back to the car.
The car’s interior was dim and dead silent, broken only by the sound of the engine and the glow of the streetlights passing by outside, the shifting light illuminating their faces. The person in the front seat was on tenterhooks, not daring to speak. Fu Yunqing’s breathing was unsteady as she turned her head to face the window.
As for Yu Yan, she stared down dejectedly. Her head was spinning, and she felt awful. It had to be the alcohol; she’d drunk too much today, she was too drunk. But for some reason, her eyes were rimmed with red, and her nose stung. Why?
She didn’t know why.
She didn’t know anything. She didn’t understand anything. She was a puppet of fate, pushed along in ignorance, with no idea why she had woken up one day to a world turned upside down. She had nothing left—no Yu Lan, no friends, no life of luxury, and no Fu Yunqing. Every day she lived in a daze in this world that felt unreal. She was just…
Did she really want to be kept? She often tossed off that kind of carefree line, saying it so much she’d started to believe it herself. But the truth was, she didn’t. She just needed a constant stream of affection to fill some void. She just wanted to escape, or to break this state of being, to feel something real, or…
She didn’t know what she wanted.
She didn’t know what she was supposed to do.
Yu Yan had a problem: tear incontinence2. She didn’t want to cry at all, but when her nose started to sting, she couldn’t stop her sinuses from running. She sniffled, leaned her head against the car window, and gazed out with blurry, tear-filled eyes for a while before closing them in misery.
The car drove along a secluded road. Yu Yan never fell asleep. She was too uncomfortable, her head spinning, her stomach churning. She even felt like throwing up. She endured it all with a frown, not wanting to make a sound.
The forty-minute drive was an ordeal. The car finally pulled into the garage of a villa. Dan Lin quickly got out to open the door and help her. Yu Yan opened her eyes and staggered as she got out, nearly falling. “Ngh—”
“Careful, careful…”
Fu Yunqing’s gaze had been on her the whole time, her expression filled with unbearable pity, but she didn’t touch her. She had Dan Lin take her to a room upstairs and told the kitchen to make a sobering-up soup.
She followed them into the room but stood far away, so far that a dead-drunk Yu Yan couldn’t sense her presence. She leaned against the wall, looking exhausted and wretched. Dan Lin laid Yu Yan on the bed. Yu Yan’s head lolled to one side, her eyes squeezed shut. When Dan Lin came over to report that Miss Yu seemed to be asleep, Fu Yunqing appeared to snap out of her daze. “You can go,” she said.
“Teacher Fu, are… are you all right?” Dan Lin asked, concerned.
Her lips moved. “I’m fine.”
She walked to the bedside.
Yu Yan lay on the bed, seemingly passed out, but her brow was tightly furrowed. She was still in her outdoor clothes, her sleep far from peaceful.
But she was asleep, at least. She wouldn’t argue with Fu Yunqing anymore, wouldn’t clamor to leave, wouldn’t say she hated Fu Yunqing. Only then did Fu Yunqing sit on the edge of the bed, draw near, and look at her. She reached out, wanting to stroke her face.
“Mmm…”
Yu Yan whimpered and cracked her eyes open a sliver before quickly closing them again, clearly unconscious.
“Ngh~” She rolled over, not wanting to be disturbed.
Fu Yunqing pulled her hand back. Without a word, she took off Yu Yan’s overcoat, helped her drink a little water to sober up, and tucked the covers around her.
After all that, the furrow in Yu Yan’s brow finally smoothed out, and she slept peacefully.
Fu Yunqing walked out to the balcony.
She had a pack of cigarettes in her pocket. She drew one out, lit it, took a drag, and exhaled a scattered cloud of smoke. Her eyes, already red-rimmed, instantly welled up. She couldn’t hold on any longer. She sagged wretchedly against the railing, hung her head, and covered her eyes with her palm. Her long hair fell forward. Her shoulders, hunched together, trembled as she was enveloped by the boundless, cold night and solitude of the suburbs. Amidst waves of irrepressible, quiet sobs, tears streamed from the cracks between her fingers, trailing down in rivulets.
Footnotes
- 'To smash a cracked pot' (pò guàn pò shuāi) describes an attitude of giving up on oneself and acting recklessly out of despair, feeling there is nothing left to lose.
- 'Tear incontinence' (lèi shījìn) is a modern Chinese internet slang term describing someone whose physiological reaction to intense emotion—especially frustration, anger, or feeling wronged—is uncontrollable crying.
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