On the Wedding Night, I Transmigrated to After the Divorce – Chapter 81
by Little PandaHypocrisy
The Grown-Up Yu Yan Is Not Happy
Yu Yan stood up so abruptly that Lu Yu jumped in surprise, her eyes wide as she asked what was wrong. Grabbing her bag, Yu Yan threw out a brief “I’m leaving” and marched out like a whirlwind.
Lu Yu quickly gathered her things to follow, and seeing this, Dan Lin rose and fell in behind them.
“Where are we going?”
After settling the bill on the first floor, Yu Yan pushed open the heavy glass doors and walked out without looking back. Lu Yu caught up and asked what was going on. Yu Yan hissed, “I want to see if I can shake that kidnapper.”
“Kidnapper?”
Lu Yu was utterly bewildered. “What kidnapper?”
Lu Yu didn’t understand the bad blood between Yu Yan and Dan Lin. Yu Yan wasn’t typically one to hold a grudge, but she was so furious now that she’d dragged up all her grievances, old and new, and declared open warfare. With her legs moving as if they had motors attached, she marched down the street on her 11-road bus1, leaving Lu Yu to jog every now and then just to keep up.
“Your stamina has gotten so good. It looks like Fu Yunqing has really taken excellent care of you,” Lu Yu teased.
“Don’t bring up Fu Yunqing to me,” Yu Yan said coldly. “Is she still following?”
Lu Yu glanced back and nodded. “She’s indeed. She’s right on our heels. You’ve completely baffled her.”
Just then, a taxi passed by. Yu Yan hailed it immediately, grabbed Lu Yu by the wrist to shove her inside first, and then squeezed in herself before slamming the door. Dan Lin rushed over and tapped on the window. “Miss, where are you going?”
Yu Yan turned her face away and gave her a haughty glance. “I’ll go wherever I please. What’s it to you?”
“Drive!”
The car sped away, leaving Dan Lin standing alone on the street as she anxiously dialed Fu Yunqing’s number.
The taxi entered the old town and pulled up below Lu Yu’s residential building. Yu Yan woke her phone screen, and sure sure enough, a barrage of WeChat messages and a relentless chain of missed calls flooded in.
Not even two minutes after Yu Yan had gotten into the taxi, that woman had started putting on an act, sending messages to ask if something was wrong—acting entirely innocent, as if she knew absolutely nothing. For the first time, Yu Yan realized how hypocritical Fu Yunqing truly was.
“Is all this drama really necessary?” Yu Yan grumbled. Feeling thoroughly annoyed, she simply switched off her phone. The two of them got out of the car, walked upstairs, and opened the door to the apartment.
A wave of warmth greeted them as they stepped inside. Although the heating couldn’t compare to that of Tomson Riviera, Yu Yan couldn’t help but sigh. This clean, shabby old place2 of Lu Yu’s was the only place where she felt an unparalleled sense of ease and freedom.
She’d completely lost the distaste she’d felt when she first visited the place. Slumping onto the sofa, she began to take out her frustration on a throw pillow.
“Are you really not going to reply to her?” Lu Yu asked gently, sitting down at the other end of the sofa.
“I really can’t stand her anymore! Why must she be like this?” Yu Yan said, driven to the brink of madness. “Do you have any idea how extreme she is?”
“Ever since we fought over Director An, she hasn’t set foot outside. She’s spent practically twenty-four hours a day cooped up with me just to keep tabs on me. She even lied and said the school required her to teach online classes, and I actually believed her! On top of that, she goes through my phone every single night while I’m asleep, violating my privacy. The moment I finally get out of the house to catch a breath of fresh air, she sends a lackey to shadow me. Is she that afraid I’ll run away? How could I even run when she’s holding onto my ID and other documents? Won’t she even let me breathe?”
“Who behaves like this? Why does she have to be so terrifying? Is this even a normal relationship? Am I dating her, or am I being held captive? Does she just look at me as her pet? Or is it that those sadists3 are just that depraved? Do they have to lock someone away, domesticate them, and keep their eyes on them every second of the day to feel satisfied?”
Ever since she’d found out that Fu Yunqing checked her phone, Yu Yan hadn’t dared to text anything remotely over the line to Lu Yu. Even if she occasionally did, she’d delete it immediately. She felt as though she hadn’t spoken to Lu Yu this freely in an eternity, and she let all her bottled-up frustration pour out in a frantic rush.
Lu Yu pressed her lips together, remaining silent.
She knew Yu Yan all too well. She understood that her friend was merely speaking out of sheer anger and impulse right now.
“Lu Yu… I’m so frustrated.”
Yu Yan rolled over, looking up at her pitifully. “I’ve been driven absolutely mad lately. I can’t eat, I can’t sleep, and I spend every day in constant fear. I want to stay by her side, yet it feels so suffocating. And when I think about leaving, I can’t bring myself to make a final decision.”
“I don’t even know what kind of person Fu Yunqing really is. Was she always like this? Or did something happen?”
“I know absolutely nothing, yet I somehow ended up with her.”
And yet you were blinded by her beauty anyway, and nothing could stop you, Lu Yu thought.
Yu Yan wailed, “I want my memories back so badly! Come on, you useless brain, think! Why are you so disappointing? Why can’t you remember anything at all?”
“Maybe I should just go to the hospital and get electroshock therapy. I really can’t stand this feeling of remembering nothing and having no idea what to do.”
Lu Yu had initially wanted to tease her, but upon hearing the end, she frowned. “Electroshock?”
At the mention of this, Yu Yan felt all hope of recovering her memories drain away. She let out a heavy, thoroughly dejected sigh. “When I went to the hospital with Fu Yunqing to have my head checked, the doctor said the chances of someone in my condition recovering their memory are very slim. They said it would require medication and electroshock therapy, and that it would be an incredibly grueling process.”
“The doctor said that…?” Lu Yu paused. After a brief moment of surprise, she suddenly understood.
“Is something wrong?” Yu Yan looked at her.
When Lu Yu remained silent, Yu Yan sprang up like a carp leaping from water, gripping Lu Yu by the shoulders and staring into her eyes. “What’s going on?”
One look at Lu Yu’s hesitant, subtle expression was enough to tell her that this was far from simple.
Lu Yu: “…”
“Well?”
“…” Lu Yu still didn’t speak.
Yu Yan narrowed her eyes, grabbing Lu Yu’s collar as she warned, “Out with it!”
“…”
“Are you going to tell me or not?” Yu Yan reached out as if to tickle her neck. Lu Yu’s neck was incredibly sensitive, and she couldn’t bear to have anyone touch it. She quickly squirmed out of her grasp. “Alright, alright!”
Lu Yu chose her words carefully. “Maybe her doctor was more skilled and gave you a more thorough examination. It’s just… different from what the doctor said when you were hospitalized.”
When she was hospitalized… Yu Yan searched her mind. Back then, she’d been too distraught to accept reality. She’d spent all her time wishing she could just fall asleep and wake up back in her own time. She hadn’t paid any attention to what the doctors were saying, nor had she wanted to hear it.
Yu Yan pressed urgently, “What did the previous doctor say?”
“Sigh…” Lu Yu let out a helpless sigh. “She never said the chances of you recovering your memory were very slim. On the contrary, she told me that with such a minor contusion, the chances of recovery were actually very high. At the time, I thought you’d be back to normal in just a few days…”
Back then, Lu Yu had fully prepared herself for Yu Yan to return to normal within days.
Yet, who could have predicted that she would remain amnesiac to this day?
Life is truly unpredictable.
At first, Lu Yu had been relieved that Yu Yan had lost her memory, believing it would allow her to forget all that pain. But looking at things now, she’d still wound up dragged into it all over again. It was like another endless cycle from which she couldn’t escape, its ultimate conclusion entirely unknown.
Yu Yan didn’t comprehend her friend’s inner anxieties; she only understood the implications of the hesitation in her words.
Yu Yan suddenly found it terrifying upon closer reflection4. Clutching Lu Yu’s collar, she murmured in sheer shock, “Fu Yunqing actually lied to me about this, too. She was just trying to scare me…”
“She… she doesn’t want me to regain my memory!”
“What on earth… does she want to do?!”
…
Since Yu Yan’s phone was turned off, it wasn’t long before Fu Yunqing’s calls began ringing through on Lu Yu’s phone instead. The seemingly endless cycle of the ringtone shattered the quiet afternoon. Even though the melody was gentle, repeating so urgently over and over made it sound sharp and bizarre.
When had she even gotten Lu Yu’s number?
But for someone like her, getting anyone’s phone number was incredibly easy, wasn’t it?
And wouldn’t bribing a doctor and spinning a web of lies to lead Yu Yan by the nose be just as effortless?
Reeling from shock and fury, Yu Yan forbade Lu Yu from answering. Soon after, Lu Yu received a text message from her, stating that she had already arrived downstairs and hoped Lu Yu would let Yu Yan go down to meet her.
She was already downstairs?
Did she really have to go to such extremes?
It had been less than an hour since Yu Yan had managed to shake off that kidnapper driver.
Was she truly in such a desperate rush?
Did she absolutely have to live under her surveillance, watched by her every waking second of the day? Was all of this really necessary?
“What do you plan to do now?” Lu Yu asked. “If you don’t go down, she’s going to storm up here eventually. Can you really escape her?”
“Storm up here? What, is she going to break into a private residence?”
To be honest, Yu Yan sometimes truly admired Lu Yu. She didn’t seem panicked in the slightest. As her accomplice, wasn’t she afraid that Fu Yunqing would settle accounts with her as well?
But being afraid would do Lu Yu no good. Since things had already reached this point, she could only adopt a mindset of “if we die, we die together.”
True to her zen-like5 nature, she remained completely unbothered. “So, are we just going to keep dragging this out?”
If they didn’t drag it out, what else could they do?
Yu Yan didn’t want to go back with her at all.
She couldn’t endure her anymore. The deception, the lies, the omnipresent surveillance… at this very moment, every single pore on her body was screaming in resistance.
She didn’t want to be with Fu Yunqing anymore.
“But she’s just been standing down there.”
Lu Yu looked out the window. Down below, next to the black sedan, stood a slender, tall woman. She was dressed in a black woolen overcoat, her gaze fixed upward on their window. Her brow was tightly furrowed, and her resolute stance was shot through with a profound sense of anxiety and sorrow.
She had stood there from the afternoon until the streetlights flickered on. The temperature continued to plummet, and the wind grew fiercer, whipping her long hair into disarray. Though she looked as if the freezing cold should have left her dazed, she showed not the slightest intention of leaving.
Her formidable willpower and patience rendered the freezing cold and all obstacles practically non-existent.
Everything that needed to be said had already been said. She hadn’t texted Lu Yu again, but she wouldn’t leave. Even if she had to stand there all night, she wouldn’t budge. Yu Yan knew that she was never going to leave.
Dragging things out like this really wasn’t a solution.
Lu Yu had to work tomorrow; Yu Yan couldn’t let her own drama disrupt her friend’s normal life.
Even if she didn’t plan to stay with her anymore, her ID and documents were still in Fu Yunqing’s possession.
She had to get them back before she could truly reclaim her freedom.
With her standing down there like that, potentially for the whole night, Yu Yan couldn’t help but feel uncomfortable inside. She couldn’t bear to let this go on.
Fu Yunqing really was incredibly obsessive!
Swearing silently under her breath, Yu Yan took a deep breath. She told Lu Yu she was going down, but as she pushed open the door, Lu Yu suddenly called out, “Wait.”
“Hmm?” Yu Yan had already stepped out. She turned around immediately, her brow still furrowed. “What is it?”
“Yanyan.” Lu Yu beckoned to her. “Come here.”
“What?” Yu Yan walked back over, completely baffled, and stared at her curiously. “What’s wrong?”
“Sigh…” Lu Yu looked at her and let out a helpless sigh. “Today is the ninth. In another ten days, it will be your twenty-first birthday. Have you thought about how you want to celebrate?”
Yu Yan was taken aback.
Twenty-one?
Not twenty-four?
Lu Yu really did still treat her like a twenty-one-year-old child.
That was so typical of Lu Yu.
“I don’t know.”
With everything in such a chaotic mess, she was in no frame of mind to think about how to celebrate her birthday.
Originally, they were supposed to go on a trip together, but now, how would she ever dare to go?
“Yanyan, you…” Lu Yu wanted to say, you’re not a child anymore, but she hesitated and ultimately bit her tongue.
“Don’t be so impulsive.”
Yu Yan was taken aback. “…What?”
“You need to think carefully about how you’re going to face her. Are you truly planning to split up with her? The one who’s actually with her is you, not me. I don’t know if she’s genuinely good to you, if she’s really bullying you, or if she truly suffocates you. But you must know.”
“You must be able to feel it… Never mind.” Lu Yu suddenly gave up.
“…” Yu Yan looked at her, completely lost.
Lu Yu offered a small smile. “I’m your best friend, and I’ll always stand by your side. I’m not afraid of her settling accounts with me. If you really want to leave, I’ll certainly support you. But that has to be the result of careful consideration on your part. Don’t be impulsive. At least don’t do anything you’ll regret, alright?”
Yu Yan blinked, only half-understanding. “You…”
“Alright, hurry up and go down.” Lu Yu patted her on the head.
“…”
Yu Yan pulled the door shut behind her. Lu Yu turned around, walked into her bedroom, and knelt down in front of her bedside table.
Opening the bottom cabinet door, she revealed a white passcode safe.
Lu Yu let out another heavy sigh.
She wondered what Heaven had intended by taking her memories away.
To save her?
Or was it to make her suffer all over again?
Just now, she’d wanted to tell her: You’re not a child anymore, don’t be too impulsive in everything.
But then, she suddenly remembered that the grown-up Yu Yan wasn’t happy.
Yu Yan stomped her feet hard as she headed downstairs, her irritation building with every step. The moment she stepped out of the residential building, a blast of icy wind made her shiver, forcing her to bury her neck into her collar.
The woman standing by the car watched her approach, but Yu Yan didn’t want to pay her the slightest bit of attention. Keeping her eyes straight ahead, she marched forward as if she hadn’t seen her at all.
“Yanyan…” Fu Yunqing quickly caught up, grasping her arm to block her path. Yu Yan stopped in her tracks. Fu Yunqing gazed at her anxiously, her heart trembling.
“What’s wrong? Why did you suddenly… Has something happened?”
Footnotes
- The 11-road bus (11 lu gongjiaoche) is a humorous Chinese colloquialism for walking, where the two ones represent a person's legs.
- Old, broken, small (lao po xiao) is common slang for older, poorly maintained urban housing.
- Modern Chinese phonetic internet slang for the letter S (sadist) in S and M, used metaphorically to describe a dominant or controlling partner.
- Terrifying upon close reflection (xisi jikong) is common Chinese internet slang used when a seemingly normal situation reveals disturbing details under analysis.
- Buddhist-style (foxi) is popular Chinese internet slang for a relaxed, detached, or passive approach to life and conflict.
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