When the Female Lead Becomes Obsessive – Chapter 12

Volume One: Those Years I Was a CEO

Little Crybaby¹

You Jiayi leaned over, but not fully.

Wen Nuan vaguely sensed she was propping herself up, hesitant to lean completely against her.

She raised a hand, wrapped it around You Jiayi’s waist, and pulled her closer. “You want to lean but you’re still holding yourself stiff, aren’t you tired?”

The hand on her waist felt so hot it made You Jiayi’s heart tighten. She slowly relaxed her body, letting herself rely entirely on Xu Wen Nuan.

Wen Nuan felt her relax and withdrew her hand, satisfied. “Mm, if you want to lean, then lean properly.”

“Mm,” You Jiayi looked at Wen Nuan’s hand resting on her lap and bit her lip. “CEO Xu?”

Wen Nuan raised an eyebrow. “CEO Xu? Isn’t it time to change that address?”

“Wen Nuan?” You Jiayi smiled. “Can I call you that?”

Wen Nuan nodded. “Mhm, go ahead.”

It was her name, after all. When she used to do missions, her given name never changed, only the surname did.

“Can I hold your hand?”

Wen Nuan: “…..”

What was this?

Pushing her luck².

You Jiayi didn’t get an answer from Wen Nuan and asked again, “Can I?”

Wen Nuan offered her hand, sighing in resignation. “…Go ahead, hold it.”

You Jiayi smiled secretly, carefully raising her hand to intertwine their fingers³.

So nice.

The hand she held was the one You Jiayi had the IV drip in. Her own hand was underneath, cradling You Jiayi’s icy one.

“Why is it so cold?” Wen Nuan rubbed her fingers.

“It’s normal. My hand always gets cold when I get an IV drip, maybe the fluid is too cold.”

Wen Nuan looked up at the IV tube, touched it, and indeed, it felt a bit cool.

Seeing the drip was almost finished, she could only say, “Just bear with it a little longer, it’ll be done soon. Let me warm your hand first, okay?”

You Jiayi nodded. “Okay.”

She had long been accustomed to her hand getting cold during injections, but she took medicine more often than she got injections, so Xu Wen Nuan didn’t know about this issue. If she had known before, would she have warmed her hand like today?

“Was it like this before when you got injections?” You Jiayi’s hand was as cold as ice; even warming it with both hands didn’t help much.

The female lead had received injections before, but rarely, and she had never heard You Jiayi mention that injections made her hands this cold.

“Mhm, always like this. I’m used to it.” You Jiayi never cared about these things.

“Why didn’t you tell me before?” The female lead used to tell her everything, but unexpectedly, she had hidden this.

“I thought it was a small thing. You were so busy every day, I didn’t want to bother you with something like this.” You Jiayi blinked. “Besides, even if I told you, there was no solution. I’ve always had this issue, it’s not really an illness.”

Wen Nuan watched the medicine in the IV tube slowly drip down. She pressed the call button next to the chair to ask the nurse to come remove the needle.

“If you had told me, even if there wasn’t a real solution, I could have at least warmed your hand for you.” The nurse removed the needle quickly. Wen Nuan immediately pressed down on the medical tape to prevent the puncture site from bleeding. “This temper of yours, so stubborn and always trying to act tough. How many times have I told you about your habit of only reporting good news and not the bad? Have you ever properly listened to me and seriously tried to change…”

She looked at You Jiayi and paused. “Why… why are you crying?”

You Jiayi sniffled twice, looking aggrieved. “Wen Nuan, I want to hug you.”

Listening to Wen Nuan’s words, which sounded like complaints and questions, yet were filled with an underlying tone of indulgence and heartache, made You Jiayi feel as if her whole being was soaking in a warm spring – warm and deeply comforting.

“If you want to hug me, then hug me,” Wen Nuan pulled her into her arms, exasperated. “What are you crying for? It’s not like I won’t let you hug me. How come I never realized before how much you love to cry?”

You Jiayi buried her face in her shoulder, saying muffledly, “Wen Nuan, you’re so good.”

“I’m not good, I’m terrible,” Wen Nuan ruffled her hair. “I’ve already made you cry quite a few times.”

In the five or six years she spent with the female lead, the number of times You Jiayi cried could be counted on one hand. Now that they’d met again, this girl was crying more and more often.

And it was all because of her. What sin have I committed?⁴

“No, you’re very good.” You Jiayi shook her head, her voice hoarse. “Don’t talk about yourself like that.”

“Are you silly or what?” Wen Nuan didn’t know whether to laugh or cry seeing her defend her. “I did bad things to you, and you’re turning around to make excuses for me. A little fool like you, you’d still be counting the money for the person who sold you⁵.”

“No, I’m not silly at all,” You Jiayi sniffled, retorting.

“Not silly, yet you still say I’m good?”

“It’s different,” You Jiayi hugged Wen Nuan’s waist, her voice soft. “In my eyes, you’ll always be good.”

No matter what you did to me, Xu Wen Nuan was always a good person in You Jiayi’s heart, a good person she desperately wanted to have.

Wen Nuan felt a mix of complex emotions and sighed silently.

After hugging for a while, they got up to leave the hospital. Just as they exited the infusion room, they bumped right into Shu Changning, who was returning.

Seeing Wen Nuan, Shu Changning quickly said, “CEO Xu, you’re here.”

“Mm,” Wen Nuan looked at Shu Changning’s troubled expression. “What’s wrong? Something urgent?”

Shu Changning glanced at You Jiayi, saw the redness at the corners of her eyes, and frowned. “CEO Xu, did you scold Jiayi?”

“….” Wen Nuan was speechless. “Do I look fierce?”

You Jiayi waved her hands. “Wen… CEO Xu didn’t scold me.”

Shu Changning pointed at You Jiayi’s eyes. “Your eyes are red from crying, you think I can’t see?” He looked at Wen Nuan and took a deep breath. “CEO Xu, that incident happened suddenly. I only just found out and went to resolve it immediately. Jiayi didn’t know anything, and she wasn’t the one who deliberately leaked it. You know clearly what happened that night. The whole incident doesn’t have half a dime’s worth of connection⁶ to Jiayi. It’s not really appropriate for you to scold her until she cries like this, is it?”

During the time he had been managing You Jiayi, he had genuinely come to admire and feel sorry for this young woman. Only twenty-four years old and she had already endured so much hardship.

When she graduated high school, due to family reasons, she couldn’t attend university. Because she was beautiful, she was coaxed into participating in a talent show, just because that person said she could get 5,000 yuan⁷ in cash for participating, win or lose.

Later, during the show, she fell in love with acting and fought hard to land a role in a low-budget web drama⁸. Just as she gained a little fame, she ended up signing with such an unscrupulous company⁹, being exploited¹⁰ and bullied, yet she endured it without complaint. For her to have persevered until today, it really hasn’t been easy.

And now, just because of such a baseless and unreal rumor, Xu Wen Nuan actually scolded You Jiayi, who was still receiving medical treatment, until she cried?!

Wen Nuan was utterly bewildered, being accused point-blank¹¹ by Shu Changning without understanding anything.

“Wait? What happened?” Wen Nuan looked completely clueless.

“Shu-ge? Did something happen?” You Jiayi asked, puzzled. “CEO Xu didn’t scold me, I was just a bit sleepy, so my eyes are red.”

Shu Changning saw that the atmosphere between the two wasn’t as tense as he had imagined. He asked, surprised, “You don’t know? That you two were photographed in the underground parking lot last night, and it became a trending topic today?”

Both shook their heads in unison. “We didn’t know.”

“…..” Shu Changning took out his phone, opened Weibo, and held it in front of them. “Some paparazzi¹² took photos of you two in the parking lot, saying the CEO of Xu Corporation is keeping Jiayi¹³, that you were hugging and holding each other intimately in the parking lot.”

Both leaned forward together to look at the phone.

“The paparazzi photos are very clear. There are several shots of you two embracing, and even a short video. Right now, I plan to steer the narrative towards a deep sisterly bond¹⁴. Compared to a sponsor/kept relationship¹⁵, superficial ‘besties’¹⁶ sounds much better.”

This was the solution Shu Changning and Yixin Entertainment’s PR department had discussed and come up with.

You Jiayi nodded. “Okay, I’ll listen to you.”

Hearing You Jiayi’s words, Wen Nuan paused. “Why do you agree to his proposal?”

“What?” You Jiayi didn’t understand.

“We aren’t sisters, we’re a couple. There’s no need to hide this kind of thing, nor cover it up with other identities, so…” Wen Nuan looked at the dumbfounded Shu Changning. “I reject your proposal.”

You Jiayi’s eyes widened. “….”

Shu Changning’s jaw dropped. “…You two.. are together?”

Since when!?

Wen Nuan took out her phone, held hands tightly with You Jiayi, raised them in front of her chest, and took a selfie.

She opened Weibo; she had her own account, not using the Xu Corporation’s official one.

Xu Wen Nuan V¹⁷: Not sisters, not a kept relationship, but lovers supporting each other through thick and thin¹⁸. #Image#.

Although this world hadn’t passed same-sex marriage legislation, she heard it was being drafted recently, and the public wasn’t as prejudiced about people’s sexual orientation as before.

And Wen Nuan’s intention in posting this Weibo was very clear: she wanted to tell the public that she and You Jiayi were together. No financial ties, no kept relationship, just a couple in love.

Wen Nuan watched her own Weibo post quickly climb the trending list, marked with an “Exploding!” tag next to it.

“Alright, sorted. You don’t need to worry about the rest.” Wen Nuan looked at the stunned Shu Changning. “I’m taking Jiayi with me directly. You should head home early too, bye-bye.”

Shu Changning watched their departing figures, lost in silence.

After getting into the car, Wen Nuan looked at the still dazed You Jiayi. “What’s wrong?”

You Jiayi’s lips moved, her eyes filled with excitement. “We… we just went public like that?”

“You didn’t want to go public?” You Jiayi was a public figure; revealing a relationship would indeed affect her.

She felt like she had done something wrong and said awkwardly, “Did I mess up? Should I delete it? Or should I post another Weibo saying my account was hacked?”

“Sys, do you have any way to make everyone in this world lose their memory?” Whether deleting the Weibo or denying it, neither could explain away the post she just made.

System: 【Apologies, Host, I cannot provide such a wildly imaginative¹⁹ method.】

“Fine, I understand. After all, your abilities are limited.” Wen Nuan understood the System’s incompetence.

System: 【….】

“Wen Nuan, I thought you wouldn’t want to make our relationship public,” You Jiayi murmured, biting her lip.

Wen Nuan raised an eyebrow. “If we don’t make it public, then what is our relationship? Sponsor/kept relationship?”

You Jiayi immediately shook her head, denying it. “I didn’t… think that.”

“But others will think that. If I don’t step forward to clarify this time, the public will assume you’re being kept by me. They’ll think all your resources and efforts were given by me, not earned by yourself. Like with 《Qin Yan》 ²⁰ – I clearly delivered the script to you, but you still went to the audition in person, competing with everyone else.” Wen Nuan gently stroked her head, speaking softly, “I know what kind of person you are, but outsiders don’t. I can’t stand hearing others speak ill of you, understand?”

Seeing You Jiayi looked like she was about to cry again, Wen Nuan quickly raised her hand to cover her eyes, commanding, “Don’t cry!”

You Jiayi immediately pouted, looking pitiful. “…Can’t I cry even if I’m moved?”

“Moved by what?”

Wen Nuan found it strange. What was there to be moved by?

You Jiayi grasped her hand. “I’m moved… that someone as good as you could be mine. It’s truly moving.”

“….” Wen Nuan raised her hand, wiped away her tears, and smiled indulgently. “You really are a little crybaby.”

Her crying really tugged at one’s heartstrings.

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