A spacious room, a soft bed.
There was a scent in the air similar to floral fragrance—
Bai Mengling had shut herself in her room.
She stared blankly at her phone, at the message Liu Yan had sent: “Let’s break up.”
Just three words.
And that said it all.
She knew it—from the moment her parents decided to test Liu Yan, the relationship between her and Liu Yan had already been declared broken.
She found it absurd. Were her parents really that foolish?
What did they mean by “someone who would stand firmly by your side even if their family was threatened”?
If you don’t even want your own family, how can you love me?
How dare you consider someone like that as your son-in-law?
No… this was exactly what her parents wanted.
Bai Mengling realized this—rather than Liu Yan being a man of loyalty and righteousness, they preferred him to be someone driven by power and wealth.
That way, in order to obtain their wealth and power, Liu Yan would wholeheartedly treat her well. And they, as her parents, as seasoned veterans of the business world, could easily weave power and wealth into delicate chains to bind Liu Yan.
She fully understood her parents’ thoughts.
She knew that what happened at the debate was not something Liu Yan had deliberately planned—but in her parents’ eyes, it was a setup by Liu Yan. They had reason to believe that the opposing debater’s embarrassing words on stage were instigated by Liu Yan, even though they hadn’t even bothered to investigate.
Therefore, they were convinced that Liu Yan could see that the threat was meaningless, that they would not allow Du Zitang to actually touch his family.
They felt this was their magnanimity, their ease in handling things—it demonstrated power without harming anyone. At the same time, it was a subtle warning to Liu Yan.
Liu Yan probably saw through it.
If he hadn’t seen through it, he wouldn’t have broken up with her so decisively.
Even if threatened by Du Zitang, even if tempted by the benefits Du Zitang offered, he would at least have hesitated—but he didn’t.
In the three words “Let’s break up,” Bai Mengling saw neither anger, nor despair, nor fear.
It was just a kind of “exhaustion.”
A weariness of “I don’t want to play with you people anymore.”
To pull away, to stop the internal friction—that was Liu Yan’s choice.
This was the natural choice, and Bai Mengling had known it from the start.
Because there was a very simple question here.
She liked Liu Yan, but Liu Yan didn’t like her.
The moment Liu Yan confessed to her, she had confirmed this fact. The reason this man confessed to her was only because he had broken up with Xia You, and only because a woman named Chen Tang had been egging him on.
As for why Chen Tang egged him on? The reason was simple.
She wanted to leave Liu Yan with no way out. She thought that Bai Mengling would refuse, and then Liu Yan would know that the woman who would always be by his side no matter what was this woman named Chen Tang.
But she accepted…
She remembered the words Chen Tang said when they went grocery shopping together.
That woman, even when mocked and provoked by her until she was shattered, still stood firmly by Liu Yan’s side.
And so Bai Mengling finally understood the weight of Chen Tang.
That woman was absolutely not the kind of so-called “doomed loser” childhood friend. No matter where Liu Yan was, what he was doing, or what his status was, she would be by his side. In the story of Liu Yan’s life, there would always be a place for her.
That position could be prominent or inconspicuous, but it would always exist. She would be there, accompanying Liu Yan forever.
So at that time…
Did she know that something like this would happen?
Had she been signaling this all along by calling her “Eldest Miss Bai” and then “President Bai” after being told not to?
But she had actually believed that her parents wouldn’t test Liu Yan, that they only wanted to see what kind of person he was.
At lunch, she had been happy, thinking her parents approved of Liu Yan, thinking his demeanor was generous and appropriate, and that it wouldn’t displease her parents.
But unexpectedly, the test came after that, without her parents even needing to act themselves.
In her parents’ eyes, they had done nothing. In fact, they had protected Liu Yan’s family, not allowing Du Zitang to harm his family or his friends.
They thought they had been magnanimous enough.
Even, in her parents’ view, this couldn’t even be considered a test.
They thought they were completely right, that they had done everything they could.
Yet this was the reason Liu Yan chose to give up.
Because he didn’t want to wade into the murky waters.
Admittedly, if he had bravely faced Du Zitang’s challenge, acting like a hot-blooded young man and starting a fight with Du Zitang right there, then getting beaten up by the bodyguards—
If he had done that, her parents would have stepped in, forcing the Du clan to severely punish Du Zitang, giving an explanation to the boyfriend of the Bai daughter, compensating Liu Yan financially, and then arranging for him to join the family company, start taking over the family business, and grooming him as the Bai family’s son-in-law.
Just by getting beaten up once, he would have directly leeched off the Bai family. He might even become the richest man in X City, with a lover like Bai Mengling by his side. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say he’d reached the peak of life.
But he didn’t want to.
He didn’t want to face the possible ups and downs in the business world. He had no interest in the title of Bai family’s son-in-law. He didn’t even have much desire for money itself.
To put it more bluntly—
Liu Yan already had a lot.
He had parents who loved him, a family that wasn’t poor and could live a fairly comfortable life, and a cute and lovely childhood friend who was always willing to accompany him.
He was also excellent in his studies, outstanding in physical fitness, and had high emotional intelligence.
He had everything.
He had happiness.
So he had no need to take risks.
He didn’t need to risk losing everything just to get more money or to get a girlfriend named Bai Mengling—even if that risk was very small.
A simple math problem—no one would miscalculate.
And more importantly… Liu Yan didn’t like her.
If he liked her, if he loved her, he would have taken some action. But in this relationship… in a situation like this, the one who had fallen for him was her.
So when the choice was put before them, the one not chosen had to face “pain.”
Tears flowed from her eyes. She clenched her teeth tightly, not wanting to let herself cry out loud. That would be too pathetic, too unlike Bai Mengling.
…
Compared to Bai Mengling’s suffering, Chen Tang was feeling pretty good right now.
Liu Yan held her for a while, until she herself felt her body heat rising and couldn’t stand it anymore, then he finally let her go.
“You said you were trying to comfort me, right?”
“Mm…” Her mind was in a daze.
“Then can you grant me some selfish requests today? Besides, you look really good and cute in this body.”
Chen Tang finally regained some composure. Hearing Liu Yan’s words, she nodded instinctively.
“Mm, cheering up my bro is my responsibility. What do you want me to do?”
“Then let’s cook later.”
Liu Yan brought Chen Tang to the living room and made her sit on the sofa.
“I’ve always envied lap pillows in anime. I wanted to ask Xia You to do it before, but she didn’t want to. And I wasn’t that familiar with Bai Mengling yet. Would you be willing?”
“It’s just a lap pillow, right? How hard can it be?”
’She had thought this guy would ask for something more outrageous, but it was just a lap pillow.’
“I also want you to clean my ears.”
“…I’ve never really cleaned anyone’s ears before… but I’ll try my best.”
She accepted all of Liu Yan’s requests.
Liu Yan then lay directly on Chen Tang’s lap, in that absolute territory between her thigh-high bubble socks and her skirt. He turned sideways, so his face and ear came into direct contact with the skin of Chen Tang’s thigh.
Chen Tang felt strangely odd.
When he lay on her lap like that, his head felt so big.
After all, this guy was tall and big.
Or was she too petite?
She couldn’t help but recall the feeling of the hug just now.
Her body still felt a bit warm.
“I’ll be as gentle as possible. Tell me if it hurts, okay~”
“Mm.”
It smelled good.
Ever since the world line changed, Liu Yan hadn’t known how to face Chen Tang.
Although he always joked about it with Chen Tang, how exactly should he truly face the current Chen Tang?
Today was an exception.
Actually, regarding breaking up with Bai Mengling, he didn’t feel sad at all. He only felt it was an inevitable outcome. He did feel a bit stifled—but who wouldn’t? When someone uses power to oppress you, who doesn’t want to just pull out a knife and stab them a couple of times?
In the end, there were more important things to protect.
But Chen Tang was very gentle.
Far gentler than the Chen Tang he had known in the past.
In the afternoon, she said nothing, just gently accompanied him and Liu Mengmeng through that ordinary afternoon, telling him that their daily life still existed.
And in the evening, she put on this maid outfit, using “benefits” to improve his mood.
He felt like he should suppress the corners of his mouth, but a smile involuntarily spilled onto his face.
Perhaps from the very beginning, he had been prejudiced against Chen Tang.
She was indeed mischievous as a child, or had a penchant for pranks, but when it came to him, she was beyond reproach.
She had always been good to him, or…
As Chen Tang’s gentle movements came from his ear, he felt his distant memories begin to revive.
After he was scolded by a teacher, Chen Tang took him to put pickled pepper chicken feet soup on the teacher’s office chair. He heard that even after changing pants and showering, the teacher’s butt hurt for a whole day.
When he had a conflict with other kids, Chen Tang took him to ambush them from behind, taking them down one by one, and beating them all up.
When he was young and clueless, confessed to another girl and got rejected, Chen Tang stuffed frogs into her desk.
Although the result was that the girl ended up avoiding both of them…
But that was Chen Tang.
From the very beginning, she had always helped him, always stood by his side, taking action based on his actions.
In the past, she was a boy, so she helped him in a boy’s way. Now, after the world line changed, she touched the meteor and became a girl, so she helped him in a girl’s way.
But this person, from the very beginning, had never changed.
When he was dumped by Xia You, she egged him on to confess to Bai Mengling, and during the relationship, she threw herself into the situation to make Bai Mengling like him more.
And after he broke up with Bai Mengling, she personally came to comfort him.
“This side’s done. Come on, turn halfway and switch to the other side.”
In a daze, he heard this instruction.
Liu Yan followed Chen Tang’s instruction and turned halfway.
And then he suddenly became fully awake.
’…Facing inward?’
He widened his eyes.
’This angle isn’t good, is it? I feel like if I look down, I can see some dangerous places… Also, from this angle, the fragrance on Chen Tang seems even richer.’
He didn’t even dare to breathe, afraid that Chen Tang would notice something was off.
But Chen Tang was focused. She found that cleaning someone’s ears was actually quite fun.
The girl’s warm breath happened to fall on Liu Yan’s face.
She was indeed a beautiful girl.
Liu Yan clearly realized this fact.
’By the way, was Chen Tang willing to agree to anything today? If he made an even more excessive request, something that could even be called ambiguous, would she agree?’
His heart pounded.
He was already holding his breath, and now he even found it hard to breathe.
“Okay~”
Chen Tang put the ear pick aside.
“It’s done~”
Liu Yan finally breathed a sigh of relief and prepared to sit up.
But then Chen Tang pressed down on his head.
Her tone was a bit puzzled.
“What’s wrong? When I was cleaning your other ear, I felt like you were about to fall asleep. But when I cleaned this side, you suddenly became very alert. Did I hurt this ear?”
“No… it’s not that, I just…”
“Eh~ no? Then if it’s not that~”
An all-too-familiar tone made Liu Yan realize something. He glanced upward and saw Chen Tang’s ambiguous, teasing smile.
’Oh no! This girl… she knows everything!’
“So it’s because this angle got you excited, right? Classmate Liu Yan~”
Her fingers pinched the corner of her skirt.
“I’m thinking, from this angle, can you vaguely see something? Do you want to see?”
’This person really hasn’t changed at all!’