He listened to the sound.
Finally, his intangible gaze passed over the crowd and landed on the woman’s face.
She was dressed in a white formal suit, dignified and imposing.
She said lightly,
“Gu Zhaoye, are you tired of living?”
Before anyone could react,
the middle-aged woman beside her had already moved forward with her words, swiftly twisting Gu Zhaoye’s arms behind his back!
In the instant before Gu Zhaoye could comprehend what was happening, he was subdued with lightning speed, violently dragged back onto the stage, and forcefully pressed down next to Fang Yining!
Gu Zhaoye let out a yelp!
His head was pushed down!
This sudden turn of events startled everyone!
The crowd looked in horror at the middle-aged woman who had suddenly appeared!
My God, wasn’t she the driver from earlier???
Was she also a bodyguard?
How was she so skilled?
No one even saw her move before she had Gu Zhaoye under control!
The situation was instantly and firmly in Gu Zhao’s grasp.
At that moment, she nodded to Fang Yining and said,
My brother is immature; I apologize on his behalf.
Fang Yining quickly said,
“It’s fine, I expected this.”
Everyone was stunned again—what kind of conversation was this?
What did she mean she expected this?
Did she already know Gu Zhaoye would leave with someone else at the engagement banquet, making her a complete laughingstock??
Huh??
Can someone explain?
Then, everyone watched as Fang Yining, the gentle, highly educated woman who always greeted everyone with a smile, kicked aside the long train of her dress and walked unimpeded toward Gu Zhaoye.
Facing his firmly restrained face, she slapped him hard.
Slap!
A crisp, resounding sound.
The last time Gu Zhaoye was hit this hard was on the snowy mountain with Liang Zhiwei’s slap.
The woman who had always adored him delivered a humiliating blow.
Gu Zhaoye was utterly dazed.
The entire room fell silent.
Fang Yining scanned the crowd, her gaze landing on the Gu family, the dumbfounded guests,
and then passing over the stunned media before settling on her own bewildered parents.
She felt no grievance, no victimhood, no retreat, or any other painful emotions.
Her heart and eyes were filled only with excitement and the thrill of accomplishing this major event, seizing a new life.
Fang Yining lifted her chin, her casually crafted, glamorous appearance suddenly revealing that it didn’t match Gu Zhaoye’s attire—she was too striking.
Her gaze swept the room again, locking eyes with her mother, and she pointed at Gu Zhaoye.
“The one who flees the wedding is the joke, not me.”
“Even if he turns his back and leaves a thousand times, ten thousand times, leaving me waiting in place countless times, the one disgraced is him—this shameless, faithless, utterly despicable, and venomous thing.”
In the midst of her mother’s trembling and incredulous gaze, Fang Yining continued,
“Mom, Dad, do you believe that whether it’s him or me who flees today, I’d still be the one made a laughingstock? Do you understand?”
Fang Yining’s mother stood dumbfounded, listening as Fang Yining continued relentlessly:
“He cheats, and I’m the one disgraced, deemed not charming enough; I cheat, and I’m still the one disgraced, deemed without principles. He’s a playboy, and he’s a charming rogue who reforms; I’m a playgirl, and I’m a shameless woman who doesn’t know better. He wears a cuckold’s horns, and countless people pity him, wanting to comfort him!”
“Why should he!”
The old man stood up in shock, watching Fang Yining’s voice grow louder.
“When something this big happens to him, and I still agree to get engaged, people call me lovesick, say I deserve it, that I don’t give up, and whatever life I lead afterward is my own fault. But if I did something this big, and he still agreed to get engaged to me, he’d be praised as loyal, a deeply affectionate good man—do you understand?”
“From childhood, you told me to be obedient, to learn everything, to get a high education—I thought you loved me. Until the first time you said studying medicine was too busy, too tiring, bad for my health, and not good for future pregnancy.”
“I realized then that you’ve been raising me as someone else’s daughter-in-law.”
Fang Yining’s usually gentle face was now stubborn and mocking, striking fear in others.
Her parents trembled as they watched her, as if they couldn’t understand, or were trying to, but mostly feared her sudden outburst, saying things they never imagined she’d say.
“That’s fine, though. You didn’t know before, but now everyone must know.”
She spoke each word deliberately.
“I don’t need this grand engagement to be envied—I’m already worthy of envy.”
She glanced down at her layered, cake-like dress and sneered,
“Am I wearing this dress to look more ornamental, or to make it harder for me to escape?”
All the moments since meeting Gu Zhao, all the anger recalled in recent days, all the injustices, doubts, and resentment from growing up— at this moment, they all turned into her final question.
She shouted with startling fury.
No one knew why she was so angry.
Why she couldn’t bear it any longer.
Why she chose this moment to explode.
In that instant, the space around them shook violently!
The surroundings suddenly felt fractured.
Gu Zhao, who had just been quietly watching Fang Yining speak, realized everything seemed to freeze.
The flickering camera flashes stopped at a single moment, the media’s shocked expressions unchanging;
Fang Yining’s terrified parents reached out, as if to grab her, while Fang Yining, in her long dress, faced them in a defiant stance, her movements halted;
Gu Zhaoye, the Gu family, everyone stopped moving.
The only ones still able to move seemed to be her and Ruan Nian, who was trembling, collapsed on the ground.
Gu Zhao’s gaze shifted, and at that moment, she heard that voice again—the one she’d only heard once before:
“Host, long time no see.”
Gu Zhao turned slightly, as if looking at an image in the void that didn’t exist.
It was the voice from when she first arrived in this world, explaining that she’d become the sister of a domineering tycoon, asking if she knew what she was supposed to do.
She looked at the despondent Ruan Nian on the ground and said,
“She’s your host.”
“No,” the system laughed, “you are.”