TFS | Chapter 23

Xu Linruan fell hard. Her nose had hit his chest, turning a little red. The girl hissed, her dark eyes gradually clouding with mist. “Qiyue, do you have a problem?”

At that moment, Qiyue felt the anger he had bottled up with nowhere to vent. He wasn’t sick, he was just pathetic!

He knew full well that she was only playing around, yet he still couldn’t help liking her. Just seeing her walk away with someone else made him feel miserable beyond words. He thought he was being ridiculously stupid, rushing over to get scolded.

An emotion he could not ignore fermented in his chest. Qiyue was furious and aggrieved, but he still noticed her condition, holding her slender waist to help her steady herself slowly.

“Xu Linruan, what the fuck do you take me for? You just broke up with me and you’re already in such a hurry to find a backup?”

His tone was dripping with sarcasm when he spoke to her. He wanted to look like he didn’t care, but his hand still clamped tightly around her wrist, refusing to let go.

Suppressing his emotions while the anger in his eyes nearly spilled over made him feel unbearably uncomfortable.

“You…”

She wanted to play when she felt like it, dump him when she felt like it, and after tossing him aside, she still wanted to happily find the next one. Did she really think he was dead?

Xu Linruan shifted slightly. Her eyes curved up at the corners as she tilted her head and smiled faintly at him. “That doesn’t really have anything to do with you, does it, ex-boyfriend? Don’t forget, we’ve already broken up. What I do isn’t your concern anymore.”

Her tone was enough to drive anyone insane.

Qiyue couldn’t outtalk her. He had never met anyone so good at provoking people, and after saying so much, he only ended up angering himself more. “You think I want to meddle in your business? You go out with him just because you’re with him? Do you think he’s some kind of good guy? Do you even know him?”

Did she think he didn’t know? That guy had tried to dig at his wall before, plain and simple, and that meant he had problems with his character. How many days had it even been since they broke up? He was already shamelessly sticking close again. He had never seen such a brazen man in his life.

Xu Canyang had really been unlucky to get dragged into it. Sure, his motives were impure, but this time, he really had only been there by coincidence.

Xu Linruan shot him a glare. And he still had the nerve to say other people weren’t good guys? Had he forgotten all the wonderful things he had done himself?

She gave a soft laugh and tipped her head slightly, a few strands of black hair sliding down her cheek. “Are you reminding me of that, Young Master? No matter how awful someone else may be, they still wouldn’t use me as a wager. Have you forgotten the good things you’ve done before?”

“And you’re hurting my wrist. Can you let go of me now?”

As soon as she finished speaking, she changed course and looked at him coolly, the rejection and indifference in her eyes unmistakable.

Hearing her say it hurt, Qiyue subconsciously loosened his grip.

He lowered his head and saw that her wrist was slightly red. Just as he was about to ask what was wrong, the shameless bastard beside them leaned in eagerly. “Senior, are you okay? Your wrist looks a little red.”

That intimate gesture was obviously enough to trigger Qiyue.

The emotions that had already been out of control became even harder to suppress. He stared coldly at Xu Canyang. “Could you please get lost? This is between the two of us. It’s none of your business.”

Xu Canyang wasn’t someone who feared trouble. The angrier Qiyue got, the calmer he became, and the elegant composure he showed was even more infuriating. “There’s no need to be so angry. Senior Ruanruan and I are just friends. Since she’s in trouble, it’s only right that I help her.”

“Bullshit friends.” Qiyue was almost laughing from anger. What kind of friendship involved being so close that he could call her by her nickname, even “Ruanruan Senior”?

He let out a cool “heh,” and contempt flashed through his eyes. “Don’t think I don’t know what you’re after. You’d better stay away from her.”

“That’s not something you get to decide. As long as Senior hasn’t told me to leave, I’m not going anywhere,” the puppy-like little junior said with a smile that carried a distinctly black-hearted edge.

Qiyue had also come to his senses. He sneered, his sharp brows and eyes filled with contempt and hostility. “Fine. If you want to fight, I’ll go along with you. Just don’t go crying home to Mommy afterward.”

The atmosphere grew a little tense. The two of them seemed ready to come to blows with just a few words, and there was no one else like them.

Xu Linruan narrowed her eyes. She didn’t want to keep entangling herself, and she had no intention of indulging this person any further. He was even trying to control her social life with a death grip. She wasn’t a criminal, and besides, they had already broken up. Messy entanglements weren’t her style.

Rubbing her aching wrist, she spoke gently, yet her words were enough to anger someone to death. “Young Master, don’t you think you’re sticking your nose in too far?”

“Our relationship ends here. As for who I like in the future, and who I want to be with, that’s my freedom. It has nothing to do with you.”

She stepped back, and that posture of wanting to draw a complete line between them angered Qiyue again, only this time it was different.

She didn’t believe him, and her clearly protective attitude toward someone else hurt him deeply.

He felt like he had been betrayed again. It was a feeling he had never had before, that unbearable sour ache and grief spreading from his chest through his entire body, leaving him unable to control himself.

Qiyue stared at her with red-rimmed eyes. He tried to calm down, clenching his fists so hard that he wouldn’t rush over and beat up the guy standing next to her. “Do you like him?”

His voice trembled slightly if listened to closely, full of grievance and sorrow, as if she would burst into tears the moment she nodded.

Xu Linruan thought this guy really couldn’t understand human speech. She turned slightly, not at all feeling that her words were too harsh. “Even if I like him, it still has nothing to do with you.”

Qiyue pressed his lips together, his gaze stubborn and fixed on demanding an answer. “So you really do like him?”

Xu Linruan indulged him. She lifted her head and answered in an offhand tone, “Fine. If you want to put it that way, then sure.”

She didn’t want to keep dragging this out. After speaking, she brushed his hand aside and turned to leave.

However, she seemed to have underestimated just how badly an enraged Qiyue could be provoked. When he got ruthless, he was also unreasonable in a spectacular way.

Qiyue had never felt like this before, not even when she said she didn’t like him. This was even more heartbreaking, a kind of sourness that came straight from the core.

It had only been a few days, and she was already saying in front of him that she had fallen for another man? Qiyue stared fixedly at the girl’s back, wanting to say no, that she couldn’t like anyone else…

But his lips moved, and he found that no words came out. He had no standing to ask her to do that. The situation today was his own fault.

Qiyue now truly regretted, more than anything, making a wager over her with someone else. He knew he had been wrong, terribly, unforgivably wrong.

It was the first time in his life he had ever liked a girl this much, even more than he had imagined. Especially when he saw her standing shoulder to shoulder with another boy, jealousy and anger made him lose all reason.

At that moment, there had been only one thought left in his head, and that was that he couldn’t let her go.

Everything happened so suddenly. Xu Linruan and the others had barely taken a few steps when they heard a rush of footsteps from behind.

Before she could even react, she turned around and saw that gloomy bastard charge straight up and land a punch on Xu Canyang’s face. “Who the hell do you think you are, trying to steal my girlfriend? I’ll fucking kill you right now, believe it or not?”

A fierce look flashed across his exquisite, handsome features, and veins bulged on his fist from the force he put into it.

Xu Canyang was stunned by the blow at first, but once he recovered, he refused to back down either.

The two of them crashed to the ground, rolling from the road to the flowerbed, tangled together and wrecking a patch of flowers and grass.

“Bang–“

The viciousness in Qiyue’s eyes grew even sharper as he slammed another merciless punch into the other man’s face.

“What right do you have to like her? When I was with her, you didn’t even know where you were. What the hell are you, and you think you can compete with me?”

Qiyue grabbed his collar with a savage expression, revealing his truest self. That lofty, contemptuous attitude, as if he looked down on everything in his bones, was impossible to meet head-on.

Xu Canyang’s lip had split open. He spat out a mouthful of blood, then suddenly bent a knee and drove it hard into Qiyue’s abdomen. “I wasn’t trying to steal her. It’s just that Senior was never yours to begin with.”

Qiyue let out a muffled grunt from the hit. It had to be said, those words had struck his sore spot.

Along with his anger came an endless, overwhelming sadness. He needed to vent it. “Bullshit, if she’s not mine, then whose is she? She’s my girlfriend. As long as I haven’t agreed to break up, she will always be mine.”

“Don’t think that because she has a little good impression of you, you can decide anything. You fucking dare touch her, try it?” The last sentence carried a distinct note of threat.

His voice was eerie, and the aura around him was frighteningly fierce, especially that outright thug-like posture of his. It was simply impossible to look at him directly. He was way too arrogant.

This was the first time she had ever seen Qiyue like this. Xu Linruan looked at his face, blue and purple in patches, his eyes pitch-black with no emotion readable within them.

Yet from his words, she could hear a kind of possessive stubbornness that would never let go. Her head started to ache. Had this guy been stimulated so badly that he had developed some kind of abnormal trait?

Xu Linruan spent a great deal of effort finally pulling the two of them apart, then stood in front of him, her gaze cool. “That’s enough, Qiyue. What are you freaking out about here?”

The boy looked up at her. That intense possessiveness made Xu Linruan worry for a moment that he might lunge at her and bite her without caring about anything else. Thankfully, he didn’t.

There was an uncontainable stubbornness in his eyes, along with a trace of unbelievable grievance. Even after getting beaten up so badly, he didn’t feel as upset as he did when she protected someone else. It made the tip of his nose sting, and he had an urge to cry.

Clearly, she had been endlessly gentle with him before.

What happened to liking him? This scummy heartless bastard!

Xu Linruan also knew this was not the time to keep confronting each other. This guy really was unreasonable when he got crazy, and she was afraid they would start fighting again.

So she said to Xu Canyang, “You should head back first. I still have some things to make clear with him.”

Xu Canyang was a little worried. He had heard some things about the two of them, and he was afraid that if that guy lost his mind, he might do something bad to Senior.

He had actually been hesitating and didn’t want to leave, but since Senior had said it like that, he couldn’t keep clinging on. Staying here would only make things worse, so he left.

Qiyue watched him go with a cold expression, and only after the man was far away did he look back.

When Xu Linruan turned around, she saw him standing stiffly in the flowerbed, his handsome face a miserable sight. His lips were pressed tight, and his eyes were fixed on her with grievance and sorrow.

She walked up to him and couldn’t help feeling speechless. “What’s with that expression? Do you feel wronged? When something happens, all you know how to do is use your fists? Or do you think you’re amazing because you won?”

“I didn’t. This was supposed to be a contest between men…”

Qiyue was still being stubborn. He wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth awkwardly and spoke with complete confidence, but under Xu Linruan’s cool gaze, his voice still couldn’t help dropping.

The young master rarely had such a cowardly moment, but that scrutinizing look was really too much for him to handle. He could only stare at her pitifully.

The girl’s slender index finger poked at the wound on his shoulder, and her tone was light. “Hah, look at you, getting all competitive now?”

“But liking competition is your own business. You should know that we’ve already broken up, and your behavior is only making things difficult for me.”

But Qiyue didn’t care at all. He grabbed her wrist at once and said urgently, “I haven’t agreed yet. I don’t agree to the breakup, so you’re still my girlfriend.”

This person really was being unreasonable.

Xu Linruan glanced at him. She didn’t know if it was his possessiveness acting up, but in the original novel this guy hadn’t been this childish and hard to deal with. When it came to his ex-girlfriend, he had been far too casual, and he had even arrogantly and willfully chased the heroine away several times. If the heroine hadn’t been a little more tolerant, the two of them would have broken up long ago.

So why was he being so fussy now?

She pressed a hand to her forehead and thought it would be better to end this sooner rather than later, to avoid trouble in the future.

Qiyue still did not know what she was thinking. He only felt that Xu Linruan, standing before him, was indescribably beautiful, so beautiful that he could not help wanting to get closer.

The girl’s long eyelashes fluttered slightly. She reached out and smoothed the creases in his collar, and perhaps because she was about to deal him another blow, even her tone had become gentler.

She said softly, “Qiyue, you have to know that breaking up doesn’t require both people’s agreement. As long as I say it’s over, then it’s over.”

“And… you’ll meet a girl you like again very soon. She may not be as pretty as I am, but she’ll definitely be the one most suitable for you. By then, all you’ll feel toward me is irritation.”

That certain tone made Qiyue feel like he was the one who had been a scumbag all along.

Qiyue: “…”

He didn’t know why she was saying this, but didn’t he know his own personality? She gently touched the corner of his mouth where he was injured, her movements very soft. Yet Qiyue still subconsciously tensed his body. He had almost said, “No, he wouldn’t get tired of her. He could pat his chest and promise that from now on he would only like her.”

But before he could say a word,

he heard her say again, “Qiyue, you should know, I don’t like you. Being with you was just because I was bored.”