After Li Chunfeng left, Bai Yin picked up the cup. The ginger tea in the cup had already turned cold.
She kept thinking about Li Chunfeng's last words.
Could this be true?
Does Chen Huaixiao love her?
Bai Yin was half believing and half doubting, but it was a fact that Chen Huaixiao had just saved her, and it was also a fact that he was jealous, and it was also a fact that he clearly said he didn't care if she went crazy the next second...
No way! Is this real?
Just as Bai Yin was confused, she received a phone call from Sun Lili—
"Dear! Are you okay? I saw the video, it was too, too, too thrilling! I didn't expect Su Anning to really make an all-out effort!"
"I'm fine, don't worry. I exercise every day, I have pretty good lung capacity."
"You really shouldn't have confronted her head-on. You can't swim. If no one had jumped into the water to save you, wouldn't you have lost your life?" Sun Lili was both worried afterwards and angry at the same time. She gritted her teeth and said, "Su Anning...I will definitely sue her to the end! She must be punished as she deserves!"
Bai Yin calmly soothed her, "Su Anning grew up spoiled by Su Yecheng's love and favor. She has had smooth sailing in the entertainment industry all the way, has never suffered any setbacks. In her eyes, there is a huge gap between me and her. She is the little princess, and I am Cinderella who is not even worthy of untying her shoes. So my threat really touched her most intolerable sore spot, causing her to lash out desperately, even wanting me to disappear from the world forever, this kind of reaction is foreseeable."
"Does that mean it was foreseeable that she would push you into the water?"
"I didn't expect that. I thought she would just slap me to vent her anger, or something else. I didn't expect her to actually want me dead." Bai Yin shook her head.
Su Anning must have really been spoiled. The protective walls built by Su Yecheng's capital protected her too well, making her completely unaware of where the bottom line was.
"When adults act on impulse, they have to take responsibility, but she...doesn't seem to have grown up yet."
"When she pushed me into the water, I didn't really have no room to resist." As Bai Yin recalled the situation at that time, she said lightly, "But at the moment when she pressed me against the railing, when I saw the raging anger burning in her eyes, I was very confused."
"Confused about what?"
"She occupied my nest, causing my family to be broken up, and took away my life... Why was she angry? What right did she have to be angry?"
Sun Lili sighed and said, "I guess she never realized she was wrong, and thought everything was justified."
"That's right." Bai Yin stood by the floor-to-ceiling window, looking at the shimmering ripples on the lake surface, and said in a deep voice, "So at that moment, I decided to make the best of the situation. Since Su Anning doesn't recognize her own mistakes, let her spend the rest of her life paying back everything she took away from me in the past decade."
Sun Lili was so surprised that she couldn't speak: "You mean...you could actually resist, but you didn't..."
"I want to make her...never be able to get back up again."
...
Bai Yin didn't know that when Li Chunfeng left, the door was not closed, but was left ajar.
Chen Huaixiao returned to the room in a very bad condition, with bloodshot eyes.
All the worries, distress, despair of almost losing her just now...it was all like a joke.
In the past, she had used herself as a bargaining chip and won this marriage.
And now, she was gambling against death with her own life. All this...was just to trample the daughter of her enemy into eternal damnation.
This woman didn't even care about death, how could she care about him?
The suffocating feeling of seeking but not getting was about to swallow him whole.
Such a woman was clearly the type he hated and detested the most. For a long time, Chen Huaixiao really thought he disliked her.
Especially that night of their college graduation, when she said those words to him when he woke up.
Whenever Chen Huaixiao recalled it, he hated it so much that his heart felt like it would explode.
But it was precisely in the midst of his uncontrolled, day-after-day longing for her that he realized his heart had been gripped tightly in her hands, powerless to break free.
Chen Huaixiao had never been the kind of person who confused desire and love, but with Bai Yin, he could no longer distinguish what was passion and what was love.
There was both, and both came with incredible intensity and turbulence.
Perhaps it was not only that night in college, but a long, long time ago, it was her calling him brother countless times, her accompanying him every year to get through the most difficult day, her tough and stubborn look...that had made him "not know where the feeling started, but go deeper and deeper" long ago.
Chen Huaixiao knew that Bai Yin had always misunderstood him as seeing her as a substitute.
In fact, what substitute?
In his heart, she was forever one and only.
But she loved everything—she loved money, loved making a scene, loved arguing and tearing into others—everything except...loving him.
This was probably Chen Huaixiao's greatest resentment in this life.
*
At night, Bai Yin brought ginger soup to Chen Huaixiao's presidential suite next to the hotel.
Chen Huaixiao opened the door but didn't look at her. He turned and went back to the desk, reading a book.
"Brother."
Chen Huaixiao's voice was icy cold: "Get out."
"I just wanted to come thank you for saving me."
"Not necessary."
Bai Yin put the steaming hot ginger soup on the desk: "Anyway, you saved me, and I'll remember it in my heart. In the future if I get a chance to repay you, I will."
Chen Huaixiao knew she was always like this—she would definitely repay kindness, and resentment...she would of course not forget either.
He gave a cold laugh: "Bai Yin, you want to repay the person who saved you. If one day, I stand on the opposite side of you, will you also retaliate against me? Just like everything you did to Su Anning today."
"..."
Bai Yin looked up at him with a faint smile.
The man's gaze was like a knife, cutting painfully into her heart.
Of course, nothing could be hidden from him.
Also, he had always guessed her schemes with the greatest malice. It was natural for him to figure out her plot.
In his heart, this was just the kind of person she was!
Bai Yin bit her lip and lowered her eyes: "We have common interests. Brother, will you stand on the opposite side of me?"
Chen Huaixiao said indifferently, "There are no permanent partners."
"Oh, that's right." Bai Yin suddenly remembered: "If A-Yao comes back, you will definitely stand on her side. If A-Yao doesn't like me, you will definitely help her against me, right?"
"..."
Bai Yin looked at Chen Huaixiao with cold amusement: "Chen Huaixiao, this is the kind of situation you're talking about, right?"
Chen Huaixiao pushed away the ginger soup on the table.
The soup spilled, staining the desk, wetting the documents, but he didn't care at all. He said coldly to Bai Yin, "When talking about us, don't bring in other people."
"Sorry, I shouldn't have touched the person in your heart."
After mockingly saying this, she turned to leave. Chen Huaixiao forcibly grabbed her wrist and pulled her close to him. He fiercely bit down on her lips, the pain making Bai Yin push hard against him.
Unable to push him away, she could only fight back, biting his mouth in return.
In the end, both of their lips were bleeding. The salty, tangy blood was intertwined and suffusing. Only then did Chen Huaixiao gentle down. Holding the back of her head, he licked the wound on her lips.
Seeing that he had stopped attacking, Bai Yin also stopped biting.
After a long time, Chen Huaixiao softly said: "Bai Yin, you never knew my heart."
"I don't know." She gazed closely into his deep, dark eyes. "Because you never let me see."
Chen Huaixiao gripped her wrist even tighter: "From today on, maybe we can let go of many things and communicate more deeply."
The woman's hot breath was right by his ear: "How does brother want to communicate deeply?"
"I want to let you see my heart."
...
Su Anning being detained had caused huge waves online.
It was not uncommon for disgraced celebrities to go to jail in the entertainment industry, but no artist had ever gone in for attempted murder.
Su Yecheng and Zou Meizhi tried every possible way to get Su Anning out. They hired the best legal team, hoping to push Su Anning's pushing Bai Yin into the water as just a tussle between sisters, a domestic affair.
Bai Yin simply made public how Su Yecheng and Zou Meizhi had driven her mother to slit her wrists in the bathtub all those years ago...
Over the years Bai Yin had gathered a lot of information. She provided it to an entertainment marketing account with 9 million fans. This insider gossip blogger then completely exposed how Su Yecheng had cheated in the past, how Zou Meizhi became the third party and rose to the top, how they drove Bai Yin to a small town in the south, and how Su Anning then leapt from illegitimate daughter to the little princess of the Su Group...
These old stories that had been buried in the dust were now linked to the hot incident of Su Anning pushing Bai Yin into the water, completely igniting the anger of netizens and fans—
"This is really too disgusting!"
"I've never seen such shameless people!"
"I really feel like vomiting!"
"Su Anning is too disgusting! She occupied the magpie's nest herself, yet was always aggressively trying to prevail, feeling that Bai Yin owed her."
"Who told her to have such a shameless mother!"
"Don't forget, there's also the scumbag father. This family of three is a perfect match. I just feel bad for Bai Yin's mother."
"Scumbag, homewrecker, go die!"
...
This time, Su Anning thoroughly fell from grace, from being worshipped by all as the national goddess, to being reviled as the illegitimate daughter of a homewrecker.
The bloody storm of online public opinion naturally also affected Su Yecheng's entertainment company. Not only did the stock price plummet wildly, the artists signed by his company were also innocently implicated, boycotted by many netizens and fans.
At the final board meeting, under pressure from the shareholders, Su Yecheng had no choice but to announce his resignation, while also selling off his shares, leaving this entertainment media company that he had founded with his own hands.
Bai Yin had long been preparing for today, and had also accumulated enough capital to take over Su Yecheng's shares and completely replace him to become the behind-the-scenes shareholder of Su's Entertainment Media.
Bai Yin wanted to let her mother and grandmother see that she would not only be the brightest star in the entertainment industry, but she would also become the richest woman and reap much happiness.
However, when she came to Su Shi Entertainment Media, she got a shocking piece of news.
The entire Su Shi Entertainment Media had already been acquired by Chen Huaixiao.
Bai Yin was stunned for several seconds before she gradually reacted.
The mantis stalks the cicada, unaware of the oriole behind!
The public opinion storm this time caused Su Shi Entertainment Media's stock price to plummet. Chen Huaixiao took advantage of this opportunity to acquire Su Shi Entertainment Media at an extremely low price, becoming the biggest winner behind the scenes.
Bai Yin thought she had planned everything carefully, but she did not expect that she would be making wedding clothes for Chen Huaixiao.
She really underestimated Chen Huaixiao!
She had long heard that the third young master of the Chen family had been doing things like moving clouds and rain these past few years, using his thunderous methods to merge several groups and become the dominant force in the entertainment industry.
Bai Yin never thought there would be a day when she could personally experience being calculated by the man beside her pillow.
She was so angry she could burst, she couldn't wait a minute longer, she had to find Chen Huaixiao to get to the bottom of this.
Bai Yin charged furiously into the office. She saw two Frenchmen in suits talking with Chen Huaixiao at the desk about a potential partnership.
She suppressed her anger and sat quietly on the sofa.
These two Frenchmen with high nose bridges and blue eyes were Chen Huaixiao's clients. They did not know Bai Yin's identity. Seeing her so reckless, their expressions changed slightly.
Chen Huaixiao explained to them in fluent French, "She is my wife. She has a bad temper."
The two French clients glanced at each other and smiled knowingly. "Madame Chen is very beautiful, like the endless lavender fields in Provence."
Chen Huaixiao seemed to be in a good mood, the corners of his mouth turned up slightly. "She's not the lavender of Provence, she's the little grass growing in my heart."
Shen Bin, who was standing silently nearby, understood many languages. When he heard Chen Huaixiao's last sentence, he tried his best to hold back his urge to laugh. He glanced at Bai Yin.
Bai Yin had also been listening carefully to the conversation between Chen Huaixiao and the French. Although she could not understand it, she felt that his elegant French accent was quite nice.
Suddenly seeing Shen Bin look at her, Bai Yin looked at him warily. She mouthed to him, "Is Chen Huaixiao scolding me?!"
Shen Bin shook his head repeatedly. He mouthed back, "Mr. Chen is praising you."
Seeing his teasing smile, Bai Yin did not believe his words at all. She stuck her tongue out at him.
Chen Huaixiao noticed the interaction between Bai Yin and Shen Bin. He turned his head and asked Shen Bin in French, "Are you very familiar with my wife?"
Shen Bin's expression changed drastically. "No, no, no! We are not familiar at all."
Chen Huaixiao just warned him casually. He did not pay more attention to it. Shen Bin clutched his chest and breathed a sigh of relief.
Damn, he's even jealous over this kind of nonsense.
Mr. Chen really loves Madam deeply without realizing it.
*
Half an hour later, Chen Huaixiao and the two Frenchmen got up and shook hands. Shen Bin escorted them out of the office.
Bai Yin was still sitting properly on the sofa, looking over the script for her movie and silently memorizing her lines.
During Chen Huaixiao's meetings, no matter how important her own matters were, she would not disturb him rudely.
Only those who are favored have the privilege of being willful. Bai Yin had lived dependent on others since she was young, she always knew her place and when to advance or retreat.
Of course, this was also why, when they were alone, no matter how she teased and played with him, Chen Huaixiao always indulged her.
He was willing to spoil her a bit more, to prevent her from being so sensible all the time.
Bai Yin waited until the two Frenchmen had walked far away before putting down her script. She went up to Chen Huaixiao and leaned her hands on his desk, getting right to the point. "Give Su Shi Entertainment Media back to me."
Chen Huaixiao twirled his black enamel pen leisurely. "With your little bit of money, you could only buy Su Ye Cheng's shares, but my money was enough to buy the whole group. So...what do you mean, give Su Shi Entertainment Media back to you? It never belonged to you in the first place."
"Chen Huaixiao, how could you buy Su Shi at such a cheap price?" She looked at him coldly, "It was bought with my life."
Bai Yin could still remember the frozen lake now.
She had seized that chance at the cost of her life, thoroughly crushing that family of three. But just when she was about to happily enjoy the fruits of her revenge, Chen Huaixiao suddenly appeared to snatch them away.
It was so annoying.
Chen Huaixiao was unmoved. He stood up and hooked Bai Yin's chin with his fingertips, gently tilting her face up. "But don't forget, your life was saved by me."
Upon hearing this, Bai Yin deflated.
Indeed, that day on Heart Island, only Chen Huaixiao had jumped into the frozen lake to save her without any hesitation.
A life-saving grace outweighed anything else. Without Chen Huaixiao, it would be hard to say if Bai Yin could even be standing here now.
The frozen lake
Bai Yin sighed softly. She gritted her teeth, "Forget it, just consider Su Shi Entertainment Media as repayment for your life-saving grace. From now on, we owe each other nothing!"
Having said that, she turned to leave.
"Wait." Chen Huaixiao suddenly called out to stop her.
Bai Yin lazily glanced back, dragging out her words dissatisfiedly, "Mr. Chen, do you have anything else?"
"Su Shi Entertainment Media, I'm not that interested in it. You can have it."
Bai Yin could not believe her own ears. She looked at the cold-looking man before her. "You're willing to give Su Shi Entertainment Media to me?"
"I can sign it over to you right now."
"Why...why would you do that?"
Chen Huaixiao desperately tried to restrain the urge in his heart, but he could not help it. He could not control the surging tide of emotions. "No owing each other, no, Bai Yin. I want you to owe me your life forever."
"..."
Chen Huaixiao looked steadily at the woman before him. He knew her too well.
She was vengeful, but at the same time, she would repay a drop of grace like a surging spring.
Chen Huaixiao wanted her to owe him, to owe forever, so that perhaps one day, when she wanted to leave, he could still use this pathetic reason to...keep her.
