LWGP - Chapter 38
Chapter 38: My Dear
Can't afford to play anymore?
This sentence struck everyone like a bolt of lightning.
They were shattered, truly shattered.
Not even superglue could put them back together.
Nie Ming's gaze on Wang Jiu was somewhat dazed.
Xiao Jue's expression was grim, his eyes flickering as if trying to distinguish the woman before him from the girl of years past.
But it was difficult to tell. This calm and clean temperament, these gentle eyes—though she never acted coquettishly, her tenderness was bone-deep.
He always remembered the sight of her standing by the huge floor-to-ceiling windows of a Swiss mountain hotel, wearing a thin black nightgown that revealed her delicate and beautiful figure, the way she looked with her head lowered, speaking deferentially on the phone.
Behind her, a vast expanse of snow fell; on either side, warm lamps bathed her body. The light in her eyes could melt the cold of the entire snow-capped mountain.
The softness of her voice could make the sharp, angular peaks of the mountain fold.
But the Wang Jiu in the recording was a stranger.
Casual, indifferent, a manipulator of hearts.
In the recording, at first, she was just brazenly tearing off Yan Yanting's mask of hypocrisy, but layer by layer, it quickly became clear that she was the one truly in control of the game… the mastermind.
Which one was the real Wang Jiu?
Wang Peng and Xiao Li, on the other hand, were fine with it. They just felt this version was more in line with Lao Wang's combat power.
Hearing this sentence again, Yan Yanting's expression turned grim.
Instead, it was Wang Jiu, whose true face had been exposed by Jian Ling's recording, who paused. She withdrew her gaze from the plate of food and looked quietly at Yan Yanting.
"See? Little girls aren't so easy to play with. You have a listening device she planted on you."
Yan Yanting frowned and suddenly pulled out a lighter. "She gave me this. You're right, I really shouldn't have underestimated her. Even a cornered rabbit will bite."
As he spoke, he showed an apologetic expression to Wang Jiu. "Although our previous talk didn't go well, because of me…"
"To me, you're also a rabbit. So, are you cornered now too?"
Wang Jiu said lightly.
Yan Yanting froze. Looking at the indifferent Wang Jiu, it seemed he had been stunned many times today.
Wang Jiu had been picking at her food with chopsticks ever since Jian Ling played the recording. Now, having eaten a little, she seemed to have lost interest. Her chopsticks rested against the table, while one hand propped up her cheek, revealing a faint but distinct cut on the other side of her face. Her eyes were like a clear pool reflecting a hanging moon.
"People who value a false appearance and are skilled at acting don't hesitate to spend money on their looks once they have the capital. Taste, decency—not one can be missing. The old you had to meticulously coordinate your shoes, cuffs, and tie. And as a masculine accessory, even your lighter had to match. The one you're carrying today clearly doesn't match your style of dress. It's too flashy and ornate, and it's inappropriate for the occasion of the Old Lady's funeral. Others might not care, but you do. Normally, you wouldn't choose it. Either you're deliberately showing off your affection for her, or you're deliberately using her love for you."
"Ah Ting, are you deliberately trying to ruin my reputation?"
In truth, not many people were still eating at this point. Because of Xiao Jue's earlier outburst, many were intimidated by the power of this group of young masters and had left, fearing they'd get caught in the crossfire. But some still remained.
They were either people with some background who enjoyed watching a scene, or those who were simply curious and understood nothing.
The masks were off, so there was nothing left to hide.
At Wang Jiu's question, Yan Yanting narrowed his eyes. The guilt on his face receded like the tide. He smiled, glanced at Xiao Jue, and pulled out a chair to sit down beside them.
Tall and long-legged, he sat with a relaxed posture, but he loosened his tie.
Xiao Jue had yanked off his tie to release his innate wildness.
Yan Yanting, however, loosened his tie to reveal his true hypocrisy and speak frankly with Wang Jiu.
Xiao Li immediately looked at his older brother and sister.
For once, they were in agreement. His two thoroughly elite siblings simultaneously wore complex expressions for the sake of a divorced couple—so this was his/her true self?
"You said it yourself, neither of us are good people. We've been testing each other all these years. I've planted trackers and listening devices on you. Of course, you've used counter-surveillance and planted the same things on me, haven't you?"
Wang Jiu said nothing.
A modern, scumbag version of Mr. & Mrs. Smith?
Yan Yanting sneered. "Since it's a game, there's always a winner and a loser. Before the final score is tallied, what makes you say I've lost?"
Wang Jiu: "What do you want to tally?"
Yan Yanting: "You and them… and of course, those men. During our marriage, you were in contact with them too, weren't you? Just like I used those women to test you, didn't you use them to test me?"
Wang Jiu smiled. "Neither accepting nor rejecting, maintaining a normal social relationship and distance, but not stopping their infatuation with me. Am I not terrible?"
Not terrible, but a player. The kind of player who digs a huge pond to raise a sea of fish.
Yan Yanting took a deep breath and asked the question that mattered most to a man: "You didn't sleep with them? I'm talking about those men, and Lily, Lulu, Sisi, and the others."
Wang Jiu: "What are you thinking? As long as there was no actual physical contact, it doesn't even count as a lifestyle issue. When we divorced, I could have justifiably taken you for everything you had. Though in the end, for the sake of our marriage, I wasn't that cruel."
Thank you so fucking much, my dear ex-wife!
Although his frustration was about to blow his top, Yan Yanting's expression relaxed slightly. This damn male pride. Fuck!
He suppressed his shitty, stifled feelings and smiled. "Then we're even. I haven't lost…"
Wang Jiu: "March 18th, 2018. H City, Grand Hyatt Hotel, room B1032. Little Yueyue."
Yan Yanting's face fell instantly. He stared at her. "It was you… you taught her?"
He suddenly understood why she'd said she could have justifiably taken him for everything.
Fuck!
It dawned on him. He shot to his feet, slammed his hands on the table, his upper body looking like it would lunge forward, but he ultimately froze there, staring at her in disbelief.
It was as if he remembered the enchanting lights of that night, the elegant yet subtly sexy nightgown, the woman who, with makeup, looked fifty or sixty percent like her, hooking her arms around his neck, crying softly, so fragile she seemed about to melt into his body.
That was a "Wang Jiu" he had never seen before—one who would cry, act coquettishly, and be completely dependent on him. Every single thing about her perfectly hit his weak spots.
He… couldn't resist.
Wang Jiu poked at the food on her plate with her chopsticks.
She said faintly, "Your tests went too far. The girls you found were all night owls who weren't afraid of sudden death. I was extremely busy with surgeries during that time, completely swamped. I was woken up at three or four in the morning, which cost me several nights of good sleep. Do you think being an angel in white is that easy? You think I wasn't annoyed? I had to find a way to preserve your dignity while also protecting my own health."
Yan Yanting: "…"
Listening to this, I sound truly sinful.
Wang Jiu sighed. "I said I won because, in terms of self-control and judgment, you lost. You're no longer qualified to play this game with me. Also, you broke the rules of the game."
Clearly, her methods were despicable, but he, the one who fell for it, was even more so. He had no room to blame her.
She had deliberately calibrated it to this exact degree.
Yan Yanting was furious and incredibly stifled, but he still let her change the subject. "What rules?"
Wang Jiu raised her eyes and tapped a dish with her chopsticks. "Look at this plate of cured pork stir-fried with cabbage. It's supposed to be a combination of cured pork and cabbage, but you've let people see that there are also green peppers, Sichuan peppercorns, and small chilis inside. Never mind the actual taste, most people with any refinement would think this dish was cooked wrong. Who could possibly eat it? A dish that no one eats will grow cold. In the end, it has to be thrown out, otherwise it will rot, stink, and be disgusting to look at."
Yan Yanting was also a smart man and understood immediately. "Someone found out about this and told the Old Lady? Who was it?!"
Wang Jiu put down her chopsticks, her eyes deep and profound. "Guess?"
Yan Yanting frowned. He couldn't guess right away, but he was more concerned about something else. "If the Old Lady hadn't found out, would you have…"
It took him some slow, difficult effort to summon the courage to say this.
"No." Wang Jiu answered without a second's thought. Then, losing patience, she stood up and pulled back her chair as if to leave, but Yan Yanting suddenly grabbed her wrist.
He looked at her, a faint glimmer of weak pleading in his eyes. "Since we could maintain a false front before, each getting what we needed, we can still do so in the future. This time was my mistake. It won't happen again."
Wang Jiu looked back at him, then at her wrist clutched in his hand. Her arm was injured, and his grip actually hurt a little. A pained, sorrowful look entered her eyes. She let out a long sigh and turned back, moving closer to Yan Yanting.
Had she softened?
Her slender, snow-white fingers gently caressed his cheek, tracing it inch by inch, as if offering comfort.
"In this world, no one understands you better than I do, Ah Ting."
Her tone was so gentle one could drown in it.
"Only the most profound benefits can move you. All this lovey-dovey stuff is definitely not what you're after. But to create such a Mary Sue-esque dramatic showdown? It has no practical meaning and is also undignified. Why bother? So… what benefit did Yang Dong give you to make you hurt me like this? Equipment? It surely wasn't some white-grade trash like a Rookie's Dagger, right? Otherwise, I'd feel insulted."
Yan Yanting's pupils trembled.
Xiao Jue had already stood up. Seeing her flaunt her charms and entice Yan Yanting, he was still furious despite knowing her true nature, but her words stunned him.
Another fucking plot twist?
MD, is that bastard Yan really such a scumbag?
But even as Wang Jiu spoke these words that tore away all pretense, she lowered her head, bringing her soft, thin lips close to his ear with an inexplicable hint of ambiguity and desire.
She spoke in a low voice.
"The truth is, you were afraid of me, afraid I'd kill you. That's why you were so desperate to orchestrate the divorce, using all that nonsense as a cover. You finally managed to get away from me, and now you're coming back to get entangled… Weren't the poisons and dismemberment tools in that secret laboratory enough to make you afraid?"
Others couldn't hear, only seeing her actions as exceptionally gentle and charming, filled with an indecipherable passion.
But Xiao Jue and Qi Jun, who were nearby, heard it. Both were shocked.
A twist on top of a twist.
Is this couple toxic?
No, it should be said that Wang Jiu is toxic.
She was like a vortex, unfathomably deep.
Yan Yanting's body stiffened, but he seemed bewitched by her fragrance and soft charm. In their past marital relations, she had always been reserved and modest, never so proactively seductive.
How could a substitute ever compare to the real thing?
He was bewitched, and for some reason, became resolute. "I never suspected."
"Is that so? Then why did you send people to investigate my hometown over a year ago? Did you suspect I was a serial killer?"
"…"
The heat rising in Yan Yanting's body instantly went cold.
Wang Jiu gave a low laugh. Her lips gently touched the corner of his mouth, kissing away the blood from Xiao Jue's earlier punch.
Like a dragonfly skimming the water, her tongue licked away the trace of blood.
Wicked and captivating.
But Yan Yanting, the one being shown affection, felt no heat or desire at all. His expression, his frozen limbs—he looked exactly like a puppet scared shitless.
What was he thinking?
Perhaps he was thinking about how, over a year ago, while living day in and day out with his wife, he had discovered her perverse habits.
The perfectly calculated timing, the eternally orderly details of her life, the gentle, intellectual comfort that saw through all his emotions and was timed to perfection, and the faint light in her eyes that never wavered, no matter how gentle she was. Then there were the clues he began to pick up on after his growing unease and suspicion, and finally, the secret laboratory he eventually found and opened.
Those terrifying chemicals, the notes on numerous murder techniques, the horrific photos of corpses, the detailed pictures of flesh, and the vast amount of experimental data waiting to be processed—one of which… was his.
It was hard to imagine how low his body temperature had dropped that day. His entire world had plunged into darkness.
And so, he began to protect himself, to plot his escape.
She was too terrifying, so terrifying that his survival instinct suppressed all his desires of love and passion.
As if seeing through Yan Yanting's emotions.
"My dear, after today, you might just find that I'm even more terrifying than you imagined."
Then she let go, releasing his rigid body. She glanced up at the second floor, raised her hand, and gracefully gave it the middle finger. Then she smiled and turned to leave.
And a new image of Wang Jiu was finally, completely formed in everyone's minds.
She had abandoned the persona she had so carefully crafted in the past. Nearly all the qualities that the public had praised were now reversed.
Only one quality remained unchanged—she never cried.
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