Chapter 2

As the video call connected, Qiu Shuxue had just finished showering. Steam rose from her body while she wore black silk pajamas with a generous expanse of her chest exposed. Her damp hair tips clung to her skin, and as she tilted her body sideways, the tattoo on her left breast came fully into view. Luo Qingmeng could see it all crystal clear.

“What’s up, sis?” Qiu Shuxue curved her lips into a smile. “Calling me so late?”

Luo Qingmeng’s sobs caught in her throat, and she bit down hard on her lip.

Qiu Shuxue was stunning—stunning in that total vixen way. Luo Qingmeng wanted to call her a slut but couldn’t because she was just too gorgeous, which only made Luo Qingmeng feel even more pathetic and disheveled by comparison.

“Have you been crying?” Qiu Shuxue gazed at her with concern, blinking softly. “Did Brother Li bully you?”

“Today’s your wedding night, right? He’s such a jerk.”

Qiu Shuxue’s lips were red and her teeth white as she flashed a seductive, captivating smile.

Luo Qingmeng fumbled in a panic to end the call. She glanced at herself in the phone camera and saw her eyes were swollen from crying. She had no confidence left; she was the one being bullied by these two.

An auxiliary police officer brought her a cup of hot water and asked who she was calling, if that person could come pick her up, and maybe bring a change of clothes.

Luo Qingmeng felt mortified and shook her head without speaking. The officer worked on her for two or three hours before she finally explained the whole story from start to finish.

The auxiliary officer angrily called Li An on her behalf to demand justice.

Soon, the officer’s face turned awkward as she glanced at the nearby policeman. Luo Qingmeng sensed something was off, stopped crying, and asked what happened. She declared firmly, “I want a divorce.”

The policeman escorted her inside and said seriously, “Did you burn your husband with a curling iron?”

Luo Qingmeng shook her head at first, but the policeman’s expression stayed grave. She choked up. “I just threw it casually. It was casual… I was so mad. He’d been cheating, and I only found out about his entanglements with someone else after we got the marriage certificate.”

“But that casual throw singed your husband’s genitals.”

Luo Qingmeng’s cries hitched, and with tears in her eyes, she shook her head. “No, I didn’t. It wasn’t on purpose. I just threw it casually.”

“You can’t just throw a curling iron! That thing’s scorching hot!”

Luo Qingmeng wailed even harder, covering her face. “He lied to me. He cheated. Waaah, I wasn’t trying to burn him like that.”

In her rage back then, her head had filled with blood. She’d probably wanted Li An dead. Now she was terrified. She cried so hard she could barely catch her breath. A female auxiliary officer came to comfort her and handed her a few tissues.

Luo Qingmeng snatched them and wiped her face haphazardly.

“Do you have anyone you know? Get a friend to come pick you up.”

Luo Qingmeng had no friends in the city, only coworkers who were part-time college students—she hadn’t even added them on WeChat. She shook her head. The auxiliary officer asked again, “What about the person you were just calling?”

Luo Qingmeng choked out a sob. “That’s the other woman.”

She burst into tears again. “Don’t call her. It’s too embarrassing.”

The police officers at the station were stifling laughs. Luo Qingmeng’s mind raced with thoughts of how she’d scorched Li An down there. He might never recover. Would he make her take responsibility? Would she go to jail?

Probably not. After all, she and Li An were husband and wife, and she hadn’t meant to do it.

On second thought, that seemed like the only good thing about getting married.

In the end, the auxiliary officer took her home to change clothes and then to the hospital to check on the details. During that time, Qiu Shuxue sent her a few messages.

【Isn’t Brother Li with you?】

【It’s so cold out, and you’re dressed so lightly. Isn’t Brother Li keeping you company?】

Dripping with that fake-sweet concern, Luo Qingmeng fired back: 【Your Brother Li’s done for! His dick got chopped off!】

Qiu Shuxue: 【Huh? How did that happen?】

【Sis, are you going to leave him now?】

At the hospital, they saw Li An. He was still naked from the waist down, his privates wrapped up tight.

Because she’d arrived with the auxiliary officer, Li An’s anger instantly fizzled. He shot Luo Qingmeng a glare and quickly lay back down. She laid her cards on the table and said she wanted a divorce. She demanded to meet Qiu Shuxue. Li An denied it at first, but when she pointed at his phone, he relented and said he’d think about it.

The doctor said the burns weren’t too severe and that with proper care, there wouldn’t be any major issues with his sexual function. Once the police finished investigating, they treated it as a domestic dispute.

But after the police left, Li An refused to divorce. He even wanted Luo Qingmeng to quit her job and become a full-time housewife. He claimed he’d cut ties with Qiu Shuxue.

Luo Qingmeng snapped angrily, “Then why don’t you just be with Qiu Shuxue? Why bother with me!”

“Because you can be a full-time housewife.” Li An said it like it was the most righteous thing in the world. He clearly looked down on her. “Quit your job. I’ll give you six thousand a month. Isn’t that great? Have a kid, and I’ll support you for life.”

Li An wouldn’t budge. He wanted to wait until he recovered.

Luo Qingmeng wouldn’t hear it. She was stubborn as hell and dead set on divorcing. Just looking at Li An made her sick.

The next day, February 9th, Luo Qingmeng immediately lined up at the civil affairs bureau to ask. They told her both parties had to come for a divorce. If one refused, she’d have to sue in court. If both agreed, there was still a one-month cooling-off period, and her situation fell right in the middle of it.

Luo Qingmeng heard that and couldn’t calm down at all.

She nearly broke down crying right there at the bureau. Why couldn’t she divorce? She’d only realized she’d married the wrong guy after the wedding.

Luo Qingmeng was drained, furious, exhausted, and starving. She went to the market to buy groceries and passed a meat stall. Glancing at the cuts—which she never splurged on with her salary—she bought bullwhip, lamb kidneys, and donkey meat in one go. She stewed them all in a pot and took it to the hospital for Li An.

Li An ate it happily. When Luo Qingmeng brought up divorce again, he still refused. With pretenses dropped, he got blunt: this counted as her domestic violence, so she owed medical fees. He also sneered at her education, saying she’d never advance at work.

That night, Li An was in agony, clutching his crotch and yelling that he felt like he was going to explode.

Luo Qingmeng lay with her back to him, saying nothing.

For a whole week, she bought leeks and oysters, scavenged unsold mutton bones to simmer potency-boosting broth, and steeped kidney tonic tea for him. She handled every meal personally. Li An grew reluctant to divorce—until the pain nearly wrecked him. Luo Qingmeng sat by the bed with a sinister smile and said, “Go on, drink up. It won’t kill you. I looked it up online—leeks and oysters are great for virility. I’ll keep supplementing you every day until you can’t get it up anymore.”

“I’ll supplement you to death, you stinking pile of shit. Blow that rotten dick of yours to bits.”

Li An howled in pain, on the verge of calling the cops. He pointed at her nose and called her a spiteful bitch. Luo Qingmeng wasn’t scared. She just waited for him to call the police so she could drag Qiu Shuxue into it, blow everything up to the company—make sure no one came out unscathed.

Finally, Li An agreed to the divorce.

The process went quickly. There wasn’t much property to fight over. They hadn’t even had a wedding banquet. Li An had promised to throw a proper one someday back when things were all lovey-dovey, and Luo Qingmeng had believed him. Now she saw it for what it was: him wanting a free live-in maid.

Before marrying Li An, Luo Qingmeng had saved thirty thousand yuan. When she moved into his place, she’d spent over twenty thousand on a washing machine, pots and pans, sofa covers, bedding—the works. Luckily, the other ten thousand was in a fixed deposit she hadn’t touched. She demanded fifty thousand in compensation.

Li An agreed and gave her ten thousand upfront to get out of the hospital and stay away.

During those divorce days, Luo Qingmeng had it rough. She had to haul her stuff back to her rental. She’d already told the landlord she wasn’t renewing, and he’d re-rented it fast, pressuring her to clear out by month’s end. When things got tough, she listed everything from Li An’s place on Xianyu. When buyers asked, she sold it all—didn’t matter if it was hers or not. Her goal was total evacuation, no haggling.

That month, she worked days and hunted for apartments nights. She’d run into Qiu Shuxue about once a week—Qiu often came weekends to buy books, lingering from six to eight in the reading room after grabbing one.

Only once, when it wasn’t crowded, did Qiu Shuxue speak to her. “Sister Meng, are you and Brother Li having issues? Didn’t you just get married?”

Luo Qingmeng couldn’t snap at her during work hours, so she swallowed her rage, inwardly cursing them both to a miserable end. Luckily, the month flew by. One early morning, the two of them went to the civil affairs bureau and got the divorce papers.

Luo Qingmeng didn’t want more hassle, but Li An vanished right after getting the certificate. His door was locked tight, and he stiffed her on the promised money.

Exhausted in body and soul, with the landlord hounding her to vacate and no family or friends, Luo Qingmeng hated herself for not going all the way back then. She’d held back over legal worries and fear of jail. Otherwise, she’d have blown his dick to oblivion.

Luo Qingmeng knew where Qiu Shuxue lived—she’d dug through the chat logs and seen the location pin. Qiu rented a place for over four thousand a month.

By chance, she spotted a rental listing right across from Qiu Shuxue’s—at half the price.

Luo Qingmeng jumped on it. The owner said it was her own place; she was heading out of town for work and couldn’t cover the mortgage, so she could rent it for a month or two. No pets allowed.

On divorce day, Luo Qingmeng packed her things and moved into the apartment opposite Qiu Shuxue’s. Staring at her account balance of just over twelve thousand, she gazed at the door across the hall and swore to herself.

She’d make their lives hell. She wouldn’t let them have a moment’s peace.

The landlord confirmed her details, packed up that day, and left. She even reminded Luo Qingmeng there was soup in the fridge—stewed yesterday and untouched. She could heat it up if she wanted.

Once the door shut, Luo Qingmeng’s emotions crumbled again. She collapsed on the sofa, covering her face and sobbing in heaving gasps. She didn’t dare touch the chicken soup. Instead, she cleared out the fridge, scrubbed the place from top to bottom—leaving it cleaner than any maid service could.

Her clothes were all stored in the bookstore’s storage room, so she hurried to retrieve them before everyone clocked out. As she passed the shop door and glanced at her reflection in the glass, she looked utterly haggard after this ordeal. At twenty-eight years old, compared to the twenty-four-year-old Qiu Shuxue, she was starting to resemble a washed-out housewife, her eyes dull and lifeless.

Luo Qingmeng bought a bottle of booze on the way home, feeling out of sorts and craving a drink. She downed the entire bottle of beer, then went to check the surveillance footage at her door.

No one had come back to the apartment across from hers.

Li An hadn’t appeared either.

Luo Qingmeng had it all figured out. She had nothing to lose—if Li An didn’t pay up, she wouldn’t give him a moment’s peace. The instant he showed up, she’d hammer Qiu Shuxue’s doorbell without stopping, and if he came after her, she’d blast him with pepper spray.

But Qiu Shuxue still didn’t return.

Luo Qingmeng felt utterly miserable, so she went to take a shower. She carefully lathered up with body wash, scrubbing herself until she smelled fresh and clean. She applied a face mask, slathered on some essential oil to pamper her skin, and even did another round of hair removal. By the time she finished, it was midnight. She slipped into a nightgown and rushed to wring out her underwear, but Qiu Shuxue’s words kept replaying in her mind—how she’d said that old-fashioned style looked sexy on her.

Qiu Shuxue had worn lace that night.

Luo Qingmeng wiped her hands dry and, steeling her resolve, hopped on Taobao to buy two skimpy lace bras. Once the new ones arrived, she’d toss all her old ones. When picking the size, she tugged at her collar and peered down inside, selecting the perfect fit.

After hanging the clothes out to dry on the balcony, Luo Qingmeng remembered she had work tomorrow, but she still couldn’t resist checking the surveillance footage one more time.

This time, the hallway lights flickered on, and Qiu Shuxue emerged from the stairwell. She wore a little white jacket over a pair of jeans.

Qiu Shuxue walked unsteadily, her steps wobbly and floating, like she was drunk. In that state, she had probably been escorted home by someone.

Luo Qingmeng only saw her alone—Li An hadn’t come back with her. Qiu Shuxue unlocked her door with her fingerprint and passcode, then shut it quickly.

Luo Qingmeng stared for a full minute before the door across from hers opened again. Qiu Shuxue stepped out with her jacket hanging open and walked slowly toward Luo Qingmeng’s side, stopping right in front of the surveillance camera.

Luo Qingmeng’s heart jumped straight into her throat.

She ran through a dozen tactics in her head, clenching her fists tight, ready to fight and humiliate the other woman however she could.

Qiu Shuxue stopped at Luo Qingmeng’s door and knocked on her new neighbor’s door with her fingers. She squinted at the peephole, her cheeks flushed with drunkenness.

Thud—

Thud thud—

The sound rang clear through the quiet night. The door’s smart lock wasn’t fully latched, so after two knocks, it chimed inside: “Door not locked.” Luo Qingmeng backed away. She wore only her nightgown with nothing underneath, and in a panic, she clutched her hand over half her breast.

It was deep into the night now, and the hallway lights had dimmed. Qiu Shuxue knocked the door open from the outside. She stared at Luo Qingmeng’s chest, tilting her head slightly. Her tight spaghetti-strap tank top hugged her slim waist, and the simple outfit perfectly accentuated her breasts. Luo Qingmeng gaped at her with wide eyes, her own cheeks growing hot.

Luo Qingmeng wanted to slam the door shut right away, but Qiu Shuxue invited her warmly, saying, “Sister, come over to my place.”