Chapter 56: Pleading for Mercy

Xing Yue didn’t love her.

Bu Yao, who had been making a fuss nonstop, quieted down at the sight of Xing Yue in such obvious distress, but she still didn’t leave.

She assumed Xing Yue’s stomach was upset from drinking too much. Even though Xing Yue didn’t smell of alcohol, she stubbornly clung to the idea—working in a bar meant unavoidable drinking—so she kept telling herself Xing Yue had simply overdone it.

She would boil some warm water, like the wife in those TV dramas, making hot water for her drunken lover. She picked up the kettle, filled it from the kitchen tap, but it was plain to see she wasn’t the nurturing type.

She set the kettle down, pressed the start button, but didn’t realize she also had to press “boil.” The kettle just sat there, stuck in the “keep warm” mode from the last time.

Xing Yue came out, saw this, and said nothing. She went straight to the fridge, opened a bottle of ice-cold mineral water, and took a drink. “Is Uncle Li still waiting for you downstairs?”

Bu Yao stood by the kettle and pointed a finger at it. “Xing Yue, your kettle is broken.”

Xing Yue walked over, pressed the boil button, and the kettle finally started doing its job.

Tears still streaked the woman’s face, her eyes red and swollen. She lowered her head and murmured, “Your kettle is so hard to use…”

With the sharp accusations and insults gone from her ears, Xing Yue’s condition improved considerably. She still preferred quiet—Bu Yao was far too noisy.

She drank a few more gulps of ice water, the cold liquid rushing down her throat. Xing Yue was practically falling in love with this freezing sensation, brief as it was, that could numb her.

“Go home. I want to sleep.” She brought it up again.

Her words were slurred. Better not to listen. The outcome was a breakup either way. Whatever was said, however it was said, was meaningless.

Being chased away three times in a row, the anger inside Bu Yao surged. “I’ll leave on my own once you’ve paid off the money.”

She went back and sat on Xing Yue’s bed, her cold eyes lifting mockingly. “Oh, I almost forgot. With your current situation, you can’t even come up with thirty thousand. Of course, you could always borrow from your President Bai. One phone call is all it takes. Even though President Bai is a married woman, she wouldn’t even blink before spending money on you.”

Xing Yue didn’t want to say anything too cruel to a woman she had been with, but Bu Yao showed her not the slightest face.

Thinking about how this shrew had tried to boil water for her just moments ago—even if she hadn’t succeeded… Xing Yue clenched her fingers, still trying her utmost to endure. “If I return this nine hundred thousand to you, will you stop coming to bother me from now on?”

Sensing Xing Yue’s intention, the sneer on Bu Yao’s face froze. The fiery temper that had barely subsided over the past half-year was reignited by Xing Yue once again.

“Xing Yue, aren’t you cheap!” She climbed off the bed, advancing on Xing Yue, her hand gripping the front of Xing Yue’s shirt with desperate strength. “Bai Yulun is married, and you’d still take her money if she offered? Of course you would. Those clothes she bought you—you accept them all, no matter the price. All those famous wines, just casually gifted to you. A mere nine hundred thousand? Why don’t you just run to her bed and sing for her? The moment you saw she had money, you couldn’t wait to cling to her.”

From the moment they had run into each other tonight, Xing Yue’s mood had only gone downhill. Now Bu Yao was degrading her, attacking her from every angle.

As if working in a bar meant she was some hostess, waiting to be booked for private shows.

Xing Yue pried open the delicate white fingers clutching her clothes, one by one. Bu Yao held on fiercely. She lost patience, her face full of disgust, nearly bending the polished pink nails back to the point of breaking.

Deciding to just let everything go to ruin, she followed the script. “Yeah, I just sing a couple of songs on someone’s bed and earn nine hundred thousand. Since Eldest Miss Bu puts it that way, are you finally convinced of my earning power? Is today the first day you’ve known I’m cheap? I’m so utterly cheap, I married you and got nothing out of it. Other people buy me clothes, gift me wine, take me to amusement parks. What did you give me? Besides a crappy shed skin from when you came of age, and a worthless rock you won’t even let me sell, what have you ever given me?”

A wealthy young lady who had given her nothing actually dared to mock her for being a gold digger.

Even the pop-up book He Zhiwen gave her, the handmade miniature house, the love letters—all of it was slapped with the “trash” label by the lofty Eldest Miss Bu.

As if the Bu family had ever given her anything good, any real treasure.

“There’s something I’ve wanted to say for a long time but never told you,” Xing Yue said, seizing that bonelessly soft hand and forcibly prying it open. The neatly trimmed nails were bleeding at the edges from her rough handling. “The shed skin you brought as a betrothal gift ten years ago isn’t even worthy of being called trash!”

She had truly been blind back then, naive at heart. That first glance—Bu Yao was as tender as a flower bud. She had thought she was so obedient, so sweet. She figured a flash marriage would be fine, feelings could grow slowly, and beauties weren’t just lying around everywhere.

Who knew Bu Yao was utterly useless aside from her looks? She couldn’t do anything, needed someone to serve her every need. Call her stupid, but she had gotten into law school. Call her smart, but she couldn’t even boil water.

Seeing Bu Yao’s eyes mist over again, Xing Yue decided to burn all bridges. “I’ll clear the nine hundred thousand I owe New Shadow Entertainment within a week. Even if I have to borrow from loan sharks, even if I have to sign a bonded labor contract, I will pay back every single cent. Satisfied? What else do you want from me? Do you really want me to call President Bai right now and beg?”

It seemed if she didn’t repay this money fast, Bu Yao would always find an excuse to humiliate her.

Xing Yue made the worst-case plan—go back to her hometown and discuss selling that building with her mother.

Things had reached this point, and Xing Yue still hadn’t considered touching the building meant to provide for her mother’s retirement. Even though she had paid every penny for it, from the initial construction to the final completion, she still didn’t want to touch it unless it was the absolute last resort.

Now Bu Yao was forcing her, forcing her to repay the money immediately. She had no other path left, not even allowed to catch her breath.

The more they talked, the angrier they both became. Bu Yao’s purpose in coming tonight had not only failed but had made the situation spiral completely out of control.

She looked at the nails Xing Yue had cracked open, thin streaks of blood seeping into the nail beds. The fingers were connected to the heart. Right now, she wasn’t sure which hurt more—the nails, or her heart.

“A hundred thousand,” Bu Yao said, concealing the look in her eyes and lifting her chin slightly. “No need for loan sharks. No need to be anyone’s servant. A hundred thousand a night. Just service me.”

The room suddenly fell silent. A snake tail, red as blazing flame, revealed itself beneath the hem of the dark blue evening gown. The cramped space couldn’t contain its hiding. It dropped to the floor, coiling anxiously.

The unfamiliar environment had startled the snake tail. It was never under Bu Yao’s control, instinctively seeking out Xing Yue’s scent.

If her tail hadn’t emerged, Bu Yao could still have stood above, ordering Xing Yue around as her payer. But her tail was exposed, and the desire to be comforted by Xing Yue was so obvious it filled her with shame and humiliation.

Xing Yue watched the tip of the snake tail curl and climb up around her ankle, her face clouded with gloom. She let out a cold laugh. “So Eldest Miss has been entangled with me all this time because this was on your mind. One night for a hundred thousand? Then shouldn’t I be challenging some forty-eight-hour record?”

Bu Yao bit her lower lip. She clearly hadn’t wanted things with Xing Yue to be like this…

The look of mockery in Xing Yue’s eyes pierced right through her. She scooped up her tail from the floor. The treasure she had once seen as her pride had never, in this moment, been so loathsome to her.

She used the cracked finger to pick and pry at her scales, enduring a pain that felt like drilling into bone, and only then did the restless snake tail finally quiet down.

Her pain receptors were extremely sensitive. Her eyes grew wet again in an instant. She didn’t want to cry. Xing Yue didn’t love her, wouldn’t feel sorry for her. Crying would only annoy Xing Yue more.

This time, Xing Yue didn’t need to chase her away. Bu Yao gathered up her own tail, wanting to leave.

Xing Yue suddenly grabbed her hair, a full fistful of it, forcing Bu Yao to lift her face and look at her. “Didn’t Eldest Miss just say a hundred thousand a night? Or do you think the price is too high, that I’m not worth it?”

A second ago, Bu Yao had humiliated her. Now she wanted to pretend nothing happened? Come and leave as she pleased, treating this place like the Bu Residence?

The pain on Bu Yao’s scalp was sharp. Instinctively, she pressed down on the hair Xing Yue had seized. “Let go! Your attitude is bad, I don’t want your service!”

As if she hadn’t heard a word, Xing Yue’s gaze deepened. She locked her arm around Bu Yao’s waist, dragged her behind the curtains, and from that slender, soft waist, rolled up the hem of her gown.

Her palm pressed against the skin that heated at her touch, her fingertips lingering over the curves before she kneaded them with fierce force, her five fingers sinking deep. “The room has poor soundproofing. Outside the window is the hallway. Eldest Miss, please try to restrain yourself. Don’t let anyone hear.”

The woman shook her head like a rattle drum, sobbing intermittently. Dawn was approaching, the time when the other tenants around them were going out. Hearing the footsteps coming and going in the hallway, she clamped her hand over her own mouth, too terrified to let out a single sound.

“Don’t…” She had cried into a complete mess, her cheeks completely flushed, as if steeped in red wine.

Xing Yue thought she was begging for mercy. Listening closely, amid the broken, whispered sobs—

“Don’t, don’t break up…”