Chapter 45: You’re Too Fierce

She spoke with such righteous indignation that if the Old Madam had been there, she probably would have burst out laughing on the spot, giving Tan Qingya a round of applause and asking when she planned to break into show business.

What a performance.

Zhou Jianghao simply didn’t know Tan Qingya well enough and got completely taken in by that long spiel, which put her mind at ease. Going to Chen Chen’s house was a bit awkward, sure, but with Tan Qingya by her side, it felt much better. Her heart finally settled.

Of course, they couldn’t show up at someone else’s home empty-handed.

Zhou Jianghao had planned to hit the supermarket for some fruit or something, but Tan Qingya steered her straight to the storage room instead.

Tan Qingya’s storage room was nothing like what Zhou Jianghao had imagined. She’d been living here for so long, but this was her first time stepping inside. The space was huge and mostly empty, lined with shelves like a library—except instead of books, the shelves were stocked with all sorts of gift boxes.

“Pick out a couple to bring,” Tan Qingya said, squeezing Zhou Jianghao’s shoulder and nudging her forward. Seeing the girl standing there all dazed, she couldn’t help but chuckle. “If you see anything you like, just take it. What’s mine is yours.”

Zhou Jianghao glanced around the entire room and couldn’t hold back. “This place looks just like a department store.”

Everything was meticulously categorized and arranged in neat rows, some even labeled with notes about their origins.

“It’s not that exaggerated,” Tan Qingya said. Not wanting to make her uncomfortable, she stayed just outside the door to explain. “The labeled ones are gifts from others or samples from brands. The rest are things I picked up on random shopping sprees at the mall. They’ve been gathering dust forever—you can do whatever you want with them.”

“I’m going to handle some business. We’ll head out around ten. Sound good?”

“Sure.” Zhou Jianghao nodded.

Once Tan Qingya left, the room fell quiet. Zhou Jianghao wandered through it, her footsteps echoing faintly.

She examined row after row.

The variety was staggering, each item in its own section. A quick search on any one of them revealed prices that were staggeringly expensive.

Zhou Jianghao fell silent.

She’d thought some fruit would suffice for visiting an injured friend, but every single item here could buy her a year’s worth of fruit.

This was the gap between her and Tan Qingya.

Pushing down the strange emotions stirring in her heart, she carefully selected a designer handbag and a necklace.

Neither was picky about the recipient—no sizes to worry about. They were perfect gifts.

With her choices in hand, she didn’t rush out. Instead, she studied every item on the shelves intently, pulling out her phone to look up anything unfamiliar.

She was Tan Qingya’s wife now. She couldn’t remain clueless about luxury goods.

She’d learned that lesson the hard way before.

In her second year at the Tan Family home, the family threw a banquet for Tan Qingya’s birthday, and a crowd of people showed up.

Though she was living under their roof as a guest, she still attended the dinner.

But she had no fancy dress.

The Old Madam remembered and had Tan Yanxi prepare one for her. Tan Yanxi couldn’t be bothered with such things and just tossed her an old dress of Li Zhenyu’s that she no longer wore.

The dress was all pink and frilly—pretty enough, but way too small. Zhou Jianghao had outgrown that size ages ago, and she’d never worn anything like it. She fumbled around forever without finding the zipper.

In the end, she had to ask for help.

But Li Zhenyu and the others found out. Under the pretense of helping her get dressed, they forced it on her, stretching it until it ripped. Then they yanked at the tear on the side, making the hole bigger and bigger until she couldn’t possibly go out in it.

They wanted her to embarrass herself at the banquet.

Luckily, Li Zhenyu and her crew had doused her in something foul-smelling earlier, which Tan Qingya had noticed. Tan Qingya had someone whisk her away to clean up and bought her a beautiful dress.

She’d only worn that dress once. Back then, living under someone else’s roof, it wasn’t really hers, and she was constantly anxious about it—always worrying they’d demand it back. After putting it away, she never dared wear it again.

So Li Zhenyu and the others didn’t get their way. Zhou Jianghao wore Tan Qingya’s dress. It wasn’t as extravagant as what the others had, but it was flawless. She was already pretty, looking fresh and lively even in her school uniform. In that dress, she drew plenty of attention, which ticked off Li Zhenyu no end.

So they dragged her over with malicious glee, calling her a country bumpkin right in front of everyone. When others didn’t buy it, they made her identify the haute couture they were wearing. When she couldn’t, they collapsed in laughter with their little clique.

Years later, the humiliation still burned fresh.

She couldn’t afford to stumble over the same thing twice.

And now, as Tan Qingya’s wife, everything she did reflected on Tan Qingya. If she embarrassed herself, it would embarrass Tan Qingya too.

She couldn’t let that happen again.

A little advance prep wouldn’t hurt.

But she forgot she was the type who got so absorbed in something that she lost track of everything else. She got so caught up studying the items that by ten o’clock, when Tan Qingya came looking, she was on her tiptoes, struggling to put something back on the shelf.

Even at full stretch, she fell short. She couldn’t quite lift it high enough. Her slight frame wobbled, and she was about to topple sideways.

Tan Qingya hurried over and steadied her. “Careful.”

It startled her instead. She didn’t cry out, but her whole body jolted hard. Looking closer, Tan Qingya saw that Zhou Jianghao’s face had gone pale.

Guilt washed over Tan Qingya.

She pulled Zhou Jianghao into her arms and patted her back. “Did I scare you?”

They’d already done the most intimate things together, but hugs like this were rare. The fright had passed, but being held by Tan Qingya left Zhou Jianghao frozen in place.

It was like dropping a pebble into a still lake—ripples spread through her quiet eyes. This version of Tan Qingya made her feel truly cherished.

She stayed lost in thought too long, until Tan Qingya’s warmth seeped into her. Only then did Zhou Jianghao take a soft breath and pull herself together.

Her heart was racing.

Feeling the wild thumping in her chest, she couldn’t help but wrap her arms around Tan Qingya in return, making the embrace even tighter.

This was her wife. Her family.

The moon that had drawn her in time and again.

“I’m fine,” she murmured.

“Are you?” Tan Qingya arched a brow. “Your heart’s pounding.”

Tan Qingya didn’t think much of it—getting startled would make anyone’s pulse race.

But Zhou Jianghao felt guilty and pushed her away, clumsily changing the subject. “How about the bag and necklace?”

She thrust the items she’d picked out toward Tan Qingya.

Realizing then that the girl’s heart had been racing from shyness, Tan Qingya bit back a smile and didn’t call her on it. “They’re perfect.”

Because of the little mishap, Tan Qingya’s eyes stayed crinkled with amusement the whole drive to Chen Chen’s, her earlier irritation forgotten.

The car was quiet. Tan Qingya searched for a topic. “We’re wives. You don’t have to be so shy around me.”

Her smile deepened. “We’ve done the most intimate things already, haven’t we?”

Zhou Jianghao, who’d been fairly calm inside, went rigid. Her face burned. She turned away, staring out the window as if that would hide it, and mumbled, “Yeah.”

They had indeed done the most intimate things.

After a few seconds of silence, Zhou Jianghao spoke up. “I have a question.”

“Go ahead.”

Tan Qingya glanced at her. Was this girl still in elementary school, raising her hand to ask permission like in class?

“Did you know me before?” Zhou Jianghao asked.

The question caught Tan Qingya off guard. She shot her another look, unsure why she was bringing this up out of nowhere.

She wasn’t planning to settle old scores over past coldness, was she? But back then, how could Tan Qingya have known this girl would end up as her wife?

After a moment’s thought, she answered, “I knew of you, but I didn’t pay much attention.”

It was a bit of a white lie.

The year Zhou Jianghao arrived at the Tan Family, Tan Qingya was already fifteen. Unfortunately, that was when her temper was at its worst—fiery and short-fused.

She hadn’t been thrilled to hear they were taking in the daughter of Tan Yanxi’s savior.

She loathed Tan Yanxi and had no interest in her savior’s kid. But when she saw Zhou Jianghao, she couldn’t muster any dislike.

The girl had looked so pitiful back then—skinny and small, her eyes full of caution.

Like a stray cat that had wandered into the wrong house: too pitiful, too scrawny. Chronic malnutrition made Zhou Jianghao look like a first-grader.

Tan Qingya hadn’t grasped her real age, and Zhou Jianghao seemed about the same size as one of Tan Yanxi’s first-grade daughters. For a long time, she’d assumed the girl was only seven or eight.

It was hard to hate her.

After all, what almost-high-schooler bullies a tiny little elementary kid?

Zhou Jianghao had seemed so fragile, unlike any child Tan Qingya had met. And every time they crossed paths, the girl acted like a mouse spotting a cat. Tan Qingya couldn’t have ignored her if she’d tried.

“You were really timid as a kid, and you were scared of me,” Tan Qingya said, holding back a laugh. “I remember one time I came home from outside. I swear you were walking right toward me, but blink—I look again, and there you go, tiny legs pumping, turning tail and bolting without a backward glance. You face-planted into the dirt.”

By the end of it, an image involuntarily popped into Tan Qingya’s mind: a little kid tripping flat on her face mid-run. She just couldn’t hold it back any longer and burst out laughing with a pfft.

“It’s because you’re too fierce,” Zhou Jianghao retorted, her face flushed red.

Tan Qingya refused to admit it. “How could that be? I’m not fierce at all. I’ve loved smiling since I was a kid. Even if someone picked up a stool to smash over my head, I’d still have a smile on my face.”

Zhou Jianghao remembered that incident all too well.

If it weren’t for that, she might not have been quite so afraid of Tan Qingya. It had happened not long after she’d first arrived at the Tan Family. The Old Madam had been out that day, and some guests had shown up—supposedly Li Ye’s family members. Among them were a few kids even older than Tan Qingya, all rowdy and looking particularly hard to get along with.

And as the daughter of Tan Yanxi’s “lifesaver,” Zhou Jianghao had naturally been summoned over as well.

She had only just reached the entrance to the hall when she heard the commotion inside. After hesitating for a long while, she finally mustered her courage and cautiously peeked in.

Right at that moment, she saw a girl—red in the face and thick in the neck—hoisting a stool high, ready to bring it crashing down on Tan Qingya’s head.

Tan Qingya didn’t so much as blink. A confident, flamboyant smile lit up her face as she simply asked, “Do you dare smash it down?”

The girl’s arms trembled from holding the stool up for so long. In the end, she deflated and let it drop back to the floor.

But of course, that was far from the end of it.

Tan Qingya’s smile didn’t waver. Instead, she bent down, picked up the stool herself, and—in a move that caught everyone completely off guard—swung it hard at the girl.

With a resounding bang, she startled everyone half to death.

And the instigator? Her face still bore that flamboyant, radiant smile, her tone even gentle as she said, “You don’t dare. But I do.”

Recalling Tan Qingya from back then, Zhou Jianghao let out a sigh.

Tan Qingya never put on a fierce act on purpose. On the contrary, she looked especially gentle when she got ruthless—but her strikes were anything but.

With a character like that, how could Zhou Jianghao not be afraid?

Her thoughts had wandered too far afield. Zhou Jianghao quickly gathered herself and voiced the question she’d been dying to ask. “We were strangers before we got married, but afterward, you…”

She searched for the most fitting words, then—blushing fiercely—pursed her lips and said, “You act like you really like me.”