Chapter 35: The Schemed School Beauty (5)

Fu Siwan sat quietly in the passenger seat.

Bai Qian fastened her seatbelt, started the engine, and was about to pull away when she caught a glimpse of the girl beside her not buckled in properly. She reminded her gently, “Seatbelt.”

The girl’s lovely eyes were glazed over with a thin mist as she stared blankly ahead.

At the sound of the woman’s voice, she blinked, and the hazy veil vanished in an instant.

“Fasten your seatbelt,” Bai Qian said again, glancing her way with good-natured patience.

Instead of obeying, Fu Siwan turned her head and gazed at her with pursed lips.

Bai Qian tilted her head to meet her eyes. “What’s wrong?”

“If you just want a toy you can play with for a little while, then tell me now.”

A sour, bitter taste welled up in Bai Qian’s chest, but she swallowed it down. “Fu Siwan, to me, you’re just my little friend.”

The girl’s long lashes quivered, lending a hint of wetness even to her stiff tone. “If you’re lying to me, I’ll make you pay—even if it costs me everything.”

Bai Qian smiled. “Then you’ll never get the chance in this lifetime.”

This time, she didn’t bother repeating herself. She simply leaned over and buckled the seatbelt for her.

“Any other questions? If not, let’s head home.”

The word “home” carried such warmth that it nearly brought tears to Fu Siwan’s eyes. She turned to stare at the familiar scenery sliding past the window and rasped, “I’m hungry. Take me to get something to eat.”

“All right.” Bai Qian picked up on the faint tremor in her voice and tactfully let it drop.

The prickly barbs on Little Rabbit that didn’t belong to her had finally stopped stinging.

Now all she had to do was pluck them out one by one with her own hands. And someday soon, Little Rabbit would nestle trustingly into her arms, baring her soft, fluffy belly and begging for a rub.

~~~

The night before, they’d shared their first meal together since meeting, but Fu Siwan didn’t have much of an appetite.

With that in mind, Bai Qian had ordered just a single-person combo meal.

Even so, the girl left more than half of the palm-sized burger untouched.

Fu Siwan polished off her last french fry, dipped in ketchup, took a sip of the Coke—now down to a third—and stood with a satisfied sigh. “I’m stuffed. Let’s go.”

Bai Qian let out a soft sigh of her own. She reached for the half-eaten burger the girl had abandoned on her tray and, under her astonished stare, took a calm bite.

Some people were simply born with an effortless elegance that turned fast food into haute cuisine, Fu Siwan mused. Only someone like the woman before her could pull it off.

Brushing aside the unexpectedly captivating sight of the beauty eating, she asked, “Bankrupt or something?”

“…” Bai Qian shot her a playful glare, her mouth too full to reply.

Fu Siwan caught the message in those mock-angry eyes. Her gaze drifted to the plastic straw nearby, where a streak of the woman’s peachy-pink lipstick lingered like an intimate mark.

“Or do you just want a taste of my spit that badly?”

Bai Qian was grateful she’d already swallowed her last bite—otherwise, the shock might have made her choke, and the girl across from her would be in for it.

She dabbed at her lips with a napkin and gritted out, “Starting today, you clean your plate every time. And no more jokes like that.”

The girl scoffed. “Old lady with skin thinner than paper.”

“…”

A few hundred meters down the road, Fu Siwan spoke up abruptly. “I left something back at the house. I need to go get it.”

“Forget all that old stuff. Tomorrow, I’ll take you shopping for new things.” Bai Qian wanted nothing from that place.

“No, I have to get it back.”

It was rare for the girl to be so insistent, so Bai Qian relented.

She waited by the entrance. Moments later, Fu Siwan emerged from the complex.

Her face was icy, her hands empty.

She slammed the car door with enough force to vent her frustration.

Bai Qian could practically feel the girl’s simmering resentment thickening the air between them.

Testing the waters, she asked, “So… what did you go back for?”

Fu Siwan fell silent, a low-pressure aura cloaking her. Before Bai Qian could prompt her, she buckled her own seatbelt.

Bai Qian let it go. She tapped the steering wheel absently twice, then hit the gas to drive off.

The tense quiet stretched on for about five minutes before the girl finally spoke.

“That rabbit you gave me? She cut it to shreds with scissors. All I found was stuffing and scraps of fabric scattered across the floor.”

Fu Siwan recalled the past, a flicker of pain and struggle flashing in her eyes. “I hate her—hate her for giving birth to me and then raising me like this. But I can’t hate her. She’s the one who brought me into the world. Without her, I never would have grown up.”

Plop.

Two teardrops landed on her thigh. The girl raised a hand and calmly wiped the wetness from her face. “She told me you spent a million to buy me. Without you, I’d have to sell myself till the day I died just to earn that much for her. Now, I really won’t owe her a thing anymore.”

“I don’t know what I can give you. All I’ve got is this body. If you don’t want it now, just tell me ahead of time when you do, and I’ll get ready—”

Her words cut off amid the piercing screech of the car’s emergency brake.

The stern chill on Bai Qian’s face crumbled the instant she turned and saw Fu Siwan’s tear-streaked cheeks, her silent crying having ruined her makeup.

Heart aching, she leaned over and pulled the little girl—who had finally dropped her mask to reveal her raw, bleeding truth—into her arms.

Bai Qian knew no words of comfort were needed right now. In this simple, warm embrace, every bit of language would only get in the way.

~~~

Bai Qian now understood why Xie Chao had hesitated to speak back then.

She could calmly ignore all the other couples’ items scattered around the house.

But that garish wedding bed smack in the middle of the bedroom, embroidered with huge double-happiness characters, and the two festive dolls perched on the nightstand? Those, she couldn’t just pretend weren’t there.

Meeting Fu Siwan’s questioning gaze, Bai Qian forced a calm expression. “I’ve never lived in this house. I usually rent it out to others. The last tenant must’ve left in a rush and forgot to clear out their stuff.”

Fu Siwan’s lips curved in a smile, graciously accepting the flimsy excuse.

“This place was renovated with only me in mind—no thought of a second person moving in. Tomorrow, I’ll get someone to turn the gym into a secondary bedroom. For tonight, you’ll just have to make do with me in here. I’ll head to the supermarket later for new bedding. We’ll toss this set out.”

With that explanation, Bai Qian bent down to fold up the bedding laid out flat on the bed. She hadn’t even started when Fu Siwan grabbed her wrist. The girl tilted her head with a half-smile. “Auntie, are you feeling guilty or something?”

Bai Qian: ?

“This bedding looks expensive. Throwing it out without even using it seems like such a waste. You won’t even let half a burger go to waste, but when it’s something pricier, you ditch it without batting an eye? Or do you really think I’d read into it?”

Bai Qian made one last desperate stand. “This really was left by the previous tenant. Other people have slept on it. You still want to use it?”

Fu Siwan said nothing, just gazed at her with a bright, beaming smile.

That clean, innocent face took on a sly edge from the unusual grin.

“…” Bai Qian surrendered. “My assistant got the wrong idea—thought I was bringing my girlfriend home—so he set the room up like this.”

“Then Auntie, you could’ve just told me straight up instead of those lame excuses.” Fu Siwan adopted an innocent expression, tossing out “Auntie” left and right with relish. “Auntie won’t even take my body, so I know Auntie would never fall for me. Don’t worry, Auntie. I get that there’s a huge age gap between us. Even if I wanted to date someone, I’d never pick you.”

The words only got weirder from there, but Bai Qian had already weathered far worse from the girl. She let them sail right past like a breeze.

Life with Little Rabbit officially kicked off.

Bai Qian stayed busy over the next two days, overseeing the renovation crew while handling Fu Siwan’s school transfer paperwork.

She’d brought up the school switch at the dinner table that very first day.

The girl blurted out a curse without thinking. “Auntie, are you nuts? I’m already a senior, and the new semester’s been going for two months. You want me to transfer now?”

Bai Qian tuned out the rude remark. “Then tell me this: at the end of last semester, what was your overall rank in the grade?”

Fu Siwan coughed lightly and pretended not to hear, reaching for food with her chopsticks.

“Eight hundred and twenty-six seniors in the whole school, Fu Siwan. Impressive—you came in dead last at eighth hundred.”

The girl’s cheeks flushed bright red, pure embarrassment.

Bai Qian caught the shift in her expression and felt a spark of relief.

She still had enough shame to blush. Not a hopeless case yet.

“With grades like that, transferring schools probably won’t make much difference either way, right, little friend Fu Siwan?”

The humiliated girl shot her a glare. “Old lady, quit calling me that! It’s childish as hell!”

Bai Qian fired right back. “Stop calling me Auntie, and I won’t call you that anymore.”

“Fat chance.”

“That settles it, then. I’ll contact a new school for you over the next couple of days and take care of all the paperwork. Starting next Monday, you can head straight to Maple Forest No.1 High.”

Fu Siwan stared in disbelief. “Maple Forest No.1 High? With my grades, would they even accept me?”

Bai Qian couldn’t resist lifting her hand to flick the girl lightly on the forehead. “Since you know their admission standards are sky-high, once you’re in, you’d better ditch those lazy study habits of yours. Put in two hundred percent effort and make the most of every single day from here on out, got it?”

“Don’t flick my head—I don’t like people touching me!”

Amused by Little Rabbit’s fierce, teeth-bared scowl, the woman couldn’t help but pinch her soft, plump cheek again. “You’re the one I shelled out a million for. What, now I can’t even touch you?”

Fu Siwan’s face darkened in an instant.

She’d finally scored a point for once, and Bai Qian was still basking in that smug satisfaction when her hand was suddenly seized. The girl yanked it over, pressing it firmly against a certain spot.

“Auntie, since you’re so eager to touch me, why don’t you have the guts to go all the way?” Little Rabbit narrowed her almond-shaped eyes, her voice dripping with mocking disdain. “Or are you going to chicken out again this time?”