Chapter 8
Gu Shuangshuang didn’t resist; the hundred and twenty yuan she had painstakingly earned wasn't enough to afford a cab.
Following him to the brand-new BMW, she flashed him a bright, freezing smile. "Nice car. A generous gift from your future father-in-law?"
Lu Haoxuan frowned at her, his thin lips pressed into a tight line. He looked entirely put-together now—a refined young gentleman, no longer the impoverished boy who had to wear shirts she had personally mended. After just three years, Shuangshuang couldn't help but wonder how many times he had slept with Gu Ziyi to barter his way to this lifestyle.
The car moved fast, engulfed in a suffocating, dead silence the entire way.
About a hundred meters outside the Gu family villa, Lu Haoxuan pulled over. Lifting his slender, fair hand from the steering wheel, he gently stroked her long hair before pulling her into a sudden embrace.
The motion was so abrupt it startled her.
Held against his burning chest, she struggled, but after a few useless shoves, that bone-deep familiar scent stung her heart with agonizing sharpness.
Pressing his face against her fair neck, he sighed. "Shuangshuang, there is so much you don't understand. You were fourteen, I was nineteen, and we’ve loved each other all this time. I haven't betrayed you. I want you to keep loving me—just wait until the day I marry Gu Ziyi and divorce her."
His calm, detached voice pierced straight through her heart like a dagger. In a fit of blinding fury, she slammed her heavy backpack across his handsome face. The zipper scratched his brow, drawing a thin line of blood.
Trembling all over, she shoved the car door open. "Lu Haoxuan, there’s plenty you don't understand either! For instance, the second you left three years ago, I made a deal with Gu Hai. I married an old divorcé and got a massive sum of money. And for another, just a few days ago, I gave away my first time to a male escort. What was supposed to be yours is gone. You threw it away, so another man took it!"
The whipping wind bit painfully against her tear-streaked face as she stormed into the unfamiliar villa where she had lived for four miserable years. Inside the living room, Gu Hai had not yet returned.
Gu Ziyi and Jiang Rong glared at her with venomous hatred the moment she stepped over the threshold.
Shuangshuang headed straight upstairs to her old bedroom. Unoccupied for two years, it was covered in a thick layer of dust. Reaching beneath the mattress, she pulled out a yellowed photograph and pressed it to her chest. The young woman in the picture had delicate, elegant features and a graceful poise.
She didn't actually look much like her mother.
Clutching the photo, she cried until she fell asleep. The door was hammered multiple times throughout the night, Jiang Rong’s shrill curses echoing from the hallway, but Shuangshuang ignored them, pretending to be fast asleep.
By midnight, Gu Hai’s birthday was officially over. Shuangshuang hadn't gone downstairs; she was starving.
Enduring the hunger for over an hour, she crawled out of bed to scavenge through the kitchen fridge. The moment she opened her door, a sound drifted through the hallway—the heavy, rhythmic panting of a man and a woman, piercingly clear in the dead of night.
The room right next to hers belonged to Gu Ziyi.
Shuangshuang froze, listening to the passionate moans in the dark. Just a few hours ago, that same man had forcefully held her, insisting he had never betrayed her.
When other men did something dirty, they at least owned up to it. Lu Haoxuan had truly become the most sickening creature of all.
She went to the kitchen and devoured whatever she could find—cold, leftover scraps straight from the fridge. Only when sharp stomach cramps doubled her over did she realize she had to stop. Gauging the time, even the wildest session next door should be over by now.
Returning to her room, her phone lit up with a text:
[Saw your shadow through the crack under the door. Standing there so long, did you enjoy eavesdropping on Haoxuan and me?]
Shuangshuang deleted it without an ounce of expression. Her half-sister was utterly deranged.
Her stomach burned too painfully for sleep. When she finally woke, her pillow was drenched with sweat and tears. Pulling on her clothes, she trudged downstairs.
At six-thirty in the morning, Gu Hai blocked her path on the lawn outside the villa, fresh from his morning run.
In his early fifties, well-maintained and tall, Gu Hai kept countless mistresses on the side. Her mother had likely just been one of many.
He offered a polite smile. "Didn't come down for Dad's birthday last night? Your stepmother called you several times. Not feeling well?"
Look at that—the picture of a doting father.
Shuangshuang smiled coldly. "Right. The moment I set foot here, I feel sick."
"Did you meet your sister’s boyfriend? Ziyi mentioned all three of you went to the same middle school."
"Father, I have a bus to catch."
Gu Hai stepped in front of her. "Has your husband still not shown up?"
So that’s why he struck up a conversation—to ask about that.
Shuangshuang met his gaze with cold indifference. "No. He never returns to Huaxi, I've never seen him, and I have no contact information. If you're looking to get something more out of him, telling me is useless."
Gu Hai’s expression clouded over. He had only met that mysterious son-in-law once himself. Two years ago, when the Gu Corporation was on the brink of collapse, a man in his forties had approached him, demanding a contract marriage with his youngest daughter in exchange for buying an abandoned plot of land for two hundred million yuan. The man took the household registration book, returned it after the marriage was finalized, and never showed his face again.
"If he ever shows up, bring him home for dinner," Gu Hai said with little genuine hope, appraising a daughter who now held zero utility.
Leaving the Gu residence, Gu Shuangshuang dragged herself back to her dorm and collapsed onto the bed, unable to get back up.
Over the weekend, the dorm was entirely empty. Waking up in agony on Saturday night, she burned with a raging fever, retching nothing but bile. With less than two hundred yuan to her name, she stubbornly refused to buy medicine.
On Sunday morning, Xiaoshuang dropped by to deliver medication. Seeing her best friend, Shuangshuang’s emotional dam finally broke; she sobbed until she was dehydrated before slipping into a deep sleep once more.
Placing a cool, damp towel on her forehead, Xiaoshuang let out a heavy sigh. This silly girl had held everything in since catching Lu Haoxuan and Gu Ziyi together, pretending to be unbothered. Letting it all out through a fever was probably for the best.
By Monday morning, Shuangshuang woke up with a slight lingering fever. Her stomach felt better, but her face was ghostly pale, her eyes swollen like bruised walnuts.
She requested sick leave for the first period. The second period was the elective taught by the "young loser," which she skipped without a second thought.
At ten in the morning, she was sitting at an off-campus breakfast joint taking a sip of warm congee when her phone rang loudly.
"Hello, Xiao Ming."
"Where the hell are you?! Roll call just happened!"
She took another calm spoonful of porridge. "Tell the loser professor I have period—"
"Our god-tier professor explicitly stated that whether it's period cramps, a headache, a cold, bumping your leg against your pants, or catching a breeze that makes your joints ache, your leave is denied!"
Why did that excuse list sound so terrifyingly familiar...?
"Shuang'er, you're dead! The professor is pulling up your bald-headed national ID photo right now, threatening to broadcast it on the campus LED mega-screen for the entire semester..."
Pffft! Shuangshuang spat her mouthful of porridge across the table!
"Xiao Ming, tell the god-tier professor to show mercy! I'm hauling my corpse over right this second!"
Sprinting across campus, she didn't dare hang up, her mind spinning in complete chaos. How on earth did this teacher know her ultimate Achilles' heel?!
Gasping for air, she arrived at the lecture hall. Scanning the packed classroom, she bolted down the aisle straight toward the podium. "Professor, I was wrong! Please have mercy, don't project my photo—"
As her hands clamped desperately onto the arm of the man holding the mouse, the strikingly handsome lecturer turned his head. He looked down at her with calm, piercing eyes, a devastatingly charming smirk curling on his lips.
"You got here fast," his deep, magnetic baritone murmured.
"T-Top... Top..." Shuangshuang’s eyes bugged out in sheer horror.
No! This couldn't be real! How the hell was the top host standing on the lecture podium as her professor?!
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