Author: Yīlù Fán Huā (一路烦花)
Synopsis:
Note: In Chinese internet slang, a sockpuppet (马甲) is an online identity used to remain anonymous – to hide your true identity, where a person pretends to be someone he/she is not. I’m assuming that a sockpuppet here refers to a cover or disguise for the MC and ML.
[Black-belly, lazy, outrageously wealthy male lead vs. unreachable, cold, deeply hidden female lead]
Qin Ran grew up in the countryside. She disappeared for one year and lost a year of high school.
One year later, she was taken to Yuncheng by her biological mother to attend school.
Her mother said: your stepfather is from a prestigious family, your big brother is a genius, your younger sister is a top student, you must not lose their faces.
Everyone of status in the capital have received a warning from Cheng family’s Junye: Junye’s wife is from the countryside; she doesn’t understand the circle, doesn’t understand the current circumstances, doesn’t understand the financial markets. Her character is very… in short, please excuse me.
Until one day, Junye investigated a big shot, his subordinates looked at the sockpuppet that had come off her while she said she knew nothing about it… they sank into a bewildered silence.
It was probably a story of two big shots trying to hide their sockpuppets so that the other didn’t feel inferior.
Chapter 1: Arriving at Yuncheng
At the end of August, a heatwave swept over the town.
In the hospital in the town centre, on the second floor, a female student was leaning lazily against a dilapidated door. She was wearing a simple black and white checked shirt. As she bowed her head, her collar went askew.
Her two sleeves were completely rolled up in an unruly manner.
Below was a pair of low-waist jeans – a bit old. Because of her movement, a little bit of her exquisite waist was exposed.
Her appearance was very provocative and eye-catching.
The nurse saw a man walk past the schoolgirl a third time. She handed the schoolgirl a lollipop. She went into her ward and pursed her lips. “Ran Ran, have your parents come?”
Qin Ran slowly tore open the wrapper, her long eyelashes were lowered. As she bit the lollipop inside her mouth, her mood wasn’t great. “Yes, ba.”
The nurse clicked her tongue. “I couldn’t tell.”
Saying so, she left with her medical records.
Qin Ran’s parents were inside the ward – Ning Qing and Qin Hanqiu.
They had divorced more than ten years ago. Qin Ran had been living with her grandmother when she fell sick half a month ago, needing to be transferred to the hospital.
Qin Ran leaned against the wall, one leg bent slightly, and listened expressionlessly to the two people arguing inside. Ning Qing’s indifferent voice could be heard through the partition, “Qin Hanqiu, the car is downstairs, I will take my mother to the city hospital at once. Ran Ran will go with you.”
“Why should Ran Ran come with me?” Qin Hanqiu sneered at her, with no trace of politeness in his voice. “Aren’t you married to a wealthy man? Can’t you raise a daughter with so much money?”
“I’ve already brought my Yu’er into the Lin family. Do you want me to bring another oil bottle?” Ning Qing looked at him impatiently. “My mother has helped you raise your daughter for more than a decade. Now she’s sick and can’t do it anymore. Don’t tell me I should bring her back to the Lin family?”
Hearing this, Qin Hanqiu’s resentment was even more obvious. “At that time, I wanted to raise Yu’er, but you were determined to fight with me over her. Now you’re demanding that I take Ran Ran, okay, ah! Then you hand over Yu’er also to me, ba!”
They had two daughters – Qin Ran and Qin Yu. Qin Yu was only one year younger to Qin Ran but she was different from her sister in all aspects.
After their divorce, the two fought over custody of Qin Yu until later Qin Yu said she wanted to follow their mother.
At that time, no one asked for Qin Ran. Both of them evaded responsibility and finally, neither was concerned about her.
Their grandmother, Chen Shulan saw that she was pitiful, and she raised Qin Ran by herself for 12 years.
In the ward, Ning Qing looked at Qin Hanqiu’s face filled with sarcasm and took a deep breath.
Qin Hanqiu was a child abducted into their town, he was a poor boy. At that time, Ning Qing fell for his good looks and married him. Years later, neither of them could tolerate the other’s temper and went for a clear-cut divorce.
After the divorce, Ning Qing took Qin Yu and married a wealthy man in Yuncheng, where she was like a fish back in the water.
Qin Hanqiu also remarried quickly and had a son with his current wife.
Both of them forgot that they had an eldest daughter.
Now they treated Qin Ran as an object, throwing her to the other like a leather ball as if they didn’t know that their eldest daughter was listening to their conversation.
Qin Hanqiu fearlessly put on his shoes. Ning Qing was really afraid that he would go to the Lin family and cause a ruckus. Then, she was sure to lose face. She could only swallow this bitter water. It was just that she was not willing to bring Qin Ran to Yuncheng.
“Ran Ran, don’t blame dad,” Qin Hanqiu tense body relaxed. He went out of the ward to see Qin Ran. He paused, “The Lin family is very wealthy. You follow your mother closely. They’ll definitely be able to find you a good high school for you to study in. ”
Qin Hanqiu now had to support a son and he had great burdens. He hadn’t bought a house in the city yet and he intended to do so before he brought his wife and children there.
He could only apologise to Qin Ran.
He hadn’t even thought of bringing Qin Ran back ever since he came here.
Qin Ran leaned back; the hospital corridor wasn’t air-conditioned. The stifling heat congealed till it almost froze. She half-bowed her head. Her finger moved to touch the second white jade-like button from her collar.
That finger was slender, without any trace of impurities, as if it was made of jade, wrapped in cold air.
Her incredibly beautiful appearance had a hint of impatience as if she was saying, “don’t provoke me.”
Not paying attention to Qin Hanqiu, she irritably unfastened the round button. Suddenly, she narrowed her eyes, looking at the window at the end of the hallway, her eyes cold.
A few metres away from the window, in a room, was an office.
Directly opposite the office, a young man sat on a chair wearing a pristine white coat, his clean appearance looking handsome.
It was the new director of the hospital, Jiang Dongye.
Jiang Dongye looked at the sofa opposite to him which didn’t match the hospital he was in at all. A man lay on the sofa, a cigarette dangling from his fingertips with thin, pale smoke rising from it; an arm casually draped the sofa and his gaze seemed to focus for half a minute. Jiang Dongye looked at the man and asked, “What are you looking at?”
The man wearing a black silk t-shirt leaned back against the sofa as if feeling drowsy and, biting the edge of the cigarette in his mouth, laughed. “The waist is small and thin.”
His head leaned on one side; the bridge of his nose was high, his skin was extremely white, his eyes were half-lidded, the eyelashes covering his eyes were very long. The indistinct and hazy atmosphere seemed to disperse the chill in his eyes.
He was seemingly barely sober, his voice seemed somewhat weary. His head was lowered and he looked carelessly indolent, wrapped in an indistinct atmosphere as if to disappear any second.
His hand reached out to brush the soot away from his shirt. His black shirt was half-open and his neck seemed to be so delicate as if made of fine porcelain.
“Hmm?” Jiang Dongye turned over the medical records in his hands.
Looking up, he saw the stylish and charming look of the man; it wasn’t hard to understand why both men and women in the capital were crazy about the third young master.
“None of your business,” Cheng Juan stretched out his long legs and leaned back against the sofa and spoke lazily, “After two days, you’ll return to Beijing.”
“What about you?” Jiang Dongye said, returning to his senses.
The slender fingers with sharply carved bones put out the smoke on the ashtray.
Cheng Juan stood up with his long, straight legs, his eyes looking up lazily and patted his clothes to dust off soot that didn’t exist. He said in a relaxed and unconcerned tone, “There are other tasks.”
Ning family’s car was parked in front of the town’s hospital. It was a black BMW with a license plate of Yuncheng. After Ning Qing negotiated with the doctor, she took Qin Ran and Chen Shulan to Yuncheng directly.
“The Lin family has many rules, so don’t bring your bad habits into the Lin family, do you understand?” Ning Qing leaned her head back and massaged her head between her eyebrows.
Qin Ran carried only a black backpack with her and pulled it up on her leg. Her eyes were drowsy and she nodded casually.
A pair of thin, slender legs.
From head to toe, there was an air of bandits about her. She was not at all sure whether she was listening.
“Are you so sleepy? Were you playing the thief last night?” Living in the family for 12 years among upper-class women, Ning Qing’s comportment was now very graceful.
She loathed precisely this unscrupulous air on Qin Ran that even Qin Hanqiu had.
Qin Ran took out a pair of black headphones from inside her pocket and put them on, being extremely unconcerned. “Went to the internet café and played games all night.”
As she raised her head, her earphones slipped beneath her collar around her neck.
“You…! You shouldn’t go to internet cafés in the future!” Ning Qing looked at her uncaring attitude and grit her teeth. “Don’t take it personally, but if you had a tenth of Yu’er’s ability, there was no need for me to correct you all the time! Lin family isn’t your grandmother’s home! Your every word and action affects your younger sister! If you don’t want to behave, don’t drag Yu’er down with you!”
The very thought of asking Lin Qi to pull strings to get Qin Ran into the third year of high school made Ning Qing increasingly agitated.
She knew that even if they looked all around Yuncheng, they couldn’t find a school that would take her in.
She married Lin Qi, a widowed real estate businessman with a son, who said he didn’t want her to give birth.
As a child, Qin Yu was extremely clever, beautiful and delightful. She had excellent grades, excellent talent and never let the Lin family worry about her affairs. Regardless of what anyone would say, she was ‘other people’s child’.
The Lin family was satisfied with Qin Yu and Ning Qing was naturally happy to marry into the Lin family. But thinking about taking Qin Ran into Lin, Ning Qing lost her appetite for lunch.
**
At 4 pm, the black BMW stopped in front of Yuncheng’s Lin family’s house. “Madam,” a middle-aged woman wearing a blue blouse opened the door. She was surprised to see Chen Shulan and Qin Ran behind Ning Qing.
Seeing this, Ning Qing’s chest felt suffocated; she became even more upset. “Mrs Zhang, you take my mother and Qin Ran inside. Yu’er is going to finish her class, I’m going to go and pick her up.
The Lin family’s driver always picked up Qin Yu. Ning Qing was going to pick her up today meant that she was still upset and didn’t want to answer any questions or face Qin Ran and argue with her. Mrs Zhang saw Ning Qing leave. She looked at the two people in front of her with suspicion in her eyes.
“Old lady, Miss Qin,” she said, “come in.” She gave them a subtle look.
Saying that, she turned around to lead them inside and, at an angle that neither of them could see, she curved her lips.
As Chen Shulan walked, she saw the building decorated beautifully in European style. Her fingers unconsciously clutched at the edge of her clothes. When they stopped in front of the main hall, Mrs Zhang took off her slippers, but Chen Shulan walked in with her shoes on.
It was only after she stepped in that she felt Mrs Zhang looking at her with surprise. Seeing her gaze, Chen Shulan felt embarrassed. She was a countrywoman, but she was always clean with no dust on her feet or her clothes.
Mrs Zhang’s eyes were as wide as saucers but since her granddaughter was there, Chen Shulan tried to ignore the other’s eyes and straightened her back.
She took a step back and was about to change her shoes when Mrs Zhang put her slippers back on. Mrs Zhang was unsure about Ning Qing’s current attitude towards the pair of them. She took them to the room on the third floor. At the corner of the second floor, a half-open room could be seen with a famous, expensive violin inside.
Qin Ran gave it a glance.
Mrs Zhang looked at Qin Ran and said with no expression, “That’s the violin of second miss.”
Qin Ran raised her eyebrows behind Mrs Zhang, looking lazy with ‘impatience’ written all over her. She thought casually that Qin Yu seemed to be quite favoured in the Lin family.
The room upstairs was quite plain.
“This is the bathroom. Do you know how to use the water heater?” Mrs Zhang opened the bathroom door, talking as if the two opposite her were cavewomen. Qin Ran sat on a table, bending one leg. She unfurled the flowers on the table and tugged at her sleeves.
Her delicate, white wrist was exposed.
“The two of you rest for a while. I’ll be downstairs, call me if you need anything.” After Mrs Zhang said a few things to pay attention to, she went downstairs to the kitchen to help.
When she left, Qin Ran locked the door.
Chen Shulan looked at the spotless beautiful room and laughed, “This Mrs Zhang seems… very good to talk to. I’ll be relieved with you living here.”
Qin Ran poured out the contents of her backpack all over the table.
When she heard those words, she decided to not remind her grandmother that Mrs Zhang had “these two poor relatives came to take advantage of the Lin family” written all over her face.
Chen Shulan watched Qin Ran play with her things and didn’t bother her. There were many strange things about her granddaughter.
Last time, she saw a cold gun lying on the table and was frightened out of her wits. But Qin Ran said that it was a toy gun.
Sitting on the table, Qin Ran played with her belongings. Taking out her new-looking laptop with no logo on it, she put a hand on the table carelessly.
She took out another heavy-looking cell phone.
She continued to throw her things on the table. She had always been messy. She picked out a white plastic bottle from the pile of things. When she shook it, it seemed to have water in it.
On it was an uppercase ‘Q’ scribbled with a note attached.
Qin Ran tore the note up, wrote a jumble of characters on it that seemed like some code and threw it away as if it were illegal after a while. She had only the white plastic bottle in her hand. She looked at Chen Shulan, agonising over whether to put it back into her pocket.
Soon, Mrs Zhang came upstairs and knocked on their door. “Master and young master are back. They are downstairs and want to meet you.”
**
Downstairs, Lin Qi and Lin Jinxuan were whispering. She was taking a daughter back, after all, and Ning Qing didn’t have the courage to make a decision, so she had called Lin Qi from the hospital.
“I heard other than taking a year off, she has a big demerit from her first school. It’s a thorny case, it will be difficult to get her into another school.” Lin Qi, thinking of Ning Qing’s request, worriedly pinched his brows.
He thought of Qin Yu, such a good girl, her sister came nowhere near her. The Lin family had never had such an outrageous person. An unsmiling Lin Jinxuan had a hand on the sofa and, leaning his head against it, he pressed the phone against his ear as if talking to someone.
When Lin Qi spoke, he didn’t even lift his head, not caring about the Qin Ran he spoke about.
It was only when he heard the sound from the stairways that he inadvertently glanced int that direction.
He was stunned.
Leave a Reply