Chapter 3: Squeeze Them Dry  

As soon as they left the bar, Wen Li headed toward where she had parked her car, only to be abruptly pulled back by Shen An.  

“Where are you going?”  

Wen Li jingled her car keys.  

Shen An snatched the keys from her hand and handed them to the attendant at the door. “Find a designated driver to deliver the car to Sky Lake Bay.”  

After getting into the car with Shen An, she heard him instruct the driver to find a clean noodle shop.  

“You’re hungry?”  

Shen An gave her a sidelong glance. “Aren’t you?”  

Wen Li rubbed her nose. Her stomach had been growling for a while—she had only eaten some fruit before drinking to cushion her stomach.  

“You’ve been living quite freely in the year and a bit I’ve been gone?” Shen An glanced at her black spaghetti-strap dress and the stiletto heels that looked thinner than his fingers.  

“I don’t drink often,” Wen Li deflected.  

But it was true. As a doctor, during her busiest days, she could perform up to eight surgeries. Unless she had the next day off, she couldn’t drink.  

She had no idea why she was so unlucky today—just as he returned to the country, he had to catch her like this.  

Thinking of this, Wen Li took out her phone and opened Chen Qiao’s WeChat. “You ran away pretty fast.”  

Chen Qiao sent back a cheeky emoji and replied, “Suddenly remembered I have work early tomorrow. What can I say? A 28th-tier celebrity like me has to compete the moment my eyes open.”  

Wen Li: “A 28th-tier celebrity wouldn’t have that much work.”  

Chen Qiao sent a dramatic crying emoji: “Did your mouth drink poison or something?”  

The late-night breeze carried a slight chill. After getting out of the car, Shen An glanced again at her spaghetti-strap dress. “Cold?”  

“No.” She actually liked this kind of coolness—it made her feel comfortable.  

Shen An seemed to suddenly go deaf. He took off his thin jacket and draped it over her shoulders. “Wear it. You might catch a cold.”  

Wen Li pinched the sleeve of the jacket, thinking the weather wasn’t that cold—how could she catch a chill? And in terms of physical constitution, he was the one more likely to get sick.  

But faced with this unfamiliar husband’s gentlemanly gesture, she felt she should accept it. Otherwise, she’d seem too prudish. “Let’s go in. It is a little chilly out here.”  

Wouldn’t want the delicate young master to freeze.  

They ordered two bowls of hot beef noodle soup. While waiting, neither spoke, and an awkward silence settled between them.  

Wen Li didn’t know what to say. After weighing her thoughts for a while, she finally voiced her question: “How long are you staying this time?”  

As if surprised she had only just asked, Shen An raised an eyebrow and watched her reaction as he replied, “I’m not leaving.”  

Wen Li’s heart skipped a beat. Not leaving? That meant her married-but-solo-living days were over? She felt a little uneasy.  

Her reaction made Shen An sigh inwardly. Did she not want him back?  

Then again, it made sense. They had married after just one meeting, and he had left the country the very next day. Two people who were already strangers had grown even more distant after over a year apart.  

His sudden return might disrupt the life she had built for herself.  

“Why did you choose to live at Sky Lake Bay?” He remembered giving her several keys before leaving, letting her pick where to stay.  

“The other villas were too far from the hospital. Sky Lake Bay is more convenient.”  

“You don’t like Sky Lake Bay?” Wen Li wondered—wasn’t a 600-square-meter penthouse enough? How much space did someone need just to sleep?  

“Just asking. If you like it, that’s fine.” Shen An then felt the statement sounded odd and quickly added, “I don’t care where I live.”

Then there was silence again. Wen Li thought to herself, how awkward it was for unfamiliar spouses to interact!

Wen Li glanced at the menu on the wall, then at the chef cooking noodles in the back kitchen, and finally at her phone screen—looking for a few seconds before turning it off again. She looked like someone starving and impatient.

Shen An observed her feigned busyness and sighed softly before speaking up. “I received a call from the Wen family today.”

Wen Li raised her head, her brows slightly furrowed. “You just returned to the country and must have a lot to handle. There’s no need to pay them any attention.”

Shen An replied, “Actually, I’m not that busy. I’ve been handling domestic matters while abroad as well.”

After a moment of hesitation, Wen Li decided to lay things out plainly. Since he had returned, they would be living together from now on—it was better to be clear.

“Shen An, you know the circumstances behind our whirlwind marriage, right?” She didn’t believe that with the Shen family’s influence in Haicheng, they wouldn’t have uncovered the underlying scheme.

Shen An nodded honestly. “I know.”

Wen Li was the Wen family’s true heiress, switched at birth and left to grow up elsewhere. It wasn’t until the Shen family announced their intention to arrange a marriage alliance that the Wen family hurriedly acknowledged her.

On the surface, it seemed like a tearful reunion with their long-lost daughter, securing her a good marriage into a wealthy family. In reality, they didn’t want their adopted daughter—raised with love since childhood—to marry a sickly person like him, whose future was uncertain, and ruin her happiness.  

Yet they still wanted to cling to the Shen family’s influence, so they hastily recognized Wen Li and pushed her into this marriage as a symbolic gesture—even changing her surname back to Wen to appear as though they valued her.  

Back then, everyone in Haicheng knew that marrying into the Shen family was akin to jumping into a pit of fire. No matter how grand or influential the Shen family was, no one was willing to send their daughter into such a fate.  

Wen Li must have agreed to marry him only because the Wen family had used some underhanded methods.  

Wen Li nodded solemnly. “So, essentially, the Wen family has nothing to do with me.”  

She wasn’t close to them at all. Who would believe that today’s call was the first time the Wen family had contacted her since the wedding? The moment Shen An returned, they immediately called to cozy up—everyone knew their motives.  

Shen An nodded in understanding. “But I think they’ll keep calling to harass you.”  

He didn’t mince words, bluntly using “harass.”  

Wen Li felt a surge of irritation. If they bothered only her, she could ignore them—but she worried they might target Shen An next.  

Hadn’t they forced her to marry Shen An precisely to latch onto the Shen family’s power? The day after the wedding, Shen An had left the country, and the Wen family never got their chance to cling to him. Now that he was back, they probably wouldn’t let this opportunity slip.  

Who knew how shamelessly far they would go?  

The owner brought their noodles, and the two stopped talking, slurping up their meal. After drinking so much alcohol, a bowl of hot noodles was undeniably comforting.  

On the way back, Shen An resumed their earlier conversation. “Besides, if you never give the Wen family any benefits, and they can’t do anything to you—what about the others?”  

Wen Li turned sharply to look at him. His eyes were as deep as the night sky, seemingly capable of swallowing everything.  

She was stunned that he knew the specifics. Hadn’t she agreed to return to the Wen family and marry Shen An only because they had threatened her adoptive parents and grandmother?

Her adoptive parents had died early, and it was her grandmother who raised her. How could she bear to leave her grandmother with no one to rely on in old age? Even more unbearable was the thought of her adoptive parents’ ashes being dug up and scattered carelessly.

“So you mean, you want to help them?” Wen Li felt a deep revulsion in her heart.

“Not help—drain them dry.” His ink-black eyes gleamed with shrewdness, every word dripping with calculation.

Wen Li found the faint smile at the corner of his lips particularly chilling.