Chapter 35

Zhou Yanjing, completely unbothered, pinched her lightly in reprimand for being distracted. “Why care about anyone else?” 

Ding-dong, ding-dong the doorbell continued to ring. 

Then a voice from outside: “Yanjing, are you in there? I brought some food back.” 

It was like waking up from a dream. 

Jiang Nan’s voice was the whip that jolted Lin Yuxi awake. 

The heat that had been flooding her body instantly drained away, like being thrown naked into a desolate, snow-covered landscape. The biting cold and the shame overwhelmed her all at once. 

He really brought Jiang Nan here. 

Lin Yuxi felt as if the alcohol had completely left her system, and she became painfully aware of where she was. 

“What do you mean by this?” 

Her voice, no longer dazed, was calm and piercing. 

“Zhou Yanjing, can you ever control yourself?” 

It was like a bucket of ice water dousing all the heat in Zhou Yanjing’s body. 

He withdrew his hand from her clothes, his handsome face gradually turning cold. He sneered, “Does it really disgust you so much when I touch you?” 

Lin Yuxi gave a mocking smile. “I’m afraid of catching something.” 

Her words struck a nerve, and Zhou Yanjing’s expression darkened. He glared at her and let out a cold laugh. “Lin Yuxi, have I spoiled you too much? Every day you give me that attitude. Who else would dare speak to me like this besides you?” 

“What did I do to deserve the great Second Young Master Zhou putting up with me?” 

Lin Yuxi sat up and, right in front of him, buttoned up the clothes he had undone earlier, fastening each button one by one. 

Her lowered gaze was so calm, not crying or making a fuss, yet it made her look like someone who had been wronged. 

A surge of inexplicable anger flared in Zhou Yanjing. His face tense, he got up from the sofa, walked over to the table, and pulled out a cigarette from the pack. 

After lighting it, he tossed the lighter onto the table. Smoking with a gloomy expression, his back to Lin Yuxi, he coldly muttered, “Get out.” 

“I’m already leaving.” 

Lin Yuxi finished adjusting her clothes, not even sparing him another glance as she walked away. 

Behind her, Zhou Yanjing kicked over the coffee table in frustration. 

Lin Yuxi opened the door, and outside, Jiang Nan stood holding bags from an upscale restaurant, looking shocked to see her. 

“Yuxi? What are you doing here?” 

As Jiang Nan glanced past the open door, she noticed the overturned coffee table and the sour expression on Zhou Yanjing’s face inside the living room. 

Lin Yuxi hadn’t planned to waste any words on her, but hearing that question, she paused in her steps. 

“What am I doing here?” Lin Yuxi’s delicate brows lifted slightly as she looked at Jiang Nan with a cool indifference. For a brief moment, there was a hint of Zhou Yanjing’s aloofness in her expression. 

“When you officially become Mrs. Zhou, then you’ll have the right to ask me that question.” 

Jiang Nan’s face fell. 

“At least for now, I’m still Mrs. Zhou. I haven’t asked you why you’re here, so I’ve already given you face.” 

Her sharp words made Jiang Nan’s smile falter, her expression stiff. “Yuxi, have you misunderstood something…” 

Lin Yuxi smirked. “The word ‘misunderstanding’ it’s your favorite excuse.” 

With that, she brushed past Jiang Nan. 

As they passed each other, Jiang Nan didn’t miss the telltale color of Lin Yuxi’s lips red and swollen, as if they had just been kissed hard. 

Jiang Nan’s grip on the bags tightened as she turned to stare at Lin Yuxi’s retreating figure. 

Some people are born lucky, while others need to work for it. Lin Yuxi was one of the lucky ones, blessed with a face that seemed favored by the gods, and she had the luck to be adopted by a wealthy family like the Zhou’s. Maybe she really thought she was some kind of privileged heiress, always carrying herself with that cool, arrogant air. 

Jiang Nan bit her lower lip hard, took a few deep breaths to compose herself, and finally stepped into the room with the bags. 

Looking around at the mess in the living room, she had no idea what had happened to make Zhou Yanjing so furious. 

“How did it end up like this… Did you and Yuxi have another argument?” 

Zhou Yanjing’s mood was at its worst, his whole demeanor exuding a dark, almost possessed energy. His response to her was equally sharp and unkind: 

“Who told you to come?” 

Despite being angry, Zhou Yanjing’s upbringing dictated that even when upset, he’d often smile while delivering his barbs. Rarely did he lose his temper like this, and he had never been this harsh toward Jiang Nan before. 

“You left the ski resort after just a little while. Shi Tang told me you came here, and since there’s no food here, I was worried you hadn’t eaten.” 

Jiang Nan began unpacking the takeout containers. “I brought you some food from your favorite restaurant.” 

The meal she had carefully brought over was still warm, but Zhou Yanjing couldn’t even be bothered to look at it. 

“If you hadn’t come, I’d already be full.” 

Jiang Nan took a moment to process the meaning behind his words, recalling Lin Yuxi’s disheveled hair and the lingering flush in her cheeks when she left. The realization hit her, and she clenched the chopsticks in her hand, nearly breaking them. 

She forced a smile after a long pause: “Your relationship with Yuxi is so up and down. When she left just now, she seemed really upset still angry with you?” 

Zhou Yanjing’s expression soured even more at her words. The cigarette he was smoking didn’t taste right to him either, so he irritably tossed it into the fireplace. 

“Full of bad habits don’t know who spoiled her.” 

Lin Yuxi never expected to run into Jiang Nan at the hospital. 

After finishing a follow-up appointment with a patient that afternoon, she took the elevator to the ground floor. As she stepped out, someone called out to her: “Yuxi.” 

Lin Yuxi had been chatting and laughing with Xiao Cui, planning to visit a trendy restaurant together, but when she turned and saw Jiang Nan, her attitude instantly cooled. 

“What do you want?” 

“I’m here with a friend for a prenatal checkup. I saw you and thought I’d say hello.” 

Jiang Nan approached and said, “I wanted to apologize. That day when I asked that question, I didn’t mean anything by it. I was just surprised to see you since you didn’t come skiing earlier.” 

Lin Yuxi responded indifferently, “There’s no need.” 

Apologizing over something so trivial why not take it to the UN? 

Of course, Jiang Nan had more on her mind than a simple apology. 

“Yuxi, I know you’ve figured it out. I really didn’t want to hide it from you. The truth is, I still love Yanjing. We broke up back then because of a momentary spat. I was young and prideful, waiting for him to come apologize, but then his grandmother fell ill, and before I knew it.” 

She glanced at Lin Yuxi. “By the time I found out, you two were already married.” 

She said it as though Lin Yuxi had taken advantage of the situation. 

“Not a single day has passed in the last three years where I haven’t regretted it. I know I shouldn’t continue to love him it’s unfair to you. But Yuxi, you and he aren’t happy together. If you were, he wouldn’t have run off to New York not long after your wedding, leaving you two living apart, right?” 

“I’m not saying this to imply anything. I just wanted to tell you that everything between Yanjing and me has been pure and aboveboard. I have always respected you. You don’t have to worry I won’t cross any boundaries before you two are divorced.” 

Pure and aboveboard? 

As Lin Yuxi listened, she couldn’t help but feel as though she, the legitimate wife, was the one who had no place here.