Su Hao’s breathing grew faster and faster, and he completely panicked. “Lingyi, we can get our marriage license first. I’ll deal with Qiao Tang, I promise…”
Yu Lingyi shook her head. “No. I don’t need you to deal with it right now. You’ve just had surgery. You’re physically weak, and your emotions are unstable. And Qiao Tang has caused such a huge mess.”
“If I marry you now, people will say the Yu family is covering this up to save face. They’ll say you’re using marriage to trade for resources.”
“I don’t want the man I love to be judged that way by the public.”
Su Hao froze. She had even thought that far ahead for him.
Yu Lingyi said quietly, “There’s also the matter of Qiao Tang’s training center. Its accounts are a complete mess, and the parents are threatening to sue her. Are you going to take responsibility for her?”
Su Hao was stunned. “Of course not!”
Even if he hadn’t discovered that woman’s ruthlessness this morning, he still wouldn’t have taken responsibility for Qiao Tang.
Yu Lingyi pulled out another stack of contracts. “I can’t let the mess on Qiao Tang’s side ruin the Yu family or infringe on our shared interests.”
“So we’ll separate our financial interests first. Once the storm has passed and you’ve recovered, we can discuss our relationship again. All right?”
Su Hao took the agreements and glanced through them. His face immediately turned deathly pale.
He would be responsible for investigating the flow of funds, the enrollment advertising, and the contracts that had been signed.
In addition, all projects, resources, and payments that he had previously funneled from the company to Qiao Tang’s studio would have to undergo a new audit.
In short, the entire stack of contracts boiled down to two words: pay it back.
Yu Lingyi coaxed him gently. “Brother Hao, you understand the contract, right? I’m not asking you to pay anything back. I’m simply separating the financial interests between you, me, and Qiao Tang.”
“When the time comes, you can ask her to repay you, and whatever she pays back will naturally belong to the two of us.”
That was one way of interpreting the contract.
Su Hao no longer had the energy to think too deeply about it. Weak and terrified, he could only cling to Yu Lingyi as his last lifeline.
Besides, once he signed, there would still be the faintest possibility of salvaging things with Yu Lingyi.
If he refused, the Yu family had the legal team from Beishan’s top firm behind them. He would have to repay the money anyway.
Su Hao picked up the pen, his fingers trembling slightly.
Yu Lingyi immediately took hold of his wrist and said gently, “Don’t rush. Take your time. You’ve just had surgery… Just sign lightly. Don’t press too hard.”
At last, he finished signing.
Yu Lingyi had achieved her goal completely.
And yet, the elegant young lady still didn’t turn against the scumbag.
She put the agreements away, leaned down, and gave him a brief embrace.
The faint fragrance on her body carried a warmth so gentle it made him dizzy.
“Take good care of your wound.”
Su Hao’s eyes grew hot. Thinking back on everything he had done during this period, he finally felt profound regret. “Lingyi, I’m sorry.”
Yu Lingyi shook her head. “Don’t say you’re sorry. You didn’t do anything wrong. A man as talented as you is bound to be a little promiscuous, isn’t he?”
“If things hadn’t gotten so out of hand today, and if I could still keep my family from intervening, I really would have transferred all my assets to you.”
She tapped the contracts in her hand. “For now, I’ll go clean up your mess.”
With that, she left.
The hospital room fell silent for a long time.
Lying on the bed, his face pale, Su Hao clutched his phone in his free hand and opened the trending searches.
Someone had clipped Qiao Tang’s line from the video—“Once today is over, I’ll practically be half a member of the Yu family”—into a looping GIF.
The more Su Hao watched it, the uglier his expression became.
Especially when he saw Qiao Tang’s distorted face, only one thought remained in his mind.
Stupid. Unbelievably stupid.
Greedy, shortsighted, and incapable of keeping her composure.
How could he have betrayed Yu Lingyi for a woman like that?
Just then, Qiao Tang suddenly called.
Su Hao stared at the screen for several seconds before answering.
The moment the call connected, Qiao Tang asked, “Did you get your marriage license?”
Su Hao’s heart turned completely cold.
She hadn’t asked how his surgery had gone. She hadn’t asked for his room number. She didn’t even intend to come visit him.
Su Hao suddenly let out a laugh. “Qiao Tang, you really aren’t pretending anymore, are you?”
There was a pause on the other end. “What do you mean? Su Hao, do you have any idea what’s going on right now? And you still have time to talk about this? Did you marry Yu Lingyi or not? Did she transfer all her assets to you? The parents at my center keep causing trouble, and I don’t have the money to deal with it!”
“Yu Lingyi and I aren’t getting married,” Su Hao said.
Qiao Tang’s voice rose into a shriek. “You’re not? Why not? Weren’t you two supposed to? Did you get scared of the pain and refuse to go through with the surgery?”
Listening to her barrage of questions, Su Hao felt the last trace of affection in his heart disappear.
“Because you’re stupid. You couldn’t even calm the parents down, and then you used the Yu family’s name to bolster your own credibility, dragging the Yu family into this mess!”
Qiao Tang was stunned by the scolding, then flew into a rage as well. “The legal departments of Shengde Legal and Yu Corporation were both coming after me! What else could I do? If I hadn’t invoked the Yu family’s name, would they have let me off?”
Su Hao sneered. “There’s no point in saying more. I’ll return everything I took from Yu Lingyi. You return every penny you took from me.”
He hung up.
Two people bound together by desire would hate each other even more than enemies the moment their mutual interests fell apart.
Su Hao suddenly felt an emptiness he couldn’t describe.
He had almost possessed everything. He had come so close.
Then he realized that he might truly have lost Yu Lingyi.
He had lost the only person in the world who had loved him purely for his talent.
Su Hao silently began to cry.
At that moment, he remembered why he had entered the entertainment industry in the first place.
Back then, he had been poor and had no connections or influential backers. Carrying an old camera, he traveled everywhere filming the hardships of ordinary people.
No one believed in him. Everyone thought he was just a poor young man trying to package himself through a camera.
Only Yu Lingyi had believed in him.
She had sat in the last row of the screening room and waited until everyone else had left before walking up to him.
“Your eyes can see the warmth and vitality that other people overlook. You’re very talented.”
At the time, he hadn’t loved Yu Lingyi. He had simply felt that, as the daughter of a wealthy family, she represented his chance to climb to the top.
So he began catering to her preferences, gradually becoming her boyfriend and then her fiancé.
He had realized he loved her far too late.
From that moment onward, the name Yu Lingyi was like a nail driven permanently into his life.
—
Outside the hospital room.
Yu Xiaxing, Yu Zheng, Yu Lingyi, and Yu Zhining were all still there.
Yu Lingyi’s personality made it impossible for her to blow things out of proportion. She had only wanted to do two small things to seek justice for herself:
First, make sure he could never father children.
Second, make him sign the stack of contracts requiring him to repay the money, making it easier to collect the debt later.
Now that both goals had been achieved, she had planned to leave.
But halfway down the hall, they suddenly heard Su Hao loudly berating Qiao Tang, so everyone came back to listen in.
Yu Lingyi herself didn’t really care whether the two of them broke up. Still, their breakup counted as an unexpected bonus.
Because the short drama she had made only needed a little post-production before it could be released.
Once it was online, the director and lead actor could generate a few trending topics every day, giving the drama an enormous promotional boost.
If it became a hit, it would definitely make money faster than her younger sister’s school!
At last, the storm had passed.
There was just one thing left…
Yu Lingyi turned around and looked at Yu Xiaxing.
Yu Xiaxing’s heart lurched. She had a bad feeling. “What? What are you planning?”
