Leaving the cafe, Zhou Jin didn't choose to return to the Gu family home. Instead, she headed straight to the nearest airport and took a flight abroad.
During this time, her phone never stopped ringing. Without a doubt, she knew it was the Zhou family calling.
Over the years, just the little bit of money that slipped through the cracks of the Gu Corporation's fingers was enough for them to live a wealthy life.
More than twenty years ago, when Gu Yanxi was born, they were already dreaming of the day he would take power and lead them to a better life.
Gu Yanxi didn't disappoint them. Having worked in the company for three years, he would always send orders to the Zhou family every month at the highest prices in the industry.
Over the years, the Zhou family had become increasingly dependent on the Gu family. Now that Gu Yanxi had contracted HIV and was about to fall from grace, the Zhou family was even more distressed than Zhou Jin.
From the day the news broke, the Zhou family had been like ants on a hot pan, extremely anxious. They even sought out Zhou Jin and immediately reprimanded her for not raising Gu Yanxi well.
As if Gu Yanxi getting HIV was her fault. How ridiculous was that?
Ever since Gu Yanxi was born, she had taught him to keep himself clean and out of trouble. Weren't these the exact same people who thought she was wrong back then?
In their eyes, the Gu family was powerful and influential, so it was completely normal for them to have many women. Those people in the Zhou family even went as far as to kiss up to the Gu family by comparing the Gu father and son to ancient emperors.
It was utterly laughable.
Zhou Jin had long been disappointed in Gu Yanxi. To be honest, considering the way he played around, it was a blessing from God that he had only contracted a disease now.
She simply threw away her SIM card and replaced it with a local one.
Just like that, she cut off all contact.
At this moment, Gu Yanxi, who was at the center of the controversy, hadn't returned to the Gu family home. He had been staying in the new house he shared with Wen Mingyue for a very, very long time.
The curtains in the master bedroom of the luxury apartment were drawn tight, not letting a single sliver of light through.
Gu Yanxi lay on the bed, his eyes wide open, staring at the pitch-black ceiling.
He had anticipated what he would experience once the news of his illness spread, but when this moment truly arrived, he realized that what he had expected was completely different from what he actually had to endure.
Over the past two days, Gu Yanxi had thought about many things, but the person he thought about the most was none other than Wen Mingyue.
He kept thinking that if he had seen through that bitch Wen Qing's true colors earlier, he and Wen Mingyue would absolutely not have ended up where they were today.
Wen Mingyue loved him so much. He would have been touched by her love and returned to their family!
It was all Wen Qing's fault! All Wen Qing's fault!
Gu Yanxi's personality was extreme: when he loved someone, he wanted them to live forever; when he hated them, he wished them dead. When he loved Wen Qing, he thought everything she did was perfect. Now that he loathed her, even the sound of her breathing felt like mental pollution to him.
The exact opposite applied to Wen Mingyue. In the past, no matter what Wen Mingyue did, Gu Yanxi saw it as having an ulterior motive.
But now things had changed. The more he thought about those supposedly ulterior motives, the more he found them adorable and sincere. Gu Yanxi covered his eyes with his arm and let out a bitter laugh.
His whole life, he had been searching for a pure, one hundred percent loyal love. He used to think Wen Qing's love was just that. But thinking about it now, he realized that this kind of love had been by his side all along. It was his own paranoia and arrogance that had pushed it away.
Actually, thinking about it carefully, Wen Qing had gotten a boyfriend abroad not long after she left. If she truly loved him, how could she have accepted another man?
Before, he was deaf and blind, believing Wen Qing's excuses about wanting to forget him and move forward. Now, it all seemed like complete nonsense.
He didn't know how much time had passed before Gu Yanxi sat up from the bed and searched the whole room for his phone.
His phone had long since run out of battery and turned off. He found the charging cable, plugged it into the socket, and soon the phone powered on, followed by a frenzy of vibrations.
Gu Yanxi ignored it. Three minutes later, the vibrating stopped. He picked up the slightly warm phone and searched his call history for a specific phone number.
Because of his previous disgust for Wen Mingyue, he never answered her calls, let alone saved her number in his contacts. In Gu Yanxi's eyes back then, Wen Mingyue simply didn't have the right to be in his contact list.
Thinking of this, Gu Yanxi felt even more miserable.
Finally finding the string of numbers, he dialed it. The ringing tone echoed in his ear, and Gu Yanxi felt his heart beating along with it.
He felt incredibly nervous, a nervousness similar to how he felt when he was seventeen, secretly dating Wen Qing, and calling her for the very first time.
Hello? Wen Mingyue's voice came through the phone receiver. It was slightly distorted, but that only added a touch of gentleness to her tone.
This gentleness gave Gu Yanxi a false illusion. He felt that Wen Mingyue still loved him. As long as he was willing to turn around, to look back, Wen Mingyue would be standing right there, always waiting for him.
They could find a place where no one knew them to live. They could go their whole lives without having children. Or, if Wen Mingyue liked kids, they could adopt one. A boy or a girl, it didn't matter; he would treat the child as his own flesh and blood.
Mingyue, it's me. Gu Yanxi hadn't spoken for a long time, and his voice carried an indescribable hoarseness.
Yeah, I know it's you. What are you calling for? On the other end of the line, Wen Mingyue had already sent the evidence of the Gu family's crimes to the national tax authority's email over the internet.
To avoid unnecessary trouble, she had exchanged for a small hacker program from Yao Xiran in the interstellar realm.
After doing all this, Wen Mingyue was in a rather good mood. After all, the colossal giant that was the Gu family was about to collapse.
Because she was in a good mood, her tone was quite decent when she received Gu Yanxi's call. She was somewhat curious to hear what kind of nonsense the male lead of this famous wife-chasing trope would spout at a time like this.
She didn't mean anything else; she simply wanted to invite the sisters in the transmigrators' group chat to appreciate this weirdo together.
She tapped the live stream button in the group, turned on the speakerphone at the same time, picked up the glass of water from the table, and took a sip.
Gu Yanxi's confident words came from the other end of the phone.
Mingyue. Did you know? It turns out Wen Qing has been lying to me all along. She claimed how much she loved me, how she couldn't forget me while she was abroad. But in reality? She had plenty of lovers out there, one after another.
Thinking of this, Gu Yanxi felt the heavy weight of being cuckolded, especially since he was the one financially supporting Wen Qing during those years she spent abroad.
No man could endure the humiliation of being cuckolded, and Gu Yanxi was no exception.
He said, Mingyue, I know I was wrong. I swear I will treat you well from now on. I will live a good life with you and never let you suffer any grievances again.
Gu Yanxi said these words with absolute certainty. He believed he had the ability to do so. After all, when Wen Qing had his protection in the past, she truly never suffered any grievances.
He felt that he could protect Wen Mingyue in the exact same way.
Wen Mingyue was amused. She had always known that Gu Yanxi had a screw loose, but she didn't expect the hole in his brain to be this massive. If someone threw a rock into his head, it would probably take two or three minutes to hear the echo of it hitting the bottom, wouldn't it?
He claimed he wouldn't let her suffer the slightest grievance? What a fucking coincidence. If it weren't for the Gu family, would she have suffered this kind of grievance in the first place?
"Gu Yanxi, what gave you the illusion that as long as you admitted your mistake, I would let bygones be bygones and continue to be with a public cucumber like you?"
"Is it because of your AIDS?" Wen Mingyue scoffed. "How out of my mind would I have to be, Gu Yanxi? I'm a perfectly healthy, living person. Just because of your cheap words that don't even count as an apology, I should plunge headfirst into this massive pit?"
"Am I that cheap? Do you think I'm a garbage collector at a dump?" There were some things Wen Mingyue had wanted to say for a very, very long time.
Wen Mingyue didn't know what other people's 'wife-chasing crematorium' tropes were like, but the one in this world made her want to throw up.
What was there about a man like Gu Yanxi that was worth "her" turning back for? Unfaithful both before and after marriage, having slept with at least eighty women if not a hundred—what was worth taking back about a man like this?
Did he think that after he "won" her back, he would truly be as loyal to her as he claimed? Could a cat that had tasted fish ever control its cravings?
Anyone with a brain would know it was impossible. The flings he had would only be romanticized by his memory as time passed, and then, given the right opportunity, his lust would break out of its cage all over again.
So, what was worth recycling about a man like this? Trash like him should stick with his own kind, shining bright in the dumpster alongside his white moonlight.
The group chat system intervened just in time, splitting the screen that Lin Xi and the others were watching into two. The other half displayed Gu Yanxi at this very moment.
His face had turned deathly pale from Wen Mingyue's words. The certainty he had before making the call was completely shattered by her.
Wen Mingyue's "public cucumber" remark had especially crushed Gu Yanxi's long-held masculine pride.
Before today, Gu Yanxi had never felt that having many women on the side was a sin. After all, among men of his social class, who didn't have a few women around them?
It was only because he liked Wen Qing that he hadn't kept a mistress around him long-term. Gu Yanxi used to think he was acting very righteously by doing so. At the very least, he hadn't produced any illegitimate children.
Those women were nothing more than casual flings. He believed he had done right by both Wen Qing and Wen Mingyue.
But now, Wen Mingyue's words smashed his previous beliefs into pieces on the ground.
Wen Mingyue hung up the phone and clicked into the group chat system's livestream along with her friends in the group.
In the livestream, Gu Yanxi remained silent for a long, long time. Finally, he yanked the curtains open, smashed his phone against the wall, went downstairs, and drove to the villa where Wen Qing was locked up.
Gu Yanxi didn't feel that today's situation was his fault; he believed it was all caused by Wen Qing.
If it weren't for Wen Qing, he would have married Wen Mingyue according to his grandfather's arrangement. After marriage, he would have slowly developed feelings for Wen Mingyue, and they would have become a wealthy couple that everyone envied.
It was Wen Qing's existence that derailed all of this from its original track.
His personality was paranoid and extreme; with every minute he spent overthinking, his hatred for Wen Qing intensified.
By the time he found Wen Qing, she hadn't eaten for two days. Imprisoned and on her last breath, without the enhancement of makeup, her face was no longer as delicate as before.
Gu Yanxi was never a man of good character to begin with. He grabbed Wen Qing like a plastic bag, clenched his fists, and rained blows down on her.
Wen Qing's miserable wails and screams rang out one after another.
Looking at Wen Qing in that state, Wen Mingyue felt as if she were seeing her past self, who had been sexually assaulted by a drunk Gu Yanxi. Back then, because she resisted, she had also taken a punch.
From that moment on, she knew that Gu Yanxi definitely had violent tendencies. If that beast was let out, the people closest to him would become the targets of his venting.
Therefore, for all these years, Wen Mingyue had subconsciously accommodated Gu Yanxi.
Now, this vicious beast had been unleashed by Wen Qing. Wen Qing was also one of the sources of Wen Mingyue's pain, but at this very moment, Wen Mingyue didn't feel the slightest bit of satisfaction.
Wen Mingyue picked up her phone and dialed the police station.
Wen Qing was indeed at fault, and Wen Mingyue truly hated her for the provocative text messages she used to send her every now and then.
But Wen Mingyue also knew that the person she should hate the most was Gu Yanxi. All her suffering was caused by Gu Yanxi; Wen Qing was merely a catalyst for her pain, but the one who inflicted the substantial harm was Gu Yanxi.
Even if Gu Yanxi's white moonlight hadn't been Wen Qing, there would have been a Zhang Qing or a Li Qing. Aside from Gu Yanxi, there was one other entity Wen Mingyue should hate the most: the minor consciousness of this world.
Wen Mingyue hung up the emergency call. On the phone screen, Wen Qing, unable to endure such brutal beating, used all her remaining strength to dig her long fingernails into Gu Yanxi's eye.
Gu Yanxi let out a miserable shriek and staggered back, blood streaming down his left eye.
Outside the video, Wen Mingyue smiled. Now Gu Yanxi was truly blind, in every sense of the word. Good for him. It was a classic case of dogs biting dogs. This was truly, immensely satisfying.
