Chapter 14#
Contract Marriage (14)#
Lu Yi glanced at the fabric sofa in the living room: “There should be extra quilts in the wardrobe.”
Right now, his bedroom was covered with the wedding gift that Mrs. Lu had given him—bright red, especially festive.
After all, it was his mother’s goodwill, and for good luck, he chose to use it. Once the wedding was over, he planned to put it away and replace it with his own set.
“If you find the temperature unsuitable,”
Lu Yi picked up the remote control beside him and pressed a button, causing a cool breeze to blow into the living room: “There’s air conditioning in the living room, and the heating and cooling effects are both decent.”
Seeing Yu Ke’s face fall, he added a second option: “If you really can’t get used to the sofa, we can add another bed.”
Yu Ke couldn’t help complaining: “This is our wedding night, after all. It’s my first time getting married—can’t you leave me a better memory?”
Lu Yi stared at him for a moment, then said reluctantly: “Alright, just for today, I’ll share half my bed with you.”
Knowing he would agree, Yu Ke immediately broke into a huge smile: “Then let’s go to the mall.”
Lu Yi frowned, questioning whether his decision to give in was correct: “Let’s make a list first, then go down.”
After arriving at the mall, Lu Yi split the list of items to buy in half: “We’ll shop separately and meet at the exit.”
“Fine.” Although he really wanted to enjoy the fun of shopping together, Yu Ke knew when to stop.
He quickly finished buying the items on Lu Yi’s list. When he passed a bookshelf, he paused for a moment, then pulled down a dozen books from the shelf: The CEO Falls in Love with Me, The CEO’s Little Sweetheart…
At the checkout counter, he glanced at the display and added a few boxes of fruit-flavored, ultra-thin stimulating “gum.”
They had driven to the mall so they could easily carry their purchases, but the books were a bit too many. After hesitating, he paid extra for a small suitcase.
When he came out, Lu Yi was already waiting at the exit.
Seeing what Yu Ke was holding, Lu Yi asked: “The mall will deliver items directly to the parking lot. Why did you buy a suitcase?”
Yu Ke coughed twice: “The stuff I bought is a bit heavy, and I was afraid it would get crushed. Besides, I have a business trip coming up soon, so I figured I might as well get one.”
Lu Yi didn’t suspect anything and patiently waited for Yu Ke to approach.
They walked side by side to the underground parking lot. A car slowly pulled out of a spot, and from the way it moved, the driver seemed to be a novice.
For safety, Lu Yi waited until the car had successfully left the parking space before looking for his own car.
As he was concentrating on finding the car, he was violently shoved from behind. Accompanied by a panicked shout of “Watch out!”, the “novice’s car” that had just left ran right over the person who had pushed him.
After rolling over him twice, the car sped away.
Staring at the bloody mess on the ground and the crushed suitcase, Lu Yi quickly dialed emergency and the police.
An ambulance arrived soon. The lights in the emergency room came on and quickly went dark again.
A doctor in a white coat and mask came out and asked: “Who is the patient’s family?”
Lu Yi stood up: “I am his husband.”
The doctor took off his mask, revealing an apologetic expression: “The patient was brought in too late. He just stopped breathing. Please accept my condolences.”
The police also arrived at the hospital at that moment: “Are you Mr. Lu? You were the one who called the police?”
“Yes, I just witnessed a murder. The one lying in the operating room was my wife.”
“I’m sorry, but we need you to cooperate with us for a statement.”
“Please wait a moment. I want to see him, and then I’ll go to the restroom.”
Lu Yi pushed open the door to the operating room, reached out, and touched Yu Ke’s eyes.
He smoothed Yu Ke’s blood-stained hair, then walked out silently. At the hospital’s wash station, he looked at his face in the mirror and suddenly punched hard, shattering the mirror, startling a passing nurse.
“Wait a moment.” He called out to the nurse. “I’m Lu Yi, the husband of the patient Yu Ke who was just brought in. I’ll pay double for the mirror. Please register it for me.”
Looking at the young, handsome man, the nurse nodded. When she saw his beautiful, bleeding hand, she exclaimed: “Your hand is bleeding! Let me bandage it for you.”
Lu Yi glanced at his hand: “No need.” This bit of blood was nothing compared to what Yu Ke had shed for him.
He walked out and said to the waiting police: “I’m ready. Sorry for the trouble.”
Before the mall surveillance footage was retrieved, Lu Yi said: “The driver of that car should be a former employee of the Lu Group.”
An employee who had been sent to prison a year ago for stealing trade secrets.
Based on the evidence Lu Yi provided, the police quickly retrieved the relevant surveillance footage. Sure enough, the man had only been out of prison for a few days when he stole someone else’s car and committed the crime in a fit of impulse.
His original target had been Lu Yi, but after running over a person, he got scared and fled.
He was caught on the highway. According to his confession, he had gone through too much in the past year: his family lost everything, his mother died because they couldn’t afford treatment, his wife abandoned him, and his mentally disabled son was abused in a welfare home.
He hated Lu Yi and hated these ruthless capitalists. Why did these people have such happy, fulfilling lives while he had fallen to this state?
There were many loopholes in what he said. For example, the mall was in an upscale residential area—how could he have easily entered? And if he was already so miserable, why would he take such a huge risk to kill someone for the sake of his son?
Lu Yi had someone in mind as a suspect, but the murderer insisted it was an impulsive act. Lu Yi spent his wedding night at the police station, wide awake.
After dawn, he decided to go back and look for evidence. When he turned on his computer, the screen turned solid blue with only one line of text and two options:
“Do you want to change the past? Do you want your wife to live again?”
No one else knew that his wife had just died—only the murderer, or more precisely, the mastermind behind it.
Lu Yi’s personal computer had been heavily customized by the company’s experts, and he knew very well that this was likely a trap.
Whether he pressed “Yes” or “No,” the computer would be infected with a virus.
Although nothing would be stolen, the data on the computer would be destroyed. He had a new project that hadn’t been backed up yet, which could result in a significant loss.
But thinking of Yu Ke’s face, against his better judgment, he gently moved the mouse and clicked “Yes.”
Even if he didn’t have deep love yet, in a similar situation, his instincts would have made him want to save himself, but he wanted Yu Ke to come back to life. Desperately.
The computer returned to normal, as if nothing had happened.
He hesitated for a moment, then still called an employee to handle his computer.
After hanging up, he stared at the bed covered with rose petals—the bright red wedding bed—for a very long time.
He stared until his eyes ached and tears streamed down, then he closed his eyes.
But when he opened them again, everything around him had changed. A flood of incoming information caused his head to throb violently.
This chaotic feeling made him slow to react, and a sharp slap landed squarely on his face, burning with pain.
“Dressed like that, have you no shame? Slut!”
Although he didn’t know who had hit him, Lu Yi instinctively grabbed the attacker’s hand and dislocated his arm without hesitation.
He found a full-length mirror in the room and saw his current face.
It was somewhat similar to his own, with heavy makeup and a nightclub-style outfit, covered in studs and glittery sequins that sparkled under the light.
He sorted through the information in his mind. He was now in one of the trashy novel worlds Yu Ke had secretly bought. A voice in his head told him that if he could create a different ending for these worlds—completely change the fate of the character he had taken over—he could go back to the past and change the tragic outcome of Yu Ke’s death.
Apart from the character’s original storyline and general ending, he would receive no other information and no other magical tools to help.
If he succeeded, he would be sent to another world. If he failed, he would grow old in this world, never seeing his parents or friends again—and of course, Yu Ke would not be revived.
It seemed like a mandatory clause, but it was actually because Lu Yi had made a choice at the beginning—when he turned on the computer, he had clicked “Yes.”
It sounded absurd and unbelievable, but the man in the mirror bore a very vivid red handprint, and his face still stung.
He looked at the howling attacker on the ground. It was a weathered middle-aged man, not very old but very strong—a notorious shrew in their village, and also the biological parent of his character’s current partner. Or rather, the mother.
Because his phoenix-man husband was actually born from this man.
In this world, same-sex marriage was legal, and since women were quite rare—and with advanced technology—men who wished could undergo a transformation surgery after adulthood to become capable of pregnancy and childbirth.
Lu Yi—now called Qiao Yi—was also newly married. On this wedding day, things had already soured because of his husband’s mother.
His mother-in-law wanted her son’s spouse to undergo the transformation surgery as soon as possible and give the Wang family a big, fat baby boy. But in reality, Qiao Yi’s husband, Wang Cheng, had always been the one on the bottom to please Qiao Yi.
Not to mention Qiao Yi was childfree and didn’t want kids—even if he did, he wasn’t going to be the one giving birth.
Even though the marriage wasn’t great, it was Qiao Yi’s choice. Lu Yi wouldn’t judge a fictional character.
But now he was Qiao Yi, and in the original ending, Wang Cheng would cheat with a gentle, virtuous white moonlight. Then Qiao Yi would fall to his death during a confrontation over the affair.
Since Qiao Yi’s parents had died accidentally, all his assets would go to Wang Cheng, who would then have a child with the gentle white moonlight and live happily ever after.
The door was opened from the outside, and Wang Cheng walked in. The father, who had stopped yelling, started wailing again: “You bastard! Your wife hit me! I’m not going to live anymore!”
Qiao Yi said coolly: “Please clarify. You were the one who struck first. I was only defending myself.”
Wang Cheng looked at the clear handprint on his wife’s face: “Dad, you shouldn’t have done that. How could you hit Qiao Yi?”
He then turned to Qiao Yi: “But Qiao Yi, you’re not entirely right either. Dad is an elder, after all. Apologize to him.”
Qiao Yi looked at the handsome, cultured man before him and said coldly: “I’ll apologize. But first, let’s get a divorce.”