Chapter 4: The Only Love

After that kiss, I avoided Fu Yanjun for an entire week.

That afternoon, I went shopping with my cousin, hoping to distract myself. I had finally found a gorgeous bag I really liked when a man’s deeply philosophical voice suddenly drifted over from nearby.

“There’s no need to buy things this expensive.”

He turned to his girlfriend and spoke with the gentle authority of a relationship expert.

“Don’t become one of those shallow, materialistic girls. I like you the way you are—simple and well-behaved.”

The girl clearly loved the bag, but after hearing that, she could only force a smile.

“I… don’t really like it that much either.”

“Exactly.” Satisfied, the man patted her on the head. “I’ll buy you something else later.”

Then he turned around and immediately went off to buy himself a gaming setup worth tens of thousands of yuan.

Me: “…”

Men really were fascinating creatures.

When they spent money on themselves, it was called a passion. When women spent money on something they liked, suddenly it was materialism.

The girl standing beside him looked so devastated she practically seemed ready to turn into a vengeful ghost.

I couldn’t stand watching anymore. I put the bag down and turned to her with a friendly smile.

“You know, he’s absolutely right. Let me help you talk some sense into her.”

Ten minutes later, the two of them had successfully broken up.

I felt like I had just done society a great service.

And just like that, I completely forgot about buying the bag.

Until I got home…

There were shopping bags piled neatly outside my door. So many of them that it looked like someone was about to open a retail store.

I didn’t need to ask who they were from.

Fu Yanjun slowly descended the stairs.

The warm light softened the usual coldness of his features, though he looked a little tired.

His voice was low.

“I just wanted to apologize to you.”

I knew he was talking about what happened at the bar that night, so I shook my head.

“It’s fine. I kissed you without permission once too. Let’s just call it even.”

But the truth was… things between us had changed a long time ago.

He had always thought I stayed with him because of Shen Qiao. What he didn’t know was that, by now, that reason was only a very small part of it.

From beginning to end, he had never seriously told me that he liked me.

Just as I was about to close the door, his hand suddenly blocked the gap.

It was caught between the door and the frame, turning red, but he still refused to pull it away.

He frowned, his voice hoarse and helpless.

“We can’t call it even.”

I looked at him.

“Weren’t you the one who said you didn’t like me? You even told me not to show up in front of you again. And not to regret it.”

Fu Yanjun was silent for a long time.

Then he lowered his head and covered his eyes with one hand. When he finally spoke, his voice was rough with emotion.

“Yeah. I said all of that.”

“But… I regret it now.”

From that day on, I lived under the watchful eyes of everyone in the company, all of them waiting for the next episode of the drama.

Meanwhile, Su Yan had barely joined the reality show before scandal after scandal started blowing up around her. She had originally planned to use the controversy to boost her popularity, but instead, netizens flooded the director’s inbox, demanding that she be replaced.

What shocked everyone even more was that Fu Yanjun—the man so notoriously private he might as well have lived in a cave—suddenly posted on Weibo:

“I’ve only ever loved one woman. Her last name is Tang. It was always her, and it can only ever be her.”

The moment the post went live, the entire internet exploded.

Every cryptic post Su Yan had made before instantly backfired on her.

In the end, she had no choice but to publicly apologize—and she even tagged me directly.

She went so far as to track me down in person and beg me for help.

She cried so hard that her makeup had completely run down her face.

“I was hospitalized because of this… Please, just forgive me…”

But when she saw that I wasn’t reacting, her expression immediately changed.

“I already apologized! What more do you want?”

She looked perfectly healthy to me. Nothing about her suggested she was a patient.

The people around her also started attacking me.

“You didn’t lose anything!”

“Do you really have to push her this far?”

“Su Yan worked so hard to get where she is today!”

Only then did I learn about Su Yan’s background.

Although she was born into a wealthy family, she was an illegitimate daughter. She had been looked down on since childhood and treated more like a servant than a member of the family. Later, when her siblings bullied her, Fu Yanjun stepped in to help her, and that was how the two families became close.

Her friends gathered around her, staring at me as though I were the final villain in some over-the-top drama.

They clearly wanted to paint her as the poor, helpless victim.

Unfortunately…

I didn’t find her pitiful at all.

I rubbed my temples and calmly said, “Being hurt in the past is not an excuse to hurt someone else.”

Later, I told my best friend about the mysterious person who had secretly hired online commenters to defend me.

She gave me a knowing smile.

“You can stop guessing. It has to be President Fu. A rich guy who likes to show off in secret? That sounds exactly like him.”

I immediately shook my head.

“No way. He wouldn’t waste his time on something this pointless.”

My best friend snatched my phone out of my hand and directly messaged the account with the username The One Who Never Gets Chosen.

“What’s your name?”

Then she added:

“Just so you know, lying won’t get you a wife.”

The other side showed the words Typing…

For a long time, no message came through.

But honestly…

Not answering was answer enough.