Chapter 3: The Cinderella Forced Kiss

After confirming that both Lian Rong’s name and appearance matched the memories in my head, I was about ninety percent convinced that I really had been handed the script for a villainous supporting character.

Honestly, I was quite satisfied with my current husband, Lu Mingqi.

If possible, I had no desire to get divorced.

But the moment I remembered the scene from those memories—Lu Mingqi sitting there with an icy expression as he placed the divorce papers in front of me—all those lingering thoughts were immediately kicked out of my head.

Not just kicked out.

I practically drop-kicked them into oblivion.

He was just a man, after all.

Three-legged frogs might be hard to find, but two-legged men were everywhere.

Besides, this had always been a loveless marriage.

Over the years, I had quietly built up a pretty decent private savings account of my own.

Even if we really did get divorced, I’d still be able to live comfortably.

Maybe even more comfortably than I did now.

And if I ever felt like it…

I could always follow in my mother’s footsteps.

Spend a little money keeping a few handsome men around.

No relatives to deal with, no endless parties to attend, and no need to report my schedule to anyone.

Just thinking about it made the future look incredibly bright.

Perfect.

“All right. I’ll have Xiao Li tell her to revise the résumé.”

Lu Mingqi nodded.

“I’ll send you the internal application email. Have her list me as the referral.”

“She’ll definitely get called for the first interview.”

I immediately did as he said.

The moment I sent the message, Xiao Li replied with so many thank-yous that it sounded like she was about to crawl through the screen and bow to me in person.

Once everything was settled, sleepiness started creeping over me.

I stood up and stretched.

“I’m heading upstairs. Finish your work and get some rest too.”

Lu Mingqi looked up at me.

“Are you sure you don’t have any lingering discomfort?”

“Absolutely.”

He nodded thoughtfully.

“Then I guess we don’t need to sleep separately anymore.”

I froze.

The word sure was already at the tip of my tongue.

But at that exact moment, Lian Rong’s smiling face flashed through my mind.

I immediately changed my mind.

“Maybe we should wait a few more days.”

“I’ve been waking up a lot during the night lately. I don’t want to disturb your sleep.”

“It’s fine.”

Lu Mingqi answered casually.

“I don’t sleep much anyway. It won’t affect me.”

“It will.”

I was adamant.

To my surprise, he calmly added,

“Not sleeping with you affects my sleep more.”

I stared at him.

Since when was that a thing?

I immediately launched into a lecture.

“A man destined for great things can’t let himself be distracted by beauty.”

The corner of Lu Mingqi’s mouth lifted slightly.

There was even a hint of amusement in his eyes.

“I’m just used to sleeping next to you.”

He paused before asking,

“Or… were you implying something else?”

I was speechless.

What was he even talking about?

Did I look that desperate?

But when I thought about it…

If he really fell for Lian Rong someday, then we’d simply go our separate ways.

And finding another man who was this handsome, polite, respectful, and all-around high quality…

That probably wouldn’t be easy.

My resolve wavered.

Seeing me fall silent, Lu Mingqi apparently thought he’d gone too far.

He immediately explained,

“I was just teasing.”

“You just recovered. I’m not going to do anything.”

“That’s not it.”

I leaned down and gave him a light kiss on the forehead.

“What you said isn’t entirely wrong.”

“I was implying something.”

This time, Lu Mingqi was the one who froze.

A second later, he laughed.

It was a low, helpless laugh.

He set down his chopsticks and wrapped an arm around me, pulling me closer.

Before I knew it, he had lifted me onto his lap.

My back rested against his solid chest, and I could feel every subtle vibration as he laughed.

“What are you laughing at?”

Embarrassed, I snapped at him.

Lu Mingqi rested his chin on my shoulder and rubbed against me like an oversized dog.

“You’re right.”

“I really am a man who’s easily tempted by beauty.”

Perhaps because he knew I’d only just recovered, he still showed remarkable restraint.

After helping me shower, he went straight back to his study to continue working.

He really was born to work overtime.

He’d managed to wake me up completely.

I tossed and turned in bed for a while, but eventually gave up and picked up my phone to scroll mindlessly.

That was when my plastic bestie, Zhang Yong, sent me a message.

Several photos came with it.

The first message was practically dripping with gossip:

“Hot news!”

“Second Young Master Lu Mingxing forcibly kissed Cinderella in the middle of the street!”

Me: “?”

“Seriously, after living this long, you really do see everything. That girl doesn’t seem to come from a very good background. I have a friend who goes to school in Haicheng, and she’s seen Lu Mingxing following that girl around like a lovesick puppy more than once.”

“Apparently they dated for a while. Then the girl couldn’t stand that spoiled-rich-kid attitude of his anymore and broke up with him.”

“But then they got back together, broke up again, got back together again… They’ve done it more than a dozen times.”

“This time, they supposedly went three months without speaking. Everyone thought it was finally over for good. Who would’ve guessed Lu Mingxing still wasn’t willing to let her go?”

“She looks pretty ordinary, and her family doesn’t seem to have anything going for them. Your mother-in-law definitely wouldn’t let that slide if she found out, right?”

I calmly replied, “I don’t know. I’m not that close to Lu Mingxing. We barely talk normally.”

Zhang Yong immediately shot back:

“Not close? Please. Out in public, he calls you ‘sister-in-law’ every other sentence. He looks polite enough, but I bet he turns the whole house upside down when nobody’s watching.”

He really was a troublemaker.

The first time I went home with Lu Mingqi for dinner, that kid showed up late wearing a full motorcycle racing suit, his hair dyed an eye-searing red.

The moment he sat down, he didn’t bother greeting anyone. His eyes swept over me from head to toe as if marrying his brother meant I was trying to take advantage of the Lu family.

People like him weren’t exactly rare in our circle.

I’d always followed one simple rule:

Be respectful, but keep your distance.

Who had time to invite trouble into their life?

Actually, Lu Mingxing wasn’t incapable of behaving properly.

He simply couldn’t be bothered to care about other people’s feelings.

If he cared about someone, he could go through fire and water for them.

If he didn’t care, that was the end of the story. He could be colder than ice.

Unfortunately, I happened to fall squarely into the “doesn’t care” category.

In those memories, there had been one time when I couldn’t hold myself back and threw coffee at the heroine.

Lu Mingxing immediately went berserk.

He didn’t care that I was his sister-in-law, didn’t care about his brother, and didn’t care about the Lu family’s reputation.

He directly hired someone to fake a medical report and tried to drive me into a corner.

Of course, I didn’t end up going to prison.

The outcome was much worse.

I died young.

Looking back, I had to admit that the version of me in those memories was a little short on common sense.

But surely I hadn’t deserved that ending.

After all, I was a pretty harmless kind of villainous female lead.

At worst, I said a few nasty things or gave someone a dirty look.

I had never actually laid a hand on anyone.

I certainly had never broken the law.

And yet somehow, I ended up reduced to scavenging through trash for food.

The whole thing was absurd.

All because I liked targeting the male lead?

Then the heroine really wasn’t as simple as she looked.

What kind of woman could make all three Lu brothers revolve around her?

Lu Mingxing was obvious.

But even Lu Mingli—the man who was practically made of ice—had been dragged out of his “strangers, don’t bother me” zone.

And even Lu Mingqi, a man who seemed to have been born with nothing but work on his mind, could apparently be shaken by her while still keeping himself under control.

It sounded ridiculous.

And yet it had actually happened.

Lian Rong had already entered my life.

And just like the original plot, she and Lu Mingxing had been together before.

If she really could tame someone like Lu Mingxing, making that arrogant, stubborn man willing to bow his head for her…

Then it wasn’t surprising that she could make other men lose their composure too.

Still…

I couldn’t shake the feeling that this whole thing was ridiculous.

What era were we living in?

Who still went looking for “true love” in a wealthy family these days?

And yet somehow, she had actually found it.

It wasn’t that things like this never happened.

They were just so rare that they might as well have been the stuff of legends.

I was still thinking when my phone buzzed again.

Zhang Yong had sent another message.

“Latest update: The second young master lost his temper and forcibly kissed Cinderella right in the middle of the street. Apparently, he thought his own brother was trying to steal her from him.”

I shot upright.

“What? Say that again!”

“I knew you’d want the gossip.”

“Someone saw Lu Mingli invite her out to dinner alone. Apparently, the two of them were having a pretty good time talking. Then Lu Mingxing happened to catch them.”

I frowned.

“But Lu Mingli is on a business trip.”

Zhang Yong replied:

“That happened a few days ago. The story’s only just started spreading.”

I fell silent for a few seconds.

Something about this suddenly didn’t add up.

Lian Rong had already met Lu Mingli in person.

So why had she gone through Xiao Li to apply for a position through Lu Mingqi?

Something was wrong.

Very wrong.

In Haicheng, the Lu Corporation was practically the only major family business of its kind.

The three Lu brothers were well-known, and their identities were hardly a secret.

If Lian Rong had already dated Lu Mingxing, there was no way she didn’t know how the Lu family was structured.

She wanted to break up with one brother.

Yet she was taking a roundabout route to get into the company through another.

What exactly was she planning?

Was she playing some bigger game?

Or was the job not her real objective at all?

Or…

Was she actually targeting me?

The thought sent a chill down my spine.

There were plenty of villainous female leads in this world.

But very few of them got to live in peace.