I’m A Scumbag Woman—I Flirt, But Never Marry [Quick Transmigration] - Chapter 4

With a click, the door closed, and the guest room sank into an eerie silence.

Chen Xiyao had simply walked away, leaving behind a single tear that lingered in Xu Tinglan’s heart.

Xu Tinglan’s fingers curled slightly as her thoughts descended into chaos.

What exactly was going on?

Was that mistress also… a victim?

Xu Tinglan had not been born in an era especially friendly toward artists. It was still a time when people said, “Master mathematics, physics, and chemistry, and you can travel anywhere without fear.” In most parents’ eyes, arts such as painting and music were still considered improper pursuits.

Supporting an art student also required far more time and money, so even fewer aspiring artists received their families’ complete support.

Yet Xu Tinglan was fortunate.

Her parents had been blessed with a daughter late in life and naturally doted on her. They were both highly educated professors. Although they lived modestly and possessed little wealth, they were farsighted. They recognized that their daughter’s talent for painting was clearly far beyond that of an ordinary person and spared neither time nor money in cultivating it from childhood.

Xu Tinglan lived up to their expectations.

She won all kinds of awards at a very young age, including prizes from the National Artists Association and authoritative international competitions held in Paris. She sold her first painting at the age of nine and was hailed by the media as “the young female da Vinci.”

She achieved financial independence while still a child, so her parents no longer needed to scrimp and save to support her.

When she was seventeen, she received an acceptance letter from the Paris Academy of Fine Arts. Before she could complete her visa application, however, Professor Xu suffered a sudden cerebral hemorrhage and was admitted to the ICU.

When a cerebral hemorrhage occurred for the first time and treatment was administered promptly, it generally left no lasting effects. But if the patient wasn’t careful and suffered another episode, the likelihood of paralysis would increase dramatically, and it could even become life-threatening.

Xu Tinglan couldn’t bring herself to leave her mother, whose health was already poor, to care alone for a father who might suffer another attack at any moment. She also couldn’t find a reliable caregiver she was satisfied with on such short notice.

In the end, she painfully gave up studying abroad and instead applied to Haicheng Academy of Fine Arts.

Wang Jianfei was one of Professor Xu’s master’s students. He had a calm temperament and a certain degree of cleverness. Most importantly, although his face wasn’t particularly handsome, it looked honest and sincere, giving others the impression that he was dependable.

During Professor Xu’s hospitalization, Wang Jianfei frequently visited him. Naturally, he and Xu Tinglan gradually became familiar with each other.

Xu Tinglan was beautiful and possessed the refined artistic air she had cultivated over many years. Her every movement was as lovely as the maiden in Ingres’s The Source. Even women couldn’t help developing a fondness for her, let alone an ordinary man like Wang Jianfei, whose thoughts were so easily led astray.

To win her over, Wang Jianfei racked his brain and employed every trick at his disposal. He coaxed the two elderly professors into treating him as one of their own. They never guarded against him, making it much easier for him to seize opportunities to approach Xu Tinglan.

Xu Tinglan was still very young then, having only just turned eighteen. Her entire heart was devoted to painting. Once she began working, she could remain utterly absorbed for days and nights without sleeping, almost as if she intended to collapse dead in front of her easel.

Her parents had protected her well. She had never been tainted by society, nor had she ever dated anyone. She was like a pure, flawless sheet of white paper—innocent and completely without guile.

As an “older” man who was a full eight years her senior, Wang Jianfei found it effortless to coax her into falling for him.

Xu Tinglan quickly succumbed.

She loved him recklessly and without reservation. For a time, she even lost interest in her beloved painting. She spent every day clutching her phone and exchanging affectionate messages with Wang Jianfei, wishing they could remain glued together every minute of every day.

Wang Jianfei was a government-funded graduate student. Not only was his tuition waived, but he also received a monthly graduate-student allowance from the state. Combined with the money he earned tutoring during the school year and working at cram schools over summer vacation, he had a little money to spare.

However, to pursue Xu Tinglan, he specifically bought a new phone and new clothes, had his hair professionally styled to improve his appearance, and purchased countless romantic yet impractical gifts to surprise her.

The modest savings in his bank account were soon depleted.

To cut expenses, Wang Jianfei began living on instant noodles. Xu Tinglan discovered this only a few days later.

Xu Tinglan possessed both a young woman’s innocence and an artist’s pride. She believed that directly giving Wang Jianfei money would insult his dignity.

To preserve his pride while improving his meals, hands that had previously held nothing but paintbrushes picked up a cooking spatula.

Xu Tinglan went from a level-zero novice who couldn’t tell sugar from salt to a max-level chef. No one knew how many woks she had ruined while learning to cook for him.

In all fairness, Wang Jianfei had genuinely been attentive toward Xu Tinglan at the time.

However, that attentiveness was built upon the facts that Xu Tinglan was beautiful, came from a good family, and had a father who happened to be his academic adviser.

Xu Tinglan, on the other hand, had treated him with genuine, wholehearted devotion.

Cooking was only one example. She had little concept of money to begin with. Ties costing thousands, suits costing tens of thousands, a Rolex worth well over a hundred thousand, as well as bags, tie clips, and all kinds of luxury goods—every few days, she would invent some excuse to give Wang Jianfei another expensive gift.

At first, Wang Jianfei had been somewhat embarrassed to accept them. Before long, however, he began taking everything as a matter of course.

After Wang Jianfei graduated, Xu Tinglan even begged her father to intervene and arrange a position for him at the publicly listed company of one of Professor Xu’s most successful former students.

Out of trust for his respected mentor, that former student immediately entrusted Wang Jianfei with important responsibilities. Within two years, Wang Jianfei became a department manager.

When Wang Jianfei turned thirty, his marriage proposal succeeded, and he married twenty-two-year-old Xu Tinglan, who had only just graduated from university.

Everyone considered it a wonderful match: a talented man and a beautiful woman.

As for their age difference, people said that an older man knew how to cherish a woman better, so that was a good thing as well.

Who could have imagined that Wang Jianfei would have an affair less than two years into their marriage?

Xu Tinglan possessed an artist’s distinctive pride.

She disdained engaging in vulgar catfights and screaming insults like a shrew. She disdained even more the thought of fighting over an unfaithful man.

Whenever she had previously seen other wives acting as if they couldn’t live without some scumbag, she had never been able to understand them.

She had believed that discovering a scumbag’s true nature early was actually a good thing. The sooner the wife divorced him and freed herself, the sooner she could search for the happiness that truly belonged to her.

But now that the slap had landed on her own face, she finally understood that no one had the right to pass judgment on another person’s pain without having experienced the same circumstances.

This wasn’t like trimming off the split end of a strand of hair.

This was a part of herself that had already merged with her life. Tearing it away would rip through flesh and sinew, hurt deep into her bones, and nearly take half her life with it.

Everything had gone smoothly for Xu Tinglan since childhood. She had no idea how to confront the terrible situation before her.

Fortunately, the mistress had already left. Otherwise, Xu Tinglan feared she would have lost control of her emotions even more completely.

Her thoughts were in turmoil, and her temples throbbed painfully. Only one thought continued repeating inside her mind—the question Wang Jianfei’s slap had interrupted before she could ask it.

She supported Zhi Zhi—or perhaps it was Zhi Zhi supporting her, since she was already struggling to remain standing.

Xu Tinglan raised her eyes toward Wang Jianfei, who was leaning against the wall and rubbing his waist.

“I only want to ask you one question.”

Wang Jianfei tightened the belt of his bathrobe, which had nearly come undone. His own mind was a complete fucking mess.

That little bitch Chen Xiyao had certainly pulled off a fine escape. She had finished her performance, dusted off her hands, and walked away. What the hell was he supposed to do now?

Still, regardless of everything else, Chen Xiyao was gone. He no longer had the energy to keep fighting. His mind gradually calmed, and his tone softened considerably.

“Go ahead.”

Xu Tinglan’s lips trembled. She didn’t want to appear vulnerable in front of him, but she still couldn’t stop her voice from choking with emotion.

“Why did you do this to me?”

Clutching his waist, Wang Jianfei limped over to the bed and sat down. Leaning against the headboard, he released a long breath.

“I made the same mistake every man in the world makes.”

“Bullshit!”

Before Xu Tinglan could respond, Zhi Zhi had already erupted.

“Did your father have an affair? Or did your mother have you with Old Wang next door? What do you mean, ‘the same mistake every man makes’?! You’re the one who chose to screw around, yet you insist on blaming it on the wind! Where did you find the nerve to say that?!”

Wang Jianfei’s expression instantly changed.

“Ma Yanzhi! You have no right to speak here!”

Zhi Zhi was notoriously spoiled and headstrong. She immediately began jumping in fury, ready to tear into Wang Jianfei again, but Xu Tinglan gently pulled her back.

Xu Tinglan lowered her head with a bitter smile, nearly allowing her tears to fall. She hurriedly tilted her head upward and forcibly held them back.

“According to you, every man will eventually have an affair. If that’s true, what is the point of having marriage laws based on monogamy?”

Wang Jianfei glared at Zhi Zhi, who was still rolling up her sleeves in preparation for another fight. The scalp she had pulled began aching faintly again.

He snapped irritably, “A hundred years ago, men still had multiple wives. The system currently in place isn’t necessarily reasonable. In another hundred years, who knows what kind of marriage system we’ll have?”

Zhi Zhi instantly exploded.

“You’re a scumbag, yet you think you’re in the right?! Why don’t you go back several thousand years further, when society was still matriarchal?!”

“How long did matriarchal society last? Men had multiple wives for thousands of years!”

“So what if it lasted thousands of years? Anything unreasonable deserves to be eliminated!”

“There’s no point yelling at me. I’d like to see just how faithful your future husband will be.”

“I—I simply won’t get married!”

“Fine, fine. I’ll be watching. If you have the nerve, then don’t ever marry.”

“I won’t!”

The two continued their pointless argument.

Wang Jianfei knew he was guilty and had no justification, yet insisted on pretending he was right. Zhi Zhi, meanwhile, had simply become too furious to think clearly.

Xu Tinglan felt as if their voices were clamoring directly beside her ears. Her mind buzzed, stars flickered before her eyes, and a suffocating pressure clogged her chest.

She shakily turned around and stumbled toward the door.

Zhi Zhi immediately abandoned the argument, rushed after her, and supported her.

“Where are you going?”

“Ho…me.”

The word home broke apart in Xu Tinglan’s throat.

She didn’t want to return to the house she shared with Wang Jianfei.

That place could no longer be called a home.

But where else could she go?

She was terrible at hiding her emotions. If she returned to her parents’ house, they would certainly realize something was wrong.

Zhi Zhi was her best friend, after all. Seeing her dilemma, she hurriedly said, “Come to my house. My parents won’t be back until late, so you won’t run into them or have to explain anything.”

It seemed that was her only option.

Wang Jianfei didn’t try to stop her. He was still irritated himself and needed time to calm down.

Zhi Zhi linked arms with Xu Tinglan and accompanied her down the elevator to the first-floor lobby. Just as they were about to leave, the lobby manager suddenly called out to them.

“Hello. Excuse me, but are you Wang Jianfei’s wife?”

Barely managing to remain composed, Xu Tinglan nodded.

“Yes. Is something the matter?”

The lobby manager took out a small, hand-folded paper parcel wrapped in countless layers of transparent tape and handed it to her.

“A Miss Chen asked me to give this to you just now. She said she was returning it to its rightful owner.”