Pretending To Be Affectionate [Transmigration] - Chapter 18

008: [It’s over.]

A sad song played on a loop in her mind. Ling Yu, annoyed, cruelly threw 008 into solitary confinement.

The eyes of everyone in the hallway fell on Ling Yu. She had become the center of attention, with nowhere to hide. Ling Yu didn’t feel embarrassed. In fact, Li Jun and Jiang Wei were the ones who should be embarrassed. She didn’t even look at them. She just turned her head to look at Gu Qing. The woman was backlit, her face was split in two by the light, and there was nothing in her cold eyes. It was a deceptive calm.

Gu Qing’s question had clearly put her in a difficult position. Ling Yu wasn’t stupid. Gu Qing was always cunning and never let anyone get the better of her. She was probably getting revenge for Ling Yu’s persistent teasing earlier.

As if she felt Ling Yu’s gaze, Gu Qing turned and met her eyes. Their gazes met in mid-air, and sparks flew in an instant. Gu Qing was good-looking. It wasn’t one specific feature that stood out, unlike Ling Yu’s face with her beautiful phoenix eyes and soft, graceful, and charming features. Gu Qing’s beauty was in her gaze, or in the way she stood still like a graceful maiden, with a cool and clear aura. Her beautifully arched eyebrows and perfectly fair skin. It seemed that wherever she appeared, she brought her own powerful presence. She was both alluring and upright, creating an imposing and captivating aura.

Ling Yu couldn’t help but look at her a few more times. Suddenly, Gu Qing’s cold whisper came to her ears.

“Don’t want to say?” Gu Qing’s beautiful phoenix eyes narrowed slightly. Her gaze on Ling Yu was strange. The deep blue in her eyes was as still as a calm sea in the middle of the night.

Ling Yu didn’t answer immediately. She looked over Gu Qing’s shoulder and glanced at Jiang Wei and Li Jun. Her gaze went in a circle and finally landed back on Gu Qing.

She said frankly, “I have nothing to do with them.”

Ling Yu was telling the truth. Ling Taiguo had forced her to get married everywhere. When she first transmigrated, she didn’t have the ability to resist. But from the first meeting, Ling Yu had made her refusal clear. As for the subsequent entanglement, Ling Yu said she wouldn’t take the blame. It was precisely because she had encountered so many people like Jiang Wei and Li Jun that Ling Yu later chose to become a “playgirl” without any hesitation. In the past two years, she had lived a smooth life and had long since erased the past entanglements from her mind.

However, now her exes were showing up one after another, either to get revenge or to enjoy having two women at once. She was the one who was suffering the most. She had done nothing wrong, yet she was constantly being labeled a “scumbag.”

Ling Yu let out a cold laugh. Since Gu Qing had gone this far, and Ling Yu’s persona had already been shattered, she might as well go all the way. Ling Yu stretched her wrist and moved from behind Gu Qing to stand in front of her. “Long time no see, Young Master Jiang…” Ling Yu’s foxy eyes tilted up. Her gaze swept over Li Jun’s face and finally met Jiang Wei’s fierce eyes.

She lightly tapped the silver bracelet on her wrist. The bracelet reflected the light, and Jiang Wei’s fierce eyes suddenly froze. It was as if he had remembered something unforgettable. His pupils shrank, and most of his intimidating aura vanished. Ling Yu curved her lips, a slight smile in her eyes. She slowly introduced Jiang Wei. “This is…”

Before she could finish, Gu Qing suddenly interrupted her. “That’s enough.”

“Let me finish the introduction,” Ling Yu said, clinging to her arm.

Gu Qing waved her away, frowning. “It’s meaningless. No matter what grievances you have with them…” Gu Qing took a step forward, brushing past Ling Yu’s ear, and warned her in a voice only they could hear, “Ling Yu, to me, listening to you is a waste of time. I warned you, don’t get close to me. No matter who you are, you won’t leave a memory in my mind.”

Ling Yu laughed in anger. “Didn’t you tell me to introduce myself?”

Gu Qing seemed to not want to talk to her at all. She gave her a warning glance and then looked at Jiang Wei, who was eagerly waiting at the door. Her tone was flat. “Do you know how much it cost me to bail you out?”

Jiang Wei was stunned. He looked back at Li Jun, who nodded, confirming Gu Qing’s identity. His arrogant attitude immediately lessened, but when his eyes caught sight of Ling Yu, they were filled with a relentless ferocity.

Gu Qing tapped the folder in her hand and added, “Don’t say I didn’t warn you. Your first trial is tomorrow. Do you want to use this time to go over your testimony, or do you want to reminisce and fight? It’s up to you.”

With his freedom at stake, no matter how much Jiang Wei wanted to cause trouble for Ling Yu, he had to suppress his emotions. He glared at her, turned his head, and smiled at Gu Qing, extending his hand. “Lawyer Gu, it’s a pleasure to finally meet you.”

Gu Qing’s gaze lingered on Jiang Wei’s broad hand, a hint of disgust in her eyes. She then refused him coldly but politely. “I don’t shake hands with strangers. How about I ask Director Li to shake hands with you instead?”

Jiang Wei: …

The documents department was on the fifth floor of the Kaihe Law Firm. Ling Yu’s first day went smoothly. The department’s work was similar to administrative work. They mainly organized and collected various case files and prepared all the necessary materials for court proceedings to be submitted to the business department. Ling Yu spent the morning getting familiar with the department and the numbering system for the documents. In the afternoon, Sister Wang had her printing documents. Ling Yu stood in front of an old printer that worked very slowly. She had been waiting for an hour, and a large portion of the documents for tomorrow’s trial had not yet been printed.

It was cold. Sister Wang went to the pantry to make a cup of coffee and made one for Ling Yu as well. “Sigh, it looks like it will take another two hours.” Sister Wang frowned, glancing at her watch repeatedly.

Seeing this, Ling Yu asked casually, “Sister, do you have plans after work tonight?” Sister Wang, who was in her thirties, was a determined single woman. She didn’t have to pick up kids or deal with other people. She had booked a ticket for a musical tonight. It was already 5 p.m., and in two hours, she would miss the show.

Sister Wang was frustrated and patted the printer’s control panel. “I reported that this printer was old a few days ago, but it will be a few days before it’s approved. The firm took on the Jiang family’s case, and Lawyer Gu has been running around like crazy. Otherwise, she would have signed the purchase order already.”

Ling Yu was slightly surprised. “Doesn’t Lawyer Gu manage the business department? She doesn’t graduate until a month from now, and her lawyer’s license won’t be approved until then, right? We’re both interns, so why does she have so much power at the firm?”

Ling Yu was just curious, as she wasn’t familiar with the rules of the legal profession. Most of the information she had gathered was from hearsay. Gu Qing was very powerful, but Ling Yu didn’t know the extent of it. After listening to Sister Wang rattle off Gu Qing’s past achievements, Ling Yu finally had a clear understanding.

“She’s so powerful, she must enjoy being in court. It’s a shame she still has a month to go…” Ling Yu hadn’t finished her sentence when Sister Wang shook her head. “Most people think like you, but Lawyer Gu might not be willing to travel all over the country to appear in court.”

Ling Yu said, “Huh? Why?”

Sister Wang sighed. “Family reasons. She can’t leave Yuncheng. When you’re in court, you often have to travel far and wide. Lawyer Gu might not be willing to do that.”

Ling Yu showed a hint of curiosity. “That’s strange. Lawyer Gu makes so much money from her cases. She can definitely hire a nanny or send her family members to a nursing home.”

Sister Wang put down her coffee and looked at Ling Yu with a complicated expression. She wasn’t going to say anything more, but when Ling Yu asked, she couldn’t resist her curiosity. She hesitated for a moment, then, seeing that no one was around, she patted the seat next to her. When Ling Yu sat down, she whispered, “Two years ago, the company had a team-building trip in Sanya. Everyone from the firm went. Lawyer Gu had just joined the firm and wasn’t going to go, but she gave in to everyone’s teasing and went with us. It was a three-day trip. The next day, something happened to her brother at home.”

Ling Yu: “?”

Sister Wang’s tone paused. “Xiao Ling, you probably think that’s nothing, right? But the weird thing is that after that, something would happen to Lawyer Gu’s brother every month. Every time, Lawyer Gu had to go to the hospital herself to get it to stop…”

Ling Yu was stunned. Thinking of the gloomy boy she had seen last time, she felt a sense of dread she couldn’t describe. “I’m guessing Lawyer Gu’s brother is… ” Sister Wang pointed to her forehead, and then her hands and feet. “…He has problems everywhere.”

Ling Yu nodded absentmindedly and said vaguely, “Does he have schizophrenia?”

Sister Wang shook her head. “I don’t know.”

As it got closer to quitting time, Sister Wang became more and more frustrated. The documents they were printing tonight were all the strategic plans for Gu Qing’s court appearance for the Jiang Wei rape case tomorrow. Ling Yu saw that each document was numbered. All she had to do was wait for the documents to print, organize them by number, and then bind them. The process was very simple. So, she volunteered to take over the job for Sister Wang.

Ling Yu finished organizing the documents. When she left work, the lights on the top floor were still on. She had planned to wait by the door and leave with Gu Qing. But around 7:30 p.m., she received a call from the hospital. Her great-grandmother was scheduled for an endoscopy tomorrow, and Ling Yu had to go to the hospital to sign the papers.

When Ling Yu arrived at the hospital, it was already 8:30 p.m. The hallway of the VIP ward was as quiet as usual. Ling Yu first went to see the old woman. After she fell asleep, Ling Yu left the room and went to the nurses’ station to sign the papers. However, the hallway was not quiet. There was a fierce argument coming from the ward on the far left. The soundproofing in the VIP wards was good, but she could still hear a sharp roar in the hallway.

Ling Yu leaned lazily against the wall of the nurses’ station, waiting for the night nurse to find her great-grandmother’s medical records. A middle-aged man with a limp, using a cane, walked over to the nurses’ station and complained to the nurse. “Sigh, can I apply to change rooms? It’s only been a month since I moved in, and there have been three arguments in room 309!”

The nurse looked troubled and hesitated. “Don’t worry. As soon as a bed is available, I will move you.” The middle-aged man wasn’t trying to cause trouble. He just smiled bitterly and chatted with the nurse. “I think that mother and son in 309 are not human. I’ve never seen anyone torment their adopted daughter and sister like that. Their daughter is so capable and so smart, and she’s paying so much for them to live in this nice ward. What more could they want?”

“But look at what’s happening. The mother and son are so narrow-minded. They’re afraid their adopted daughter will run away, so they’re making a scene every day. They’re either killing a chicken in the ward or disemboweling a goldfish and throwing it on their daughter. Any normal person would go crazy dealing with that mother and son.”

…

The nurse didn’t want to talk about her patients’ gossip, so she just hummed and hawed. The quiet hallway was filled with the middle-aged man’s sighs. Ling Yu held the pen and made a long slash in the “family member” column. When she came back to her senses, she quickly signed her name. After saying goodbye to the nurse, she inexplicably walked towards the source of the argument.

From far away, she could hear the young man’s strained voice. “Sister, look at the dead dog at your feet. Does it look like the way Dad died to save you?”

Ling Yu had heard a similar question from the young man last time. It was a cat that time, and this time, it was a dog? She had always known that human emotions were not the same. But she didn’t know that a person could be as evil as Gu Qing’s brother. He used the name of a family member to cut off all of Gu Qing’s escape routes. He kept bringing up the bloody past, deepening Gu Qing’s memories and guilt.