Pretending To Be Affectionate [Transmigration] - Chapter 38

Ling Yu went directly to the Xu family’s old residence that evening.

Since Old Master Xu and the others had left that morning, only Xu Miao remained in the house.

The two ate dinner together.

Afterward, Xu Miao brought out her treasured Da Hong Pao tea and brewed a pot.

Using her gift for persuasion, Ling Yu smilingly coaxed an entire box of tea leaves out of Xu Miao’s hands.

Xu Miao looked utterly heartbroken. She threw a cushion at Ling Yu and urged her to leave.

“Why are you still at home?”

Ling Yu tucked the tea box into the pocket of her fluffy loungewear and cheerfully answered, “I’m unemployed now. Where else can I go if I don’t stay with you?”

Xu Miao scoffed, refusing to accept Ling Yu’s attempt to gain sympathy.

She had learned that afternoon that Ling Yu had been dismissed from the law firm.

But that was a good thing. Ling Yu had fewer than ten days remaining in Yuncheng and should already be preparing to leave.

Xu Miao glanced at her.

“Didn’t you say this morning that you had a date tonight? Or am I remembering it wrong?”

“I’m not sure it’ll happen.”

Melancholy passed through Ling Yu’s eyes. She raised her eyelids and gazed through the floor-to-ceiling windows at the distant darkness.

“It depends on the other person.”

Xu Miao looked at the clock, then suspiciously examined Ling Yu’s fluffy pajamas.

She did not look dressed to go out.

She looked ready for bed.

“Then what are you waiting for? Look at the time. You might as well do it tomorrow…”

Xu Miao paused as though suddenly remembering something.

“Yuyu, who are you dating tonight? A man or a woman?”

Seeing the gossip written across Xu Miao’s face, Ling Yu lied without changing expression.

“A man.”

The moment she heard it was a man, Xu Miao relaxed.

Ling Yu had a peculiar physical condition. Whenever a man approached her, she could vomit at any time and in any place.

No man who got too close to her ever met a pleasant end.

Knowing the person she was meeting was male, Xu Miao stopped worrying.

She entered the kitchen and took two cartons of yogurt from the double-door refrigerator, tossing one to Ling Yu from a distance.

“Tell me when you leave.”

Ling Yu held the yogurt carton between her lips, yawned lazily, and gave a muffled acknowledgment.

She had issued her threat during the day, but whether Gu Qing would actually return home was difficult to say.

A light snow was falling outside, and the weather was bitterly cold.

The Xu residence was only five hundred meters from Gu Qing’s villa.

Gu Qing’s home stood at the very back of the villa district. If she drove home, she would inevitably pass the road outside the Xu residence.

Ling Yu sat in the living room and listened carefully for a while.

There was not even the shadow of a car outside.

She narrowed her eyes and looked at the time.

It was exactly ten-thirty.

Ling Yu decided the time was right to employ her self-injury scheme.

She slowly took out her phone and sent Gu Qing a photograph of the exterior of her villa.

Ling Yu had gone there three hours earlier specifically to take it.

As expected, Gu Qing did not respond.

Ling Yu did not mind.

She intended to wait until midnight. If Gu Qing was truly heartless and failed to return, Ling Yu would simply try again tomorrow.

Frankly, her feelings were complicated.

On the one hand, she was forced into this by her desire to survive.

On the other, considering the depth of Gu Qing’s aversion toward her, Ling Yu’s meticulous plan to manipulate the woman into bed tonight looked rather despicable from every angle.

Ling Yu was in the middle of condemning herself morally when her phone suddenly vibrated.

Kaihe Law Firm—Gu: [Are you threatening me?]

What could Ling Yu possibly threaten her with?

Amused, she sent Gu Qing a sticker of a tiny figure trembling in the snow.

The melancholy she had worked so hard to summon was inexplicably disrupted.

Gu Qing remained silent.

Ling Yu went upstairs, took out her laptop, and decided to organize her stored manuscripts while waiting for midnight.

Ever since coming to Yuncheng, Ling Yu had been overwhelmed with various problems.

Her serialized novel, Treasure Appraisal, had been neglected for two entire months.

Most of its chapters were saved on the website’s backend.

Ling Yu spent a long time recalling the password before finally accessing her author account.

She had not logged in for three months.

The instant she entered, a flashing private message appeared in the upper-right corner.

[Hello. May I ask if you are Brother Fishing in the Ocean himself?]

Ling Yu stared at the word “Brother” for several seconds, then smilingly replied:

[Yes.]

[Hello, Brother. I’m Moyang, a publishing editor from CB Chinese Web. Are you interested in signing a publishing contract for the full-length novel Treasure Appraisal, which you began posting six months ago?]

Ling Yu answered directly without thinking.

[No.]

[Why?]

Moyang was astonished and sent a long string of question marks.

This was no ordinary platform contract.

It was a publishing contract.

For an online author, the greatest potential value of a book lay in physical publication and the sale of adaptation rights.

Moyang had considered the possibility of rejection, but never expected the author to refuse so decisively.

Fishing in the Ocean had appeared out of nowhere six months ago like a destined rising star.

Her progression-fantasy novel, Treasure Appraisal, had rapidly made her famous across the platform.

Despite being an unsigned author, she entered the channel’s new-author rankings.

One month later, her statistics soared.

She rapidly climbed the monthly rankings and crushed numerous established authors.

Moyang was a rights editor for CB Chinese Web and ordinarily did not participate in the battles among commissioning editors competing to sign new authors.

But she had heard about the internal war over Fishing in the Ocean six months earlier.

A brilliant new author had finally appeared, and the platform’s editors had nearly fought one another bloody in their attempts to sign that rising star.

Unfortunately, Fishing in the Ocean had no interest.

Every offer extended by an editor received the same reply:

[Just writing for fun. Do not disturb.]

Her actions proved that she had meant it.

Even though Treasure Appraisal had statistics powerful enough to ignite the online-fiction market that year, Fishing in the Ocean wanted neither money nor fame.

Her updates were extremely slow.

Although more than a hundred chapters were stored in the backend, six months had passed and only one hundred thousand words had been released publicly.

She embodied the phrase “writing for fun.”

Weekly updates and long, irregular pauses were common.

Her comments section overflowed with criticism and negative ratings, yet this ancestor might not check her author dashboard even once in an entire month.

Countless readers online cursed the author and predicted that the novel would inevitably fail.

However, as the plot of Treasure Appraisal unfolded, one unusual reversal followed another, gradually revealing an expansive world.

Most importantly, a novel appraisal method had recently appeared within the story.

Many readers began shifting their attention toward the techniques depicted in the novel.

Debate spread across the internet as people argued endlessly over the appraisal method invented by Fishing in the Ocean.

Once the discussion gained popularity, experts from the jewelry and antiques industries began studying the techniques described in the book.

At first, many prominent professors approached it intending to find fault and expose errors in the novel’s academic logic.

Unexpectedly, a Beicheng professor demonstrated that the appraisal method described in the story could be applied in real life.

The discovery sent shock waves through the industry.

Yet that was not the most astonishing development.

Just as the industry was marveling that Treasure Appraisal had opened an entirely new mode of thinking within the field, readers discovered the author’s note from the final update two months earlier.

It stated that the appraisal technique currently depicted was merely a stepping stone for the protagonist’s rise to the summit of life.

The protagonist’s rough, unconventional method would later be revised and perfected.

Fishing in the Ocean’s outrageously humblebragging note had trended online several days ago.

The phones of CB Chinese Web’s editorial management had been overwhelmed by jewelry-appraisal specialists.

That was why Moyang had personally approached the author with one final sliver of hope.

Even if Teacher Fishing in the Ocean refused to sign an ordinary platform contract, obtaining a publishing agreement would provide her contact information.

CB could then introduce her to the professors and jewelry-appraisal experts across the industry.

Ling Yu had been too busy recently to realize that she had suddenly become famous.

Treasure Appraisal was a long progression-fantasy manuscript she had left unfinished in her drafts during her previous life.

Its concept was original, and its world was expansive.

Before transmigrating, Ling Yu had spent three entire years organizing the full body of knowledge surrounding the treasure-appraisal industry.

She had initially believed she could complete the novel without difficulty.

But after reaching one hundred thousand words, Ling Yu discovered that the appraisal techniques she described did not exist in this world.

All her knowledge of treasure appraisal came from her previous world.

She knew very little about the jewelry and antiques industries of this plane.

As the protagonist’s first major arc unfolded, the incompatibilities between the worlds became increasingly evident throughout her writing.

Once Ling Yu noticed the problem, she immediately stopped updating.

What she currently lacked was an understanding of treasure appraisal in this world.

There was no urgency to continue.

That was the true reason she refused to sign a contract and claimed she was writing merely for amusement.

Moyang continued shaking the private-message window and earnestly persuading her.

Ling Yu remained unmoved.

The editor repeatedly called her “Brother,” becoming more determined with every rejection.

[Please reconsider. If you sign with CB, you’ll never have to worry about the future publication or screen adaptation of Treasure Appraisal.]

Moyang invoked the company’s background, attempting to lure her with a long-term advantage.

[You may not know this, but although CB Company primarily handles publication contracts and entertainment media, we have always offered generous policies to our authors.]

[Moreover, the company possesses considerable financial strength. We’re a subsidiary of the Gu Corporation in Gangcheng.]

[You’ve probably heard of that Gu family—the one belonging to Asia’s richest family.]

Moyang smiled proudly.

Whenever he told outsiders that he worked for a subsidiary of Gu Corporation, his tone became especially bold.

After all, this was the Gu family.

Even the most distantly affiliated subsidiary still belonged to the globally ranked Gu Corporation.

Ling Yu had been about to block him, but her hand paused.

She looked twice at the character “Gu” inside the message.

[This Gu—is it the same Gu as Gu Qing?]

008 immediately understood and laughed.

[Of course. The female lead is the chosen daughter of destiny in this world. Her background naturally wouldn’t be ordinary.]

Ling Yu replied casually:

[But she’s miserable.]

[She’s beautiful, powerful, and tragic. How could the novel demonstrate the satisfaction of her eventual triumph if she didn’t suffer first?]

008 continued:

[Actually, this amount of misery is nothing. The female lead’s true stage isn’t Yuncheng at all. It’s the Gu family…]

008 abruptly stopped.

Realizing it had revealed too much, it closed its mouth.

Ling Yu raised an eyebrow.

[Even after they acknowledge her and bring her home, things won’t go smoothly for her, will they?]

008 pretended to be dead.

Ling Yu gave a lazy “oh.”

[So that’s how it is.]

[No wonder the readers were so resentful.]

[The female lead doesn’t seem like the no-romance protagonist of a satisfying revenge novel. She seems trapped in a concentration camp for perverts, where every villain works together to push Gu Qing toward the summit of madness.]

008 was rendered speechless.

It thought that if Gu Qing’s life had not been so miserable and the readers had not accumulated so much resentment, there would have been no need for Ling Yu.

But 008 did not dare say that aloud.

Instead, it replied gloomily:

[Exactly. What kind of bastard would write such an unbearably tragic plot for a no-romance female lead?]

Although the ending was good…

The journey offered no satisfaction.

Only anger.

Ling Yu said nothing.

Inside the private-message window, Moyang continued trying to persuade her.

Ordinarily, Ling Yu would already have blocked someone this long-winded.

But when she considered that Gu Qing would eventually return to the Gu family and face another disastrous battle, she inexplicably refrained.

After thinking for one second, she typed:

[Treasure Appraisal involves knowledge from several specialized fields. My present writing ability isn’t sufficient to handle it, which is why I stopped updating.]

Moyang naturally would not be discouraged by Fishing in the Ocean’s modesty.

At present, Treasure Appraisal had already transcended the value of an ordinary literary novel.

It explored new methods within the appraisal field.

Although the story had not even progressed through one-tenth of its plot, the jewelry-appraisal method introduced recently had already caused an enormous industry-wide response.

Its value was no longer confined to fiction.

Even if the novel were ultimately abandoned, that value would remain immeasurable.

Moyang carefully chose his words.

[Based on the skill you’ve already demonstrated, we completely believe you can present the story of Treasure Appraisal perfectly.]

Ling Yu raised an eyebrow.

[All right, then. I’m planning to study abroad for some time. If your company is willing to wait, we can sign the contract two years from now.]

[Well…]

Moyang sent an awkward smile.

No one could predict what would happen in two years.

What if another company signed Fishing in the Ocean first?

His eyes turned as he asked her to wait.

Then he immediately called the company president.

One minute later, he received an instruction consisting of six characters:

[Sign a temporary agreement.]

Ten minutes later, Ling Yu received the electronic agreement from Moyang.

It did not assign rights to the novel and contained only two provisions.

Party A would wait two years for Party B to sign.

During that period, Party A would promote Treasure Appraisal through its distribution channels without charge, while all income earned by Party B would belong entirely to Party B.

In exchange, after returning from her studies two years later, Party B—Fishing in the Ocean—would give CB Entertainment the right of first refusal to sign for the copyright of Treasure Appraisal.

Ling Yu skimmed the terms.

Perhaps because she had rejected them so many times before, the agreement was extraordinarily sincere.

She therefore decisively used Xu Miao’s younger male cousin’s identification to sign the contract.

As for why she accepted it…

Perhaps it was because, if she encountered Gu Qing again two years from now and the woman lost control once more, Ling Yu would not mind pulling her back.

Ling Yu understood the limits of her own abilities.

She might not be capable of helping Gu Qing in the business world.

But Gu Qing was a madwoman.

If she needed help during a future episode, Ling Yu was willing to lend a hand.

After all, payment for sexual services worked both ways.

Tonight, to survive, she had no choice but to trouble Attorney Gu into sacrificing herself once more…

But Ling Yu could pay her for it.