“Mr. Ye, I hadn’t been able to thank you. I’ll be treating you tonight.” Yang Xinyi smiled.

Her smile was like a spring breeze.

“Waiter!” Ye Xiong raised his hand and voice.

“Open a bottle of your most expensive red wine,” Ye Xiong said upon the arrival of the waiter.

Xiao Fangfang gawked at him with bulging eyes.

“Why are you looking at me like that? I’m not spending your money. President Yang’s happy to pay, am I right?” Ye Xiong twitched his mouth.

Seemingly accustomed to his thoughtless demeanor, Yang Xinyi smiled. “It’s okay.”

“Xinyi, he’s trying to capitalize and take advantage of you. Don’t let him do that.”

“Fangfang, don’t talk about it. I know what I’m doing,” Yang Xinyi turned to Ye Xiong and smiled. “Mr. Ye…”

“Please, call me by my name.”

Ye Xiong had goosebumps when she called him Mr.

“I’ll address you as Ye Xiong.”

Dinner and red wine were served. The waiter opened the bottle and poured each one a glass.

Three personalities were on the same table. Xiao Fangfang was asking questions to pry into Ye Xiong’s life while Ye Xiong was dodging the questions. Ye Xiong was not telling the truth, nine out of ten questions. Only Yang Xinyi sat beside and paid close attention while adding substance to the conversation every once in a while like a wise elder.

After dinner, Yang Xinyi offered. “Ye Xiong, can you drop me off? I can’t hold my drink.”

“Xinyi…”

“What? You can’t bear to part with him?” The red-faced Yang Xinyi asked Xiao Fangfang.

“I’m only warning you not to be fooled by his appearance. He’s bad news,” Xiao Fangfang advised.

“Hear that? Isn’t President Yang asking for trouble?” Ye Xiong casually cast a glance at Yang Xinyi.

Yang Xinyi, having consumed some red wine, had her cheeks flushed red, her eyes in a state of daze and her voice somewhat ambiguous. She was captivating. She curled her lips into a smile. “I trust Ye Xiong is a gentleman.”

“Don’t blame me for not alerting you.” Xiao Fangfang snorted. She got into her BMW and drove away.

For some reason, she was upset. The thought of Ye Xiong in Yang Xinyi’s car was displeasing!

“You’ll lose your virginity for letting a lame construction worker drop you off.” Xiao Fangfang cursed.

Ye Xiong got into Yang Xinyi’s Porsche. From the rear-view mirror, he saw her quietly sitting in the back seat with her eyes fixated outside the window as though she was deep in thought.

Street lights streaks flickered on her face, dark and gleaming at times. The smile out of professional habit was missing. Her brows were in a deep frown with a load on her mind.

“President Yang, where to?” Ye Xiong asked.

“Let’s take a stroll at the peak of Mount Tiandu,” Yang Xinyi dully answered.

Mount Tiandu was a mountain in the north of Jiangnan City. There was a winding path up to the top. It was a great place for a ride. Ye Xiong was puzzled about why she would go to such a place when it was late. Did she want something to happen between them?

He quickly dismissed the idea. He recalled Xiao Fangfang mentioning Yang Xinyi’s religion that opposed her from any illicit conduct prior to marriage. He would be damned if she wanted something to happen between them.

The car hurtled past and soon they reached the top of the mountain.

The two got down from the car. Suddenly, a commotion was stirred as seven drunk youngsters came and encircled them.

“We were just talking about women when a beauty presented herself. A gorgeous one too!”

“God must have heard our prayers and sent a woman to relieve us.”

The hooligans surrounded them like sharks and gawked at Yang Xinyi with perverted looks.

Yang Xinyi hid behind Ye Xiong without a hint of panic. She knew Ye Xiong could take care of these hooligans.

“Get lost!” Ye Xiong coldly blurted.

He did not raise his voice but it was capable of stirring their souls, enough for the group of hooligans to sober up.

“B*stard, you don’t know what’s coming, beat…”

Before he could finish, the guy flew five to six meters away before scrambling onto the ground and struggled to get up. The surrounding hooligans did not get a good eye on the attack.

“There’s something odd about this guy. Let’s attack together.”

The remaining few whipped out daggers to pounce at Ye Xiong.

Ka-chak!

At the sound of bones breaking, the hand that stabbed towards Ye Xiong was confiscated of its blade and broken. Ye Xiong then kicked the person and sent him flying towards the earlier hooligan.

The rest of the hooligans were dumbstruck. They immediately dispersed without a trace.

“Finally, it’s quiet.”

Having predicted this outcome, Yang Xinyi walked towards one of the rocks to sit down.

Ye Xiong followed her behind and sat down on another rock that was a meter away.

For some reason, unlike with Xiao Fangfang and the rest, Ye Xiong could not act as though his heart was on his sleeve with Yang Xinyi. Her eyes could easily see through him.

“Let’s get married!” Yang Xinyi said out of the blue.

“What?”

Ye Xiong had heard many things in his life but none was as shocking as these words that left his mind blank.

“I have thought about it for the past few days. As long as I remain single, He Haodong will not give up, and my father would not stop introducing men to me. My father asked again about what happened about the other night this morning. I couldn’t tell him so he forced me to resume my relationship with He Haodong. You know that’s not going to happen.”

“So you want a fake marriage for your father and He Haodong to stop,” Ye Xiong continued.

“As long as I’m married, my father will stop pestering me. Give me another two years and with a strong foundation for my career, Haoyang Group will no longer be a threat.”

“Do you think I need this kind of marriage?” Ye Xiong smirked. What did she take him for?

“It’s only a piece of paper. Apart from this, you’re not obliged to do anything. I won’t be carrying out the duty of a wife and you’re free to engage in sensual pleasures, even picking up chicks, as long as you keep it from my father. After we’ve passed the critical juncture, we can divorce anytime. As compensation, I’ll pay you a million every year but when there’s a need, you must be readily available.”

It never crossed Ye Xiong’s mind that Yang Xinyi sought him out for this.

Frankly speaking, he would flat out refuse but his mind wandered to the moment she was in the back seat, gazing out the window alone. It was such a similar sight to him leaving the capital in the car after losing his most important team!

This woman must have carried a lot of weight on her. She seemed to have it all, money, power, cars, and property but was she really happy?

“Why me?” Ye Xiong asked.

“I don’t know why but my instincts told me to pick you. You may seem cynical but you have an unhappy past buried within you. I think we’re the same kind of people, just expressed through a different outlook. You chose to be cynical while I chose to use religion as a front. Our goal’s the same so why don’t we help one another? To a certain degree, it causes us no harm. I get what I want and you get the money.”

“You think too much, nothing unhappy happened to me,” Ye Xiong refuted.

“With that talent of yours, you ought to be a manager or someone higher, not a construction worker. You did this for a reason and that is to numb yourself with work.”

Ye Xiong did not think this woman was able to see through his disguise.

“I’ll transfer a million to you after our registration, enough for you to open a business. Entrepreneurship can be very hectic, occupying you day and night from wandering thoughts.”

“This is not something you should dig into. It’s only business between us, I’ll choose what kind of life I’ll be living.”

“It’s up to you.”

“Tomorrow at eight in the morning, I’ll see you at the Civil Administration.”

During their return trip, one was quietly driving while the other silently gazed out the window as though they were strangers.

Who would have thought that after tomorrow, they would be husband and wife, or at least in the eyes of the law?

Ye Xiong got down from the car once they reached the city. Yang Xinyi then drove the car back to her place.

Back in the dormitory, the image of Yang Xinyi in the back seat was etched in Ye Xiong’s mind. She was another version of himself.

A blurred haze on a sleepless night. In the morning of the next day, Ye Xiong brought his identification card along with his household register to the Civil Administration. He waited at the door for ten minutes before Yang Xinyi arrived.

She wore a black professional dress with a windbreaker draped over her. Her wavy hair rested on her shoulders. She looked more like the girl next door with her hair down. At the height of five feet and three inches and weight around 49 kg, her body proportions were well distributed.

This was Ye Xiong’s first time examining Yang Xinyi closely. He laughed at himself, knowing it was only a child’s play of a marriage. There was no need to overthink this. He could not bring her to bed no matter how pretty she was.

It was a Thursday on that day. As it was just a regular day, there was no waiting line.

They did forget to snap pictures, so they were forced to take a wedding photo at a studio. It was Ye Xiong’s first close encounter with her. He could smell the faint scent from her body.

With each holding a red booklet in their hands, Ye Xiong proposed to have lunch together to commemorate but was rejected by Yang Xinyi with the excuse that she had to return to work to settle a few things.

An hour later, Ye Xiong received a million in his account. The rest would be transferred when they divorced.

In the days to come, Ye Xiong continued his life of moving bricks. He tossed the red booklet under his bed as though nothing happened.

Ever since the shooting incident, Luo Weiwei must have been occupied, seeing that she stopped pestering him.