Chapter 125: Chapter 121: The Clown is Actually Herself Chapter 125: Chapter 121: The Clown is Actually Herself Lu Jingyan thought she had seen it wrong and subconsciously rubbed her phone screen with her fingertips, but when the nine letters did not disappear, her brain went blank for a moment, followed by the words she and Sheng Xian had said the night they first met at the bar drifting through her ears.

—”Sorry to disturb you.”

—”Um, my phone doesn’t have internet access, could you tell me what your phone’s hotspot WiFi is?”

—”Your birthday.”

Your birthday, nishengri, nishengri, your birthday…

So, Sheng Xian’s “your birthday” is nishengri, not the “your birthday” she had thought.

So, from the beginning, she had it all wrong, he never used her birthday as the password.

So, her belief that he liked her was all her own imagination.

Lu Jingyan: “……”

She stared expressionlessly at her phone for awhile, her only thought being: Are you kidding me?

Lu Jingyan felt she had never been so embarrassed in the twenty-six years of her life as she was right now.

She thought about the confident things she had told Song Xian in the early morning.

—”I’m about to end my single status.”

—”This afternoon at three thirty.”

—”In just 14 hours, I’ll have a boyfriend.”

Lu Jingyan: “……”

It turned out she was the clown herself.

Lu Jingyan quietly looked up, catching a glance of Sheng Xian across from her, his eyelids drooping as he drank water, looking calm and composed.

His phone screen was still lit up, the letters “nishengri” so blatantly obvious, as if fearing she couldn’t see those nine letters clearly, they seemed to penetrate every inch of her skin with full presence.

Along with the ostentatious show of presence, there were also the things she had conceived in her mind.

—Loving someone secretly is so tough, she should give him some sugar.

—She really is a grateful, kind, and thoughtful beauty.

—He had known her since childhood, remembered her till now, because of the vast difference in their backgrounds, he lacked the courage to approach her, worried he couldn’t forget her, which led to his disinterest in women and his growing interest in men.

Lu Jingyan opened her mouth, almost failing to catch her breath, she could have fainted on the spot.

She was already a joke, she could die of embarrassment quietly, but she couldn’t embarrass herself in front of Sheng Xian.

She slowly exited the settings, opened WeChat, found Chen Kai, and tapped on the keyboard one letter at a time, sending a message to Chen Kai. Then, pretending to be business-like, she looked up expressionlessly at Sheng Xian, her voice as still as stagnant water, “Chen Kai hasn’t replied to my message, maybe I should return your phone now.”

Sheng Xian replied indifferently, “No need, keep it there.”

Two minutes later, Chen Kai’s message arrived, Lu Jingyan handed her phone to Sheng Xian. Sheng Xian did not take it but instead, resting his hand on hers, he entered the password.

Lu Jingyan appeared extremely calm as she tapped on the eleven digits Chen Kai had sent and then pressed call.

The call was quickly connected, her voice as emotionless as a robot, “Song Xian, it’s me, Lu Jingyan. What did you just say to me? My phone ran out of battery and turned off automatically.”

“Oh, okay, are you in a hurry? Very urgent? Okay then, I’m heading home now, I’ll contact you in about half an hour.”

On the other end of the phone, Song Xian, utterly confused, asked her, “What are you talking about?” and “Blink if you’ve been kidnapped, Yan-er,” Lu Jingyan very calmly hung up the phone.

Numbed, she handed the phone back to Sheng Xian, “Thank you, Professor Sheng. There’s some emergency with Song Xian; I need to go home now.”

Sheng Xian called a waiter over, “Wait two minutes for me, I’ll pay the bill.”

Lu Jingyan blurted out, “I don’t want that.”

Sheng Xian gave her a puzzled look.

Lu Jingyan realized she had become emotional and took a deep breath, “I mean, can I refuse it?”

Sheng Xian stared at her for two seconds, did not force her, glanced at the menu taped next to the table, took out some bills from his wallet, placed them under the water glass, not even asking for change, “Then let’s go.”

On the way to the parking lot, Lu Jingyan was a bit anxious. If it weren’t for Sheng Xian’s timely intervention pulling her back several times, she would have almost bumped into people.

Thinking she was worried about Song Xian, the third time Sheng Xian pulled her, he didn’t let go of her hand, he held onto her wrist through her sleeve, and led her forward.

Lu Jingyan looked at her wrist that was being pulled and then at his calm face, somehow reading from him a sentence.

— “Surprise, I don’t like you at all.”

Lu Jingyan: “……”

At that moment, she felt as if not just her dreams had shattered, but her heart as well.

Reaching the parking lot, Lu Jingyan used the last of her strength to maintain a composed appearance and briefly said goodbye to Sheng Xian before diving into her car.

Starting the car, she didn’t even fasten her seatbelt before stepping on the gas pedal all the way to the floor and speeding off.

On the way, she was as irritable as if she had swallowed three landmines, either furiously honking at the red lights or aggressively competing for lanes with others.

Upon arriving home, Lu Jingyan made a sharp stop, parking her car askew in the garage, barely avoiding the sports car parked next to it.

She kicked off her shoes, took her bag and entered the elevator barefoot. Reaching the second floor, she tossed her bag onto the floor as soon as she entered the bedroom and headed straight for the bathroom. She didn’t even remove her high-end custom-made clothes before turning on the tap and lying down in the bathtub.

The bathtub filled quickly with water; Lu Jingyan held her breath and dived in, staying submerged for a long time before surfacing. Then she peeled off her ruined, soaked clothes, tossed them aside, and went to the shower.

The warm water pouring down from above, sliding past her eyes, brought a sour sting, causing pain in her nostrils and tears to uncontrollably roll down from her eyes.

Sheng Xian had no idea about her psychological journey, and she hadn’t embarrassed herself in front of him.

But she felt utterly humiliated.

Not just humiliated, she also felt deeply wronged.

Especially when she recalled how assured she had been, it only intensified her sense of grievance.

In fact, Sheng Xian was not to blame; the Wi-Fi password was her own mistake. It was she who was flattered all the time by Song Xian and Chen Kai, thinking every man would like her, but she still felt she had been played by Sheng Xian.

For him, she had deleted all her previous boyfriends from her contacts, a deletion spree that lasted over two hours and left her fingers aching.

Being someone who didn’t care about others’ opinions, she was nervous for days for her ex-boyfriends and even worried to explain it to him, fearing he might overthink it. Thinking back to her message that day saying, “Even if you have a complex about virginity, it’s alright with me,” made her feel suffocated.

Those memories were unbearable to look back on, each recollection making her feel more like a joke.

She thought he had a secret crush on her.

But it turned out, it was she who had a secret crush on him.

The more Lu Jingyan thought about it, the more she felt she had been played. She even started to suspect that Sheng Xian might have been hired by one of those ex-boyfriends she used to torment, to seek justice with money.