After the meal, Yang Fan paid the bill. Staring at the remaining balance of 993,600 yuan on his mobile banking app, he fell into deep thought.
Although the Liu Family was wealthy and certainly not short of money, none of them were decent human beings. His boss and father-in-law, Liu Wenchang, was a notoriously ruthless skinflint—calculating and stingy to the core!
If they really got a divorce tomorrow, all the money in his account would undoubtedly be scammed away by that group of scumbags!
Yang Fan furrowed his brow. The very thought of the ugly faces of Liu Dan and her family made his stomach turn, and his fingertips gripping the phone turned white.
Noticing that his expression looked somewhat off, Yang Rong assumed the meal had been too expensive. Without a second thought, she took out her phone and directly transferred 10,000 yuan to Yang Fan.
"Consider this my bleeding heart as an older sister, seeing how heartbroken you are today... Hey! What are you standing there for? Hurry up and accept the money! Otherwise, I'm going to change my mind in a second!"
Yang Fan knew his third sister cared for him dearly, and a warm feeling washed over him, but there was no way he could accept this money.
"No, no! We already agreed just now that this meal was my treat..." As he spoke, Yang Fan immediately transferred the 10,000 yuan right back.
Before Yang Rong could react, he changed the subject: "By the way, Third Sister, do you have a spare bank card? I want to transfer all my money to your card."
"Sure, no problem!" Yang Rong agreed readily, pulling a bank card straight out of her bag. "I don't use this card much. The PIN is your birthday."
"Great!"
Taking the bank card, Yang Fan transferred the money over immediately.
He even deliberately downloaded the Construction Bank app so he could easily check the balance on the card later.
Ring, ring, ring—
Right at that moment, a shrill phone ringtone broke the silence.
Yang Fan glanced at the screen. The caller ID showed it was Liu Dan.
"Who's calling? Why aren't you answering?" Sitting across the dining table, Yang Rong was too far away to see the screen, but seeing Yang Fan's expression darken, she vaguely guessed what was going on.
Sure enough, she heard him say, "I'm not answering. There's nothing to talk about with a woman like that."
Yang Rong's delicate brows knitted together. Remembering Liu Jian's arrogant attitude earlier, she felt a surge of anger building up inside her. "The people in the Liu family are all worse than the last! It's clearly their fault, they're the ones who did wrong, yet they still have the nerve to step all over you!"
As she spoke, as if suddenly remembering something, she shifted the topic: "Right, Yang Fan, since you're getting a divorce tomorrow, don't go back to the Liu family. Come stay at my place instead. There are two rooms anyway, so one for each of us will be just right."
"Deal!"
Yang Fan's eyes lit up.
He hadn't planned on returning to the Liu family anyway, and this saved him the trouble of looking for another place.
***
Meanwhile, inside the Liu Family villa.
"Damn it, what is this bastard's deal? It was bad enough that he hit me, but now he won't even answer your calls? Motherfucker, I think his wings have hardened, and he's looking to flip the world upside down!"
Liu Jian lay half-reclined on the sofa, cursing nonstop.
Liu Dan was feeling extremely irritated herself; she didn't even want to deal with her newborn baby, so she dumped the child straight onto Pan Meifeng. "Mom, the baby's asleep. Help me carry him to the bedroom, I don't feel like moving."
Liu Wenchang glanced at his pitch-black little grandson and muttered a bellyful of complaints: "You, oh you! I told you to be careful, but you just wouldn't listen! Look at you now—you gave birth to a little charcoal stick. When the child grows up, I won't even know what to tell people..."
"Oh, Dad, why are you giving Sis a hard time!"
"What era is this? Sis can like whoever she wants! Besides, you were the one who looked down on Old Black in the first place, preferring to let this spineless loser into the family rather than letting Sis stay with Old Black. What is there to complain about now?"
Liu Jian had been close to Liu Dan since childhood, and of all people inside and outside the house, he was the most fiercely protective of this older sister.
As it happened, Pan Meifeng was just coming out of the bedroom and immediately chimed in to support her son's argument: "Now that the grandson is already born, what good does it do to blame your daughter?"
"If you ask me, we should just pin the black genes squarely on Yang Fan! After a while, a lie will become the truth!"
Hearing his wife put it that way, Liu Wenchang also felt it made some sense. He immediately slammed his fist down and decided: "Then that's settled! Keep calling Yang Fan and get him back here right now!"
That was easier said than done...
The problem was that Yang Fan was demanding a divorce right now and refused to answer his phone!
Liu Dan rubbed her temples, her head splitting with a pounding headache. "Dad, Mom, Yang Fan still won't answer the phone. He must have his mind set on divorcing me..."
"What is there to fear!" Pan Meifeng scoffed, unconcerned. "That Yang fellow has been a coward his whole life. How tough can he possibly get? Do you really think we can't handle him?"
"If you ask me, he's just all talk. He won't even show up at the Civil Affairs Bureau tomorrow! Even if he actually goes, we aren't afraid of him. We'll just divorce him, and then have your father fire him and blacklist him!"
"By that time, with no food to eat and nowhere to live, driven into a corner, he'll naturally come crawling back to beg you for a reconciliation!"
That reasoning made sense.
Yet, remembering the incident at Lanxin Restaurant, the more Liu Jian pondered it, the more he felt something was off about Yang Fan.
After a moment of hesitation, he couldn't help chiming in, "Mom, Sis, that kid Yang Fan has been acting weird today. Just to be safe, let's have a backup plan. Let's hold off on the divorce for now and keep him steady first..."
"As long as we make him admit he carries black genes and turn the lie into truth, then no matter how much of a fuss he kicks up later, he still won't be able to escape our grasp!"
"Hahaha, well said! As expected of my son, your head is sharp indeed!" Liu Wenchang gave a thumbs-up, thoroughly satisfied with his son's scheme.
And so, they began bombarding Yang Fan with sugar-coated bullets.
All afternoon, the phones of the Liu family never stopped ringing, and their text message onslaught rivaled a debt-collection agency.
Yang Fan had initially put his phone on silent while accompanying his third sister shopping for clothes at the commercial mall. Now, lying on the bed at home, he finally pulled out his phone out of sheer boredom, intending to see what kind of nonsense the Liu family was trying to pull this time.
[Hubby, even if you carry black genes, I won't mind. I love you, please come back. I really miss you so much...]
[Hubby, our son misses his daddy, and Mommy misses him too. When are you coming back?]
[Yang Fan, are you even a man? I gave birth to a son for you, walking through the gates of hell, and you say you won't come back just like that? What on earth do you take me for? How can you look my love in the eye, how can you betray our relationship like this!]
[......]
Yang Fan read through all the text messages in one breath, and the more he read, the more he felt Liu Dan was truly formidable.
No wonder she had been able to wrap him around her finger in the past; with this kind of gaslighting skill, she could damn well go out and start teaching classes!
"Who the hell would pay attention to you? A family of scumbags."
Yang Fan cursed under his breath, tossed his phone onto the bedside table, and prepared to go relieve himself, just as the sound of running water started coming from the bathroom.
They say that women taking a bath is as time-consuming as plucking a New Year's pig, and sure enough, Yang Fan's brow twitched. He figured this had to take at least half an hour.
In reality, forty minutes had already passed.
With his legs crossed and his crotch squeezed tight, Yang Fan was practically twisting into a pretzel holding it in, while Yang Rong was still inside the bathroom humming a tune!
"Third Sister, are you almost done..."
Perhaps, possibly, maybe... he had been holding it in way too hard.
His line of sight actually pierced right through the bathroom door...