Divorce Is An Absolute Must! - Chapter 9
Chapter 9: Drunk
â—ŽWho is the wronged one?â—Ž
Zhu Qing was disheartened, and a strong sense of defeat surged into her heart.
She couldn’t pinpoint where this feeling came from, but it gave her a feeling of sadness and frustration, as if she had messed everything up.
Zhu Qing had only one thought in her mind right now: she shouldn’t have pressed Li Lan.
She didn’t even understand her own identity now, nor did she know what would hit Li Lan’s sensitive spots. See? A single phrase, “we are no longer in love,” had separated them.
Zhu Qing slowly cleaned up Li Lan’s leftovers and sat in the swing in front of the French window, swaying back and forth. The rouge-like sunset faded, and the night gradually crept into the entire room. Zhu Qing slowly suppressed the sadness.
A notification popped up on her phone.
“The person you are following just posted a new Weibo post. Go and check it out!”
Zhu Qing took out her phone. When she fell down the stairs, her phone was also shattered. This was a new phone, and she hadn’t had time to cancel the app notifications one by one.
The Weibo app was a bit of a nuisance, often pushing all sorts of news about various celebrities.
Zhu Qing had initially wanted to delete it, but then she remembered that Li Lan was in the entertainment industry, so she also learned to pay attention to entertainment news.
She thought it was just some celebrity gossip, but when she clicked on it, she realized that her special follow was “Li Lan.”
The photos were not overly retouched. The light and shadows were more obvious, and the tones had changed from a hazy orange-red to a cool sharpness as dusk approached.
The person was still as beautiful as ever.
While Zhu Qing was in a trance, the comments had already piled up by the hundreds.
Qian Cancan’s call came through.
“The photos Li Lan just posted, did you take them?”
Best friends were best friends indeed. Qian Cancan could always accurately and sensitively pick up on Zhu Qing’s traces.
“She’s a big star and has a studio. Why would you think it was me?” Zhu Qing uncharacteristically didn’t admit it directly.
Qian Cancan scoffed. “Because the style is different. That composition, that color tone, that screen full of sexiness—isn’t that your favorite style?”
Zhu Qing was silent for a while, then said softly, “Is that so? What about it? Some people still don’t like it.”
Zhu Qing held her phone and went back to her room, closing the door with a loud thud.
Qian Cancan heard the unusual tone in Zhu Qing’s voice and asked cautiously, “…What’s wrong with you?”
Zhu Qing dejectedly gave a brief summary of what had happened today.
“Sigh, that’s expected, I guess,” Qian Cancan said in a comforting tone. “But what did Li Lan say? Why did she disagree?”
Zhu Qing didn’t tell Qian Cancan the details and said vaguely, “Maybe our relationship has some problems.”
Qian Cancan sighed.
The two of them fell silent. Although Qian Cancan was close with Zhu Qing, she didn’t pry into the details of her relationship with Li Lan. Seeing this, she couldn’t think of anything to say.
After a long silence.
Zhu Qing suddenly grabbed the keys from the table. “Let’s go. Let’s go out for a drink.”
Qian Cancan didn’t react. “Huh?”
“The usual place. See you there.”
Zhu Qing hung up the phone after saying that. After Qian Cancan understood what Zhu Qing had said, she stared at her phone, her face turning red, then white, then as black as a pot.
Ever since Zhu Qing got drunk and slept with Li Lan, she had quit drinking and hadn’t touched a single drop for a year.
Moreover, after she and Li Lan made their relationship official, Zhu Qing rarely stayed out at night and almost never went to the nightclubs and bars she used to frequent.
Qian Cancan thought for two minutes. She had a choice between “calling Zhu Qing to stop her” and “going out to catch up with her ‘long-lost’ old best friend and relive old times.” She decisively chose the latter.
Before she left, she remembered something, took out her phone, and looked at WeChat.
The chat window still only had her own messages.
The message she sent to Qian Chu hadn’t been replied to yet.
…
“Why did you go to see Xiao Qing?” Li Lan asked, her face displeased, as she made a phone call. “What did you say to her?”
Qian Chu was in the studio, overwhelmed with Li Lan’s various commercial contracts. She was silent for two seconds when she heard this. “I just told her the pros and cons of the variety show.”
A cloud of gloom shrouded Li Lan’s brows, and her tone was heavy. “What else?”
Qian Chu walked to a quiet place and said in a low voice, “I also told her that she signed the contract with you.”
Li Lan said angrily, “What exactly are you trying to do?”
Qian Chu’s voice was low and fast. “Ms. Lan, Zhu Qing is clearly willing to be on the show with you. I can tell that she’s not against you. She genuinely wants to help you because this show is good for you…”
“So what? Is she not sincere with her other friends? Why would you take advantage of her kindness and softheartedness?” Li Lan took a deep breath, her voice cold as iron, and her expression sharp. “Are you not going to get my permission for anything you do now?!”
How could Qian Chu possibly take on such a huge blame? She said anxiously, “Ms. Lan, it doesn’t matter if you misunderstand me, but this is related to your career. It’s your development! Zhu Qing’s presence was originally good for your career, but later she became uncooperative and wanted to end the agreement and divorce you early. Now that she has amnesia, it’s the perfect opportunity to…”
“Qian Chu,” Li Lan’s voice was filled with anger. “You don’t know the state of our relationship, so don’t interfere rashly. This is my first and last warning to you: you are not allowed to see her privately or discuss anything with her without my consent while she has amnesia! Do you hear me?”
Qian Chu rarely saw Li Lan so truly angry. She knew that Li Lan was genuinely furious and was nervous, not knowing what else to say.
Li Lan closed her eyes. No one else knew the real reason she didn’t want Zhu Qing to be on the show.
Qian Chu didn’t know. Qian Cancan didn’t know. And now, Zhu Qing didn’t know either.
How could Li Lan not want to go public with Zhu Qing?
The person who didn’t want to was clearly Zhu Qing.
Qian Chu suddenly spoke, her voice sounding a little strange. “Ms. Lan, there’s something else about Zhu Qing that I think you should know about.”
Li Lan’s emotions settled down, and she said calmly, “What is it?”
Qian Chu said in a low voice, “Qian Cancan and Zhu Qing seem to be… well, drinking at a bar.”
She omitted the part where Zhu Qing seemed to be dancing, drinking, and even blew a kiss to a dancer from afar.
Li Lan said in astonishment, “When?”
Qian Chu looked at the time on Qian Cancan’s Moments post, swallowed hard, and said dryly, “Two minutes ago.”
Li Lan’s recently settled mind was shaken again. Her face was full of brewing storms.
…
The “fair-weather friends” had a limited-time comeback. After clubbing, Qian Cancan opened a private room.
In the private room, the two of them were leaning over, drunk. The young woman pouring the drinks kept urging them to drink while winking at her colleagues to open more bottles.
Zhu Qing’s phone, which she had tossed aside, kept lighting up and then going dark.
“You’re done for. If Sister Li Lan finds you this drunk,” Qian Cancan’s face had two strange red splotches, and she slurred, pointing at Zhu Qing, “she’s definitely going to despise you.”
“Huh? Why would she despise me again?” Zhu Qing’s face was pale from drinking. She held a wine glass in one hand, shaking it. She slurred, “If she despises me, then she despises me. What can I do? As soon as I woke up, my wife wanted to divorce me. What did I do wrong…?”
The young woman pouring the drinks laughed cheerily. “The wine’s all spilled. Come, I’ll pour you another glass.”
“You shouldn’t be ungrateful,” Qian Cancan didn’t understand what Zhu Qing was mumbling about. She brought out her “advocating for harmony, not for separation” side and said subconsciously, “Your wife is such a good person. You were the one who provoked her in the first place, and you messed with her so much she went to the hospital. Afterwards, she didn’t hold a grudge and lived with you. How is she unfair to you?”
The young woman pouring the drinks timely covered her mouth and made a shocked gesture. “Oh, that’s so terrible.”
Zhu Qing’s eyes turned red. Her mind was filled with the scene of Li Lan saying, “we are no longer in love.” How was she “ungrateful”?
“Who was unfair to me!” Zhu Qing felt a little wronged, and her momentum weakened. “Or who did I do wrong by? I don’t want to do anything wrong to Li Lan. I can change whatever I did wrong. I really don’t hit people…”
The young women pouring the drinks looked at each other in shock. She hits people?!
Zhu Qing finally caught a glimpse of their small movements. She held onto the sofa and sat up straight. “What are those expressions for? Do you think I have a violent temper?! I don’t! I told you, I don’t!”
Zhu Qing was on the prettier side, especially her eyes. Her eyelids were thin and had a good shape, which was even more obvious when she was drunk. As she stared with her red-rimmed eyes and spoke loudly, the young women all shivered, their expressions even more frightened.
Qian Cancan felt that something was off with Zhu Qing. She crawled across half the sofa, picked up the empty wine bottle next to her, and looked at it twice. She was so scared she instantly sat up straight. “Are you trying to kill yourself? You haven’t had a drink in a year, and now you’re drinking a whole liter in one go!”
Just then, Zhu Qing’s phone, which had been pushed under the sofa, lit up again. Qian Cancan saw the incoming call on the screen and quickly answered it.
On the other end was a pleasant, mature woman’s voice, sounding a little urgent. “Xiao Qing?”
“It’s me,” Qian Cancan gripped the phone. She glanced at Zhu Qing, who was resting her chin on the wine glass with a fierce and menacing expression, and swallowed hard. “A-Qing is drunk.”
The voice on the other end paused, then quickly became calm and said in a low voice, “The room number.”
Qian Cancan hung up the phone, not at all confused as to why Li Lan didn’t ask for the address but for the room number. She quickly sat next to Zhu Qing and urged her, “Hurry up and get yourself together. Sister Li Lan is coming to pick you up.”
After saying that, she turned to shoo away the young women pouring the drinks. “All of you, go, hurry up and go.”
The young women looked at each other, their longing eyes lingering on the unopened bottles of wine. But Qian Cancan had already told them to leave, so they could only get up slowly.
“I don’t want to go with her. She’s going to divorce me anyway,” Zhu Qing, her energy completely spent, started to feel wronged and sulky. Her eyes welled up with tears, and she pouted. “Divorce, she wants to divorce me…”
Qian Cancan could only dryly persuade her, “Sober up first, and then we’ll talk.”
The young women pouring the drinks walked out reluctantly.
“Don’t go.” Zhu Qing suddenly grabbed one of them by the arm.
The young woman was startled, but she quickly showed a gentle smile. “Can I help you with something, ma’am?”
Qian Cancan was so scared her soul flew away. “What are you doing? Let her go, quick. Your wife is coming.”
Zhu Qing leaned in, almost face to face with the young woman, and stared at her fiercely. “I remember you. You secretly opened a bottle of ‘Purple Jin’ when I wasn’t looking. I didn’t drink it, so you have to take it with you.”
When the young woman heard this, she was so scared she almost cried. A bottle of Purple Jin cost two thousand yuan. She had seen that these two were rich and had gotten drunk and thought they wouldn’t notice. She quickly said, “Ma’am, you were the one who wanted to open it. We all heard you.”
Seeing that she was still arguing, Zhu Qing became even angrier.
She didn’t have money now; that was Li Lan’s money!
The real her was a working girl with a monthly salary of three thousand!
How could she allow someone to trick her into buying such an expensive bottle of wine!
“You’re still arguing! Come on, let’s go find your manager!” Zhu Qing pulled the person and started to walk out. Qian Cancan quickly tried to dissuade her, and the remaining young women who were pouring drinks also came over to persuade her. The scene became chaotic.
Just then, the door suddenly opened.
A tall and slender figure appeared in the doorway.
The person was wearing a baseball cap and sunglasses. The sides of her face were covered by curly hair, and the lower half of her face was hidden behind a face mask. The entire person was completely covered.
But the people in the room could feel a sharp gaze staring fiercely at them.