I Fell In Love With My Rival (GL) - Chapter 8
The streetlights outside the Yuhua Police Station hadn’t been changed in years. Long past their service life, they flickered sporadically, dimly lighting the path ahead.
Night in Jiangcheng was still a bit chilly. A gust of wind blew by, and Su Chunyin, huddled into herself, sneezed hard. She wiped her nose vigorously with a tissue, muttering to herself that Fu Erqiu was definitely cursing her from up ahead.
Oblivious to this “curse,” Fu Erqiu stood tall, back straight, pushing her bicycle slowly forward.
Two hours earlier.
Right after Fu Erqiu said, “I called the police,” she held out her phone. The screen clearly displayed a call record—a report made just ten minutes ago, around the same time the Moutai bottle had shattered.
Su Chunyin was visibly shaken. She stared at Fu Erqiu, who remained as beautiful and composed as ever. Her voice, like her expression, was cold and devoid of emotion: “The surveillance footage will likely need to be reviewed. Madam, please start preparing for that.”
Her eyes swept the room before landing firmly on Su Chunyin. “And those involved in the incident will need to come with me for questioning.”
A moment of silence fell over the room.
It was the shop owner who broke it first, looking at Fu Erqiu with a pleading expression. “These students already said to let it go. Maybe we can just tell the police it was a misunderstanding…?”
Fu Erqiu didn’t respond. Her attitude made her stance clear.
The owner faltered, nervously wringing the hem of her apron.
The police arrived quickly. They first gathered a general overview, recorded the report, then went to check the surveillance footage.
Seeing that the group were students, one young officer tried to ease the tension. “This should be easy to resolve. Once we check the footage, we’ll see what really happened. If it was an accident, someone just needs to pay for the bottle. If it was truly unexpected, there’s no reason anyone should pay that much.”
Su Chunyin exchanged a glance with Song Rao but said nothing.
The officer scanned their faces, frowning. “You’re all students, right? Are you even of legal age? What are you doing drinking white liquor like adults?”
Everyone stiffened. Xu Chang stubbornly raised her chin. “We’re of age. I chose to drink it—it had nothing to do with them.”
She was tall and broad-shouldered, giving off a grown-up air. The officer glanced at her and swallowed whatever lecture he had planned.
Soon, the officers who went to review the footage returned, speaking in low voices with the young officer. Fu Erqiu leaned in to listen.
Su Chunyin grew uneasy. Earlier, Song Rao had confirmed there were no cameras inside the private room. But how much the hallway cameras had captured—if anything—was a mystery.
“Excuse me…” the young officer stepped forward, finished with his discussion. “We’ll need you all to come down to the station.”
Su Chunyin was startled. Could it be that the hallway footage had caught everything? Her mind whirled with anxious guesses, but she managed to keep her expression calm. “Officer, may I ask why we need to go to the station?”
The officer hesitated, then gestured toward Fu Erqiu.
As Su Chunyin looked over, Fu Erqiu met her gaze and calmly stated, “Officer, I’m accusing them of attempted extortion.”
“!!!”
Su Chunyin’s eyes flew wide open. “Extortion?! That’s absurd—the shop owner can testify! It was clearly her who—”
She suddenly realized: they didn’t know exactly what the footage had shown. But if it had captured Xu Chang intentionally placing the cracked Moutai bottle under the planter, hoping Erqiu would break it—then from Erqiu and the police’s perspective, it did look like a setup.
The young officer nodded. “Based on what we saw, Fu’s accusation seems reasonable. We’ll need to open a formal case and take your statements. Please come with us.”
“All of us?” Su Chunyin frowned. “Officer, is it necessary for everyone to go? It’s late, and my friends have curfews. Could I go alone first and give my statement? If you need more information, you can call them later.”
Su Chunyin sensed the surveillance footage wasn’t conclusive enough to convict them, and the police likely didn’t see this as a serious case. She decided to bargain.
The officer hesitated. The shop owner chimed in to help. “There’s probably some misunderstanding here. This girl was kind enough to hand me a card and say no one needed to pay.” She held up the card.
Relieved, the young officer nodded. “Alright, then just you come with us for now.”
Song Rao grabbed Su Chunyin’s arm. “I’ll come with you.”
Su Chunyin shook her head and whispered, “You still want to qualify for the special admissions, right? The Yuhua provincial competition results aren’t out yet. And Xu-ge is already anxious but won’t say it. I’ll go.
If Fu wants revenge, she’ll come for me—I’m the one who embarrassed her in public yesterday.”
Song Rao bit her lip but knew she was right. She looked at Fu Erqiu in the distance. Initially, she thought Erqiu was just a bookish, naïve girl with financial struggles. She hadn’t expected her to stay so composed, turn the tables, and call the police. In the end, they had no choice but to let Chunyin go alone.
Before Su Chunyin got into the police car, Song Rao leaned in and whispered, “If things go badly, message me. If you’re not out by eleven, I’ll go get my dad.”
Su Chunyin patted her hand. “Don’t worry. It’s nothing serious.”
When she finally sat in the police car, Su Chunyin had mixed feelings. Her first time in a police vehicle—because of Fu Erqiu, of all people. If it weren’t such a serious situation, she would’ve taken a selfie and posted: “Y’all won’t believe this—I got a free ride in a police car today 😭😭”
Just as she suspected, the police didn’t treat it as a major case. A few officers took basic statements from her and Fu, and later summoned the shop owner to describe what happened. That was when Su Chunyin also got to see the hallway footage. She finally exhaled in relief—
The video only showed Xu Chang placing the already cracked bottle beneath the planter. It didn’t catch what happened inside the private room.
“Officer,” she said with a smile, “this footage really doesn’t prove much. Sure, my friend put the cracked Moutai under the planter, but we had no way of knowing Fu Erqiu would walk back that way. Besides, the shop owner just testified that we weren’t even going to make her pay in the end. If we were trying to extort her, why would we suddenly let it go?”
The same young officer gave her a weary look. “You have a point. But the complainant insists your friend put the bottle there intentionally. She thinks you changed your minds about demanding compensation because your group couldn’t agree on how to split it.”
Fury bubbled in Su Chunyin’s chest. She struggled to stay calm. “Officer, the timeline is pretty clear by now. You can’t just take her word for it.”
The officer straightened his cap. “Then how about you try talking to her again? Maybe you can settle this peacefully.”
Swallowing her frustration, Su Chunyin walked over to Fu Erqiu and asked with mock sincerity, “So, what will it take for you to let this go?”
Fu Erqiu was sitting in the hallway, head bowed over her workbook. She looked up calmly. “Is this how you usually negotiate, Miss Su?”
The harsh fluorescent lights of the police station lit up every corner. When Fu raised her head, the glare behind her made Su Chunyin’s eyes ache. She covered them and forced herself to speak gently. “It was careless of my friends to leave the bottle there. That’s on us. Can’t you be the bigger person and withdraw the complaint? Name your price—money, apology, whatever. We can work something out.”
Fu Erqiu’s gaze slid from her face down to the bench, then to the hem of her pants. The fabric was still damp with liquor, the stain obvious, and the sharp smell of alcohol clung to it.
At first, Su Chunyin didn’t catch on. She stared at Fu’s straight nose, trying to guess what might move her. Then it hit her. “Wait—you want me to wash your pants?!”
Fu Erqiu brushed at her cuff and said nothing.
Su Chunyin’s face contorted through a kaleidoscope of expressions—anger, frustration, disbelief—before finally settling on one loud declaration: “Not a chance!”
________________________________________
Thirty minutes later.
That same “not a chance” Su Chunyin was now curled up miserably behind Fu Erqiu, trudging down the riverside path outside Yuhua Police Station.
While typing replies to Song Rao on her phone, she grumbled, “I’ll buy you new pants at the next shop we see. You change out of your school ones, and I’ll take them home. Auntie Zheng is amazing at laundry—she’ll soak them for half an hour, dry clean twice, add softener and fragrance, and once they’re dry, she’ll spray them with the finest perfume. Your ragged school pants will turn into haute couture.”
Fu Erqiu didn’t respond, just kept walking ahead.
Su Chunyin continued muttering, “Oh, I knew it wasn’t going to be that easy. You want me to go to your place and wash them, don’t you? Do you even have a washing machine? I’m telling you now, I’m not handwashing them!”
Just as she was about to backpedal and say she might be willing to handwash after all, Fu Erqiu stopped.
Su Chunyin bumped right into her.
“Ow! Why’d you stop? Where even are we?”
To her surprise, they hadn’t gone to Fu Erqiu’s house, but to a small dry cleaning shop. Erqiu rolled up the shutter, parked her bike in a corner, and beckoned Su Chunyin inside. “My mom’s probably asleep by now. We can’t go home. You’ll have to help me wash them here.”
Peeking in, Su Chunyin saw the cramped shop space crammed with hanging clothes and cleaning machines. Only a narrow aisle remained, and the air was heavy with the scent of steam and detergent.
She pinched her nose dramatically. “This place is suffocating. How do you even breathe in here?”
Ignoring her, Fu Erqiu changed into clean pants, walked through the narrow aisle, and opened the back door. “There’s a handwashing station in the back. Come on.”
Su Chunyin pouted and trudged in reluctantly.
Inside the back room—just large enough to store cleaning supplies—