I Heard You Liked Me First - Chapter 10

Chi An wasn’t actually stabbed, but the pain in her chest made it hard to breathe.

The girl in her arms cried harder and harder, her tears soaking through Chi An’s coat, her sobs turning hoarse and broken.

But Chi An knew Gu Nan needed to cry like this. She had been holding everything in for far too long. She needed to let it out.

Even though every sob felt like a knife cutting into her own heart, Chi An didn’t want to let go of the girl she ached so deeply for.

Gu Nan cried for a long time until she cried herself to sleep.

When her breathing finally evened out, with only a few soft hiccups left, Chi An quietly exhaled, relieved that she was asleep.

When Auntie saw Chi An carrying Gu Nan back to the bedroom, she rushed over in alarm. “Oh my, what happened to her?”

“She’s drunk,” Chi An said gently. “Please help her change and let her sleep it off.”

Auntie looked at Gu Nan’s tear-streaked, swollen face and sighed in distress. “It looks like she’s been crying, poor thing.”

“She has,” Chi An murmured. “For a long time.”

Auntie’s eyes reddened.  That’s good then. When her grandmother passed away, she refused to cry no matter what. I was afraid she’d make herself sick holding it in. Now that she’s cried, maybe she won’t hurt as badly.

In that moment, Chi An’s own pain felt a little lighter.

As long as Gu Nan could feel even a bit better, Chi An thought, she could bear anything Gu Nan threw at her and she was willing to.

After helping Auntie settle Gu Nan in bed, Chi An finally said goodbye and left.

Auntie watched her go, sighing softly.

Poor children, she thought. Every one of them had their own burdens to bear. When she’d asked Gu Yue to go see Gu Nan, she’d never imagined things would turn out like this.

None of this was their fault, but they were the ones suffering most.

With quiet care, Auntie wiped Gu Nan’s face, changed her clothes, and finally left the room, closing the door gently behind her.

Gu Nan slept for a long time so long that it was already noon when she finally woke up.

The hangover hit hard; her head was pounding.

When she tried to recall last night, her memory stopped at the moment she left the bar. She figured a friend must’ve called a car and sent her home.

She swore for the ten-thousandth time that she’d never drink again.

But when she tried to open her eyes, something felt terribly wrong.

It was as if someone had smeared lard over her eyelids she couldn’t open them properly.

Instinctively, she tried to groan, only to realize her throat burned too. Her voice came out as a painful rasp.

What the hell happened? Did someone hit her last night?

She stumbled to the bathroom, squinting through a narrow slit in her swollen eyes.

And there, in the mirror, she saw a pair of eyes puffed up like steamed buns.

Gu Nan: “???”

Where are my eyes? My big, bright, beautiful eyes?!

Did someone drag me off for plastic surgery last night? What’s this European double eyelids turned into swollen puffballs?!

Even swallowing made her throat sting.

She crawled back to bed and grabbed her phone, ready to ask her friends what the hell had happened.

But then she saw a video she’d recorded herself.

Her mind was clearer now than it had been the night before. She played the clip, then searched “Mrs. Xiao” online. Sure enough, she found photos on gossip forums.

After comparing them countless times, Gu Nan grew more and more certain that the dazzling, wild woman dancing on stage last night was Mrs. Xiao.

And then she noticed she’d sent the video to Chi An.

Thinking about it, Gu Yue had gone to find her because of Chi An’s suggestion and now she was missing. That made Chi An partly responsible.

So Gu Nan messaged her:

“Have you looked into the woman in this video? Was it really Mrs. Xiao?”
“We couldn’t find her at the Xiao residence. Don’t tell me she was out clubbing?”

Chi An replied quickly:

“I already have people looking into it. It’s very likely, Mrs. Xiao.”

Gu Nan raised an eyebrow. If that were true, things might be easier to handle.

“If it’s really her, maybe we can use this to get Gu Yue out first?”

“We’ll have to limit Gu Hongyun’s control over Gu Yue,” Chi An answered. “Otherwise, even if we get her out this time, her life will still be miserable.”

Gu Nan replied, “Mrs. Xiao definitely has the power to suppress Gu Hongyun.”

Then Chi An sent her another message something important.

“Apparently, Mrs. Xiao and her husband don’t have a good relationship. The only heir of the Xiao family isn’t even their child it’s his son from a previous marriage.”
“They tried to have a child together, but rumor has it Mr. Xiao’s mother forbade it.”
“His mother doesn’t like Mrs. Xiao she’s a second wife, and since she never had children, her position in the family is unstable. Mr. Xiao’s been unfaithful for years.”

After hearing that, Gu Nan felt even more certain the woman she’d seen last night was indeed Mrs. Xiao.

Only someone with a broken heart, suffocating under years of repression, would go wild like that in a place where no one knew her.

By evening, Chi An sent another message this time with confirmation.

“It was Mrs. Xiao. I’ve arranged to meet her for dinner tonight. Do you want to come?”

Gu Nan squinted at the screen, her throat still sore. She knew it would be wiser not to go.

But she did want to meet this Mrs. Xiao.

She went to her wardrobe, pulled out a pair of sunglasses, and replied, “Of course. Send me the address.”

Before heading out, Gu Nan spent extra time on her makeup, crafting a meticulous look to reduce the swelling around her eyes.

But no matter how skillfully she blended and shaded, the puffiness couldn’t be hidden. Her eyelids even looked a little greasy under the light.

She stared at herself in the mirror, clicked her tongue twice, then wiped off all the makeup.

Forget it. She’d face herself as she was.

As she came downstairs, Auntie handed her a thermos. “I made you pear soup with rock sugar. Drink more, and your throat will feel better by tomorrow.”

Gu Nan leaned her head against Auntie’s shoulder, venting softly, “Auntie, why does drinking make my eyes swell and my throat hurt? That’s never happened before.”

******

Auntie hadn’t told her that she’d cried her eyes out last night. She was afraid that if Gu Nan found out, she’d be mortified and never dare to cry again after getting drunk. So, she casually made up some illogical excuse about being “allergic to alcohol.”

After all, this kid really knew how to overthink things sometimes.

Gu Nan took the thermos cup and, for what felt like the ten-thousand-and-first time, swore she would never drink again.

She put on her sunglasses, grabbed her thermos, and drove away from the Gu household.

The location Chi An sent her to was a Cantonese restaurant. She’d even booked a private room discreet and quiet.

When Gu Nan arrived, Mrs. Xiao and Chi An were already there.

Looking at the gentle and elegant woman sitting before her, Gu Nan couldn’t help but wonder. Was this really the same woman who’d been twisting wildly on the dance floor last night?

She took a seat, and the woman smiled graciously at them. “I heard you went to the Xiao residence yesterday looking for me. Was there something important you needed to discuss?”

Chi An turned to look at Gu Nan. Gu Nan simply took out her phone, opened the video from yesterday, and held it out in front of Mrs. Xiao.

The warmth and grace on Mrs. Xiao’s face instantly froze, her whole expression cracking like plaster.

She instinctively wanted to deny it, but seeing the look on the two women’s faces, she knew it was useless they had come fully prepared.

So Mrs. Xiao dropped her pretense, leaning back against the chair. The softness between her brows vanished, replaced by sharpness and hostility.

“So what’s this supposed to mean?” she asked coldly. “Are you threatening me? Do you want money? Or is there something you need me to do?”

Gu Nan, still wearing her sunglasses, looked cool and distant, her tone calm but cutting. “We just need a little favor, Mrs. Xiao.”

Mrs. Xiao had already guessed they were after something. She just wanted to see what it was. If it went too far, she wouldn’t hold back, she wasn’t someone easily bullied.

Gu Nan felt completely in control of the situation everything seemed to be going according to plan. Except her vision was a bit dim.

She forgot herself for a moment and, out of habit, took off her sunglasses. Resting one hand on the table, she leaned forward slightly.

But before she could speak, Mrs. Xiao’s pupils dilated in shock. Then a laugh slipped out, quickly spreading across her face until her whole expression lit up.

“Well, that explains it,” she said with a smirk. “I was wondering why you were wearing sunglasses even in a private room. Turns out your eyes are swollen.”

Now it was Gu Nan’s turn to freeze.

Even Chi An, glancing at Gu Nan’s puffy eyelids so swollen that her double eyelids had disappeared, couldn’t hold back a laugh.

So that’s why she’d kept those sunglasses on the entire time.

Clearly, she’d cried too hard last night.

In an instant, the composed image Gu Nan had built up shattered.

She rubbed her face and sighed, thinking that she and Mrs. Xiao were no better than each other neither of them had the right to laugh.

“Mrs. Xiao,” Gu Nan said at last, “you must know Gu Yue, right?”

Mrs. Xiao smiled faintly. “Of course. The obedient daughter of the Gu family.”

Gu Nan’s voice dropped. “Then do you know she’s been abused and confined at home by her mother?”

Mrs. Xiao’s smile faded.

Chi An added quietly,  The day you drove her to the airport, she was actually going to meet Gu Nan. Her mother was furious when she found out, and after she came back, she was… punished for it.

Mrs. Xiao scoffed. “No one in the Gu family seems particularly sane.”

Gu Nan pushed her phone a little closer across the table. “So, what we want is simple. We hope Mrs. Xiao can put some pressure on Gu Hongyun to make her ease up on her daughter a little.”

Mrs. Xiao raised an eyebrow. “That’s all you came for?”

One of them was the current executive assistant to the president of Gu Group practically the one making the real decisions in that crumbling company.

The other had just inherited twenty percent of the Gu Group’s shares a bona fide heiress.

She had assumed they were coming to ask her to persuade the Xiao family to take sides in the Gu family’s internal feud, to help them seize control of the company.

But she never expected their goal would be to save that obedient, helpless girl from her mother’s hands.

Mrs. Xiao was caught off guard   and, somewhere deep down, moved.

She picked up Gu Nan’s phone, deleted the video of herself, then looked up at them. “No need to call me Mrs. Xiao anymore. My name is Su Wan.”

Gu Nan put her sunglasses back on. “Gu Nan.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Chi An noticed the motion and couldn’t help the faint curve of her lips.

“Chi An.”