Scumbag Woman, But Pampering My Wife - Chapter 31

The voice of the manager came from the doorway, and Lin Yuebai’s eyes widened in disbelief from the couch.

Even though the manager knew about the ambiguous relationship between her and Qin Jue, that didn’t mean she could continue in front of others.

The half-melted ice pressed against her shoulder blades, Lin Yuebai’s teeth chattered as she tried to push Qin Jue away, but the other woman gave her no chance.

No, no… please…

The girl pleaded silently in her heart, unable to voice the words.

With just one hand, Qin Jue could completely restrain the struggling girl on the couch. Watching her flushed, tearful expression, a wicked thought arose in Qin Jue’s heart.

The voice at the door continued,

“Lin Yuebai, is anyone home with you?”

The embroidered screen faintly reflected Zhuang Lan’s silhouette as she stood there sighing, backpack in hand, muttering curses about Lin’s parents being heartless.

The semi-transparent screen featured a kitten playing with a ball—a recent custom design Qin Jue had specially ordered for Lin Yuebai, every stitch hand-embroidered by southern artisans.

Lin Yuebai buried her face desperately into the leather couch, wishing she could suffocate herself then and there.

A thin layer of sweat had already formed on her back, perhaps due to the stifling heat indoors. Zhuang Lan at the door began removing her coat when she heard faint rustling sounds from inside.

Qin Jue’s fingers traced over Lin Yuebai’s damp back before she finally sighed and restrained herself from going further.

Grabbing a nearby blanket, she draped it completely over Lin Yuebai.

The sudden warmth of the fleece against her sweaty back felt uncomfortably sticky, yet Lin Yuebai curled into it like a winter kitten finding shelter, wanting to disappear entirely beneath the covers.

“Say what you need from there.”

Zhuang Lan, who had been about to step around the screen, froze mid-step, her eyes widening instantly.

It was Qin Jue’s voice.

What was that bastard doing here?

The frantic Zhuang Lan suddenly cooled down as if doused with cold water, not daring to advance further, shrinking by the doorway like a frightened dog.

Her hearing became hyper-sensitive.

Every slightest movement inside became distinctly audible—Zhuang Lan caught the faint rustling of the blanket shifting.

…Absolutely shameless!

Swallowing her curses toward her boss, Zhuang Lan closed her eyes briefly and relayed the phone message.

Lin Yuebai peeked a tousled head from the blanket, nervously picking at the leather couch with her fingers.

Her hand got swatted away.

The blush that had colored Lin Yuebai’s face drained instantly, her dark tea-colored pupils staring vacantly ahead as if losing focus.

What did her parents mean… calling her her brother’s child bride?

This was absurd!

If gossip accounts got wind of this rumor, the consequences would be unimaginable.

She couldn’t bear to imagine how her rivals would smear her, how many would mindlessly parrot the story.

Lin Yuebai already considered her relationship with Qin Jue something unspeakable, but being slandered as a bl00d-sucking child bride who bullied her brother was entirely different.

The former could still be considered scandalous romance, while the latter was pure depravity and sin.

Lin Yuebai felt filthy.

System: “Negative emotions detected in protagonist—great job, host!”

Qin Jue did nothing else. She gently stroked Lin Yuebai’s hand, which had reddened from her earlier pat, then bent down like the most devout knight to plant a series of silent kisses on the back of her hand.

On the other side of the screen, Zhuang Lan grew increasingly agitated as she spoke, her voice filled with righteous indignation.

“Those two bastards actually dared to drag Yuebai into this! Just because they have a precious daughter, they think they can do whatever they want? Have they even looked at what their dog of a son looks like? Now he’s sitting in jail for blowing up your car. That little idiot may not be an adult, but he’s old enough to face criminal charges—paying damages and serving time, he won’t escape either.”

The thought of Qin Jue’s outrageously expensive sedan made Zhuang Lan’s teeth ache.

The most absurd part was that this wasn’t even Qin Jue’s most expensive car—just her everyday ride.

Zhuang Lan even found herself bitterly wishing Qin Jue had driven her head-turning supercar into Xiaobei Village instead.

She was practically disregarding her boss’s well-being at this point.

Compared to Zhuang Lan’s furious ranting, Qin Jue, who sat beside the sofa solely focused on kissing Lin Yuebai’s fingers, appeared utterly unruffled.

“Understood. Thank you for your efforts. You needn’t worry about this matter.”

Qin Jue’s voice drifted leisurely from behind the screen. Her red-lacquered fingers encircled Lin Yuebai’s slender wrist, though her thoughts wandered—despite feeding her so much, why were her hands still so delicate?

Was this child impossible to fatten up? Why was she so hard to nourish?

With Qin Jue’s reassurance, Zhuang Lan’s heart settled back into place.

“Alright, I understand. I’ll drive Yuebai to the set this afternoon. Please… take it easy, President Qin.”

Yet Zhuang Lan’s heart clenched again. She had no idea what that beast had done to Lin Yuebai. The screen obscured her worried gaze, and in the end, she could only press a hand to her forehead and leave.

Not long after, Lin Yuebai’s phone lit up.

Zhuang Lan: “You’re wearing a short skirt for this afternoon’s shoot. Tell President Qin to hold back—don’t let her interfere with your work.”

Zhuang Lan: “Yuebai, you have to learn to say no. You can’t always let President Qin have her way—you need to think about your own well-being.”

One motherly message after another flooded in, turning Lin Yuebai’s neck and face scarlet with embarrassment.

Half-mortified, half-irritated, she pulled the blanket back over her head.

The strawberry ice cream on the plate had completely melted, releasing a sweet fragrance. Alongside it, the ice cubes in the dish had also dissolved.

The stainless steel tongs now dripped with water from the half-melted ice. Qin Jue took one into her mouth—inside the cube was a frozen strawberry.

“What are you looking at?”

Qin Jue yanked the blanket away, her villainous eyes dark and brooding. She enunciated each word of the agent’s message slowly:

“‘Tell me to hold back… and not interfere with your work…'”

Lin Yuebai was pinned to the sofa like a cat belly-up. While she hadn’t felt any danger when seducing Qin Jue, now every hair on her body stood on end.

Lin Yuebai had been single-mindedly determined to climb the social ladder, believing she could sacrifice anything—yet when real danger loomed, she wanted to flee.

The light above was blocked by Qin Jue’s figure, filling the room with an oppressive heat. Beside the sofa, a goldfish bowl held two small fish Qin Jue had brought—one red, one black. The oxygen pump released a steady stream of fine bubbles, while the filtration system hummed almost inaudibly as it worked tirelessly.

A chilled, half-melted strawberry was pressed into Lin Yuebai’s mouth by the ice cube.

Her teeth crushed the thin ice, revealing the sweet, refreshing strawberry flavor inside.

Their tongues intertwined, the fine ice shards mixing with strawberry jam, producing soft, wet sounds.

“Don’t worry, just focus on your work. Leave the rest to me.”

Qin Jue’s mind buzzed with a system alert—

“Would your fans know that their beloved ‘Little Moon’ was supposed to be a child bride in some rural village?”

Lin Yuebai’s tongue and lips ached from being bitten.

Qin Jue’s kisses were chaotic, completely lacking technique—Lin Yuebai doubted she even knew how to kiss properly!

How could Qin Jue be this bad at kissing? She had never kissed anyone before, but she was certain it wasn’t supposed to involve biting someone’s tongue and lips.

Qin Jue’s crimson lips parted again, spitting venomous words—

“Our big star really does have the face of a child bride. If I’d met you earlier, I could’ve just tossed a few hundred bucks to your village and taken you home. You could’ve served me tea, carried my bags to class—saved me the trouble of hiring so many maids.”

The System: “The protagonist is about to cry, hehehe. She has too much pride to ever accept being called a maid.”

Qin Jue lowered her gaze, hiding the darkness in her heart. She stood from the sofa, her blazer perfectly unwrinkled—only the smudged lipstick and slightly swollen lips betrayed what she had just done.

Lin Yuebai slumped weakly against the couch, pulling a blanket over her chest.

“I’d be willing.”

Both Qin Jue and the System froze.

Lin Yuebai whispered, “I’d be willing to serve you tea, carry your bags to class… to be your maid.”

They never went all the way—each time, she was left hanging, frustrated and restless.

Her voice was barely audible by the end, and she turned her head away, refusing to look at Qin Jue’s expression.

Qin Jue’s brows relaxed.

The System short-circuited.

It frantically flipped through the original novel’s pages, its little glowing form bristling like a hedgehog. “Impossible! Absolutely impossible!”

Qin Jue: “…”

……

Tao Qiao clutched her phone, refreshing the page repeatedly, waiting for the gossip accounts to reach out.

Insurance companies were never easy to deal with. When she and her husband refused to pay, their faces had turned terrifyingly dark. Recently, they’d even sent thugs to pound on their door, making sure the whole neighborhood knew they owed a massive debt.

Selling their house and the few acres of land behind it wouldn’t cover the nearly 2 million yuan they owed—and the repair costs were estimated to reach almost 3 million.

What kind of car was that expensive? They were definitely scamming her son!

Sitting in the cold, dim room, Tao Qiao was at her wit’s end. The thugs had just come again, threatening to smash everything if they didn’t pay.

In desperation, she picked up her phone and recorded a video.

As a rural woman, she wasn’t familiar with social media, but she’d seen other village women gain followers by filming their fields and spouting motivational words. So she did the same—pointing the camera at the wreckage of her home.

The shaky phone screen showed an elderly woman, her image unclear but her words dripping with resentment, “The heavens are unjust! Our eldest daughter, whom we raised, made money and now denies her parents and younger brother. She even schemed to frame him, leaving him burdened with massive debt!”

Tao Qiao struggled with the editing software, redoing it several times before barely managing to make the message coherent. She glossed over the child bride issue, waiting for someone in the comments to ask about it. She had already prepared a script to publicly reveal the so-called “truth.”

Eagerly anticipating a surge in video views, Tao Qiao instead received a notification about her account being banned.

She couldn’t believe it—why would the platform silence her? How dare they bully a victim like her?

After navigating through multiple automated voice prompts, she finally reached a customer service representative. “We apologize, but your account has been temporarily suspended for spreading false information.”

Tao Qiao was so furious she could barely breathe, her trembling hands reaching for her medicine bottle to pour pills into her mouth.

This was outrageous! How dare they bully her son and get away with it? Her expression shifted from rage to despair.

Why wouldn’t anyone believe her? The mocking voices of neighbors from the street outside drifted through her window.

“That son of hers is shameless, thinking he’s somebody important. My daughter told me that car of his is ridiculously expensive—just one headlight costs forty thousand!”

Tao Qiao shouted curses out the window. The street fell silent briefly before the gossip resumed in hushed tones.

…

Meanwhile, Qin Jue reclined in her first-class airplane seat checking messages.

She held an eye-friendly e-ink tablet, its charm a small moon carved from agate.

Unlike typical elites, she didn’t have red wine nearby—just a glass of bubbling cola.

Zhong Yi’s message read: “Boss, we’ve notified the platform to ban any accounts suspected to be Tao Qiao’s.”

Zhong Yi knew higher-ups exchanged favors. This simple gesture could earn their boss’s goodwill, so subordinates eagerly complied.

Not only were Tao Qiao’s suspected accounts banned, but possibly Lin Yuebai’s father’s accounts too.

Making someone disappear from the internet was easy—just throttle their traffic based on ID information.

Qin Jue’s fingers brushed against the agate moon charm. “Understood. Good work.”

Zhong Yi replied: “Just doing my job.”

She hadn’t expected the boss to actually agree to attend the European fashion show with Lin Yuebai. The boss had been extremely busy lately.

Lin Yuebai’s status didn’t warrant an invitation, but Qin Jue’s late mother had been a shareholder in one of the luxury brands—shares now inherited by Qin Jue.

Lin Yuebai would arrive tomorrow; Qin Jue had come ahead for meetings. Her fingers absently scrolled through English text on her tablet.

System: “Need me to translate?”

Qin Jue: “…No thanks. I could read this before transmigrating.”

The system’s eyes sparkled with admiration for its perfect host—beautiful, intelligent, driven. A far better villain than the original story’s.

Though the protagonist’s attitude toward the host was… unusual, everything seemed generally on track!

The system felt somewhat reluctant to let its host continue courting death—watching her future self get slapped around by the protagonist or smashed to pieces in a car accident. But such was the system’s mission, something even it couldn’t change.

It could only hope the protagonist would go easy on the host later.

With an internal sigh, the system shifted its focus to the kitten dictionary app Qin Jue was playing with on her phone.

The host loved studying—even on the plane, she had her earphones in while learning Russian.

As Qin Jue silently mouthed Russian vocabulary, her thoughts drifted to Lin Yuebai.

She had already separated Lin Yuebai’s household registration, ensuring she now had her own independent record, completely detached from anyone else.

Once again, she recalled the image of that young girl hiding under a blanket—only twenty years old, yet already weathered by years of struggle in the industry.

Qin Jue quietly put away the kitten dictionary and pulled out her tablet to watch Lin Yuebai’s old music videos.

The system: “…”

It watched helplessly as its host, after finishing the MVs, logged into a fan account to boost engagement—handling the process with the ease of a seasoned fan. She even casually joined one of Lin Yuebai’s fan groups.

Moonlight Shines on Me: Heard Little Moon is going to Europe for a fashion show.

Moonlight Shines on Me: She’s so amazing, her resources are insane.

SleepyCat: …I wouldn’t bet on it. Tabloid rumors aren’t reliable. Our Little Moon is still growing—it’s normal if her opportunities aren’t top-tier yet. Let’s keep things low-key for now.

NoWorkToday: +1 Better stay under the radar so we don’t attract hate for her.

BeKindSeptember: Let’s just chat in the group. No spreading this on Weibo, or rival fans will think we’re trying to hog the spotlight.

SleepyCat: Is it just me, or does anyone else think that friend might help out?

SleepyCat: That friend’s status is special—who knows, maybe she’ll get Little Moon in.

BeKindSeptember: The shippers are feasting.

Moonlight Shines on Me: But I really think Little Moon deserves more opportunities.

Moonlight Shines on Me: Her old MVs were so well-shot. DreamTrue Entertainment deserved to go bankrupt.

Moonlight Shines on Me: I’ve been looping them nonstop. Sixteen-year-old Little Moon was so tender—she looked so sweet, like she’d be nice to hug.

Moonlight Shines on Me: Heard her next endorsement is a mid-to-high-end coffee machine. I’m buying 500 units first to show support. Hope they include lots of Little Moon posters—I want to plaster them all over my bedroom.

NoWorkToday: Moonlight-sensei, you’re being kinda creepy.

SleepyCat: Moonlight-sensei, you’re being kinda creepy.

BeKindSeptember: Moonlight-sensei, you’re being kinda creepy.

The group’s replies fell into perfect unison. Under her alias, Qin Jue quickly rose to moderator status.

Even when Lin Yuebai wasn’t live-streaming, Qin Jue made sure to send daily gifts—sometimes more, sometimes less, but never dipping below 50,000 yuan.

The system: “Host, you’re being kinda creepy.”

Qin Jue: “I was already a fan of Lin Yuebai when I was reading the novel.”

As she disembarked the plane, Qin Jue softly recited a Russian love poem under her breath.

Her rolled r‘s were flawless. Her secretary, Zhong Yi, couldn’t understand what her boss was murmuring and wisely chose not to comment.

The system, equipped with translation functions, shuddered at the words—goosebumps rising all over its nonexistent skin.

The system felt a dazed suspicion—could a villain who liked the protagonist so much really keep abusing her?

Qin Jue: “Is our company still short on coffee machines?”

Zhong Yi answered smoothly: “The company has already purchased ten coffee machines. If you wish to make a separate purchase, you can give me the requirements.”

Qin Jue: “I want to order 500 coffee machines.”

Zhong Yi paused mid-step: “…Are we venturing into retail now?”

Qin Jue: “…”

Qin Jue thought perhaps she could buy more as gifts for employees.

With her shares in Starlight Entertainment and the massive staff of the entertainment company, plus her plans to establish an investment firm currently assembling its team—she knew a professional manager who could handle the tedious details, making things much easier.

This way, she could buy enough coffee machines to boost her little moon’s sales.

Oh, and maybe even expand into overseas markets.

Qin Jue’s mood inexplicably improved. She had always believed the protagonist should focus on her career, leaving all other trivial matters to her.

The system: “…”

The system: “You’d better not let the protagonist know you’re her biggest fan.”

Qin Jue: “.”

Qin Jue smiled, fox-like. “If Lin Yuebai found out—that I not only bullied her physically, demeaned her with words, but also infiltrated her fandom to monitor her every move—she’d absolutely despise me, wouldn’t she?”

Her tone was unreadable. The system shivered.

“You’re a natural-born villain.”

The little glowing ball fluffed its fur and shrank into a corner of consciousness.

This host was terrifying.

The system had doubted whether Qin Jue could bring herself to harm the protagonist—now it realized those worries were entirely unnecessary.

What evil couldn’t a villain commit, one who stalked the protagonist and was dubbed a creep by her own fans?

Qin Jue ruffled the shedding system: ?

……

In the VIP corridor.

Lin Yuebai had just landed when Zhuang Lan quickly raised her camera to snap airport photos.

Zhuang Lan chattered while shooting: “Who exactly is that account ‘Moonlight Shines on Me’? I’ve uncovered several of her alt accounts all boosting your metrics.”

Zhuang Lan: “You’re really coming up—having a big fan willing to splurge on you.”

Lin Yuebai wore peach-tinted sunglasses atop her head. The European weather differed from back home, where icy winds had plunged many regions below zero. Here, it was around ten degrees outside the airport, with pleasant sunlight warming the skin.

She tightened the coat around her—one Qin Jue had left at her place. The scarf around her neck was the same one Qin Jue had draped over her hips that time…

She’d had it dry-cleaned to return, only to learn the woman had already gone abroad.

After taking a few shots, Zhuang Lan caught up in quick strides. “That ‘Moonlight Shines on Me’ person has Russian in her bio—completely unreadable. I ran it through translation—it’s a love poem.”

Lin Yuebai turned to look as Zhuang Lan opened the translation app: “Only you illuminate me, like the North Star in the distant silent night sky.”

Zhuang Lan marveled: “Her love for you runs so deep. You’re still building your foundation—should the studio reach out to arrange a meal together?”

Lin Yuebai’s fingers unconsciously tightened. “No need. Since I’m with President Qin, I should maintain distance from others.”

Zhuang Lan thought that made sense. Checking the address, she found Qin Jue had arranged their stay at a century-old palace.

Zhuang Lan was astonished—this man was seriously wealthy, renting out an entire palace as hotel accommodations.

The black luxury van stopped at the airport entrance. As the door automatically slid open and Lin Yuebai bent to enter, hurried footsteps suddenly sounded behind her.

After getting into the car, she turned her head to look out the window, accidentally causing her sunglasses to slip from her forehead.

It was a man and a woman—a well-dressed lady was holding her husband’s arm with a warm smile on her face. The husband had an elegant and easygoing appearance, his posture upright.

At their age, most people would have gained weight, but this couple maintained excellent figures, showing few signs of aging beyond the faint wrinkles at the corners of their eyes.

Lin Yuebai got out of the car to pick up her sunglasses and happened to lock eyes with the lady.

The lady immediately stopped in her tracks, her gaze lingering on Lin Yuebai’s features before turning briefly to glance at her husband.

Feeling it was impolite to stare, Lin Yuebai quickly lowered her eyes, offering a polite smile before turning back to the car.

Zhuang Lan remarked, “Those two are Jing Xin’s parents. They come from a long line of merchants—started in real estate years ago, then pivoted to new energy investments and factory operations when policies shifted. They’re quite influential in Nan City.”

“Comparing people only breeds resentment. If only you had half of Jing Xin’s family background.”