Honesty

A contract marriage?

Zhu Qing didn’t understand what that meant. She laughed. “You mean we signed a prenuptial agreement before we got married?”

Qian Cancan stared at her. “Yes.”

Zhu Qing said, “That’s it?”

Qian Cancan was taken aback. “That’s your reaction?”

“What reaction did you want? A prenuptial agreement is pretty normal,” Zhu Qing said evenly. “I remember when I’d just lost my memory, Li Lan wanted a divorce too, and there was a document to sign.”

In Zhu Qing’s view, a prenuptial agreement was at most about dividing property or setting terms for a divorce.

Qian Cancan pressed a hand to her forehead and emphasized, “What I mean is, your marriage was nothing but a piece of paper. There was no love in it.”

“What the hell are you talking about? What do you mean there was no love……”

Zhu Qing’s voice faded near the end.

She wasn’t so naive as to think no one ever treated marriage like a transaction; there were elite families joining forces through strategic matches, marriages for foreign residency, or even fake marriages to claim public benefits.

But Zhu Qing had no money and no power. Why would Li Lan fake-marry her?

Qian Cancan saw her confusion and explained everything she had heard from Qian Chu.

“At the time, Li Lan’s business hadn’t fully shifted back to China yet. She needed a same-sex partner to prove her LGBT identity; that was one of her marketing strategies abroad. She got a lot of benefits from that identity.”

Zhu Qing blinked. In her mind, a scene of Li Lan on the runway flashed by.

It was hard enough for a Chinese woman to make a name for herself in the overseas fashion world, but foreign markets were very politically correct about protecting minority groups. Zhu Qing wasn’t the least bit surprised that Li Lan had benefited from being a lesbian.

“You’re kidding,” Zhu Qing scoffed. “I can’t even tell whether there was anything between Li Lan and me? And besides, she was already planning to come back to China then. There wasn’t even that kind of atmosphere domestically. How much could she have gained by marrying me at that point?”

Qian Cancan couldn’t answer. She shrugged. “Then I don’t know. Anyway, the agreement you two signed said she’d give you two million a year; you’d cooperate as her wife, attend certain social events, and help her manage the household and so on.”

“Two million?!” Zhu Qing blurted. “Impossible! My bank balance is cleaner than my face!”

Qian Cancan was speechless. “Don’t explode yet. Calm down and think before you talk.”

Zhu Qing couldn’t calm down. She could feel Li Lan’s feelings for her in her heart; there was indeed love between them. But Qian Cancan wasn’t someone who talked nonsense, and with Qian Cancan tangled up with Qian Chu, who knew Li Lan best, a contract marriage might really be true.

Contract marriage.

Two million.

Managing the household.

Zhu Qing’s mind was a mess. She tried to sort out the threads, but found nothing.

Why had Li Lan agreed to a contract marriage with her back then?

Had their feelings existed before marriage, or were they developed after?

The coffee had gone completely cold. Zhu Qing looked up, a faint web of bloodshot veins in her eyes.

“Don’t tell Li Lan about this,” she said.

Qian Cancan had already ordered a second coffee. Seeing that Zhu Qing was trying to hide the whole thing, she frowned. “What are you planning to do? You’re not going to ask Li Lan about it?”

Zhu Qing slowly shook her head. “I don’t want to say anything.”

Qian Cancan said, “Are you being an ostrich again? Back when you and Li Lan had a fight and you were in a bad mood, you didn’t say anything then either.”

“I just don’t want to say anything.” Zhu Qing’s brow was furrowed deeply. “This kind of thing should’ve been told to me by Li Lan. If she didn’t tell me, then it must not have been important.”

Or rather, there was no need to mention it.

Or else, Li Lan had wanted to hide it.

No matter which it was, Zhu Qing didn’t know how to bring herself to ask.

Qian Cancan looked at her with the expression of someone looking at a hopeless romantic. “I’m only telling you to ask and make things clear, not to go pick a fight.”

“Maybe it was love after marriage,” Zhu Qing muttered, her thoughts still in chaos. “My memory keeps flashing certain scenes. Maybe I’ll recover it soon. I can feel that Li Lan and I liked each other. That’s enough. I’ll remember the past sooner or later on my own.”

Seeing that she really didn’t want to press the matter, Qian Cancan sighed. “I hope you really don’t care.”

Zhu Qing said, “I don’t care.”

Qian Cancan gave a faint, mocking laugh. “Yeah, right. Like I’d believe that.”

Others might not know, but she did know exactly what kind of person Zhu Qing was.

Zhu Qing was very sensitive about the people she cared about, and she was also prone to overthinking herself into misery.

Take Madam Qian, for example; Zhu Qing felt deep respect and affection for her, but knew she was an outsider, so apart from paying visits during holidays, she rarely took the initiative to keep in touch for fear of causing trouble for others.

Qian Cancan didn’t know whether Li Lan had liked Zhu Qing before marriage. She only knew her best friend had liked Li Lan from the very beginning. If Li Lan didn’t like Zhu Qing enough, then Zhu Qing would sooner or later suffer for it.

After marriage, Zhu Qing had never told Qian Cancan about the contract marriage either; she only came over to sulk now and then. If Qian Cancan asked her, she probably still wouldn’t say anything.

Zhu Qing was basically an ultra-sensitive, self-tormenting gourd.

Zhu Qing said irritably, “Why are you telling me all this? So annoying. Go pay.”

Then she turned to leave.

Qian Cancan stared after her in stunned outrage. “You’re turning on me the moment you open your mouth; what kind of person are you?”

The self-tormenting gourd arrived at the welfare institution, where the director was standing with several teachers beside Xiao Bao.

Zhu Qing glanced over. The children around Xiao Bao were about the same age as her; the oldest one should have been Wang Ru. The slightly older kids weren’t there.

Zhu Qing brought the gifts from the car and handed them to the director. “This is a little something from us.”

The director was a plump middle-aged woman. She accepted them with a smile and turned to have the teachers hand them out to the children.

“I heard you lost your memory after you fell,” the director said with concern. “Are you feeling all right now?”

Zhu Qing smiled. “I’m fine. I don’t really feel anything. Xiao Bao said I’d come here with her before, and since I was coming regularly in the past, I figured this must have been something I cared about, so I thought I’d come take a look.”

The director nodded with a smile. “You used to come often, Teacher Zhu. After you finished with the kindergarten in the morning, you’d come over in the afternoon to help us revise lesson plans and teach the children English. These past few days, the kids have all been asking me where Teacher Zhu went.”

Zhu Qing was surprised. “I used to come every afternoon?”

“Not every afternoon,” the director said. “Two or three times a week.”

Zhu Qing fell silent.

She had thought at most she cared a little more than others about the children here. She hadn’t expected herself to come here in person and teach them.

The director looked embarrassed. “After your accident, I had someone ask about you. The kindergarten said you were on sick leave, and later we saw you on TV too…… We all thought you wouldn’t come back anymore.”

Zhu Qing said nothing. After hesitating for a moment, the director spoke again.

“Teacher Zhu, everything else is fine, but last time you said you wanted to donate one million yuan to the institution so we could renovate the dangerous buildings. I wonder if that still counts?”

One million?

Zhu Qing nearly blurted out that she didn’t have one million yuan; she’d never seen that much money in her life.

But then she remembered what Qian Cancan had said. If Zhu Qing had really boasted about donating one million yuan, then that money could only have come from Li Lan.

Why would Li Lan give her so much money?

Could it be that they really had only signed a contract marriage to begin with?

A contract didn’t matter. She could feel that they had feelings for each other; a contract didn’t mean they were merely using one another. Maybe they really could have fallen in love after marriage. But why hadn’t Li Lan told her?

Zhu Qing couldn’t think of any other answer and asked the director, “One million?”

The director nodded.

Zhu Qing said, “Do you mean we donated one million, or that one million was already donated and the institution wants to add another one million?”

Sweat broke out on the director’s forehead. She said awkwardly, “It was one million already donated, but there are so many children in the institution and the expenses are huge. These kids are all getting older and need to go to school, so the money was already spent before we even got around to repairing the buildings……”

Zhu Qing cut in. “The money isn’t the issue. I just want to ask one thing, and I hope the director can tell me.”

Before the director could speak, Zhu Qing asked, “Why did I come here?”

The director froze. That was a strange question. Zhu Qing herself didn’t know what she was thinking, yet she was asking someone else.

If this had been before, the director could have laughed it off. But Zhu Qing had seen through her immediately, and that made it impossible for her to brush it aside.

“……I don’t know the exact reason, but you were very curious about the institution’s operations. You’d ask me all kinds of questions and wanted to understand everything from every angle. Whatever I could tell you, I did.”

If Zhu Qing hadn’t lost her memory, the director wouldn’t have dared to fool her either, since Zhu Qing knew this place inside and out.

Zhu Qing frowned in thought. Her concern for the welfare institution might have been what she truly wanted to do.

Her role as a kindergarten assistant was just a cover.

After all, compared to the kindergarten, the welfare institution needed her more; being here made more sense, made her feel more useful.

But……

Zhu Qing turned around to look at the director, then suddenly smiled. “Yesterday, when Wang Ru stopped me, that was the director’s idea, wasn’t it?”

The director let out two dry laughs. “She just happened to pass by; it was a coincidence, really, a coincidence.”

Zhu Qing’s expression didn’t change, but a trace of coolness surfaced in her eyes.

Xiao Bao was having a great time with Wang Ru; they were already building their third castle.

Wang Ru would occasionally look up at Zhu Qing. Seeing her talking with the director, she would lower her head again.

Zhu Qing said, “I’m going to check on the children. Director, you should get back to work.”

She walked over to the two children. Xiao Bao saw her and happily invited her to visit the castle.

Zhu Qing crouched down, picked up a miniature pot, and looked at it. Then she said, “Little Wang Ru, how did you and Yanqiu meet?”

Wang Ru’s eyes were bright, yet a little shy. She glanced at Zhu Qing, then quickly lowered her head.

“There’s a gap in the playground fence. You can see Yanqiu’s kindergarten from there.”

Zhu Qing smiled. “Did you discover that yourself?”

Wang Ru nodded. “Mm.”

Zhu Qing asked, “Then you’re not a good child.”

Wang Ru grew anxious and looked up. “I’m very good.”

Zhu Qing shook her head. “The director and the teachers must have told you not to run around. How could a good child go sneaking off?”

Wang Ru said anxiously, “I, I…… The teachers scolded me, but later they stopped, and they even encouraged me to make more friends, so I kept playing with Yanqiu.”

“And yesterday?”

Wang Ru confessed quickly and in panic, “Yesterday the director told me that Teacher Zhu was back, at Yanqiu’s kindergarten. I really missed you, so I went over there to wait for you.”

Zhu Qing lowered her eyes, understanding now.

She reached out and patted Wang Ru’s head, then took a row of chocolates and a pencil case from her pocket.

“Don’t be afraid; these are for you,” Zhu Qing said softly. “Teacher Zhu hopes you’ll study well, and also wishes you can keep making progress every day.”

Seeing that Zhu Qing really wasn’t angry anymore, Wang Ru carefully accepted the gifts and whispered, “Thank you, Teacher Zhu.”

Zhu Qing tapped Xiao Bao on the head. “Stop staring. I wasn’t talking about your friend. I’m going outside to wait for you; you can keep playing with them.”

Xiao Bao looked at Wang Ru, then at Zhu Qing, her little mind spinning fast. Then she flashed a sweet smile. “Zhu Zhu didn’t give me any chocolate. Wang Ru, Zhu Zhu only gave it to you.”

Wang Ru’s eyes lit up again. She clutched the chocolate tightly. “Really?”

Xiao Bao nodded hard. “Yep!”

Zhu Qing snorted. This little smart-mouth.

She said nothing else and went outside.

All the way there, Zhu Qing kept sorting through her thoughts.

Xiao Bao was Li Lan’s adopted daughter. Her biological mother was Li Lan’s childhood friend, Yan Jin; the two of them had once trained under Yang Huayi, but neither had ever debuted.

Yang Huayi valued Li Lan very much, and as a result also took care of Xiao Bao, helping her choose a school.

Before Zhu Qing and Li Lan got married, there had been a contract. Zhu Qing wasn’t sure what their relationship had been like at the time of marriage.

After marriage, Zhu Qing and Li Lan had once had a major conflict, and Li Lan didn’t know what the cause was.

After marrying, Zhu Qing became a kindergarten teacher, but that identity was only a cover. She put more of her energy into the welfare institution. She cared deeply about its situation and treated helping and supporting orphaned girls as her own career and pursuit, yet the institution’s leadership was deeply disappointing.

Li Lan didn’t know what Zhu Qing’s real work was, and didn’t know she would come to the institution with Xiao Bao. Zhu Qing had deliberately hidden it.

Zhu Qing thought that if she truly focused her mind on the welfare institution and treated it as a value and a pursuit, why would she hide it from Li Lan?

After thinking it over and over, Zhu Qing could only come to one conclusion.

She and Li Lan were both not honest enough.

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Three hundred extra words are still extra words, so, three hundred extra……

(I’m going to be hospitalized for surgery tomorrow. I probably won’t ask for time off; I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend [heart])