Chapter 509: No Exceptions Next Time

"Nan Sun, you still need this..."

Zhu Suosuo was packing her belongings in the room when she heard the sound of someone entering and closing the door; she turned around while speaking, holding something in her hand, and saw Jiang Nansun sitting there wiping away tears.

She quickly put down what she was holding, found a tissue box, and plopped down beside her best friend: "What's wrong? Did Whether Zhang Anren hurt you? I'll go settle accounts with him. If he dares to bully you, I'll make him regret it."

"No, Suosuo, don't go. Whether Zhang Anren didn't hurt me."

"Then what happened? If he didn't hurt you, why are you crying?"

Jiang Nansun pulled out a tissue, wiped her tears, blew her nose, and said: "I broke up with him."

"Broke up?" Zhu Suosuo frowned, puzzled. "Didn't you just say yesterday you were still thinking it over? How did you suddenly break up? Did you argue with Whether Zhang Anren just now?"

"No." Jiang Nansun recounted the previous events and couldn't help sighing: "So I just told him we were done—I didn't want to keep pretending anymore."

"I get it. You two were together over two years and he never got anywhere with you, and with recent work troubles, he had pent-up anger with nowhere to vent. Today, when you came over saying you wanted to think things over, he used it as an excuse to explode. Let me tell you, the things he didn't say out loud are probably even more. Think about it—he's always been stingy, hating to spend even a single cent. And you? You're a rich girl, you're Princess Jiang. You spend money freely. He must've hated it long ago. Just to name one thing: you alone order four dishes and a soup for one meal. How could someone like Whether Zhang Anren take it?"

Zhu Suosuo nodded, clapped her hands: "Good you broke up, Nan Sun, you did right—I support you. Someone like Whether Zhang Anren doesn't deserve you. If I were you, I'd have dumped him long ago. Why wait till now? You've got such a good temper, so patient. What does he even have? Since you two got together, I've never seen him buy you anything decent. All he does is talk big—'I'll work hard, things will get better.' What's the use of just talking? Only you fall for his act. Try it with anyone else—would it even work?"

Watching her best friend angrier than herself, Jiang Nansun shook her head: "I hadn't decided yet. After two years together, how could you just break up? But today, his behavior disappointed me so much, it solidified my resolve. The breakup I'd been too hesitant to bring up just slipped out. He told me to calm down, but I know—I'm perfectly calm. You know, Suosuo, the moment I said 'break up,' I felt incredibly light."

"That's right—feeling light is good. With Whether Zhang Anren's gloomy, miserable face and his penny-pinching ways, how could you ever feel relaxed with him? Let me tell you, Nan Sun, I think Whether Zhang Anren chased you from the start as part of a calculated plan. Think about it: he's got nothing. How much face does he gain by being with a rich girl like you? He..."

"Enough, Suosuo. Don't say more. We've broken up—what's the point of talking about it anymore? It's meaningless." Jiang Nansun wiped her tears and smiled: "Come on, let's pack up. The movers will be here soon. I've already contacted the landlord—we can move out today. After we settle into the new place, once your stuff arrives tomorrow, we'll start our new life."

"Start our new life!"

Zhu Suosuo nodded firmly, turned back to packing, and after a while, sensing her friend had calmed down, asked: "Nan Sun, what are your plans now?"

"What plans? Just studying, of course. I feel confident I'll get into a Ph. D. program—I'll study while gaining work experience, aiming to design a Pritzker. Oh, you don't know what a Pritzker is..."

Zhu Suosuo rolled her eyes, annoyed: "I asked about your love life! After breaking up with Whether Zhang Anren, what are you planning to do?"

"Of course it's 'cold salad.' I don't need a man to live. This relationship fizzled out—I need time to recover. Love can't be forced. It's all about fate—who knows?"

Watching Jiang Nansun busy packing, Zhu Suosuo's eyes darted, then she smiled: "What about Wang Yan? Tangchen Yipin, Audi S8, million-dollar watches, and he just helped your family with tens of millions. He's young, a true golden bachelor."

"You're that eager to get rid of me? You know I already went on a date with him. Last time I made such a mess, it was only because he was understanding. Now, right after breaking up with Whether Zhang Anren, I'm supposed to consider Wang Yan? That's wishful thinking—and it'd look like I broke up with Whether Zhang Anren just because of Wang Yan, like I'm some promiscuous girl. Besides, who is Wang Yan? I don't even know if he'd look at me. I bet he only agreed to the date because my dad begged him."

Jiang Nansun shook her head: "No, why do you keep bringing up Wang Yan? You go after him—you love money, right? He's rich. Look at how he lifted over a hundred pounds with one hand yesterday—he must be in great shape. You've always complained to me about guys being short. I bet Wang Yan would satisfy your little vixen."

"Ugh, you're annoying." Zhu Suosuo knew perfectly well how strong Wang Yan was; remembering how he'd left her dizzy and spent, her face flushed. She turned back to packing: "I know my place—Wang Yan would never look at me. I've figured it out: if you want to be a rich woman, you have to earn it yourself. Relying on men is unrealistic—rich people are all sharper than the next. Enough talking—let's get to work."

Jiang Nansun smiled faintly. As a friend who'd known her for years, she didn't believe...

Packing went quickly—Jiang Nansun hadn't lived there long, at most a month. She'd bought some things, but not many. When the movers arrived, they used the cardboard boxes they provided and finished packing in no time.

As the movers were loading items into the elevator, Whether Zhang Anren opened his door and stepped out into the neighboring apartment.

"Didn't you two break up? What are you doing here?" Zhu Suosuo stepped in front of her friend, glaring fiercely.

Whether Zhang Anren ignored Zhu Suosuo and looked toward Jiang Nansun behind her: "Let me help you pack."

"No need. The movers are doing fine. And if you help and break something—who's responsible? Me? The movers? Or you?" Jiang Nansun's tone carried unmistakable coldness.

"Nan Sun, I admit I lost my temper earlier, but you weren't calm either. We owe it to ourselves not to..."

Jiang Nansun cut off her ex-boyfriend's persistent words: "Whether Zhang Anren, I'll say it again—I'm perfectly calm, crystal clear. That's it. Leave."

"Nan Sun..."

"Can't you understand?" Zhu Suosuo shoved Whether Zhang Anren out the door, pushed him into his own apartment, then slammed it shut. She clapped her hands to dust them off, as if the door were filthy: "Now you play the heartbroken act? What were you thinking when you brought that Yuan Yuan over? Nan Sun, ignore him."

"Oh, I know. Don't bother with him—it's all in the past. Just these two small boxes left—each take one, let's move out. We don't need to clean up—the landlord and I already agreed to deduct the cleaning fee."

"Then what are we waiting for? Let's go..." Zhu Suosuo walked over, grabbed a box, and without another word, turned and left.

Jiang Nansun picked up her box and slammed the door shut. Passing Whether Zhang Anren's door, she paused for a glance, then, urged by Zhu Suosuo, stepped onto the elevator without hesitation.

Whether Zhang Anren stood by the window, silently watching below. The floor wasn't high—he saw clearly. Jiang Nansun and Zhu Suosuo laughed and chatted as they handed items to the movers, then the moving truck drove off, taking the goods but not the people. Watching the truck disappear, Jiang Nansun looked up, as if seeing him, pulled out her phone, and seemed to send a voice message. After she put her phone away and waved at him, her phone on the living room coffee table buzzed softly—a new message alert.

Watching Jiang Nansun and Zhu Suosuo skip away like little girls until they vanished, he exhaled deeply, turned, sat back on the sofa, picked up his phone, opened WeChat, and tapped the three-second voice message.

"I'm leaving. Take care..."

Whether Zhang Anren gave a bitter smile, shook his head, tossed his phone aside, and lay back on the sofa as before, rubbing his face back and forth.

The room fell silent—only Whether Zhang Anren's sighs remained.

Everyone accepted the bankruptcy quickly, except Jiang Pengfei, the one who caused it, who still felt guilty. That was only natural—if someone did such a thing and felt nothing inside, what was the point of living?

He returned home with the released property certificate, calming his anxious mother. That night, he packed many meals from a restaurant, brought the family plus Zhu Suosuo, and ate their final meal together in the century-old Western-style house.

Jiang Pengfei confessed, promising the three most important women in his life he'd reform and start anew. Of course, he'd made many such promises over the years—none of them, including Zhu Suosuo, believed him. But they all encouraged him anyway—what else could they do?

That night, they spent their last night in the house. While Zhu Suosuo listened to Jiang Nansun's endless recounting of the past two years with Whether Zhang Anren, she fell asleep without realizing it. None of the Jiang family slept.

The next day, the Jiang family acted swiftly. After breakfast, the scheduled movers arrived. Everything that could be moved was taken away—only a few items too bulky to relocate remained.

That same day, Wang Yan's subordinate came to take the old Mrs. Li to view houses. Only two options: both small. One was a secondhand apartment not far from Fuxing Road, fully furnished, ready to move in. The other was a new building, just one year old, with finished interior decoration but needing personal furnishings—naturally, much farther away. The message was clear: Mrs. Li had only these two choices—no room for hesitation. Seeing too many houses had revealed her greed—bad.

As expected, the old woman chose the closer secondhand apartment. Everything else followed smoothly—she paid in full the same day. Though paperwork would take a week, she moved in that night, and the remaining difference was deposited into her account—clean and efficient.

The Jiang family's Western-style house stood empty. Two cleaners were hired to scrub every inch inside and out, then the property was listed with a real estate agency. Wang Yan also promoted it in his friend circle, waiting only for the sale and return of funds.

Now, it had nothing to do with the Jiang family. Only when selling did Jiang Pengfei show up to handle paperwork—if the sale price was higher, he'd get the extra money.

Thus, everyone had begun their new lives...

It was a hot, sunny afternoon. The central air conditioning kept the house cool. Wang Yan wore shorts and a half-sleeve shirt, lying comfortably on a chair at the edge of sunlight streaming through the living room, flipping through a book.

He wasn't afraid of heat, but he had no desire to wander outside under the blazing sun. He didn't need to go to work, and Jiang Pengfei still needed time to process things—he'd relax with food, drink, and leisure. So staying home comfortably under the AC was the perfect choice.

At that moment, the front door slowly opened, revealing Zhu Suosuo in a revealing, sexy, flirtatious outfit. Seeing Wang Yan absorbed in his book, not even glancing up, she pouted slightly, then walked in carrying bags.

Of course, she'd reported before coming over—so Wang Yan knew it was her. When she placed the takeout meals on the dining table and pulled chilled beer from the fridge, Wang Yan rose, phone in hand, and sat at the table. No bottle opener needed—he twisted open a bottle with his bare hand and drank half in one go. Then he broke open disposable chopsticks, ate the snacks Zhu Suosuo had strongly recommended, and nodded: "Tastes good."

"See? I told you it was delicious!" Zhu Suosuo grinned, opened her own beer, and drank.

After a while, noticing Wang Yan only scrolled through news on his phone without speaking, she couldn't help asking: "Why don't you ask why I came over this afternoon?"

"Why?"

Seeing Wang Yan didn't even pause, Zhu Suosuo rolled her eyes and sighed: "I got fired."

"Why?"

"Didn't I tell you about Xie Hongzu's family—the rich second-gen who sells air conditioners? He was about to buy a house, but some delays caused him to miss the opening day—the apartment was bought by our boss, Ye Ye Jin Yan's friend. Then I went to apologize to Xie Hongzu that day. He was moved by my professionalism and integrity and introduced two friends to me who bought two apartments—I told you about it a few days ago."

Maybe it's because I sold two apartments—some gossip started circulating in the company. When I moved with Nan Sun to start work, Ye Ye Jin Yan called me over and said our sales manager was being promoted to Assistant Regional Commander manager; since I was hired by Yang Ke, he told me my future wouldn't be so smooth sailing, and that he wanted to cultivate me by transferring me to an administrative post as a clerk, with his secretary, Fan Jinggang, mentoring me.

Thinking about how low the salary would be as a clerk, compared to over a hundred thousand per apartment sold, I couldn't accept it. Then I thought of Ye Ye Jin Yan's friend—who hadn't even looked carefully at the house when we viewed it, and clearly had many properties to choose from—so I called him, asked him to buy another house and leave this one vacant, so I could still sell it to Xie Hongzu and earn another hundred thousand. Today, Ye Ye Jin Yan found out and fired me…

The plot has returned to its original trajectory, though the reasons are different. In the original story, Jiang Nansun's family simply couldn't hold on any longer; she was close to the Jiang family and had received their support for years, so she bravely took risks just to earn more money to help them. But what's the reason now?

Wang Yan guessed it was because Jiang Nansun's aunt had called Ye Ye Jin Yan earlier, asking him to look after Zhu Suosuo; afterward, Zhu Suosuo was called in to meet someone, asked her birthday, and said, "What a coincidence." Then Ye Ye Jin Yan bought her coffee and sent her food at night. Zhu Suosuo wasn't stupid—she naturally noticed Ye Ye Jin Yan's special attention toward her, since before, when buying coffee with Yang Ke, he'd told her not to cut in line and called her heartless—but now, with her, he was so considerate.

Even though Dai Xi had already mentioned it, this was only a friend's nephew's good friend—three layers of connection—insufficient for Ye Ye Jin Yan to treat her specially. After all, Ye Ye Jin Yan was a billionaire boss; Zhu Suosuo was just a lowly salesperson. He could at most tell Yang Ke to give her some leeway—no need for all this extra attention. It made no sense.

Zhu Suosuo clearly understood this, especially since this time they wanted to transfer someone who couldn't do anything to the administrative department. After all, Experience Group was a real estate company worth tens of billions; low educational requirements for sales were acceptable, but the administrative department certainly had higher standards. And especially with Fan Jinggang, a top secretary, mentoring her. This unusual situation was precisely Zhu Suosuo's confidence—she wanted to test how much weight she carried with Ye Ye Jin Yan.

If she failed, she still had Wang Yan as a fallback—earning at least fifty thousand per month. On the other hand, she could also signal something to Xie Hongzu: after all, she'd dared to call Ye Ye Jin Yan's friend and ask him to cancel the purchase so Xie Hongzu could get the house he wanted—how good a person she was. She could also use this to deepen her contact with Xie Hongzu. In the original plot, even without Wang Yan's safety net, Zhu Suosuo likely still thought this way. After all, it was just a shitty job—she didn't care.

She knew perfectly well who made the apartment sales possible. As for her false sense of self-worth, she was fully aware of where her advantage came from: first, she was beautiful; second, she had nothing to lose. The former was why Yang Ke personally hired her. The latter came from how many boyfriends she'd had, allowing her to quantify her body without any burden.

Perhaps she'd also clearly seen what kind of man Xie Hongzu was. After all, when they viewed the Dongli model unit, Xie Hongzu's mother kept calling him left and right, and afterward they drank some wine and shared heartfelt words. Xie Hongzu was, to some extent, a mama's boy—his age didn't free him from his mother's control, and she'd discovered this essential truth.

She felt helping Xie Hongzu buy the house he wanted was, in a way, letting him truly make his own choice for once. Naturally, this earned her extra favor. Just like in the original plot: after buying the house, Xie Hongzu wanted to date her, but she refused. Refusing didn't matter—she still answered his calls and went out with him. Zhu Suosuo seemed to have become a different person: no longer groveling and submissive, she treated Xie Hongzu's friend Xiao He—the one who did shady favors for him—just as casually as Xie Hongzu himself, clearly stirring up tension.

If you said she didn't want to lose a client, that was nonsense. After all, she'd already refused to date him, yet still tangled with him—no ordinary person would do that. If you said she didn't want to date him but still wanted to be friends, who did she think she was? She was nowhere near Xie Hongzu's league.

Either way, if she'd misjudged her standing with Ye Ye Jin Yan, connecting with Xie Hongzu was certain.

If she succeeded, what more could she ask for? Being Mrs. Ye Ye Jin Yan would be perfect. And Ye Ye Jin Yan had no children, no wife—he was over fifty, not young anymore—she'd surely outlive him…

Overall, Zhu Suosuo's unauthorized call to Ye Ye Jin Yan's friend to cancel the purchase was a win-win move, and she'd truly managed to avoid any loss.

So who's really the fool?

Wang Yan smiled up at Zhu Suosuo, whose face was full of sorrow: "The two apartments you sold were thanks to Xie Hongzu's referral. No matter what, if you're now fighting for him, you'll earn goodwill with him. Even if you don't win his favor, you still have me—you can still get money from me. That's a safety net. Whining and pretending to be pitiful to get more money from me now is pointless. So far, I've given you a total of 160,000—80,000 per month on average. That's not a small amount. You're not stupid, and don't treat me like one. Drop your scheming. Understood?"

Seeing Zhu Suosuo's expression, he knew his guess was right. He didn't mention Ye Ye Jin Yan—he didn't know for sure. If he had, Zhu Suosuo's mouth would've opened even wider.

Zhu Suosuo's mouth wasn't just wide open—her eyes flickered, her face flushed red with shame and fury at being exposed. She hadn't expected Wang Yan to see through it instantly; she was stunned. At that moment, she felt she had no secrets—like she'd been stripped naked. Though she didn't care about flashing her body in front of Wang Yan, that was a completely different feeling.

After a long silence, she exhaled deeply: "Sorry, Yan Ge, I was wrong."

She was straightforward, no excuses. Wang Yan raised an eyebrow, rested his elbow on the dining table, and pointed his chopsticks at her twice: "Don't do it again."

"Thank you, Yan Ge." Zhu Suosuo quickly raised the wine bottle: "I'll punish myself. Watch my performance later."

"If you perform well, I'll give you ten thousand as compensation."

Scaring someone a little, then giving a big red envelope—no problem. Wang Yan smiled, raised his bottle to her, and downed the remaining half-bottle in one gulp.

Another silence followed. Zhu Suosuo processed the shock, confirmed Wang Yan had truly let it go, then hesitantly asked: "Yan Ge, you don't mind that I schemed against Xie Hongzu?"

"You love money. You're not satisfied with my ten or twenty thousand a month. You want to climb the social ladder, become a rich man's wife. Since you can't get it from me, you turn to someone else—that's your choice. There's no contract or agreement between us. Of course you can do whatever you want. Why should I care? And even if you successfully marry into wealth and become a wealthy lady, I bet you'll still come to me."

Meeting Zhu Suosuo's puzzled gaze, Wang Yan spoke calmly: "Because in bed, I'm still in good shape—better than most. That gap—you probably won't want to adapt to it. Maybe then, when you're happy, you'll even toss me a few coins."

Though this man called her a woman without virtue, she admitted he could really go at it. Imagining herself as a rich lady, tossing money to this arrogant man before her—she found it thrilling. Zhu Suosuo couldn't help laughing: "Yan Ge, you see things so clearly. Just thinking about your picture, I'm already eager."

Watching Zhu Suosuo laugh wildly, Wang Yan shook his head with a smile. What a pragmatic woman—so many messy thoughts. Whoever takes her home is doomed.

He put down his chopsticks, stood up, and picked Zhu Suosuo up in his arms: "Since you're so eager, it's time for you to perform well…"