Chapter 9

In the previous life.

Not only did Wu An go to apologize.

In the end, even his Father apologized.

The person he hit was wealthy, heard to have several fishing boats, and was an only child.

Finally.

He and his Father suffered humiliation, and Xiao Fang took the opportunity to catch that person's eye, successfully marrying him and living a life everyone envied.

Are you using me as a stepping stone to your happy life?

Ah... pah!

Wu An cursed in his heart, but said aloud: 'I won't go apologize.'

"Not apologize? What gives you the right not to apologize?" Xiao Fang's voice suddenly rose, extremely sharp and piercing: "I tell you, if you don't apologize, you're completely finished!"

"Actually, I'm telling you to apologize to help you, to help you salvage your reputation!"

"If you apologize, maybe your Father will allow you to come home."

Wu An sneered, impolitely saying: 'Then I should thank you, thank your eighteen generations of ancestors.'

"Shen Fang, I need to remind you, we have no relationship now, what right do you have to help me!"

"You'd better go where it's cool and stay there."

Previously, Shen Fang would unleash her 'reasoning and emotion' killer move, putting on the act of doing it for my own good, adding a little sweetener, and could easily handle Wu An, but today unexpectedly it failed.

Being spoken to like that by Wu An, Shen Fang widened her eyes, and after a moment she flushed red and shouted: 'I... I thought we were still friends after breaking up!'

"Moreover... moreover, I think you're not beyond help."

"As long as you listen to me and apologize properly, I... I can actually give you another chance."

"No way, definitely don't give me a chance!" Wu An hastily refused; after all, in his previous life he had watched countless short videos on Douyin, making him basically immune to Shen Fang's little fairy maiden remarks, and he continued very seriously: "Hearing you say that makes me even less likely to apologize."

"You dumped me, so I beat that guy."

"We'll cut ties cleanly; nobody owes anybody anything."

Shen Fang didn't expect Wu An to despise her so much, and, somewhat annoyed and angry, she shouted: 'Wu An, are you sick?'

"You keep pestering me every day!"

"And you beat Chen Long so badly!"

"What do you mean by saying these things now?"

Wu An nodded deeply in agreement: 'I know I was wrong!'

"I really did have a problem before."

"So I have had a change of heart and intend to start anew."

Shen Fang took a deep breath and said: 'Okay, this is what you said.'

"But apologizing is still necessary."

"If you don't go, I'll go find your Father and have him apologize for you!"

"Your Father is, after all, a cadre of our Village; he cares about face, and you wouldn't want him to lose face, would you?"

"You dare! Go ahead and try finding someone!" Wu An's face darkened, and he raised his voice: "Back then, the breakup was your unilateral suggestion; I never agreed."

"You were hugging and kissing a guy at the dock, and I lashed out in anger—isn't that reasonable?"

"After all, this is all your fault!"

"But since it's already happened, as a man I dare to take responsibility and not push the blame onto you—you should be secretly glad."

"If you want me to apologize, then I'll have a good talk with Chen Long about how you pursued me, who initiated the kissing and hugging..."

Using magic to defeat magic, when facing bad people, you indeed need to be a bit worse.

"Ah!" Shen Fang screamed, shouting: "You're talking nonsense, I definitely didn't!"

"Wu An, I misjudged you; I didn't expect you to be this kind of person—you're truly beyond help, rotten even more than mudflat sludge."

"No wonder your Father severed the father-son relationship with you!"

"That was done exactly right."

"Just having any connection with someone like you makes me feel disgusted."

Having said that.

She turned and left.

She walked faster and faster, and finally broke into a run.

Shen Fang couldn't figure it out: had Wu An changed his nature, or was her charm insufficient?

But since Wu An had already said it to this extent, she didn't dare to keep pressing him to apologize; winning Chen Long's favor could still be pursued another way.

"Wu An almost beat Chen Long to death for my sake; he definitely likes me in his heart."

"And he surely likes me to death."

"He's doing it on purpose to anger me, to stop me from being with Chen Long."

"Right, that must be it."

"Wu An, when I marry Chen Long that day, I want to see whether you'll cry yourself to death."

Wu An kept watching Shen Fang run away.

Only when Shen Fang's figure disappeared around the corner did he withdraw his gaze, deep in thought.

In his previous life he lost money and apologized, but the Chen Long family wouldn't let it go, kept causing trouble, which was also one of the reasons he ended up far from home.

We need to think of a way to turn the situation around.

To untie the bell, one must find the person who tied it; likely this method cannot avoid Shen Fang.

No rush.

Take it slow.

Wu An sat down again, legs crossed, bouncing up and down intermittently.

……

Corner.

A Qing asked, "Mom, Shen Fang has run off; can we go out now?"

Li Juan nodded, released A Qing; after a moment, seeing Wu An and Shen Fang talking, she pulled A Qing aside to listen at the corner, but Wu An's words far exceeded her expectations.

"It's indeed a bit different."

"Could it be that you really intend to turn over a new leaf?"

"Don't tell me it's just a three‑minute enthusiasm."

Li Juan muttered under her breath, pulling the handcart as she followed.

A Qing ran over, first taking out the ice pop; fortunately it was well wrapped, hadn't been delayed long, and hadn't melted too much, so Wu An took it and stuffed it into his mouth.

He took a big bite, felt the cold on his teeth, chewed a few times then swallowed; seeing Li Juan approach, he quickly stood up to greet her: "Aunt Li."

"You've come too."

"With just this amount of fish, A Qing and I can pull it to sell."

Li Juan asked, "Let me have a look."

A Qing stuffed the ice pop into his mouth, then lifted the lid of the fish box; inside were so many fish, layered one on top of another, the ones at the bottom probably couldn't move, only those on top were still flopping a bit.

"This… this many?" Li Juan exclaimed, her face full of surprise, she asked suspiciously, "Did you two really catch all these?"

A Qing shouted, "Of course!"

"Besides me and Brother An, nobody in our village could catch that many fish."

"Mom, what are you looking at? You couldn't steal that many fish; at noon Brother stole one, but ended up cracking his head and bleeding a lot."

"What?" Li Juan hurriedly looked at Wu An.

Wu An pressed his hat, thinking A Qing really had to bring up the sore spot, he chuckled and said, "Just a small wound; it's fine now."

"We need to go sell these quickly; the fish won't last much longer."

A Qing hurriedly helped; the two moved the fish box onto the handcart. Wu An had said he would pull the cart, but A Qing also wanted to, Li Juan didn't allow it, saying, "Let me do it."

"Look how hot you are; hurry up and eat the ice pop to cool down."

Wu An and A Qing weren't idle either, each eating an ice pop while pushing the handcart from either side.

Not long after, they arrived at the dock.

The dock was quite lively, with many fishing boats moored, a row of single‑story shopfronts, and several stalls buying seafood.

Li Juan led the two inside, stopped at a stall, and said, "You ask here first; I'll check a few other stalls."

A Qing blurted out, "Mom, no need for all that trouble; earlier, when my brother and I stole seafood, we always went to Old Chen."

"……" Li Juan shook her head, gave A Qing a withering look, thinking, You big idiot, you actually have the nerve to say that, she put down the handcart and walked over to the neighboring purchasing stall.

Wu An coughed twice, then hurriedly called out to Old Chen; this could be his first pot of gold, though he had no idea how much it would fetch.