Chapter 155: Childhood Sweethearts, Bah!

A clear, pleasant male voice rang out from behind. Tang Banxia turned her head abruptly to look at the elegant-featured young man standing behind her, frowning slightly.

He looked quite familiar, too.

Noticing the confusion on her face, the young man prompted, "It's me, Shen Mingjue. Don't you remember?"

"You're... that crybaby chubby kid?" Tang Banxia suddenly recalled that there indeed was such a person in the original owner's memories.

Back then, the chubby kid's family lived right next door to the Tang family courtyard. Since they were close in age, the two of them often played rubber-band jumping together.

Yes, rubber-band jumping. The original owner had been a bossy child since she was little; when playing rubber bands, she only liked to do the jumping and hated acting as the post.

So, she simply roped in the chubby kid—who had no one else to play with—along with her own little brother, to serve as her posts so she could jump to her heart's content.

However, the chubby kid's family had moved away the year the original owner turned ten, and there had been no news of them since.

In the original owner's memories, impressions of the chubby kid had gradually faded away.

Hearing Tang Banxia say this, Shen Mingjue rubbed his nose. "Banxia, I've grown up now, and you're still calling me a chubby kid~" His tone carried a rather aggrieved undertone.

"Well~ I can't help it, the only memory I have of you is you crying with snot bubbles coming out of your nose." Tang Banxia shrugged.

That chubby kid had been a terrible crybaby when he was young, weeping at the slightest provocation, which led to nobody wanting to play with him, causing him to cry even more all day long.

Shen Mingjue looked at her with doting eyes—a gaze that caused Wen Mubai, standing beside them, to sound his internal alarm bells. Wen Mubai took two steps forward, positioning himself right in front of Tang Banxia with an affectionate posture and asked, "Wifey, who is this?"

W-Wifey!

Crack—

Wen Mubai seemed to hear something shattering. Watching the smile freeze on Shen Mingjue's face, Wen Mubai straightened his back even more. "Wifey, won't you introduce him to me?" The look he cast at Shen Mingjue was full of provocation.

Seeing him act like this, the amusement in Shen Mingjue's eyes vanished completely.

Meanwhile, Tang Banxia, the center of the vortex, remained completely oblivious to the undercurrents surging between the two men. "This is Shen Mingjue, my neighbor from back when we were kids."

She then pointed at Wen Mubai and said, "This is my husband, Wen Mubai."

Wen Mubai smiled even more brilliantly and extended his hand with a feigned, polite demeanor. "Hello, I am Banxia's husband. Pleased to meet you."

Shen Mingjue didn't look at his hand at all, staring instead at Tang Banxia with a shattered expression. "Banxia, you... you're married?"

"That's right," Tang Banxia said as if it were the most natural thing in the world. "Can you call someone your husband if you aren't married?"

In this era, unmarried young men and women referred to each other as objects of affection, and only those who were legally married called each other husband or wife.

Shen Mingjue's eyes instantly turned red.

Tang Banxia: "???"

She hadn't even said anything!

Why was he about to cry again?

"Hey, you're not going to cry, are you?"

Shen Mingjue aggressively wiped away a tear. "Who's crying!"

Just as Tang Banxia wanted to say something, Wen Mubai gently reminded her from the side, "Wifey, Grandma is still waiting for us at home."

That was true.

"Come over to our place as a guest when you have time. We have things to do, so we'll be leaving first." Tang Banxia smiled at Shen Mingjue, grabbed Wen Mubai, and turned to leave.

Just a couple of steps away, Shen Mingjue rushed up to them, having already recovered his earlier gentle and refined composure. "I was actually planning to visit Grandma Tang today anyway. Let's go together?"

Though phrased as a question, he had already stepped to Tang Banxia's other side, clearly determined to tag along regardless of whether they agreed or not.

Wen Mubai ground his teeth. What a clingy leech!

Shen Mingjue felt no shame, smiling even more gently.

"Xiao Jue, what are you up to?"

What a coincidence—another acquaintance. It was the older sister with whom Wen Mubai had exchanged fish coupons.

"Mom, didn't you go buy meat?" Shen Mingjue greeted her, saying, "Let me introduce you. This is Banxia, Grandpa Tang's Banxia. Do you remember her?"

Mother Shen looked over the strange formation of the three of them. "Banxia? She's grown up this much?"

Then, spotting Wen Mubai standing nearby, she scolded, "Look at you, you already have a child, yet you still come to crowded places like this. How could you be so careless~"

Wen Mubai: This older sister is truly wonderful!

Tang Banxia: "???"

Shen Mingjue: "!!!" Crack, shatter, his heart was broken into eight pieces.

The rims of his eyes began turning red once more.

Mother Shen paid no attention to her son whatsoever, hovering entirely around Tang Banxia with deep concern. "Banxia, us women must be extremely careful during pregnancy. This is a once-in-a-lifetime major event."

Tang Banxia: "Huh?"

"Banxia, Big Sister is right. Let's go home," Wen Mubai chimed in, supporting her as if she were an empress dowager. "Big Sister has more experience than us, so we should just listen to her."

How could Tang Banxia not know that this scoundrel was spouting nonsense again?

She shot him a glare. "Fine, I'll listen to Big Sister."

Then she nudged Wen Mubai. "Buy the things Grandma wants first."

The two of them interacted as if no one else was around, creating an atmosphere that no third person could possibly pierce—every bit of it stimulating Shen Mingjue's fragile nerves until the whites of his eyes were bloodshot.

Only then did Mother Shen notice her son, startled by the red bloodlines in his eyes. "Oh! Did you get sand in your eye? Why is it so red?"

Shen Mingjue smiled a smile uglier than crying. "Yes."

"You child~ You're so old and still so careless~" Mother Shen chided playfully.

With that, she grabbed the back of her son's collar and blew into his eye for him.

Shen Mingjue stood there woodenly, letting her manhandle him as if he had lost his soul.

"Auntie, you go ahead with your business. Xiao Bai and I are leaving first. Feel free to bring Shen Mingjue over to our house as a guest sometime when you're free." Tang Banxia was eager to settle accounts, so she took her leave.

Mother Shen replied, "Alright, we'll definitely drop by another day."

Before the two of them walked away together, Wen Mubai annoyingly asked, "Comrade Shen, aren't you coming with us?"

Shen Mingjue's psychological defense collapsed completely. He shook off Mother Shen's grip and turned on his heel to walk away!

He needed to find a place to have a good cry!!

On the other side, Wen Mubai—the smug victor—was currently facing an interrogation of his own.

"What on earth did you spout nonsense about to Auntie Shen?" Tang Banxia asked through gritted teeth.

Who on earth had Wen Mubai inherited this trait of spouting nonsense from?

Looking back, that fellow used to be shy and well-behaved, obeying her in everything except when it came to eating.

Barely a year had passed; how had his personality become so jumpy and erratic?

Tang Banxia couldn't fathom it for the life of her.

Wen Mubai stammered, "Well... didn't you already guess it?"

He hadn't expected that the random older sister he casually fooled would actually turn out to be an acquaintance. Was Beijing really this small?

Tang Banxia was furious. She wanted to say something harsh, but looking at that face, she couldn't bring herself to do it. "You... you're something else, you really are something else!"

Wen Mubai offered a weak defense. "If I didn't say that, how would we have gotten the fish coupons?"

"Get lost!" Tang Banxia rolled her eyes. "If I hadn't reacted quickly just now, we would have lost all our face today!"

Wen Mubai muttered under his breath, "Didn't you say that when you're out and about, your identity is whatever you make it?"

"I meant to strangers!" Tang Banxia grew so exasperated her voice involuntarily rose.

When dealing with strangers, wasn't identity entirely a matter of fabrication?

"Who could have guessed she'd be an acquaintance?" Wen Mubai felt wronged, too.

How could he have anticipated that grabbing a random older sister on the street would result in snagging an acquaintance—and dredging up a love rival for himself?

Childhood sweethearts, my foot! Humph!

Seeing his aggrieved little expression, Tang Banxia trapped a breath in her chest that would neither go down nor come up, choking her until her face flushed red. "Get lost, you rascal!"

Finding that insufficient to vent her anger, she kicked him. Seeing his empty hands, she demanded, "Where's the fish?"

Wen Mubai put on an innocent face. "I didn't buy it yet!"

Tang Banxia: "!!!"

"Then go buy it right now!"

He was getting more and more unreliable!

She had already fabricated the lie; if they didn't even buy the fish now, wouldn't all that trouble have been for nothing?

"Wait for me here, and don't run around blindly," Wen Mubai instructed, casting a glance at Tang Banxia's stomach as he spoke.

Tang Banxia glared at him fiercely.

"Are you asking for a beating?"

Wen Mubai scampered off gleefully.

Standing around the corner, Bai Qingfeng watched this scene play out, the corners of his mouth curling upward soundlessly. The wolf cub had truly turned into a lapdog.

When he saw another figure darting through the crowd, however, his smile faded, and his gaze grew sharp...