I Have Been Married

Growing up, Xu Mu had never been on the losing end of a verbal exchange.

He hadn't provoked her, yet she was being passive-aggressive here; Xu Mu certainly wasn't going to indulge her.

Lyu Yan was taken aback for a moment, but then she smiled, "I get the feeling Young Master Xu has changed. In my memory, if I spoke ill of you in front of these girls, you would have flipped my stall over without a second thought."

"Are you deliberately trying to anger me?"

Xu Mu frowned, "I've never provoked you, right? What do you want?"

"If Young Master Xu flips my stall, I'd take the opportunity to fall to the ground and extort a sum of money from you. I'm really short of money right now."

Lyu Yan smiled, resting her cheek on her hand.

Xu Mu didn't know what Lyu Yan had been through, but since she was a female lead after all, he said with a calm expression, "If you're really short of money, you can borrow from me. There's no need for this."

"I need too much money; I wouldn't be able to pay it back."

Lyu Yan looked at Xu Mu with some surprise.

The Xu Mu in front of her couldn't just be considered changed; he was like a completely different person.

Could he have experienced something in the years since graduation? He looked much more mature than before.

Affection +5

"Brother-in-law, a text message came."

Ye Yu suddenly said, glancing at her phone.

Xu Mu nodded, then turned to Tong Guoguo and said, "Guoguo, you accompany the two of them to the dorm. Come back after you finish sorting things out. I'm going to have a chat with this old classmate."

Tong Guoguo nodded, "Okay."

Ye Yu said from the side, "Brother-in-law, lending a little money is fine, but if you're lending a large amount, you need to discuss it with my sister."

As she said this, she cast a glance at Lyu Yan.

She was obviously telling her that Xu Mu was already taken and had a wife.

"Don't worry."

Xu Mu naturally knew what this girl was thinking.

Lyu Yan, sitting there, looked surprised. Logically speaking, a rich man like Xu Mu should marry quite late.

To put it plainly, he could play around for a few more years. Being unmarried and changing girlfriends every day could only be considered being a playboy.

But if he went around provoking other women after getting married, the nature of it would be completely different.

"Boss, we're leaving."

Bai Yi waved at Xu Mu.

Xu Mu nodded slightly. After seeing the three of them leave, he sat opposite Lyu Yan, "There's no one else here now. What happened?"

"If I tell you my secret and you end up not lending me the money, wouldn't I just be giving you a weakness to use against me?"

Lyu Yan pressed the corner of her eye with her slender fingers.

"A waste of my time."

Xu Mu stood up directly. With so many female leads around him, it wasn't as if he absolutely had to gain justice points from this person.

Seeing Xu Mu about to leave, Lyu Yan felt a mix of emotions.

She had originally accepted reality, but seeing Xu Mu had rekindled her hope.

When they first met, she had thought about getting some money out of Xu Mu, but he seemed to have changed.

Lyu Yan couldn't bear it, and all sorts of emotions erupted in her heart.

When she saw Xu Mu really leaving without looking back, she pressed her hands against the table, stood up abruptly, and chased after him.

"I'll tell you. It's not exactly breaking news anyway."

Lyu Yan blocked Xu Mu's path.

Xu Mu looked at Lyu Yan calmly. He didn't speak, but waited for her to continue.

"I... I've been married."

Lyu Yan's opening sentence almost made Xu Mu lose his composure.

Of course, his loss of composure wasn't out of mockery towards Lyu Yan, but rather mocking this Hat Bro.

If the previous Nalan Shisan was an isolated case, Xu Mu wouldn't have thought much of it.

But now there was another one right in front of him. Xu Mu was really starting to suspect all of Hat Bro's female leads.

"Young Master Xu, you should know that I have an inferiority complex. My family was poor since I was little, and I barely spoke a word at school."

Lyu Yan took a deep breath, tears flowing down over her dark circles. "And it's precisely because of my inferiority complex that I protected myself very well during my student days. It was because I felt that I wasn't good enough for anyone, and that I didn't deserve to be in a relationship."

According to Xu Mu's memories, this was indeed the case.

Lyu Yan used to receive love letters frequently, but when the two of them became desk mates, no one bothered her anymore.

Because Xu Mu often had Lyu Yan do his homework for him, and even paid her to run errands and buy him food.

Of course, the former villain Xu Mu was also very generous, giving tens of dollars at a time for errand fees.

Lyu Yan would use the money Xu Mu gave her to buy meals for herself.

The two often ate together, so others thought they were dating. Naturally, no one dared to poach Xu Mu's girl.

Lyu Yan and Xu Mu sat together on a nearby bench, and she continued to recount her experiences.

After graduating from university, she stayed at the university to teach. With her looks, there were definitely rich men pursuing her.

But in the end, Lyu Yan chose a salesman.

Her reasoning was very simple; to put it plainly, it was still her inferiority complex acting up.

She felt that her family was poor and lacked background, so if she married a rich man, she wouldn't have any status in the household.

Her personality was also weak, and she was afraid of living a miserable life in the future.

That was why she chose a man who was well-matched with her in social status.

The other party was a smooth talker. He took the initiative to chat with her every day and made her very happy.

But just having a boyfriend was still useless; there would still be other men expressing their affection for her.

Therefore, half a year ago, she and her boyfriend got their marriage certificate.

Sure enough, after posting the marriage certificate on her WeChat Moments, all the other men disappeared.

Then, her man disappeared too.

Hearing this, Xu Mu was a bit dumbfounded. "What happened? Was he taken out by his competitors?"

"He used my name to take out a mortgage and buy a house, putting my name on the deed. I was so happy at the time, but then he turned around, mortgaged the house, and took out a five million loan in both our names as a married couple."

Lyu Yan leaned back against the bench, tears streaming down her face. "I called the police and sued, only to find out later that he had over a million in loan shark debt."

Hearing this, Xu Mu couldn't help but shake his head. This guy was really scheming.

Not only did he pay off his loan shark debt, but he also walked away with a few million for free.

"The house has already been auctioned off, but I still owe a few million. Do you know what my monthly payments are right now?"

Lyu Yan looked at Xu Mu. "I have to pay back over sixty thousand a month."

"Can you afford that?"

Xu Mu asked.

"Of course not. I get harassing phone calls all day long, people smashing my door at night. I don't even dare to go home. Right now, I can only live at the school."

Lyu Yan wiped her tears with her sleeve. "But every cloud has a silver lining. At least I'm much stronger now than I used to be."

Xu Mu shook his head slightly and then asked, "Do you have kids?"

Lyu Yan replied, "No. I told him before we got married that I didn't plan on having kids for the next few years because we couldn't afford it."

"Did you sleep together?"

Xu Mu continued asking.

Lyu Yan glanced at Xu Mu. "Just as I thought, this is what you men care about the most."

"When a man starts considering this, it proves he's already planning to marry you. That makes him a good man. If a man doesn't even care about your past, does he really love you?"

Xu Mu crossed his arms. "Do you know what comes to mind when I hear those men who constantly say they don't care about a woman's past?"

Lyu Yan asked, "What?"

"First, they just want to play with you and not take responsibility. They use these words to win a woman's favor, speed up the relationship, and then run away after they're done playing.

Second, they themselves have been married before or lived with someone, have had a complicated life, and are very open-minded.

Third, they are the incompetent ones who bow and compromise to life, feeling that it's good enough if someone is willing to marry them, so they don't dare to ask for too much.

Fourth, they are coveting something else from the woman, like the resources or money behind her."

...