Chapter 5: Gao Ming, What Are You Trying to Do?
The guard they met was completely strict and cold-hearted. No matter how nicely they spoke, he refused to let them enter.
Still, the Gao family was well-known and influential. Most people would at least show them some respect. Gao Ming called over the doctor from the earlier phone call, and even the strict guard finally agreed to make an exception.
After leading them inside, the doctor left again after receiving another phone call.
The low temperature alone was enough to make people shiver uncontrollably, not to mention that dead bodies were everywhere around them! After all, soul transfer had already happened right before their eyes. Who knew if the corpses might suddenly all come back to life next?
Thinking that way, both of them were trembling so badly it almost looked like a competition. Luckily, Gao Ming quickly found the name “Lu Wei.”
He pulled out a drawer that looked like a freezer and unzipped the body bag.
Cheng Fei froze.
If someone had been beaten so badly that even their own mother could not recognize them, at least she thought she still might. But the “him” lying here was far worse than that. Even she herself could no longer recognize the body.
“Ugh...”
Unable to hold back her emotions, Cheng Fei’s eyes turned red like a rabbit’s. Tears streamed down her face nonstop, and quiet sobs soon followed.
Even the strongest man would not be able to stay calm seeing such a scene.
She cried for her own tragic fate, and also for the sadness her parents would feel.
Gao Ming handed her some tissues, but Cheng Fei barely noticed them. While sobbing, she said,
“My face wasn’t super handsome, but it wasn’t bad either! But now look at this face... it barely even looks human anymore! Before cremation, can they at least fix it up a little?”
“...Yes.”
Only then did Cheng Fei take the tissue, but instead of wiping her tears, she blew her nose loudly into it.
“I’ll pay for it myself. Just let me owe you for now, and I’ll pay you back later.”
“No need. To outsiders, you died saving my wife. No matter how much money it costs, it’s only right for me to pay,” Gao Ming refused gently.
Hearing that, Cheng Fei looked at him, feeling warmth spread through her chest.
In her experience, capitalists were usually greedy people with black hearts who would eat others alive without guilt. After working for years, she understood that deeply. She had not expected there to actually be good people among them, people who understood others’ pain and hardship.
“Thanks... But poor people still have their dignity.”
The moment she said it, she cursed herself in her heart. Who would not want free help? But pride still mattered. Being pitied in that way felt too embarrassing.
After putting her own body back properly, the two left the gloomy place one after another. To her surprise, Cheng Fei actually felt a little unwilling to leave. She looked back once at the “freezer” holding her body. When she turned around again, Gao Ming was already gone.
Hey!
She had just praised him a moment ago, and now reality slapped her in the face!
Cheng Fei quickly sped up her steps, her hurried footsteps echoing loudly as she nearly twisted her ankle trying to catch up with Gao Ming.
Her eyes were still red and swollen from crying. Using that as an excuse, Cheng Fei glared fiercely at him.
“It’s almost time... I was hurrying to get the car.”
Gao Ming sounded a little guilty while saying it, and Cheng Fei would have to be stupid not to notice.
“After all that talk, you were just scared, weren’t you?!”
“Weren’t you shaking too?”
“......”
When Cheng Fei saw Gao Ming’s car, she could not help feeling jealous again.
Based on his yearly income, he was already at the top level of the middle class. She recognized the car, its full price was not even seven digits. It really did not match his status. Why was he keeping such a low profile? Was he afraid of attracting attention?
Even if the car could not compare to the luxury cars owned by celebrities and billionaires, it was still far, far better than her own secondhand car.
Back in her previous life, the best car she had ever driven was a car worth a little over 300,000 yuan, and it had not even belonged to her. That time, her boss got drunk and was afraid of getting caught by traffic police, fined, and losing points on his license, so he forced unlucky her to become a free chauffeur.
Gao Ming had already gotten into the car, yet Cheng Fei was still circling around it like a donkey walking around a millstone.
He got back out, handed her a pair of flat shoes, and motioned for her to take the driver’s seat.
Fine, if he wanted her to drive, then she would drive. After comforting herself, Cheng Fei jumped into the driver’s seat and changed into the flat shoes.
This feeling... wow, it was honestly amazing. Compared to this car, those cheap cars were nothing. Her mood instantly improved a lot.
Gao Ming said, “Since you like it, I’ll give you this car later. I’ll drive another one.”
“N-No need. It’s just transportation. I’m not that picky.”
“Whether this marriage is real or fake, outsiders still see you as my wife. If your car is too cheap, people will talk behind my back.”
Even though her car was secondhand, she had still worked hard to earn the money for it herself. But after hearing Gao Ming say that, it suddenly felt embarrassingly low-class.
Still, what Gao Ming said did make sense.
A man with a huge family business, yet his woman drove a cheap car worth less than ten thousand? If word got out, where would his pride go?
Of course, Cheng Fei was definitely not thinking about Gao Ming’s feelings. It was simply her old male way of thinking acting up again. She was just imagining the situation from a man’s perspective.
Gao Ming glanced at her with a strange half-smile.
“You sure you don’t want to put on some makeup?”
That sudden question made Cheng Fei pull over to the roadside. She stared at him with a look full of disbelief and contempt.
A grown man who was not a makeup artist and had never even done makeup for an ex-girlfriend. If he actually knew makeup, that would be the truly weird thing!
Gao Ming sighed helplessly, handed Cheng Fei the bag she used before, and casually took out a tablet.
“Beginner Makeup Tutorial.”
Fine!
If you become a monk for one day, you ring the bell for one day.
Since she was going to meet Gao Ming’s parents as their future daughter-in-law, not dressing up at all would really seem unreasonable.
Cheng Fei held lipsticks, eye shadow, all kinds of lotions and creams. To her, they felt as heavy as holding a shot put. Following the movements in the video step by step, she slowly worked on the face that could honestly be called breathtakingly beautiful.
“The eyebrows seem a little too thick...”
“...”
“The eye shadow is too heavy.”
“...”
“The eyelashes... sigh...”
Was it really that bad? It looked okay to her!
Even if it was bad, that was normal. She had originally been a grown man and was not good at this kind of thing. Cheng Fei was already nervous about meeting Gao Ming’s parents because she had no confidence in herself. His constant criticism felt like forcing a duck onto a perch. In the end, she completely exploded.
“Then you do it!!”
“...Okay!”
Gao Ming clicked his tongue and sighed. Cheng Fei did not know whether he had simply been provoked or if he truly had the skill, but he wiped off the “smoky makeup” she had done earlier and picked up the makeup tools himself.
Even though he was a man, his hands moved gently and carefully while applying the makeup. And that serious expression on his face...
“Don’t make expressions. Be careful or it’ll come out crooked.”
Since seeing him up close like this was making her uncomfortable, Cheng Fei simply closed her eyes.
After more than ten minutes, she was almost getting sleepy. When she opened her eyes again, her face already had a layer of light makeup on it. It looked almost exactly like the selfies she had seen online.
What?!
Was the person beside her actually a man or a woman?!
“You actually know how to do this?!”
Cheng Fei cried out in shock. Gao Ming stayed calm as usual, wiped his hands casually, and said:
“I only watched the video once. It didn’t seem that difficult.”
Amazing! A man who could learn makeup after watching it once. If that was not genius, then what was?!
After being completely defeated with no way to fight back, Cheng Fei lowered her head, released the handbrake, lightly stepped on the gas, and obediently became the driver.
On the outside, she looked calm.
Inside, she was already crying.
She truly did not want, and could not continue, staying beside this man anymore.
As soon as possible... as soon as possible!
They drove through traffic for dozens of minutes. Gao Ming’s phone never left his ear, and Cheng Fei got sleepy just listening to him talk. Luckily, the airport in the suburbs finally appeared ahead.
After getting out of the car, she reluctantly took off the flat shoes and changed back into the pointed high heels. The first thing Gao Ming did was grab Cheng Fei’s hand.
The sudden attack made Cheng Fei feel like she had been hit by high-voltage electricity.
“We already got the marriage certificate. We’re legally husband and wife now. Since we’re newlyweds, we should act like newlyweds.”
Cheng Fei forcefully suppressed her unhappiness. Goosebumps spread across her whole body like bamboo shoots after rain.
There were so many goosebumps that if someone swept them into a dustpan, there would still be enough left to cook a full meal!
“N-Not yet, right? Can you let go for a while first?”
“They already suspected us before. Right now, we can’t be careless about even the smallest detail.”
Gao Ming turned his face toward Cheng Fei, and a faint smile actually appeared on his face.
Seeing that her hair near the temple was messy, he reached out and fixed it gently.
Damn it!
These small romantic actions between men and women being used on her...
Cheng Fei felt like her heart, lungs, and liver were all filling with blood. If this continued, she was going to explode on the spot!
Luckily, Gao Ming understood Cheng Fei’s current situation. He himself was not fully comfortable acting like this either, so aside from holding her hand while walking inside, he did not do anything more.
Although Cheng Fei was extremely unwilling the whole way, she did not resist too much. She kept forcing herself to think of it as walking her old pet dog, Big Flower.
After repeating that to herself dozens of times, she finally felt a little better.
At the arrival gate, groups of people continuously walked out. Then a well-dressed middle-aged couple who looked only a little over forty walked toward them energetically.
Gao Ming immediately became alert and secretly squeezed Cheng Fei’s hand as a signal.
No response.
Cheng Fei was still playing with her phone.
Gao Ming muttered quietly, “They’re here. Pay attention... hold my arm.”
Unwillingly, Cheng Fei put away her phone and looked up at him.
“Can’t we avoid doing this? Wouldn’t acting polite and respectful be enough?”
Gao Ming waved back at his parents in the distance while pulling her forward.
“Things were already a certain way before, so what excuse can I use if I suddenly change it now?”
“I got hurt and lost my memory. Wouldn’t that work?”
“Even memory loss needs a reasonable limit. You can’t completely change your personality and expect people to believe it just because you say ‘amnesia.’”
That actually made sense.
“But...”
“No more ‘but.’ Do you know the consequences of breaking the agreement?”
There was even something like that?
She had glanced through the contract on the phone earlier and did not see any breach-of-contract terms.
Hearing that, Cheng Fei immediately became nervous. She did not know what the punishment was, but from Gao Ming’s serious expression, it definitely would not be anything good.
“This morning I checked. You have 170,000 yuan in savings at the bank, and you also own a secondhand car worth 70,000 yuan.”
Cheng Fei’s heart skipped a beat. She immediately looked at Gao Ming cautiously.
“What are you trying to do?!”