Chapter 50: Is Ruanruan an ugly mistress kept by a sugar daddy?

The twins screamed and ran away in fright, leaving Su Ruanyan alone to face the impending storm.

Gu Jinzhou bent down, his slender fingers tapping against the basket before precisely picking out the two snacks Ruanyan had loved most during her childhood.

"Want some?" he asked.

"I've already brushed my teeth, and besides, I don't like childhood snacks anymore."

Gu Jinzhou gently set the snacks down. His cool, placid eyes betrayed no extra emotion. Whenever he wished to rein in his feelings, he could do so completely, displaying the supreme self-control and dominance of someone accustomed to absolute authority.

"Darling, let's talk about how I'm abusing you. Is forbidding you from eating fried chicken strips and junk food considered abuse? Will you run away from home tomorrow?"

Su Ruanyan knelt on the bed, pounding a small pillow to prepare it for sleeping. Hearing his reproachful and sarcastic tone, she instinctively talked back.

"Brother Jinzhou, I will never leave you again, and I certainly wouldn't leave you over such a trivial matter."

"Then why did you leave me last time?"

If forced to give a reason, Su Ruanyan couldn't come up with one. Her intelligence had probably been suppressed by the novel's plot, making her obsess over returning to the Su family just to throw herself at the fake socialite's feet to be humiliated.

"Brother Jinzhou, let's go to sleep now!"

"...You'll be the death of me one day."

Su Ruanyan puffed out her snow-white cheeks. She had already coaxed him in her sweetest voice, yet Gu Jinzhou still used that caustic, indifferent tone. She decided she wouldn't coax him anymore.

"With your magnanimity, how could you possibly be killed by my anger! If you do drop dead from anger, it just means you're petty!"

As the crisp words left her lips, Su Ruanyan immediately regretted them, because Gu Jinzhou's pitch-black eyes turned bloodshot and menacing.

"Ah—!"

She screamed and tried to run away.

With lightning-fast reflexes, Gu Jinzhou pressed his palm against her back, pinning her onto the bed. He then flipped her over with effortless ease, tearing off the nightgown that wrapped around her fragrant, tender flesh without any trouble.

Realizing what he intended to do, Su Ruanyan turned her hands into windmills, beating against Gu Jinzhou's shoulders and even striking his face.

Gu Jinzhou effortlessly captured her two pale, slender wrists. On the bedside table sat a bottle of rose petal juice and a calligraphy brush.

Lowering his phoenix eyes, devoid of warmth or passion, he picked up the brush and began writing characters across her skin.

"Gu Jinzhou!"

"Brother Jinzhou, I was wrong!"

"I shouldn't have called you petty."

Against the cold, black, ascetic bedsheets, her skin—exquisitely white and delicate—contrasted with the alluring, vibrant red rose petal juice, creating a visually stunning, deeply comforting, and utterly mouth-watering picture.

***

Sob, sob... This scumbag Gu Jinzhou was coming up with more and more tricks!

The premium wolf-hair brush wandered across her skin, sending waves of dense itching. It was hard to describe the sensation, as if wisps of romantic longing were drilling into her body, conjuring up countless waves of affection and desire.

"Do you want it?" The man's voice was hoarse and lazy, yet his gaze remained calm and clear, effortlessly commanding the situation and the rhythm.

"Yes, I want Brother Jinzhou."

"Wrong answer."

"Mm... I want the bad thing."

"Good baby."

A hot, low murmur accompanied a flurry of dense kisses.

***

Early morning.

Inside the pink Cullinan.

After the milk and pastries had cooled down a bit, Gu Jinzhou coaxed Su Ruanyan into eating a few bites.

Her skin was fair and tender, but her lips and chin were covered in kiss marks, making her look as though she had been subjected to domestic violence. She didn't feel any pain; she just thought she looked a bit ugly and somewhat frightening.

Gu Jinzhou pulled out a soft, breathable face mask and put it on her. "This way, no one will see."

Only her large, pretty eyes were left exposed, making her look exceptionally obedient.

Su Ruanyan rolled her eyes. What normal person wears a face mask? It looked super weird!

Still, this was the lesser of two evils. Gu Jinzhou hadn't tortured her waist relentlessly; he had only kissed her a bit too hard. Otherwise, she wouldn't have had the energy to go work on the film set today.

"You can just drop me off here," she said.

Gu Jinzhou kissed her through the mask, instructed her to come home early after work, and after stepping out of the pink Cullinan, climbed into the black Maybach following behind.

Su Ruanyan cushioned herself with a blanket, hugged a plush doll, and slumped across the seat.

Suddenly, she asked, "Big Boss Bodyguard, what's your name?"

"Leng Ming."

"That's such an imposing name!"

Gu Jinzhou disliked male creatures appearing around her, which was why he had assigned her a female bodyguard in her past life. At first, the female bodyguard was dutiful, but later she actually fell for Gu Jinzhou, undermining Su Ruanyan behind her back by calling her high-maintenance and troublesome, while simultaneously brainwashing her with the idea that she was just an adopted daughter unworthy of Gu Jinzhou.

Gu Jinzhou liked Ruanyan precisely because she was high-maintenance and troublesome. He had fired the female bodyguard with decisive speed, but it left Ruanyan with psychological trauma. Perhaps for this reason, he had switched to a male bodyguard this time.

Gu Jinzhou seemed much more thoughtful and magnanimous compared to his past life.

"Big Boss Leng Ming, I'll be very busy at work today. If you get bored, you can go shopping by yourself."

"...Hm."

Shopping was out of the question. If this pampered little ancestor came to any harm, that crown prince figure would tear him to pieces.

***

On the set of *The Twin Imperial Consorts*.

The sudden appearance of a pink Cullinan worth six or seven million yuan caused a massive stir.

"What's the background of the woman who gets out of a pink Cullinan and wears a mask to work?"

"I heard she's the dance director for the crew, named Su Ruanyan."

"What kind of connections does she have?"

"No idea."

"Su Lan'er, the female lead of our crew, is famous enough, right? Even she shares the surname Su, and the car she drives is just ordinary."

"If you can afford a luxury car like that, why even be a dance director? If it were me, I'd directly finance the production to become an actor, so I could show off and cash in at the same time."

"She wears a mask, so she must be hideously ugly. Who wears a mask to work unless they look too ghastly to be seen?"

It was Su Ruanyan's first day working on set, and she hadn't done any actual tasks yet, spending all her time just getting familiar with the people and things around the production.

Director Wang Shuang had an impression of Su Ruanyan; with a face of such pure and ethereal beauty, how could he possibly forget?

He asked her with concern why she was wearing a mask to work, hoping against hope that her face hadn't been disfigured.

When this scene was witnessed by those with ulterior motives, the rumors that Su Ruanyan was a wealthy socialite only intensified.

Inside her private dressing room.

Su Lan'er looked toward her assistant, smiling on the surface while her expression remained dark underneath. "Is everyone outside saying that the dance director, Su Ruanyan, is a wealthy heiress?"

Reading the room, her assistant replied, "That's right. Who knows what kind of heiress she is—she's probably just a mistress kept by some sugar daddy!"

"Don't say things like that about her."

***

"Pink Cullinan" and "Su Ruanyan" became hot buzzwords on the set. Everyone was speculating about which wealthy family she belonged to, but by the afternoon, the narrative shifted.

Someone claimed with absolute certainty that Su Ruanyan wasn't a wealthy heiress at all, but rather a mistress kept by a rich man. They whispered that the sugar daddy behind Su Ruanyan wielded terrifying power, enough to make even the director bow and scrape before her.

These pieces of gossip were passed along one-on-one. If Lin Xiyue, a junior screenwriter also working on the set, hadn't warned her, Su Ruanyan wouldn't even have known she was being slandered.

"Sigh... Aside from the parts about being kept and being a mistress being entirely false, they weren't entirely wrong."