After Being Deceived, I Married Someone Else and Had Children Chapter 4

“So, fiancé—want to go out with me?”

Yu Lizhu extended the invitation.

Normally, Zuo Shihuan would refuse, but curiosity got the better of him about what his new fiancée planned to do. He asked, “Where to?”

Yu Lizhu curved her almond eyes in a lively, bold smile: “To meet the person I like—he’s in the lower city district!”

Zuo Shihuan lowered his head with a small laugh, his brows lifting slightly: “Taking your fiancé to meet the man you like—you really are a rare talent.”

“But fine. At least I should meet him once, so that when your relationship gets exposed in front of the families, I won’t have to scramble to clean up the mess.”

He picked up his car keys, ready to drive, but noticed Yu Lizhu hadn’t moved.

Zuo Shihuan tilted his head: “What, aren’t we going?”

Yu Lizhu’s expression turned a little awkward. She tucked a curl of hair behind her ear and gave a sheepish smile: “Actually, I should explain. The person I like… he’s not my boyfriend yet. I’m the one pursuing him.”

Zuo Shihuan put the car keys back into his pocket, face impassive—feeling his earlier worries had been a bit unnecessary.

He would wait until his fiancée actually succeeded in winning over her beloved before bothering with the matter.

Yu Lizhu caught the look in his eyes, slapped her thigh, and glared: “I will win him over! Don’t look down on me!”

Zuo Shihuan loosened his collar slightly, giving her a sidelong glance: “Fine. Let’s go have a look.”

Yu Lizhu pressed her lips together in silence for a while, then gave another sheepish smile: “Actually, lately he’s been avoiding me. Zuo Shihuan, could you help cover for me so I can chase him?”

Immediately, she clasped her hands together, bowing in earnest plea: “I know it’s really overboard of me. Just think of it as me owing you a favor. In the future, if you find someone you like, I’ll help cover for you too! Please?”

“…”

Zuo Shihuan rubbed his brow: “Yu Lizhu, you really overturn everything I thought I knew. Having your fiancé help you chase your crush—calling you a talent is an insult to the word.”

Yu Lizhu pressed her palms together tighter, eyes shut as she prayed: “Thank you, my great and magnanimous fiancé. The person I like is a bartender at an underground club. He thinks I’m too young, even though I’m already a twenty-something adult Omega. He avoids me on purpose. I clearly saw him at the bar, but he had his coworker say he’d switched shifts and wasn’t there.”

Her tone sank, low and dejected: “If he wants to avoid me, then fine. I was already thinking that, with today’s family matchmaking, there’d never be a future between us anyway. So I asked his cold colleague to pass on a message—to see him one last time as a farewell… but he still didn’t show up.”

“Am I really that frightening?”

Yu Lizhu lowered her head, clenching her palms tight, eyes rimmed red with unwillingness and grievance.

Zuo Shihuan’s gaze flickered. He reached out to rest a hand on the crown of her head, his calm tone hiding undercurrents: “You are my fiancée, the person who will one day stand by my side. Since you want to meet that man, I’ll take you to him. But first—wipe your tears.”

“If you must cry, then let that man cry for you. I don’t want to see my fiancée—even if only a fiancée in name—shedding useless, weak tears for another man.”

“Understood?”

Under the calm yet warning-laced look in Zuo Shihuan’s eyes, Yu Lizhu wiped her tears clean. Her gaze hardened, and she bit out: “Understood. Even if I cry, I’ll make Ji Shenwen—that coward who keeps running away—cry before I do!”

“And that cold, dismissive colleague of his—Gu Heng!”

Puffed up with anger, Yu Lizhu grabbed onto Zuo Shihuan’s arm and strode forward: “Why should those two ignore me? I’m the Yu family’s young miss! I am absolutely not someone they can brush aside!”

“Heh! Don’t want to talk to me, even deliberately avoiding me? Just watch—I’ll corner him, pry his mouth open if I have to, and force Ji Shenwen to speak to me!”

The timid pearl bird had suddenly turned into a clawing, flapping little sparrow.

With Yu Lizhu storming forward in high spirits, Zuo Shihuan stayed silent for a while, then reminded her as she was about to step into the road: “My car’s the other way. We’re walking in the wrong direction.”

Yu Lizhu blinked in surprise. “We’re not taking my car?”

Zuo Shihuan: “That’s fine too.”

It didn’t matter whose car they used.

***

“This is your car?”

A white, porcelain-textured motorcycle, streamlined body gleaming with sleek design. Once the energy core powered on, a dazzling blue light streaked out from the seams, running through the frame from headlights to wheels, like a white cheetah leaping into motion.

It had more than enough room for two.

As an Alpha with a natural interest in vehicles, Zuo Shihuan was intrigued, but he turned and said, “I’ve never ridden one of these.”

Yu Lizhu gave a little sigh. “I actually bought two, planning to let you choose one. Pity you don’t know how to ride…”

With that, she pressed a button, and another garage slowly rose open.

Under the lights, a completely different black motorcycle appeared.

Where the white one was designed smaller and lighter, more suited for an Omega, all smooth elegance, the black one was pure power: thick, wild treads, a heavy all-metal frame, and when its energy core activated, it roared like a beast.

Zuo Shihuan instantly changed his tune: “I could give it a try.”

Yu Lizhu quickly stopped him: “Forget it if you’ve never ridden before. Tonight I’ll drive and take you. I’ve never carried anyone before—always sneaking out late at night without my family knowing—you’ll be my first passenger!”

She then eagerly picked out a helmet for him.

Zuo Shihuan casually grabbed a black one, though a flicker of unease crossed his mind. He didn’t voice it, though, under her sparkling, expectant gaze. If something went wrong, worst case, he could just jump off.

This residence of the Yu family was one of several, chosen for its proximity to Olina Ladies’ Academy. It stored Lizhu’s belongings for school convenience.

Of course she couldn’t wear a cumbersome dress to a bar. She changed into a light outfit—short-sleeved top, high-waist jeans, high ponytail, white riding boots to match the bike.

She looked brimming with youthful vigor.

Helmet on, she slapped the bike proudly and tilted her chin. “Get on, I’ll take you!”

Like a sparrow that had gotten hold of a paper airplane, proudly flapping it and inviting a passing hawk to join.

Zuo Shihuan chuckled softly, swung a long leg over, and sat with elegance—as though riding not a bike, but a fine white steed.

The bike wobbled under the extra weight, making Yu Lizhu struggle to steady it.

Zuo Shihuan paused, tilted slightly to support the edge of the bike, and murmured: “I am rather heavy. Maybe I should just take my own car after all.”

Yu Lizhu sucked in a breath, forced the bike upright, and wordlessly started the engine. With a roar, she sped out of the garage, leaving him no chance to change his mind.

Zuo Shihuan: “…”

***

“See? We made it in one piece! As your fiancée, you should trust my skills more!”

Yu Lizhu stopped triumphantly, smoothing her wind-blown ponytail, though her lightly painted lipstick had gone a little crooked.

Zuo Shihuan stepped off slowly, face a shade pale.

He recalled how they had veered off the road four times, tearing through fields like mad before finally returning to the street—her so-called “shortcut.”

Now he understood why she only rode at night. She simply couldn’t risk being seen.

By day, she would have been fined instantly by the traffic bots.

He resolved that no matter what, on the way back he would take a cab or walk, but absolutely not ride with her again.

Still—they had arrived.

Within a kilometer radius, only one building stood. Against the dark night, it glowed with dazzling neon. Expensive hover-cars lined the vast lot.

A giant black ram’s-head sign read: “Black Goat.”

The infamous Black Goat Clubhouse, known across the lower districts.

Though it looked remote, in truth the entire underground was part of the clubhouse. On the surface, the first three floors housed bars, fight arenas, casinos, and auctions open to the public. As for how many levels extended below, no outsider had ever figured out.

Zuo Shihuan’s eyes darkened with wary vigilance as he gazed at this den of revelry and ruin.

It looked bustling, people coming and going, all entering to seek pleasure. The smiles on their faces seemed cheerful yet dazed, filled with a kind of chaos and loss of order that Zuo Shihuan disliked.

Even the old Zuo Shihuan would never come to a place like this. How did Yu Lizhu, a pampered young lady raised in an ivory tower, even know of such a place?

He had some ominous guesses.

Zuo Shihuan asked directly: “Was it your crush who brought you to this kind of place?”

Yu Lizhu froze for a moment, then shook her head bitterly. “No. It was that group of so-called friends who betrayed me—they brought me here and even drugged me.”

“All just because I was too outstanding, because they said I ‘stole’ their Alpha.”

Her face chilled, curving into a mocking smile. “The funny thing is, if I really had done so, at least it would justify their jealousy and resentment. But those crooked, second-rate Alphas—none of them interested me. They only came for my family background, my status, and my name as the prettiest flower of the Omega Brides’ Academy.”

“In contrast, I truly treated them as friends.”

Yu Lizhu clasped her hands behind her back and spun around lightly, her expression looking relaxed, her eyes bright as she smiled at Zuo Shihuan: “Now I have no friends left. But I gained the man who saved me—my sweetheart.”

“It was him, under the strict rules of the Black Goat Clubhouse, who secretly poured out the drink they handed me, letting me see the powder that hadn’t yet dissolved.”

“It was also him, in the pouring rain, who carried home an Omega affected by the drug and forced into early heat. And he’s an Alpha—how did he endure the scent of an Omega in heat? And yet, unlucky him, after sending me home, my parents thought he was some low-grade Alpha not fit for me and even had a bodyguard punch him.”

“If he hadn’t been holding me at the time, he would’ve fought back.”

Yu Lizhu laughed, but it was like crying at the same time. “No friends, and even my parents only treat me as a tool for profit. If no one has ever loved me, and if I’ve never loved anyone, then I might as well resign myself to a political marriage for the family’s sake.

“But meeting Ji Shenwen—that was both my greatest fortune, and my greatest unwillingness.”

“Have you ever liked someone?”

Zuo Shihuan was at a loss.

Her question hollowed out his heart, as though leaving a gaping hole.

He had never thought about it. Or maybe he had never dared to think about it deeply.