“Jiejie, you come, too.” He Yuan gently tugged at Gou An’s arm and pushed her towards the center of the crowd.

“What’s going on?”

Not far from Gou An, several people were bent over, frantically writing small notes, then folding the paper and throwing them into a lottery box.

“There are still a few hours until the coming-of-age speech at midnight, so let’s warm up with a game!” Tang Xinjiu said. “We have to have some fun, right?”

According to the program of tonight’s coming-of-age banquet, there would be an opening dance at the beginning. After that there would be free time until midnight when the elders would deliver the coming-of-age speech.

This was done at midnight to symbolize that a new group of heirs of aristocratic families would rise in Jiangcheng.

Over the years, everyone has tacitly accepted that after the opening dance, people would do some entertainment to pass the time. To be honest, today’s ‘peers’ didn’t seem to like dancing all that much, but the games they played were exciting and quite perverted.

And this group of people were wholeheartedly working on the next game—

Truth or Dare was out, and getting drunk wasn’t the right thing to do on your first night on the ship, so this year they’ve come up with something new: the Borrowing Game.

Basically, at the beginning of the game, everyone would take out a piece of paper from a cardboard box. There would be various things written on the paper. Within the specified time, one must borrow the thing on the paper from someone.

The items on the note included cufflinks, belts, sunglasses, a person wearing glasses, a person carrying an LV bag, red high heels (left foot), a watch of a specified brand, and a series of other miscellaneous things.

The last three people to show up with their borrowed item, or failed to borrow the designated item, would be responsible for splitting the bill for all drinks at the bar tomorrow night.

There were no restrictions in the game, the only rule was: for the sake of fun, all designated items to be borrowed could not be borrowed from immediate family members.

Gou An saw with her own eyes Zhou Yutong giggle and write ‘The person I want to sleep with’ on a pink sticky note, and then happily throw the note into the lottery box.

This kind of borrowing game was the best way to express feelings or to generate ambiguous gossip.

Zhou Yutong pulled Gou An aside and whispered, “When you come across any pink sticky notes when you’re choosing, remember to throw them back! Because they were all written by me. Hehehe, and what good things can I write?”

Gou An: “…”

“Thank you for your honesty.”

He Yuan randomly picked a blank note, wrote ‘jiejie’ on ten of them and threw them into the lottery box. 

He turned to Gou An and said with a big smile on his face, “If I draw the ones I wrote, it would be fate. Then, jiejie, you have to come with me without any resistance, okay?”

Gou An found it hard to control her lips from smiling. She raised her hand and rubbed his hair, the child’s natural curls brushing through her fingers.

Gou Xun, who was watching the interaction between the two from across the table, crossed his arms and commented expressionlessly, “Shameless.”

Gou An was too lazy to pay attention to him.

He Yuan blew on the still-wet writing on his note and said lazily, “Some people don’t know how to cherish something, but then still think it’s a mistake for others to cherish it… Jiejie, this world is really wonderful, don’t you think?”

Who said his Chinese was not that good?

Gou An covered her mouth and laughed. Not far away, Gou Xun moved, his hands clenched into fists, and looked like he was about to blow up, but before he could take a step, he was stopped by Lu Wan.

Gou An: “…”

Lu Wan was still here.

The evening has been full of chaos. In the second half, when she was dancing with He Jinxing, the heroine had been completely invisible. So Gou An only just now remembered this person when she saw her, and her radar went off. 

She reflexively thought, ‘Oh, where is my bodyguard?‘

When she turned around to look for him, she found that the bodyguard was standing behind her, and the two of them looked at each other.

Ye Lang: “?”

Gou An rolled her eyes and smiled at the bodyguard.

Ye Lang: “…”

This familiar malicious smile made him regret; he should have moved away from her. In this situation where it was unlikely that someone would suddenly pull out a knife, there was actually no need to stand so close to her.

“What’s wrong this time?”

His voice was a little hoarse. He had stood beside her like a silent door god all night and hadn’t say a word to anyone else.

Of course, there were also some strange people who came up to talk to Mr. Bodyguard because of his face, but they didn’t even get a response or a polite refusal from him. When facing various rich daughters worth hundreds of millions of dollars or even the rich men themselves, all his responses were a cold glare, then he would turn away until they walked away.

At this moment, Ye Lang saw the familiar expression on Miss Gou’s face. Of course, he couldn’t exactly give her a cold look. He just thought silently, ‘She just asked for a sun hat that afternoon. Isn’t the frequency of her mischief a little too high today?‘

Gou An asked Ye Lang, “Shouldn’t you go and tell her to run? The loser has to treat everyone to a very expensive meal tomorrow.”

How Gou An sounded: weird and sarcastic.

How Ye Lang interpreted it: drive Lu Wan away.

He didn’t know if he was right, but if he confirmed it with her again, she might misinterpret his meaning and make things more complicated.

Ye Lang simply nodded.

Gou An was stunned. “Why are you nodding—”

He walked straight past Gou An, who had a confused look on her face, and walked towards Lu Wan. He stood in front of her.

The man with a cold face had a strong aura. Lu Wan and Gou Xun, who were originally talking in low voices, were both stunned and turned their heads at the same time. Lu Wan looked at him with some surprise, “A’Lang?”

“Go back,” Ye Lang said. “You have to pay if you lose the game.”

Lu Wan let out an “Ah.”.

Gou An behind them: “…”

How come he was so obedient now and readily went to persuade her to quit?

Why let her quit? While everyone would be jumping around looking for things to borrow, the heroine would be on the deck looking at the moon and then bump into a key figure. How could she let such a good thing happen?

As Gou An’s malicious thoughts came mind, she immediately winked at Tang Xinjiu who was not far away. Tang Xinjiu obeyed her unspoken instructions and grabbed Lu Wan’s arm from behind. 

“You can’t run away, everyone here tonight must participate! If you give up now, you automatically lose!”

Lu Wan’s face turned pale, and she began to struggle in panic. Tang Xinjiu held her arm tightly, “Lu Wan, you’re not such a spoilsport, are you?”

Lu Wan: “…”

[Jiaojiao: The vicious female supporting character and her lackeys bully the heroine.]

[Jiaojiao: What a standard plot scene.]

[Jiaojiao: It would be a masterpiece if the hero descended from the sky now and took the heroine away.]

Gou An hurriedly looked up and was delighted to find that the male protagonist was nowhere to be found. He had left long ago.

It wasn’t just He Jinxing. By this time, the elders in the banquet hall had all basically disappeared. They either went to the deck swimming pool to continue the adult party, or went down to the legal casino in the lower floor to have fun…

There were basically only energetic young people left at the scene.

Not far away, Tang Xinjiu had successfully kept Lu Wan, who now looked panicked, from leaving. Seeing that it was a foregone conclusion that Lu Wan could not leave, Ye Lang returned to Gou An.

“Your friend wanted to keep her.”

After throwing out an explanation without much emotion, Mr. Bodyguard once again took his place behind Gou An.

Looking at the heroine who was looking around with an uneasy face, Gou An’s heart suddenly skipped a beat for no reason, and she suddenly realized—

Gou An: Secretary Jiao!!!

[Jiaojiao: You’re only just realizing this now? Why didn’t you just let her go back quietly to her cabin to sleep?]

[Jiaojiao: But theoretically speaking, there is no plot point here.]

[Jiaojjiao: In the original novel, the hero and heroine were not familiar with each other at this time.]

Gou An: Even though she doesn’t know him well, she dared to throw herself into the male protagonist’s arms that night and ask him to take her away!

[Jiaojiao: All melodramatic CEO novels are like this. The heroine is only courageous in that moment when she throws herself into the hero’s arms to create the first trace of an illicit affair. The rest of the time she is just a pitiful and weak, little white flower—]

Jiaojiao: As for whether the character design and logic are correct, well, it’s a domineering CEO novel. No one will care.]

Gou An: Oh.

That actually made a lot of sense.

[Jiaojiao: In the original novel, the main plot on the yacht was about you, the vicious female supporting character, drugging them and letting them have sex—]

Gou An: Bullshit! I’m responsible for spending money on drugs, I’m responsible for breaking the law and going to jail, and then they’re responsible for having fun and fostering illicit affairs on the readers? Do you think I don’t have a brain? Pah! I can’t possibly give drugs, but I might consider giving rat poison!

[Jiao Jiao: ……]

[Jiao Jiao: But if the plot is altered, no one can guarantee that the heroine and hero won’t have a new storyline beyond the original plot—remember the hero and heroine’s first encounter? After the plot was forcibly altered, that still happened but differently.]

Gou An: “…”

[Jiao Jiao: Do you regret it now?]

Gou An: “…”

[Jiao Jiao: There’s no point regretting it. The villain always dies because they talk too much.]

From the Day the Engagement was Broken translated by Maela @ whitemoonlighttranslations.com

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Chapter 41.3 —Let’s Play the Borrowing Game!
Chapter 42.1 — The Bow at Her Waist
Chapter 42.2 — The Bow at Her Waist
Chapter 42.3 — The Bow at Her Waist
Chapter 43.1 — Missing Button
Chapter 43.2 — Missing Button
Chapter 44 — May I Have Your Second Button?
Chapter 45.1 — You Didn’t See Me Here
Chapter 45.2 — You Didn’t See Me Here