The Overnight Chosen Wife: darling, kiss me deeper

Lanni sat up. "That’s good news!"

"No it isn’t. Well, at least not entirely." Said Luna, and Lanni knitted her brows in confusion.

"What do you mean by that?" She asked.

"All of this was orchestrated by Ji Meiling. I have no idea what she intended to do but she met up with Yu Guang a few days ago. According to the video I recovered of them, she gave him a cheque for something. It’s a surveillance video that didn’t support audio, so I can only speculate. I’m guessing she asked him to find you and have implicating pictures taken with you and him in compromising positions."

Lanni was speechless even though she had started to have a feeling that Ji Meiling could be involved.

" Thanks. I’ll just prove my innocence first."

" I’ll deal with that woman for you." Luna promised before hanging up.

On the other hand, Lanni gripped her phone tightly in disbelief. How could this be?

"Luna found evidence that Aunt Meiling really did this. What does she have against me?" She didn’t understand, especially since the woman had liked her before. Was it all fake? Did she do something to provoke the woman?

"Forget about her. I will handle this." He hugged her.

"Don’t just get rid of her without knowing the truth. Maybe she did this for a good reason." She reminded him, because she knew that it would be better for everyone if it could be settled without violence. She was, after all, family.

"I don’t care what her reason was. She had no right to attack you but she did so anyway, so she must face the consequences." His brows knitted.

"Well, thank you for looking out for me." She hugged his arm. He was always protecting her, and didn’t care whether or not the person who attacked her was important as well. As long as she was safe, nothing else mattered to him. In return, she made a mental promise to be the best wife to him. He deserved it for being a better husband than she could ever deserve.

Ji Meiling continued attacking, oblivious to the fact that she had already been sniffed out and Xiehan, Lanni, Luna and Lin Jian were all keeping an eye on her. When the screenshots were proven to be fake and Luna put up the video of Yu Guang forcefully kissing Lanni, the netizens’ reactions morphed from raging at her for being a promiscuous, disrespectful wife to crying out for her justice.

"It is never alright to kiss a woman who doesn’t want it. This is abuse!"

"Who the hell is this pervert? He must be arrested!"

"Throw him into the ocean! We don’t want young women to be exposed to the dangers of having such men around."

"The point is, Li Lanni is a married woman. Everyone knows this. She was even wearing a ring, in case the scumbag didn’t know, but from Lin Jian’s reaction, he knew. Why would he still forcefully kiss her?" Someone asked.

"Obviously, because he was paid to tarnish her reputation." Another netizen hinted at the screenshots that had been proven fake, opening a can of worms.

Many speculated that the culprit was Lanni’s romantic rival who couldn’t accept the fact that Lanni was married to her crush, while others guessed that it must be a business rival of Lin Media Group trying to get their competitors out of the way. Lanni was such a popular figure in the media industry, after all, and most people would be unaccepting of her if she were proven to be promiscuous and unrestrained.

However, the ladies had a different opinion. Lanni gathered together with Luna, Ruby, and Cheng Yu to discuss it.

Ruby was the one who had called them, so she looked at the three who were holding cups of their drinks in hand. "I did not call Xiaoshi because we are about to discuss her mother and this might be awkward for her."

"That makes sense." Remarked Lanni, but Cheng Yu was confused.

"The three of you think Ji Meiling is behind this? But she loves you and Xiehan, right?" Her question was directed at Lanni.

"I don’t think she does anymore. And we don’t just think...we know she is behind this." Lanni answered, swallowing past a lump in her throat.

"I did not see that coming. Yikes." Cheng Yu’s lips curled in disgust. Whatever reason Ji Meiling had, it would not be enough for her to do this to her nephew.

"We already know that she is behind this and Luna discovered evidence. Lin Jian and I found something too," Ruby sipped her coffee. "She has been acting strange. She and my mother have always been at each other’s throat. But since the rumors started to erupt, she is unusually closer to mother."

"That sounds to me like someone trying to hide their guilt." Luna crossed her arms.

"Exactly. We thought so too." Ruby turned to Cheng Yu who was near her. "Xiao Yu, can I borrow your tablet?"

"Sure...?" Cheng Yu didn’t understand why the latter needed it but she had always carried her tablet around so she gave it to her. Under their watch, Ruby drew squares and wrote in them Lanni’s name as well as her own and Xiehan’s.

"Alright, Sherlock Ruby Holmes. What are you getting at?" Luna asked when the latter scribbled for an eternity without a word.

"Look." Ruby pointed at the squares with arrows connecting them. "Let’s use Linhou as an example. If Linhou had a wife and she cheated on him, how would the three of you react?"

"Use the chance to let the little girl and Linhou know that they should be studying instead of doing things they don’t understand." Luna’s brows knitted, making the others burst into laughter. She would definitely be strict with her children’s dating lives.

"Linhou is an adult in this hypothetical situation." Cheng Yu calmed her down. "I would not want to ever see that girl again. If I do, I will destroy her."

"You will not be able to because she will be destroyed in my hands. I will teach her a lesson she will never forget." Lanni remarked, hating the situation even though it was only hypothetical."

Luna refused to answer the question, having so much hate for the hypothetical girl even though she didn’t exist.

Ruby smiled. "What if the same girl were to snatch Xiaomu’s boyfriend?"

Luna’s eyes flared when she got the point. "Is Ji Meiling trying to make it seem like Lanni broke the hearts of both siblings?"

"Exactly." Ruby deleted the squares since they now understood her. "Aunt is not sure of Lanni’s relationship with mother, what with their hatred for each other in the past. She is trying to make use of the rumors to damage the relationship between them even further. Why she would do that, I cannot tell you."

Cheng Yu rubbed her temples. "Was that so hard to explain that you had to use a hypothesis?"

"For better understanding of how mother is feeling right now." Ruby shrugged.

"My relationship with Lin Jian may not be damaged, and Lanni’s innocence has been proven, but that doesn’t mean mother is not uncomfortable."

"Just great." Lanni huffed. "Is she trying to make us divorce by force? If she is, she can go to hell."

"We have to stop her." Cheng Yu was enraged.

"That, we do." Luna seconded. "Well, we didn’t involve Xiaoshi because we don’t want her to be uncomfortable but we might need her. She knows her mother better than all of us."

"Why do we need her? Let’s not forget that an offspring will always take after its parents. If they were to side with each other, what would they do to Lanni?" Cheng Yu was against the idea.

"Xiaoshi has never been a bad person to begin with." Lanni pointed out.

"That doesn’t mean she can’t be one now." Cheng Yu was still uncomfortable.

"Don’t worry. We don’t have to tell her anything. We just have to use her as the starting point while investigating Ji Meiling. When we get Ji Meiling’s darkest secret, she will have the options, to either stay out of Lanni’s and Xiehan’s lives or have her secret splattered across the Internet."

"That’s a good enough solution, I think." Responded Lanni, who didn’t want to make family members estranged from each other unless it really had to happen.

"I still think we should send her to hell." Ruby scrunched her face. She would never be able to get along with the woman who almost made her and Lin Jian break up.

"We can send her to Australia instead. She likes it there and she will be away from Lanni and Xiehan. Double win." Cheng Yu countered, and they all agreed to the solution.

When Ji Meiling realized that the trouble she had stirred was no longer useful, she was furious. It didn’t take long before a new one came up, accusing Lanni of having murdered someone just so she could ensure that she was the first one to report it. It happened just two days after an article she published related to a psychotic murder topped the search rankings.

She even went so far as to have fake commenters blow up the matter. What she would never have expected, however, was that her fans would see through the move as soon as it was doled out. Lanni had already reminded them that reacting to a fake article would only give it publicity, so they ignored it altogether. In the end, it got drowned in tens of more interesting articles.

___

AN: Mass release this Sunday.