The Comeback of the Cannon-Fodder Supporting Actress

Hu Laosan brought his men and took Yang Baolin away.

Not a single person from the Yang Family dared say a word.

And with so many neighbors standing around, not one of them dared make a sound either.

After that crowd left, Yang Baozhu suddenly rushed out of the house.

She ran out and immediately started accusing Anning: ”You’re up to no good. I’m telling you, if my second brother gets beaten until something goes wrong, I will never let you off.”

Anning was just about to go inside when she heard that. She turned back to look at Yang Baozhu: ”Fine, then you go and switch places with your second brother.”

After saying that, Anning didn’t want to see anyone from the Yang Family ever again.

She called out to Pei Laoshi: ”Dad, let’s go home.”

Pei Laoshi was still a bit worried. Once they were inside, he asked Anning: ”If something really does happen to Yang Baolin, won’t they come make trouble for you?”

Anning gave a cold laugh: ”Let them. I’d like to see just how much nerve they’ve got.”

By this time, Liu Dalian, An Xian, and Anjing were all up.

They were sitting in the living room; seeing Anning and the others come back, they asked, ”What happened?”

Zhao Chuan, still furious, ran through what had just happened: ”There’s not a decent person in the Yang Family. They don’t dare provoke Hu Laosan themselves. Fourth Sis helped them, and instead of being grateful they turned around and blamed her. If you ask me, Fourth Sis shouldn’t have helped them at all.”

”Exactly.”

Anjing was angry too: ”What kind of people are they, picking on the weak and fearing the strong.”

An Xian asked Anning: ”How come you spoke up for them? Hasn’t Yang Baozhu done more than enough to screw us over?”

Anning actually wasn’t that angry: ”If this had happened to anyone today, I’d have stepped in and said a few words. Yes, Yang Baozhu has harmed us, and I don’t think much of the Yang Family as people. If Hu Laosan and his lot only wanted to give them a beating, I absolutely wouldn’t meddle. But what they wanted to do was... I can’t stand Yang Baozhu, I have a grudge against her, and I’ll take my revenge in broad daylight, but I refuse to humiliate her in that way.”

Anning has a bottom line as a person. She’s crossed over countless times, suffered who knows how many kinds of bullying, seen who knows how much darkness, been wronged, insulted, suppressed, tormented; in many lives she didn’t die a good death. But none of that twisted her mind into something dark—her moral baseline is still there.

When it comes to enemies, she always goes for the heart and takes open, aboveboard revenge. She’s never used underhanded, shameful tricks. She won’t let herself become someone who can’t face the light just to get back at a particular person. No matter which life she’s in, she insists on living upright. She walks a blazing, broad road and strives to act in a way that’s fair and honorable.

Anning’s words instantly calmed An Xian and Anjing down.

They’ve suffered under rumors, been bullied plenty, and know better than anyone what that feels like.

Anjing looked at Anning: ”I’ll remember what you said. If Yang Baozhu dares come messing with me again, I’ll tear her face to shreds.”

Capital

Ms. Hong thought it over for two days and finally decided to cut the knot quickly and get rid of An Yi with money.

She asked An Yi out again and handed five million to her.

”Swear that from now on you will never entangle yourself with Kai Feng again.”

An Yi smiled and looked at Ms. Hong: ”Okay. I, Pei Anyi, hereby swear that from today on, I will never pester Chu Kaifeng again.”

After swearing, An Yi looked straight at Ms. Hong and asked, word by word: ”Are you satisfied now?”

Ms. Hong glared hard at An Yi: ”Country bumpkin. You’re getting off cheap. You’d be hard-pressed to earn five million in your whole life. You’d better keep your word.”

After Ms. Hong left, An Yi took a taxi to the bank. She transferred the money onto a bank card, then took that card and donated the money to Project Hope.

After making the donation, An Yi went back to school and continued being her good student.

Two days later, Huang Long called An Yi and said he was about to arrive in the Capital.

An Yi asked for the exact time, then started booking a hotel for Huang Long. She also checked some routes, planning to take him around this Si Jiu City once he arrived.

Huang Long arrived in the Capital in the morning. It happened to be Sunday, so An Yi cleared her schedule and went to the airport early to pick him up.

Seeing Huang Long, An Yi was still laughing: ”Brother Huang, you’re a different man now.”

Huang Long was wearing a gray suit with a black coat over it, plus sunglasses. It looked a bit pretentious, but at a quick glance he actually had some style.

He took off his sunglasses: ”Well, I’ve got money now.”

He spoke halting Mandarin: ”When I saw you all in Dream City last year, I was a mess. I’m a useless guy—no one at home thinks much of me. I could only wring some money out of them and come out to hustle on my own. I wanted to prove myself to my old man, let him see I’m not that bad. Didn’t expect to meet a noble. Brother Xiao took me along for this past year, and now the cash I’ve got on hand isn’t any less than my old man’s. Damn, I’m living well without the Huang family. I don’t have to watch anyone’s face anymore. My old man doesn’t dare scold me now; instead he has to coax me. As if I don’t know—they’re all eyeing the money in my hands.”

Now that Huang Long had money, the people at home still treated him like a fool. One by one they tried to butter him up, just wanting to get their hands on his cash.

Huang Long wasn’t stupid; of course he could see it clearly.

He hadn’t felt comfortable staying in Mingzhu; it was suffocating. So he wanted to come here to invest, and coming to the Capital was also about looking for opportunities, and seeing what the Capital was really like.

He had a lot of pent-up anger with no one to talk to. Now that he was seeing An Yi, someone on his side, he naturally needed to vent.

An Yi listened carefully: ”Don’t be mad, Brother Huang. You’ve got money now and have set up your own investment company. Life’s going great—what’s there to be afraid of from them? We can’t keep dwelling on the past; we have to look ahead, look toward money. We’ll keep cooperating and making money together. When you’ve become a big investment shark, will you even bother looking at them?”

That did make sense.

Huang Long laughed as soon as he heard it: ”Good, I like that kind of talk. In a while I’ll go find your brother-in-law and have a proper discussion with him about which direction to invest in. Right now I’ve got nothing but one thing—lots of money.”

”Make sure you take me along for the fun when the time comes. I really don’t have much cash on hand now.”

An Yi, smiling, led Huang Long outside.

As soon as Huang Long heard that, he pulled out a bank card: ”If you’re short, just tell your brother. Take it—your brother’s pocket money for you.”

An Yi accepted the card with a smile: ”Then I really won’t stand on ceremony.”

”What’s there to be polite about with your brother? This is something your sister-in-law told me to give you before I left. She said it’s for you to buy clothes, cosmetics, jewelry, that kind of thing. Spend it, don’t you go saving it for your brother and sister-in-law.”

Huang Long said it with particular generosity.

An Yi waved down a taxi: ”I’ll call and thank Sis-in-law later.”

Huang Long and the assistant he’d brought got in, and An Yi got into the taxi too: ”I’ve booked a hotel. You and Ming Zhu can go and rest first. I don’t have class tomorrow afternoon, so I’ll take you around this Si Jiu City.”