My Superstar Ex-Husband is a Yandere
Translator: Fuyu
Chapter 7 - "Li Shihui, you actually prefer the version of me that's a celebrity rather than the real me, right?"
A week later.
Su Jiao was resting her chin in her hand while playing a game on her phone. She was sitting on the sofa in Li Shihui's office. As for Li Shihui, she was wearing a pair of blue light-blocking glasses and staring at her monitor.
The administrative staff worked in a large open office together, but Su Jiao thought she could smell a sweaty odor there once the weather warmed up, so she didn't like being there.
Li Shihui was a researcher and a professor, so the university provided her with a private office. Although the office was small, it was an independent space, and it had a nice view with its floor-to-ceiling windows. Li Shihui was a very clean person, and she kept her office spotless. Whenever Su Jiao wasn't busy, she liked to come here to sit.
Li Shihui didn't mind Su Jiao's presence. It got a bit lonely in her office sometimes.
Now that she was done with the recent grant applications, she had to seize this time to start working on the graduate students' theses.
These students were the first group of graduate students that she supervised since obtaining her PhD. Since they were her founding disciples, she was very meticulous. She guided them on topic selection and provided writing assistance. She even carefully kept an eye out for job opportunities for them.
"Lu Xincheng… why hasn't he sent me his first draft yet?" She muttered to herself. She grabbed her phone and checked Lu Xincheng's WeChat. Seeing that their chat history was gone, she furrowed her brow.
She was only mentoring six graduate students, so her phone should have enough memory to store her recent chat history. She didn't use her phone much and couldn't figure out what would cause this sort of error.
"Hui-jie!" Su Jiao had left at some point and was now coming back with two cups of lattes. She placed a cup down on Li Shihui's desk like she was presenting treasure. "Try this, it's Starbuck's new Brown Sugar Boba Latte with whipped cream! Super good!"
Li Shihui's attention was temporarily drawn to Su Jiao. She looked over the flashy drink with its generous whipped cream. She wanted to say no. "I don't really drink lattes…"
She had poor sleep quality and drinking lattes would make her even more prone to insomnia.
Su Jiao hadn't thought of this. She still went all out on recommending. "Come on, try it. It doesn't have much caffeine. It's like drinking bubble tea. Besides, Jiang Minyun endorsed it. We should support him."
Su Jiao turned the cup around, revealing a picture of Jiang Minyun holding the new coffee drink. His gaze was indifferent yet handsome.
Li Shihui blankly looked at his photo. She had the surreal feeling of time flying by. She couldn't remember the last time she used anything related to Jiang Minyun.
She wasn't doing it to avoid suspicion, but rather because she didn't dare to.
In the early stages of Jiang Minyun's career, she enjoyed collecting pages from magazines and small posters that featured him. He wasn't famous yet, so there weren't many items in her collection. She hid her collection in a beautiful box, but somehow, he found it.
"Li Shihui, you actually prefer the version of me that's a celebrity rather than the real me, right?"
Her carefully preserved stack of papers was carelessly clutched in his hand. She could see that his beautiful face on the poster, which looked no different than his actual face, was twisted between his fingers.
"I like all of you! The real you looks the same as the one on the poster." Her face was flushed. She felt embarrassed that he had caught her secret fangirling. She reached out to grab her collection back.
It had taken her two years to finally accumulate this small stack. Her collection included a few posters that were printed in limited quantities because he didn't have a big fan base. Those copies were super rare. She felt distressed that he would so carelessly hold them.
Jiang Minyun was much taller than her, and he was holding his hand above his head. She couldn't reach his hand.
She was about to cry from anxiety. "Give them back to me, please. I like them because they're pictures of you."
Jiang Minyun's expression turned cold. He looked disgusted. "Li Shihui, don't you know that you shouldn't be so greedy? How can you want both? How could such a good thing exist in the world? I'll ask you again. Do you want this, or do you want me?"
He shook the papers, which had already been crumbled into a mess, producing a rough, crinkling sound.
"You! Of course it's you." Li Shihui answered without needing to think. She reached out and held his other hand. "Don't be angry, okay? I only collected these things because I like you."
Her classmate, who was a fan of celebrities, had told her that all celebrities hoped that their fans would collect their merchandise.
"Really?" Jiang Minyun finally smiled. "Then throw them away. I don't need them, and I don't want to see these things."
"Okay, then I won't collect these things anymore." Li Shihui nodded. She thought her acting worked. She pointed at a nearby overflowing metal trash can. "Throw them away there, and we can go."
Jiang Minyun nodded and tossed the papers into the trash can.
Back then, they always met in secluded places. Li Shihui secretly took note of their location and planned to come back to retrieve her collection after Jiang Minyun left.
She pulled Jiang Minyun's hand to leave, but he grabbed her shoulder to stop her.
"Wait."
Jiang Minyun held her and took a step back. She thought he was letting her go first, but then she saw him take a lighter from his pocket, found something to light on fire, and threw that item into the trash can.
In a split second, flames shot up from the trash can. Her eyes felt hot.
No! No…
Li Shihui's eyes widened. She wanted to say something to stop Jiang Minyun's actions, but she knew it was already too late.
Li Shihui felt like her heart was bleeding. Her tears reflected the raging flames.
"Don't think about coming back to retrieve them." Jiang Minyun had seen through her trick. With a playful expression, he pinched her cheek and said, "Don't collect these things anymore."
He turned his head and gently smiled at Li Shihui. As if he had been wronged, he aggrievedly said, "Otherwise, I'll feel jealous."
"Oh." She lowered her head and wiped her tears. She couldn't hold back her sobs. "I won't collect these things anymore. Never…"
Unlike the homes of other celebrities, their home didn't have a single photo of Jiang Minyun by himself. He kept his countless glittering trophies piled up in the basement and out of sight. In their two-story home, besides their yearly couple photos taken on the anniversary of their wedding, there were only photos of Li Shihui by herself.
The flames disappeared and changed to a faded memory.
"Hui-jie, what's wrong?" Su Jiao waved her hand in front of Li Shihui. "Is it because he's too handsome? So you're awestruck?"
"Huh?" Li Shihui's voice was a bit hoarse. She came back to her senses and looked away from Jiang Minyun's photo.
"I better not drink." She was truly afraid of being overstimulated if she drank a caffeinated drink while holding a cup with his photo.
"Okay, okay, I'll ask the other people in my office. I bought two cups to get Jiang Minyun's signed poster. Don't worry about it."
Su Jiao went out with the latte, and only then did Li Shihui relax and go back to working on Lu Xincheng's matter.
She sent him a WeChat message asking when he would be free to come to her office to discuss the progress of his thesis.
Lu Xincheng replied back very quickly that he would bring his first draft to see her next Wednesday. Li Shihui was fine with that.
Seeing Su Jiao coming back with a novel and thinking that she might know more about phones than herself, Li Shihui asked, "Little Su, would you know why WeChat messages would suddenly disappear?"
"Hmm? Let me see." Su Jiao walked over to see Li Shihui's phone.
Li Shihui had gotten used to not chatting with Jiang Minyun on WeChat for the past two months, so she offered Su Jiao her phone with the WeChat interface open without thinking.
"For example, I was talking to one of my students last week, but my messages with him suddenly disappeared. I couldn't find anything in my chat history. What could cause this?"
Su Jiao said, "Did you delete your message thread with him? Deleting that will delete your chat history with him too." She chewed on a straw and suggested, "Could you have cleared WeChat's stored data off your phone? But if that's true, then all of your WeChat messages would have disappeared."
"I don't think so." Li Shihui was worried about delaying things and was still trying to recall when Su Jiao clicked the back button and swiped up out of habit. Her swipe was enough to scroll all the way to the top.
"Are your messages with other people still there?" Su Jiao asked.
Seeing the pinned name, Su Jiao froze for a moment.
Li Shihui swiftly locked her phone and stuttered, "S-Still there." Thinking that Su Jiao had seen her messages with Jiang Minyun, she felt like her heart was about to leap up to her throat.
Su Jiao knew it was impolite to look at other people's messages. "Sorry Hui-jie, I swiped up out of habit."
Li Shihui's mind was a mess. She wasn't ready to make her marriage with Jiang Minyun public, so she could only plead, "Could you… please not tell anyone?"
"Pfft, what are you saying?" Su Jiao laughed. "What's there to say? That you and Brother-in-law are still so affectionate? Don't worry. I won't tell anyone."
(T/N: Su Jiao is addressing Li Shihui's husband as brother-in-law to show closeness. There's no blood relation.)
"Huh?" It was Li Shihui's turn to be confused. She opened WeChat and found out that Jiang Minyun had changed his profile name on her phone to "Super amazing, universally unparalleled, my one and only beloved hubby". She thought the address was nauseatingly sappy.
No wonder Su Jiao had misunderstood.
"Oh, yeah…" Li Shuhui sighed in relief. One more second, and her clothes would have become damp with sweat. Her face slowly became heated. "Uh, he changed it."
Su Jiao looked like someone that saw through everything, but wouldn't expose the lie. "Sure, Brother-in-law is the one that changed it. I believe you. But how surprising that he uses Jiang Minyun's Weibo profile picture. Oh, Jiang Minyun seems to have never changed his profile picture, hmm."
Su Jiao lightly tapped her newly manicured index finger on Li Shihui's desk, and she asked, "Hui-jie, you love Jiang Minyun so deeply. Did you force your husband to use this profile picture?"
Jiang Minyun's Weibo profile picture was a close-up headshot taken with a low-resolution, vintage-style filter. The youth in the photo was wearing a white turtleneck sweater and sitting at a school desk with his head tilted and resting in his arms. His dark, bright eyes were gazing at the camera.
Jiang Minyun had been using this photo since he registered on Weibo. Later on, he used this photo as his profile picture across all platforms, so it was easy to recognize it.
Li Shihui knew that it was impossible to prove her innocence. She closed her eyes and reluctantly answered, "Mhm, yeah."
"Then do you want one of my extra copies of his signed poster? I actually bought six cups." Su Jiao held up a poster to give to Li Shihui. "How come he doesn't age? His photo at 30 years old doesn't look any different from his photo when he was 20 years old! He's great at acting, and he got married young. Do you remember? I met him a week ago. I was awestruck. He's so handsome. He was wearing a mask and only his eyes were visible. He looked even more handsome than in the poster."
"N-No need." Li Shihui couldn't resist the poster's charm. She wistfully touched the poster before returning it to Su Jiao.
Su Jiao saw her reluctant expression and teased, "Are you afraid that Brother-in-law will get jealous? He even changed his profile picture to match a famous actor's just to chat with you! It's just a poster. He'll forgive you."
Su Jiao leaned over closer and whispered in a playful tone, "It's okay. You’re just making a mistake that all women make."
After laughing for a bit, she suddenly thought of something and sighed. "Hui-jie, when do you think my romance will finally come?"
Upset, Su Jiao took a big gulp of her latte. "Our Zhicheng-gege went back to the US right after that dinner. Being in a long-distance relationship is so tiring. Once, after I waited two days for him to reply to my message, he only said, "Busy, forgot." That's all he wrote. Are professors like you and him really so busy that it takes two days to reply?
Li Shihui hadn't had any contact with Lin Zhicheng after he drove her home. She didn't know that he had gone back to the US. Thinking about how she and Jiang Minyun had often missed each other's messages due to different time zones in the past two months, she hesitantly nodded and suggested, "He could be busier than usual?"
(T/N: China only has one official time zone. I'm going to assume he was filming outside of China.)
"Hmph, I'll be the bigger person and forgive him this time. If he does it again, he'll have to apologize!"
Su Jiao just wanted her friend to agree with her. Her enthusiasm for Lin Zhicheng hadn't faded yet. Even if someone tried to discourage her with reality, she wouldn't give up.
She put down her cup and tilted her head back to admire her fingernails under the light. "You know, I'm almost 26. I'm rich and beautiful, so why can't I find a wonderful youth to bask in the sacred light of love with me?"
Li Shihui wasn't in the mood to continue working, so she took a break to get water from the water dispenser and chatted, "26 is still very young! You told me before that a lot of male PhD students at the university are also single. You don't like any of them?"
The gurgling sound of the water dispenser overlapped with Su Jiao's sweet and charming voice.
"Not interested, not interested. Those PhD students don't have jobs yet. Once they graduate, even if they're broke, there will be women in a rush to marry them. Men are different from us. The older we get, the harder it'll be to find someone, especially since I want to find someone that's handsome and wealthy."
Sometimes, Su Jiao felt that Li Shihui was quite naive. She counted on her fingers for her.
"Hui-jie, think about it. I'm almost 26. It'll take me two years of dating to get to know the other party, right? Then there's getting the marriage certificate, buying a home, and planning the wedding. That will take a year, right? And once we move into the new home, we'll have to start trying for a baby. By the time I give birth, I'll be almost 30. If I wait, it'll be risky to have children at an older age!" When Su Jiao spoke quickly, a slight local accent would emerge.
Li Shihui's head was spinning from Su Jiao's calculations. They were only four years apart, but their views on marriage and relationships were so shockingly different.
Li Shihui nostalgically sighed, "I hadn't graduated yet when I got married. We had nothing then."
Author's Note:
Jiang Minyun (grabbing her shoulders): You like the me that's a celebrity, right?
Li Shihui (with a look of certainty): Yeah.
Jiang Minyun (a pale face): Okay, then I'll act out a scene of me dying.
Translator Ramblings: I initially thought his reaction upon finding out that she's been collecting memorabilia was unreasonably psychotic, but after seeing Idol I (2026 K-drama), I can understand why his reaction is so excessive. He really needs to go to therapy.