For Jiang Zao, face was probably more important than eating or sleeping. If she accidentally lost face in front of someone, she might never see that person again.
So when the person on the phone called her bluff, her first thought wasn’t to ask for help—it was pure shame. Her cheeks burned with tingling heat, and goosebumps raced up her back.
Suddenly, she desperately wanted Xie Lisheng to vanish from the world.
It felt like she’d lost face in front of him so many times already.
Ugh, she must be fated to clash with him.
Jiang Zao admitted in a feeble voice, “Yeah… I’m at the police station.”
Strangely, it gave her the same guilty twinge as a kid who’d gotten in trouble at school.
The police officer noticed her on the phone and asked, “Found someone? Hurry it up.”
The person on the line must have overheard the officer because he asked directly, “Need me to come?”
Jiang Zao pressed her lips together, torn. “…”
Xie Lisheng had witnessed so many of her awkward moments—and he’d even caused plenty of them himself.
Who in their right mind would want someone they looked down on to see them in such a pathetic state after a fight?
Should she bother her little aunt to come in the middle of the night, or ask the guy on the phone?
Jiang Zao weighed her options, took a deep breath, and finally spoke. “…Sorry to trouble you.”
On the other end, Xie Lisheng’s tone lightened. “Alright, I’ll come bail you out.”
After hanging up, Jiang Zao suddenly regretted it. She had the nagging feeling he’d sounded awfully smug.
~~~
She told the police officer she’d contacted a friend, then endured another round of lecturing. The mediation room felt stuffy, and those two had called their own friends to back them up. With four people—two men and two women—glaring at her like hawks, she got cold feet and stepped outside to wait.
Mid-June, in the chilly early morning after a rain, Jiang Zao sat on the damp stone bench, glancing toward the police station entrance every few moments.
She rubbed her arms and pondered what casual pose she could strike to look dignified when he arrived.
On her umpteenth glance toward the corner of the compound gate, a tall, slender figure emerged right on cue.
Jiang Zao’s head snapped down. She didn’t even check if she’d really seen him—her hands just clenched together tightly.
A dozen seconds later, a faint breeze stirred as he stopped in front of her.
She stared at the stylish thin chain on his basic Western-style trousers, confirming it matched his usual style.
“What happened?” Xie Lisheng cut straight to it.
As his voice rang clearly in the air, a wave of bitterness welled up in Jiang Zao’s chest.
Maybe it was because, in this tense and awkward place, someone she knew had finally shown up.
She buried her head even lower. Once the impulse faded, waves of fear and regret crashed over her, blaming herself relentlessly.
“I got into an argument with my roommates.”
His voice stayed even. “Over what?”
Her mouth felt sealed shut. Her gaze went dull, like she was talking to herself. “Some trivial stuff. Really minor things. I shouldn’t have lost my temper over it.”
“My temper’s awful. They were right—I acted like a lunatic.” Jiang Zao’s fingers trembled faintly as they gripped her clothes, but her eyes stared blankly ahead, filled with endless self-reproach. “I smashed things, slammed doors. I have violent tendencies.”
“Jiang Zao.” He cut off her rambling abruptly.
“Lift your head first.”
She froze, then slowly raised her eyes, meeting Xie Lisheng’s dark, steady gaze.
Only once her face was tilted up did he get a clear look at her injuries.
Jiang Zao’s skin was already fair, and her face was delicate, so the slap marks stood out starkly—bruised and swollen, with bits of broken skin. Under the lights, it looked pretty alarming.
And yet, she stared back at him with an air of detached innocence, as if she were the one at fault.
Xie Lisheng rarely struggled to pin down his own emotions, but in that moment, he inexplicably wanted to snap at her.
He reached out, gently pinching her chin and tilting her head side to side to inspect the damage. His eyes shifted to hers. “Someone slapped you like this, and you’re the one claiming violent tendencies?”
It was impossible to deal with someone who kept getting under his skin like this.
He and Jiang Zao really were a bad match.
When his hand touched her chin, Jiang Zao first felt a tingle of skin-on-skin contact, followed by a faint ache from the wound.
She felt off all over, pushing at his wrist with her fingers, avoiding his eyes. “…You’ll see once you go inside.”
~~~
Xie Lisheng stepped into the mediation room and saw the disheveled, injured couple sitting there—especially the woman, whose cheek and mouth were battered, one strap of her camisole torn clean off, and a patch of hair yanked out.
He glanced back silently at Jiang Zao trailing behind him and said from the heart, “You’re something else.”
Jiang Zao shrank back like she hadn’t done it herself. “…”
The police officer looked at Xie Lisheng and asked, “What is your relationship to her?”
Jiang Zao whispered softly, “He’s… my boss.”
The police officer: ?
Xie Lisheng was speechless and supplemented for her, “We’re friends. Officer, how do we handle this?”
When the two women had gotten into a fight, Zhou Ying’s boyfriend hadn’t dared to get directly involved. He’d only tried to pull them apart and pushed her a few times, but he’d still taken two whacks from Jiang Zao’s stick.
Zhou Ying and her boyfriend insisted that Jiang Zao pay for repairs, medical fees, and emotional distress damages. Otherwise, they’d sue her for intentional assault and have her detained.
Xie Lisheng sat beside Jiang Zao. After hearing the story, he raised an eyebrow and came straight to the point. “We’ll cover the door and window repairs. Everything else gets settled peacefully—each side treats their own injuries.”
Zhou Ying cursed loudly, “In your dreams! She smashed my door without a word and was prying into our privacy! That’s provocation and disturbance!”
Xie Lisheng pulled out his phone and scrolled through it. He lifted his eyes and asked, his tone calm but cutting, “Your door wasn’t even open. How was Jiang Zao supposed to know what you were doing?”
Zhou Ying was stunned, so furious she stammered, “H-how wouldn’t she know? Any adult knows what that kind of noise means!”
He followed up smoothly, “So you’re admitting your noise was loud enough to disturb others through a closed door, right?”
Zhou Ying’s eyes widened.
“Jiang Zao knocked to try for a normal conversation. And your response? Who was it that said to hurry up and finish so she could hear the fun? Who said maybe she was knocking because she wanted in on the excitement?”
Xie Lisheng narrowed his eyes. “She showed great restraint by not suing you for sexual harassment. And now you’re pushing your luck?”
Zhou Ying’s face froze. Her boyfriend touched his nose awkwardly.
Jiang Zao sat beside him, picking at her fingers and blinking.
…Okay, damn.
He was saying things even she hadn’t dared to voice.
“Also, about your claim of intentional assault.” Xie Lisheng twirled the black ballpoint pen on the table, speaking at an unhurried pace as if resolving this was easier than taking a drink of water. “There’s home surveillance footage in the living room. Jiang Zao smashing the door and throwing things? At worst, that’s damaging a tenant’s furniture and fixtures. But who was it that came out swinging the moment the door opened?”
He glanced at Zhou Ying and then looked away, too lazy to give her another look. “Jiang Zao was acting in self-defense. You’re the one who committed assault.”
From defendant to victim in the blink of an eye—Jiang Zao sneaked a peek at him, marveling: …He could spin black into white.
If he weren’t the boss of such a massive company.
Running R&D operations, he was probably a pro at deception, swindles, and every trick in the book.
“But my word isn’t law. If you have any objections…” He dialed a number right then, held the phone to his ear, and looked at the couple. “I’ve called our lawyer. We can let the court sort out the facts.”
Zhou Ying had never intended to actually sue. She couldn’t afford litigation fees anyway—she’d just wanted to squeeze out as much compensation as possible. She’d thought Jiang Zao was a pushover, but the guy she’d called in was anything but.
“Wait!! I haven’t even finished talking, and you’re rushing to call a lawyer?!”
Zhou Ying glared viciously at Jiang Zao. After whispering with her boyfriend and failing to come to an agreement, she had no choice but to swallow her pride. She signed the settlement agreement with a slam. “It’s my bad luck to have a roommate like you! If you’ve got mental issues, go get them treated! Don’t drag others down!”
Jiang Zao sat there with her head down, still feeling somewhat in the wrong and full of regret.
Hearing the faint murmur of “sorry” from beside him, Xie Lisheng’s eyelids drooped. He tilted his head toward the woman and spoke. “Keep cursing, and we’ll sue you for defamation. The lawyer’s already on the way anyway.”
The moment Zhou Ying heard the lawyer was coming, she hurriedly dragged her boyfriend out of the police station.
~~~
With the matter settled smoothly, the police officer hadn’t expected things to play out this way. He was surprised but didn’t show it as he watched the tall, lanky man lead the door-smashing girl away.
Jiang Zao followed silently behind Xie Lisheng, unable to stop sighing.
The man ahead stopped in his tracks and turned back to ask her, “What are you sighing about? You don’t still have unresolved issues, do you?”
She glanced at Xie Lisheng and shook her head, dejected. “I just feel like I’m not getting any younger, but my ability to handle things is still so poor. What have I even learned after all these years in school?”
“Not only do I panic when trouble hits, but I also get emotional too easily.”
Xie Lisheng shoved his hands in his pockets, genuinely surprised. “You have a pretty clear view of yourself.”
Jiang Zao: “…”
Thanks. That just made her feel worse.
“School stuff, no matter how complicated, is just a diluted version of real society.” His tone was flat, offering no real comfort, but his words rang true. “Grad school teaches you your specialty—it doesn’t cover dealing with thugs and ruffians.”