Hearing Xie Lisheng speak pulled Jiang Zao back to her senses from her overwhelming emotions.
Once she got worked up like that, she could barely hear anything anyone else said. Calling it a trance wouldn’t be an exaggeration.
To avoid exposing this flaw, she’d spent years deliberately numbing her emotions, making her reactions a bit slower than normal.
But when something like this happened, she still ended up making a fool of herself.
Tears still clung to the corners of her eyes as she snapped back to reality. She quickly grabbed his arm and started checking him over. “Are you okay? Are you hurt anywhere? We should go to the hospital…”
That dull thud of the shovel hitting him earlier hadn’t sounded like child’s play.
Seeing her finally act like a normal person brought a spark of intense curiosity to Xie Lisheng’s face as he studied her. He let her tug at him and poke around as she pleased.
When she flipped over his right hand and spotted the bloody scratches and bruises, Jiang Zao’s expression darkened. She let go and charged back at the man, who was now slumped on the ground, too beaten to fight back. She aimed a kick at him.
“Hey, hey.” Xie Lisheng couldn’t help but chuckle as he pulled her back once more.
“I already told you, he’s still got intent to harm.”
Jiang Zao’s chest felt tight and clogged. She turned back, grabbed his injured hand again, and gently touched his knuckles. Looking up at him, she asked, “Can you move it? How does it feel?”
“I can move it. The bone should be fine.” Xie Lisheng replied as he pulled out his phone with his left hand to call the police. He spoke into it calmly. “Hello, this is the intersection of Wanyuan Road and Shengping Road in Jinhu District, Qinnan City…”
Jiang Zao watched quietly as he made the call. Gazing up at him, Xie Lisheng seemed even taller somehow. Up close like this, his voice sounded better than usual, too.
She found herself getting lost in the sight of him.
His nose bridge was straight and high, and with the light hitting just right, the shadow nearly covered his right eye.
Had anyone ever told him his bone structure was exceptionally striking? Probably.
Hm? There was a mole on the side of his jaw, too.
Truth be told, with a face like that, he could get married eight lifetimes over and never lack for women. It was just his mouth that ruined it.
But… when he got serious, he was actually pretty reliable.
No wonder he had such a rotten temper but still had plenty of friends.
Thinking back now, it made sense that half the posts on the school’s confession wall back in the day had been about Wei Yuan and the other half about him.
Jiang Zao stared at his lips as they moved while he spoke, and for some reason, she recalled the feel of that accidental kiss the other day.
A gust of wind carried the taste of dust and grit, snapping her back to reality and making her realize just how out of it she was. They’d barely escaped danger, and here she was thinking nonsense.
Embarrassed, she stepped back, about to let go of his hand—when the man on the phone gripped hers in return.
Her heart jolted like a cat’s tail suddenly singed. She flinched and curled her fingers.
His palm was dry and warm. Every little shift and rub sent an itch racing from her hand straight through her whole body.
“Yeah, we’re staying right here. Please hurry—we can’t guarantee we’ll keep the assailant under control much longer.”
Even with his right hand injured, Xie Lisheng gripped her firmly to hold her back. She didn’t dare struggle, afraid she’d hurt him if she pulled too hard.
The police dispatched the nearest officers to handle things quickly. He hung up and shot her a sidelong glance, raising an eyebrow. “Why’s your face red?”
Jiang Zao ducked her head even lower. “…”
“You’re the one clinging to me.”
At that, Xie Lisheng didn’t let go. Instead, he lifted her hand for a closer look and teased, “Oh, I thought you just wanted to switch up how you were holding on.”
Her face burned hotter. Not daring to pull away forcefully, she urged him verbally instead. “No, let go… Come on, let go already.”
“Your hand’s still bleeding.”
Xie Lisheng blinked in surprise. “Don’t worry about it. It’s nothing serious.”
She glanced sideways and corrected him. “I mean, don’t get blood on me. It’s gross.”
Xie Lisheng: “…”
The police took down his number and called back a minute or two later to check on their status and exact location. Xie Lisheng needed to head to the hospital first. Jiang Zao glanced at her phone and started to walk off, but he called after her. “Where are you going?”
“You go to the hospital ahead of me. I’ll catch up in a bit,” she said.
Xie Lisheng gave her a questioning look.
Jiang Zao felt awkward. It wasn’t the best time to bring this up, but she explained anyway. “I promised to bring dinner back for my roommates. What I bought earlier got spilled everywhere, so I need to grab a new batch and drop it off at home before I come to the hospital with you.”
He listened, glanced at his still-bleeding hand, then back at her. “So, in other words, your roommates’ dinner matters more than me?”
Jiang Zao fell silent.
Xie Lisheng laughed.
She knew saying “yes” would be too harsh—after all, he’d just saved her life—but…
“Either way, I promised the roommates I’d get them dinner first…”
“No…”
The corners of his mouth drooped. “They’d rather starve to death than eat the food you buy? Is that right?”
Jiang Zao fidgeted with her fingers, unable to respond.
Well… what if?
Xie Lisheng sighed and pulled out his phone to make a call. “Tell me the address. I’ll order takeout for them on your behalf. How about that?”
She had actually thought of the same idea herself and was about to say she’d handle it when she looked up and met his already displeased gaze. Clearly, he had no intention of listening to her explanations anymore.
“…” Jiang Zao silently swallowed the words on the tip of her tongue and nodded.
She went along with his plan, obediently giving him the home address.
After sending a WeChat message with an excuse to Li Li and the others, Jiang Zao got into the police car with Xie Lisheng alongside a police officer. They headed first to the hospital to treat their wounds, then back to the police station to give statements.
~~~
Who would have thought she’d end up at the police station twice in just a few short hours from dusk till evening—and for completely different reasons?
What on earth was going on lately? Was she going through some kind of tribulation?
And now, her little aunt, who had gotten dragged into this mess because of her, was rushing to the station for the second time that day. She’d just finished helping her kid with homework and was already on the way.
Putting down her phone, Jiang Zao turned to the man sitting beside her.
Xie Lisheng was also tapping away on his phone, his left hand flying across the screen at impressive speed. It was clear this whole ordeal had disrupted his plans for the evening.
She slowly lowered her gaze to his right hand, now wrapped in white bandages.
The bones were fine, but it was still sprained. The abrasions on the back of his hand and forearm, cleaned of blood, were too painful to look at.
These were wounds that would have been hers otherwise.
In the neighboring interrogation room, a police officer was loudly berating Pan Yu’s boyfriend, who had regained a bit of his senses. The voice carried over in waves.
Jiang Zao had no energy to pay attention to that. Her eyes fixed on his injury as she softly asked, “…Does it still hurt?”
Her voice was so quiet it was almost like she was talking to herself. Xie Lisheng finished typing a long message before reacting. He paused, turned his head, and looked at her.
She kept staring, so he chuckled and teased her like she was a sulky child. “If I say it hurts, are you gonna blow on it for me?”
Jiang Zao flushed and averted her eyes, muttering under her breath, “Are you a little kid? ‘Blow on it’…”
Xie Lisheng pocketed his phone and turned his full attention to her. “What about you?”
She’d only been shoved once by that person, but the fall onto the car had been solid. Jiang Zao shook her head. “I’m fine. The doctors checked me out—no scrapes or anything.”
He didn’t reply right away, as if considering something. In the end, he reached out.
Xie Lisheng slipped his fingers into the sleeve of her T-shirt, lifting it up from the bottom.
The moment his fingertips brushed her arm, a shiver of goosebumps ran through Jiang Zao. She whipped her head around, about to demand, “What are you doing?”—but the words died in her throat as the man precisely found the spot on her arm that ached from the impact.
He pushed up the sleeve on her right shoulder, revealing the already bruised skin in plain view for both of them.
His finger gently traced over the purple patch. Watching her instinctively flinch, he asked, “And this is ‘no scrapes or anything’?”
He chuckled again. “How are you so delicate?”
Jiang Zao awkwardly pulled her sleeve back down to cover it and admitted honestly, “It only started hurting just now.”
He teased, “Why didn’t you let the doctor take a look? What are you, scared of doctors at your age?”
“It’s not that.” She clasped her hands together, fiddling with them seriously. “Back then, all my attention was on you. I didn’t have time to worry about whether I was hurt or not.”
Xie Lisheng’s gaze grew a touch peculiar as he stared at her face without a word.
The two of them fell into a silent stare-down.
Jiang Zao knew he was looking at her—his gaze was too intense to ignore—but she pretended not to notice, keeping her eyes fixed elsewhere.
After a moment, with the interrogation room’s steady stream of questions and reprimands still audible, Xie Lisheng recalled the scene of the incident and her various reactions. Watching the shadows of people passing by, he spoke up. “How many times has something like this happened to you before?”
Jiang Zao froze.
A few seconds later, she said, “Can I not answer? I… can’t quite remember.”
His tone was light, carrying no judgment. “If you don’t want to say, forget I asked.”
Jiang Zao hesitated.
She really wanted to satisfy his curiosity about her, but she had no idea where to even start.
“I… have dealt with a lot of my mom’s boyfriends,” she said, staring at her fingers as she spread and clenched them. “But not all of them were like this—getting violent right away. So I haven’t actually been hit before. Don’t worry.”
“It’s not…”
She spoke lightly, but perceptive ears still caught the slip. Xie Lisheng turned his head, his gaze settling back on her. “What you’re saying is, even if you didn’t lay a hand on anyone, you still pulled plenty of other dirty tricks, right?”
“What exactly did they do?” His eyes pressed her relentlessly.
Jiang Zao fell silent, her downcast gaze growing even deeper, darker.
“Nothing much… just endless back-and-forth squabbles over money.”
“There were tons of harassing calls and texts. When they got desperate, they’d spew some truly vile things. They rarely ever showed up in person.”
She skimmed over it briefly, deliberately leaving out so much more.
In the stifling, suffocating haze of her teenage years, her mother’s parade of boyfriends had each played their own twisted part.
There were no standout “stars” among them—just a hazy gray blur of faces blending together. These strangers kept invading her home, trampling over the fragile scraps of security she clung to.
Whenever she huddled into herself, desperately seeking some anchor, all she ever saw was Pan Yu standing off to the side, jeering and snickering.
Xie Lisheng reached into his pocket before remembering he’d quit smoking a while back. His hand came up empty, so he simply leaned back in his chair. “If another one shows up, come find me.”
Jiang Zao lifted her misty eyes. Her gaze slowly pulled away from the shadows of memory and fixed on him. She met the man’s steady stare. “…Why?”
Xie Lisheng held her gaze without flinching. “You tell me.”