“Did I entice you? Did I ever speak kind words to you?
Didn’t I clearly tell you that I don’t love you, and cannot love you?”
—Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream
~~~
Dark clouds brewed a storm that engulfed the entire Hong Kong District.
The woman gently pushed the window open, then shut it tight, blocking out the pattering rain.
She rummaged through the fruit basket left by the visitor, carefully selecting a plump, round orange. Sitting down, she peeled it open with her slender, porcelain-white fingers and asked the girl on the hospital bed, “Want some?”
“Who’d eat that crap?”
In the private room at Yanghe Hospital, the little girl—hooked up to a breathing tube and with an IV needle taped to her hand—looked about thirteen or fourteen. She glared furiously at Liang Jin, though her anger seemed somewhat blunted by her sickly pallor.
Liang Jin wasn’t intimidated. Instead, she adopted a coaxing tone. “What crap?”
Liang Wei frowned. “You know damn well.”
“It’s just half an orange.”
“It’s… from that guy.”
Liang Jin feigned ignorance. “Which guy?”
“Sis!” Liang Wei’s furrowed brows dipped even lower.
The hospital room reeked of disinfectant and lingering cigarette smoke—a trace of the visitor who’d lingered there.
Liang Jin placed the half-peeled orange in Liang Wei’s palm. Her eyes curved into a smile, her lips quirking up. “Eat it. The doctor said you need to get some vitamin C.”
The summer rain grew heavier, lashing the exorbitantly expensive racecourse and lawns outside. Inside the room, the sharp crackle of raindrops seeped through faintly.
It was their first day in Hong Kong District after transferring from Jiangnan.
Liang Wei squeezed the soft, juicy flesh of the fruit and stared at her sister. She muttered, “He’s seventeen years older than you…”
“Mm-hmm.”
“You know why I said yes?”
Liang Jin bit into a segment. “Waiting for the old man to kick the bucket.”
Liang Wei paused, her voice cracking with a mix of anger and regret. “You’re lying.”
Tears welled up in the girl’s eyes. Liang Jin’s smile faded, and she warned her little sister, “Liang Wei, if those tears fall, I won’t come visit you anymore.”
“I…”
Liang Jin tossed half a pack of tissues onto the bed. “Wipe your face. You’ve got to come with me to meet Zhou Shaochuan’s investors later. Don’t make me waste time coaxing you.”
Zhou Shaochuan was Liang Jin’s fiancé—a Hong Kong local, forty-three years old. They’d gotten engaged just last week.
Liang Wei drew out a long “Mmm,” her tone trailing off. She knew exactly who her sister had agreed to this marriage for.
“If you wanna cry, call home and cry to them one by one.” Liang Jin met her sister’s gaze.
“I don’t want to… Dad and the others don’t even care about us. It’s pointless.”
Liang Jin shot back, “Who says it’s pointless?” Her tone turned serious. “Cry to Liang Wenbin. Let the relatives overhear, or spin it in the media. From the moral high ground, are you afraid you won’t get any property or shares?”
Liang Wei muttered, “That’s Dad.”
Liang Jin shrugged. “Whatever.”
Liang Wei protested, “Besides, I don’t even want those.”
Liang Jin asked, “Want what?”
Liang Wei: “You know… money.”
Liang Jin tossed the remaining peel into the trash can—like flicking an ant into a ruin, without a hint of attachment. She glanced at her sister’s stubborn yet frail expression and suddenly recalled her own teenage self, a mocking thought flickering through her mind.
“You don’t want money?”
Liang Wei nodded stubbornly. “No.”
Liang Jin’s thin lips curved into a sharp, aggressive smile. “But I do.
“With money, I won’t have to marry some old creep you hate. You know that, right?”
…
After spending a little more time with her sister, Liang Jin touched up her makeup and headed downstairs. Her steps were light at first, but she suddenly narrowed her eyes and slowed down.
A black Bugatti was parked not far away.
“Miss Liang.”
It was Zhou Shaochuan’s driver.
Liang Wei despised Zhou Shaochuan because he kept several flashy mistresses. Scandalous gossip filled the tabloids from the Hong Kong media, with no fewer than six or seven public catfights right on the street. Marrying a lecherous businessman like him, who devoured anything in skirts, was bound to be a life of fire and brimstone.
But Liang Jin didn’t mind much. Her relationship with Zhou Shaochuan was a straightforward exchange of interests, and marriage was just one piece of it. Getting married was inevitable—who she married hardly mattered. If it wasn’t Zhou Shaochuan, it would be some Li Shaochuan or Wang Shaochuan. Could the Liang Family really pick anyone better for her?
Zhou Shaochuan sat in the back seat, every inch the pampered elite, not even glancing at Liang Jin.
She could tell her fiancé was in a foul mood. These days, Heng Ren Pharmaceuticals under his name was facing a massive funding shortfall. Financing woes had him on edge. She asked jokingly, “What, Boss Zhou? Heading into the lion’s den later?”
Hearing this, Zhou Shaochuan finally looked squarely at his young fiancée. Liang Jin had already bent down and sat beside him. A wave of fragrance drifted over—sweet notes of evening primrose and wild rose mingled with pleasing powder—but it couldn’t mask that underlying chill of rebellion. Liang Jin smiled and said, “Boss Zhou, if something really goes wrong, you can always pin it on me.”
With such a gentle attitude, Zhou Shaochuan finally spoke. “Jinjin, I heard something interesting.”
He had just received the message himself, unsure whether it was true, but the sender wouldn’t deceive him.
He said, “You’ve been involved with the younger brother of my late wife.”
Liang Jin’s expression froze. She found the claim utterly ridiculous. She’d only had one relationship in her life, cleanly severed eight years ago. Yet a lightning bolt seemed to flash through her mind, and her face paled slightly. Zhou Shaochuan had no children. His wife had died years earlier, and he hadn’t remarried since. Gossip claimed it was because of her prominent family. Marrying Liang Jin this time had gone against widespread opposition.
Zhou Shaochuan sneered. “You’re Shen Keye’s woman.”
The stone in her heart finally thudded to the ground.
“Liang Jin, are you, or aren’t you?”
Her fiancé’s phone screen lingered on a photo from Victoria Harbour in 2014, the Christmas atmosphere cozy and warm.
A young man and woman kissed awkwardly and intimately beneath the colored lights. Even the grand fireworks served merely as backdrop to that raw, aggressive romance.
Guessing who had sent the message, Liang Jin looked up at her fiancé and tilted her head. Her tone had cooled considerably as she smiled and asked, “Mr. Zhou, so what if I am? Doesn’t everyone have a past?”
~~~
The rest of the drive passed in silence.
Liang Jin seemed a bit distracted.
She didn’t think Boss Zhou, a man with countless women, truly cared that she’d slept with Shen Keye. But she feared that one man she’d slept with. At nineteen, Shen Keye had kissed her until she nearly suffocated, his youthful breath sharp with the spicy bite of fir. She still remembered his powerful arms clamping her in the darkness, his predatory eyes gazing down at her in his embrace as he murmured in Cantonese, “Liang Jin, I want you entangled with me until death do us part.”
He wouldn’t let her go.
But what about now?
This introduction had come from Boss Rong of Rongshi Real Estate. The meeting was set at the Harbor District Shooting Club.
Boss Rong’s daughter was an outdoor sports enthusiast. While the men discussed business, Liang Jin’s main task was to keep Miss Rong company.
“Mrs. Zhou, you look familiar.” The seventeen-year-old girl brimmed with vibrant energy. Rong Jiao chewed gum, now changed into shooting gear and fiddling with her phone nearby. A message from her bestie prompted her to squint at Liang Jin. “You look like a movie star.”
Liang Jin’s heart still raced from that photo. Eight years ago, she’d come to Hong Kong University on an exchange program. In a transactional fling for power and favors, she’d dated Shen Keye. Later, when she refused to stay in Hong Kong, things ended messily—her ex-boyfriend had nearly lost half his life in the fallout.
She’d assumed they’d never cross paths again. She hadn’t expected him to still remember her.
“Don’t call me Mrs. Zhou.” Liang Jin wore silver-gray shooting attire, her long black hair casually tucked under a baseball cap. She lit a cigarette with practiced ease, holding it between her fingers. Even behind her sunglasses, her smile radiated an irresistible edge and aggression. “Call me Liang Jin.”
She spoke in Cantonese, the words coming out like “Lang’Gin” in a lingering, captivating lilt. The smoke curled from her beautifully shaped lips, against her translucent white skin—uniquely alluring, breathtakingly beautiful.
Rong Jiao instantly connected the name to a legend from her memories. She tossed her phone, dangling with colorful plastic charms, into her pocket and leaned in eagerly, eyes wide. “You’re that… that one.”
She was clearly excited.
Liang Jin gave a faint smile. A group of men passed by in the hallway, and the “Bang! Bang!” of gunshots echoed nearby, making it feel like a real battlefield. Self-mockingly, from the corner, she said, “I used to be pretty famous.”
“So why, eight years ago—”
Rong Jiao wanted to press further, but a man’s voice interrupted their conversation. “Jiaojiao, come here. Daddy has other friends joining us.”
Boss Rong and Zhou Shaochuan emerged from the changing room. Rong Jiahui led his daughter away. Rong Jiao glanced back, still eager to ask, but Liang Jin held her cigarette to her lips in a “shh” gesture.
“Still smoking?” Zhou Shaochuan said impatiently.
Liang Jin tilted her head. She sensed a gaze fixed on her and assumed it was Rong Jiao, so she didn’t pay it much mind. Frankly, she replied, “I’m stressed.”
Zhou Shaochuan demanded, “Jinjin, don’t fight me on this.”
Zhou Shaochuan’s marriage to Liang Jin was a plea beyond mere business interests, but it was debatable how much he truly loved her.
His need for control was suffocating. Still, compared to Shen Keye, Liang Jin figured older men just didn’t have that kind of relentless energy.
She could still find dark humor in it all, inwardly mocking herself for being so foolish.
She pinched out the cigarette butt and held up the extinguished stub like a trophy.
Liang Jin gazed at him with a beaming smile. “I’ve been good, Boss Zhou. Don’t be angry.”
Zhou Shaochuan had encountered countless women in his time, yet he found himself utterly defenseless against Liang Jin’s proud brand of flattery. The hand resting on her shoulder tightened involuntarily.
A sharp bang.
The deafening roar was far more intense than before.
In a typical shooting club, most of the firearms were fitted with suppressors, keeping the noise from being too harsh on the ears. But moments ago, someone had removed theirs.
“Ten ring!”
Cheers erupted like a flock of magpies.
Liang Jin instinctively pulled free from his grasp, her eyes drawn inexorably toward the commotion.
Through the glass wall, a crowd of men and women had gathered around the shooting lane—most of them familiar faces, prominent bosses from the world of commerce and real estate.
Standing at the sole occupied firing position was a man. His short black hair was tucked beneath the brim of his cap, his lean and upright frame clad in a shooting suit so black it gleamed with reflected light. He tilted his head slightly, the powerful recoil of his shot tensing the thin muscles across his body.
Rong Jiahui frowned in mild confusion before lowering his voice to explain. “Oh, that’s Mr. Shen… You and Madam should know him. We were originally here mainly to meet Little Boss Shao at four o’clock in the club lounge, but Little Boss Shao brought Mr. Shen along…”
The Rong family held some sway in the Hong Kong District, but Rong Jiahui knew full well that he was worlds apart from Mr. Shen. Even speaking the man’s title, he couldn’t help but drop his voice.
Bang—
The man fired again, the shot nearly perfectly overlapping the neat hole punched by the previous round.
Fierce. Decisive. Arrogant. It carried the effortless superiority innate to those born into old-money families.
That unbearable past flashed through her mind like a bullet streaking across eight years of time, striking dead center.
Liang Jin felt rooted to the spot.
Then, abruptly, the man shifted to the side.
The pitch-black muzzle of the gun in his hand swung toward her.