Liang Jin was kissed breathless by him.
She had always thought Shen Keye was too greedy. He was on the verge of stealing every last breath from her.
Liang Jin couldn’t push him away, so she pinched him instead.
It was a mad process of mutual torment. Their lips and teeth ground against each other amid ragged breaths and feverish touches, as if tomorrow marked the end of the world and this was their final kiss.
“I didn’t agree to let you kiss me.”
Shen Keye was shoved back, a warm trickle sliding from the corner of his mouth. Realizing what it was, the young man wiped it away with his hand—Liang Jin had bitten right through his lip. Staring at his own blood, Shen Keye tugged his lips into a faint smile. “I didn’t plan on asking for your permission,” he said. Then he added, almost as praise, “Liang Jin, you bite like a dog.”
The bathroom was dimly lit.
Liang Jin backed away until she leaned against the tiled wall, her expression awkward. She refused to waste words on such nonsense with him. “You kissed me.”
“Hm?”
“There’s a price.”
Liang Jin was irritated. “The film crew has a dinner tonight. Because Jiang Manyu joined so smoothly, the director team reshuffled the shooting schedule. My scenes have been postponed indefinitely.” Arms crossed, she demanded coldly, “You’re coming with me.”
Shen Keye found it amusing deep down. He was tall; as he lowered his gaze, the lean contours of his waist curved subtly. With one hand, he turned on the faucet and rinsed away the bloodstains. In his cold, magnetic voice, he asked, “One forced kiss, Liang Jin. What makes you think you can demand that?”
He glanced sideways, the smile vanishing from his face. Mockery laced his words. “Do you see me as your dog, someone who has to obey your every whim?”
~~~
The next day, Liang Jin had no scenes, but she went to the set anyway.
She lowered her eyes to the payment notification from Shen Keye: two hundred thousand, not a penny more or less.
The girl wore an oversized gray cotton tracksuit top paired with a black miniskirt, her hat pulled low and hands stuffed in her pockets as she waited for someone.
“Miss Liang, what do you want?” It was Jiang Manyu’s first day on set. Unfamiliar with everything, she’d already NG’d more than ten times. In a foul mood, she sneered, “Didn’t your mom just get out of emergency? And here you are at the set, wanting to chat with me?”
Liang Jin tilted her head. She’d learned that morning that Zeng Zhi had woken up, but her condition remained poor.
Liang Jin rubbed the blue cigarette pack in her pocket. “Did Song Youqing tell you?” Her jet-black hair spilled from under her hat brim, framing her eyes. “Not many people know about this, and even fewer care. Shen Keye doesn’t even know, but you’re more clued in than I am.”
At the mention of Song Youqing’s name, Jiang Manyu’s usual nonchalant expression shifted. After a flicker of unease, she smoothed it over. “Miss Liang, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Liang Jin shrugged. “Jiang Manyu, let’s cut to the chase. What does Song Youqing want with me?”
Jiang Manyu’s face tightened. “If that’s all, I’m leaving. I’ve got more filming ahead.”
Liang Jin didn’t try to stop her. She just remarked offhand, “In that last take, you were too distracted by me standing here. Because I told you to get out of Shen Keye’s world—but you haven’t.”
“Liang Jin!”
Jiang Manyu whipped around, her tone laced with warning. Liang Jin stood a half-head taller, cold and impassive. She had nothing to her name, suppressed to the point her scenes were endlessly delayed, yet her words cut deep all the same. Jiang Manyu struggled to keep her composure. “Watch your mouth. The person you want to see will be back this weekend to meet you.”
Liang Jin smiled faintly. A month ago, she never would have dreamed that Shen Keye’s affection could make her so valuable, enough to earn the regard of Hong Kong’s preeminent heiress. “Song Youqing approaching me comes down to two possibilities,” Liang Jin said. “Either she wants me to leave Shen Keye, or she wants me to stay with him.”
She voiced her guess slowly. “I suspect it’s the latter. Miss Song wants me by his side as her inside eyes and ears.”
Jiang Manyu bristled at once, eyes narrowing. “Liang Jin, did Shen Keye tell you all this?”
“He doesn’t know yet.” Liang Jin looked off into the distance, where the crew bustled about. Zheng Yunzhi spotted her and frowned. He’d been the one to bring her to Hong Kong in the first place, but now the director despised her. “It’s obvious, though,” Liang Jin continued. “You’re playing this too stupidly.”
Jiang Manyu itched to snap back but reined in her temper. She asked gravely, “What do you want from me, exactly?”
Liang Jin smiled.
She pulled a sheet of paper and a pen from her single-strap bag and handed them over. “Write down Song Youqing’s contact information for me. Leave the rest to me.”
~~~
At the film crew’s dinner gathering, Liang Jin stared at the contact info sitting by her hand.
Her ties with the crew were distant at best, and Jiang Manyu’s abrupt arrival had everyone steering clear of her on instinct.
She blended into the background like a ghost.
Liang Jin’s phone rang. She assumed it was Song Youqing, but the caller ID showed Wu Lin.
Liang Jin said “Sorry” and stepped out to take the call.
Wu Lin’s escapade last night—going to Mong Kok to beg Li Yibo for reconciliation—had blown up big time. Pretty much everyone from the school basketball team who’d tagged along knew about it.
Someone had posted it on social media with some snarky commentary, the kind of crude trash talk like “spread her legs and all sins are forgiven.”
It was all fabricated nonsense, but it spread like wildfire. The whole school had heard, and Wu Lin had burst into tears after a couple of classmates from her major called her out. Li Yibo, though, hadn’t said a single word in her defense.
Liang Jin’s face turned icy. “I’ll come find you.”
Wu Lin refused. “No need. I’m with Li Yibo right now… He doesn’t want to see you.”
Liang Jin itched to storm over there and slap some sense into her. She said coldly, “Wu Lin, you should know better. Men are all unreliable.”
Wu Lin started crying again, her voice thick with sobs. She’d called just to vent her feelings, but Liang Jin’s lecturing sparked a rebellious streak in her. “Then what about Shen Keye? Is he reliable? Your mom and sister have been sick for ages with no fix in sight—I’ve heard all about it. And he even shoehorned Jiang Manyu into that movie. Is he so dependable?”
The dinner gathering was drawing to a close.
Liang Jin hung up and returned to the private room, her molars grinding as frustration churned inside her, impossible to shake off. Director Zheng was already drunk, clutching his wine glass. When he spotted Liang Jin coming back in, he called out loudly, “Liang Jin! Let me toast you!”
A middle-aged man like him—lean and with a weak head for liquor—had his assistant chiming in by his side. “Director Zheng’s had a bit too much.”
“Nah, I’m fine.” Director Zheng waved him off and knocked back a full glass of baijiu. Strangely, his face grew calmer. “Liang Jin, I’m making this movie to honor the goddess of my heart. Who would’ve thought, after all the twists and turns, that her daughter would give me the most headaches.”
He burst into hearty laughter, then sighed. “Karma.”
His laughter carried a weary edge as he poured himself glass after glass. But the weight behind his words drew plenty of eyes toward Liang Jin.
Liang Jin pressed her lips together. “I’ll be going now.”
She’d heard from her mother before that Director Zheng had fallen for a beauty back in his youth and stayed unmarried for her sake. Today, the mystery woman’s identity had finally come to light.
Someone blocked her path. “Miss Liang, don’t you think that’s a bit much? Director Zheng meant well. He’s hustled for twenty years over your mom’s film, and now he’s finally making a name for himself in the Hong Kong District. Not even a token gesture from you?”
The sudden accusation struck Liang Jin as ridiculous. “What exactly do you want me to do?”
Someone else piped up, “At least have a drink, Miss Liang.”
Liang Jin glanced back at Zheng Yunzhi, who lay slumped drunkenly in his seat.
She fell silent, snapped a photo of her empty wine glass, and sent it to Shen Keye.
Jin: 【Shen Keye, I’ve been bullied.】
Liang Jin downed the drink, found a seat, and fired off another message, her face still cold.
Jin: 【Your new kitten’s about to lose its mom. What now?】
Liang Jin hoped Shen Keye would swoop in to back her up. She figured he wouldn’t bite, but the reply came surprisingly fast.
Just four words. Nothing more.
Ye: 【Send location.】
~~~
Out at the suburban Shooting Training Field, Shao Xingyu had come looking for Shen Keye over Shen Junbang’s car crash. He burst through the door in a frenzy—Song Youqing had kept it under wraps too well, and he’d only caught wind of scattered rumors that evening.
Shao Xingyu demanded, “I heard Shen Junbang’s fate is up in the air?”
The young man, clad in black-gray shooting gear with black protective goggles, was running repetitive drills from the sniper position.
Through the crosshairs, he nailed the target. His index finger squeezed the trigger, unleashing a burst of bullets like arrows loosed from a bowstring. With a sharp rat-tat-tat, they struck dead center in the red heart.
Shao Xingyu pressed urgently, “And you’ve still got the mood to train?”
Shen Keye’s tone was flat. “Relax. He won’t die.”
Seeing his friend’s breezy calm steadied Shao Xingyu’s nerves. “So what’s Song Youqing playing at? Why keep it all hushed up?”
Shen Keye shot him a look and quirked his lips. “You tell me.”
The answer clicked for Shao Xingyu in an instant.
“She’s not over him yet.”
In Shao Xingyu’s mind, ever since Shen Keye had returned to Hong Kong, this sister—famous for her “gentle” reputation—had been clashing with him head-on. Her tactics from those younger days weren’t polished, but they were vicious enough.
Shao Xingyu knew Song Youqing’s real colors all too well.
A staffer nearby came over to alert Shen Keye to a new message on his phone. The young man glanced at it, stowed his gear, pulled off his goggles, and said, “Got something coming up. Lend me the car.”
Shao Xingyu fished the keys from his pocket and handed them over. “What’s going on? Weren’t you supposed to train for another three hours? And since your uncle’s out of the woods—”
The young man’s gaze was lowered, a faint trace of sarcasm playing at the corners of his mouth, so subtle it might have been imagined.
Shao Xingyu’s heart jolted, and he clamped his mouth shut without thinking.
There were unread messages on his phone from two people.
One from Liang Jin, and another that Song Youqing had sent just ten minutes earlier.
Song Youqing’s tone was as calm and gentle as ever. She didn’t mention Shen Junbang’s illness at all, opting instead to offer Shen Keye some “well-meaning” advice.
Song Youqing: 【Ah-Ye, as your big sister, my concern for you has always been sincere.】
Song Youqing: 【Your girlfriend seems like a sharp one. I sent Jiang Manyu to talk to her, and she even asked for my contact info. She’s clearly not the type to ignore real-world worries like bills and groceries.】
Song Youqing: 【Her mom and little sister need a fortune in medical bills. You want to help her out—who says I don’t?】
Song Youqing: 【Guess who she’ll pick between the two of us?】
Shen Keye swiped upward with his finger and spotted the screenshot of the message Liang Jin had sent to Song Youqing.
Liang Jin: 【Miss Song, I understand what you’re getting at. So let’s be direct—what are your terms?】