She tried to pull away, to shove him off, but Shen Keye’s kiss was relentless, devoid of any gentleness. He didn’t relent until she was breathless, lost in the moment, oblivious to everything else.
~~~
The evening dinner turned out surprisingly quiet. Aside from the coaches, hardly anyone at the table spoke.
Liang Jin kept her head down the whole time, well aware that the group had likely pieced together her relationship with Shen Keye.
Her lips were somewhat swollen—no surprise there—and it would probably mess with tomorrow’s shoot.
Later that night, Zeng Zhi’s lawyer called her.
“Miss Liang, a few days ago… it must’ve been someone on behalf of Mr. Liang Wenbin who spoke to our partner here. They hoped I wouldn’t take your mother’s case.”
“The truth is, I can’t guarantee a hundred percent win rate. The opposition brought in one of the top lawyer teams in the country. As embarrassing as it is to admit, I’d still recommend seeing if you can find a stronger defense attorney for your mother.”
Liang Jin stood under the eaves, where the deep autumn air in Hong Kong District hung heavy with lingering mugginess. She felt a twinge of worry for Zeng Zhi’s health.
The dinner had ended. When Shen Keye emerged, he asked her, “Whose call was that?”
“The lawyer’s.”
Shen Keye’s tone remained as cool and detached as ever, which only irritated Liang Jin further.
He was still angry.
Not long ago, the caregiver had mentioned that another woman had come to visit Zeng Zhi. From the description, it had to be Ning Qiang, the woman Liang Wenbin was cheating with—his secretary, who was only twelve years older than Liang Jin. She still remembered her first encounter with Ning Qiang all too vividly: the naked man and woman, a scene etched into her memory forever.
Liang Jin’s thoughts churned chaotically. “They’re giving my mom trouble,” she said.
She kept nothing from Shen Keye. “Mom’s not the type to lose her temper. She always wants to handle people and situations with dignity, which makes her an easy target. Liang Wenbin went to the partners at the law firm and told the lawyers under them not to take her case. And someone’s been causing a scene at the hospital.”
Liang Jin wanted to go home.
From fourteen hundred kilometers away, there was no way she could fully protect someone like Zeng Zhi, who swallowed every hardship in silence.
People began filing out of the private room one by one. Liang Jin stayed close to Shen Keye’s side, and no one dared approach to say hello.
“Shen Keye,” she asked, “don’t you have any family you care about deeply?”
Shen Keye frowned slightly. He stood beneath the streetlamp, the light casting shadows across his features and lending him an even more aloof air. He clearly had no interest in a deep conversation with her and gave a curt reply.
“They’re dead.”
Shen Keye’s car was parked in the nearby underground garage. He said goodbye to his teammates, and they went off to retrieve their own vehicles.
Liang Jin had thought he might make a move, but in reality, what lingered between them after their passion was mostly silence.
Shen Keye drove to the pet hospital to pick up the stray cat they had adopted together.
The veterinarian explained that the kitten’s front leg was beyond saving. “It was broken with a metal rod. It went untreated for too long, and the metal pierced the skin, causing necrosis and poor blood flow. Even if we manage to heal it, the cat won’t be able to walk like a normal one.”
Liang Jin hadn’t expected a cold, calculating bastard like Shen Keye to be so appealing to small animals.
The nurse went over the cat’s condition, and Shen Keye listened patiently. The little creature clung to his side, obediently nuzzling his fingertips.
~~~
Shen Keye had named their cat Little Butterfly.
By the time they got home, Little Butterfly was fast asleep. Liang Jin set it down beside the sofa, and her phone buzzed twice.
It was Zhang Xiaoran, apologizing.
【Didn’t cause you any trouble, did I?】
【I didn’t expect things to turn out like this… I just went and asked the convenience store owner to delete the surveillance footage.】
Zhang Xiaoran was thorough, and the weight lifted from Liang Jin’s chest. She glanced at the young man beside her and unconsciously replied to Zhang with a simple “Thanks.”
She took a shower and, when she emerged, noticed the new messages on her phone.
There was one from Shen Keye too: 【Come to my room.】
The housekeeper had come by during the day to clean. Liang Jin changed into a nightgown before entering, still feeling a little out of place.
Shen Keye’s gaze shifted from the chessboard in front of him to Liang Jin. The girl’s slender feet were pale and delicate. She wore a black slip dress, her raven-black hair cascading loosely around her. Standing there in the light, she exuded a cool detachment utterly divorced from any hint of desire.
“Want to play chess?” she asked.
She had sensed the danger, of course, but this gave them both an out.
As she spoke, the phone in her hand lit up.
Shen Keye waited for her to approach before asking, “Whose message?”
Liang Jin paused, then showed him the screen.
Zhang Xiaoran: 【Glad you’re okay.】
She had expected Shen Keye to get angry, but under the room’s warm amber glow, he simply lowered his eyes, his expression impassive. Then, abruptly, he let out a low chuckle—muffled, resonating from his chest, laced with a helpless sort of cold indifference. “Liang Jin,” he mocked, “to be honest, you’re the real trouble.”
Liang Jin hesitated before asking, “What exactly are you and Song Youqing fighting over?”
Whatever he didn’t want to tell her was a puzzle tied to vast interests.
Shen Keye merely said, “A long time ago, the coach who got me into shooting developed a very expensive illness. I went to my uncle and begged him to lend me the money. He refused. And because of some other matter, he locked me up in Hong Kong District.”
The chessboard lay arrayed before them, its intersecting lines forming a battlefield fraught with peril.
Liang Jin looked down at the young man. He sat in silent equanimity, neither joyful nor sorrowful, his words falling flat and even.
Shen Keye said, “I escaped, but I was betrayed. I never got to see my teacher one last time.”
Liang Jin remembered what those coaches had said at the dinner table—details far more horrifying than anything Shen Keye had described.
The old man had endured unbearable agony in the end and chosen suicide.
Shen Keye asked, “Liang Jin, if one day I run out of money, will you abandon me?”
The play of light and shadow across his face reminded her of why she had pursued him in the first place. She should have lied and said “no,” but the words caught in her throat, impossible to fake. Instead, she said, “Yes.”
Shen Keye yanked her into his arms.
The sudden weightlessness made Liang Jin gasp in alarm.
Shen Keye stared at her, that same plummeting helplessness washing over him—the kind you feel high in the air, clutching at nothing, teetering on the edge of self-destruction. He hated losing control like this.
With one hand clamped on the back of her neck, he forced her to meet his gaze. “So heartless?”
Liang Jin looked down at him. Her smile carried a fresh, vivid allure, but she had her own priorities. She couldn’t sacrifice the person she truly valued for a lover she barely knew.
“You’d see right through any lie I told.”
She met his eyes steadily. “Shen Keye, is this love between us? It’s not even enough to call heartless.”
Her voice was icy, those pitch-black eyes empty of feeling. Any other girl would have softened it with tender, intimate words by now. But this was Liang Jin.
Shen Keye’s hand grazed her leg. He pulled her closer, settling her properly in his lap.
A scorching heat flared up like a sudden blaze. Liang Jin shifted unsteadily and gripped his shoulders for balance.
“You still haven’t told me what you were fighting over.”
Shen Keye’s fingers tightened on her neck, drawing her into a kiss. It was endless and consuming, a torrent of feverish heat and throbbing desire. His hand roamed over her through the thin fabric between them. Liang Jin felt a scorching intensity she’d never known, mingled with suffocation as their breaths tangled. Those raw urges of lust suddenly seemed sordid, despairing. Her fingers dug into his arm without thinking.
Memories of Liang Wenbin’s betrayal roared back to life the instant his hand made contact.
An indelible revulsion, a loathing she couldn’t suppress.
Liang Jin recoiled instinctively, her entire body trembling.
Before that night, Liang Wenbin had been the perfect father in every way. Back then, she hadn’t needed to shoulder the family like its sole pillar.
She reined herself in, reminding herself that this man was her benefactor.
But the mental torment clawed at her.
The crisp aquatic notes in Shen Keye’s cologne were too similar to Liang Wenbin’s.
Liang Jin jerked away. “What are you doing?”
Shen Keye watched her in silence. “What do you think?”
He wanted her. Right then.
Liang Jin drew a shaky breath, chills racing over her skin. She shoved him back and steadied herself on her feet, fighting the urge to bolt to the bathroom and retch.
Shen Keye looked annoyed, but he didn’t press. He simply watched her face cycle through loathing and disgust, then settle into distant detachment—no trace of lingering affection after her ordeal.
“Not now…”
She hadn’t realized how violently she’d react to a man’s touch.
Liang Jin was still reeling when Shen Keye dragged her back into the kiss. Her mind turned to mush, like sodden cotton. The overwhelming sensations pinned her in inescapable agony, snapping something deep inside her brain.
All she could see was Liang Wenbin and Ning Qiang, naked together.
Tears streamed from her eyes, physiological and unstoppable. Amid the haze, she heard Shen Keye’s voice:
“Liang Jin, my woman—only I get to play with you until I’m bored and throw you away.”