After returning home, Liang Jin headed straight to the dance studio. Dressed in her practice leotard, she gazed at her reflection in the mirror. Her youthful figure was slender and graceful, limbs elegantly extended, yet a shadow of worry lingered in her cool, serene expression.
That meal had left her muscles subtly tense.
Only after Shen Keye had left did she truly snap back to reality.
Shen Keye wanted her.
With his birthday as the pivotal moment, his demands would shift.
This Crown Prince, whom she had risked everything to approach, was no easy mark.
Liang Jin recorded her audition video, packed up her gear, and sent Shen Keye a message: 【Good afternoon】.
Her phone pinged with his reply.
It was a screenshot.
A text from Shao Xingyu, sent just three minutes earlier.
【Your uncle’s going to help Jiang Manyu with votes. What do we do?】
~~~
Shen Keye left the house and went straight to the Training Field. To his surprise, the entire place was eerily quiet.
Zhang Xiaoran had just changed into casual clothes and emerged. Spotting Shen Keye at the entrance, he hurried over and whispered, “Brother Ye, your uncle… Mr. Shen is here.”
Shen Keye’s phone was ringing. Shao Xingyu was calling about the voting.
“Got it,” Shen Keye said. He locked his screen and strolled inside.
As a child, after his parents’ divorce, Shen Keye’s mother, Shen Mingwu, had been consumed with expanding the Shen Family’s empire. She had fostered her youngest son with friends in Shanghai.
Before the age of seven, Shen Keye had never set foot in the Hong Kong District.
He had only come home after his mother’s death.
The Coach spotted Shen Keye and led him to the meeting room. Shen Junbang preferred solitude, so no one else had been left behind.
Shen Keye stood casually in the doorway. “Uncle.”
Shen Junbang had just received the financial report from North America. Seated in his wheelchair, he shot a cold glance at the young man nearby. A chill crept across his slightly weathered face. “Ah-Ye, I thought you wouldn’t dare face me.”
Shen Keye’s expression remained impassive. “If there’s nothing else, I’ll get back to training.”
Shen Junbang’s legs had failed him for over a decade. Numerous doctors had examined them; he could walk, but only for short distances. Gripping his cane, he rose slowly and approached Shen Keye. Lean but powerful in build, the man had weathered every storm life could throw at him. Yet sometimes he couldn’t stomach outright defiance under his nose.
“Ah-Ye, what the hell is this movie business? I told you to promote Manyu, and you pull this stunt!”
Shen Keye replied flatly, “I don’t like Jiang Manyu.”
Shen Junbang glared at him coldly. “You think one little movie is going to make waves with me?”
In his offhand tone, Shen Keye said, “Don’t you already know?”
Everything he did fell under Shen Junbang’s round-the-clock surveillance.
Shen Junbang’s face grew stern. Shen Keye had wiped out half the market value of a North American subsidiary overnight—enough headache to drag Shen Junbang back across the ocean.
This wasn’t the first time.
Shen Keye had been defying him at every turn.
Shen Junbang struggled to keep his voice even. “And… and the business empire your mother built with her own hands.”
Shen Keye betrayed no emotion. “So?”
Shen Junbang had always loathed Shen Keye’s temperament. At this utterly unrepentant response, the man lashed out with a fierce slap, bellowing, “You little bastard! I should have beaten you to death years ago.”
It was nothing new for Shen Junbang to strike Shen Keye; rushing him to the hospital for emergency care was par for the course.
He longed to lock the boy up like he had years before, but this was a national-level Shooting Training Field.
Coldly, Shen Junbang commanded, “After the voting wraps up next week, take Manyu to Macau to pay respects at Mingwu’s grave.”
Shen Keye hadn’t dodged the blow. Delivered with full force, it left his head ringing and his face turned aside.
Blood filled Shen Keye’s mouth.
The young man’s gaze hardened. He swallowed the metallic tang, lips curling in a silent sneer. He shook out his jacket and scoffed, “Shen Junbang, if you’re in such a rush, you should go deal with the businesses your sister left you.”
“Instead of me,” Shen Keye added.
He had training to get back to, so he turned and walked away without another word.
~~~
Liang Jin went home, showered, changed, and took a cab to the spot Shen Keye had designated.
Night had fallen over Central, skyscrapers piercing the sky like icy monoliths that dwarfed anyone beneath them.
Liang Jin spotted Shen Keye on the street, clad in a single trench coat. His cool profile twisted into an icy smile at some response he heard.
Shen Keye cupped his hand against the wind to light a cigarette and took a drag.
“Who’s that?”
At the question, Shen Keye glanced sideways and caught sight of Liang Jin amid the crowd.
“Been staring for ages.”
“Trying to pick her up?”
Liang Jin had watched him for a long time, but sheer stubbornness kept her from approaching.
Shen Keye made no move. He merely smiled faintly.
Liang Jin averted her gaze and stepped forward. “Ah-Ye.”
Shen Keye finally explained, “She’s with me.”
This gathering had been thrown together at the last minute. No one else had expected Shen Keye to show up—let alone bring a date along with him.
Once inside the private room, the girl settled casually at his side.
Liang Jin had called Shen Keye before coming over. He’d told her they’d talk in person, and now here they were.
“Young Master summoning me out in the middle of the night for drinks?” She resented his careless attitude, but she sensed that his demeanor had grown even colder this evening. “What was that text message supposed to mean?”
Liang Jin frowned slightly. “I thought you’d have my back.”
Shen Keye lounged on the sofa with his legs spread wide in a relaxed posture, letting the others pour him a glass of liquor. “I haven’t agreed to that text yet.”
Liang Jin’s gaze froze. She glanced at the girl beside him and understood.
“Did they send it to threaten me?” Liang Jin asked.
The private room was dimly lit. She could only make out the contours of Shen Keye’s features. People nearby were playing dice, betting on big or small, while a couple had even called in girls to keep them company with drinks. Liang Jin realized this was nothing more than a spoiled rich kids’ party. These people weren’t even close to Shen Keye—they treated him with utmost respect and propriety, hardly daring to strike up a conversation.
Someone finally mustered the courage to ask if Shen Keye wanted to join in. He frowned ever so slightly, and the guy bolted.
Liang Jin ventured a guess. “In a bad mood? Called me here to drink with you?”
Ulta was a respectable lounge, but this place was anything but.
Liang Jin felt her own status wasn’t much different from those girls peddling drinks and their looks.
Shen Keye let out a muffled chuckle. He stated the simple fact: “They’re playing cards and gambling.”
The young man sprawled across the sofa, his messy black hair falling in disarray. He turned his face toward her, staring without a hint of shame. “Liang Jin, I want to play a little game with you too.”
“Who’s playing games with you?” Liang Jin shot back.
“One round. Sixty thousand.”
The staggering fee left Liang Jin stunned in place.
The background music was an English song—a fast-paced track loaded with erotic lyrics and a palpable sense of danger. Liang Jin felt like she was sinking into quicksand, but her rationality held firm. “I’ve told you plenty of times already. I don’t want your money.”
There was a decadent air to Shen Keye’s cool profile, as if he were lost in shadows. “But you do want my guarantee that the vote will be fair, don’t you?”
Very softly, almost tenderly, he called her name.
“Liang Jin.”
Liang Jin rose to leave. She despised people whose attitudes flipped like the wind. Yet she knew all too well that in this hazardous relationship, Shen Keye held all the power.
The girl bit her lip, tempted to throw caution to the wind and say yes. But in that fleeting moment under the flirtatious lights, she caught sight of the mark hidden on his profile in the darkness.
A thin, crusted scar of dried blood.
A sharp gash across his high nose bridge, as if sliced by a diamond’s edge.
“What happened to your face?” Liang Jin asked.
Even a golden boy like him had his moments of disarray. Liang Jin had a vague idea of who might be responsible—and that only heightened her fear.
She needed Shen Keye.
~~~
The girl was practically kneeling beside the sofa as she leaned in to examine him. Liang Jin held a pad of alcohol-soaked gauze and gently wiped at the wound. It had already begun to heal; treating it or not made little difference.
The dizzying scent of his body was masked by lingering cigarette smoke.
“I’ll go return the first-aid kit,” Liang Jin said.
It was deep into the night by now.
The bustling streets outside were filled only with young men and women heading out on the town. Those rich kids who’d arrived with them were thoroughly sloshed, packing up their things one by one to stumble downstairs.
Their boisterous shouts mingled with a few howling yelps like wolves on the prowl.
Liang Jin dropped off the kit and washed her hands in the restroom.
She stayed silent. That fresh scent of Shen Keye’s clung to her like a second skin, leaving her uneasy.
One of the more perceptive guys spoke up. “Brother Ye, you want us to call a designated driver to take you home?”
Shen Keye declined.
Liang Jin approached slowly from the end of the corridor.
Shen Keye’s eyelids drooped as he gave a light scoff. “Where’d you disappear to? Took you long enough.”
“Just now, I asked the server. There’s a shooting range nearby. I think I promised you before—I’d win you first prize.”
Shen Keye studied her intently. He took hold of Liang Jin’s hand. Her soft, slender fingers flinched as if startled, curling slightly. He lowered his gaze to her fingertips, catching the faint scent of hand soap from the bathroom.
“Washed them nice and clean.”
Shen Keye slowly lifted his eyes to meet Liang Jin’s.
“Liang Jin,” he said, “you always seem to hate it when I touch you.”
Even when she was the one reaching out.
Liang Jin lowered her gaze.
Shen Keye’s expression remained unchanged. With a soft, cold laugh, he remarked, “You find it disgusting to even be touched by me for a moment, yet you don’t hesitate at all to use me.”
Liang Jin lifted her gaze.
Suddenly, she frowned and shot back, “So what?”
The place had emptied out.
In the bar’s dark decor, shadows pulsed under the dim lights, while the street scene outside brimmed with vibrant nightlife.
Some things, Liang Jin understood with crystal clarity.
“Shen Keye,” she asked, “if you want to gamble with me, what are you after?”
Narrowing her eyes, she continued, “The game you’re talking about pits your money and power against my love. We’re balanced on opposite ends of the scale—you up the ante, and I’ll match it.”
She was certain of one thing: he was the one thirsting for her love.
Whether it stemmed from a heaven-sent prodigy’s fleeting whim and twisted amusement, or from the raw, inexplicable affection of some loathsome scoundrel.
Her soft voice carried a seductive lilt. “I can’t stand being touched by men, but you… I don’t hate you quite that much. If you’ve got what it takes, make me completely okay with your touch. Make me fall for you.” Liang Jin paused, as if summoning immense resolve, then asked, “Do you dare?”
Shen Keye’s thin eyelids drooped low, his face icy cold in a posture both sly and supremely arrogant.
Suddenly, he let out a faint chuckle.
“You’re wrong.”
He tightened his grip on her fingers.
Shocked, Liang Jin found him closing in.
Staring straight at her, Shen Keye said, “Liang Jin, who said anything about wanting your love?”
His pitch-black eyes churned with a tempest, like the brutal storm of an emergency plane landing—blending boyish intensity with the gravitas of a grown man, radiating overwhelming pressure and raw impact.
Memories of home flooded back, the throbbing pain along his jaw refusing to fade. Fury ignited in Shen Keye’s heart. He lowered his head and declared,
“I want you never to betray me in this lifetime.”
~~~