The lousy ramen she’d scarfed down earlier threatened to come back up from all the suppressed laughter. Tears welled in her eyes. She didn’t dare look at his face and just waved her hand frantically to show she hadn’t meant it that way.
She couldn’t laugh. She had to hold it in. But she couldn’t.
…
This guy and his deadpan humor were lethal. And he was so quick to take it personally—who had even brought him up?
Xie Lisheng watched her muffled giggles leaking out despite her hand over her mouth. He was annoyed enough to almost crack a smile himself.
He was half tempted to yank open his belt and give her a playful whack with it.
…Whatever. She had graduated today, after all.
Jiang Zao finally laughed herself out. She straightened up, wiped her tears, and hurried to explain. “I didn’t mean it like that…”
She tilted her head up and caught sight of his noticeably darkened expression. Far from being scared, it only made her throat tickle with more suppressed mirth.
She’d never realized before just how satisfying it was to throw him off his game.
Jiang Zao schooled her expression a little and stood up straight to continue. “You misunderstood what I was talking about.”
“I told you before—I know I can be pretty naive and childish sometimes. Like wanting to find someone through a blind date who’d be willing to build a relationship slowly with me and all that.” She steadied her breathing after her laughing fit, hand on her chest as she gazed into the distance, getting uncharacteristically romantic. “For me, a pure romance is probably something like that.”
“I’m not kidding, and don’t call me tacky. I’ve envied other people before—yearning for confessions under the stadium lights with a guitar serenade, quiet study sessions side by side in the library, or those winter nights under the dorms, wrapped up in scarves and chatting until neither of us wanted to say goodbye.”
Xie Lisheng nodded. “Yeah, no way I could pull that off.”
Jiang Zao pouted. She’d known he’d say something like that. Men and women just thought differently about romance, worlds apart. And trying to explain it to a hardcore capitalist with an engineering and research background? Forget it.
“We couldn’t even finish talking about it a few days ago,” he added suddenly.
She blinked in confusion. “…Huh?”
Xie Lisheng took half a step closer. He reached out, pinched the tassel on her academic cap, and gave it a tug by way of explanation. “We’re both graduated now. How are we supposed to play out those scenes you described?”
Jiang Zao blinked at him, staring blankly.
A few seconds later, they both chuckled in perfect sync.
Even so, Jiang Zao couldn’t resist a jab. “But I didn’t ask you. Why’d you drag yourself into it anyway?”
Xie Lisheng: “…”
Who was the one who didn’t get romance here?
~~~
Jiang Zao hadn’t made any real friends during her master’s program, so she didn’t stick around campus. The two token graduation photos she took were only because Xie Lisheng had insisted on snapping them for her.
Since he’d come specifically for her, it was only natural that she hitched a ride back to Qinnan in his car.
At first, she didn’t feel much about it. But after changing out of her gown and settling into the passenger seat, watching the school gates recede in the side mirror, a wave of melancholy finally washed over her.
From failing the postgraduate entrance exam, to delaying her graduation and holing up on campus for a full-throttle retry, finally making it in on her second shot, and then the three years of her master’s flying by.
Those days of burying her head in books had vanished in a blink, like a montage of fleeting images fading into the distance.
“Your birth mom’s situation.” Xie Lisheng kept his eyes on the road as he flipped his phone to a chat window and passed it to his passenger. “Take a look.”
“I’ll get you the hard copies of the files another day.”
Jiang Zao took the phone. As she read through Xie Lisheng’s chat logs with the investigator and the evidence they’d dug up, her face drained of color before his eyes.
Xie Lisheng caught her ghastly expression in the rearview mirror—just as he’d expected. “Like you told me before, I had someone follow up on Lady Pan’s actions over the years. It’s full of holes.”
“When you were sixteen, she egged your Little Aunt on to sell off the only house your Maternal Grandpa had left to the two sisters. Then she pocketed her half of the proceeds and vanished without a trace.”
“Her story at the time was that she’d gotten into trouble reselling used cars and racked up a huge compensation debt. If she couldn’t pay it off, there would be big problems. She even showed your Little Aunt a bunch of debt documents, which is why your Little Aunt believed her and agreed to sell the property.”
Jiang Zao gripped her phone, glaring at those ironclad conclusions as her eyes began to sting. “How dare she… how dare she…”
A surge of rage triggered a buzzing in her ears and a trembling in her vision. Even though she was sitting still, the world seemed to spin around her, as if something was on the verge of collapsing.
Her voice shook at the end. “How dare she forge those debts! That house was the dowry my Maternal Grandpa left to my Little Aunt—her only security in her husband’s family…”
She still remembered how her Little Aunt’s husband and his family had refused to sell the house at first. But her Little Aunt, terrified that her sister was truly in danger, had agreed anyway, ignoring her own precarious situation. For years afterward, her husband and mother-in-law would bring it up time and again to berate her.
How much grief had her Little Aunt endured over that house…
And it had all been thanks to Pan Yu’s lies!!
Pan Yu could torment and bully her all she wanted—Jiang Zao had grown used to it, and it didn’t really matter.
But her Little Aunt was more important to her than herself. Jiang Zao simply couldn’t stand it. She was so furious that chills ran through her body, and the itch to destroy something surged within her once more.
On the surface, she was just sitting in the passenger seat, staring blankly, but Xie Lisheng could sense her massive emotional turmoil. It was similar to the state he’d seen her in at the police station last time.
He gripped the steering wheel and spoke calmly. “Jiang Zao, don’t let your emotions consume you.”
“The evidence is in your hands now. There’s nothing to fear.”
“If you want to take her down, punish her—it’s just a matter of time.”
“We can punish her anytime now…” Jiang Zao bent forward, covering her face with both hands, hoping it would hide the tears that were about to spill. “But what about all the grievances my Little Aunt has suffered these years? What about the money she lost? How can we ever make that right…”
She had never hated Pan Yu as much as she did in this moment.
Xie Lisheng drove on, hearing every choked sob as she battled her emotions before they fully overwhelmed her.
He wasn’t the type to be swayed by feelings, so empathy didn’t come easily to him.
He almost told her, “Maturity means knowing how to skip the emotions and just get things done.” But what came out instead was—
“We’ve still got two and a half hours before we reach Qinnan.”
“Get some sleep.”
His voice was so light and detached that it bordered on cold, but it still pulled Jiang Zao out of her spiraling emotions. She quickly wiped away her tears, turned her face toward the window, and closed her eyes.
He had a point. Whether to kill or to carve her up, they could deal with Pan Yu once they saw her.
~~~
She’d thought she’d stay furious all the way back to Qinnan. But whether it was Xie Lisheng’s smooth driving or the plush comfort of the Panamera’s seats, Jiang Zao fell asleep in no time.
In her dreams, she kept reliving hiding in the guest bedroom as a child, listening to her Aunt’s Husband berate her Little Aunt in endless arguments. And every time her Little Aunt looked at her, she’d wear that bright, cheerful smile as if nothing had happened.
Each dream twisted her heart in pain.
Qinnan seemed to have its own magnetic pull. As the sports car entered the familiar streets of Qinnan City Center, Jiang Zao woke up naturally.
Opening her eyes, the first thing she saw was a large suit jacket draped over her. It was already warm from her body heat, as if it had been covering her for a long time.
Jiang Zao froze for a moment, her fingers brushing the silky lining inside. She didn’t dare look at the man driving beside her.
Gazing at the unchanging familiar streetscape outside the window, she itched to call Pan Yu right then and drag her out for a confrontation.
No—better yet, call the police and have her arrested on the spot.
The car pulled up right at the entrance to the residential complex. Xie Lisheng seemed to know her mind was full of family matters. He simply said, “Head on back,” and nothing more.
He got out of the car too, as if needing a breath of fresh air after the hundred-kilometer drive before heading off.
Jiang Zao climbed two steps up the stairs, then suddenly stopped and turned back.
Xie Lisheng was still leaning against the car door, watching her.
He raised an eyebrow slightly, questioning her silently.
Her fingers tightened around her phone. Jiang Zao wasn’t sure how to read him. “Are you really just giving all this to me like that?”
“This… wasn’t this the condition you negotiated for our marriage talks?”
“What if I take the evidence and still refuse to marry you?” She lowered her lashes. “Wouldn’t all your effort be for nothing?”
Xie Lisheng leaned back against the car door, arms crossed lazily, utterly relaxed as he replied, “In this day and age, having too strong a sense of morality isn’t always a good thing.”
“If someone’s willing to deliver themselves right to your doorstep for you to use, don’t overthink it.”
Jiang Zao looked at him.
As expected, Xie Lisheng paused for two seconds before adding, “You work at Yunsheng. Getting a return on my investment from you would be even simpler than grabbing a meal.”
She nodded and shared her honest thoughts with him. “You’re right. I do have high moral standards, so I don’t like owing anyone anything.”
“Even if I can’t help you with that matter, I’ll find a way to repay this favor.”
“Thank you. I’ll be going now.”
After hearing her out, Xie Lisheng didn’t wait for her to turn away. He stood up first, opened the car door, slid inside, and started the engine.
Jiang Zao watched the sleek car depart from the residential complex. Her expression turned icy as she immediately dialed Pan Yu’s number.
The ringing dragged on interminably, stretching through one fifteen-second interval after another. An ominous premonition welled up in her heart, her emotions plummeting like a stone sinking into the depths.
She had endured this exact situation too many times over the past twenty years. The familiarity was so profound that she almost wanted to laugh.
No way, right? It couldn’t be.
Jiang Zao’s face grew deathly pale. She stomped up the stairs with all her might—
Pan Yu, you better not…
She had just reached her front door and fished out her keys to unlock it when her phone burst into ringtone—
Fuming, Jiang Zao answered without even glancing at the caller ID. “How dare you ignore my cal—!”
“Hello? You’re Pan Yu’s daughter, right?” A strange, menacing male voice cut in.
Clatter.
The keys slipped from her hand and hit the ground.
Jiang Zao abruptly ended the call.
~~~