The sky was overcast, heavy with impending rain.
At this moment, An Ning was the only person at the bus stop.
The black luxury car stopped right beside her, clearly targeting her.
The passenger window rolled halfway down.
An Ning leaned forward, her blurry gaze meeting a pair of indifferent, aloof, and callous eyes.
Her heart palpitated even more intensely.
Lu Xiyan sat in the car, coldly observing her pale face and unsteady stance.
He parked there without a word, as if watching a dying person struggle to save themselves.
An Ning dug her nails into her palms, clinging to her last shred of clarity.
She knew Lu Xiyan was watching her humiliation.
Waiting to see how wretchedly she would collapse.
With no one else around, he was her only hope for help.
Weakly, she sat on the bus stop bench, her face pale and cold, long eyelashes lowered as if wrestling with herself.
The person in the car remained exceptionally patient, his deep eyes still devoid of ripples, his handsome and refined face showing no emotion.
His gaze seemed to watch an ant beneath his foot struggling to survive.
One minute later.
“Tap, tap, tap—”
The car window was knocked on, then rolled down further, enough to reveal her pale, palm-sized face.
“Can… can you give me… a piece of candy?”
An Ning leaned against the dark car window, struggling to speak, her voice trembling.
She wasn’t sure if the person in the car would agree.
But even if a stranger asked for help, he probably wouldn’t stand by and do nothing.
“Get in.”
Two cold words, low and hoarse.
An Ning’s trembling hand rested on the door handle, too weak to pull it open.
The next second, the man stretched out his long leg and kicked the passenger door open.
The car was cool inside, but for An Ning, who was drenched in cold sweat, it was adding frost to snow.
She sat in the passenger seat and saw the man toss a golden box over to her.
It was a box of chocolates wrapped in golden foil.
An Ning no longer had the energy to think about anything else. Her survival instinct made her fumble to open the box and tear off the golden wrapper.
Like a starving ghost, she devoured one chocolate in two hurried bites, then started unwrapping the second…
In front of Lu Xiyan, she was already a mess.
But no matter how humiliating, she had to survive first.
Li Chunfang still needed surgery, and An Xian was waiting for her to come home…
As sugar entered her system, her muddled mind gained a brief moment of clarity.
Her trembling hands gradually steadied.
Only her frantic heartbeat continued to race erratically.
The first person to ever give her chocolate in her life was Lu Xiyan.
The same golden wrapper, the same chocolate.
The chocolate from six years ago was sweet and rich.
This time, the chocolate was noticeably much more bitter.
Lu Xiyan’s car kept driving forward, with no clear destination.
An Ning didn’t dare look up or speak, focusing only on the box of chocolates in her lap, pretending to be busy unwrapping the golden foil.
Out of the corner of her eye, she glimpsed his distinct, bony hands skillfully turning the steering wheel.
The sky had completely darkened.
Streetlights lit up on both sides of the road as the luxury car pulled over to the curb.
Lu Xiyan leaned back in his seat and glanced at her sideways—a simple white T-shirt revealing two pale, slender arms.
She was very thin, the kind of thin where one hand could firmly grasp both her arms.
Her face was pale and delicate, with several red marks clearly visible, her long eyelashes lowered, trembling slightly.
A green silk ribbon was tied around her left wrist in a bow, its fluttering ends resembling a dancing butterfly as she unwrapped the packaging.
The car was eerily silent.
A “click” sounded—the noise of a lighter igniting a cigarette.
An Ning turned in surprise to see the man’s pale, slender fingers holding a lit cigarette. The crimson ember at its tip glowed and dimmed with each drag.
He exhaled lightly, pale blue smoke rings enveloping his sharply defined features. His smoking movements were practiced and sensual.
Four years ago, Lu Xiyan didn’t smoke.
A sour ache rose in An Ning’s throat. She said nothing, lowering her head again.
“Finished eating?”
The man’s voice broke the silence in the car, his tone magnetic and low after being steeped in smoke, each word enunciated with neutral precision that revealed no emotion.
An Ning looked down at the chocolates in her hand. There had been six pieces originally, now only one remained.
“Would… you like one?”
She carefully picked up the last chocolate and offered it to the man beside her.
His cigarette-holding hand, with its distinct knuckles, rested on the window frame. Without even glancing her way, he tapped on his phone several times before tossing it in front of her.
“Two hundred eighty per box. Scan the code.”
His payment QR code was displayed on the screen.
An Ning was shocked—this box of chocolates was so expensive!
She had chosen to take the six-yuan bus to save the hundred-fifty-yuan cab fare.
She never expected these six chocolates would cost two hundred eighty!
But since she had eaten his food, it made sense to pay.
Come to think of it, nothing from Lu Xiyan’s pockets had ever been within her financial reach.
Two hundred eighty for chocolates—in his previous life, such things wouldn’t have warranted a second glance from him.
An Ning parted her lips, swallowing the urge to bargain, and withdrew the chocolate she had offered.
The man continued smoking calmly, flicking ash as he waited for her payment.
An Ning took out her phone and opened WeChat. As she prepared to scan the code, her eyes unconsciously drifted to the profile picture in the center of the QR code.
It had been changed. No longer the old one.
His previous social media avatar had been an intimate photo of the two of them.
Her gaze shifted upward and trembled slightly.
The name remained unchanged—L.XY.
Two hundred eighty. Payment.
Her hand shook—insufficient balance.
She tried another card—still insufficient.
Her brow furrowed slightly, the payment phone clutched awkwardly in her hand.
She had forgotten—today she’d just paid for the surgery and advanced Sister Zhao’s salary with her last five thousand yuan.
Now she had less than a hundred yuan left in her account.
She had become so impoverished she couldn’t even afford a box of Lu Xiyan’s chocolates.
“I… um…As if fearing he would shatter her fragile self-esteem again, she mustered courage to ask, “Could I pay you another day?””
Lu Xiyan finished his cigarette and stubbed it out. His indifferent eyes fell on her reddening earlobes as he smirked derisively.
Still blushing when lying—after all these years, she hadn’t improved at all.
And he thought she’d been doing well. Four years later, still penniless.
“Another day meaning when? Can’t even afford two hundred eighty?” Lu Xiyan’s words pierced An Ning’s heart mercilessly. “Should I set up an installment plan for you?”
He knew An Ning too well, knew exactly where to strike to cause the most pain.
He wielded the cruelest words with the calmest delivery.
Her slender hands clenched tightly at her skirt. Tears welled up instantly, shimmering in her eyes.
An Ning’s heart ached with bitterness, yet she struggled to suppress it.
The phone rang at that moment, shattering the suffocating atmosphere inside the car.
An Ning answered, and a tender, milky voice came through the receiver, “Mommy! It’s raining—when are you coming home?”
The phone wasn’t on speaker, but in the extreme quiet of the car, the voice was exceptionally clear.
The man’s deep pupils contracted abruptly. His hand on the steering wheel tightened suddenly, veins bulging on the back.
She has a child?!