Stepping out of the theater, Shen Li quietly kept his distance from Ji Zhouye.
From now on, he couldn’t afford to sleep too soundly at night, or he wouldn’t even be left with an intact corpse.
Noticing that Shen Li was deliberately avoiding him, Ji Zhouye reached out and yanked him back to his side. “What are you hiding from?”
“I’m not hiding.”
Shen Li refused to admit it.
Though he could easily read those little thoughts of his, Ji Zhouye asked, “What did you think of the movie?”
Pretending to be nonchalant, Shen Li replied, “It was fine, just completely devoid of human nature. People like that belong in hell.”
Looking straight at Ji Zhouye, he added earnestly, “Don’t do anything unhinged. The ways of heaven are cyclical, and villains will always get what’s coming to them.”
Ji Zhouye didn’t say a word. Shen Li watched his expression closely, unsure if he had actually taken any of it in.
“Really?” Ji Zhouye’s lips curved into an amused, teasing smile.
After Shen Li finished his shower and Ji Zhouye headed into the bathroom, the more Shen Li looked at Ji Zhouye, the more he felt like he resembled a fugitive serial killer on the run.
That impression only intensified whenever Ji Zhouye smiled.
Wanting a cigarette, Shen Li reached for his pack, only to remember that Ji Zhouye had confiscated his cigarettes, treating him practically like an underage minor.
Going downstairs, Shen Li grabbed a can of beer from the refrigerator. No cigarettes, but alcohol would have to do.
Downing the can of beer in one go, Shen Li tossed the empty aluminum can into the trash can.
After a moment of thought, he still opened the drawer, pulled out a pair of scissors, and slid them underneath his pillow.
He hadn’t been scared by the horror movie, but the movie about human nature had hit a little too close to home.
Human nature truly was far more terrifying than ghosts and deities.
In the middle of the night, a rustling sound startled Shen Li awake. Frowning, he rolled over, preparing to go back to sleep, but the moment a thought crossed his mind, he snapped completely alert and reached blindly under his pillow.
His fingers touched nothing. The scissors were gone.
He jerked upright in bed.
Right then, the floor lamp clicked on. Ji Zhouye was sitting right by the edge of his bed, and Shen Li lashed out with a kick. “Ji Zhouye, you are out of your mind! What the hell are you doing beside my bed in the middle of the night?”
Ji Zhouye had just returned from the study and didn’t get angry at all from being kicked.
He dangled the pair of scissors in his hand. “What on earth were you doing hiding a pair of scissors under your pillow?”
Annoyed, Shen Li ran a hand through his hair. “None of your business! Aren’t I just guarding against perverts?”
Having been woken up out of a sound sleep by his spooky antics, Shen Li irritably pulled the blanket up over his head, turned away, and went back to sleep.
Ji Zhouye yanked the blanket off his head. “I’m not going to do anything to you.”
“Then I’m just so grateful to you.” Shen Li tugged the blanket back, forgoing the head-covering this time. “Aren’t you tired? Go to sleep.”
“Sleeping now.”
Ji Zhouye lay down beside him, prompting Shen Li to scoot closer to the edge of the mattress to put some distance between them.
Turning onto his side, Ji Zhouye pulled him firmly into his arms. “You are not allowed to hide.”
Held against that warm chest, Shen Li caught the familiar scent he used to know so well.
He fell deep into thought. He really was pushing his luck more and more lately.
Yelling at him, cursing him, kicking him.
For a split second, it felt as though things had gone back to the way they used to be.
The posture of sleeping in each other’s arms was absurd; Ji Zhouye clearly didn’t love him, yet he was still doing things with him that only couples did.
The moment he agreed to become his lover, he had already prepared himself to be bullied and humiliated.
Reality, however, wasn’t nearly as bad. Ji Zhouye treated him well, respected him, and didn’t even get mad when he kicked him.
Whether fondness was mixed into that kind of treatment was something he couldn’t tell, nor did he dare indulge in any wild fantasies.
If it were him, facing someone who had once deeply hurt him, even if he didn’t actively seek revenge, he certainly wouldn’t keep the person around just to bring himself grief.
Remaining still, Shen Li allowed himself to be held quietly. “President Ji, if you want to take revenge on me, do it properly. Use every dirty trick you have, just don’t treat me nicely.”
He had suspected whether Ji Zhouye was trying to punish him using the contrast, treating him well first, only to turn cruel later, taking him to the clouds one second and plunging him into the mud the next.
With a hoarse voice, Shen Li whispered, “I’m afraid that when you finally get bored and walk away completely unscathed, I won’t be able to climb out of it.”
In the dim light, a complex emotion flashed through Ji Zhouye’s dark eyes. “Isn’t that the best way to exact revenge on someone, after all?”
He had guessed right. Ji Zhouye really did see it that way.
Shen Li let out a silent, bitter laugh, the desolation in his eyes swallowed by the darkness. “Just spare me from being dismembered, then. Leave me an intact body, and I’ll thank you.”
He forced his tone to sound casual.
“Do I really look like a serial killer?” Ji Zhouye asked softly.
“A little bit.”
That night, Shen Li suffered through a very long dream. In the dream, he found himself back at that critical crossroad of choice.
Should he break up and go abroad, or stay by his side?
He hesitated for a long time in the dream, ultimately making the exact same choice as before.
Breaking up and going abroad, leaving everything here behind with no connection to him whatsoever.
No matter how many times that choice presented itself, he would choose to go abroad every single time.
He wouldn’t gamble, not even with the slightest fraction of a chance.
Dark, heavy circles bruised the skin beneath Shen Li’s eyes the next day. Ling Feng asked, “Didn’t sleep well?”
“Mn,” Shen Li muttered, adding, “Got woken up by a dog barking in the middle of the night.”
Ling Feng gasped, “A dog? President Shen, you actually keep a dog? I figured someone like you who can barely take care of himself wouldn’t bother.”
His CEO really had a heart of gold.
At 4:30 in the afternoon, Shen Li clocked out ten minutes early to go pick up Ji Zhouye.
In the parking lot, he bumped into a man. The man was squatting next to that Maybach smoking a cigarette, clearly waiting for him intentionally.
The second he laid eyes on the man, a violent, murderous aura radiated from every inch of Shen Li’s body, his hands clenching into fists at his sides until his knuckles turned stark white.
Catching sight of him, the man stood up with a grin. “Xiao Li, you’re off work.”
“Shut your damn mouth and don’t call me that!” The naked, raw hatred blazing in Shen Li’s eyes was impossible to miss.
Seeing that Shen Li had no patience left, the man dropped the small talk and cut straight to the chase. “I heard Jiang Qing Group is doing pretty well lately. Toss some pocket money to me and your mom. We’ll be one big family soon anyway, and I’ll technically be your stepfather.”
“Zhao Song, you have a death wish.”
Shen Li lunged forward, grabbing the collar of his shirt as his fist slammed mercilessly into his face, splitting the corner of the man’s mouth and sending blood welling up.
Zhao Song could actually feel his teeth loosening from the impact.
Zhao Song was the man Zhou Lifen had cheated with. On the very day his father had been rushed to the hospital following a car crash to fight for his life in the ER, Zhou Lifen had been shacked up in a hotel room with this exact piece of trash.
He genuinely could not fathom why Zhou Lifen would throw away a comfortable life as a wealthy matriarch just to sleep with garbage like this.
Not giving Zhao Song a single second to catch his breath, Shen Li drove a vicious kick straight into his stomach, sending him crashing backward onto the pavement.
This wasn’t the first time he had resorted to violence against Zhao Song. The first time had been right after his father’s funeral, when he had beaten Zhao Song to a pulp right in front of Zhou Lifen.
He had beaten Zhao Song half to death, leaving him covered in blood.
And Zhou Lifen had been the one to call the police.
After being locked up for two days, he was released when the police informed them that Zhao Song refused to press charges.
Wiping the blood from the corner of his mouth with a smirk, Zhao Song sneered, “If you won’t give me money, fine, I won’t say anything either. But think about your mom, she gave birth to you and raised you. Are you really just going to wash your hands of her like this?”
Playing the family card.
Zhao Song never anticipated that Shen Li wouldn’t buy into that trick at all, leading him to beat him even more brutally. In that moment, Zhao Song finally understood why Zhou Lifen called him an ungrateful little wolf.
Driven blind by rage, Shen Li rained heavy, bone-crunching blows down with lethal intent, fighting like a desperate man with nothing left to lose.
Insane to the absolute extreme.
A thorough, unfiltered madman.
In the end, it took several police officers working together to physically restrain him and drag him away. Once again, the person who had dialed 911 was Zhou Lifen.
Before being shoved into the back of the police cruiser, the unquenched rage still burning in his eyes, he cast one final, piercing look toward Zhou Lifen, who was standing beside the ambulance.
That single glance sent a sudden, freezing shiver straight down Zhou Lifen’s spine.