“Zhou… Zhou Xizhi, let him go… I have nothing to do with him.”
Yan Yi’an panicked, hastily distancing herself from Wen Feng.
Zhou Xizhi looked up with a faint smile, his gaunt face full of disdain and suspicion. Under Yan Yi’an’s gaze, he lifted his foot and stepped on Wen Feng’s right hand, grinding down from light to heavy, over and over again.
Wen Feng struggled but was pinned down firmly by several bodyguards, whimpering in his throat yet unable to move.
Zhou Xizhi watched the woman whose face was gradually turning pale, as if suppressing his anger yet still smiling as he asked, “Nothing to do with him? You let him hold your hand?”
Yan Yi’an’s breath caught. So it hadn’t been her imagination.
“No…”
Yan Yi’an’s eyes were frantic, even her breathing was cautious as she looked at Zhou Xizhi’s hand hanging at his side. She gently traced up along his fingers until she grasped his broad, ice-cold palm.
She begged carefully, “Xizhi, let him go, alright? You weren’t like this before.”
“Before?”
“Heh heh… That’s because you didn’t know me yet. Yan Yi’an, you’ve crossed my bottom line. Ruoruo was sentenced to five years—you’ve completely destroyed her.”
Zhou Xizhi’s smile faded, his brows and eyes turning fierce as he shook off Yan Yi’an’s hand.
Yan Yi’an’s heart ached with cold, cold air escaping her lips as she said, “Fine.”
“One person does the deed, one person bears the consequences. Let him go. If you have any anger, take it out on me, alright? Don’t drag innocent people into this.”
“No.” A cold sneer curled at the corner of Zhou Xizhi’s mouth, like a demon savoring the thrill of the hunt. “I want you to taste this powerlessness too, this heart-wrenching feeling of death. Every time I think of Ruoruo’s innocent, pleading eyes, my heart feels just like yours does now…”
Innocent and pleading?
Hadn’t she been exactly that too?
Zhou Xizhi had completely driven her mad. Zhao Ruoruo had brought it upon herself—why wouldn’t he just leave her alone?
“You said it yourself—those who make their own bed must lie in it. Zhao Ruoruo should atone for the mistakes she made. Why do you all have to blame me?”
These words thoroughly enraged Zhou Xizhi.
He suddenly grabbed Yan Yi’an’s chin, wishing he could crush it to pieces. “A scheming woman like you—who knows if you tampered with the evidence back then too? I will clear Ruoruo’s name.”
He wouldn’t forget—she had tricked him with that phone recording.
His foot ground down on Wen Feng’s hand with increasing cruelty, inch by inch, bone by bone.
He wanted to make Yan Yi’an hurt, make her regret, make her helpless… so she could feel what he felt.
The whimpering sounds from beneath his foot were like an invisible pair of hands squeezing Yan Yi’an’s heart.
Wen Feng’s hands were hands that saved lives.
Yan Yi’an was frantic and at a loss. She didn’t know how to make Zhou Xizhi let Wen Feng go. She could only kneel at his feet, clutching his ankle, trying to lessen Wen Feng’s pain.
“I really… I really beg you… let him go. He’s a doctor…”
His hands should hold a scalpel, not be trampled and humiliated.
“Zhou Xizhi… just destroy me. Don’t drag others into this…”
Tears streamed from Yan Yi’an’s eyes as she desperately clawed at the sole of Zhou Xizhi’s foot.
Wen Feng watched the woman crying for him, and somehow his hand didn’t hurt as much anymore… Perhaps he had lost all feeling in it.
Wen Feng’s finger joints had been ground raw, blood streaming freely.
Zhou Xizhi grabbed Yan Yi’an by the hair, forcing her to stand and meet his eyes, both of them looking down at the man on the ground together.
His thumb brushed away the hot tears at the corners of her eyes. The motion was gentle, yet his tone was that of a demon. “Crying for him… Does it hurt? Do you feel helpless? That’s how Ruoruo felt back then.”
“Hm? Can you feel it?”
Yan Yi’an’s delicate face was covered in tear stains. Her wet eyes looked at Zhou Xizhi, wondering why—when his face looked exactly the same as before—his eyes were now filled with such hatred toward her.
Yan Yi’an nodded.
“I was wrong… Please don’t take it out on the innocent people around me, okay? I beg you…”
Let her alone bear Zhou Xizhi’s wrath.
Her tears soaked her lashes, and one by one they fell onto Wen Feng’s face, carried by the movement of the air. He could feel Yan Yi’an’s pain, and the fury inside him grew. He had never seen anyone so vicious, so utterly insane.
“No matter who she is, she has the right to start a new life. You can’t vent your anger on others. You broke into her home and deliberately injured her—I won’t let this go…”
Zhou Xizhi seemed not to hear a single word he said. There was only mockery and a faint sneer in his eyes. Only the fearless could display their stupidity so thoroughly.
“Hah.”
“I truly admire your foolishness.”
Zhou Xizhi grabbed the back of her neck, forcing her to look at the person on the ground. He glanced at Wen Feng with contempt and said in a disdainful tone, “She’s not worthy of you, and you can’t afford her either. Does she even know what a vicious, venomous, scheming, unscrupulous woman you are?”
Yan Yi’an closed her eyes, and all she could hear was Zhou Xizhi’s curses against her.
He was determined to tear off her mask completely, exposing her ugly side to others. The more she hurt, the more satisfaction he felt.
Wen Feng could clearly see her trembling lashes, and the light in her eyes was gone.
Yan Yi’an was like a broken toy in his hands, trampled at will, with no strength to resist—daring not to resist, for fear of dragging Wen Feng down further.
Finally, Zhou Xizhi lifted his exquisite, expensive leather shoe from Wen Feng’s bloody, mangled hand, where tendons and bones were now exposed…
Yan Yi’an’s tears fell drop by drop onto Wen Feng’s face. She bit down hard on her lower lip until blood seeped from the corner of her mouth. Only then did Zhou Xizhi angrily pry her mouth open. “If you don’t mind having one more person buried with you, then by all means, go ahead and die.”
“Remember this: he ended up like this because of you. If you don’t want to drag anyone else down, stay by my side and atone for Ruoruo until she’s released.”
“What you’re suffering isn’t even one ten-thousandth of what she went through.”
Was it not enough?
But to her, it already hurt so much…
Why should she bear the consequences when it was Zhao Ruoruo who had harmed her? Was it simply because Zhao Ruoruo was the one he cherished above all?
But she, too, had once been cherished above all…
Perhaps Zhuang Jinghao was right—she shouldn’t have kept gravitating toward Zhou Xizhi like an addiction, destroying herself and hurting others in the process.
Yan Yi’an was thrown into the car. Wen Feng was still lying in her rented room. She hadn’t even had the chance to properly say goodbye to this place before being forced to leave in such a humiliating manner. Thinking back, it was always like this.
The car was eerily silent. Zhou Xizhi was like a wolf lurking in the darkness, waiting patiently for his prey to make a move.
Yan Yi’an lifted her small face and leaned it against the car window, taking in the night scenery by the river. Multicolored neon lights flashed across her face one after another, making her look like a sprite that emerged at night—captivating and mesmerizing.
The tear stains still on her face, not yet wiped dry, were strikingly conspicuous in Zhou Xizhi’s eyes, and a nameless fire of irritation rose unbidden in his heart.
His fingers had barely brushed against Yan Yi’an’s skin when she flinched like a startled bird, curling in on herself and eyeing him with wary, guarded suspicion.
The fear and terror in her eyes only fueled Zhou Xizhi’s fury.
He seized her wrist and yanked her close, then, with no room for refusal, wiped the tears from her face—rubbing until her skin turned red and raw. “Crying for another man? Do you like him that much?”
“No,” Yan Yi’an blurted out in denial.