She’d hit the sore spot dead-on!
Fu Zhi ground her teeth in frustration. “You didn’t give the ticket away, did you?”
“I ran into Zhixing on the way here, so I just handed it over.”
Fu Li stared at Fu Zhi’s darkened face, completely bewildered.
He’d just managed to soothe her temper, so why was she bristling again now?
What had he done wrong this time?
Sigh—it was his fault for spoiling his little sister too much. She was completely unpredictable now.
Lu Tao shot Fu Li a “you’re on your own” look, then dragged her pink duffel bag and slipped away.
Still, on the way back, Lu Tao was in high spirits—she even hummed a tune.
“Everything has cracks, and that’s where the light gets in~”
No matter how things turned out, she’d gained a doting mother-in-law, and Zhizhi had gained a caring brother. The journey itself was beautiful, after all
Lu Tao was a natural optimist by nature. Fu Zhi, on the other hand, never said it aloud and never showed it on her face, but she radiated world-weariness and pessimism from head to toe. In ancient times, she’d have been a villainess capable of destroying heaven and earth.
It was only when she was by Lu Tao’s side that she’d get swept up in her warmth and grounded back into the mortal world.
Passersby watched Lu Tao bounce along, as if infected by her soaring spirits.
Her singing aside, with that profile view and a voice as clear as a child’s, she was practically a pure, sweet peach mochi.
She wore a short light-purple jacket with a hint of her slender white waist peeking through, paired with blue straight-leg jeans—fresh and lovely to behold.
Lu Tao made it home. At some point, rain had started falling outside the window, with lightning so startling it lit up the outdoors as bright as day.
Lu Tao breathed a sigh of relief—good thing she’d made it back in time.
“Back?”
A cold, detached voice suddenly came from the shadows, startling her so much she shrank her neck and jolted. She spun around and instinctively grabbed hold of something.
Her center of gravity tipped, her full weight pitching backward, and a sensation of falling swept over her fast.
Her pupils contracted sharply—behind her was the liquor cabinet.
Her first thought wasn’t of a bloody head, but that the cheapest bottle in that cabinet cost seven figures!
“Save me!”
A soft, urgent cry escaped her parted lips.
Luckily, the man caught her around the waist. The sliver of exposed waist met his fingertips, and warmth spread quickly between them.
Whether it was her waist or his fingers that heated up, neither could say.
That flash of lightning happened to illuminate the man standing far too close.
He wore gold-rimmed glasses, a Republican-era white shirt with a vest, broad shoulders and a narrow waist, sleeves rolled up.
Pure daddy energy—the ideal of every mortal heart.
Gu Xingzhi looked impeccable whether in business attire or casual wear.
Lu Tao couldn’t help but suspect he had a styling team behind him.
Her heart pounded like she’d just ridden a wild pirate ship. She straightened up and, still shaken, glanced back at the liquor cabinet—untouched, intact.
There was unmistakable irritation in her eyes. If he hadn’t been lurking in the dark to scare her, she’d never have nearly destroyed that cabinet.
So close! She’d have had to sell herself into servitude and still not been able to afford it.
No wonder Zhizhi said serving a lord was like lying beside a tiger.
In an instant, her fair face broke into a fawning smile. “Big Boss, why are you home today?”
And wasn’t he the Big Boss, indeed? In games, the final-stage boss was always the ultimate villain. Only by defeating the villain could you win the grand final reward.
Gu Xingzhi watched her, not missing a single flicker of emotion on her face. He let out a lazy, muffled laugh.
The Republican-era vest, the gold-rimmed glasses, and that low, magnetic chuckle—his aura of straddling good and evil grew ever more pronounced.
He didn’t really care who she was, as long as she kept fulfilling her duties.
But privately, he rather enjoyed watching her ever-shifting expressions.
Little thing—she was quite amusing.
He lifted his gaze, sweeping over her, and answered flatly, “Mm.”
After seventy-two hours straight, flying through three countries, and only catching a brief nap on the plane, his assistant had asked whether he wanted to go to the office or home. His first instinct had been home.
But once he got there, he’d only slept three hours before waking. When he woke, the sky had already darkened, and the room was cold and empty.
He’d worked out, then gone to the shooting range for a few rounds, and she still hadn’t come back. A flicker of displeasure rose in him.
Which was why, when he saw her slip in with that hunched posture just now, he’d wanted to give her a scare.
Lu Tao reached out, and when Gu Xingzhi didn’t refuse, she kneaded his shoulders and patted his legs, committing fully to her sycophantic act.
Though she had no idea what this man was made of—he was hard all over. After just one minute of kneading, her hands were already sore.
The man raised one hand to push up the bridge of his gold-rimmed glasses. “Keep going.”
Lu Tao gritted her teeth and pressed on, her black-and-white eyes darting around. “Big Boss, I’d like to file a request—tomorrow I need to visit my family.”
Gu Xingzhi lifted his eyelids, his gaze unreadable. “Going back to the Lu family again?”
From that “again,” Lu Tao thought she could faintly detect a note of displeasure.
But the truth was, since they’d gotten married, she’d either stayed at hotels or gone back to the Lu family—she’d never once left from here.
What was that “again” supposed to mean?!
Lu Tao pondered his imperial intent for a moment, then gave a dry laugh. “Yeah.”
If Fu Zhi’s brother was a doting sister-maniac, then Lu Tao’s brother was a sister-sabotaging maniac.
Her scumbag brother had just called, asking her to come home.
She could guess with her toes that he was short on cash—the whole family were leeches.
To avoid President Gu slicing her into pieces, and to avoid any unnecessary trouble, Lu Tao pulled him back out of her blacklist.
She figured that if running away was useless and shameful, she might as well face the problem head-on.
You can’t catch a wolf without risking your child—ha, who’s tricking whom was still up for debate.
Gu Xingzhi remained silent for a long time.
Only then did Lu Tao notice that she had accidentally ripped off one of his shirt buttons, revealing not only his chest muscles but also a scar.
Such a perfect physique, yet it bore a strange scar—blood-red, winding like a spider lily.
It added a kind of hazy, broken beauty to his body, like the Venus de Milo with her missing arms.
She stared in a daze. With all those bodyguards around him, protecting him so well, how could he have gotten such a serious injury?
And the scar looked odd too—wouldn’t someone of Gu Xingzhi’s status use scar-removal cream? How could such a deep scar remain?
It made no sense at all. Lost in thought, she instinctively reached out her hand.
Smack!