Qi Yanheng was dressed in an exquisitely tailored black cashmere overcoat, his hair slicked back to reveal his forehead in a sharp, wolf-cut style. His features were sculpted and three-dimensional; tall and lean, with broad shoulders and long legs.
He possessed an exceptionally striking appearance—so beautiful it blurred the line between masculine and feminine. In an instant, he drew the attention of quite a few diners.
Only Cen Zhinning knew what kind of dark, damp thoughts lurked beneath Qi Yanheng’s handsome exterior.
Qi Yanheng was the first male lead she had been tasked to攻略. With an off-the-charts IQ, he appeared gentle and refined on the surface, but inside he crawled with shadowed darkness.
In the original storyline, he was the nephew of Cen Zhinning’s future stepmother, Qi Rumei. His parents had died when he was young, and Qi Rumei had raised him single-handedly. He later moved into the Cen household with her.
Because he was living under someone else’s roof, he was constantly bullied by the original version of Cen Zhinning, and he harbored deep resentment. In the end, he turned the Cen family upside down and seized power for himself.
He was also, quite plainly, a pervert. In the original book, after falling in love with Bai Xiaorou, he locked her in a small dark room and tormented her until she was no longer recognizable as herself, keeping her chained up every day to vent his twisted hatred.
So when she first transmigrated into the book, her very first mission was to lower Qi Yanheng’s gloominess index—turn him into a sunny young man so he would never commit such insane acts of imprisonment against Bai Xiaorou.
When she first arrived in this world, Qi Rumei was not yet her stepmother, but merely the dance teacher hired by the Cen family.
Seeing Qi Yanheng following behind Qi Rumei, she adored him immediately.
He looked like a porcelain doll. She believed she had been given a redemption script, confident she could warm him and transform him into a bright, cheerful boy.
She liked trailing behind him. Knowing he had no parents, she took special care of him.
Every day she would stuff chocolates and candies into his icy palms, calling him “big brother” again and again.
Even when he ignored her, she remained like a little sparrow, chirping around him tirelessly. Even without a response, she never grew weary. Yet his darkness value didn’t budge at all.
Until one time, when she accidentally slapped Qi Yanheng across the face, his darkness value actually dropped. After several tests, she began to suspect he might be a masochist.
So when Qi Rumei successfully secured her position and became her stepmother, she followed the system’s advice and stopped playing the good person.
She picked up the vicious female supporting character script and began targeting Qi Yanheng relentlessly, berating him for ruining her family.
She joined forces with other servants in the house who disliked them, isolating and teasing him.
To lower his gloominess index, she even did many childish things he couldn’t understand.
For example: cutting up his clothes, soaking his professional textbooks, tricking him into retrieving something from the swimming pool, falsely accusing him of pushing her, splashing soup on him during family dinners, deliberately ruining his competition materials. The petty tricks were endless.
His gloominess value plummeted rapidly to a safe level.
Just as she was secretly pleased at how quickly she had completed the mission, she accidentally discovered her personal underwear hidden beneath his pillow.
She was terrified.
Qi Yanheng was a complete abuse fetishist—the more she tormented him physically and emotionally, the more filthy thoughts he developed toward her.
The household servants handled the laundry. It wasn’t a mistake. It wasn’t a prank.
It was something damp, voyeuristic, and profane.
At that time, still naïve, she froze in shock before being overwhelmed by disgust and humiliation, her stomach churning violently.
Qi Yanheng had been standing behind her all along, looking at her calmly. His expression was terrifyingly composed—not a trace of panic or shame at having his secret exposed.
Her teeth trembled with rage.
“Qi Yanheng, you’re disgusting! A变态!”
Her voice was sharp.
“What do you mean? What filthy things are in your head?”
She grabbed a book from the bedside table and hurled it at him. It struck the top of his head, slicing the corner of his forehead. Blood beaded up, yet he didn’t even blink.
He walked toward her step by step.
“What do I mean?”
He repeated her words, the corner of his mouth curling into an extremely twisted smile, like sticky swamp mud clinging to her.
“Isn’t it obvious, Ningning?”
He looked down at her from above, his eyes filled with bottomless gloom and a frenzied determination. It was a twisted, pathological desire that made her feel suffocated by the sense of being coveted.
With the blood staining his face, he looked like an evil ghost crawling out of hell.
She had been so frightened that she ran away, avoiding him ever since.
The system informed her that the攻略 was successful, meaning he would not imprison or plunder Bai Xiaorou. But she could clearly feel that his pathological obsession had shifted onto her.
To be honest, she was quite afraid of Qi Yanheng.
In the original novel, her stepmother used him to scheme against her in order to drive her out and seize the family fortune.
So to stay far away, she followed the original plot and went along with the bathroom incident.
Her stepmother knew Qi Yanheng had feelings for her and was aware of their past conflicts, so she deliberately lured him into barging into her bathroom.
At that time, she had just come of age. Her body was the most precious and private thing she had, never shown before any man. Yet Qi Yanheng appeared brazenly at the bathroom door.
Her stepmother had calculated that, with her arrogant temper, she would certainly tear the house apart and cause a huge scene. She also knew that no one would believe her.
And that was exactly what happened.
She screamed—half genuine fear, half acting—crying in the living room while smashing things in rage.
Pointing at the silent Qi Yanheng, she roared,
“You disgusting pervert! Peeping tom! No wonder the way you look at me is so filthy!”
Cen Zhenguo rushed home and slapped her across the face, scolding her in deep disappointment.
“Have you had enough? This household is in chaos every day because of you. How long are you going to bully Qi Yanheng? It’s one thing for you to be willful and unreasonable, but now you’re even falsely accusing Ah Heng of coveting you?”
“Don’t think I don’t know what you’ve done. Staging this entire act yourself just to drive them away? Do you really hate them that much?”
“Cen Zhinning, you’ve disappointed me too much. If you keep this up, get out of the Cen family.”
Half her face swollen and red, she feigned disbelief as she looked at this unfamiliar father.
“You don’t believe me. He peeked at me while I was bathing. He harbors improper thoughts toward me—”
“Enough! You’re beyond saving. I’ve already contacted a school overseas. You’re not fit to stay at home. Go abroad and calm down. When you realize your mistakes, you can come back.”
Only then did she secretly breathe a sigh of relief. Pretending sudden realization, she looked at the pale-faced Qi Yanheng, then at her stepmother Qi Rumei, crying pitifully,
“What a clever scheme. No wonder you never fought back or argued. So you set up such a huge trap just to drive me out of the Cen family?”
And so, following the plot, she was sent overseas. Only then did she settle down to攻略 Jiang Jingmian.
According to the original storyline, she had already torn relations completely with Qi Yanheng and her stepmother. They were supposed to be irreconcilable enemies.
She never expected Qi Yanheng to seek her out now.
He stood less than a meter behind her, ignoring the noisy surroundings, his gaze clinging to her like sticky spider silk.
Qin Pengpeng looked annoyed and muttered apologetically,
“Sorry, Ningning. He found me. He said if I didn’t ask you out, he’d tell my dad about me secretly starting a racing club—and make it impossible for me to stay at the academy…”