Nine o’clock that evening, at Nightfall Bar.
Huo Peiyan was drowning his sorrows, one drink after another. Fu Jinshen sat beside him with swollen eyes, grinding his teeth as he complained.
“Brother Yan, in all my life, I’ve never met a woman as vicious as Su Yuqing. What kind of decent girl carries pepper spray everywhere? Look what she did to me—I nearly went blind.”
“Breaking up with her was the smartest thing you’ve ever done, Brother Yan. She deserves to be unwanted for the rest of her life.”
Fu Jinshen covered his face and hissed as he drew in sharp breaths. Su Yuqing had hit him so hard that his face still ached faintly.
He looked at Huo Peiyan ingratiatingly, watching for the slightest change in his expression.
Usually, Huo Peiyan would already have been annoyed and impatient.
He had never had much patience with Su Yuqing.
“Shut up!” Huo Peiyan said coldly, then downed another glass of whisky.
There was none of the scorn toward Su Yuqing that Fu Jinshen had expected.
Even Fu Jinshen, slow as he could be, sensed something was off.
Why was Huo Peiyan sitting here drowning his sorrows?
It was so unlike him. Had Su Yuqing started acting crazy again?
He cautiously asked, “Brother Yan, did Su Yuqing upset you again?”
At the sound of Su Yuqing’s name, Huo Peiyan remembered her words: “I’d marry a dog before I’d marry you.”
His dark eyes clouded. He clenched his back teeth.
Did she really think he was worth less than a dog?
Damn it!
Huo Peiyan picked up another glass and drank.
Fu Jinshen watched him carefully, taking in every change in his expression.
What else was there to misunderstand?
Su Yuqing must have faked being sick at the hospital and made a scene. She must have really angered Huo Peiyan.
Fu Jinshen thought himself incredibly clever. If he hadn’t happened to catch Su Yuqing faking her illness at the hospital that day, how could he have exposed her clumsy act?
“Brother Yan, Su Yuqing’s a liar! I had something to do at the hospital that day and happened to see her. You can’t let her fool you—she wasn’t sick at all. She was just trying to get your attention.”
“I only told her to stay away from you, and she beat me up like this! Brother Yan, you have to avenge me.”
Fu Jinshen spoke through tears and snot, his eyes swollen like peaches.
He thought this would move Huo Peiyan.
Instead, Huo Peiyan set his glass down hard on the table. His eyes were so cold they held no warmth.
“You told her to stay away from me?”
“Y-yeah.”
He hadn’t even finished speaking before he sensed Huo Peiyan’s presence turn colder still.
A knife-sharp look swept over him, making his heart quail for no apparent reason.
Had he said something wrong?
A warm, mellow male voice broke the silence. “A-Yan, what’s the fun in drinking alone?”
Tang Chuhan pushed open the door and dropped into the seat beside Huo Peiyan, lounging back.
“Hey, I’m a person too, aren’t I?” Fu Jinshen protested.
“No.”
“You’re a nuisance.”
Tang Chuhan and Huo Peiyan spoke at the same time.
“…”
Huo Peiyan lifted his eyes and gave Tang Chuhan a brief, indifferent glance. Then he picked up a bottle and tossed it to him.
Tang Chuhan’s lips curved as he caught it in midair.
He twisted off the cap with an easy flick, poured himself a glass, raised it toward Huo Peiyan, and drained it in one go.
“Drowning your sorrows over a breakup?”
Tang Chuhan casually set down his glass. “I was making my rounds today. Guess who I ran into?”
“Not interested.”
Huo Peiyan lounged against the back of the sofa, his eyes half-closed.
But the hand holding his glass curled slightly, almost imperceptibly.
Tang Chuhan’s lips curved, but he said nothing.
Fu Jinshen leaned forward, unable to resist asking, “Who’d you run into? Come on, tell me.”
He saw the inscrutable look in Tang Chuhan’s eyes and thought, Oh, shit.
“Y-you ran into Su Yuqing too? I never knew that woman was such a drama queen. She didn’t do anything to you, did she?”
“Shut up!”
“Shut up!”
The two commands came in unison.
Fu Jinshen looked up nervously and met two icy stares.
“W-what did I say?”
The next second, an empty glass flew straight at his forehead.
Shit! Fu Jinshen jerked his head to the side, barely dodging it.
The glass shattered with a sharp crash.
His heart pounded.
Still shaken, he looked toward the direction it had come from. “Wait, Brother Yan, you’re serious?”
Huo Peiyan, the culprit, sat there coldly without a word.
He only turned his head to look at Tang Chuhan, his expression unreadable.
If he hadn’t seen it wrong, hadn’t Tang Chuhan just stood up for Su Yuqing?
A sudden, inexplicable irritation surged through him.
How dare Tang Chuhan?
Su Yuqing was his woman. How dare anyone covet her?
Tang Chuhan seemed to read his mind. “Huo Peiyan, I know Qing-Qing likes you. For these past seven years, I’ve never crossed the line. But if you two are breaking up, don’t tell me what I can or can’t do.”
“So you really have been harboring ulterior motives!”
Huo Peiyan stared at him coldly.
“So what? You don’t love her. You might as well let her go sooner rather than later.”
“Not a chance!”
After saying that, Huo Peiyan got up and left.
“Hey, Brother Yan, why are you leaving all of a sudden?”
Fu Jinshen stood up and stared, dumbfounded, at Huo Peiyan’s retreating figure. “What were you two just talking about? You both like the same girl?”
“Qingqing? Tang Chuhan, don’t tell me you like Ruan Qingqing too? She’s Brother Yan’s white moonlight. What were you thinking?”
Fu Jinshen looked at Tang Chuhan, baffled.
Tang Chuhan picked up the coat from the sofa and gave him a faint glance. “You should get your head checked at the hospital.”
“My head? Come on, Brother Han, you’re a doctor. How can you not tell? It’s my eyes that are injured. What’s that got to do with my head?”
Tang Chuhan looked at him as if he were an idiot.
“Yeah. You’re terminal,” he said, then left.
Fu Jinshen was left standing there, completely bewildered.
*
“Jing City First Hospital.”
Huo Peiyan sat in the back of the Bentley and tugged at his tie, issuing the order in a frigid voice.
Assistant Zhang paused.
He looked at Huo Peiyan in the rearview mirror, puzzled.
“President Huo, did you say the First Hospital?”
He knew Su Yuqing was staying there. Could it be…?
“Hmm? You have a problem with that?”
Huo Peiyan raised his eyes, his voice carrying a bone-deep chill.
“N-no.”
Assistant Zhang shuddered. He didn’t dare think too much about it, quickly looked away, and pressed the accelerator. The Bentley sped off toward the hospital.
In the hospital room,
Su Yuqing was leisurely eating potato chips, inexplicably happy at the thought that she’d soon be discharged.
The next second, the hospital-room door was flung open.
A young woman entered with a swaying grace, wearing a fitted white dress with a cinched waist. Her long hair fell over her shoulders, and her makeup was meticulously done.
It was Ruan Qingqing.
Su Yuqing slowly lifted her lashes and looked at the woman before her, who resembled her.
A dull ache stirred in her heart.
For the past seven years, the name Ruan Qingqing had constantly reminded her that she could never measure up to her.
Otherwise, why would Huo Peiyan show only her such favoritism?
The women who had come before were like a splinter, stabbing at the wound that had only recently begun to heal.
Her face went pale for a moment.
She held back the emotions rising inside her. “What are you here for?”