Shi Lijin was like a barrier, and no one could ever guess what was on his mind. Gu Qingjiao walked over step by step, feeling as though she were stepping on a blind box, wondering who knew if the next step would trigger a small blade.
[Do not doubt it, he has never once stopped thinking about killing you.]
The system’s sudden reminder made her footsteps pause.
What was this man’s heart made of? Solid stone?
The system added: [Even if he feels a shred of a crush on you, he won’t hold back when it comes to killing you, oh.]
Raising his eyelids and seeing her stop halfway, Shi Lijin asked bluntly, “What did Shen Kewen tell you to do when she called you over?”
“She asked me to marry you.”
“And what else?”
Gu Qingjiao did not have any of the original owner’s memories, but after thinking about the original owner’s experiences and the trajectory of the story, she answered honestly, “To seize your family fortune.”
Shi Lijin suddenly smiled, his gaze resembling a male lion looking through a glass panel at a gentle elkhound.
“What ability do you have to seize my family fortune?”
Earlier, while wiping the sofa with alcohol, Gu Qingjiao had been in a half-squatting state, and now, being questioned like this by Shi Lijin, she felt a bit bewildered. She bent over to rub her knees, thinking of making something up on the spot to bluff her way through, only to see Shi Lijin casually tap the spot beside him and say in an extremely calm tone, “Sit over here.”
System: [Right now, go up and slap him.]
The system’s remark was truly choking; it was truly worthy of being a heartless little card machine, telling her to go give him a slap? What kind of talk was that? What if she struck him too hard and Shi Lijin flew into a rage, taking out a small carving knife to play with on her face?
Therefore, at Shi Lijin’s directive to sit over here, Gu Qingjiao sat down on his lap without a moment’s hesitation and without any rush.
System: [?]
The right hand that Shi Lijin had rested on the sofa instantly tightened, the pale green veins appearing particularly prominent under his fair skin.
Gu Qingjiao picked up her own dangling calf and placed it back over his lap, her two feet swinging leisurely below. When she raised her eyes, she happened to crash into his gaze, which was full of thorns.
“Just by relying on this?” Shi Lijin let out a cold, light huff. “It would be better for Miss Gu to bring out some actual strength.”
“But I can’t do it,” Gu Qingjiao hooked her arms around his neck, looking closely at that exquisite jawline. “Before coming over, Aunt Wen told me that no matter what price I have to pay, I must seduce and trick you into my hands. But this is too difficult for me; I am no Daji, why should I learn that fox-spirit way of bewitching the ruler? Fiancé, although the two of us don’t have much of a connection, I am truly sincere toward you.”
She saw Shi Lijin’s throat rolling down slowly, one beat after another. Even through their clothes, she could feel his skin heating up layer by layer.
Since his body was this honest, why bother keeping such a stiff face?
Shi Lijin seemed to sense the changes in his own body as well, and a trace of unnatural unease floated into the depths of his eyes. Looking at Gu Qingjiao’s brazenly charming face, she asked indifferently, “Tell me, aside from the family fortune, what else do you people want?”
Gu Qingjiao gave a disdainful laugh. “As if I genuinely care about your pocket change.”
“If you truly don’t care about money, they wouldn’t have gone through all that painstaking trouble to send you over. Didn’t you read the Marriage Agreement?”
When did Gu Qingjiao have time to read any Marriage Agreement? The moment she transmigrated in, she had already been locked up by those little maids, and when she finally came out, the Marriage Agreement wasn’t in her hands either. She hadn’t read a single word of its contents.
“I didn’t read it. Why would I need to? Aunt Wen wanted me to marry you, saying you are rich, good-looking, and male, so I signed without even thinking about it.”
“Didn’t Miss Gu say she doesn’t care about my pocket change?”
“But what I want is your person, so are you going to give him or not?”
“Oh, really?”
Simultaneously left speechless was the system, which hurriedly popped out to advise: [Host, enough is enough; don’t play it too wild.]
If the system hadn’t reminded her, Gu Qingjiao would have almost forgotten what she came here to do. Adjusting her sitting posture, she rubbed against Shi Lijin’s lap a few times, her two almond-shaped eyes staring straight at him. “Fiancé, I was just joking earlier. Actually, compared to your person, I still like your money much more.”
“How much do you want?”
Gu Qingjiao didn’t hold back at all: “I want your Shi Family South Manor, and then you can move out and live somewhere else. Is that okay?”
Shi Lijin raised an eyebrow slightly.
The woman sitting in his arms was simply a hot potato.
“If I move out, what methods will you use to seize the family fortune?”
“That’s why I need to marry you. After you finish the mission with me, you can move out then. Don’t worry, I’ll send you living expenses every month.”
After she finished saying this, she felt as though a ball of fire had surged up inside Shi Lijin, but strangely enough, the system did not pop out with a danger warning like it did before. Could it be that the little card machine had broken down again?
“Wait a second.” Her left hand still hooked around the back of Shi Lijin’s neck, she freed up her other hand to tap the back of her head, trying to shock the lagging system back to wakefulness.
However, in Shi Lijin’s eyes, this careless action looked like normal behavior. He calmly straightened his collar and said, “You also know your brain is sick; when you are not clear-headed, you should give it a knock, right?”
Gu Qingjiao’s fist froze in mid-air, and her gaze dimmed instantly.
She turned to wrap her arms around Shi Lijin’s waist, casually giving a pinch to his solid abdomen. “You are the one who is sick, carrying a little knife around everywhere, is it an ancestral eyebrow trimmer?”
Shi Lijin’s eyelids lifted helplessly a couple of times. “You guessed right.”
“Take it out and let me see.”
“What’s there to see?”
Gu Qingjiao’s fingertips rubbed slowly across his waist, trying to find the place where he had hidden the knife. “I want to know what else that little thing can do besides trimming eyebrows.”
“Carving,” Shi Lijin said with a dull expression.
“Besides carving?”
“Take your hand off.”
After feeling around for a long time without finding anything, Gu Qingjiao sighed with some disappointment. Turning her gaze back to Shi Lijin, she discovered that the tips of his ears had already gained a layer of light red.
“When are you going to sign the agreement with me?” she asked.
“I will never sign an agreement with you.”
Shi Lijin took the initiative to step back to keep his distance from her. Just as he was about to stand up, in a split second his neck was tightly locked again by Gu Qingjiao. She clung onto him like a magnet, her pinky nail inadvertently brushing across the back of his neck. As if pinched at a vital point, Shi Lijin suddenly stiffened, leaving her breath lingering around his ear.
Gu Qingjiao: “But if I don’t get the money, I’ll be beaten to death when I go back.”
At this moment, every pore on Shi Lijin’s body seemed to be contracting. He steadied his breathing, trying to force himself to calm down.
“How much do you want?”
“Whatever, anything is fine.”
Gu Qingjiao’s arm climbed onto his shoulder, and she lazily tilted her head to lean against him, breathing slowly against his neck while occasionally touching the black hair by his temples.
Shi Lijin closed his eyes slightly, working hard to restrain the amplitude of his chest’s rise and fall. His tone was detached yet mixed with a trace of restlessness: “There’s a card in the inner pocket of my coat. Take it.”
Gu Qingjiao instantly perked up, immediately reaching out to probe into his chest pocket and retrieve that high-end diamond card.
“My fiancé is truly the best! I love you to death!”
The little female supporting character with money suddenly didn’t want to die anymore. Anyway, she couldn’t wake the system up right now anyway, so she figured she might as well wait until she spent all this money before talking about anything else.
Tucking the bank card into her clothes pocket, she casually threw her cheap husband a sweet smile and then slipped away briskly.
Shi Lijin remained frozen in his previous posture for a long time, unable to calm his rippling emotions for ages.
Clearly, the person had already left, but the temperature on his thighs was still faintly burning.
Also, what did she just say? She loved him to death?