The edge of the swimming pool was lined with a string of neon lights, casting a decadent glow over the originally pristine mansion.
Shi Lijin kept his target firmly in his sights, striding briskly along the edge of the pool as if walking on wind. Jason trailed closely behind him while also keeping a wary eye on the safety of the path under his feet.
“Sister, I have been looking for you for ages! Where did you run off to? The large room is already gone, so you will probably have to go to a single room on the first floor and squeeze in with someone else.”
Suddenly, a clear, delicate voice drifted down from the second floor. Jason looked up and felt that the young woman leaning against the glass railing and laughing looked somewhat familiar. He followed her line of sight and discovered that both her gaze and the Er-shao’s were pointed in the exact same direction.
He unconsciously slowed his pace. Now, it was not just the person upstairs who felt familiar; even the one lying down over there seemed pretty familiar, too.
By the time he finally pieced together the approximate appearance of Gu Qingjiao in his mind, he came to a sudden halt, stopping completely, and instinctively reached out to block the driver following behind him. “Wait. Do not go over there just yet.”
Shi Lijin arrived beside the beach chair, his expression composed and calm, as if enveloped in a self-contained layer of aloof moonlight. Yet a raging fire had suddenly ignited within his chest; this nearly suffocating sense of burning anxiety had not appeared for a very long time. His eyes were slightly dazed, and his breathing grew shallow.
Shi Lijin squatted down beside her, studying the girl in minute detail.
Although this angle only allowed him to clearly see the girl’s flushed profile, this face had already appeared in Shi Lijin’s dreams countless times. During those days spent trying to see her, Shi Lijin went day and night without rest, taking at least two melatonin pills a day, yet she had never once been willing to give him a chance to get close.
And today, the distance he had dreamed of was slowly closing, but the sudden numbness flooding his body made it impossible for him to tell whether this was an illusion or reality.
The cup of wine Gu Qingjiao drank today had a heavier fruity top note, so she had indulged a bit more than usual, not expecting the aftereffects to be so potent. The neurological endings throughout her body were completely overriding her consciousness.
Between waking and sleeping, she only felt someone leaning in toward her. Gu Qingjiao lifted her eyelids to glance at him, struggling to recall for a moment before finally placing his identity.
“Shi Lijin.” She strained her throat and rasped out his name.
The man tilted his head and rubbed gently against the crook of her neck. “Hold me.”
Perhaps because her mind was muddled, Gu Qingjiao had completely forgotten about the matter of changing roles. Having that long-lost name suddenly slip from her own lips made her confusedly think she was still in Nanzhuang, still awaiting the verdict of fate.
Fate was this blade currently grazing against her body. She docilely delivered herself to it and hooked her arms around the man’s neck.
“What did you drink?” Shi Lijin caught the scent on her.
“CC’s wine.”
“Mediocre quality. When we get back, I will have the best wine brought to you.”
Gu Qingjiao gave no response. The next second, her body suddenly tightened as she was scooped up into a pair of arms.
Bai Tang, who had witnessed the entire process, stared in gaping astonishment. She knew Shi Lijin was crazy, but she never expected him to be crazy enough to disregard all boundaries. How could he just casually snatch a random woman off the street and carry her away?
She hurried over to the neighboring room to wake her aunt, shouting at the top of her lungs, “Help! Gu Qingshu has been abducted!”
Upon receiving the news, Shen Qin scrambled out of bed in a panic. Too rushed to even put on her coat properly, she bolted downstairs to try and block Shi Lijin, but before she even reached the pool, Jason intercepted her halfway.
Seeing that her daughter was about to be carried into the car by Shi Lijin, Shen Qin’s tears streamed uncontrollably. She shouted toward the other side, “Er-shao Shi, please do not take my daughter away!”
The man turned a deaf ear, completely immersed in his own overwhelming joy.
Panic-stricken, Shen Qin grabbed at her collar. Completely unable to move with Jason holding her arms down, she could only cry out in agony, “You have already taken my Jiaojiao away! Please leave Shushu to me! Give my daughter back to me!”
Sensing something was amiss, Jason hurriedly asked, “What Shushu? Isn’t she Gu Qingjiao?”
“She is not Gu Qingjiao! She is my Shushu! They are twins!”
Upon hearing this, Jason’s hair stood on end. Without thinking twice, he raised his voice and yelled toward Shi Lijin’s direction, “Er-shao, wait! Er-shao, come back!”
You grabbed the wrong person!
Jason choked back that final phrase in his throat. After all, word of this getting out would be humiliating, so he figured he had better let him be for now.
Watching as Shi Lijin carried the girl into the motorhome, Jason went along with the mistake and stated, “Gu Qingjiao is our Er-shao’s fiancée. He can take her wherever he wants!”
Hearing this sent a jolt of shock through Bai Tang upstairs, a flurry of explanations surging through her mind.
So Gu Qingjiao was Shi Lijin’s mysterious fiancée?
No wonder he had wanted to take away Gu Qingjiao’s ashes that day.
But what was he doing now? Could it be that Shi Lijin was treating Gu Qingshu as a substitute?
Once Bai Tang finally straightened out the situation from her own perspective, her heart felt even more blocked. She could never have imagined that Gu Qingshu, who outwardly portrayed herself as a pure and desireless homebody, actually housed the heart of a hungry wolf inside. After flirting with Ji Huaiyan just moments ago, she had immediately turned around and feigned drunkenness to seduce Shi Lijin. What a deeply green-tea woman.
The commotion woke up the other wealthy guests sleeping nearby. One of them, noticing the scene appeared to be a case of a man bullying a woman, prepared to get dressed and go downstairs to champion justice, only to be pulled back by a companion emerging behind him. The companion gestured with his chin toward the motorhome in the distance and warned, “Do you have a death wish? That is Shi Lijin.”
The entire mansion was enveloped by the woman’s heart-rending cries. Every now and then, heads would poke out from the upstairs windows, yet not a single person dared to step forward and speak up for her.
After having people restrain Shen Qin, Jason prepared to ask Shi Lijin if they could set off. However, when he opened the door and climbed into the vehicle, he discovered that Shi Lijin had actually fallen asleep inside while holding the girl.
Though displeased that someone wearing Gu Qingjiao’s face was lying side by side with the Er-shao, Jason recalled that the Er-shao had not rested properly like this in a very long time. Ever since Gu Qingjiao passed away, he had essentially relied entirely on medication just to close his eyes.
Knowing the Er-shao carried a deep sense of guilt toward Gu Qingjiao in his heart, Jason did not dare disturb him. He simply shook his head with a sigh, turned off all the lights inside the vehicle, and quietly got out.
To ensure Shi Lijin could sleep soundly, they chose to stay the night at the mansion.
The next day.
Gu Qingjiao woke up in a haze, rubbed her eyes, and realized her face seemed to be nestled against a man’s chest.
She paused in astonishment, thinking to herself that there were actually men who felt this comfortable to sleep against nowadays.
Though she had never slept with one before, she was still quite surprised.
Until she lifted her gaze and saw that the other person was Shi Lijin.
Gu Qingjiao stared blankly as she swept her gaze downward from his face, discovering that both he and she were fully clothed. She let out a sigh of relief.
Scary. She had thought she got tangled up with him.
Yet a new problem quickly arose. How on earth did Gu Qingshu cross paths with Shi Lijin?
Logically speaking, the villain in a book should not have emotional entanglements with the female lead, and the system had never mentioned they would cross paths. The system had only told her the male lead was very handsome.
Gu Qingjiao tapped the little card machine inside her head, intending to ask how to handle such a situation, only to find:
System: [[System has blocked you]]
Gu Qingjiao: ???
What was the deal? She had done nothing wrong, and for all she knew, Shi Lijin might have crawled onto her bed of his own accord. Gu Qingjiao stubbornly held onto this thought until she noticed she was currently inside a spacious motorhome.
She had seen this exact vehicle in Nanzhuang’s underground garage. Back then, figuring that since Shi Lijin was not averse to beauty, he must at least have some slight cleanliness obsession, she had thrown a hot pot party inside the car. In the end, it failed to draw Shi Lijin in and instead attracted all the slack-off, food-loving cats from Nanzhuang. She had figured that worked too, so she filmed a “leading the slackers” video and deliberately let Shi Lijin see it, but Shi Lijin had been completely unfazed, giving everyone a day off and instructing them all to line up and eat hot pot.
Since the vehicle belonged to someone else, it probably meant Shi Lijin had not sought her out proactively. Gu Qingjiao figured she must have drank too much, let her inhibitions slip after drinking, and let loose upon Shi Lijin.
Oh, well that settled it then.
Gu Qingjiao calmly brushed aside the man’s hand and patted the mattress, preparing to make her exit, but the next second her waist was snagged by that very same large hand she had just thrown off, pulling her right back into his arms.
The man gazed down at Gu Qingjiao, his fingertips gently brushing the angle of her jaw as a soft, gloomy warmth welled up in his eyes.
“Gu Qingjiao, long time no see.”
Shi Lijin’s tone held a trace of timidity, playing out slowly and unfamiliar from his throat like a long-dormant audio recording.
Gu Qingjiao gave a cold smile. “Young Master, you have the wrong person.”
Just as she pulled her face away, Shi Lijin pressed tightly against her again without a gap, his arms acting like two tough, sturdy vines wrapping around her in an inexplicable bind.
Gu Qingjiao suddenly remembered that Shi Lijin seemed to be ill.
She had not expected the symptoms to manifest like this.
The man’s breath drifted slowly across her brow and eyes, bringing a subtle, burning itch to her face.
Shi Lijin closed his eyes and pressed his forehead against hers, speaking in a voice so soft it was unclear who he was talking to: “You must still be blaming me.”
It was a pity he had his eyes closed; otherwise, he surely would have seen Gu Qingjiao rolling her eyes.
Gu Qingjiao pushed him away once more and scrambled up swiftly from the bed. Yet when she rushed toward the door, she found the car door would not open.
Good grief, playing games like this.
Gu Qingjiao pulled back the curtain, preparing to jump out the window, but the sight that met her eyes shocked her once more. The entire motorhome had been cordoned off by a barrier. Shen Qin stood looking blankly toward the inside of the vehicle, while nearby, Jason and the driver sat eating hamburgers.
Seeing her daughter, Shen Qin waved excitedly, her mouth moving as if shouting something, but the soundproofing inside the car was so thorough that Gu Qingjiao could not hear a thing. She could only stiffly raise her right hand in response.
Before she knew it, her waist tightened again. Shi Lijin had somehow crept up on her without a sound, pressing his chest against her back and startling Gu Qingjiao into a full-body shiver.
Half-shrouding her in his embrace, he wrapped his arm around her slender waist, fixing a burning stare directly out the window as he murmured softly beside her ear: “Some people bring you into this world solely to trade you away like currency. There is no need to feel attached to those people. Gu Qingjiao, you are my Jiaojiao, and no one else’s.”
Those words burned fiercely against her ears. Gu Qingjiao turned her head, wanting to splash some water on him to wake him up, but the man pressed his lips directly to the side of her neck and inhaled without a word of warning, acting as if he were deliberately staging an in-car adult romance scene for the people outside, both crafty and perverted.
Gu Qingjiao’s shoulders trembled. The spot the man’s lips had enclosed burned faintly, and she hurriedly drew the curtains, cutting off the terrified expressions outside and the daylight in one fell stroke.
The interior of the vehicle returned to a dim twilight, and Gu Qingjiao let out a breath.
Consumed by a surge of anger, she reached out to deliver a fierce slap to his face, but her movement was intercepted mid-air. The man accurately caught her wrist, his eyelids flushed red.
“Gu Qingjiao, I missed you so much.”