She stood in the wind with her bag in one hand and cash in the other…
“Second, you’re not just an idiot. My first impression of you was that of trash ruled entirely by the disgusting thing between your legs.”
“Third, you have no self-awareness. Take a piss and look at your reflection ugly, fat, greasy, like a pig. Do you even think you’re worthy?”
“I’m aloof because I have the capital to be proud. What I’m like in bed, whether I’m flirty or wild, is none of your damn business. If anything, it’s you, the city sanitation crew must have missed a pollutant like you. Just standing there, you drag down the quality of the entire street.”
The surroundings instantly fell silent. Some people were even dumbfounded, never expecting someone so beautiful to spit out such vicious words.
Shen Siyao delivered it all in one breath. At this moment she didn’t care how anyone saw her. She was already seething, and this eyeless fool had come crashing right into her. Just looking at this man made her feel her eyes had been dirtied.
She glanced at Jiang Yi, and only then did her eyes feel cleansed. Even though Jiang Yi had hurt her, Jiang Yi truly matched her aesthetic to perfection Shen Siyao had always been a sucker for beauty.
Jiang Yi’s eyes at this moment were bright and gentle. Without comparison there is no hurt Shen Siyao was so gentle toward her by contrast. Her voice was soft yet firm: “Good.”
People around them began applauding one after another, feeling satisfied. It had to be said this scum, relying on his family’s small business on this street, had often harassed women with his filthy mouth. This time he’d finally gotten his comeuppance.
“This Wang Guxiong, flaunting his family’s dirty money, is always getting drunk at night and harassing girls.”
“Now he’s kicked an iron plate, hahaha, look at that pathetic face of his.”
“Well said!”
Almost everyone could see who had provoked whom first not to mention the two standing opposite him were women so beautiful it seemed unreal. Humans are visual creatures. Wang Guxiong was stunned by the scolding. He could tell this woman had a fiery temper, but he never imagined she’d be this sharp-tongued. His mouth felt sealed shut, unable to make a sound, and people were even pointing fingers at him.
His neck thickened with rage and his face flushed red. Humiliated in public by two women, no less Wang Guxiong couldn’t swallow it and wanted to get physical. Consumed by shame and fury, he raised his hand to slap her.
“Sharp tongue, you mother f*cker!”
Jiang Yi’s eyes turned cold. She pulled Shen Siyao behind her, and as she blocked him, she extended her leg. Before Wang Guxiong could even react, he was already sprawled on the ground as if he’d been viciously kicked. Too many people had gathered around, and he hadn’t seen it clearly. Now his face was planted in the ground like a dog eating dirt, the fall making him see stars: “Who the hell kicked me?!”
Jiang Yi crouched down, grabbed him by the collar, and looked down at him. If she could, she wanted to cut out this man’s tongue, shatter his teeth and make him swallow them, gouge out his eyes, chop off his limbsmake it so he could never again make a single sound of filth.
Though no one was gripping his throat, the words in Wang Guxiong’s throat seemed jammed fast, unable to come out. The woman before him had a smile at the corner of her mouth, but those pale eyes were as bone-chilling as a cold abyss. Her lips parted slightly, forming a silent shape, no sound at all.
Wang Guxiong felt a chill crawl up the back of his neck, as if someone had a hand around his throat, it was bone-chilling. It was an instinct for danger, the kind that made a person flee from harm. He wasn’t some thug who’d been scared into shape by life, but he was afraid of dying, and the person before him didn’t look like a good sort. Those eyes were too cold, so cold that terror seeped out through his very pores.
A whiff of ammonia spread through the air. Wang Guxiong broke out in a cold sweat, he had actually lost control and wet himself.
The onlookers treated it as a joke, covering their noses and backing away, pointing and whispering with looks of disgust.
Jiang Yi also led Shen Siyao a bit farther off.
Lying on the ground was bad enough, but if there had been a crack in the earth, he would have crawled right into it. Unfortunately there wasn’t, so he picked himself up and, trembling, threw out a threat: “You just you wait, we’ll see about this later!” Then he fled faster than anyone.
The farce was over, the show finished, and the crowd dispersed.
Jiang Yi was standing beside Shen Siyao, still holding her hand, it turned out the two of them had been holding hands all this time. It was her own fault; her attention had been entirely on that man, and she hadn’t registered how it felt.
Jiang Yi thought it must be fair and slender, smooth and delicate to the touch, like a finely carved piece of jade artwork even the fingernails were translucent and lustrous, a beauty as naturally flawless as Shen Siyao herself.
Shen Siyao glanced at her, then down at their joined hands. Jiang Yi’s fingers were long, the lines of her knuckles naturally graceful, pale veins distinct as they disappeared into her sleeve. There were thin calluses on her fingertips, and her nails were neatly trimmed. Right now they were gripping her tightly, palm to palm, warm and cool like jade. For no reason at all, Shen Siyao had felt reassured.
So her attention had stayed right there. The world turned into a hum, her heart aching and swelling, and she didn’t even notice when the crowd dispersed, she’d lost the desire to argue. But Jiang Yi seemed completely oblivious, and the anger she had swallowed flared up again in a small flame.
The source of it all, meanwhile, wore an innocent expression. She shot Jiang Yi a vicious glare, and Jiang Yi quietly let go of her hand. The Eldest Miss gave a cold snort, climbed into the driver’s seat, and shut the door.
Jiang Yi thought they were leaving, so she went to pull open the other door. No response.
The window rolled down, and a black object came flying at her in an arc. Jiang Yi caught it with quick reflexes, it was her shoulder bag. Then she watched as the Eldest Miss, with a haughty air, casually drew two red hundred-yuan bills from the small red purse she carried and held them out to her between her fingers.
Jiang Yi was a bit dazed. Her better judgment told her this was bad, but her body reacted first, reaching out to take the money.
The Eldest Miss’s voice betrayed neither joy nor anger, her eyes warm and cool at once: “You can scram too.”
The exhaust fumes faded into the distance along with the rumbling whine of the motor, leaving only Jiang Yi standing there, bag in one hand, two hundred yuan clutched in the other.
Jiang Yi understood immediately, the money was for her taxi fare. Watching the red taillights shrink into the distance, the corners of her lips curved into a faint smile. Sure enough, her Yaoyao was as gentle, considerate, and kind as ever.
Following the address from downtown to the hotel she’d originally booked: 199.96, precise to the cent.
Jiang Yi took out her phone and scanned the QR code to pay. The bills she folded into two little hearts with wings and tucked them into her backpack, zipping it shut, neat and precious.
Her six o’clock biological alarm went off. It was still early.
Jiang Yi planned to go downstairs for a workout. She had noticed when she checked in last night that the hotel had a large, well-equipped gym next to the restaurant downstairs, separated only by a huge pane of transparent glass. It was about a thousand square meters, complete with all kinds of equipment and furnishings.
There weren’t many people in the gym at the moment, so she swiftly tied her hair up with a black hair tie, strapped a workout towel to her right arm, and headed for the treadmill. She ran 3km first for fasted cardio, showing barely any sign of exertion beyond a few slightly heavy breaths.
Then she took black hand wraps out of her bag and did several sets of pulls, along with shoulder presses. This was a habit she maintained daily training for about half an hour, letting her mind go blank while she worked out.
Under her black tank top, the woman’s lean, toned physique was clearly visible. Unlike the flat stomach that comes simply from being thin, her waist had two sharply defined lines along the obliques, and her six-pack abs were distinctly visible. Her arms were firm and slender, and every stretching movement carried an aesthetic grace.
Someone’s gaze quietly drifted over. Jiang Yi was long used to it; without even lifting her eyes, she focused on her own business, completely ignoring it.
Little did she know, a bright-eyed young woman in her early twenties was sitting in the adjacent restaurant, eating breakfast and watching the pleasing scene before her with great interest.
Beautiful women were everywhere, but one so disciplined with such a fantastic figure was rare. In the entire gym, she stood out like a crane among chickens not because the gym was low-end, but because this woman’s looks and bearing were exceptionally outstanding, exactly to her taste, especially that subtle sense of latent strength.
Song Nannan was into women, and her sixth sense told her that the older sister before her was the same kind.
But Song Nannan just sat there without moving. From the moment Jiang Yi got on the treadmill until now, a light sheen of sweat had formed on her body, making her look all the more radiant without a trace of makeup, and it made Song Nannan’s heart rate pick up slightly. After finishing her workout, the woman filled her cup at the water dispenser, tilted her head back for a few sips, then gathered her things and prepared to leave for a shower upstairs.
Song Nannan was waiting for her to pass by. The restaurant connected to the gym’s entrance, the designers hadn’t thought much of it at the time and from this angle she could see every one of Jiang Yi’s movements. Separated only by a pane of glass, the woman would inevitably pass right by her on her way out, so she waited.
For as long as Jiang Yi trained, she watched.
She curled her lips into a slight smile, thinking herself quite good-looking, and was even mentally running through a hundred excuses to strike up a conversation and get closer. However, the smile froze on her face, and her half-raised hand quietly lowered.
That woman walked straight ahead, carrying her cup with a towel draped over her arm, not sparing her so much as a glance as she brushed past her.
Song Nannan muttered, “Tch, playing cold, huh.” But she liked it. She wasn’t in a hurry anyway after all, this entire hotel belonged to her family’s business. Looking into someone’s background would be effortless. Since this was their first meeting, they were bound to run into each other again.
She thought back to the warm scent of agarwood that had clung to the woman as she passed by. How could anyone smell fragrant even in their sweat? Song Nannan patted her own cheeks, she looked like some kind of perv right now. But that was fine; after all, pretty older sisters had always been granted special privileges in her heart.
Only after the woman had gradually walked away did she belatedly realize something. She pulled out her phone and, flash on, snapped a photo of that retreating figure with a click.
The woman was tall and slender, her long hair swept up, strolling ahead without a care in the world. Her freshly-worked-out body was so fair it practically glowed, luminous and flawless, and with a towel draped over her shoulder and a bandage wound around her wrist, she looked all the more captivating.