It was Meili.
Today, she had changed into a black dress, elegant and seductive, with a green gemstone necklace around her neck. She stood in the middle of the living room, exuding an air of luxury, chin raised, looking at Lin Mian with full arrogance.
Lin Mian was in a hurry to use the bathroom and ignored her, brushing past Meili before clicking the bathroom door shut.
Meili, who had mustered all her energy, stared wide-eyed: “…”
Not long after, a maid walked in holding sanitary products. Seeing Meili, she was a bit surprised and quickly bowed her head to greet her.
Meili paid no attention, sitting down on the sofa with her arms crossed.
After dealing with her period issue and washing her hands, Lin Mian opened the door to see Meili sitting with her arms crossed, glaring coldly at her.
Thinking for a moment, considering they lived under the same roof and would inevitably run into each other, Lin Mian asked, “Do you need something?”
Meili snorted sarcastically, “You seem to be living quite comfortably.”
Lin Mian didn’t quite understand what she meant.
Meili didn’t bother explaining further. She opened her bag and tossed a phone onto the coffee table. “This is for you. There’s a new SIM card inside.”
Then she stood up and left without looking back.
At the door, she paused, turned around, and looked at Lin Mian, her delicate eyebrows furrowed as if in warning. “Don’t chat too much with that old man called Uncle Jixiang. He’s no good.”
Without further explanation, Meili closed the door and left.
Lin Mian: “…”
She picked up the phone from the coffee table. It was brand new, still with the factory screen protector.
She turned it on.
Just like phones back home, even the pre-installed apps were similar. However, the new SIM card could only register a new number. Lin Mian couldn’t recover her old accounts or contact her previous friends.
Unless she could memorize all her friends’ account details, but Lin Mian only remembered four numbers.
Her father, her uncle, her aunt, and an ex-boyfriend who might as well be dead.
After browsing through the phone, Lin Mian habitually opened WeChat. Unexpectedly, an account had already been registered. In the empty contact list, there was only one person.
The profile picture was pure black, and the nickname was just a single letter: S.
The Moments feed was completely empty, with nothing posted.
Lin Mian instinctively felt this person was He Duoye, even though the letter in the nickname had nothing to do with his name.
She ignored the account.
Lin Mian lay down on the sofa and started playing with her new phone.
Only WeChat had been pre-registered. All other apps had to be registered and logged into again.
After setting everything up, Lin Mian swiped through the pages and finally opened a certain app, tentatively searching for keywords like “compound,” “fraud,” and “imprisonment.”
Most of the results were social news or discussion posts, nothing particularly interesting.
As she browsed, she thought of her family.
Lin Mian’s relationship with her father was neither good nor bad. He had never mistreated her growing up, but their relationship was distant. Her father wasn’t good with words and had no intention of developing a close father-daughter bond with Lin Mian. He only felt a sense of responsibility to raise her.
And that sense of responsibility diminished even more after Lin Mian started college because he had a new family.
Her stepmother had a daughter, and her father paid more attention to her than to Lin Mian, even treating her more like a daughter.
Lin Mian didn’t resent her father. After all, he had raised her properly, and she still had her uncle.
The affection her father never gave her, her uncle and aunt provided. Compared to her father, Lin Mian had a better relationship with her uncle and aunt. After her grandmother passed away, Lin Mian initially lived with her uncle.
But when her aunt suddenly fell ill and needed to rest her frail body, she couldn’t take care of two children, so Lin Mian went to live with her father in the countryside.
If Lin Mian ever found herself in danger and had to turn to someone for help, before breaking up with He Duoye, that person would have been him.
After the breakup, there was no one.
Her uncle and aunt were very good to Lin Mian, but she didn’t want to burden them, let alone contact them.
Her phone vibrated—it was a message from “S.”
There wasn’t much to it, just a symbol: ?
Lin Mian was about to reply with a question mark when text appeared in the chat window: “No thank you?”
If they were face-to-face, Lin Mian might have backed down, but behind a screen, she felt like a remarkably combative keyboard warrior.
She sent He Duoye a classic smiling emoji.
He Duoye looked at the message and chuckled.
He was sitting on a fallen tree trunk, not far from a raging fire. The orange glow cast half his face in warm, soft light, while the other half remained hidden in shadow, vague and cold.
From deep within the flames came the sounds of twisted, agonized screams, the crackling of fierce flames, the pleading groans of those nearing death, and the gunshots of executions.
Listening to these familiar sounds, He Duoye lit a cigarette and typed with one hand. Suddenly, a trickle of blood dripped from his finger onto the screen.
The blood smeared, tinting the faint screen light a dark red.
He Duoye frowned, trying to wipe the blood away, but it kept flowing until half the screen was stained a pale red.
He finally remembered—his arm had been grazed by a bullet during the earlier chaos. The moment he became aware of the wound, the pain began to register.
He Duoye habitually ignored the searing pain, but his earlier good mood was now tainted, like the blood-stained screen.
He looked back at his phone.
The text he had typed earlier was gone, replaced by a red rose he had accidentally sent.
Lin Mian didn’t reply.
He Duoye stared at the smile and the rose for a moment, then turned off his phone and put it away as one of his subordinates approached.
With the cigarette between his lips, He Duoye examined the wound on his arm. The bullet had only grazed him, but it left a deep gash, almost to the bone, soaking the clothes around his waist with blood.
The man striding over was one of his right-hand men, Manniu.
His physique was even larger and stronger than He Duoye’s, living up to his nickname—built like an ox.
In his hand, he held a bloody head, dragging its owner as he walked up to He Duoye.
With a thud, the man was thrown at He Duoye’s feet.
He Duoye plucked a piece of grass from his bloody wound. Without looking at the man at his feet, he asked Manniu, “How much of our goods did we lose?”
Manniu replied, “Half.”
He Duoye winced in pain. “That much.”
The bloodied man at his feet had backbone. Even though he was severely beaten and covered in blood, he still wore an expression of fearless defiance, as if he still held some cards.
The batch of goods He Duoye lost was valuable, and his buyer needed them urgently.
If he couldn’t recover them and failed to deliver within the deadline, he wouldn’t just suffer a huge loss—he’d be in serious trouble.
Although kneeling, the man raised his head and said, “I can tell you where I hid the goods, on the condition that you let me go.”
After speaking, he added another bargaining chip: “When the time comes, I’ll tell you who betrayed you and sold me the shipping route.”
He believed these two chips held immense value, certain that He Duoye would agree.
He Duoye slowly lifted his gaze to look at the man at his feet.
Merely being looked down upon by He Duoye, the man, who had initially been full of confidence, was instantly gripped by fear and unease.
He recalled He Duoye’s way of doing things—reckless and unrestrained, a madman who thrived on chaos and loved creating it even more.
In front of him, one couldn’t reason or negotiate as one normally would.
A chill ran down the man’s spine. Just as he was about to compromise on his conditions, he heard He Duoye’s lazy, weary voice.
“Kill him. He’s annoying to look at.”