Shen Shen's medicine was incredibly effective. When Ren Siyi took it, she still found it a bit bitter—such a large pill, like something rolled from mud pellets, was hard to swallow.
But after taking it, the cramping in her stomach truly eased, little by little.
She had initially thought the effect would only last a while, since every period, the first two days had her writhing in agony, and even ibuprofen only worked for four or five hours.
But this time, her entire period passed without any stomach pain at all.
Amazing!
No wonder Shen's Private Hospital had grown to such a scale, with appointments so hard to come by.
This was practically a miracle doctor…
…
A few days later, Ren Siyi received the sanitary pads she had ordered online for her stockpile. However, she had been too quick to place the order and forgotten to update the address, so the package was delivered directly to the Cainiao parcel station downstairs from her aunt's house.
So annoying. She didn't want to go back, but she couldn't bear to waste the money she'd spent.
Ren Siyi had no choice but to ask Lu Sen for another short leave to go pick up the package at her aunt's place.
She deliberately chose to go at noon, when the parcel station wasn't busy, and she didn't run into her cousin or aunt.
On the way back, the sunlight was bright and a bit dazzling.
She went to the bus stop to wait, but spotted a familiar figure by the roadside—it was actually that fortune-teller, "Dragonfly Immortal Venerable."
Li Er sat on a shabby folding chair, with a small stall set up in front of him.
There were plenty of orthodox I Ching fortune-tellers around, but he had no business, because his table was laid out with tarot cards.
Ren Siyi walked over with a smile and greeted him: "Hello, long time no see."
"Fate brings us together when it wills." Li Er wasn't surprised by her arrival. After speaking with an inscrutable air, he looked toward the side of her neck.
Her skin was fair and smooth, with no wounds or blemishes.
Impressive.
She'd been living in the home of those two Great Mosquitoes for over a month now, and she was completely unharmed.
He chuckled teasingly: "Since fate has brought us together today, how about a reading? On the house."
"Sure." Ren Siyi sat down on the plastic stool across from him.
"Still reading for your father?"
"Honestly." Ren Siyi was a bit curious. "How do you actually know my father's name? Did you really calculate it?"
"Heaven's secrets cannot be revealed."
That line again. So annoying.
"Forget it, I won't read for my father."
When it came to finding her father, Ren Siyi no longer wanted to pin her hopes on these superstitious types.
Her father had been missing for so many years. Every place that could be searched had been searched. Even the police couldn't find him—it wasn't something a fortune-teller could divine.
Every time she got a reading, she'd receive a vague, ambiguous answer, and then nothing more. It did nothing except leave her feeling unsettled.
She rested her arm on the small table, propped her chin on her hand, and said: "Then read for me instead."
"Read your love life?"
"Are you a hopeless romantic or what? All you think about is love."
Li Er gave a clear smile, revealing two small canine teeth, and admitted openly: "How did you know?"
He thought of himself as quite the romantic, actually. Though he'd never been in a relationship, he read romance novels, and sometimes teared up at the touching parts.
Ren Siyi said casually: "Read my career fortune. Will I make big money in the future?"
Li Er shuffled the cards expertly, sweeping dozens of tarot cards into an arc spread across the small table, and made a "please" gesture to Ren Siyi.
"Draw one."
Ren Siyi pointed at random: "That one."
Li Er flipped the card over. On its face, a figure in a long robe held a staff in the left hand, while on the table sat a coin engraved with a five-pointed star, a sword, and a chalice.
And behind the figure hung an archway entwined with roses.
Upright. The Magician.
"Well?" Ren Siyi couldn't help urging. "Is it a good omen?"
Li Er looked down at the card for a long moment, then said to her: "In the future, you will become immensely wealthy—one of the richest people in the world."
Hearing this, Ren Siyi brightened immediately.
Even if he was just a street hustler trying to make her happy, she was willing to be fooled.
"Great, great, I love hearing that. So, can my traditional Chinese medicine clinic open?"
"Yes. Everything will go smoothly."
"Really? That's wonderful!"
"However…"
"Don't 'however' me. No 'however'—I'm not listening!" Ren Siyi cut him off immediately, scanned his WeChat, generously transferred him 50 yuan, grabbed her bag, and stood up. "Bye!"
"Hey! Let me finish!"
"Not listening!"
Ren Siyi had already crossed the road to the bus stop on the opposite side.
Li Er lowered his gaze to the card. The Magician stood beneath an archway surrounded by roses and lilies, while in the distance, in the dim, heavy darkness, the silhouette of a demon flickered faintly in and out of sight.
He sighed and murmured: "Possessing billions in wealth, yet confined to boundless night, dancing with evil…"
He looked up.
On a branch across the way, on a crooked twig, a black crow had landed at some point.
It tilted its head, its two black bean-like eyes fixed directly on him, motionless.
Li Er's gaze turned cold. He plucked the tarot card from the table and sent it whistling through the air, straight at the crow.
The crow let out a "caw," flapped its wings noisily, and flew away.
Several black feathers drifted down from mid-air.
…
In the blink of an eye, it was mid-August.
Ren Siyi calculated her savings. After furnishing her grandparents' house with various furniture and appliances, she still had sixty thousand yuan left.
She really hadn't expected this job to last a full two months.
There was only half a month left. Once school started, the contract would expire automatically, and she'd pack her bags and head off to university.
She was genuinely reluctant to give up this high salary. If only she could renew the contract.
But once she started college, she probably wouldn't have time to wait on the young master hand and foot. With his day-night reversed schedule, Ren Siyi couldn't exactly be at his beck and call around the clock.
Thinking back, Shen Du had really shocked her when they first met—she'd thought he was a flirtatious, greasy little pervert.
After two months together, although the guy could be a bit scatterbrained at times and wasn't exactly the sharpest tool in the shed, his character seemed to be fundamentally sound.
His brother seemed like a very upright person, so he couldn't have raised a brother with bad morals.
In any case, Shen Du had always been good to her—a real sweetheart.
When this job ended, Ren Siyi figured he could still be developed as a client.
Sure, he was a bit stingy, and the money she could squeeze out of him wasn't much—nothing like how a rich young master should behave.
But every drop makes an ocean, and Ren Siyi wasn't greedy.
That afternoon, Ren Siyi was organizing the shelves on the first floor.
Shen Du had nothing better to do, so he wheeled his chair over to keep her company. He casually pulled an envelope from the stack of things she was sorting.
He flipped it over and saw it was her admission letter.
"Nanshi University?" He waved the admission letter. "You're going to Nanshi University too?"
Ren Siyi held a few books in her arms and turned around. "Yeah."
"What a coincidence." Shen Du leaned back into his wheelchair. "Little junior, come on, call me senior."
"Not a coincidence. I met you at Nanshi University, remember?"
Shen Du couldn't recall at all: "What I remember is, you crashed into my car and added me on WeChat?"
Ren Siyi turned around, leaned against the bookshelf, crossed her arms, and looked at him with a half-smile: "So, which girlfriend-number was it who crashed into your car?"
"Uh…" Shen Du grinned. "That's not important! Completely unimportant, hahaha. Anyway, we'll have plenty of chances to meet in the future."
Ren Siyi asked curiously, "Senior Shen, what's your major?"
"Clinical medicine," Shen Du said. "Nanshi University's medical school ranks among the top in the country. My brother wants me to work at a private hospital in the future."
Ren Siyi couldn't help but glance at his amputated limbs. She hesitated for a moment, then asked anyway: "Can you… still get on the operating table?"
"Of course I can," Shen Du said matter-of-factly, as if he didn't find it the least bit absurd.
"You can?!"
He was disabled!
Shen Du clasped his hands behind his head, leaned back in his wheelchair, and said in a half-joking, half-serious tone: "Last year at the National College Student Essay Competition, I wrote a piece called 'My All-Powerful Big Brother' and won first prize. However awesome my brother is, that's how big my stage is."
"…"
Ren Siyi was silent for two seconds, then nodded solemnly: "Makes sense."
If she ever got sick in the future, she hoped she'd never run into a doctor like Shen Du doing her surgery!
But she noticed that Shen Du's legs seemed to be slowly growing back.
Before, it looked like they'd been severed above the knee, but now, even his knees seemed to have grown back.
She tilted her head, staring at Shen Du's residual limbs for a good while, thinking her eyes were playing tricks on her: "Brother Shen Du, your legs seem to be recovering on their own."
"Huh?" Shen Du looked down and saw that his legs did seem longer than before, slowly growing.
Before school started, he'd be free again!
These few months of recuperating at home had driven him crazy! No going out, no seeing friends, no drinking—every day he just wandered around this big mansion. He'd almost gotten bored of gaming, and he was about to lose his mind.
Once his legs grew back, he was definitely going out to have some fun.
He smiled at her: "Pretty awesome, right?"
"Awe… awesome."
Was this even a question of being awesome or not?!
This completely defied common sense!
Whose amputated limbs could just grow back? This was a medical miracle!
Ren Siyi was a bit confused, but then she thought—his brother's private hospitals spanned the whole world. Maybe they'd mastered some cutting-edge bio-regeneration technology?
Top-tier medical research institutions always had black tech that ordinary people never got to see.
Ren Siyi didn't dwell on it. She absentmindedly wiped the cabinet and accidentally cut her finger on the sharp edge of a bronze horse ornament on top.
"Ouch, that hurts."
She looked down—a gash had opened on her fingertip, and beads of blood were seeping from the wound, trickling down her finger pad. She quickly caught it with her other hand so she wouldn't dirty the table.
She was thinking of asking the butler Lu Sen for a band-aid when Shen Du, who was flipping through a book nearby, slowly raised his head and looked over.
His nose twitched slightly: "What happened to you?"
"Where do you keep your band-aids?" Ren Siyi showed him her bleeding finger.
Shen Du didn't answer, his gaze fixed on the crimson drop at her fingertip.
In the air, a suffocatingly sweet scent spread—not the first time he'd smelled it. He'd caught it on Ren Siyi's very first day, but later, for some reason, the scent had vanished.
He'd searched for it for a long time without finding it again.
Now it was back.
He took her hand.
"Hey…" Ren Siyi instinctively pulled back, but Shen Du's grip was strong, leaving her no room to retreat.
He drew her hand toward him, lowered his head, and brought her fingertip to his lips.
He opened his mouth.
The moment her finger entered his mouth, Shen Du felt as if his skull had been pried open.
An electric current shot straight through the crown of his head, and his mind went blank.
Ahhhh!
So sweet, so sweet, so sweet!
Ahhhhhhhhh!
I'm going to die! I love her! I'm really going to die!
Ahhhhhhhhh!
His pupils suddenly contracted to pinpricks.
"Hey! Shen Du! Let go, let me go!" Ren Siyi yanked her hand back with all her strength, but Shen Du acted as if he hadn't heard, simply sucking on her finger.
Just then, the door to the third-floor bedroom opened.
Shen Shen, just waking up, walked out of the room, his loungewear collar hanging open, revealing a sliver of elegant, alluring collarbone.
He stood by the railing of the third-floor corridor and looked down at the two people on the first floor.
The moment his intimidating gaze swept over, Shen Du instantly released Ren Siyi's hand and stepped back.
His contracted pupils immediately returned to normal, becoming clear and obedient once more. He smiled and called out, "Brother, you're awake."
At the same time, he licked the trace of blood from the corner of his mouth.
"Sisi's finger was cut, so I was… stopping the bleeding for her."
Ren Siyi: …
Thanks a lot!
So disgusting!
She cradled her finger, pouting in displeasure.
Shen Shen strolled downstairs, and as he passed the two of them, he dropped a line to Shen Du: "School's about to start. Stop loafing around all day—go to the study and stay there."
A very ordinary sentence, yet it carried the authority of a patriarch.
"Oh, okay." Shen Du transformed back into the good boy, steering his wheelchair around and gliding toward the elevator.
Ren Siyi's fingertip was still bleeding, drip, drip… falling to the floor.
She quickly covered the wound with her other hand and scrambled to find a tissue.
Shen Shen glanced at her and said only, "Go to the study and have Lu Sen bandage it for you."
"Oh, alright, Mr. Shen."
Shen Shen continued outside, through the front door, down the steps, and bent to sit in the back seat of the car.
The moment the car door closed, his pupils violently contracted, and two sharp fangs extended from his lips, pressing against his lower lip.
A long-missed, savage hunger…
The driver reacted instantly, quickly opening the armrest compartment, retrieving a deep-red blood bag, turning around, and presenting it to Shen Shen with both hands, respectfully.
The blood bag was a medical-grade sealed package, printed with a code and date—standard stored blood, his regular meal.
But Shen Shen irritably raised his hand and swatted it away.
Compared to her sweetness… these were all garbage.