The young heir’s patience had run out. A chill seemed to seep from every pore, his lacquer-black eyes utterly devoid of light, a dense shadow hanging over his brow.
He gazed coolly at the audacious housekeeper before him.
Unlike before, she was being unusually stubborn.
“Butler Jiang, remember your place,” he reminded her, hoping she would take the hint and back down.
Jiang still didn’t budge. She planted her feet apart by the doorway, blocking the entire entrance like a statue.
Looking at Huo Shu, so cold and aloof he might have been frozen solid, with not a trace of the bearing one would expect of someone his age, Jiang You felt a headache coming on. Her empty wallet hurt, too.
She suddenly found herself admiring her partner from her past life. He could always turn a crisis around; anything involving people, he handled to perfection.
He used to say that the most complicated thing in the world was human emotion.
And emotion was what Jiang had the least experience with.
…
“Hey, what are you blocking the door for?”
A mocking voice suddenly came from behind her.
Before Jiang could turn around, she seemed to sense what was coming and darted aside, dodging the malicious kick aimed at her.
The kicker was Huo Liuzhou, an heir from a collateral branch of the family. Behind him stood Huo Ye, the Second Young Master, there to take deliberate revenge.
What had happened at Chu Muci’s birthday party was the biggest loss Huo Ye had ever suffered.
And to make matters worse, it had been because of Huo Shu— the person he looked down on and hated most.
Even though his older brother, Huo Jing, had avenged him, Huo Ye was too vindictive to let Huo Shu off so easily.
When Jiang saw who it was, her expression shifted from blank to irritated.
One reason the novel’s male lead, Huo Shu, would become an outlaw was his half-brother, Huo Ye, the Second Young Master.
Ever since Jiang had come to this plane[1]In quick-transmigration fiction, a “plane” is a distinct fictional world or setting that the protagonist enters for a mission, not a physical aircraft. jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_3733400_1_1').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_3733400_1_1', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top center', relative: true, offset: [-7, 0], }); and become Huo Shu’s housekeeper, Huo Ye had been the person she found most annoying.
What kind of rich kid spent all his time doing nothing but bullying people?
Was there something wrong with his head?
Before she could figure it out, the fool Huo Ye was already ordering his lackeys to restrain the still-injured Huo Shu.
A baseball bat had appeared in his hand at some point. He swung it through the air, leaving a blur behind.
“Someone like you actually dared to scheme against me. Did you really think Father punished me for your sake? Ha. Father can’t wait for you to hurry up and die.”
Huo Ye advanced one step at a time, his venomous gaze slicing into Huo Shu. He raised the bat and aimed a savage blow at Huo Shu’s leg.
If Huo Shu had schemed against him, he ought to pay something for it.
Both legs should just about do.
Pinned down and forced to kneel, Huo Shu’s hair hung in disarray over his forehead. His eyes, red enough to seem on the verge of bleeding, stared fixedly at the baseball bat. As it swung toward him, he shut his eyes in despair.
A long moment passed.
The expected pain never came. He cautiously lifted his eyelids—and saw the woman who had taken the bat and knocked Huo Ye unconscious with one hand.
She moved faster than any ordinary human. In almost the blink of an eye, she had subdued the lackeys restraining him as well, knocking them out and stacking them together without the slightest effort.
“Clap, clap.” Jiang You dusted off her hands and tossed the bat onto the pile of them. Then she went over to Huo Shu and asked with concern, “Young Master, are you all right?”
Confusion clouded Huo Shu’s eyes. He looked utterly disbelieving.
But to Jiang, he finally looked a little more like a boy his age.
He ought to show expressions like that more often. Then he’d look more like a high school student.
“Young Master, don’t worry. They’re not as strong as I am, so they won’t dare complain to President Huo,” Jiang said, entirely unashamed.
Huo Ye cared desperately about saving face and valued his dignity more than his life. Once he woke up, he wouldn’t just avoid telling on her—he’d probably worry that she might tell someone else.
As she spoke, she lifted Huo Shu and settled him into the wheelchair she had prepared. By then, Jiang You had figured it out.
If he didn’t want to stay here and recover, she would take him somewhere else.
Only after Jiang You had pushed Huo Shu out of the infirmary did he realize what was happening. He immediately tried to get out of the wheelchair.
“Young Master, don’t move.” Jiang You stopped, took a mask from her pocket, then bent down and leaned her head toward his face. With a light touch, she put the mask on him.
Her rough fingertips brushed his cool, pale skin by accident. Her long, steady breaths fell in a dense stream against the back of his neck.
Huo Shu abruptly froze. From the corner of his eye, he saw her fingers reaching toward him and the blue mask covering half his face.
She was so close that he could see her focused, phoenix-shaped eyes—long and fine, their outer corners faintly lifted, their pale irises catching the light like gemstones.
Before he could look away, her gaze followed his and met his. In the shifting light, he could just make out his own reflection in her eyes, staring back almost as if entranced.
Huo Shu’s back went rigid. His throat suddenly dry, he quickly looked away.
Unlike him, Jiang You’s gaze remained calm and open. After adjusting his mask, she straightened and said, “Young Master, I’m taking you out for some fun.”
After a few seconds of silence, Huo Shu did not react with the rebelliousness she had feared by removing the mask and climbing out of the wheelchair. Instead, he asked in a cool, composed voice:
“Where?”
“The movies.”
They took a taxi from the training base to the center of Qicheng, where every inch of land was worth a fortune.
The cinema was on the ninth floor of a shopping mall. It was Saturday, and the mall was packed. Long queues stretched in front of the restaurants and hot-pot places.
One hit film after another had opened recently, and tickets for the next two days were sold out. There weren’t even any seats left in the corners.
But Jiang You hadn’t come to see those films.
“Ding.”
Jiang You, pushing the wheelchair, and Huo Shu, sitting in it, drew plenty of attention. The elevator was already crowded with people waiting, and now many of them were looking their way.
Jiang You pushed the wheelchair inside. The cramped space quickly filled with people.
She turned the wheelchair to face the elevator wall, where an advertisement was set behind glass. Their reflections showed faintly in it.
Jiang You didn’t notice that, in the glass, the boy in the wheelchair was watching her silently.
He watched as she kept glancing down at him nervously, checking how he was doing, afraid he might get angry at the crowded elevator or the noise of the people talking around them.
“Ding.”
They had reached the ninth floor.
The people in the elevator streamed out. Two people laughing and fooling around accidentally tripped over the wheelchair and nearly fell.
Luckily, they caught themselves against the wall. But the coffee in one of their hands slipped free and spilled toward Huo Shu.
Jiang You reacted in time and caught it. Scalding coffee splashed out, a few drops landing on the back of her hand. Red marks appeared there almost instantly.
“Sorry, sorry,” the two people said at once when they saw what had happened.
Jiang You waved it off and handed the coffee back. Then she calmly wiped the spill from the back of her hand with a tissue.
“It’s fine. Just watch where you’re going next time.”
They left the elevator.
When she glanced down, she met the boy’s silent gaze.
She paused, thinking some coffee might have splashed onto him too, and quickly asked, “Young Master, did you get burned as well?”
Huo Shu subtly looked away and replied evenly, “No.”
It was only because the kindness and gentleness she showed at that moment were like a ray of warm sunlight slanting through the winter sky—especially precious.
It was a warmth he had never known.
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