At that moment, a faint blue light flickered from behind the door. The shadow sensed it and turned to counterattack—but suddenly felt a sharp, burning numbness in his waist and abdomen, as if electricity had surged through his entire body. In an instant, he lost control.
With a heavy thud, something fell to the ground, startling Ruan Tinghe so badly that she shuddered. The tightness in her chest finally loosened.
There really was a thief in the residential compound!
Fortunately, she had been awakened by the sound of the lock turning and quickly hid behind the door, using an electric baton to knock the intruder out. Otherwise, the consequences would have been unimaginable.
She turned on her flashlight and shone it on the wall. By its light, she first checked the bed—luckily, the children were still fast asleep. They had been too exhausted during the day to be disturbed by the noise. Otherwise, they would have been frightened.
Then she looked at the thief on the ground.
The beam landed on his face—and she froze.
Why is it him again?
Does Shen Yan have a tracker installed on her or something? Why does she keep running into him everywhere?
She crouched down and angrily pinched his face, trying to wake him up. The next second, her wrist was suddenly grabbed.
She gasped in shock, instinctively trying to pull away—but she lost her balance and fell straight into the man’s firm chest. Her lips brushed across his cheek.
When she looked up, she met his deep, dark eyes. Her heart hammered violently, as if it might burst out of her chest.
Ruan Tinghe sat up and struck first.
“Why are you following me? If you want to steal something, just say it outright! There’s no need to sneak in at night and scare people!”
“I didn’t follow you,” Shen Yan said. He himself hadn’t expected to meet her here either.
“Then how did you—”
Before she could finish, heavy footsteps came from the stairs. A beam of light appeared along with Grandma Qin’s voice.
“Xiaohe, what happened?”
Alarmed, Ruan Tinghe stood up immediately. Her only thought was: absolutely must not let Grandma Qin see Shen Yan!
“Hide!” she hissed.
In a flash, she dragged him up and shoved him behind the door.
Just then, Grandma Qin reached the doorway and pushed it open.
Ruan Tinghe quickly stepped out first and closed the door behind her.
“Grandma Qin, what’s wrong?”
“I got up to use the bathroom and thought I heard something upstairs. Did something happen here?” Grandma Qin asked worriedly, grabbing her hand.
The soundproofing in houses of this era was poor. It must have been the noise when Shen Yan fell earlier that alerted her.
Ruan Tinghe quickly shook her head. “Nothing, I just got up to use the bathroom and accidentally knocked over the thermos by the bed.”
“You didn’t get burned, did you?” Grandma Qin asked with concern.
“No, the lid was tight, nothing spilled.”
“That’s good. Just be careful next time—don’t place the thermos too close. It would be bad if the kids accidentally knocked it over.”
Grandma Qin was still worried and wanted to go check on the children, but Ruan Tinghe quickly pulled her downstairs.
“Grandma Qin, I really need to use the bathroom. Let’s go together.”
She deliberately delayed her for a long time, afraid Grandma Qin might run into Shen Yan leaving.
When she finally returned to the room, Shen Yan was leaning against the door on one bent leg.
“Why are you still here?”
She lowered her voice to a whisper, afraid of waking the children or Grandma Qin.
“I’m injured. Do you have medicine?”
He lifted his shirt slightly. There was a red, swollen patch on his abdomen.
“…Don’t tell me this is—”
“Your doing,” he said calmly.
“How can you blame me? Who told you to sneak around like a thief?”
“I’m not—”
A sudden rustle came from inside the room. Startled, Ruan Tinghe quickly lunged at him, covering his mouth. Her palm was warm against him, sending a strange, numbing sensation through her.
After signaling him to be quiet, she pointed toward the stairs and told him to wait there.
Only after he moved did she return to the room and take out burn ointment from her space.
Down at the stairs, he was indeed waiting.
She shoved the ointment into his hands. “Apply it and leave immediately. If you get discovered, I can’t save you.”
“I’m not leaving,” Shen Yan replied, examining the ointment.
“…This medicine—”
Seeing him study the label, she panicked and snatched it back immediately.
“It’s imported from overseas.”
The packaging was in a foreign language, which made her slightly relieved. At least he probably couldn’t understand it.
Even if he could, he only glanced at it—he likely hadn’t seen the production date.
She regretted it deeply. She had been too careless.
If he saw that the manufacturing date was from the future, how would she explain it?
Shen Yan, on the other hand, recalled what Song Kaiyuan had said. She definitely had secrets—but he was certain she wasn’t an enemy spy.
She was just too naïve. He believed her, but others might not.
If someone discovered her secrets, she would be in danger.
So he said meaningfully, “You should keep these things hidden. Others don’t deserve them. Just let me use them.”
Ruan Tinghe felt guilty. She didn’t even want him using them anymore.
But since she had already taken them out, taking them back now would only raise suspicion.
She pretended calm and shone the flashlight on his abdomen.
“Enough nonsense. Apply the medicine and get lost.”
“You’re helping me?”
“I’m just afraid you’ll steal my stuff!”
She pressed the ointment hard onto his swollen skin.
He sucked in a breath unexpectedly, and her hand trembled, pressing again by accident.
“You trying to kill me?”
“It’s just a little electric burn. It won’t kill you. You were running around with a head injury before!”
She softened her pressure, her fingertips gently rubbing the ointment into his skin.
The touch was light, almost like feathers brushing across him.
The injury wasn’t really painful for Shen Yan—but he enjoyed teasing her. Thinking back to the electric shock earlier, he asked curiously:
“What did you use to shock me when I came in?”
She pulled out a device from her pocket—or rather, from her space—and showed it to him.
“This. Also imported.”
A stun baton for self-defense.
She demonstrated it briefly. “For catching thieves and perverts. How did you wake up so fast?”
“That level of voltage works on thieves and perverts,” he said calmly. “Not on me.”
In the past, during his time in the Red Gang, he had been tortured with electricity to extract confessions. Compared to that, her device was nothing.
“That means I’m doomed if I ever run into someone like you again.”
She suddenly felt worried and began considering stronger weapons.
“There are no thieves in this compound,” Shen Yan said helplessly. “Stop calling me one.”
“I’m not a thief. I used to live in this room.”
“…Huh?”
She was confused. Wasn’t this the Yin family’s house?
“My family also lives in this compound. We’re old friends with the Yin family. It’s too late to go home—I’d wake everyone up, so I planned to stay here for the night.”
He had rushed back from Su City just to find her, exhausted enough to collapse. He simply didn’t have the energy to deal with his family or that woman at home, so he chose this place to rest.
He knew the Yin family usually only had Yin Quan living here; the rest were either in the military or in the countryside.
He hadn’t expected this coincidence.
“I see…”
Then she suddenly remembered something.
“So you didn’t want to wake your wife and child, so you came here to wake me up instead?”