After getting the call, Chu Li’s first instinct was to refuse.
Who wanted to go see Shen Zhe, that moody, temperamental little cripple?
She worried that if she got angry, she might end up kicking his one remaining good leg, accidentally shattering her gentle, sweet persona in the process.
The secretary: “Miss Chu, President Shen asked me to come pick you up. The environment at the family estate is nice, and we’ll have a room arranged for you.”
“He was very pleased with the order from last time, and might want to discuss further business with you.”
Wait, she could make money out of this too?
Chu Li’s eyes curved into a smile. “Sure, okay.”
Her mood instantly brightened, and she started humming a little tune.
She and Qin Mian tidied up the studio together, adding some water and canned food for the recovering cat. “Shen Zhe got hurt.”
“I’m going to go see him in a bit.”
Chu Li mentioned it casually.
Qin Mian’s face immediately took on a look of “I knew it.”
Her left eye seemed to say “you hopeless love-brained fool,” while her right eye said “as long as you’re being love-brained, at least remember to squeeze more money out of him while you’re at it.”
Qin Mian: “I’m used to your rhythm by now.”
“If you ever came back one day and told me you’d fallen out of love with Shen Zhe, that you wanted to cheat on him with some other hot guy, I honestly wouldn’t believe it.”
She said this with real feeling, like a heartfelt lecture.
【Li Li: Stop rushing me, I’m already well on my way to enjoying multiple men at once.】
【After Shen Jichu had that dream about the original plot yesterday, he’s probably planning to make his move on his own little brother’s territory now that he’s injured (setting off fireworks)】
Next, Chu Li saw a whole pile of explicit comments flood in.
They eagerly told her about the perfect water temperature in such and such pool at the Shen estate, which balcony was best for some outdoor activity, and which luxury car was ideal for some other activity involving a lot of shaking.
Chu Li: “!”
She was bound to be corrupted sooner or later. ovo
When the secretary pulled up in front of her, he noticed the tips of Chu Li’s ears were faintly red.
Even once she got in the car, she sat perfectly upright the whole ride, back straight, as if she were a little nervous.
He hurried to reassure her: “Don’t worry.”
“Right now the Shen family estate only has President Shen, Shen Zhe, and their grandmother there. Occasionally some distant relatives come by for a meal.”
Chu Li nodded.
That definitely wasn’t why she was nervous.
Half an hour later, the secretary dropped her off at the estate gates. Past the main entrance was a sprawling garden and grounds, the butler came out to guide her so she wouldn’t get lost.
As the butler led her along, he occasionally glanced at her, a bit curious.
Plenty of people who visited here for the first time couldn’t help showing looks of awe and surprise as they toured the place.
But Chu Li in front of him didn’t seem to react that way at all.
She caught sight of the grand, luxurious fountain in the center of the entrance and quickly looked away.
She saw the classic wooden piano in the hall after entering, and looked away again.
The spiraling mahogany staircase, the ornamental fish tank set into a wall niche, the gilded long dining table, she looked away from all of it, as though afraid that if she looked too long, she’d start thinking about something.
No matter what she saw along the way, Chu Li quickly averted her eyes. If she lingered on anything too long, she was sure the bullet comments would jump in, gleefully pasting in some vivid, full-color “excerpt from the original plot.”
She didn’t even need to force herself to appear indifferent to wealth.
Because she genuinely, truly had zero interest in touring this mansion.
The butler pointed her toward the room where Shen Zhe was resting.
After she got into the elevator and went up, the butler turned around and, to his surprise, found Shen Jichu standing quietly at the corner, not having made a single sound.
“You……”
He raised a long finger to his lips, signaling for silence.
Shen Jichu: “Arrange a room for her, somewhere far from Shen Zhe.”
He said this the way he might discuss a business deal, his tone light and calm, his expression composed and restrained.
As if there were no personal motive behind it at all.
The butler blinked, startled for a moment, then quickly rationalized it to himself: “Makes sense, the moment young master woke up, he seemed to have some falling out with Miss Chu.”
“Better this way, then.”
Shen Zhe’s race car had collided with something while overtaking at high speed on a curve.
Fortunately nothing serious happened, his ankle was only lightly injured, though he’d been muttering something while still half-conscious.
Over and over, it sounded like he was saying Chu Li didn’t love him, only loved his money.
The butler: “……”
The young master really wasn’t being reasonable here.
Couldn’t Miss Chu care about both him and his money at the same time? He’d been born with a silver spoon in his mouth, he should be happy about that.
And besides, from what he’d just observed—
Miss Chu didn’t seem the least bit interested in this mansion, not even a little.
Chu Li had no idea about any of this.
She got off the elevator and, after walking a bit, saw the door to Shen Zhe’s room wide open.
“Where’s my brother?”
“No need to call anyone else, I just got a minor injury, and who’s even going to come see me? I didn’t even wire her any money.”
Chu Li could tell, this cripple was subtly digging at her.
She walked in, looking at him with amused composure. “Zhe, I heard you got hurt?”
Shen Zhe had been irritably venting his frustration, and upon hearing her voice, looked almost like he couldn’t believe it.
“Chu Li?”
He noticed her gaze landing on his casted ankle.
Assuming she was worried, feeling for him, he awkwardly pulled the blanket up to hide the injury: “Why’d you come?”
Seeing her there, Shen Zhe still seemed a bit put out. But the corner of his phoenix eyes lifted slightly, a sign he was happy.
Chu Li thought to herself, it was his brother’s money that had brought her here.
Shen Zhe propped his chin on his hand.
After a moment, he lifted his eyelids, his tone turning noticeably lighter: “I misjudged you. Turns out you’re not someone who only cares about money after all. The moment you heard I was hurt, you rushed right over.”
“Even though this afternoon, you deliberately said you were with Pei Mo.”
“That was probably just to make me jealous, wasn’t it.”
“My brother’s got such a bad temper, so cold and distant toward everyone. For you to work up the courage to beg him to let you come see me at the Shen estate, you must have gone through a lot just for that.”
Shen Zhe kept up that same petulant tone, but somehow, over the course of the whole story, he’d talked himself all the way back around to believing it, all on his own.
He’d found his own way to rationalize it, and, once again, convinced himself of her deep devotion to him.
Chu Li: “……”
Next time he got into a car accident, she hoped it would knock some sense into that head of his.
The bullet comments’ reaction matched hers exactly.
【Wait, what is this guy even mumbling about, I can’t understand a word of it. Li Li only lowered herself to come see you because of your brother’s investment.】
【And you think your brother let her come out of the goodness of his heart? Hilarious, he’s got his own agenda too (eating popcorn)】
Chu Li wanted to roll her eyes at him, but Shen Zhe was brimming with confidence.
Quickly, in his good mood, he transferred her several more sums of money, one notification after another chiming in.
【50,000 yuan received】
【100,000 yuan received】
Chu Li decided not to argue with him anymore.
She casually grabbed an apple from the fruit basket on the nearby cabinet and handed it to Shen Zhe, pretending to care about him: “Want some?”
It wasn’t like she’d bought it anyway.
She didn’t wash it for him either, or peel it.
Shen Zhe took it and bit into it a few times.
He told her about what had happened that afternoon: “I was accelerating, and suddenly the brakes failed, and I went flying off the track.”
“Fortunately, the materials used to modify the race car were good quality, so nothing serious happened.”
“My brother had someone check it out, and found something jammed in the wheel, no idea when it got in there, but it broke a part.”
Chu Li’s eyelid twitched faintly as she listened.
Shen Zhe, despite loving his freedom and his death-defying extreme sports, rarely made such a basic mistake.
【Which of the other three men coveting Li Li could’ve done this? Rule out big brother first, on the surface, he’s still playing the dutiful older brother, hasn’t gone this far yet.】
【Pei Mo’s just trying to steal his cousin’s girl, and he’s usually kind to animals, seems unlikely he’d go this overboard either.】
Chu Li thought of Jiang Qinian too.
She’d blocked every one of his old contact methods.
But that man’s vocabulary had never included the phrase “know when to back off”, especially not after that dream.
He’d left a message from an unknown number.
“Li Li.”
“Don’t be scared, I’d only ever scheme against Shen Zhe. Consider the ankle thing a small lesson, that’s what he gets for flirting around outside all the time.”
“Now that his leg’s broken.”
“He won’t be able to stop us from continuing in our dreams at night, will he.”
Chu Li: “.”
She deleted the message with a snap of her finger, refusing to reply. As for any so-called shared dream, she wasn’t about to admit to it easily.
If asked, the answer was simple: the man on the other end had clearly gone delusional.
【Turns out he’s still salty about getting interrupted in that dream last time, and taking it out on the original male lead instead (pointing and laughing)】
【Jiang Qinian’s still pretty scary, honestly. Li Li’s got real courage to have dumped him. If I ever dated an ex like that, I’d run off into the deepest mountains and never come back~】
Some of the comments thought Jiang Qinian was too unpredictable and dangerous, that she should run.
Others thought he’d played it well, giving Shen Zhe a taste of his own medicine, getting even on her behalf.
Shen Zhe, lying in his hospital bed, seemed completely unaware of any of this.
He and his racer buddies were playing games together with voice chat on, and someone brought up Jiang Qinian: “Where’s he been, anyway?”
“So mysterious lately, no idea what he’s up to.”
“Did he move?”
【Yep, he moved in right next door to your girlfriend.】
Shen Zhe chatted idly, not particularly concerned about Jiang Qinian’s behavior.
He just wasn’t sure if it was some aftereffect of the crash, but sometimes something would flash in front of his eyes, vague, blurry text drifting by. But when he focused to look, there’d be nothing there.
“Chu Li, do you see anything over there, on that curtain?”
After rubbing his eyes a few times, Shen Zhe asked her.
Chu Li was in the middle of picking through the fruit basket, which had all sorts of fresh, air-flown Australian oranges and cherries. It wasn’t often she got to visit a wealthy household like this, so she was helping herself to Shen Zhe’s fruit.
Hearing his odd question.
She paused for a second, assuming she’d been caught in the act of sneaking snacks.
“What did you say?”
She followed his gaze toward the curtain and the white wall, the exact spot where bullet comments usually rolled by.
Shen Zhe had never been able to see any of it before. But now, it seemed, he was starting to catch faint traces of something, though he had no idea what it was.
Chu Li blinked lightly.
She kept a straight face and lied to him smoothly: “You’re seeing things wrong, there’s nothing there.”
“You probably bumped your head in the crash too. Maybe you should take your medicine sooner rather than later.”
Shen Zhe hated the bitterness, and never liked taking medicine.
Being as fussy as he was, he called for Shen Jichu to bring the family doctor over for a full checkup.
When Shen Jichu walked into his suite with the family doctor, the first thing he saw was Chu Li, sitting on the sofa nearby.
She was always quiet, never drawing much attention.
But the moment he stepped through the door, he caught sight of her, holding a berry delicately between her fingertips.
Chu Li was eating with total focus, the deep red juice staining her fingertips, glistening faintly.
A few small details were all it took to bring it rushing back—
that unbelievable, decadent dream of his.