In the dim basement.
“Why are you crying? Baby, can’t you handle this much?”
Jiang You knelt on the floor, her eyes brimming with tears. She was forced to tilt her head back, her gaze blurred, and a delicate flush of red crept across the tips of her ears.
“Ugh… please stop…”
Jiang You wanted to push the man away; she was in distress and didn’t want to drink anymore.
However, the man before her was the most powerful figure in the Imperial Capital, Huo Hechen.
He sat upon an incredibly expensive leather sofa, his terrifying aura of dominance leaving Jiang You trembling, utterly unable to resist.
“Heh, didn’t you love drinking, baby? You even went to a bar with another man. Today, I’ll make sure you get your fill!”
The man seemed utterly cold-blooded. He gripped her face firmly, pouring a dark red liquid down her throat.
“Cough, cough—”
Forced to swallow several more gulps of red wine, Jiang You choked, feeling as though she might vomit. Her cheek stung from the pressure of the white jade ring on the man’s thumb.
“Ugh… I was wrong, Mr. Huo, I won’t do it again, please spare me…”
Unable to take it, Jiang You begged for mercy.
“Then tell me, baby, what exactly did you do wrong?”
Huo Hechen let out a cold laugh and finally released her, though his thumb continued to rub repeatedly against her luscious, dripping lips.
Jiang You didn’t dare move, only sobbing softly.
“I… I shouldn’t have stayed out past the nine o’clock curfew, and I shouldn’t have gone to the bar to drink with Brother Ya Nu.”
“So baby knows after all?”
Huo Hechen’s smile grew colder, his voice tinged with a hint of morbidity. “You knew, yet you did it anyway. Are you intentionally provoking me?”
How could Jiang You possibly dare to provoke this man?
Ever since her family went bankrupt when she was eight and she was brought back to the Huo residence by Huo Hechen, she had been like a mouse facing a cat—filled with nothing but fear.
Because Huo Hechen had paid off all her family’s debts, she was forced to obey his every whim.
Huo Hechen had provided for her education since childhood, but he had also imposed strict house rules upon her.
Among them, the nine o’clock curfew was the most important.
Furthermore, drinking as a minor and the prohibition against being close to any member of the opposite sex were absolute minefields.
Jiang You tried to explain timidly, “Mr… Mr. Huo… today is my birthday, I’ve come of age, that’s why I went to a place like that.”
In truth, it was her “mute slave” brother, Fu Huaizhi, who had taken her.
Fu Huaizhi was the son of the Jiang family’s butler from before the bankruptcy. Jiang You had relied on him since childhood. Fu Huaizhi had worked part-time for a long time to save up enough money to throw a modest coming-of-age ceremony for her.
But Jiang You didn’t dare tell Huo Hechen this; she was afraid of implicating Fu Huaizhi.
Fortunately, Huo Hechen’s attention shifted to the fact that she was now an adult.
“Heh, that’s right. Our A-You has come of age today.”
This was precisely why he had rushed back from his business trip abroad.
He tilted Jiang You’s chin up, a frantic, morbid anticipation reflecting behind his gold-rimmed glasses.
His thin lips brushed against her ear in a seductive whisper, “Then does baby know what you’re supposed to do now that you’re an adult?”
The man’s voice was magnetic and intoxicating, yet deeply aggressive.
Jiang You opened her tear-filled, pitiful almond eyes and shook her head. “No, I don’t know.”
“Then I have plenty of time today to teach you properly, baby.”
At some point, Huo Hechen’s gaze had locked onto Jiang You, as if he were staring at a piece of prey he had long since claimed.
“Come here. Come to the bed.”
The next moment, Huo Hechen rose from the sofa and beckoned her over.
Despite her terror, Jiang You dared not refuse.
What Huo Hechen had beckoned her closer to was the large black bed in the middle of the room—