“On your knees?”
Fu Jinglan shifted his leg. “Or should you lie here?”
“Fifty. Count them yourself, hmm?”
Forget fifty—even five strikes would be enough to make Shen Lingxi cry.
She immediately admitted defeat. Clenching her two tiny fists, she brought them down one by one on Fu Jinglan’s firm thigh, ingratiatingly massaging his leg.
“Governor, you look so handsome smoking that cigar~”
“Every puff lands right on my heart. The more I savor it, the more flavorful it gets.”
Just then, someone knocked on the door.
“Governor.” A very pleasant male voice came from outside. “Are you busy?”
It was Secretary-General Mu Suizhou.
Fu Jinglan’s expression returned to its usual cool indifference.
Only the lingering desire and pain at the corners of his eyes remained.
“I’m done.”
“Come in.”
Mu Suizhou entered in a well-tailored suit. “Lao Fu, the Governor of Southern State has come with his daughter, along with people from the Central Government, to pay you a visit.”
Cigar smoke curled through the air, but Fu Jinglan was utterly unconcerned.
“They came without an invitation. Make them wait.”
Mu Suizhou vaguely sensed that something was off about Fu Jinglan.
There seemed to be some inscrutable interest and allure clinging to the corners of his eyes, something lingering and difficult to fathom.
As if he had just finished doing something.
Had Fu Jinglan really gone behind his back and gotten some?
Only then did Mu Suizhou notice the girl beside the sofa, with skin as fair as ice and snow.
She looked not yet twenty.
She was sitting limply on the floor, pressed tightly against Fu Jinglan. Her cheeks were dusted pink against their snowy pallor, and her eyes were red and pitiful.
There were even tiny specks of half-dried blood at the corners of her lips.
She glanced at Mu Suizhou for a brief moment before turning her head back toward Fu Jinglan.
At that moment, Fu Jinglan also lowered his head to look at Shen Lingxi beside his leg.
Her eyes were red, her lips were red, and the bloodstains were red too.
It looked as though she were the one who had been injured.
Fu Jinglan raised his hand, curled his index finger, and tapped the top of Shen Lingxi’s head twice.
Like he was tapping a little rabbit.
“Why haven’t you gone to wash yourself clean yet? Are you waiting for me to wipe it for you?”
Who needed him to wipe her clean? Not now, and not afterward either.
Because of Fu Jinglan, Shen Lingxi had almost eaten a child today.
As she pressed against the sofa and got to her feet, she complained about him inwardly.
Fu Jinglan was a perverted Big Bad Wolf living on the second floor.
She cursed him to have his dolls lose their air, his wife run away, his girlfriend become unreachable, his ambiguous love interests ignore him completely, and his favorite website be blocked.
Permanently blocked.
After standing up, Shen Lingxi first touched her face.
Oh no. It seemed Fu Jinglan had flicked a mark onto it.
“I’m going to the restroom,” she said to Fu Jinglan in her sweet, soft voice.
Fu Jinglan gave a slight nod of his chin toward the restroom. “Go.”
Mu Suizhou took in all of Shen Lingxi’s wretched state.
He had no idea how Fu Jinglan had managed to turn a girl into this.
There was even blood flowing from the corner of her lips.
Had he kissed her, pinched her, bitten her, or slapped her?
In broad daylight, that was too cruel.
Then again, it made sense. Fu Jinglan had neither tender affection nor compassion.
Because people like them…
Fu Jinglan and Mu Suizhou were abandoned infants. They had grown up in the fighting arena, a place comparable to a living hell, where they had been imprisoned as money-making tools.
Every fight required them to stake their lives.
Once they lost, they would either be beaten to death by their opponents or tortured to death by the gamblers who had lost their bets.
People died in the arena every day. Only a pitiful few survived to adulthood.
Fate had never favored them.
They believed in neither gods nor Buddha, and they had no feelings.
After watching Shen Lingxi enter the restroom, Mu Suizhou sat down on the sofa as well.
After thinking it over, he said, “Jinglan, is she the one the Shen family is sending over? Haven’t you noticed? Her features look a little like Xiaosi’s.”
Xiaosi had been the arena’s flower girl.
In other words, after each fight, Xiaosi had to go onstage and present flowers to the winner.
When Xiaosi was ten, she caught the eye of a boss with a pedophilic obsession.
Fifteen-year-old Fu Jinglan fought desperately to save her. No one knew how many times he was stabbed in the side of his waist.
Fortunately, Mu Suizhou had taken the most fatal blow for him.
Xiaosi held back her sobs, wiped away her tears, and pressed a drawing into Fu Jinglan’s hands as he lay in a pool of blood.
Then she took off her longevity lock and put it around Fu Jinglan’s neck.
“Big Brother, I’m sorry. Xiaosi won’t grow up.”
The little girl ran sobbing toward the rooftop. Without the slightest hesitation, she leaped from it.
A little over a month later, Fu Jinglan returned to the fighting stage. From that point on, he never took off his outer clothes again.
He had Xiaosi’s drawing tattooed onto his side.
Beneath the covering of the snake scales were nothing but wounds left by blades.
Later, Fu Jinglan and Mu Suizhou, known as the “Twin Kings of the Fighting Arena,” were pushed onto a duel platform by an enormous wager.
That meant one of them was destined to die.
That day, Fu Jinglan took Mu Suizhou and destroyed the fighting arena. He also shot several of its leaders dead, after which the dark forces pursued them relentlessly.
When they were driven to the end of the road, the Northern State army arrived and took the two of them away.
Only then did Fu Jinglan learn that he was the illegitimate son the Governor had left outside.
On the sofa, Fu Jinglan handed Mu Suizhou a cigar.
“Shen Lingxi’s eyes and brows really do resemble Xiaosi’s.”
Otherwise, forget Shen Lanting kneeling for a whole day and night—even if he knelt for a year, Fu Jinglan would never have felt pity.
Fu Jinglan had never had a favorable impression of the Shen family.
Back when he was still in the fighting arena, Shen Lingxi’s grandfather had been a frequent guest in the VIP section.
He had been an equally cruel gambler.
At that moment, Fu Jinglan lowered his eyes. His fingers trembled faintly, and a section of ash fell despondently away from the cigar.
“If that silly girl were still alive, she’d be nearly twenty now.”
About the same age as Shen Lingxi.
They had originally promised to grow up together and escape the bloodstained fighting arena together.
Mu Suizhou smiled with reddened eyes.
“Xiaosi would be ten now. She must have been reborn into a good family, where she has enough to eat, warm clothes to wear, and no one bullies her.”
Fu Jinglan suddenly choked on his cigar and coughed several muffled times in succession.
Afterward, he placed the cigar flat into the groove of the ashtray and simply stopped smoking.
The restroom’s tightly closed door flashed across the man’s eyes.
Inside, there was still someone crying pitifully.
He could protect Shen Lingxi for one year, but he could not protect her for an entire lifetime.
Fu Jinglan picked up his hot tea and took a sip.
“Have someone buy Shen Lingxi some clothes and daily necessities tomorrow, along with all the miscellaneous little things women like. I don’t understand any of that, so just pick the expensive ones.”
It was the middle of winter, yet Shen Lingxi’s little leather boots were still unlined.
The only thing missing was for her to take off her shoes and reveal a pair of socks with holes in them.
If he took Shen Lingxi out one day and shook hands with someone who wore jade or gold while she wore a rubber band, wouldn’t that be terribly embarrassing?
It would be his, Fu Jinglan’s, reputation that suffered.
Mu Suizhou answered, “All right,” then took a slow drag of his cigar, savoring Fu Jinglan’s lingering expression.
He had definitely enjoyed himself.
“Lao Fu, what will you do if you develop feelings while raising your niece, and don’t want to return her after a year?”
Fu Jinglan shrugged and gave a disdainful laugh.
Utterly absurd.
“First of all, I’m not an emotional person.”
Besides, what feelings could develop in only a year?
“Second, do you think Shen Lanting being a teacher at the University of Political Science and Law is for show? The contract clearly states that if either party is suspected of breaching the agreement, they have to compensate the other party with their entire fortune.”
“At the same time, they have to change their surname to the other party’s.”
In other words, once the time limit was up, if Shen Lanting failed to come claim her, he would have to pay compensation and change his surname to Fu.
And if Fu Jinglan refused to return her, he would likewise have to pay compensation and change his surname to Shen.
Who would breach a contract like that? Were they idiots?
Mu Suizhou leaned back against the sofa and pondered it carefully. “This contract is interesting.”
“Still, Shen Jinglan sounds quite smooth when you say it.”
“Lao Fu, what do you think?”