“Kneel down?”
Fu Jinglan shifted his leg. “Or lie here?”
“Fifty, count them yourself, hmm?”
Forget fifty—just five would have Shen Lingxi crying from the pain.
She immediately backed down, clenching her small fists and gently pounding them against Fu Jinglan’s firm thighs, trying to please him by giving him a massage.
“Governor, you look so handsome smoking that cigar~”
“Every puff hits me right in the heart, and the more I savor it, the more captivating it becomes.”
Just then, someone knocked on the door.
“Governor.” A 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 traces of desire and pain remained at the corners of his eyes.
“I’m done.”
“Come in.”
Mu Suizhou, dressed in a tailored suit, pushed the door open. “Old Fu, the Governor of Southern State has brought his daughter, along with officials from the central government, to pay a visit.”
Amidst the swirling white smoke of the cigar, Fu Jinglan remained indifferent.
“Uninvited guests can wait.”
Mu Suizhou sensed something was off about Fu Jinglan.
There was an indescribable, lingering, and elusive hint of something in the corners of his eyes.
It seemed like he had just been… intimate.
Had Fu Jinglan really managed to have his way without him knowing?
It was then that Mu Suizhou noticed a girl with skin as fair as ice and snow sitting by the sofa.
She looked no older than twenty.
She was slumped on the floor, pressed close to Fu Jinglan, her cheeks flushed pink against her snow-white complexion, her eyes red and pitifully teary.
And at the corner of her lips, there were faint traces of half-dried blood.
She glanced at Mu Suizhou briefly before turning her gaze back toward Fu Jinglan.
At that moment, Fu Jinglan also looked down at Shen Lingxi beside his leg.
Her eyes were red, her lips were red, and the bloodstains were red too.
As if she were the one who had been hurt.
Fu Jinglan raised his hand, curling his index finger, and tapped Shen Lingxi lightly on the top of her head.
Like he was tapping a little rabbit.
“Still not going to wash up? Wait for me to wipe it for you?”
Who needed him to wipe it? Not now, and certainly not afterward.
Because of Fu Jinglan, Shen Lingxi had nearly ended up “eating a child” today.
As she pushed herself up from the sofa, she silently cursed him in her heart.
Fu Jinglan was a perverted big bad wolf living on the second floor.
May his dolls deflate, his wife run away, his girlfriend go missing, his ambiguous interests ignore him, and his favorite websites be permanently banned.
Permanently.
Shen Lingxi stood up and touched her face first.
Oh no, it seemed Fu Jinglan had left a mark on her.
“I need to go to the bathroom,” she said to Fu Jinglan, her voice sweet and soft.
Fu Jinglan tilted his chin slightly toward the direction of the bathroom. “Go.”
Mu Suizhou took in Shen Lingxi’s disheveled state.
He had no idea how Fu Jinglan had managed to reduce a girl to this.
Even the corner of her lips was bleeding.
From kissing, pinching, biting, or slapping?
In broad daylight, it was too cruel.
But then again, Fu Jinglan had no tenderness in his bones, nor any compassion in his heart.
Because people like them…
Fu Jinglan and Mu Suizhou were abandoned infants who grew up in a fighting arena akin to a living hell, imprisoned there as tools for profit.
Every fight was a matter of life and death.
If they lost, they would either be killed by their opponents or tortured to death by the bosses who had bet against them.
People died in the arena every day, and very few survived to adulthood.
They had never been favored by fate.
They believed in neither gods nor emotions.
Seeing Shen Lingxi enter the bathroom, Mu Suizhou also sat down on the sofa.
After a moment of thought, he said, “Jinglan, is she the one the Shen family wanted to send over? Don’t you think her eyes and brows look a bit like Xiaosi?”
Xiaosi was the little flower girl raised in the arena.
That is to say, after each fight, someone would go on stage to present flowers to the winner.
When Xiaosi was ten years old, she caught the eye of a boss with a pedophilic inclination.
Fifteen-year-old Fu Jinglan fought desperately to rescue her, his side stabbed with countless wounds.
Fortunately, Mu Suizhou took the most fatal blow for him.
Xiaosi held back her sobs, wiped away her tears, and stuffed a painting into Fu Jinglan’s hands as he lay in a pool of blood.
Then she took off her longevity lock and placed it around Fu Jinglan’s neck.
“Brother, I’m sorry. Xiaosi won’t grow up anymore.”
The little girl cried as she ran to the rooftop, without hesitation, and leaped down.
Over a month later, Fu Jinglan stood on the fighting stage once more. From then on, he never took off his outer clothes again.
He tattooed Xiaosi’s painting on his side.
Beneath the serpent scales, countless knife wounds were concealed.
Later, Fu Jinglan and Mu Suizhou, known as the “Twin Kings of the Fighting Arena,” were pushed onto the duel stage by enormous bets.
This meant that one of them would inevitably die.
That day, Fu Jinglan took Mu Suizhou and destroyed the fighting arena, even shooting several leaders dead, pursued relentlessly by dark forces.
At their most desperate moment, the Northern State army arrived and took them away.
Only then did Fu Jinglan learn that he was the illegitimate son of the state governor, lost and forgotten.
On the sofa, Fu Jinglan handed Mu Suizhou a cigar.
“Shen Lingxi’s eyes and brows do resemble Xiaosi’s a little.”
Otherwise, even if Shen Lanting knelt for a day and a night—or even a year—he wouldn’t have felt a shred of pity.
Fu Jinglan had never held any goodwill toward the Shen family.
Back when he was still in the fighting arena, Shen Lingxi’s grandfather was a regular in the VIP seats.
Just another cruel gambler.
Now, Fu Jinglan lowered his gaze, his fingers trembling slightly, a piece of ash falling listlessly.
“If that silly girl were still alive, she’d be almost twenty now.”
The same age as Shen Lingxi.
They had promised to grow up together, to escape the blood-soaked fighting arena side by side.
Mu Suizhou smiled, his eyes reddening.
“Xiaosi is ten years old now. She must have been reborn into a good family, well-fed, warmly dressed, and never bullied.”
Fu Jinglan suddenly choked on his cigar, coughing softly several times in succession.
Then, he placed the cigar flat in the ashtray’s slot, deciding not to smoke it at all.
The tightly closed bathroom door flashed in the man’s eyes.
Inside, there was still someone crying softly.
He could protect Shen Lingxi for a year, but not for a lifetime.
Fu Jinglan picked up his hot tea and took a sip.
“Tomorrow, have someone buy Shen Lingxi some clothes and necessities, along with all sorts of little trinkets women like. I don’t understand these things—just buy the expensive ones.”
In the middle of winter, Shen Lingxi’s little leather boots were still thin.
It wouldn’t have been surprising if she’d taken them off to reveal a pair of socks full of holes.
If he took Shen Lingxi out someday and she shook hands with someone wearing jade or gold while she wore a rubber band,
wouldn’t that be utterly embarrassing?
It would still be his, Fu Jinglan’s, face that was lost.
Mu Suizhou responded with a “good,” slowly inhaling his cigar, savoring Fu Jinglan’s lingering expression.
He must have been quite comfortable.
“Old Fu, what if you develop feelings while raising someone else’s niece and don’t want to return her after a year?”
Fu Jinglan shrugged, scoffing disdainfully.
Utterly absurd.
“First of all, I’m not someone with much emotion.”
Moreover, what kind of feelings could develop in just a year?
“Secondly, do you think Shen Lanting’s position as a law professor is for nothing? The contract clearly states that if either party violates the agreement, they must forfeit their entire fortune to the other.”
“And, they must also take the other party’s surname.”
That is, if Shen Lanting fails to claim the person by the deadline, he must pay compensation and change his surname to Fu.
And if Fu Jinglan does not return the person, he must also pay compensation and change his surname to Shen.
Who would ever violate such an agreement? Is that person an idiot?
Mu Suizhou leaned back in his chair, pondering something carefully. “This contract is quite interesting.”
“However, ‘Shen Jinglan’ actually sounds quite smooth.”
“Old Fu, what do you think?”