So hot… and so itchy.
Zhu Qingning struggled to open her eyes. Tugging at the collar of her shirt, she tried to pull it off, only for her fingertips to brush against something hard and scorching.
Through her blurred vision, she saw a handsome man’s face.
What was going on?
Hadn’t she ignited the robbers’ explosives and been blown to bits along with them?
“Have you made up your mind? Once you decide, I won’t give you a way back.”
The man’s low, magnetic voice sounded beside her ear. His hot breath made her instinctively press her legs together.
It seemed she had done too many good deeds in her previous life. Before reincarnating, even a lifelong virgin like her had been given the chance to have some fun.
Heat surged through her body. Zhu Qingning wrapped her arms around the man’s neck and took the initiative. “…Hurry. Take good care of me…”
A flicker of surprise and amusement passed through the man’s eyes.
Then Zhu Qingning felt the weight.
“It’s so uncomfortable… Can you go faster…?”
The man let out a low laugh. “No. You’ll get hurt.”
She had already been blown to bits. How could her soul get hurt?
The heat inside Zhu Qingning grew even more unbearable. She took the initiative to bite and tease him, only for him to restrain her wrists above her head.
She complained unhappily, “…Can you… actually do this or not…?”
The man’s eyes darkened. He silenced her with a kiss and gave her a light, punitive bite. Then he knelt on one knee beside her waist and undid his belt.
The moment he possessed her, Zhu Qingning let out an involuntary moan. Her already-blurred vision began to sway up and down.
The temperature in the room continued to rise. The sheets gradually became damp with both their sweat, and the ambiguous sounds continued until well into the night.
When Zhu Qingning regained consciousness again, every inch of her body ached, but the heat had already faded.
She opened her eyes and froze.
A cold, stern-looking man lay before her. His features were sharply defined, his nose high and straight. Even with his eyes closed, he gave off an aloof, distant air.
Looking farther down, she saw his strong, well-built upper body. The lines of his muscles were distinct without being exaggerated. Several scars of varying depth marked his shoulders and back, and some fresh nail marks were still visible.
Zhu Qingning stared blankly for ten seconds before a segment of memory that did not belong to her unfolded in her mind.
The good news was that she had been blown to death and transmigrated into a new life.
The bad news was that she had transmigrated into a melodramatic novel set in the 1980s, becoming the cannon-fodder female supporting character with the most tragic fate in the entire book.
The original owner had the same name as her. She was the young heiress of the wealthy Zhu family in the provincial capital. As an infant, she had been abducted by criminals and was not found until she was nineteen.
The female protagonist of the novel was the original owner’s adopted younger sister, Zhu Xueyao—the fake heiress. After Madam Zhu was devastated by the loss of her daughter and developed a mental illness, she became convinced that Zhu Xueyao, a girl from an orphanage, was her daughter and brought her home. Later, even after Madam Zhu recovered with treatment, she had taken pity on Zhu Xueyao and allowed her to stay.
The return of the biological daughter shattered Zhu Xueyao’s perfect life. Not only did Zhu Qingning take away the Zhu family’s love for her, she also stole the love of Zhu Xueyao’s childhood sweetheart.
The male protagonist of the novel was no good either. Forced by family pressure to marry the Zhu family’s biological daughter, he secretly carried on an intimate affair with Zhu Xueyao. He took all the tangled love, resentment, and frustration he felt over Zhu Xueyao out on the original owner, blaming her for taking Zhu Xueyao’s place.
The original owner had grown up in the countryside in a family that favored sons over daughters, and had long since developed a weak, submissive nature. In the end, the male and female protagonists joined forces to scheme against her. Not only did she lose the family members who had loved her, she was also falsely accused of being “mentally deranged” and having “an affair” with someone before being forcibly sent to a mental asylum.
That was not all. When Zhu Xueyao “unfortunately” developed severe heart failure, through Zhu Xueyao’s scheming, the original owner was held down on the operating table while fully conscious and had her heart removed.
Everyone said that her heart had saved Zhu Xueyao and that it was the only good deed she had done in her entire life.
And the scene unfolding now was something Zhu Xueyao had arranged. The original owner was about to become engaged to Han Li, the male protagonist of the novel. Jealous and resentful, Zhu Xueyao had tricked the original owner into going to a guesthouse in the outskirts and bribed some thugs to violate her.
Zhu Qingning: …
What kind of melodramatic, morally bankrupt novel was this?!
After receiving all the memories, Zhu Qingning looked at the man still sleeping before her. He probably was not one of the thugs Zhu Xueyao had hired. What thug could look this upright and handsome?
But according to her memories of the previous night, she had forced herself on this man and said all kinds of shameful things to him…
Zhu Qingning tightened the hand she had placed over her heart. Since the deed was already done, why not use him to escape the fate and role assigned to her by this novel?
Just as she thought this, the man before her opened his eyes.
Zhu Qingning’s heart stopped for a beat. His eyes…
As if sensing it, the man closed his eyes again. “Did I scare you?”
Her consciousness had been hazy and the light dim the previous night, so Zhu Qingning had not seen him clearly. Only now did she notice a blood-red streak in his left eye, spreading across nearly half the white.
“No,” she said.
As a modern medical expert, Zhu Qingning had seen every kind of difficult and unusual illness. Even if someone had developed a tumor on their heart, she had the skills to save them, let alone a minor eye condition.
At that thought, Zhu Qingning felt somewhat weary. Although she was an orphan, she had worked hard and possessed great talent. Not only had she had inherited her master’s mantle and become the successor to a traditional Chinese medicine lineage, she was also a surgical prodigy. Countless people had sought her out for treatment.
Unfortunately, she had died at the hands of the gang of robbers who had threatened her to hand over a “an ancient medical formula classified as a state secret.” She would rather die alongside them than let the enemy steal a treasure belonging to her country!
“Second Brother, it’s here. Sister… nothing happened to her, right?”
A burst of footsteps sounded outside the room, accompanied by Zhu Xueyao’s hypocritical voice.
Zhu Qingning instantly went into battle mode.
Enduring the soreness in her body, she sat up and put on her clothes. Aside from her undergarments, which had been folded on a chair, the rest of her clothes were wet beyond belief.
Fortunately, a military greatcoat had been draped over the back of the chair beside her. She hurriedly put it on.
“I’ll give you an explanation for what happened last night, but before that, you have to listen to me.” She turned back to warn the man on the bed. “Just play dumb and don’t say a word. I’ll protect you.”
The moment she finished speaking, someone began pounding on the door. It was the original owner’s second older brother, Zhu Jingming.
“Zhu Qingning! I know you’re in there! Get out here!”
Zhu Qingning strode over and opened the door, her eyes sharp. Outside stood the worried Zhu Xueyao and the furious Zhu Jingming.
“Sister, are you all right? I was worried about you all night. Your clothes…”
Seeing Zhu Xueyao’s hypocritical face, Zhu Qingning raised her hand and slapped her across the face, knocking it sideways.
A searing pain shot across Zhu Xueyao’s cheek. She stared in disbelief.
“Yaoyao!” Seeing his sister get slapped, Zhu Jingming’s anger surged. He shoved Zhu Qingning back into the room. “Zhu Qingning, you’re getting more and more unruly!”
“Unruly? Did your rules say it was acceptable to come here first thing in the morning and kick down someone’s door?” Zhu Qingning shook her hand, her eyes cold.
“Sister, why… why did you hit me? Second Brother and I rushed here because we were afraid some thug had hurt you,” Zhu Xueyao said pitifully, covering her cheek.
“You’re shameless and refuse to repent! You’re bringing disgrace on the entire Zhu family! I want to see exactly what kind of unsavory people you’ve been mixing with. Move!” Zhu Jingming charged into the room.
Zhu Xueyao followed him inside. When she saw the mess scattered across the floor, she secretly curled her lips in triumph.
The man had already sat up on the bed. With his back to them, he was fastening his belt. His bare upper body and the nail marks on his shoulders and back were enough to make anyone’s imagination run wild.
Zhu Jingming trembled with rage when he saw the scene. “So, Zhu Qingning, you actually slept with a thug!”
“A thug? Who told you he was a thug?” Zhu Qingning looked at him with contempt. “Let me introduce him. He’s my boyfriend.”
Boyfriend? What a load of crap!
Zhu Jingming did not believe her nonsense at all. He was about to go over and drag this strange man back with him.
However, when the man finished dressing, rose, and turned around, the anger on Zhu Jingming’s face transformed into shock and fear.
“Commander… Commander Huo?”