The blatant provocation, along with his own sense of decency, forced Ying Xun to take several deep breaths, suppressing the urge to hit him.
A few seconds later, having steadied his emotions, he let go of Jiang Yi’s collar, pulled a black card from his pocket, and threw it hard onto Jiang Yi’s flushed cheek.
His tone was vicious, as if dipped in ice, “There’s five million on the card, take it and get lost. Once you’ve finished the elimination surgery, I’ll transfer you the remaining fifteen million. Don’t ever show up in front of me again.”
With that, he turned and walked away without looking back, as if even one more glance at Jiang Yi would dirty his eyes.
Jiang Yi’s half-smiling gaze followed Ying Xun’s retreating back, and the provocative words slipped out again, “Teacher Ying, why are you like this again? I said I want to choose the second option. I didn’t come to you for money, I just missed you too much, so I came to see you. After all, it’s normal for an omega to want to see his own alpha, isn’t it?”
The only response was another heavy sound of a door slamming shut.
Jiang Yi withdrew his gaze, glanced at the bank card lying at his feet, and slowly bent down to pick it up.
By the dim light of the streetlamp, he carefully looked over the information on the bank card, then tucked it into his pocket, slid down along the icy wall to the base of it, and leaned against the wall, still crouching in the same spot as before.
The early-winter cold wind rose on all sides, like sharp blades piercing through his torn, misshapen collar, cutting into Jiang Yi’s skin.
999 couldn’t sense temperature, but it still shivered at the ferocious howling of the cold wind.
It floated lightly in front of Jiang Yi, and looking at his exhausted state, it couldn’t hold back the fear and instinctive concern in its heart, and said with care, “Host, you’ve already met the target now, and the temperature is dropping fast, and you’re still sick, why don’t we go back?”
Jiang Yi lifted his eyelids, looked at the white mist with an expressionless face, was still for two seconds, then suddenly laughed, “Go back? Go back where? Wasn’t it you who told me to pursue him? I’m staying here so he can see my determination, so he’ll fall in love with me sooner.”
“But, but you’re running a fever right now.” 999 said anxiously.
It didn’t dare say that Jiang Yi clearly intended to stay here through the entire freezing winter night.
It had never seen anyone so desperate to court death.
Four days ago, it had received its first mission from the Lord God, forcibly binding itself to Jiang Yi, who had just committed suicide, as its host.
It didn’t expect Jiang Yi to be so furious about being brought back to life and given the mission to pursue Ying Xun.
He had even tried to kill it, throwing it off a building more than twenty stories high, trying to smash it to death, drown it, burn it, even blow it up, but in the end found there was no way to kill it.
Besides that, Jiang Yi had also tried to kill himself several times more, and only reluctantly gave in once he realized that no matter what, he would wake up again and couldn’t get rid of it.
But every time after that, the look in his eyes when he looked at it was full of murderous intent.
Jiang Yi laughed lightly again, “What’s there to be afraid of? A fever won’t kill me, and even if it did, so what? Can’t you bring me back to life anyway?”
“I can bring you back to life, but…”
But aren’t you suffering right now? You’re burning up so badly you don’t even have the strength to speak.
Jiang Yi didn’t give it the chance to finish, and instead looked away, resting his hands on his thighs, propping up his chin, watching the ants moving house in the garden with nothing better to do.
Time passed second by second, the night grew deeper, the temperature dropped sharply along with it, and the howling cold wind swept in from all directions, blowing Jiang Yi’s hair into disarray.
Jiang Yi seemed unable to feel the wind eroding him, and when sitting in one position grew tiring, he switched to propping his chin with his other hand.
He even reached out and picked up a thin stick to help the ants along.
No matter how anxious 999 got beside him, spinning in circles, he remained unmoved, continuing to stare fixedly at the ants without moving.
Inside, the temperature was like spring all year round, in stark contrast to the bitter cold outside.
Ying Xun pushed open the front door with a tense expression, then slammed it shut behind him, took off his coat, undid his shirt buttons, and went to take a shower, only then suppressing the anger in his chest.
He pushed the feelings out of his mind, made himself a cup of coffee, and leaned against the headboard with an expressionless face to read the latest script, as if everything outside the door just now didn’t exist, including that person he despised the most.
He didn’t know how much time had passed when a loud crash of thunder broke the silence that should belong to the deep night, and the next second, after a flash of light swept past, came pouring rain.
It struck the floor-to-ceiling windows, crackling loudly.
His train of thought interrupted, a somewhat weary Ying Xun raised his hand to rub between his brows, picked up the watch on the nightstand, and checked the time, finding it was already past one in the morning.
Time to rest.
He lifted the covers, got out of bed, and put the coffee cup into the dishwasher.
He went to the bathroom to rinse his mouth again, drew the curtains, and amid the white noise of wind and rain intertwining, put on his eye mask and closed his eyes, preparing to sleep, to get ready for tomorrow’s work.
Ten minutes later, a faint light lit up in the pitch-black bedroom.
Ying Xun held his eye mask in one hand and gripped his phone tightly in the other, glaring furiously at the surveillance footage of the front gate on his phone.
Jiang Yi was still crouched there under the streetlamp, letting the pouring rain wash over him completely.
“Damn it!”
The anger he’d suppressed flared up again, and he threw the phone onto the soft silk quilt, making no sound.
Ying Xun flipped over and sat up, not even bothering to put on a coat, grabbed the umbrella hanging by the door, and, wrapped in fury, strode quickly into the rain still in his pajamas.
The sound of footsteps drew closer, but the person sitting under the streetlamp showed no reaction, not even lifting his head.
Ying Xun’s anger burned, and holding back the urge to step forward and kick him, he held the umbrella and glared down coldly at Jiang Yi in the rain, his eyes cold as ice, “Trying to die, is that it? If you want to die so badly, get lost somewhere else and do it.”
Faced with Ying Xun’s fury, Jiang Yi still hung his head low, without any movement.
More than ten seconds later, Ying Xun finally sensed something was wrong.
He stepped forward in disgust, bent down, and with a look of distaste, reached out his well-defined fingers to lift Jiang Yi’s rain-soaked chin.
The next instant, the scalding heat passed through the skin, straight into his fingertips.
Jiang Yi’s face, which had always carried a playful, provocative smile, was now pale as paper, utterly bloodless.
His alluring peach-blossom eyes were also tightly shut, only his long, dense lashes casting a shadow over his sickly lower eyelids.
Feeling the heat under his fingertips, another low curse escaped Ying Xun’s mouth, and the hand gripping Jiang Yi’s chin tightened further.
The umbrella flipped over and rolled into the rainwater, disgust crawling across Ying Xun’s cold, sharp features.
Then, the unconscious Jiang Yi was picked up and set down under the eaves by the door.
Ying Xun turned back into the living room with a cold expression, grabbed the coat and car keys hanging by the door, cut back through the curtain of rain, opened the car door, threw Jiang Yi into the back seat, got into the driver’s seat, and drove straight to the hospital.
On a rainy night filled with thunder and lightning, there were few vehicles on the road, and even the hospital had sunk into a deep sleep.
Half an hour later, the on-duty medical staff were startled awake by the screech of brakes and the sound of Ying Xun’s hurried footsteps.
A group of doctors and nurses in white coats rushed over pushing a stretcher, then rushed off again pushing Jiang Yi away.
Ying Xun raised his eyes, coldly glanced in the direction the doctors had gone, took off his coat and shook the water droplets off it, and walked to the payment counter with an expressionless face to settle the bill.