Zhu Fan opened her eyes the moment the first ray of sunlight broke through the clouds. Her mind was clear, and the Death Countdown in her thoughts had changed to 99 days.
Beside her ear was the faint, even breathing of a man in the deep sleep that follows physical exhaustion.
She reacted almost instantly.
Holding her breath, Zhu Fan sat up, clutching the blanket.
On the hotel’s large bed, she was on the right side, and the man lay on the left. There was enough space between them for another person.
A clear divide, like the boundary between Chu and Han—distinct and separate.
She tried hard to suppress the dry itch in her throat, but in the end, she couldn’t hold back a cough.
Zhu Fan instinctively glanced at the sleeping man.
Seeing his brow furrow slightly, she quickly pressed her palms together, praying he wouldn’t wake up.
Last night—
A series of images flashed through her mind, and the soreness in her waist surged back.
She cursed inwardly: Damn man, utterly tireless.
How could anyone have that much stamina?
She ground her teeth, wishing she could bite a piece of flesh off him.
Zhu Fan lifted the blanket slowly and carefully. Glancing down at the marks on her body, she felt a fine ache seeping through every joint. Her legs trembling, she stood on the floor. Her peripheral vision caught the trash can, and she quickly looked away as if burned.
She picked up the white shirt and black trousers from the floor and set them aside gently.
The floor-to-ceiling window, curtains undrawn, clearly reflected her sneaky demeanor.
Unbearable to look at.
Zhu Fan picked up her wrinkled slip dress.
After a night in the air conditioning, the dress was half-dried, feeling damp and cold in her hands.
Mustering her energy, she put on the wrinkled slip dress, then her gaze settled on the white shirt.
Once she put on the shirt, the goosebumps raised by the room’s overly cold air subsided.
The slip dress and white shirt fabrics pressed together, making a faint rustling sound with her slight movements.
Zhu Fan stood still for a moment, easing the soreness in her waist and legs. A faint, clean scent lingered around her—like mint soaked in ice water, or the smell of grass after a winter rain. Crisp and cold. She sniffed, the fragrance curling around her nose before drifting deeper.
This scent had soaked into every inch of her skin last night as well.
She glanced at the shirt wrapped around her and shook her head firmly, telling herself to stop thinking about last night.
Tiptoeing, she slowly made her way to the bathroom.
Finding the original body’s phone and bag in the bathroom, she first opened the bag and rummaged through it.
Finding three hundred-yuan bills pressed under cosmetics and lipstick, she passed the man’s black trousers, stopped, and bent down to place the three bills into the pocket.
Just as she straightened up, she pulled the money back out.
For that skill level, three hundred was too much.
One hundred—no more than that.
Just as the hotel room door was about to close, Zhu Fan heard a phone ring.
She let go abruptly, and the door clicked shut.
The closed door sealed off the world outside.
Zhu Fan let out a breath and quickly hurried away.
Inside the room, the sleeping man opened his eyes after the ringing.
The glaring sunlight made Fang Qizhou raise his arm to shield his eyes.
The curtains drew shut with a swish.
Fang Qizhou picked up the phone from the carpet, glanced at the caller ID, and tossed it onto the bed without a second thought.
His gaze stopped on a long, thin black hair left on the white pillow.
“Ran fast enough.”
A faint, sweet fragrance still lingered in the air.
Half-hidden under the pillow, a white mother-of-pearl four-leaf clover glinted with metallic sheen.
Fang Qizhou picked up the bracelet, studying it with an unreadable expression.
The room’s air conditioning seemed even colder now.
Fang Qizhou picked up his trousers from the floor and casually slipped the bracelet into his pocket.
As he bent down to put on his trousers, the black line tattoo on his pale neck resembled an extremely thin necklace, coiling around his throat like thorns in a wasteland.
The phone, which had been ringing nonstop, was finally remembered by its owner.
“Qizhou, Auntie begs you, forgive Qi Bai. Whatever mistakes were made, they’re all mine…”
“Qi Bai has already knelt in the ancestral hall for four days. If you think that’s not enough, Auntie will kneel for you. I’ll kneel and apologize to you. Please, let Qi Bai come home—”
Fang Qizhou remained unmoved by the woman’s pleading voice on the phone, until her voice began to turn hoarse. “Fang Qizhou, he’s your brother. How can you be so vicious—”
A new incoming call made Fang Qizhou’s patience run out. He swiped his finger, and the new call drowned out the woman’s voice of accusation and hatred.
The man on the other end launched into his usual opening, making Fang Qizhou click his tongue in annoyance.
A brief silence fell on the other end. “Qizhou, that car you liked the day before yesterday is already in the garage at home.”
“You’ve been wronged in this matter. If there’s anything else you want, just tell your father.”
“As long as you don’t forgive Qi Bai, your father won’t let him appear in front of you.”
A mocking smile curled at the corner of Fang Qizhou’s lips. He leisurely sat back on the bed. “I’m craving the steamed sea bass that my brother makes.”
The phone clutched in Zhu Fan’s hand had long since run out of battery.
As the elevator descended, a wave of dizziness hit her. She crouched down, thinking she needed to get a piece of chocolate from the hotel lobby first. In her current state—sleep-deprived and hypoglycemic—she might pass out at any moment.
The chaotic remnants of the original body’s memories in her mind had already been digested cleanly.
She had 99 more days to live.
That news wasn’t too bad, all things considered.
Before transmigrating into this book, she had just celebrated her 19th birthday with her friends, and they’d agreed to spend the last week of summer vacation together in France.
On her way home, she’d barely stepped out of the subway station when she ran into a knife-wielding madman.
The man who suddenly went berserk and started stabbing people at the station entrance caught everyone off guard.
In a flash of blade light, she only had time to shove her friend aside.
The memory of the blade slashing her artery and her friend’s terrified, helpless eyes made Zhu Fan instinctively press her palm against her neck.
The warm, slightly sticky sweat on her neck warmed her suddenly chilled body.
The city had long since awakened in the morning light.
Zhu Fan’s thoughts were still drifting.
If she had to do it all over again, she thought, she would still push her friend away.
She’d been born without ever knowing who her father was, and had been dumped on her grandmother like an unwanted burden by a mother chasing her dreams. And because she’d inherited her father’s congenital heart condition, the doctors said she wouldn’t live past 24.
Her life—whether before transmigrating or here in this book—seemed to be telling her the same thing: your life is just shorter than everyone else’s.
“A Fan, A Fan—”
Her arm was suddenly grabbed.
Zhu Fan snapped back to reality at the sound of her name being called and the tugging.
Ming Yazhi realized she’d used too much force and quickly let go, apologizing several times in a row.
She observed Zhu Fan standing quietly in the elevator—even in her wrinkled clothes, she was still several shades more striking than the morning light itself—and felt a moment of daze.
Ming Yazhi’s gaze stopped on the white shirt Zhu Fan was wearing.
That white shirt was what Fang Qizhou had worn in the private bar room last night. She couldn’t be mistaken.
Zhu Fan had actually spent an entire night with Fang Qizhou.
And she’d even walked out of the hotel room completely unscathed.
Ming Yazhi’s suspended heart—which had been tense with worry—now rose with jealousy because Zhu Fan had actually pulled it off, but she couldn’t help secretly gloating. From today onward, Zhu Fan was no longer that pure, untouchable young lady who seemed above worldly matters. She’d lost her chastity and become Fang Qizhou’s plaything.
All her painstaking scheming to set up this trap hadn’t been in vain.
Zhu Fan looked up at the girl before her, whose eyes were full of anxiety and concern.
Ming Yazhi quickly crouched down to meet Zhu Fan’s eyes, speaking intimately and ingratiatingly: “A Fan, why are you squatting? Are you feeling unwell? You know, this whole night, I was scared to death…”
She lowered her voice, her tone carrying the secretive quality of something shared only between the two of them: “Was Fang Qizhou gentle with you?”
Zhu Fan paused for a few seconds, slowly straightened up, and pressed the button to reopen the closing elevator doors. “Do you have any chocolate? Or candy would work too.”
Ming Yazhi quickly followed her out of the elevator. “I’ll go buy you some candy and chocolate right now. Wait for me, okay?”
She was used to making everything revolve around Zhu Fan. She couldn’t claim to understand every look and every gesture perfectly, but she could definitely read Zhu Fan’s current mood.
Noticing how unnaturally pale Zhu Fan’s face was, she kept looking back as she walked away: “The car picking us up is already waiting outside. Wait here for me—I’ll be back as soon as I buy the chocolate and candy.”
Zhu Fan got her chocolate five minutes later.
Ming Yazhi thoughtfully peeled back the gold foil and handed the chocolate to Zhu Fan, along with a few grape-flavored gummy candies. “I kept trying to call you, but I couldn’t get through. I was so afraid you’d miss coming home for breakfast.”
Zhu Fan had only been back at school for less than a week. Last night, when she didn’t come home, Ming Yazhi had asked her own mother to call Zhu Fan’s mother, saying she was feeling down and wanted Zhu Fan to stay with her for the night.
Today was very important for the Zhu family—it was the first day that Zhu Fan’s younger sister, who had been living outside the family, would be coming home to the Zhus.
Last night, Aunt Yin and her mother had both reminded her to make sure Zhu Fan got home in time for breakfast.
Thinking of the calls from Aunt Yin and her own mother, Ming Yazhi had always believed her family background wasn’t bad, but people—people were never satisfied.
If only something like that could fall on her—
Zhu Fan bent down and got into the business van.
Ming Yazhi quickly pushed aside those unrealistic thoughts and followed her into the back seat.
She took the phone from Zhu Fan’s hand and naturally plugged it into a power bank to charge.