Jiang Ruobai stared at the room where the lights had suddenly extinguished. He pressed his lips together, his eyes filled with a glimmer of desperate hope. He thought that whoever was in there, as long as Pei Sichen could let him go, he would pretend he had seen and heard nothing. He would willingly become a mute and a deaf man, quietly walking away from all of this.
Su Jiachen saw through Jiang Ruobai’s thoughts. Knowing Pei Sichen’s deep-seated malice, he understood that this was likely just another drama staged by that wicked man. Otherwise, that drugged cup of tea would never have ended up in Young Master Pei’s own stomach.
Since he was willing to play, Su Jiachen certainly did not mind adding fuel to the fire. As for whether the outcome would be desire or fury, that was up to Jiang Ruobai to choose; Su Jiachen had no habit of letting such flames burn him.
“Little Jiang, I have said what I needed to say. The choice is yours. But,” Su Jiachen intentionally slowed his tone, tilted his head, placed a palm on Jiang Ruobai’s shoulder, and lowered his voice, “you have already chosen wrong twice. I hope you do not choose wrong again this time.”
He patted Jiang Ruobai’s shoulder before picking up a glass of red wine and sauntering into the lively crowd. Jiang Ruobai remained standing in place, unconsciously gripping the fabric beneath his hands.
Night descended.
Pei Sichen leaned against the sofa, veins bulging on his arms. With scarlet pupils, he stared at his own wrist, then picked up a fruit knife from the table and unhesitatingly sliced a long gash into his skin. Seeming unsatisfied, he gripped the blade, tearing through flesh and cutting deeper until he reached the bone.
After doing this, a smile finally curled at the corners of his mouth, looking both triumphant and satisfied.
“Baby, do not keep me waiting too long.”
He let his head hang down in a state of decadence, allowing blood mixed with sweat to drip onto the floor, blooming into clusters of vibrant red flowers. The ticking of the dripping blood was like the relentless passage of time. The combination of heat and the drowsiness from blood loss caused him to be torn repeatedly between the fire of desire and the clarity of consciousness.
In a trance, he seemed to see his mother lying lifeless in the bathtub, the brilliant red staining the entire pool of water. He slowly approached that cold body, and the moment he saw her face, he suddenly collided with those eyes filled with resentment and grievance. She stared at him intensely, like a vengeful ghost seeking his life, ready to drag him into hell the next second.
“Pei Sichen, what is wrong with you?”
An anxious voice called back his lost sanity. He opened his eyes, and the moment he saw Jiang Ruobai, a satisfied smile appeared on his lips.
“A well-behaved child deserves a reward.” He collapsed into Jiang Ruobai’s arms, then proudly raised his injured arm, like a child waiting for praise. It was as if he were saying: Look, baby, see how much I love you.
“Jiang Ruobai, I feel so terrible. I was drugged by those people. Help me, please.” He lowered his head, his look of pride shifting into grievance the next moment, nuzzling against Jiang Ruobai like a young animal. He used self-harm to convey his loyalty to Jiang Ruobai and to win his sympathy. He knew his baby had the softest heart; only injuries like these would make him feel heartache.
Jiang Ruobai’s expression was solemn. Without a word, he quickly tore a piece of fabric from his shirt and wrapped it layer by layer around Pei Sichen’s bleeding wound. Seeing the bone-deep gash in Pei Sichen’s palm, he felt a jolt of horror.
“Are you crazy? This kind of dressing will not stop the bleeding. You need to go to the hospital.” Jiang Ruobai said sternly, picking up his phone to call an ambulance. “Sit still, I will call now. Mph!”
Before Jiang Ruobai could finish, Pei Sichen kissed him directly. The phone slipped from his palm and fell to the floor. Jiang Ruobai’s eyes widened as he looked at Pei Sichen in disbelief, shocked that even with his hand potentially ruined, his mind was still filled with such things.
Yet, he did not know that Pei Sichen had waited for him with such difficulty that even the pain could no longer suppress the overwhelming desire within his body.
When the kiss ended, he was already left dizzy. He wanted to push Pei Sichen away, but he was fiercely pinned back onto the sofa. Pei Sichen smiled recklessly, his eyes burning with heat, giving Jiang Ruobai no chance to choose.
“Good children need rewards. I have waited for you for so long, so I need to be rewarded.” He bit down on the bandage, leaned down, and kissed the person beneath him deeply once more.
Jiang Ruobai closed his eyes and, almost instinctively, stopped resisting. Perhaps in his heart, he had already realized that the person before him was truly an unmitigated lunatic.
Because of the drugs, this night was not easy for Jiang Ruobai. Pei Sichen, when sober, still had some degree of rationality. Though not gentle, he would at least consider Jiang Ruobai’s feelings. But now, he could hardly be called a gentleman. His reckless and aggressive demeanor made it seem as though he had completely lost his mind.
The night was agonizingly lingering. They continued from dusk until the sun rose before Pei Sichen finally showed mercy and let Jiang Ruobai go. Looking at his lover, who was so exhausted he had fainted, Pei Sichen kissed him gently on the corner of his lips.
“Baby, it is time to go home.”
Jiang Ruobai was so sleepy that he could not even open his eyes; he had no strength left to pay any attention to the other man. Pei Sichen dotingly wrapped his lover in his own suit jacket, picked Jiang Ruobai up, and opened the door.
The moment the door opened, Lin Jianyou had been waiting for a long time. Upon seeing the person in Pei Sichen’s arms, he took only one glance before receiving a threatening glare from Pei Sichen.
“If you look again, I will dig out your eyeballs.”
Seeing that his plan had failed, Lin Jianyou was so scared he dared not breathe loudly, lowering his head and obediently following behind Pei Sichen like a quail.
“Young Master Pei, please listen to my explanation. What happened last night was an accident, I…”
Pei Sichen kept a cold expression, showing him no face at all. “I will give you three days to do what you are supposed to do. Otherwise, your term as deputy mayor will come to an end.”
“Yes, yes! I understand, please rest assured, I will definitely get it done!”
Pei Sichen could not be bothered to look at him and drove Jiang Ruobai home. After placing him on the bed and tucking him in, he notified the butler to call for a doctor. When the doctor saw the wounds on Pei Sichen’s arm and palm, his face turned deathly pale. The Pei family had only this one precious heir; if something went wrong with his hand, Old Master Pei might tear his hospital down.
When the butler saw the wounds, his expression was not much better than the doctor’s. He rarely lost his composure, but now he looked solemn and troubled. Perhaps he had underestimated this “Little Jiang” in their house.
After the wounds were treated, half a day had passed. Pei Sichen went back to the bedroom to check on Jiang Ruobai. When he pushed the door open, the person inside was still sleeping quietly, looking extremely well-behaved. Pei Sichen lay down beside him, though his hands remained restless.
Jiang Ruobai sighed helplessly. “Is Mr. Pei always so energetic?”
Jiang Ruobai had already woken up before Pei Sichen pushed the door open, but he did not want to face him, so he decided to pretend to be asleep to get past it.
Pei Sichen pressed against him, feeling the warmth of the body beside him. “Baby, when I am with you, I always have endless energy.”
Jiang Ruobai turned his back to him and, thinking of Pei Sichen’s hand, asked with concern, “Is Mr. Pei’s injury okay?”
Faced with Jiang Ruobai’s rare show of concern, Pei Sichen smiled knowingly, then downplayed his injury. “It is nothing. The doctor has already dressed it.”
“Hmm, that is good.”
Jiang Ruobai asked, “Was the person who drugged you caught?”
“Yes.”
Pei Sichen did not hide anything and told Jiang Ruobai the full truth about the schemes of Lin You and Lin Jianyou.
After listening, Jiang Ruobai was silent for a while, then asked cautiously, “Mr. Pei, if I had run away last night, what would you have done?”
Pei Sichen paused, then kissed Jiang Ruobai’s earlobe, hugging him tighter as if to comfort him. “Baby, you would not want to know.”
Jiang Ruobai turned around, looked Pei Sichen in the eye, and tested him. “Mr. Pei, would you kill me?”
He covered those eyes that were looking at him, but did not choose to answer Jiang Ruobai’s question.
Jiang Ruobai sensibly did not ask again, because he already knew Pei Sichen’s answer. A cold-blooded and rational lunatic does not allow anyone in his world to betray him.
The small episode at the Lin family banquet seemed to be deliberately forgotten, and Pei Sichen and Jiang Ruobai returned to a state of peaceful coexistence. Only, compared to before, Pei Sichen was much more generous toward Jiang Ruobai. The gifts Pei Sichen gave him almost filled an entire warehouse, and any single item there was worth well over seven figures.
Upon learning that Jiang Ruobai did not have a driver’s license, Pei Sichen even thoughtfully hired a private tutor for him. However, ever since the night they returned from the Lin family’s, Jiang Ruobai had felt listless and fatigued, so he politely declined Pei Sichen’s kindness. Pei Sichen did not force the issue, but the next day, he gifted Jiang Ruobai a villa overlooking the river.
Peaceful days always pass quickly. A month blinked by, and Jiang Ruobai, having been idle and well-fed, felt he had gained a little weight. However, living as a “golden canary” was truly a bit boring, so Jiang Ruobai begged Pei Sichen to set up a small vegetable garden at home. When Pei Sichen learned that Jiang Ruobai wanted to farm, he had the butler clear a plot of land in the backyard the very next morning.
The butler watched Jiang Ruobai cultivating and clearing the land every day, his mouth twitching. He thought to himself: The vegetables grown in this plot are probably the most expensive ones in all of Shanghai.
However, after having this patch of land, Jiang Ruobai’s state of mind truly improved. Every day, he busied himself around those small plots of land, sowing seeds, watering, and fertilizing, working away with tireless joy.
That afternoon, Jiang Ruobai was looking at his sown cabbage in the field as usual when the phone in his pocket suddenly rang.
Jiang Ruobai answered the phone, and from the other end came his brother-in-law’s crying voice. “Brother-in-law, come to the hospital quickly! My sister, she is not going to make it!”
The tools in Jiang Ruobai’s hands scattered onto the ground, and he asked anxiously, “What happened to your sister?”
“It is my sister, her condition suddenly worsened, please come over quickly.” The brother-in-law’s voice on the other end was hesitant and kept urging Jiang Ruobai to hurry. “Brother-in-law, hurry up, my sister, her situation is very dangerous right now.”
Jiang Ruobai gripped the phone tightly, his nerves strained to the breaking point, and the world began to spin before his eyes. “I understand. You take good care of your sister, I will get there as soon as possible.”
“Brother-in-law, do you still have any money? My sister’s medical fees are not enough.”
Jiang Ruobai had previously sent his brother-in-law 100,000. Shortly after his wife was hospitalized, he had sold their matrimonial home for a total of 650,000. In the more than half a year his wife had been hospitalized, they had spent about 300,000 here and there. There should still be more than 100,000 left; it shouldn’t have been spent so quickly. But Jiang Ruobai was in no mood to calculate those accounts now; what he worried about most was how he would get to see his wife.
Although Pei Sichen did not restrict his movements, every move he made was lived under Pei Sichen’s surveillance. Not to mention, he did not have much cash on hand right now.
“I have some things to handle right now, but I will get to your sister as soon as possible. If there is any more news about her, you must call me, do you understand?”
“I know, brother-in-law, but the money…”
Hearing the hesitation on the other side, Jiang Ruobai steadied his mind, thought for a moment, and said, “I will wire the money to you this afternoon.”
“Okay, brother-in-law, you go ahead and be busy. If there is any news about my sister, I will call you.”
The tone on the other side became noticeably higher after hearing Jiang Ruobai’s words, then, as if realizing it was inappropriate, switched back to a heavy tone. “Brother-in-law, I have to go take care of my sister. You would not believe it, she was rushed into the emergency room today. It scared me to death.”
“Did the doctor tell you what the problem was?”
The other side stammered for a long time, then said in a tone of grievance and accusation, “I, how would I understand? The doctor was babbling a bunch of things I did not understand. Anyway, her condition is very serious, and they needed to notify the family. Brother-in-law, you have not visited her for so long, are you tired of her being a burden? Are you trying to divorce my sister?”
Thinking of his recent experiences, Jiang Ruobai only felt exhausted. “What are you talking about? How could I divorce your sister!”
“Brother-in-law, do not be angry. I was just worried because you have not visited her in so long.”
Jiang Ruobai had a splitting headache, feeling so upset and irritable that he wanted to lash out. He was worried about his wife in the hospital, but his brother-in-law’s words were undoubtedly stinging his heart. Yet, from his brother-in-law’s perspective, he had indeed failed as a husband during this time, so it was no wonder the other party was worried. He did not want to vent his internal anger on an innocent person, so with a steady breath, he said, “I am still in Shanghai, so I will arrive by tomorrow at the earliest. You must take good care of your sister, do you understand?”
“Do not worry, brother-in-law, I will take good care of my sister.”
“Good, I am hanging up now.”
Jiang Ruobai hung up the phone. He looked at the screen, fell silent for a moment, and then quickly found another person’s phone number in his contacts.