“Stop… I can’t do this anymore…”
“It’s too late to say no now.”
“Be good, one more time…”
Shen Qingyu was awakened by a blinding light.
She closed her eyes and turned over, trying to bury her face in the pillow to hide from it, but she caught a whiff of an unfamiliar scent.
It wasn’t the lavender laundry detergent she usually used in her apartment.
It was a distinct cedarwood fragrance.
Her eyes snapped open.
Her vision was filled with a glaring white—white bed linens, white walls, and California sunlight streaming through the gaps in the white curtains, so bright it made her eyes sting.
This wasn’t her room.
She immediately propped herself up, the blanket slipping from her shoulders as a chill spread across her skin. She glanced down, and her entire body froze.
She wasn’t wearing any clothes.
Not a single piece.
The marks on her body were especially clear in the morning light—several red patches below her collarbone, a few bruises shaped like fingerprints on her waist. And that indescribable soreness, spreading from her limbs to every part of her body.
Shen Qingyu’s breath hitched for a moment.
Heavens! Where was she? What had she done last night?!
A headache began to throb, the kind that drilled from her temples all the way to the back of her head, as if someone were chiseling inside.
She forced herself to start recalling yesterday’s events…
Last night, she had gone to a bar to drown her sorrows because her mother wanted her to return to China for an arranged marriage.
In her twenty-six years, Shen Qingyu had never set foot in a bar.
She was the good girl in everyone’s eyes, the only daughter of a family of lawyers, excelling in both character and academics from a young age, all the way to earning a Juris Doctor from Stanford.
Her life trajectory was as clear as a straight line drawn with a ruler—no deviations, no surprises.
But if she was destined to become a tool for an arranged marriage, then at least, before becoming that tool, she would do something unlike herself.
The bartender at the bar gave her a strange look, probably because he had never seen a woman wearing a cashmere cardigan in a bar. Shen Qingyu ignored it, tilted her head back, and downed the sickly sweet liquid, then waved for another glass.
Two glasses.
Three glasses.
She couldn’t remember how many glasses she had drunk, only that the lights grew increasingly blurry, and then someone grabbed her arm.
“Hey, pretty girl, you look lonely.”
A blond man, reeking of pungent cologne, stood with two equally ill-intentioned companions. They held her wrist with a grip so tight she couldn’t break free.
“Come with us, we’ll have some fun.”
Shen Qingyu’s mind was foggy, but instinct made her struggle.
“No! Let go of me!”
The bartender pretended not to see, and others in the bar noticed the commotion, their gazes sweeping over her before settling elsewhere, turning a blind eye.
She was dragged toward the exit, the bar door looming closer and closer. A cold draft seeped through the cracks, and for a moment, she suddenly sobered up.
She absolutely could not go outside.
If she went out, it would be over.
“Help!” She shouted with all her might, her voice sounding so thin amidst the clamorous music.
Pei Huaijin didn’t like to meddle in other people’s business.
Tonight, he had just finished a dinner meeting with a business partner. After the socializing ended, the other party suggested “going somewhere else to sit for a while.” He declined, but he wasn’t ready to return to the hotel yet, so he walked into this bar not far from the restaurant.
He simply wanted to sit for a moment.
The night in San Francisco was different from that in Jingbei; the noise here was unfamiliar. The air in the bar carried the scent of cheap perfume mixed with other smells, and the music pounded against his temples. He sat at a corner of the bar, ordered a whiskey, and sipped it slowly, his gaze wandering aimlessly over the crowd.
Then he saw the woman.
She was sitting alone at the other end of the bar, wearing a high-quality cashmere cardigan that stood out starkly against the women around her in sequined tank tops. Several empty glasses sat in front of her, and the bartender looked at her with a hint of amusement, as if watching a rabbit that had strayed into the jungle.
Pei Huaijin withdrew his gaze.
None of his business.
He took another sip of his drink.
When he looked up again, the woman was now surrounded by three men. Blond, burly, with greasy smiles.
The woman was struggling.
Pei Huaijin set down his glass.
None of his business. He repeated it to himself once more.
But as the woman was being dragged away, he glanced over.
Just one glance, through the crowd, through the lights, through the indifferent faces pretending not to see, and his eyes met hers.
In that instant, Pei Huaijin saw her eyes clearly.
Clear, panicked, like a small animal backed into a corner, pleading for help.
He stood up.
By the time he realized what he was doing, he had already stepped in front of the three men, pulling the woman behind him, one hand resting on her waist.
“She’s with me.”
Shen Qingyu looked up, catching only the man’s profile—a sharp jawline, cold eyes and brows, wearing an expensive-looking black coat of an unrecognizable brand.
The three men froze for a second, then the leader grinned, revealing a set of teeth yellowed by smoke.
“Hey man, she’s not with anyone. We saw her first.”
Pei Huaijin didn’t speak, just stared at them.
It was the same look he had used countless times at the negotiation table. Commanding without anger, overwhelmingly intimidating, enough to make even the most arrogant business partner lower their demands by three percentage points.
But this was San Francisco, and these men weren’t buying it.
“Listen,” the leader took a step forward, placing a hand on Pei Huaijin’s shoulder, “mind your own business, or you’ll regret it.”
Pei Huaijin glanced down at the hand, then raised his eyes to meet the greasy face.
“I am the CEO of the Pei Group.” He spoke, his voice not loud but clear and articulate, carrying an innate composure. “I assume you’ve heard of it.”
The expressions of the three men shifted.
The Pei Group—its industries spanned the globe, and right in downtown San Francisco, there stood a skyscraper bearing the name “Pei.”
“If you don’t want to cause trouble,” Pei Huaijin continued, his tone unhurried and cold, “get lost.”
They were not street thugs who had never seen the world. They knew there were people you couldn’t mess with, troubles that once touched you, you couldn’t shake off. The man before them wore a coat and suit that, though unbranded, clearly looked expensive. The watch on his wrist was worth enough to buy a small apartment in San Francisco. Every word he spoke carried the unspoken weight of “I can ruin you.”
The leader awkwardly withdrew his hand and took a step back.
“Alright, alright.”
The leader left with the other two in tow.