“Stop… I don’t want to anymore…”
“Too late to say that now.”
“Be good. One more time…”
Shen Qingyu woke to a glaring light.
Eyes still closed, she rolled over, trying to bury her face in the pillow and hide from it. Instead, she caught a strange scent.
It wasn’t the lavender detergent she usually used in her apartment.
It was a distinct cedar scent.
Her eyes snapped open.
All she could see was blinding white: white bedding, white walls, and California sunlight streaming through a gap in the white curtains, so bright it made her eyes ache.
This wasn’t her room.
She immediately pushed herself upright. The covers slid from her shoulders, and a chill crept across her skin. She glanced down—and froze.
She wasn’t wearing any clothes.
Not a single thing.
The marks on her body stood out in the morning light: several red marks below her collarbone and bruises along her waist shaped like fingers. And then there was the indescribable soreness spreading through her from head to toe.
Shen Qingyu’s breath caught.
God! Where was she? What had she done last night?!
A headache began to pound through Shen Qingyu’s temples and into the back of her head, as if someone were drilling into her skull with an awl.
She forced herself to think back over the night before…
She’d gone to a bar to drink herself into a stupor because her mother had told 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, an excellent student from childhood, all the way through to a doctorate in law at Stanford.
Her life had followed a path as straight as a line drawn with a ruler, without a single deviation or unexpected turn.
But if she was destined to become a pawn in an arranged marriage, then before she did, she wanted to do something completely unlike herself.
The bartender had looked at her strangely, probably because he’d never seen a woman come to a bar in a cashmere cardigan. Shen Qingyu didn’t care. She tipped back the glass of cloyingly sweet liquor and waved for another.
Two drinks.
Three.
She couldn’t remember how many she’d had. She only remembered the lights growing blurrier and then someone grabbing her wrist.
“Hey, pretty girl, you look lonely.”
A blond man with an overpowering cologne stood beside her, along with two companions who looked just as unsavory. They gripped her wrist so tightly she couldn’t pull free.
“Come with us, we’ll have some fun.”
Shen Qingyu’s mind was foggy, but instinct told her to struggle.
“No! Let go of me!”
The bartender acted as if he hadn’t seen a thing. The others in the bar noticed what was happening, let their eyes pass over her, then looked away, pretending not to see.
They dragged her toward the exit. The door loomed closer, cold air slipping in through the cracks. For one brief moment, she came to her senses.
She absolutely couldn’t go outside.
If she did, it would be over.
“Help!” She shouted with all her strength, but her voice sounded so frail against the pounding music.
Pei Huaijin didn’t like getting involved in other people’s business.
That night, he’d just finished a dinner with a business partner. When the socializing was over, the other man suggested they “go somewhere else and sit for a while.” Pei Huaijin declined, but he wasn’t ready to return to the hotel either, so he’d walked into this bar not far from the restaurant.
He’d simply wanted to sit for a while.
San Francisco nights were different from those in Jingbei. The bustle here felt unfamiliar. The air in the bar was thick with the smell of cheap perfume, and the music made his temples throb. He sat in a corner of the bar, ordered a whiskey, and sipped it slowly, his gaze roaming aimlessly over the crowd.
Then he saw the woman.
She sat alone at the other end of the bar, wearing a fine cashmere cardigan that made her look completely out of place among the women in sequined camisoles. Several empty glasses stood in front of her. The bartender regarded her with a hint of amusement, as if she were a rabbit that had wandered into the jungle.
Pei Huaijin looked away.
It wasn’t his business.
He took another sip.
When he looked up again, there were three men beside the woman. Blond, burly, and grinning sleazily.
The woman was struggling.
Pei Huaijin set down his glass.
It wasn’t his business. He told himself that again.
But when they dragged her toward the exit, he turned to look.
Just once. Through the crowd, through the lights, past all those cold faces pretending not to notice, his eyes met hers.
In that instant, Pei Huaijin saw her eyes clearly.
Clear and frantic, like a small animal backed into a corner, pleading for help.
He stood.
By the time he realized what he was doing, he was already blocking the three men. He’d pulled the woman behind him, one hand steadying her at the waist.
“She’s with me.”
Shen Qingyu looked up and saw only the man’s profile: a sharp jawline, cool features, and a black coat with no visible label that nonetheless looked unmistakably expensive.
The three men stared for a second. Then their leader laughed, showing a row of teeth yellowed by tobacco stains.
“Hey, man, she’s not with anyone. We saw her first.”
Pei Huaijin said nothing. He simply looked at them.
He’d used that look countless times across the negotiating table. It carried a quiet, imposing authority, enough to make even the most arrogant business partners concede three percentage points.
But this was San Francisco, and these men weren’t impressed.
“Listen.” The leader stepped forward and put a hand on Pei Huaijin’s shoulder. “Mind your own business, or you’ll regret it.”
Pei Huaijin glanced down at the hand, then lifted his eyes to the man’s sleazy face.
“I am the CEO of the Pei Group,” he said. His voice was quiet, his words crisp, and he spoke with an innate composure. “I assume you’ve heard of it.”
The three men’s expressions changed.
The Pei Group had businesses all over the world, including an office tower in downtown San Francisco bearing the name “Pei.”
“If you don’t want trouble,” Pei Huaijin continued, his voice cold and his pace unhurried, “get lost.”
They weren’t clueless street thugs. They knew some people weren’t worth messing with, and some trouble wouldn’t go away once you got tangled up in it. The man in front of them wore a coat and suit with no visible label that were obviously expensive. The watch on his wrist could buy them a small apartment in San Francisco. Every word he said carried the conviction of someone who could ruin them financially.
The leader sheepishly withdrew his hand and took a step back.
“Alright, alright.”
The leader left with the other two.