Li Yu returned home and walked upstairs to his bedroom.
He tossed his shoulder bag onto the bed and collapsed onto it with a heavy thud.
Closing his eyes, he replayed the events of the day, feeling as though it were all a magical dream.
Zhou Lu had actually taken the initiative to talk to him! He even said he wanted to be friends!
In the past, Li Yu wouldn’t even have dared to dream of such a thing. Yet today, it had happened so vividly right before his eyes.
The soft light shone on Li Yu’s face, its smooth lines outlining his high nose bridge. His curly, long eyelashes cast shadows on his cheeks, and the corners of his pink lips curved upward slightly.
This very scene was captured completely and defenselessly by a figure standing just outside the doorway.
“Knock, knock, knock!” His train of thought was interrupted by a series of knocks. Li Yu opened his eyes and sat up, seeing Li Yan standing in the doorway and staring straight at him.
“Huh? Big Brother Yan? You’re back today, I didn’t even know.”
“I just got home not long ago and brought back some desserts for you.”
Li Yan curved his jewel-like, dark, and clear eyes, smiling softly. “Do you like them?”
Li Yu saw that Li Yan was holding a delicate, transparent box filled with various kinds of small pastries. His eyes lit up at the sight.
“Thank you! I love them!”
With a pastry stuffed in his mouth and holding two more in his hand, Li Yu offered them to Li Yan. “Big Brother Yan, have some too!”
Li Yan shook his head softly. Watching Li Yu eat with such ravenous hunger, he gently ruffled Li Yu’s hair.
“No, you eat. I don’t care for sweets.”
“You should buy less next time. You buy way too much, and since you don’t even like sweets, I can’t finish all of this by myself.”
Li Yu kept eating with his head down while finding the time between bites to lecture him.
“I was afraid you wouldn’t have enough, so I bought extra. If you can’t finish them, just throw them away. Your big brother isn’t short on money.”
“Throwing them away is wasteful!” Li Yu pouted as he looked at his childhood friend, who was showing off such heartless extravagance without a care in the world.
“I didn’t expect our little Yu to be such a thrifty and good child when it comes to food,” Li Yan teased.
“Seeing you smile so happily just now, did something fun happen at school today?”
His sharp gaze landed on Li Yu’s face, reading his micro-expressions while probing subtly for information.
“Mm, I was very happy today.” Thinking of Zhou Lu, Li Yu couldn’t help but beam with joy.
“Oh? Tell me about it?” Li Yan really wanted to know what could possibly make his precious treasure this happy today.
“Oh, it’s nothing much really, just everyday campus life. Big Brother Yan, you’ve been busy all day, you should go take a bath and rest early!” Li Yu tugged at Li Yan’s sleeve and shook it gently.
Li Yan curved his lips and gently patted Li Yu’s hair. “Little Yu, you rest first. I still need to head out and take care of some business in a moment.”
“It’s so late, you’re still going out?” Li Yu frowned.
“Yes, there are some important matters that need temporary handling. But I’ll be back soon, so little Yu can rest easy.”
Li Yan’s pupils were deep, and his voice carried a low, intoxicating allure.
Deep inside a dark prison, a man was curled up on the damp ground. The white clothes he wore were stained red with blood and looked torn and tattered.
For some reason, his ankles were bleeding continuously, forming two dark red bloody holes surrounded by a few buzzing flies.
He trembled as he clutched his body, muttering something incessantly under his breath.
“Still alive?”
Li Yan used the toe of his shiny leather shoe to lift the man’s chin, looking down at him with a hint of mockery.
Wang Libin forced open his swollen eyelids to make out the visitor, a flash of desperate excitement passing through his eyes.
He wriggled his body and crawled toward Li Yan, his trembling hands grabbing onto Li Yan’s trouser legs as he begged,
“President Yan! I was wrong, I was truly wrong! I shouldn’t have stolen the company’s confidential documents and given them to our competitor just for three million. Please spare me! I have already suffered the punishment I deserve, and I will take responsibility for the twenty million in losses the company suffered. I really won’t dare do it again.”
Li Yan took a few steps back, watching as his brand-new trousers were dirtied by this traitor.
With a blank expression, he uttered two words to the bodyguard beside him: “Cripple him.”
Receiving the instruction, the bodyguard understood his boss’s intention immediately from those two short words.
Before long, horrific and inhuman screams echoed through the cell.
Wang Libin spat a mouthful of blood, rolled his eyes back, and his limbs were completely crippled.
Watching this scene, Li Yan smiled with a morbid upturn of his lips, his bloodshot eyes gleaming brightly as he stared straight at Wang Libin.
“You really are so stupid. What kind of person did you think you were to be able to steal company secrets?”
Li Yan took a puff of his cigarette, the exhaled smoke half-concealing his face in a hazy blur as his voice turned hoarse.
“I was merely throwing out some bait. I never expected you’d actually have the guts to betray me.”
Hearing Li Yan’s words, a cold sweat broke out all over Wang Libin’s back.
He had actually walked right into Li Yan’s trap the entire time without even realizing it.
He had even thought he successfully pulled the wool over Li Yan’s eyes, feeling quite pleased with himself as he counted the money.
Little did he know that the man had already firmly grasped his lifeline.
“How about this? There is a house on the peak of Tata District in City A. You go in and stay there for a year, and I won’t hold you accountable for the losses you caused the company.”
Li Yan narrowed his eyes and delivered a statement that made everyone present break out into a cold sweat.
The peak of Tata District was not a place ordinary people could visit, because the houses up there were filled with desperate criminals locked away for committing heinous crimes!
Their methods of torture were extremely cruel and vicious!
Let alone staying for a year, staying even a single day would be enough for that group of villains to torture someone into a physical wreck!
Upon hearing this, Wang Libin widened his eyes in horror. His body convulsed uncontrollably, a stream of yellow liquid leaked from his trouser leg, and finally, he was scared completely unconscious.