Chapter 17

He took me to a cheap little hotel.

“Stay here for now. Your dad definitely won’t find you.”

He rushed into the bathroom to shower, then told me to hurry and go while there was still hot water.

The hot water was fickle, scalding one moment and lukewarm the next. In the swirling steam, the door lock suddenly clicked. I jumped, panicking, and yanked the shower curtain around myself.

“What are you doing? Get out!”

“Just testing you!” Bai Zifan was at the door with a wicked grin. He pulled the door shut again and, from outside, said with a hint of disappointment, “I thought you really wanted to be with me.”

“I… of course I do!” My face burned.

“Once you go to college in the Imperial Capital, you’ll be surrounded by all these amazing guys. You’ll forget about me in no time. Right now, this is just a momentary impulse for you. Maybe someday you’ll even look back and think it was stupid.”

I slowly opened the door. Barefoot on the tiles, I walked toward him. I was dripping wet and not wearing anything.

The moment he saw me like that, he froze. His gaze flinched away like it had been burned, and his face flushed bright red. But then he forced himself to look up at me. His lips trembled, yet he couldn’t get a single word out; his Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed hard.

I walked up to him, wrapped my arms around his waist, and hugged him. Pressing my cheek to his chest, I heard his heart pounding wildly…

Our first time was in that shabby little hotel.

I gave him my body and heart, chasing what I thought was beautiful love-never realizing it would become the nightmare that crushed me.

Later, my dad received a secretly recorded video of us in that hotel room. Bai Zifan demanded money from him, or he would upload the video online.

My dad gave him the money and, furious, went to the police. I heard that Bai Zifan was arrested.

My dad never blamed me. He only said, aching for me, that it was all Bai Zifan’s scheme. The world was a dangerous place, and I’d always been too well protected by him, so I was naïve, foolish.

In the end, I didn’t go to college in the Imperial Capital. My dad sent me abroad instead, saying I’d be able to find some peace there, that it would help me forget the past. My mom went with me to take care of me.

But overseas, I developed severe psychological problems-insomnia, heart palpitations, a constant buzzing in my head. My moods were volatile; I didn’t want to go outside at all, and I simply couldn’t attend classes.

The doctor diagnosed me with major depression.

The medications eased the pain, but they made me drowsy, gain weight, and left me listless. My mom would secretly call my dad in tears. Helpless, he had no choice but to let me take a leave from school and bring me home.

When people who didn’t know us well asked about me, he would brush them off, saying his daughter was still studying abroad.

My dad looked like he’d aged ten years. He had once had a successful career and two children. Then his son died in an accident, and now his daughter was ruined. I guess there really is no such thing as a perfect life in this world.

After that, I never saw Bai Zifan again. No one ever mentioned him to me, either.