Chapter 2

Chapter 2

I launched myself upright like I’d been fired from a cannon.

My mind had never been clearer.

“Sorry.”

I said, “I ate too much and kind of couldn’t find the bathroom.”

A name is the shortest spell in the world.

I couldn’t agree more.

Especially my name.

It was a curse I was born with, capable of shattering any romantic atmosphere in existence.

I rubbed my nose.

“I see.”

Xie Yu stood and gently brushed the dust from his clothes. “I specifically told them to take good care of you all.”

“Still, we were negligent. I’m sorry.”

“Please, come with me.”

“Thank you so much.”

I made polite noises as I followed behind him.

While he wasn’t paying attention, I slipped the camera into a flowerpot.

The young man walked ahead of me.

His back was straight and graceful, like bamboo.

Light spilled down from the corridor, leaving the shadows of swaying loose strands of hair across the nape of his neck.

It only made his neck look even more porcelain-white, like jade.

Completely unguarded.

I couldn’t help glancing at that flowerpot again.

My fingers itched.

Malice was like black sludge.

I couldn’t stop it from swelling and spilling out inside my head.

What if.

Right now.

I knocked him out, took him home, tied him up…

As if sensing something, Xie Yu tilted his head slightly.

The corners of his eyes curved like fluttering butterflies, his expression gentle and completely free of suspicion.

“What’s wrong?”

I moved my gaze away from his neck.

“Nothing.”

After the birthday party ended, one of his family’s servants sent me home.

The Bentley looked utterly out of place in the old residential complex.

Even the two security guards at the gate stepped out to take a few looks.

I climbed five floors and got home.

Opened the door.

The fifty-something-square-meter apartment was visible in its entirety at a glance.

I switched on the light.

A few motorcycle engines roared from downstairs.

I opened the window, stuck my head out, and waved at them.

The motorcycles drove away again.

A mother who died young, a gambling-addict father, and an idle, good-for-nothing uncle.

That was the whole of my family ties.

The good news was, my dad had been arrested.

The bad news was, I couldn’t take the civil service exam anymore.

Haha.

Just kidding.

My dad had been a regular at the police station since I was five. I’d lost the right to dream about civil service ages ago.

The old lady next door often told me to come over to her place for dinner. She was so kind that every time she saw me, she’d sigh and sigh.

“This poor child. How did she end up with a father like that?”

“Sigh.”

Back then, I still had the little red flower pinned to my chest, the one my elementary school teacher had put on me when praising me.

She patted my head. “A good shoot from rotten bamboo.”

Ever since I was little, I’d been honest and sensible.

I took classroom duty seriously and had excellent grades.

Later, when I got into high school, an elite private school recruited me to be their poster child.

Tuition was fully waived, but I had to pay my own living expenses.

If I ranked in the province’s top fifty on the college entrance exam, there would be an additional bonus.

The day he heard the news, my uncle made a special trip back from the pool hall and brought me a small cake.

His stick-thin arms were covered in colorful tattoos. He wiped at the corners of his eyes and said, “Cui, you’re such a good kid.”

At the time, sunlight fell over that brightly colored little cake.

As always, I smiled honestly.