Chapter 1

Chapter 1

The moment the muzzle pressed against my temple, I’ll admit it-I panicked for real.

“Wait!” Spineless as could be, I dropped to my knees. “CEO Fu, you’ve got me wrong.”

Fu Shengchao tilted his head and narrowed his eyes at me.

With the slightest movement of his wrist, the cold handgun pressed even harder against my skin.

“Wrong?” He let out a soft laugh, but there wasn’t the slightest trace of amusement in it. “I, Fu Shengchao, have clawed my way through Jingshi for all these years to reach where I am today. Do you really think I’m someone you can fool whenever you feel like it?”

A little tense, I wiped the sweat from my forehead and lifted my eyes to glance at him.

Sharp features. Overwhelming presence. He was clearly a very good-looking man, yet he made people too afraid to look him straight in the eye.

At forty years old, he could practically cover the sky with one hand in Jingshi.

He wasn’t wrong. An ordinary person really couldn’t fool him.

Fu Shengchao paused, then suddenly moved the gun away.

He took a cigarette from the pack beside him and lit it casually.

He took a drag, then slowly exhaled, as if recalling something.

“You know what An Ran and I ate the first time we met. You know her favorite sport. You even know…”

His tone shifted. “It must have taken quite a bit of effort to dig all that up.”

“I’ll give you three minutes. Come clean. Otherwise, I have plenty of ways to make you talk.”

My heart lurched, and I realized he might be far more dangerous than I had imagined.

So I began to regret it. Regret taking this job.

My eyes couldn’t help darting to the side.

Fu Shengchao couldn’t see it, but over there was a female ghost who had been dead for ten years, anxiously flitting around.

She kept muttering nonstop.

“That shouldn’t be right. How could this happen?”

“There was nothing wrong with what I taught you. Shengchao really does love stinky tofu, and he really loved watching me do tai chi for him…”

“Where exactly did it go wrong?”

The problem was that normal people wouldn’t know he had a mole on his left butt cheek, lady!

It was also my fault for not using my brain. Whatever she said, I repeated.

The second it left my mouth, I realized something was off…

The female ghost floated over beside me and gave an awkward little laugh. “Don’t panic, little sister. Let me think of something. Shengchao might just be trying to scare you.”

Scare me?

I turned my head and saw Fu Shengchao casually cocking the gun.

Thud-

I lunged forward and hugged his leg.

“CEO Fu, I have a secret.”

I have a secret.

Ever since I was little, I’ve been able to see ghosts.

After going through a whole series of mental stages-terror, fear, breakdown, despair-I calmly accepted it.

I also learned how to pretend those ghosts didn’t exist.

Until a month ago, when this female ghost named An Ran latched onto me.

“Little sister, you can see me? That’s great! Can you do me a favor?”

“Why are you ignoring me? Little sister, little sister, little sister…”

“You’re the only one who can help me with this. Please, I’m begging you. As long as you’re willing to help, I’ll give you ten million.”

I couldn’t keep pretending anymore.

I turned to look at her. “How much!?”

“Ten million!” Seeing that I was starting to waver, An Ran grew even more enthusiastic as she came over to tempt and persuade me. “Really, it’s just a tiny favor. Help me go check on my husband and child. Ever since I died, their relationship has gotten worse and worse. They’re practically enemies now. You just need to go to my house and help me with a few small things.”

I hesitated.

She hurriedly added, “My husband is a good man. He looks a little cold, but he’s kind and gentle, and he’s easy to coax.”

“Don’t be scared, sweetheart. If anything happens, I can help you.”

“Before I died, I hid a card. It was my secret little stash. As long as you’re willing to help me, I’ll give you the card!”

“There’s 11,253,440 yuan on it!”

Damn. She remembered the number that clearly? Then it had to be real.

I was tempted.

Insanely tempted.

I was the second daughter of the Liang Family. Though I was technically a young lady of the house, I lived worse than the maids.

Because I was an illegitimate daughter, no one in the family liked me.

I was desperate to break free from that house too. I wanted to leave this place and study abroad, but no matter what I did, I needed money.

After thinking it over and over, I gritted my teeth and agreed.

And now I regretted it. I regretted it so much.

Clinging to Fu Shengchao’s leg, I said, “CEO Fu, to be honest… your wife came to me in a dream.”

Rather than saying I could see ghosts, it was better to say she had appeared in my dream.

Both claims were ridiculous, but the latter was still easier to accept.

Fu Shengchao froze for a second, then lowered his eyes, his thoughts unreadable.

Just as I was about to breathe a sigh of relief, he suddenly reached out and clamped his hand around my throat.

“Lies, all lies. If she can appear in dreams, why wouldn’t she come to mine?”

His grip was too strong. I couldn’t breathe.

My face gradually flushed red. I was about to suffocate.

An Ran was startled, circling anxiously beside me.

“What do we do, what do we do? How did Shengchao become like this?”

I clawed at Fu Shengchao’s hand and forced out each word through my teeth.

“Because… she… still… blames… you.”

Fu Shengchao’s pupils contracted sharply, and his hand loosened at once.

I didn’t know if he hadn’t heard me clearly or if he simply couldn’t believe it. “What did you say?”

Sitting on the floor, I coughed violently several times before I finally recovered.

I looked up at him and repeated, “Because she still blames you.”

“You know very well how she died back then, don’t you? Because the two of you had a fight, and she ran out in anger. Then she got into a car accident.”

“If you had just given in to her back then, maybe she wouldn’t have died at all.”

“CEO Fu, your wife still blames you, so she refuses to enter your dreams.”

For an instant, Fu Shengchao’s cold, hard expression cracked.

Then his face turned complicated.

Suspicion, remorse, guilt…

All sorts of emotions tangled together.

The veins stood out on the hand gripping the gun, and his breathing grew unsteady.

I was terrified and silently shifted a little to the side.

I prayed he would hold the gun steady and that it wouldn’t go off by accident.

Fu Shengchao stayed in that strange state for several minutes. Then the strength seemed to leave him all at once, and even his once-straight back seemed to bow.

He rubbed a hand over his face.

Then, as if speaking only to himself, he murmured, “…I deserve it.”

After that, he stood and walked out in a daze.

I heard the Fu Family butler ask, “Sir, how should we arrange things for the young lady inside?”

“Find a guest room for her to stay in.”

“Yes, sir.”