Chapter 4

“Qiuqiu, do you like Yu Qi?” A dried her hair with a heartbroken look.

Bai Nianqiu was mentally exhausted. She still hadn’t recovered from suddenly jumping ahead to eighteen.

“Huh? Of course not,” she said absently.

B looked puzzled. “Then why did you say all that just now?”

Faced with the three girls watching her with such concern, Bai Nianqiu couldn’t help softening.

You silly girls. I’m doing it to protect you, whose names aren’t even names, just letters.

“From now on, leave Yu Qi alone. He’s… dangerous. He’s not someone ordinary people should get involved with.”

The three girls couldn’t see what was dangerous about that illegitimate son, but if Bai Nianqiu said so, they chose to believe her.

After all, Qiuqiu was always right.

Outside the door, the young man’s ink-dark eyes filled with mockery and even a barely perceptible sadness. A faint, self-deprecating smile tugged at his mouth.

He’d known it. How could Bai Nianqiu possibly like him?

He threw away the warm milk tea in his hand and left without another glance.

In that instant, the swirling madness brewing in his eyes reached its peak.

Bai Nianqiu was talking to the three girls when her vision suddenly blurred. B’s smiling, chatty face began to melt before her eyes.

Seriously? Again?

When she next became conscious of herself, she opened her eyes to a snow-white ceiling.

She wanted to get up, but it was as though the connection between her body and brain had been severed. No matter how she tried, she couldn’t move.

She couldn’t even feel her body.

Fear of the unknown sent her into a panic. She tried to open her mouth and call for help, but not a single word came out.

All she could manage were incoherent whimpers.

What was going on? What had happened to her?

“Awake?” came a man’s low, resonant voice.

He adjusted the bed, raising Bai Nianqiu into a sitting position.

The moment she saw him, she knew exactly where she was in the plot.

He wore an expensive black suit with a subtle pattern. His inky eyes were still as water, and the exquisite features of his boyhood had fully matured. Though he remained devastatingly beautiful, the air of command about him was even more overwhelming.

This was Yu Qi at twenty-six.

A man who had risen to power through bloodshed.

Which meant that, here near the end of the story, Yu Qi had reduced her to a vegetative state. Before long, she would probably “accidentally” become brain-dead.

Hadn’t she changed the past? Why was this still happening?

Yu Qi seemed to sense the accusation in her gaze.

He smiled. Paired with his already gentle features, that breathtaking smile made his good looks all the more striking, lending him a touch of approachability.

But it sent a chill crawling over Bai Nianqiu’s skin.

She knew he was already thinking of killing her.

“I’m curious. With my background and circumstances back then, how did you tell that I was dangerous?” His fingers, their knuckles sharply defined, gently brushed a lock of hair away from her forehead.

The cool touch of his fingertips raised goose bumps all over her.

She remembered what she had said to the ABC trio.

So Yu Qi had heard her.

She bitterly regretted it.

Of course, Yu Qi didn’t expect an answer. She could no longer speak, after all.

“Come in.” His voice was cold.

A doctor in a white coat entered. His eyes were cold, and the needle in his hand shone with a metallic gleam.

Her eyes blurred with tears as he deftly gave her the injection.

Within moments, Bai Nianqiu could no longer feel a thing.