Chapter 2
“You treacherous bastard—”
At an abandoned mine in the south of the city, several men who had been beaten within an inch of their lives cursed him.
“We agreed to work together! We did so much to help you!”
“Xie Zhengyu, you’ll get what’s coming to you…”
His thugs surrounded them, beating them.
Xie Zhengyu leaned idly to one side, his gaze cold and indifferent.
“With mouths like that, they don’t need their tongues.”
Only seconds after he spoke,
terrible screams rang out, then faded into muffled sobs.
I had always been frightened by scenes like this. I didn’t know why Xie Zhengyu had brought me along.
I lowered my eyes.
Looked at my phone.
With trembling fingers, I typed a single word in reply to the message I had received earlier.
[Okay.]
Beside him, Yan Ningxue laughed and chatted lazily with Xie Zhengyu.
“Don’t bring your little girlfriend next time. Look how pale she is.”
Xie Zhengyu lifted his eyelids and glanced at me.
“Too timid.”
“Exactly,” Yan Ningxue said. “You can’t introduce her to the others. They won’t accept someone like her as their boss’s woman.”
Xie Zhengyu scoffed, playing with a lighter.
Perhaps my trembling fear had begun to bore him.
He waved a hand and told the driver to take me home.
I followed the driver out.
Their voices drifted to me from behind, mingling with the sounds of merciless blows.
Yan Ningxue teased him. “Who’d have thought someone as bad as you would like that type?”
“Don’t you?” Xie Zhengyu asked lazily.
“Ah Yan isn’t like her, is he?”
Then, remembering something, Yan Ningxue added,
“Didn’t that guy send you a few sweet little companions? Aren’t you going to see them?”
“We’ll see,” Xie Zhengyu said, unconcerned.
He paused, raising an eyebrow slightly. “He didn’t send you any?”
Yan Ningxue sighed, drawing out her words.
“I’m trying to win Ah Yan back, so I’m not fooling around for now. But you can. With your girlfriend’s personality, she won’t be able to stop you. I’m so jealous.”
“If you have to, have enough fun for both of us.”
Xie Zhengyu said no more.
Once I was in the car, I told the driver,
“Don’t take me home.”
“Of course, Miss Xu,” he said respectfully. “Where would you like to go?”
“The cemetery,” I said softly.
When I arrived,
I saw a tall, slender man standing beneath a tree.
He saw me too and nodded.
With his handsome, aloof face, he seemed utterly out of reach.
Well, he certainly looked like an idealized first love. You could tell at a glance he was destined to die young.
Perhaps there was fellow feeling between two people doomed to early deaths. Besides, we had belonged to the same club at university and exchanged a few words. He was a senior of mine.
So it wasn’t too awkward.
He led me to a spot and explained,
“This is where I’ll be buried.”
I nodded. “I’ve heard this cemetery is quite expensive.”
He murmured assent. “Will you be here too?”
I shook my head. “No. Xie Zhengyu takes my ashes straight home. He never buries me.”
“That’s rather a pity.”
“…”
The autumn wind whispered through the trees.
There really was something bleak about being able to see the end of your life so clearly.
After a long while, I said, “I don’t want to die.”
Meeting his eyes, I spoke earnestly. “If heaven let me become aware of the plot, it can’t want me to die.”
I didn’t know how he felt about Yan Ningxue.
Whether he was stubborn enough to stay beside her even if it killed him.
But I wasn’t.
“All I really have to do is leave Xie Zhengyu,” I said calmly.
I shouldn’t have to pay for the evil he had done.
And besides…
once I left Xie Zhengyu’s shelter, who knew whether it would even be raining outside?
The man looked away. I couldn’t tell what he was thinking.
Just then, my phone rang.
I answered Xie Zhengyu’s call in my usual voice. “What is it?”
“Where are you?” he asked casually. “I’m done. I’ll come find you.”
I glanced at the man beside me. “I’ll come to you.”
Xie Zhengyu chuckled. “You’re not sneaking around with another man, are you?”
I frowned faintly. “…What are you talking about?”
His voice lifted. “What a coincidence. Yan Ningxue’s father is buried here.”
I went still.
“Turn around, baby.”
My whole body stiffened. It felt as though my blood had frozen in an instant.
Slowly, I turned.
In the cemetery’s chilly autumn wind, Xie Zhengyu stood a short distance away, hands in his pockets, looking relaxed.
His gaze passed over my shoulder and settled on the man behind me. His eyes narrowed slightly.
“Oh.” The corner of his mouth twitched. “It’s you.”
Wen Yan stood where he was, his expression unchanged, and merely gave a faint nod.
“Aren’t you coming, Ruoruo?” Xie Zhengyu looked at me again. His voice was gentler than usual, but his black eyes were frighteningly dark.
I let out a breath and walked toward him slowly.
The next instant, he seized my wrist and strode out with me.
Off to one side, Yan Ningxue showed no particular expression.
Only after Xie Zhengyu and I left did she put out her cigarette and walk toward Wen Yan.
Most likely, Xie Zhengyu had accompanied her to visit her father’s grave, and they had happened upon us.