Chapter 1
Chapter 1
Late at night, the villa was still blazing with lights.
I sat on the sofa and relit the candles on the cake.
“Sister Qing, stop waiting.”
“Big Brother said he isn’t coming…”
The lighter clicked open again and again in my hand, the wavering flame flaring up, then dying out.
I stared at it.
“If he doesn’t come back, then I’ll just keep waiting.”
“He promised he’d spend my birthday with me every year. What does he think he’s doing, breaking his word?”
“…”
But the truth was, the clock on the wall was already pointing to three in the morning.
He wasn’t coming back.
So there I was, keeping a whole dark mass of people waiting inside the villa with me-all of them underlings.
Those who knew would understand I was waiting for him to come home and celebrate my birthday. Those who didn’t might think I was waiting for him to come back so we could start a fight.
Finally, one second before the hour hand struck four, the roar of a car engine sounded from downstairs.
“Sister Qing! Big Brother is back!”
Someone rushed upstairs and shouted the news to me.
I stood up and walked to the staircase to look down.
Yes. He was back.
I frowned and asked the man standing downstairs, watching me with an unreadable look, “Xu Chang, who is the woman in your arms?”
Xu Chang had a long knife wound running from the end of his brow to his cheekbone.
Blood was still welling from it.
Like this, it added a trace of menace to his otherwise refined, handsome face.
I pressed gauze to his wound, only for him to catch my wrist.
“Ah Qing, have I spoiled you too much all these years, hm?”
His fingers restlessly traced over the inside of my wrist.
That was just the kind of man he was. All his cruelty and threats were hidden inside gentle gestures.
I lowered my eyes.
“Spoiled me? I suppose.”
He chuckled twice, his fingertip lightly, lazily kneading along my radius.
“Is that so? Then calling so many people over to my house…”
“Anyone who didn’t know better would think I was some kind of mobster.”
Wasn’t he exactly that?
From all those days of living on the edge of a blade to where he stood now, his path had been paved with human lives and skulls.
Oh, but now he had just so happened to go legitimate. A young entrepreneur.
The newspapers were all full of praise, calling him a brilliant young talent.
It was disgusting.
“Who is the girl you brought back?”
I only struggled halfheartedly, and he let go of my hand.
And I successfully changed the subject.
But his brow eased, and this time he avoided me.
“It has nothing to do with you.”
He rose, took the gauze from my hand, then bent down and kissed the corner of my mouth.
“You have the time to worry about what woman I brought home…”
“But no time to worry about how I got hurt?”
After he said that, he bit my neck, the gesture carrying a faint edge of punishment.
“I really did raise you for nothing.”