Chapter 5
Chapter 5
The crowd cast burning gazes in our direction.
Xu Jing’an reached out as if to touch me, but slowly lowered his hand.
“Do you insist on falling into the abyss of sin?”
He was acting crazy again.
Suddenly, a strong arm hooked around my waist and pulled me back.
I fell backward, landing in a warm embrace. Looking up, I met Qin Juan’s eyes.
He smiled as he kissed my hand, then looked up at Xu Jing’an.
“I’ve committed a crime, then. Why don’t you call the police and have me arrested?” He curled his lips into a smirk.
Xu Jing’an’s eyes were bloodshot. He clenched his fists, staring at the intimate contact between Qin Juan and me.
“Why? Why is he allowed to touch you?”
Leaning against Qin Juan, I lifted my eyelids and looked at him.
“Xu Jing’an, thanks to you, the only thing I feel for you is disgust.”
“No, that’s not right,” he retorted agitatedly. “The women before you… this never happened with them.”
His naivety made me laugh.
“Do you really think the women who come out of that place would ever tell the truth?”
The Spiritual Purification Class was an unparalleled collective lie.
None of the women who emerged from it ever sought revenge.
Because almost everyone was satisfied.
Wealthy men who had lost their sexual potency believed they had found a weapon to reclaim the sexual high ground.
The female students only had to sacrifice the chance of intimacy with their partners to gain the trust of their wealthy benefactors.
And the organizers raked in a never-ending stream of profit.
Qin Juan had me sit to the side and placed the bag full of medicine on my lap.
“Hold this for me.”
He walked slowly toward Xu Jing’an and grabbed him by the collar, his expression full of ferocity.
“Xu Jing’an, I knew you were sick in the head a long time ago. I never should have given you that necklace.”
The necklace Qin Juan mentioned was a memento from my mother.
It was also the reason Xu Jing’an and I met.
Five years ago, my terminally ill mother took out an antique necklace and told me to go to a place where rich people gathered to try and sell it for medical expenses.
I had gripped the necklace tight. “Is this worth a lot?”
“I suppose so.” She held my hand, her tone flat. “Even if it can’t cure my illness, it can support you for the rest of your life.”
I spent three days peddling it at the entrance of a wealthy neighborhood.
It was pouring rain when a member of the Qin Family drove past and rolled down his window.
He spent a million on it as a whim and told me to go home quickly.
I only found out later that Xu Jing’an had been in the car at the time.
He had taken a liking to the necklace at first sight, and Qin Juan had simply handed it over to him.
Not long after, Xu Jing’an found me.
“Are you Shi Wan? Are you open to being kept? I can send your mother abroad for treatment.”
“I’m sorry, I don’t sell my body.”
“I have no interest in your body.”
I agreed to Xu Jing’an’s proposal.
The story followed a typical melodramatic plot.
At first, he tormented me, teased me, and kept me at a distance…
Later, he said he had fallen in love with me.
Xu Jing’an lowered his pride and pursued me frantically.
No one would have doubted his sincerity.
On the premise of a Platonic relationship, we started dating.
The reason I wanted to break up with Xu Jing’an that night wasn’t that I couldn’t accept a Platonic relationship.
It was because I couldn’t accept that he only chose to be Platonic with me.
It made me uneasy.
Extremely uneasy.