The pretty girl who plays with people's feelings is going to be severely punished.

Unfamiliar license plates prevented them from entering the villa area, so Yu Lian pulled Pei Shaoyuan along a side road to escape. Despite the vigilant gazes of the security team, they were only saved from being arrested as criminal suspects thanks to Yu Lian's distinctive face, which was easily recognizable by the property management.

Pei Shaoyuan's life couldn't have been more humiliating than this. He shoved Yu Lian into the back seat of the car and got in himself, crossing his arms and trying to scare her into confessing. But then he saw Yu Lian come over and use the wet wipes the driver had given her to wipe the blood off his face.

With his face tilted back, he moved gently, as if he were something fragile, lightly and bit by bit wiping away the bloodstains from his face, like feathers, like falling snow.

Her eyes were half-closed, as if she were in pain along with him; in the dim light inside the car, her brimming gaze could easily be mistaken for tears.

He couldn't vent his anger at all.

"Let's go to the hospital, it looks like your head is bleeding," Yu Lian muttered.

She wiped his face, thinking he was really creepy, not wanting to be mistaken for an accomplice of a murderer when they got off the bus.

Pei Shaoyuan was also in a bad situation. He was beaten until his head was covered in blood, but because of his cold and ruthless appearance, he didn't look like a victim at all. He looked like he had killed ten or eight people to get this kind of injury.

The blood-stained cotton balls at my feet quickly piled up into seven or eight.

Pei Shaoyuan stared at her intently, almost dizzy with happiness. He dared not utter a sound, not even a heavy breath, wanting only to remain silent with her until the end of time.

"What's the big deal? Just put on a band-aid. Do you think his fist is a power drill? A couple of hits from him aren't even as powerful as my massage chair..."

Yu Lian pressed down on the bruise on his cheekbone without any hesitation, and he immediately hissed.

"You're covered in bruises and you're not going to the hospital? What are you trying to do?" She pouted, impatiently stopping wiping him, tossing the cotton ball at him, and looking down for her phone. "I have to go. What will I do if I die in this hotel? Spies from country H are here to lower house prices in country Z."

Pei Shaoyuan chuckled in exasperation. He couldn't stand her looking at her phone. She hadn't even explained that voice message. She was looking for her phone just to reply to that guy.

Although the man's voice sounded more disgusting than a dying cockroach, the fact that Yu Lian hadn't gotten angry after receiving something like this meant he must have some kind of dirty trick up his sleeve.

He didn't want to argue with her at a time like this. The atmosphere had been so nice just now; he hadn't had this much time alone with her in a long time. His dates were always being thwarted by various people, and that was why he was afraid to go to the hospital—even without physical contact, he would panic, fearing some unexpected event would take her away.

He pulled Yu Lian's hand over, and with rare gentleness, he unfolded her curled fingers and placed them flat on his deliberately taut abdominal muscles, guiding her to touch them little by little.

"Isn't this good meat? I protected it so carefully just so you could touch it..."

After clenching his fist for a while, the girl's hand felt as soft as cotton candy in his palm, as if it had only tendons and no bones no matter how he squeezed it, and the gloom in his eyes dissipated a little.

He wanted to hug her, but was afraid of getting her clothes dirty with blood, so he could only restrain himself and gently caress her soft flesh on her waist as if satisfying a craving.

His voice was low and hoarse, as if he were coaxing someone.

"And the ones further down are the best protected, even better than their heads. He didn't kick them at all. Should we check them?"

Having just been in a fight, his body temperature, which was usually high for a young man, warmed her as he got closer. His collar was ripped open, and when Yu Lian lowered her head, his broad, straight shoulders and smooth, firm chest muscles were completely exposed to her.

Sao.

Yu Lian's objective evaluation.

Half-heartedly, he quickly spread his five fingers like webbed feet and touched her for a while.

Pei Shaoyuan pressed his advantage: "Will you come to the hospital with me? It's not that I'm afraid of pain, I just don't want blood dripping on your face while I'm sleeping..."

What sleeping position would cause blood to drip onto your face? Yu Lian pulled her hand back, coldly.

Go by yourself.

On his phone, Ao Chen waited a long time for her reply, and felt as if the sky had fallen.

"1:?"

1: So what are you used for?

"1: He doesn't speak but has ulterior motives."

1: ...Are you kidding me?

It took more than ten minutes for him to send the last message, which shows how much he was suffering.

Yu Lian stretched out one arm to push away Pei Shaoyuan's face that was about to come closer, and typed with one hand.

"Xiao Lian's inner monologue: What are you laughing at me for?"

"1: The voice is unpleasant."

"1: But I think I'm doing alright. Don't you think I'm much better than before? I used to sound like I was fifty, but now I'm only thirty."

"1:..."

"1: Just because things aren't better than before doesn't mean you have to ignore me."

"1: [Sweating Milk Dragon]"

Yu Lian had no time to reply to him. She snatched the phone back from Pei Shaoyuan and then quickly knocked the phone case off, hitting him on the head repeatedly.

Pei Shaoyuan covered his head: "Alright, I won't snatch it, you go back to him. Can I at least take a look? I absolutely won't bother you, or I'll bark like a dog."

"You'd kill someone just to reply to his message? If you wanted me dead, you should have killed me right there. At least you're innocent."

He spoke magnanimously, but his tone was tinged with sour resentment.

Yu Lian glanced at him speechlessly, thinking that there wasn't anything in their chat history that she couldn't see, and too lazy to argue with him anymore, she turned on the screen. Pei Shaoyuan eagerly leaned over, raising his hands in a gesture of surrender to show that he was harmless.

A new message from Ao Chen appeared on the screen.

1: But do you want me to call you that?

"1: You can do it if you want."

"1: That baby."

Before Yu Lian could react, Pei Shaoyuan suddenly barked wildly in her ear, scaring her half to death with just two barks, and her phone was snatched away in the chaos.

"...Give it back. Why are you yelling so much?"

She lunged forward, but he leaned in to defend himself, half of his body already on guard.

His tone was surprisingly indignant.

"I tried barking like a dog for the first time in my life, and you said it sounded like one? Am I just a dog to you anyway?!"

Yu Lian couldn't talk to this kind of person, so she started hitting his head with the phone case she still had in her hand.

The car drove into the underground parking garage of a private hospital. Yu Lian refused to go with them, so Pei Shaoyuan, worried that something might happen to her if she was alone in the car, could only toss his phone into her arms.

He pinched her cheek angrily, turned around and left, giving her some instructions.

"Don't hang up the phone. If I can't hear your voice, I'll think something's happened to you."

His response was the resounding slam of the car door shut.

The one-way window tint prevented anyone from seeing inside the car, completely eliminating his greedy urge to take another peek. Pei Shaoyuan chuckled speechlessly, "Ha, really..."

He turned to the driver standing guard by the car and instructed him, "Stay here. Don't let anyone else near the car, and you're not allowed to get close either. It's only three steps away. I'll measure it when we get back."

He took two steps, then looked back at me strangely, his tone sinister.

"And also, it's my three steps, not your three steps. Your legs are the same length as this triangular roadblock, so what can you do with three steps? Measure me properly."

The driver looked at the blood that had just been wiped clean but was now oozing out again, nodded in a cold sweat, and moved even further away.

Inside the car, Yu Lian finally had a chance to reply to Ao Chen. Ao Chen had indeed helped her a little tonight, and she would be grateful for what she deserved, but she wouldn't be happy if he deliberately tormented her.

What she meant was that she wanted to hear him call her baby.

So that's how he saw her – that's all the morbid curiosity. I should have known better than to send him those creepy videos every day and pretend to be stupid. A fool would just think it's some kind of code.

"Xiao Lian's inner monologue: [Sweating Milk Dragon]"

"Xiao Lian's inner monologue: My mom recently had my fortune told and said I shouldn't touch jade lately, or it will bring me bad luck. There's jade in my treasure chest, so please try not to let me see it."

1: Oh

Seeing his reply to Yu Lian, she thought he had really gotten away with it and was about to feel smug.

"Jade: jade jade jade jade jade jade jade jade"

"Jade: Do you think I'm an idiot?"

"Jade: It's your nemesis."

Yu Lian squinted, annoyed, and deliberately threatened.

"Xiao Lian's inner monologue: Who's coming to S City at the end of the month?"

There was a few seconds of silence over there.

"1: [A message was retracted]"

"1: [A message was retracted]"

"1: [A message was retracted]"

1: You want to see me?

Yu Lian didn't really want to see him. If she could, she would prefer to stay in touch with everyone online, but her friendship with Ao Chen was really deep.

She can no longer do the childish thing she did in junior high school: making plans with a group of girls to go out on the weekend, but then canceling the plans because she didn't want to get up early or get pocket money, and pretending to sleep until the afternoon.

This is also why I didn't have many close friends in my past life.

She cut off all social activities outside of school due to laziness and poverty. She only had friendships with her classmates, but after graduation, she couldn't even find a good friend to continue the friendship.

So let's meet.

At least she has money now.

"Xiao Lian's inner monologue: What else can I do? You come to S City, and I'm just hiding from you? Is that right?"

1: I really thought you would do that.

"1: But it's not wrong for you not to see me, I didn't force you to, haha."

Yu Lian's gaze lingered on that sentence for a moment, but she didn't reply, looking puzzled.

Is her emotional intelligence a little too high...?

They clearly realized that what they said was a bit ambiguous and hurriedly tried to explain.

"1: What I mean is, you can see me again if you want."

"1: ...It's not necessary to see him or not."

A few more seconds passed. It was clear that no matter how he tried to explain, he couldn't make sense of it, as if there were no more words in Chinese that he could use.

Ao Chen finally gave up on himself.

"1: It's not that we can just not meet."

"1: That's it."

"1: I want to see you"

1: But you can choose whether you want to see me or not.