“Young Master Zhou, what have you done to betray me this time?” Lin Yi’s well-defined fingers tightened around the ends of Zhou Ruo An’s slightly curled hair.
A sharp pain shot through his scalp, but Zhou Ruo An’s alcohol-soaked nerves sluggishly ignored the danger. Raising a hand, he wiped away the moisture still lingering on his lips and sneered. “Something I did to betray you? Did I register a marriage with you? Or am I dating you?” The corners of his reddened eyes lifted lazily. “The fact that I’m willing to sleep with you right now amounts to nothing more than relieving loneliness. Brother Lin, please get your position straight.”
The strands of hair twisted tighter in Lin Yi’s grip. His other hand closed around Zhou Ruo An’s slender neck, his thumb slowly rubbing over the artery at the side. In a low voice, he asked again, “What have you been doing behind my back?”
“You have no right to ask…”
Before he could finish, the hand around his neck suddenly tightened, five fingers cutting off both air and blood flow without hesitation. Zhou Ruo An’s face turned pale as Lin Yi’s measured voice reached his ears. “You know what I’m capable of. You also know I don’t want to use those methods on you.”
The oxygen was squeezed away inch by inch, and his scalp had already gone numb from the pain of being yanked. Left with no choice, Zhou Ruo An finally surrendered and forced a few breathless words through his teeth. “Zhou Ran Ming plans to make me get engaged.”
The restraint around his neck tightened further. Lin Yi’s breath nearly brushed against Zhou Ruo An’s trembling eyelashes. “You agreed?”
“No…” Zhou Ruo An futilely clawed at the hand around his neck. The suffocating sensation of impending death forced him to submit. “…I haven’t agreed yet… Lin Yi, let go.”
The restraint vanished at once. Blood rushed back into Zhou Ruo An’s pale face as he bent over and coughed softly again and again.
His chest heaved violently, his breathing still ragged as Zhou Ruo An slowly lifted his eyes. Those normally cool eyes were now completely bloodshot. “Zhou Ran Ming wants to trade me away for his own benefit. He’s got me by my most vulnerable spot. What exactly am I supposed to do?”
Lin Yi’s gaze darkened. “What vulnerable spot?”
Zhou Ruo An suddenly fell silent. He raked a hand irritably through his disheveled bangs, picked up the cigarettes Lin Yi had left on the dashboard, pulled one out, and shoved it between his lips. “He knows I’m an impostor.”
Behind the blue-white smoke, Zhou Ruo An forced out a smile uglier than crying. “Not only does he know, he’s using that secret to make me work for him.” Lowering the window, he rested half an arm outside and flicked away some ash. Facing the cold wind pouring into the car, he stared into the dark night. “It’s all fucking rotten work, but what else can I do?”
A crease formed between Lin Yi’s brows. “How did he find out?”
“Does it matter?” Zhou Ruo An suddenly laughed. The cigarette glowed in the darkness like a dying star. “With a status like mine… do I even have the right to say no?”
The night was thick around them, cold wind carrying a biting chill through the silence between them.
But Lin Yi soon shattered the oppressive quiet.
“Stop making yourself sound so helpless and pitiful.” He paused, a trace of mockery curling at the corner of his mouth. “Someone like you wouldn’t care whether there was a dog leash around your neck as long as it got you greater benefits.”
“Fuck.” Zhou Ruo An was about to curse him out when Lin Yi asked another question. “Why did you refuse the marriage alliance?”
Zhou Ruo An let out a mocking laugh. “Are you hoping I’ll say it’s because of you?” His voice was low and hoarse, carrying a careless note of ridicule. “Well, it is. You’ve already ruined me. Why should I go ruin some innocent girl too?”
The cold wind sharpened his words. “There are only two paths left. Either I cut you off, or I cut things off with the girl.”
Lin Yi didn’t move. He merely lifted his eyes and asked calmly, “Which one do you want to cut off?”
Without looking at him, Zhou Ruo An lowered his head and bit down on his cigarette, taking a deep drag. “If I cut things off with the girl, I can’t explain it to Zhou Ran Ming. If I cut you off…”
Night and smoke intertwined, blurring the lines of his face. He sat in silence against the cold wind for a moment before forcing out a helpless smile and finishing what he had left unsaid. “You’d kill me.”
Lin Yi raised a hand and threaded his fingers through the hair the wind had tousled. The gesture was gentle, yet somehow enough to send a chill down one’s spine. His tone made it impossible to tell whether it was tenderness or a threat. “Then what do you choose?”
Zhou Ruo An laughed around his cigarette. He unlocked his phone, his finger pausing briefly over his contacts before selecting a WeChat contact he had only added that evening and holding down the voice-message button.
“Miss Xu,” he said in a slightly hoarse voice, cigarette smoke mingling with the night wind, every word frivolous yet cold, “would it be convenient for us to meet?”
Sent.
He lifted his head and flashed Lin Yi the middle finger. “I’m not fucking choosing.”
＊
The night was as dark as ink when a matte-black Maybach S680 silently pulled up by the roadside.
The door opened, and a pair of feet in ordinary sneakers stepped onto the pavement, forming a striking contrast with the luxury car worth nearly three million yuan.
The woman adjusted the faded denim jacket she was wearing. Her plain face showed no trace of makeup. Had Zhou Ruo An not personally seen her earlier at the banquet covered in jewelry and finery, he might have thought he had messaged the wrong person.
Only when she drew closer did he notice the faint weariness between her brows. She looked nothing like the ruthless woman from the rumors who had sent her ex-husband to the ICU.
The streetlights stretched the shadows of all three people long across the ground. Standing at the boundary between light and darkness, Zhou Ruo An suddenly found the situation amusing. Lin Yi on one side, the woman on the other—one a jackal, the other a tiger or leopard. Whichever one Zhou Ruo An chose, he was doomed to suffer.
He stubbed out his cigarette and let out a quiet sigh for his own fate.
“Allow me to make a formal introduction. This is my freshly minted fiancée, Miss Xu Yi Han. And this is Lin Yi, the man who insists on dating me. You two take your time talking. Just let me know the outcome afterward. Either one is fine by me. No objections.”
After saying his piece, he turned to leave, only to be yanked back by brute force. Lin Yi’s arm wrapped around his waist, but his gaze remained fixed on the woman opposite them as he stated calmly, “We’ve been together for over a year.”
“Bullshit.” Zhou Ruo An tilted his head back and glared at the man beside him.
“I don’t mind,” the woman said before anyone else could speak. “All I need is a nominal fiancé to mitigate the negative impact my prison record has had on my family. That’s exactly why my family is so eager to marry me off.”
She looked at Zhou Ruo An. “If it weren’t you, it would be someone else. I’m tired of constantly being paraded in front of different men, and I’m tired of the so-called feelings men offer. Besides, the people they’ve dragged in for blind dates are all worse than you. At least you’re somewhat honest.”
“Would that be acceptable, Mr. Zhou?” she asked. “We would only be lovers in name.”
Zhou Ruo An shrugged indifferently. “My opinion doesn’t count.” He tilted his head helplessly toward the man beside him. “You’ll have to negotiate with him.”
“Would that be acceptable?” the woman asked Lin Yi.
“No.” The man holding Zhou Ruo An answered without a moment’s hesitation. “Sorry, Ms. Xu. I’m not letting Zhou Ruo An go—not in reality and not in name.”
Zhou Ruo An rubbed the still-aching bones of his neck and muttered quietly, “I knew it would turn out like this.”
The woman fell silent for a moment before nodding. “All right. I’ll tell my father that the engagement cannot proceed because of personal reasons on my side. Don’t worry. I won’t tell anyone about your relationship either.”
Only then did Zhou Ruo An truly take a proper look at the woman standing before him that night. On that plain face, he saw genuine kindness and gentleness.
“Look at her, then look at yourself.”
Ignoring Zhou Ruo An’s muttering, Lin Yi raised his voice toward the woman, who had already opened her car door. “During the two years you were in prison, your ex-husband remarried. He has also publicly insulted your reputation several times. So, Ms. Xu… do you still hate him?”
The woman said nothing, but a flash of coldness passed through her eyes.
“Ms. Xu, keep your phone on tonight. I’ll send you a little gift to help you sleep.” Lin Yi’s steady voice carried far into the night on the wind.
＊
Two hours later, in a narrow alley without surveillance cameras, a man lay curled on the ground, groaning continuously. Tape sealed his mouth. His feet were bound, but his hands had been left free.
One of those hands, adorned with a diamond wedding ring, was now pinned beneath a military-style leather boot. The rough sole ground repeatedly over his fingers while a pair of eyes beneath the brim of a baseball cap stared down without the slightest warmth.
Only after the wedding ring, worth seven figures, had been completely crushed out of shape did the man in the cap withdraw his foot. Bending slightly, he delivered a punch that knocked the man unconscious.
A few minutes later, Xu Yi Han, sitting inside her luxurious home, received a video from an unknown number.
Along with it came just two words: “Thank-you gift.”
＊
By the time Lin Yi snapped the SIM card in half, Zhou Ruo An was trying to unfasten his seatbelt.
The baseball cap now lay on the back seat. Lin Yi pulled out a tissue and slowly wiped the blood from his knuckles. Then he said calmly, “What was it you said earlier? That we’ve never done it in a car?”
The tissue stained with dirty blood was methodically tucked into Zhou Ruo An’s shirt pocket. Lin Yi slowly raised his eyes and looked at the panic in Zhou Ruo An’s expression. “Fine,” he said softly. “I’ll grant your wish.”
The moment the words fell, all four doors locked.
“Brother Lin, listen to me…”
The sound of a zipper filled the cabin once more, accompanied by Lin Yi’s cold reply. “First finish what you didn’t finish just now. Then we can take our time.”