Xu Yi Han carried the axe through the long corridor. The blade gleamed coldly beneath the crystal lights, and with every step she took, the guests around her retreated in alarm.
“Miss Xu!” Two bodyguards stood in front of the door. “What are you doing?”
“Move.” Xu Yi Han’s voice, as always, barely fluctuated. “I heard my fiancé is keeping a lover on the side. Today, I’m going to demand an explanation.”
With women coming one after another to make trouble, the bodyguards were already at their wits’ end. The axe might be sharp, but it was not as though they had no way to subdue her. The problem was that the Xu family was powerful enough that even Zhou Ran Ming treated them with respect. Naturally, they did not dare truly injure the Xu family’s Second Miss.
In the instant the bodyguards hesitated, Xu Yi Han had already raised the axe and brought it down viciously against the meeting-room door.
Bang!
Wood chips flew everywhere. The first strike split a crack through the heavy solid-wood door.
“Miss Xu! Please stop and step back!”
Xu Yi Han turned a deaf ear. After three strikes, the crack in the door had widened to the breadth of a palm. Just as she raised the axe for a fourth, a clearly jointed hand suddenly reached through the opening, and Zhou Ruo An’s urgent voice squeezed out from behind the door. “Phone.”
Xu Yi Han forcibly stopped the axe. The blade came to a halt less than three centimeters from that hand. She kicked the door hard. “Do you fucking want to lose your hand?!”
“Phone.” Zhou Ruo An ignored the cursing outside, his slender fingers stubbornly suspended beyond the crack.
Third Miss’s eyes darted. Taking advantage of the bodyguards being stunned by the sudden turn of events, she rushed forward and shoved her own phone into the waiting hand.
“Stop her!” Zhang Qiang finally reacted.
Third Miss immediately turned around and pressed her whole body against the damaged door. Deliberately raising her voice, she cried, “Hey, what are you doing, grabbing and pulling at me like that?” Her scallion-green skirt had been tugged crooked. “Trying to molest me?”
The bodyguards froze on the spot, their outstretched hands neither able to withdraw nor continue.
In that brief moment of chaos, the sound of dialing had already come from inside the room. Zhou Ruo An’s voice was pressed extremely low, yet every word was clear. “Ren Yu, has Lin Yi been released?”
The faint rumble of an engine came through the phone; Ren Yu seemed to be driving. “There were hearings for several days in a row before. Today is only the announcement of the verdict…”
“Cut the crap,” Zhou Ruo An interrupted in a low voice. “Has Lin Yi been released?”
The next second, a deep, familiar voice came through the phone. “Looking for me?”
Zhou Ruo An’s fingers tightened abruptly. He had not heard that voice in three months. Now that it traveled through the signal and pierced his ears, an unfamiliar tremor rose in his chest. His Adam’s apple bobbed. Closing his eyes, he forced five words through clenched teeth. “Go save Grandpa Jin.”
The other end fell silent for a moment. Without asking why, the voice answered simply, “Got it.”
At that moment, the door was wrenched open violently. Zhang Qiang snatched the phone away. Zhou Ruo An let them do as they pleased, his usual arrogant expression already back in place. His gaze swept across the wrecked corridor before finally landing on Xu Yi Han.
“You made quite a scene.” The corner of Zhou Ruo An’s mouth lifted. “Thanks.”
＊
At three in the afternoon, sunlight slanted through the leaves, scattering mottled light and shadow across the stone path. Jin Hui sat in his wheelchair, a dark-gray cashmere blanket draped over his knees. His caregiver slowly pushed him forward, the rubber tires rolling over the stone slabs with faint, fragmented sounds.
“Old Master Jin, would you like to go to the lakeside today or the garden?” the caregiver asked, bending down.
Jin Hui stared blankly ahead. The corner of his mouth twitched slightly as vague, indistinct whimpers came from his throat.
Just then, the phone in the wheelchair pocket began vibrating. The caregiver took it out and checked the caller ID. “It’s Butler Zhong from the Zhou family’s old residence.” He hesitated for a moment, then answered and brought the phone close to the old man’s ear.
On the other end, Uncle Zhong deliberately lowered his voice. “Chairman, it’s me.”
Jin Hui’s gaze remained unfocused. He cleared his throat, his right index finger moving slightly beneath the blanket.
“Something happened at Zhou Ruo An’s engagement banquet today. He asked me to make him a cup of coffee.” Uncle Zhong emphasized the next words. “Mocha. He specifically told me to add an extra serving of hot milk.”
The corner of Jin Hui’s mouth twisted, and he let out a vague “Ah.”
“Chairman, that’s clearly how you take your coffee. As far as I know, Zhou Ruo An never drinks mocha.” Uncle Zhong’s voice dropped almost to a whisper. “The coffee was requested by one of Zhou Ran Ming’s bodyguards, and I haven’t seen Zhou Ruo An in front of the guests for almost an hour.”
“I don’t know whether that cup of coffee was meant to imply something, but I thought I should call and let you know.”
Jin Hui suddenly began coughing violently, and the phone fell onto his lap with a clatter. The caregiver hurriedly picked it up. “Butler Zhong, Old Master Jin isn’t doing very well today. I may have to hang up.”
The other end was silent for a few seconds before Uncle Zhong’s voice returned to its normal volume. “Take good care of the old chairman.”
The caregiver had barely put the phone away when he saw a man walking toward them.
“Doctor Li.” He greeted him. “You’re early today. Isn’t the physiotherapy session at four?”
Doctor Li, nearly fifty, habitually pushed up his gold-rimmed glasses, his eyes curving into two arcs behind the lenses. “I just finished a consultation nearby. The weather is nice, so I thought I might as well take Old Master Jin out for some rehabilitation early.” He naturally took hold of the wheelchair handles. “Leave him to me. I can check the muscle tone in his legs while we’re at it.”
They passed through the garden and then along the walkway. In the quiet surroundings, the sound of the wheelchair crushing fallen leaves seemed exceptionally clear. Still wearing his vacant, senile expression, Jin Hui watched the rubber tires gradually veer from their path and remembered the cup of coffee Butler Zhong had mentioned over the phone. Beneath the blanket, his aged, withered fingers slowly curled.
“Old Master Jin, the sunlight is lovely today.” Doctor Li’s voice remained gentle, but his hands quietly picked up speed. The wheelchair suddenly changed direction and headed straight toward the center of the main road, where cars were constantly passing.
A cold gleam abruptly flashed through Jin Hui’s cloudy eyes. Just as the wheelchair was about to be pushed onto the road, he feigned a convulsion, his right hand “accidentally” catching the wheelchair’s brake lever. The metal gave a crisp click, and the wheelchair stopped abruptly at the roadside.
Almost at the same instant, a black sedan sped past directly in front of him. Its side mirror missed the wheelchair armrest by barely an inch or so, and the rush of air startled the sparrows from the treetops.
“Aiya!” Doctor Li cried out in alarm and hurried forward to check Jin Hui. The old man’s head lolled to one side, drool running from his mouth as his right hand twitched spasmodically, as though everything that had just happened truly had been an accident.
Doctor Li’s gold-rimmed glasses slid down to the tip of his nose, and fine beads of sweat appeared on his forehead. He smiled stiffly. “Old Master Jin, are you all right? That driver was far too careless…”
Though he said this, Doctor Li’s gaze remained fixed on the distance. Within his line of sight was a gray sedan. Its headlights had already come on, the engine had started, and it was turning onto the main road.
The suddenly rising speed cut through the warm late-spring breeze like a blade.
Doctor Li withdrew his gaze at exactly the right moment. Pretending to bend down and straighten Jin Hui’s clothes, he secretly exerted force with his fingers and once again pushed the wheelchair toward the center of the road!
“Old Master Jin, watch out!”
Before the shout had even faded, the gray sedan was already charging toward them like an arrow released from a bowstring. Jin Hui’s cloudy pupils contracted sharply. He never would have imagined that after the first car failed, they had actually prepared a second one!
And at that moment, his hands were still held in a relaxed position. There was no time at all to reach the brake lever again.
Time seemed to freeze. The driver’s expressionless face behind the windshield, the sunlight flashing across the bumper, the gravel and dust kicked up by the tires—every frame was so clear it was suffocating.
Closer and closer, the sedan’s engine gave off a piercing howl that cut through Jin Hui’s steadily declining hearing.
The dark-gray metallic gleam stabbed at the old man’s eyes. Jin Hui closed them and waited for the impact.
Bang!!
A silver sedan suddenly shot out from the fork on the left and struck the gray sedan’s right front wheel with perfect precision, producing another tremendous bang!
The gray sedan was knocked more than two meters sideways, its body scraping past the edge of the wheelchair. The force of the collision sent the blanket on Jin Hui’s knees flying.
Doctor Li staggered backward. His gold-rimmed glasses fell to the ground with a clatter, the lenses shattering into a spiderweb pattern. He muttered in panic, “What’s going on? What’s going on?”
When the dust finally settled, the door of the silver sedan was flung open. A man in a dark suit stumbled out, his right hand pressed against his temple, blood flowing between his fingers. His sharp gaze slowly swept across the scene before finally landing on Jin Hui…
＊
In the end, Zhou Ruo An still failed to escape.
At Zhou Ran Ming’s instruction, he was locked up again. The room had changed, but nothing else had: there was a door but no window, the lights were off, and it was like a death cell.
The head of the Xu family was furious and practically escorted Xu Yi Han back to the dressing room on the third floor under guard. The door in the corridor that had been hacked apart and the axe remained exactly where they were, like props left behind after some absurd farce.
Third Miss had followed them upstairs as well. Putting on a show of helpfulness, she picked up a comb and gently began straightening Xu Yi Han’s slightly disheveled short hair beneath the veil.
“Why did you help Zhou Ruo An?” Xu Yi Han suddenly asked.
The sandalwood comb paused in midair. Third Miss answered bluntly and calmly, “My family wanted to marry me off to an old man as his second wife. Bald head, gold teeth, beer belly, and lecherous as hell.”
The teeth of the comb slid through her hair with a faint rustling sound.
“That old bastard wasn’t human. He didn’t even spare children. Somehow, Zhou Ruo An got hold of evidence of his crimes, and that animal has already been held in custody for forty-one days.” Third Miss lowered her eyes, suppressing the disgust in them. “If he wants to get out, I’m afraid it won’t be easy.”
Xu Yi Han fell silent for a moment before lazily leaning back in her chair. “Then he is worth helping.”
Third Miss put down the comb and dragged over a chair. Propping one arm on the vanity table, the cool detachment from her face disappeared, and she leaned closer with a gossipy expression. “Sister Han, you said you knew Zhou Ruo An has a lover outside. Have you seen her? What kind of woman is she?”
“Woman?” Xu Yi Han slowly smiled, her red lips curving with amusement. After considering it for a moment, she answered, “A big guy. All muscle. Very hard to mess with.”
“Huh?” Third Miss widened her eyes in disbelief. “Zhou Ruo An likes that type?”
The moment the words fell, a sudden knock sounded at the door. Before anyone could answer, it was rudely pushed open. A female relative from the Xu family stood in the doorway and said expressionlessly, “It’s time for the ceremony. Second Miss, please go downstairs. Your fiancé is already waiting.”
＊
White gauze drapes floated gently in the breeze, and the flowers on the stage gave off a cloyingly sweet fragrance. Zhou Ruo An and Xu Yi Han stood side by side, neither of them smiling.
The guests seated below were equally silent. No one applauded, and no one smiled. Only the cheerful melody played by the band echoed through the open venue, barely maintaining the celebratory atmosphere the occasion was supposed to have.
Across the roomful of guests, Zhou Ruo An’s gaze landed directly on Zhou Ran Ming in the seat of honor.
Zhou Ran Ming sat upright at the head, his phone clenched tightly in his palm, his eyes icy. As he looked back at Zhou Ruo An, the gray-templed man resembled a venomous snake lying in wait, patiently waiting for the moment his prey fell into the trap.
“Old bastard,” Zhou Ruo An muttered quietly from the stage.
“Who are you cursing?” the woman in the wedding dress asked from beside him.
“Zhou Ran Ming.”
The woman gave a soft scoff. “Darling, that was far too civilized.”
Zhou Ruo An glanced sideways.
The woman offered her expert guidance. “That old fucker who just won’t die.”
Zhou Ruo An finally revealed his first smile of the day, but before he could reply, the host interrupted him.
“Ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of the elders of both families, I would like to offer my blessings to this soon-to-be couple—”
Before he could finish, the front doors of the Zhou family’s old residence were suddenly pushed open.
Then came the sound of footsteps—slow, heavy, calm, and powerful.
Dark-gray suit trousers emerged from the shadows, long legs stepping over the threshold. The floral arch was lush and full; as the man passed beneath it, he lowered his head slightly. When even the most flamboyant branches failed to catch in his hair, he finally raised his head, revealing a handsome yet fierce face.
It was Lin Yi.
The moment he lifted his eyes, his gaze locked directly onto Zhou Ruo An on the ceremonial stage. Step by step, he walked toward him along the red carpet.