Soon, Xu Youning made herself calm down to seem nonchalant.

  The Kang Ruicheng’s hand around her waist and his deep but troubled look seemed to imply something. She was in a difficult situation.

  But she couldn’t allow him to control what would happen next. Otherwise, if she continued to refuse, based on her understanding of him, she would arouse his suspicion in no time.

  At the moment, the best way for her to get out of it was to take charge.

  As she thought about this, she planted a quick kiss on his cheek superficially. Her lips had already passed quickly and softly as a feather before he could feel her breath.

  However, she understood what he wanted. It was a good sign for her to initiate a kiss.

  His smile became easy and the deepness in his look was gone. She took this great opportunity to pull his hands off and said, “Help yourself. I’m leaving now.”


  “Let me walk you out.”


  He walked her out of the office as he made a gesture to hold her waist. When they passed the secretary’s desk, he said to the secretary, “Take Miss Xu to my office whenever she visits me. She doesn’t need an appointment.”


  The secretary threw a glance at Xu Youning when she heard what Kang Ruicheng said. She replied after she looked Xu Youning up and down, “.……Yes, Mr. Kang.”


  As a woman, Xu Youning understood the secretary’s bitter look. She stepped into the elevator and pointed to the woman who was still looking at her. “Fire her,” she said coldly.

  “Why?” he asked.

  Xu Youning smiled and bent forward to get closer to him. “I don’t know if there is anything between you two but there’s one thing I’m sure of—she likes you.”


  She pressed the close button on the elevator leisurely as she threatened, “The day I see her again would be the last time I walk into your office.”


  Almost at the moment when the elevator descended, all the smiles and jealousy on her face disappeared. She pulled out a facial tissue to rub her lips back and forth. Shortly afterwards, her lips were bloodshot, as if the blood would rush out at any minute.

  But it wasn’t enough for her. After she got in the car, she immediately unscrewed a bottle of mineral water to rinse her mouth. In the end, she threw the unfinished bottle into a trash bin outside the car.

  But she knew, no matter what she did, she wouldn’t be able to forget what just happened with Kang Ruicheng. Just like she would never forget the fact that she hurt Su Jianan and caused her grandmother’s death because of her undercover job.

  What happened happened. Nobody could change that.

  The only way for her to extricate herself was to take revenge for her grandma.

  After she drove a few miles, she tore the medical records and the x-ray taken at the hospital into pieces. She threw them into a trash bin on the road.

  A gust of wind blew them off onto the ground. With the strong sunlight, she saw the small blood clot that was pressing her brain blood vessels and would kill her at any minute.

  She was startled when she saw that. But then she suddenly realized that what goes around comes around.

  She was trained as a weapon by Kang Ruicheng. She did whatever task he ordered and because of that, her grandma had been killed.

  She had been assigned to work undercover to spy on Mu Sijue. She saved him from a car accident and hit a tree trunk when she fell off the road. Two blood clots had been formed in her brain since then; they had turned into a time bomb for her.

  Even if Mu Sijue didn’t go after her, she would die because of him at any moment.

  She recalled her life in the past twenty years and suddenly felt that it had been a joke.

  When the thought hit her, she found her eyes full of tears. She stepped on the pedal to drive forward at a high speed to fight back the tears.

  In the evening, at the Dingya Villas.

  Shen Yuechuan had rushed over. Aunt Liu was surprised to see him because she heard him saying that for men like him, the time from eight to ten in the evening was the time for womanizing; it would be a waste if used in any other way.

  “Aunt Liu, where is Jianan and everyone?” he asked hurriedly.

  Aunt Liu replied as she pointed upstairs, “In the room.”


  He hesitated for a while. “Should I wait for a moment?” He thought for a while and said, “If I wait, I’m afraid I’ll have to wait for more than a moment……”


  Aunt Liu tittered. She raised the dust remover in her hand and pretended to hit him. “What nonsense are you thinking? Young Madam is busy with prenatal education and Young Master is with her!”


  “Just prenatal education?” He raised his eyebrows and rushed upstairs to knock at the door.

  Lu Boyan opened the door. He looked at Shen Yuechuan coldly in puzzlement. He seemed to be warning him not to say anything important aloud.

  Shen Yuechuan pulled Lu Boyan out and closed the door. He showed his cell phone to Lu Boyan. “Check out the text I just received.”


  “Kang Ruicheng holds all the trump cards for that land, no matter how high you bid.” The text in Shen Yuechuan’s phone was a simple sentence……

  Shen Yuechuan waved the phone and said to Mu Sijue with a puzzle look, “Did you and Mu Qi also set a mole among Kang Ruicheng’s people?”


  “Even there was, it wouldn’t be for business.” Lu Boyan cast a glance at the text again. “It doesn’t read like a report from a mole.”


  “I’m just curious about who sent it.” Shen Yuechuan thought for a while. “In fact, I’m suspecting someone but…… I’m not sure about that.”


  “Xu Youning.” Lu Boyan blurted out the name in Shen Yuechuan’s mind because it was also the name that first came to his own mind. But—”If it really is her, then, why?”


  “Yes. She works for Kang Ruicheng who is our enemy. Why did she give us the information? It doesn’t make any sense.” Shen Yuechuan thought hard for a while and considered one possibility. He snapped his fingers and said, “She was sent by Kang Ruicheng!”


  “.……” Lu Boyan waited for Shen Yuechuan to continue quietly.

  Shen Yuechuan continued his analysis, “That land is not essential to Kang Ruicheng, but it’s useful for us. Kang Ruicheng knew it so he sent Xu Youning to tell us that he was going to compete with us for the land. “Actually, he doesn’t want the land. He’s just forcing us to bid a high price!”


  Lu Boyan: “.……”


  Shen Yuechuan added, “Although the move is silly and inferior, but that’s his style, isn’t it?”


  Lu Boyan began to speak after he went into the study, “Have you thought that maybe Xu Youning is actually helping us?”


  “.…… What……?” Shen Yuechuan laughed in a weird tone. He reached out as if trying to check Lu Boyan’s forehead temperature. “Xu Youning has firmly believed that we’re her enemies. Why would she help us? Are you crazy or is she out of her mind?”


  Lu Boyan reached out and said, “Give me the phone.”


  Shen Yuechuan handed out the phone. Lu Boyan connected it to the Internet and attempted to trace the origin of the text, but soon found it was untraceable, as if the text had just bumped into Shen Yuechuan’s phone out of nowhere.

  Shen Yuechuan stroked his chin. “In fact, maybe it wasn’t Xu Youning who sent it.”


  “Not her? Who else would care about the land competition between us and Kang Ruicheng?” Lu Boyan stared at the word “untraceable” on the screen. “Xu Youning has ability to send similar texts. But if, as you said, it’s Kang Ruicheng who incited her to do so, there would be no reason for her to do it covertly.”


  Shen Yuechuan opened his eyes wide. “So you still believe that Xu Youning is helping us?” He made a gesture of compromising. “All right. Let’s go back to the previous question: why would she help us if she’s working for Kang Ruicheng?”


  “It might be some signal she sent for a future plan.” Lu Boyan knuckled on the desk and clicked his fingers. He then shook his head. “But I’m not sure yet.”


  Shen Yuechuan felt muddled. “What should we do next?”


  With a crooked mouth, Lu Boyan said, “If Kang Ruicheng holds all the trump cards for to bid a high price for the land, it can also be used in our favor.”


  Since Shen Yuechuan had spent a long time with Lu Boyan, he suddenly understood what Lu Boyan said. He nodded his head and asked, “Shall we tell Mu Qi and Jianan about Xu Youning?”


  “Not yet.” Lu Boyan continued, “We’re not sure whom Xu Youning is working for yet. If Jianan knows it, she will be worried. As for Mu Qi…… if our guess about Xu Youning is wrong, I’m afraid he won’t be able to take it.”


  Lu Boyan didn’t say it in a humorous manner but Shen Yuechuan laughed regardless.

  Among the three of them, Mu Sijue was the toughest one. It sounded absurd to wonder whether he would be able to take anything before he met Xu Youning.

  But based on his current condition, if they told him that although Xu Youning had hypocritically gone back to Kang Ruicheng, it turned out that Xu Youning really wanted to kill him. No one was sure whether he would be able to take it.

  Superficially, Mu Sijue wasn’t in a super terrible situation.

  He still spent most of the time at the company, business as usual, and on other things in the afternoon or evening. He didn’t have time for private affairs.

  If he wanted, a lot of young beautiful women would willingly throw themselves at him.

  When he was holding one of those women in his arms and playing with her, he would always see another familiar face and figure flashing by in his mind.

  Without much effort, he already automatically distinguished the differences between the woman in his arms and Xu Youning.

  She was prettier and more seductive than Xu Youning. In certain aspects, she even had a couple of superior traits which were quite superior when compared with Xu Youning.

  It was obvious that the prey within easy reach was better but he loosened his hand.

  He had no interest in any woman except for Xu Youning.

  Shen Yuechuan once teased him, “Are you…… impotent?”


  With a crooked smile on his lips, he replied, “Do you really want to know?”


  Shen Yuechuan asked back, “You dare to admit?”


  “Take the earliest flight to City G,” he said.

  Shen Yuechuan hesitated for a moment over the phone. “For what?”


  “Let me show you how.”


  “.…… What!” Shen Yuechuan cursed over the phone. “You’re disgusting!”


  Shen Yuechuan hung up the phone. While holding the phone, the smile on Mu Sijue’s face gradually disappeared. Loneliness filled his eyes.

  He threw the cellphone away and picked up the telephone to call Aunt Zhou to pack the things in his apartment. Aunt Zhou asked him for the reason and he simply said, “I want to move back home.”


  The old house of the Mu family was the last haven for Mu Sijue.

  Since he moved back, he didn’t go to the apartment downtown.

  Only Aunt Zhou knew that Mu Sijue had one more invisible wound that would never heal.