Taking Advantage, Then Trying to Run - Chapter 13

What a chaotic night.

I tipped my head back and sighed wearily.

Hai Yan still stood where I’d left her, watching me without blinking.

What a stubborn donkey.

I was about to speak when I noticed dark red liquid dripping from her fingertips.

My eyes flew open.

“What happened to your hand?”

I lifted it and discovered a small cut along the side of her arm, blood steadily welling from the wound.

I’d been so focused on checking her head and shoulders that I’d forgotten her arms.

I hurried back to where she’d struck the wall. Looking closely, I found the culprit at the height of her arm: the sharp corner of a cracked tile protruded slightly, with a trace of blood on it.

The tile must have cracked during construction without anyone noticing. Once it was set into the wall, cement in the grout had fixed the raised edge firmly in place.

How could any mason be so careless?

Was he tiling a wall or building a trap?

I laughed from sheer anger.

At least it wasn’t rusty metal.

Pressing tissues to the wound, I led her inside.

Fortunately, I was obsessive enough to keep every kind of medicine at home.

I cleaned the cut, applied ointment, and bandaged it carefully.

“What rotten luck,” I muttered. “It’s all that brat’s fault. Barely grown and already fighting over a woman.”

She said nothing, listening quietly with her gaze fixed on me.

I rolled my eyes at her.

“Happy now? I told you to go home, but you refused. Look what happened—another injury.”

I poked her forehead with one finger. “Let’s see if you dare be so stubborn next time.”

She suddenly smiled.

I glared. “What are you laughing at?”

“You’re not treating me like a stranger anymore. I’m happy.”

I smiled helplessly. “Little brat. You don’t understand anything… All right, don’t get the wound wet for the next few days.”

As I packed the first-aid kit, I added, “Go home. It’s late.”

“I’m not a little brat,” she objected solemnly.

I pinched her cheek. “Yes, yes. You’re an adult.”

“I have always been an adult.”

She took the hand pinching her face, her tone perfectly serious. “Jiejie, I’m nineteen.”

“Nineteen is still a child to me.”

“That isn’t what you said when you licked my abs.”

Boom!

A mushroom cloud erupted above my head.

“Wh-wh-wh…”

My face burned so fiercely I couldn’t form a sentence.

She pulled me closer.

“Jiejie, the last time I asked why you were so good to me, I already had an answer in mind before I spoke.”

“I only asked because I didn’t know whether I was right.”

“But you ran away. You vanished so completely that I didn’t see you for two months.”

“Don’t you want to hear what I guessed?”

My mind swam. “Wh-what did you guess?”

Not what I thought. Please, not that.

She seemed to see the fear in my eyes. One corner of her mouth rose. “What answer do *you* think it was?”

“I… don’t know.”

“You’re so sly. Whenever a question is difficult, you refuse to answer properly.”

I had failed as an adult role model. My fault.

“Jiejie, I’m not a child. I understand many things.” She lowered her head, suddenly shy. “Besides, you were so obvious. I’m not stupid.”

No, she wasn’t. I was.

Only I could have been foolish enough to imagine that a nineteen-year-old adult in the internet age knew nothing.

She stared directly at me.

I didn’t dare meet her eyes. Her gaze burned too hot.

She moved even closer.

Her voice was low and slow.

“I know perfectly well why you’re good to me.”

She lifted the hem of her T-shirt, took my hand, and placed it on her abs.

“Jiejie likes these, doesn’t she?”

I cracked from head to toe.

Let me die.

Let me die right now.

I no longer had the face to remain in this world!