Chapter 57

Jiang Chao couldn’t even count how many times she had faced Sheng Huaixi and wanted to sigh. To be precise, it wasn’t that she wanted to sigh; she already had.

The red mark beneath her fingertips stirred faintly. Jiang Chao could clearly feel that patch of skin tremble under her light touch, and the worry on her lips came out before anything else.

“Does it hurt?”

The words were barely out before Jiang Chao quickly lowered her lashes and turned slightly away, avoiding Sheng Huaixi’s lifted gaze. Only then did she realize she’d asked something obvious.

Who wouldn’t hurt after being slapped in the face?

The egg still rolling in her palm held the afterheat of being boiled; it burned hot, cradled in her hand, searing straight through the thin layer of skin and into her heart. The tightened flesh seemed to throb with pain.

A heavy, irritated feeling circled in Jiang Chao’s chest.

She avoided Sheng Huaixi’s gaze, only to find those eyes bright with amusement, carrying a trace of annoying self-satisfaction.

Sheng Huaixi watched intently as the white surface of the peeled egg rolled over the bright red of her cheek, pale flesh rubbing against flushed skin, warmth rising steamily between her fingers.

“It hurts. It hurts a lot. It hurts very, very much.”

The words came one after another from Sheng Huaixi’s mouth. Meeting Jiang Chao’s eyes, her gaze was deep, revealing an almost blatant insistence.

Though she said it hurt, the smile blooming at the corners of her eyes and brows carried a glistening sort of coyness. Softness drifted through her voice; with the red mark of the slap on her face, she looked as if she were using it as a way to beg for affection.

It hurt, but Sheng Huaixi wanted Jiang Chao to see every bit of that pain, trembling in her eyes and sending ripples through them.

Before Jiang Chao’s heartache could turn into actual words, Sheng Huaixi curved her lips, lowered her voice, and looked straight at Jiang Chao as she openly demanded,

“So you have to feel more sorry for me.”

Don’t look at anyone else. Keep your gaze fixed entirely on me; feel more sorry for me, look at me more, understand me more.

Don’t let your eyes stay on anyone irrelevant anymore.

What Sheng Huaixi wanted was bold and direct, no different from asking for a cup of water to drink; clear and effortless.

Jiang Chao looked into her eyes and saw the desire flickering there, enough to make her heart quiver.

It was plain as day; she wanted Jiang Chao to sink into the ocean called Sheng Huaixi and say soft, coaxing things to her.

Maybe she also wanted Jiang Chao to...

Sheng Huaixi was bad. Bad enough that Jiang Chao could almost see the wagging tail of mischief behind her, furry and sleek, swaying lazily in the air as if anyone could bully it a little.

She looked so pitiful.

Jiang Chao let out a soft sigh, looked away, then gently pinched Sheng Huaixi’s chin with her fingertips, pressed once, and lifted it slightly. In the end, all her words became only one sentence.

“You’re always like this,” she said, in a mock-complaining tone.

Clearly she was a wolf with powerful, aggressive instincts, yet in front of Jiang Chao she forcibly restrained her wild nature, smoothing down her fur and retracting her claws, habitually acting obedient.

If acting obedient was all it took, Jiang Chao had always been good at pretending not to understand.

If Sheng Huaixi could contain all that terrifying danger around her and disguise it so completely that Jiang Chao couldn’t easily see the truth, then perhaps Jiang Chao wouldn’t be troubled like this from one end to the other.

She would simply go with the flow, follow the illusion Sheng Huaixi presented, and pretend nothing was wrong. Jiang Chao felt that would have been fine too.

But Sheng Huaixi insisted on showing her the cracks.

She wanted Jiang Chao to see her pitiful side, and also the surging wildness hidden beneath her obedience, openly and recklessly displayed in front of Jiang Chao.

As if afraid Jiang Chao would truly mistake her obedient surface for her real nature, she was determined to shatter Jiang Chao’s assumptions in an instant.

Sheng Huaixi smiled while playing the obedient one, sitting up straight as she actively held out a big paw in front of her, her eyes glittering with faint amusement and expectation as she waited for Jiang Chao to set it down.

Her palm was soft and pale, the flesh smooth and delicate, making it easy for anyone to lower their guard.

But the very next second, just when Jiang Chao might have been deceived, those sharp claws burst out with a bang; her fingers spread wide, laying her deliberate cruelty and ruthlessness bare before Jiang Chao.

She was not that pitiful at all. She had always been brazenly fierce; beneath that obedient, beautiful exterior lay a scheme so rotten it made one’s scalp tingle.

Jiang Chao knew it. Yet every time, Jiang Chao chose to give way. She didn’t know when she would decide to ignore this side of Sheng Huaixi, but it definitely wasn’t now.

Sheng Huaixi curved her lips slightly. Looking at Jiang Chao, her expression carried a certain knowing certainty; her voice was low, and because of that roughness, the words she spoke carried a faint trace of obsession.

“Yes. I’ll always be like this.” It sounded like an oath.

Jiang Chao lowered her eyes. Her long lashes trembled with the movement of the egg rolling over her face. The light in the room fell from every direction, softening the expression on her cheek so that she seemed to be wearing a halo of moonlight.

Sheng Huaixi stared at her without blinking, a deep fascination flashing in her eyes. It coiled lovingly around the black of her pupils, her gaze sticky and lingering, refusing to leave.

She liked Jiang Chao like this.

Jiang Chao was in her heart; Jiang Chao was in her eyes; everything her fingertips touched, every point where her attention fell, was Jiang Chao.

Even if this attention had been bought by doing something that would make Jiang Chao angry, Sheng Huaixi did not regret it in the slightest.

If she had to do it again, Sheng Huaixi would still have acted exactly the same. She wouldn’t change a single thing.

She had peeked ahead at the contents of Jiang Chao’s conversation with Bai Xiangshu and learned where they were meeting, then gone to the restaurant to wait in ambush.

Not long after Jiang Chao left, she timed it perfectly and sent that message to lure her back.

She had deliberately said to Bai Xiangshu, “You should be grateful, otherwise your hands would only be dirtier,” just to provoke her, anger her, and force her to strike so Jiang Chao could see it.

One slap, and afterward Jiang Chao would be completely done with the idea of interacting with Bai Xiangshu; it would also indirectly cut off Bai Xiangshu’s chance to use Jiang Chao’s mother to get in touch with Jiang Chao.

And after all that, right now, she even got Jiang Chao’s nervousness and concern, with all of Jiang Chao’s thoughts fixed on her.

Wasn’t that good? Shouldn’t she have done it?

Sheng Huaixi couldn’t find a single reason not to. To her, this was simply exchanging a tiny, insignificant price for the greatest success.

It was only a slap. Sooner or later, Sheng Huaixi would find a chance to pay it back. But getting Jiang Chao to catch Bai Xiangshu in the act of hitting her, even to have the chance to feel sorry for her, was far too rare.

So rare that at certain moments, Sheng Huaixi even regretted having dealt with that idiot Zhou Xu so cleanly back then.

Besides Zhou Xu, Sheng Huaixi did not want Jiang Chao to come into contact with any of the remaining rotten, crazy trash.

They would always try to turn their attention to Jiang Chao, drawing her gaze away and stealing what belonged to Sheng Huaixi.

Jiang Chao’s whole heart and mind were on how to avoid them, how to reduce the number of times she saw them; only on rare occasions would she look at Sheng Huaixi with concern for a few fleeting moments.

That was far from enough attention.

Every time Sheng Huaixi thought of it, her heart would ache. Jealousy would rise up uncontrollably, sounding the alarm and reminding her to firmly reject such possibilities.

Not allowed.

Not possible.

As long as Jiang Chao looked at her, that was enough...

With the egg rolling over her cheek under Jiang Chao’s fingertips, Jiang Chao suddenly felt the skin beneath tighten; Sheng Huaixi’s emotions were shifting.

A sudden flare of anger spread beneath Jiang Chao’s fingertips, inexplicably fast and terribly clear to her senses.

Her eyes narrowing with concern, Jiang Chao took the initiative to speak, interrupting Sheng Huaixi’s inner drama and shifting her attention.

“Sheng Huaixi, was this deliberate?”

The cheek she turned toward Jiang Chao showed a mottled patch of red and white; the flushed milky skin stood out on her face.

It was as if someone had splashed a sheet of paper with a rosy wash. It looked pitiful and fragile, yet the straight lines of her brows and eyes added a cool, striking beauty all their own.

Jiang Chao wasn’t planning to keep her suspicions to herself and puzzle over them alone; she laid the dark thoughts weighing on her mind openly between them.

Besides, since Sheng Huaixi was already getting angry inwardly, saying it out loud would also make it easier for Sheng Huaixi’s thoughts to pull away from her emotions.

Not long after the words fell, Jiang Chao felt the skin beneath her hand go still.

Sheng Huaixi lowered her brows slightly, her lashes flickering faintly. She said nothing, seeming as if she were still immersed in her earlier emotions and had missed Jiang Chao’s question entirely.

The cooling egg landed with a plop into the water, its round body turning once in the bowl.

Jiang Chao remained calm. She leaned forward to take another boiled egg, peeled away the shell, and took out the white egg.

She knew Sheng Huaixi was already thinking about how to give her an answer.

At the restaurant, not long after Jiang Chao left Bai Xiangshu’s side, Sheng Huaixi took the initiative to send her a message: “Wait for me. I’ll say a few words to Bai Xiangshu and then come out to find you.”

Since she had sent that message, it meant that from that moment on, Sheng Huaixi had already decided not to hide the fact that she knew about it.

Besides, later on, after Bai Xiangshu left, Sheng Huaixi directly said the words follow you to her; there was no sign of regret on her face, and instead she even blinked at Jiang Chao as if asking for praise.

Sheng Huaixi really was always causing trouble.

Thinking of that, Jiang Chao’s fingers tightened; she was just about to give Sheng Huaixi a little punishment, but looking at the pitiful red mark before her, she couldn’t bring herself to do it.

“Do you mean stalking, or Bai Xiangshu slapping me?”

Sheng Huaixi pressed her lips together lightly. Every slight movement of the skin on her face tugged at the red mark; it actually didn’t hurt, but she still drew in a soft breath.

“The part where she hit you.” Jiang Chao frowned. Hearing that little gasp, her brow creased with concern. She reached out and tightened her grip on Sheng Huaixi’s chin, then looked at her intently. “Don’t move.”

Jiang Chao didn’t need to ask about the stalking. She already knew Sheng Huaixi had done it on purpose.

In other words, if Sheng Huaixi hadn’t noticed that something had been off with her lately, Jiang Chao would have found that even stranger.

Jiang Chao had never doubted Sheng Huaixi’s intelligence or sharpness.

Especially now, with Jiang Chao’s own condition clearly off, Sheng Huaixi had obviously already gone into watchdog mode.

The moment she opened her eyes, the moment she sniffed the air, Jiang Chao’s whereabouts were already within Sheng Huaixi’s sight.

If Sheng Huaixi hadn’t followed her, it wasn’t because she hadn’t noticed anything wrong. It was because she had simply stood quietly behind her, waiting for Jiang Chao to turn back and tell the truth on her own.

If she kept waiting and never got an answer, Jiang Chao guessed—

Maybe one night, at some unknown time, she would see a mouth full of gleaming fangs, shining with sharp light, staring at her with the dangerous glow of a wolf, poised to move.

Sheng Huaixi would tear her apart without hesitation.

Jiang Chao knew that much.

Sheng Huaixi’s eyes flickered lightly, and she understood Jiang Chao’s implication clearly. Her eyes narrowed in delight. “That’s nice.”

So Jiang Chao already knew in her heart what kind of thing Sheng Huaixi would do. Sheng Huaixi’s heartbeat quickened. She turned to look at Jiang Chao, staring at her fixedly.

“I did it on purpose to provoke her.”

Sheng Huaixi repeated it as Jiang Chao’s eyes slowly widened.

“Because I wanted her to hit me in front of you.”

“I wanted you to see her do something like that.”

I wanted you to hate her one hundred percent; then, one hundred percent, keep all your attention on me.

Sheng Huaixi licked her lips, the obsession in her eyes laid bare before Jiang Chao under the light.