Chapter 68

“What kind of wine did she buy?”

Jiang Chao lowered her head and studied the sealed wine box Sheng Huaixi had sent ahead to the front desk, murmuring to herself. The packaging was completely shut, so there was no way to tell what was inside.

Still, it didn’t feel heavy.

She turned it over in her arms, her gaze landing on the small print beneath the box. A faint flicker of surprise crossed her face.

She had drunk this wine before, back when she was in England. One glass had been enough to knock her flat. By the next day, she had no memory of what had happened at all; all she remembered were her friends, looking at her with teasing, ambiguous expressions.

After that, Jiang Chao never touched it again. And of all things, this was exactly the bottle Sheng Huaixi had bought.

Just imagining what she might do if she got drunk made Jiang Chao shiver. Her expression shifted from surprise to resolve. No matter what, she absolutely could not drink this wine.

As for enjoying the pleasant tipsiness of a hot spring soak, Jiang Chao thought it was better left for Sheng Huaixi alone.

If she got drunk, but Sheng Huaixi didn’t...

Her wandering thoughts snapped back. Jiang Chao tightened her arms around the wine box, shook her head to clear the guesses crowding her mind, and moved forward with a steadier gaze.

As she walked, Jiang Chao took in the hotel’s decor. Her eyes flickered with curiosity.

Compared with the hotels she usually saw, this one had boldly chosen a design that blended closely with nature. As she went on, pools of misty spring water came into view.

The public hot spring area had been placed not far from the corridors guests had to pass through, and the rising steam drifted everywhere in hazy waves.

For a moment, Jiang Chao almost felt as if she were walking through clouds.

Around the hot spring, little low tables and seats had been arranged at intervals; if a guest wanted to enjoy the steam from the spring but felt shy, they could simply draw the gauze curtain aside.

Jiang Chao’s eyes were sharp. A woman in a nearby public hot spring had just stepped forward to pull the curtain closed, and Jiang Chao’s gaze swept over her face; through the mist, a black mole at the corner of her eye stood out clearly.

Her steps faltered slightly. Jiang Chao’s eyes narrowed, her body instantly tensing with caution as she stared straight at the woman pulling the curtain shut.

She knew this woman. Li Yun. This was one of the faces in the information she’d been investigating.

Why was she here?

The curtain was pulled tight, blocking the view inside completely. Jiang Chao blinked slowly through the steam, her black lashes lowering to cast a strip of shadow over her eyelids.

She had only been hesitating with the wine box for a few seconds when a familiar name suddenly rang out clearly in her ears. Jiang Chao’s eyes jerked wide, and she no longer hesitated. She turned and walked to a corner at the edge.

The design she had just praised now became the perfect place for her to hide. Jiang Chao leaned against a tree stump with the wine box in her arms, tilting an ear toward the sound.

“Why are you still chasing after Sheng Huaixi? She’s rejected you so many times already; what’s the point?”

The complaining female voice came from inside, along with the slap of hands hitting the water.

Sheng Huaixi.

Jiang Chao’s pupils contracted. Her fingers tightened on the box as she confirmed that she hadn’t misheard the name; the people inside were indeed Li Yun and her friend.

“Heh, what do you know? As long as I’m patient and wait, sooner or later I’ll get her into my hands.”

“Unlike Zhou Xu, who’s in her company every day, still wanting what’s in the bowl while eating what’s in the pot. Just look at how she ended up; that’s the perfect lesson.”

When Li Yun mentioned Zhou Xu, her tone was openly disdainful, but beneath it was a faint trace of jealousy over Zhou Xu’s earlier ability to make such a big show of her existence in front of Sheng Huaixi.

Jiang Chao’s brow creased slightly. She tilted her ear to listen carefully to the two of them talking inside.

From the way they spoke, it seemed they had no idea Sheng Huaixi was here; otherwise they wouldn’t have been chatting so brazenly about her in the public hot spring.

So it wasn’t deliberate; it was an accident?

“But it’s not only you waiting now, is it? Xu Jingwen, the one we saw here yesterday—if I remember correctly, she also went after Sheng Huaixi six years ago, didn’t she? And now she still dares to stick close to her.”

Six years ago? Xu Jingwen had done something to Sheng Huaixi? And Xu Jingwen had also come here yesterday?!

Jiang Chao nervously licked her lips over and over, moistening them until they turned a deep red. Her soft lips were unconsciously tormented, leaving a faint imprint of teeth marks behind.

The steam in front of her surged and swirled in the air. Jiang Chao leaned in to listen, blinking rapidly beneath her lashes.

She tried to make out the blur before her, but the mist was too thick, obscuring her vision completely.

The question that had been lodged in Jiang Chao’s heart for so long still had no answer.

What exactly had happened six years ago? How many people had been involved? Why had she been unable to find even the slightest trace no matter how she investigated...

For Jiang Chao, the matter of Sheng Huaixi six years ago was like a mystery completely shrouded in fog.

She had just pushed aside one cloud and, with bright eyes, thought she might finally be close to the truth; instead, more threads kept appearing one after another.

Each thread led somewhere unknown, somewhere murky, pushing Jiang Chao to keep listening, keep searching.

“Tch, don’t bring that up. I wasn’t involved at all on that trip, and I never expected those women to set such a huge trap for Sheng Huaixi, even getting the Sheng family to agree to it.”

By the end of it, Li Yun’s emotions surged with her words. A sharp, disgusted sound came from behind the curtain, her frustration overflowing.

The sound of water being slapped in irritation followed once, then several times in a row.

The other woman wasn’t as agitated as Li Yun. When she spoke of these things, her tone was flat and matter-of-fact; only when she mentioned Li Yun did a little teasing sarcasm creep in, like the banter between friends.

“True, but even if you’d gone, you still wouldn’t have accomplished anything with those pathetic tricks of yours.” Her tone shifted, turning heavier, carrying a trace of wariness.

“If I remember right, every step of that banquet was carefully planned by Xu Jingwen and the others. They even counted themselves into the scheme; every glass of wine there was spiked.”

The sound of a palm striking flesh came from inside. Li Yun said in a muffled voice, “So what? In the end, didn’t they still fail?”

At that, Jiang Chao’s eyes brightened. The fingers gripping the box finally loosened a little.

The breath trapped in her chest slowly let out, but laughter from inside the curtain came again.

“Sheng Huaixi drank it and ended up with a fever for three days straight, then had to be rushed overnight for a stomach lavage. They nearly got half her life—how does that not count as succeeding..."

Jiang Chao didn’t listen to the rest.

Her steps slowly carried her through the corridor. She walked especially slowly, placing each foot firmly as she moved forward through the mist.

The drifting steam swept past her face; the hot springs lined up one after another, and the constant-temperature system hidden inside the building was still operating as usual.

Everything was the same as always, but at that moment Jiang Chao only felt a chill run through her entire body.

Cold air she couldn’t explain rose from her feet to her limbs. With every step she took, it seemed she could hear the stiff creak of joints turning over.

Her body felt as though it had been sealed in bone-deep ice without mercy. The icy cold seeped through her blood and into every hidden corner of her body, freezing even her thoughts.

Cold. She couldn’t stop feeling cold.

Jiang Chao knew she should tighten her grip on the wine box; her wrist dutifully carried out that order, but the fingertips trembling on the lid still laid bare her emotions.

Fear, anger, shock, astonishment... In that instant, countless feelings flashed through her mind.

Each one was tied to something else deep inside her, like a chain of dominoes. Starting from that careless line of laughter, everything had toppled one after another.

That offhand remark, at the moment Jiang Chao had never imagined, turned into a heavy hammer and smashed hard into her heart.

With broken flesh and blood somehow still holding herself upright, Jiang Chao lowered her gaze and walked forward one step at a time like a robot running on a set program.

Straight ahead, turn, straight ahead... Her posture remained perfectly upright; nothing on her face showed the slightest sign of anything wrong.

Bang!

Jiang Chao slammed directly into the room door.

Sharp pain spread from her forehead. The fragments of thought that had already scattered returned a little under the force of the impact, and the calm expression on her face was completely shattered.

“... ”

Clutching her forehead, Jiang Chao wanted to say it hurt. But the moment her fingers hooked into the leather surface of the wine box, the words seemed to be seized at her throat and forcibly swallowed back.

Her chin lifted slightly as she narrowed her eyes, feeling the glaring lights stab into her pupils and scatter across the bottom of them.

The light was so bright it almost made Jiang Chao want to cry.

The tightly closed door was opened from inside.

Jiang Chao stood blankly in place. Sheng Huaixi’s cool, gentle face appeared before her. Her long lashes fluttered lightly; those dark, ink-black eyes lowered to Jiang Chao, the chill in them fading as softness spread.

“What’s wrong?” Sheng Huaixi took the wine box from Jiang Chao’s arms, her hand brushing Jiang Chao’s wrist as she pulled her inside. Her voice was low.

The door shut behind them; the click of the lock falling into place was especially crisp. Jiang Chao stood frozen at the threshold.

Sheng Huaixi casually set the wine box on the cabinet, then turned and walked up to Jiang Chao. Her dark lashes blinked; confusion flickered across her face as she leaned in and stroked the top of Jiang Chao’s head.

“What’s wrong? Did someone bully you while you were getting the wine box?”

As she spoke, the corners of Sheng Huaixi’s mouth curved. The tenderness in her eyes was especially soft; under the dim light, the look she gave Jiang Chao was gentle and lingering.

She smiled so gently, and so beautifully.

It should have been the kind of smile that made Jiang Chao’s heart flutter. But for some reason, Jiang Chao suddenly felt her nose sting, and her dark eyes grew faintly moist.

A needle-like ache kept pricking at her heart. The emotions that had not yet calmed surged up in this moment, and the overwhelming wave they raised completely soaked Jiang Chao’s pupils.

Water slid down her cheeks, cold as ice, overflowing from the corners of her eyes and rolling over her face.

The droplets blurred her vision, blurred Sheng Huaixi standing before her. Jiang Chao blinked, trying to wipe away the damp blur in front of her.

It did absolutely nothing.

When emotions ran high, even a small blow could make one’s mood worse. Jiang Chao’s mouth puckered downward, her lips twisting, and the tears in her eyes fell even more fiercely.

At the same time, Sheng Huaixi in front of her became even blurrier.

“Mm; come here and give me a hug.”

The instant Sheng Huaixi spoke, the black fabric in Jiang Chao’s blurred vision wiped clean before her eyes, and warm body heat wrapped around her, flowing into her limbs.

The chill was driven away by the warmth of the embrace; the stiffness in her joints slowly began to ease.

Feeling the hand tightening around her lower back, Sheng Huaixi’s lips curved slowly.

The hand that had been wrapped around her waist in worry and fear was now held tightly in place.

“It’s fine; I’m here.”

Sheng Huaixi’s eyes narrowed slightly. Beneath those ink-dark pupils, a boiling possessiveness stirred silently, while her low voice carried no aggression at all.

But the excitement in the depths of her gaze shattered that softness to pieces, like a leopard lying in wait in the shadows.

Sheng Huaixi had been waiting a long time.