The Second Orange

A doorman in hanfu opened the door, and the manager's eyes lit up at the sight of Shen Qiancheng. He sidled up, all smiles. "Miss Shen, welcome. I'm the manager here."

Shen Qiancheng didn't move, fixing him with an arrogant, scrutinizing stare. The manager's heart began to race. 'Boss Shi talked you into coming—please don't make this hard on a working man.'

He extended his hand, but Shen Qiancheng made no move to take it.

The manager knew these upper-crust types—all of them finicky and aloof, never giving a hotel manager the time of day. He forced an awkward laugh. "Miss Shen's presence is an honor to the Eight Directions Pavilion."

Shen Qiancheng acted as if she hadn't heard, taking a casual look around at the scattered seating on the first floor. Lifting her chin, she said in an unreadable tone, "Lead the way."

The manager felt as if he'd been granted a reprieve. Wiping cold sweat from his brow, he hurried ahead.

He'd seen plenty of guests, but none quite like Shen Qiancheng—he was terrified of saying one wrong word.

She followed him to the second floor, where they stopped before a private room.

"Mr. Su, please don't... I..."

"What lip gloss have you got on? So sweet—let me have a taste. Aren't you just here to sell yourself? Why play the virtuous maiden..."

The man's rebuke mingled with the woman's increasingly loud gasps.

What was happening inside went without saying.

The manager's polished smile flickered with embarrassment, but he quickly regained his composure.

Everyone who came here to spend money could shake Tang City to its foundations. The Eight Directions Pavilion was favored by the elite for its privacy and opulent style, and this sort of thing was an open secret.

In contrast to the manager's awkwardness, Shen Qiancheng remained composed—she even felt like sneering. Where Shi Jianren chose to meet could hardly be highbrow. If the first floor was a facade of refined elegance, the second was nothing but decadence.

The air was eerily quiet, making the sounds from the room all the more obscene.

"Open the door. Do I have to do it myself?"

She tilted her head, her seductive eyes fixed on the manager with contempt. Her innate superiority made him nod repeatedly as he pulled open the door.

Shen Qiancheng rolled her eyes and swept in like a gust of wind.

The room offered a wide view. On the brown leather sofa sat a man in a suit with slicked-back hair, looking polished. In his arms was a disheveled young woman nestled submissively, her heavily made-up face full of cunning calculation. When she saw Shen Qiancheng, her coyness turned to blatant provocation.

The man maintained his lazy air—if one ignored the hand resting on the woman's chest.

"Go on, continue," Shen Qiancheng said, sitting as if she owned the place, and told the manager, "Bring me a glass of hot water."

The manager was well-versed in reading the room, and Boss Shi had told him to give them privacy, so he left cheerfully.

Shen Qiancheng straightened her back and looked around. The dazzling crystal chandelier, the long red velvet sofa, the table laden with foreign liquor, the dim lighting—she sneered inwardly. Shi Jianren really knew how to pick a place; it wasn't much different from Embracing a Hundred Rivers.

Su Zeye was sizing her up. He hadn't seen her since being expelled from Qiwu.

Shen Qiancheng wore a blue-and-white skirt suit, handcrafted lace clustering like locust blossoms at the collar, making her look all the more like a seductive, rosy-lipped demon. Beneath the pleated skirt, a pair of straight legs. Su Zeye had no choice but to look—in the few years since they'd last met, she had grown even more striking.

Shen Qiancheng ignored his sticky gaze, focusing on the woman who looked like a demon. With great disdain, she said, "Mr. Su could take a shine to trash like this? She's nowhere near the one from Qiwu back then."

Her words were pointed, and the woman, emboldened by Su Zeye's backing, flared up. Pointing a finger with nude polish at Shen Qiancheng, she demanded, "Who are you? How dare you meddle in Mr. Su's affairs?"

Her brows knitted in anger, her finger nearly jabbing into Shen Qiancheng's nose. Her overbearing attitude reminded Shen Qiancheng of the mistress she'd once seen on Shi Jianren's arm.

Shen Qiancheng smiled and let out a sigh. "Mr. Su, since we were both expelled from Qiwu, why don't you tell her who I am?"

The woman had been around the pleasure quarters long enough to know that if you knew Su Zeye, you had to know Shen Qiancheng.

Both were 'illustrious' figures in high society, famous for cruelty and malice. Su Zeye's vices leaned toward women and gambling, while Shen Qiancheng attacked people without rhyme or reason.

She'd heard that Shen Qiancheng had been expelled from Qiwu over some incident, and after transferring to No. 1 Middle School, within less than a month, she'd bullied a girl so badly she nearly attempted suicide.

As for why she'd targeted that girl, even the victim didn't know—it was simply at Shen Qiancheng's whim.

For that reason, better to cross Su Zeye than to cross Shen Qiancheng.

Shen Qiancheng savored the way the woman's face cycled through shades of pale and red. Raising an eyebrow, she said, "Mr. Su, aren't you going to let her go? Look how scared she is."

Since Shen Qiancheng had walked in, Su Zeye had wiped the smile off his face. He watched coldly as the woman charged headlong into her line of fire. His fun ruined, he found it dull and shoved the woman aside, turning curious eyes on Shen Qiancheng.

He had been expelled because of her, and now she herself had been kicked out of Qiwu. It should have been a happy occasion, but something felt off to Su Zeye.

Especially those eyes—half-smiling, as if nothing could escape her—annoying as ever.

Still...

Su Zeye straightened up and leaned in closer to Shen Qiancheng, but before he could speak, she pinched her nose and recoiled.

"That stench. Did you leave the house without brushing your teeth?"

Su Zeye froze, his eyes widening. "What the hell, Shen Qiancheng? You're such a bitch. I did brush my teeth."

"Not only did you not brush," Shen Qiancheng said flatly, "your mouth is full of crap."

Su Zeye had only ever been humiliated like this by Shen Qiancheng. Old grievances and new grudges surged together, and he grabbed the half-full glass of wine from the table, raising it to smash at her.

Shen Qiancheng watched his tantrum with cold indifference, unafraid. "Forget how you got expelled? Need me to remind you?"

With that, her eyes sharpened. The moment Su Zeye was distracted, she snatched the glass from his hand and sent it hurtling toward his forehead.

Su Zeye instinctively shut his eyes, but the glass never fell.

Above him rang Shen Qiancheng's contemptuous laugh.

"A coward like you dares to be mentioned in the same breath as me."

She set the glass back in its place. Su Zeye was about to retort when, conveniently, the manager came in carrying a glass of hot water.

Shen Qiancheng pulled a wet wipe from a packet and dabbed at the liquor that had splashed onto her fingers, saying flatly, "Leave it on the table."

Smarting from the slight, Su Zeye shot back, "You got expelled too—we're birds of a feather..."

Hearing this, Shen Qiancheng recoiled in disgust and drew a clear line between them, frowning. "Don't lump me in with you. I'm not some useless deadbeat. I had an offer from ETH before I got expelled. What about you? Heard you're studying CNC machining at a vocational school? How does that compare to the beds at Jile Paradise?"

After Su Zeye was expelled, his IELTS and AP scores hadn't met the requirements, and he hadn't wanted to study abroad. So he'd simply enrolled at a vocational school, where he could still experience campus romance. Not to mention the girls there were all stunning and knew how to please a man.

Now that Shen Qiancheng had brought it up, Su Zeye's face burned with shame, and his guard went up. "You've been investigating me?"

Ha. Idiot.

Shen Qiancheng's fingers brushed against the glass of hot water, and the scalding heat made her snatch her hand back quickly. She raised her eyes. "I know not only that you're studying CNC machining, but also why you came to see me today. Let's order first. Waiter."

The server, who had been trying to fade into the background by the door, stepped forward with the menu held in both hands.

Shen Qiancheng cast a sidelong glance at Su Zeye's face, black as the bottom of a pot, then leisurely flipped through the menu.

"Anything you'd like, Mr. Su?"

Su Zeye was too angry to eat a bite, his eyes blazing.

"Ladies first."

Shen Qiancheng chuckled lightly. "Mr. Su's temper is running hot, so we should order something to cool it down—some bitter melon. And to nourish that brain of yours, I'll make sure they use walnuts in the kung pao chicken..."

She kept flipping through the menu, which featured mostly northern cuisine. Her slender fingers danced over the pages, pointing here and there. The waiter, warned by the manager about Shen Qiancheng, kept his head down and dutifully noted down the dishes.

She turned another page and pointed. "Oh, they have pig head meat. Like cures like—bring three plates to fortify Mr. Su's... head."

"Shen Qiancheng!" Su Zeye's shout made the waiter tremble three times, his voice booming as if it would blow the roof off. "Don't push your luck!"

Shen Qiancheng wordlessly closed the menu, handed it to the waiter, and kicked the coffee table. The bottles wobbled and toppled.

"Su Zeye, who's got the louder voice?"

Her eyes held not a trace of anger, meeting his reckless gaze with an unruffled calm that only fueled his irritation.

"Shen Qiancheng, you really think I want to marry you? I didn't even want to come today."

Shen Qiancheng nodded in understanding. "You don't want to marry me, and I certainly don't want to marry you. Go home and tell your family—the engagement is off."

For a split second, Su Zeye felt as though he'd been tricked into willingly falling into her trap.

He took a step back, forced himself to sit down, and put on a sour expression. "No way, Shen Qiancheng. So you don't want to marry me? Then I'll marry you just for spite. I'll keep you by my side, make you do whatever I say, and from now on, I call the shots!"

Shen Qiancheng watched his smug, over-the-top antics and couldn't help but want to laugh.

She'd thought his viciousness and uselessness were an act, but they turned out to be his true nature.

Shen Qiancheng hadn't been entirely sure before, but now she was 100% certain.

She rose and walked to Su Zeye's right front, leaning down to meet his eyes, her own tinged red, a hint of threat in her voice.

"Mr. Su's grown accustomed to an easy life, so you dare to marry me? You ought to ask around why I was expelled from Qiwu."

Su Zeye felt a creeping sense of unease, but curiosity drove him. "Why were you expelled? Gambling? Prostitution? Or..."

"Is that all you can think of?" Shen Qiancheng reached behind her and picked up a knife from the fruit basket. Su Zeye turned his face away and caught sight of the blade, its cold gleam reflecting Shen Qiancheng's beautiful, wicked eyes.

"I killed someone."