Zhuo Wenshu truly had the intent to kill at this moment. He wasn’t just threatening, and he wouldn’t allow Shi Jiaojiao to speak either. But she had already tested his limits with her life before—his tone, though terrifying, signaled that he was merely threatening her, not really planning to go through with it. If he were, there wouldn’t be a warning.
Shi Jiaojiao, ever perceptive, buried her head in the sheets and nodded fervently, letting out muffled sounds of agreement.
Zhuo Wenshu finally let go of her. She stood up, gasping for air, the bandage on her head knocked loose. Although her wound wasn’t bleeding, the gash on her porcelain-white forehead looked quite alarming. If it were any other girl, there would have been screams and chaos. But Shi Jiaojiao merely touched the wound gently, hissed in pain, and then continued to help Zhuo Wenshu lie back on the bed.
“I’ll notify the others,” she said dutifully, though when she left the hospital room, it wasn’t to make any phone calls—it was to get her bandage rewrapped.
Of course, she wasn’t going to call anyone. What would be the point of summoning his friends and having them crowd around like a pack of watchdogs? How would she carry on her plan then? How would there be any “romantic sparks” if they were all there?
After having her wound tended to and wandering around for a bit, she returned to the hospital room with some food she’d bought. Meeting Zhuo Wenshu’s gaze, she shamelessly said, “I’ve notified them. I couldn’t find their numbers, so I had to go to the shop in person. But it was super busy there today…”
Zhuo Wenshu looked at her, his lips twitching slightly, and after a moment, he let out a quiet scoff.
He didn’t ask any more questions.
Once, they had been neighbors, and Zhuo Wenshu hadn’t known much about Shi Jiaojiao at first. He’d been deceived by her innocent appearance and small gestures of kindness, but in the end, he had fallen for one of her biggest traps. Back then, she used to mask her true nature with a pitiful demeanor, hiding her malice behind a facade of helplessness. Even when she caused harm, it was always with a narrative of having no other choice.
However, the five years she spent living a comfortable life among the wealthy had changed her. She was still the same person at heart, but now, she no longer felt the need to hide her claws. Her deceit was sloppy, her acting abysmal. She had destroyed his life and still had the audacity to act like nothing had happened. Zhuo Wenshu had clearly underestimated just how shameless she could be, thinking she might actually have notified his friends.
Shi Jiaojiao, blissfully unaware that Zhuo Wenshu had seen through her lies, carried on pretending.
Since he hadn’t pressed further, she didn’t mention it again either.
Throughout his recovery in the hospital, Shi Jiaojiao took care of him personally, handling everything with meticulous attention. She seemed like the perfect picture of a devoted girlfriend, tending to all his needs with care and affection.
Every day around noon, Shi Jiaojiao would help Zhuo Wenshu take a few laps around the hospital corridor. His leg had mostly healed, and though they didn’t exchange much conversation, the two of them walking together created the illusion of a deeply bonded couple, though one steeped in unspoken tension.
To the nurses who worked there, it was a different story. They knew all too well that the scar on Shi Jiaojiao’s forehead was from her “boyfriend,” and the bruises on her neck were the result of his hands around her throat. She frequently visited the nurse’s station to get her wounds treated, and in their eyes, she was just another rich, beautiful girl, hopelessly infatuated with a no-good thug who couldn’t stop hurting her.
The reality was more complicated: most of her injuries were self-inflicted.
Shi Jiaojiao purposely provoked Zhuo Wenshu, testing his patience until he had no choice but to retaliate. Her goal was simple—each time he lashed out at her, a tiny bit of his anger and resentment would subside. The progress was slow, but even the smallest gains mattered in her desperate situation.
And if she pushed him hard enough, repeatedly crossing his boundaries, she’d eventually wear him down. In fact, things had already improved—sometimes when she teased him by kissing his cheek, Zhuo Wenshu wouldn’t react as violently as he used to. He’d merely scowl at her, his hands staying at his sides.
Of course, Shi Jiaojiao wasn’t sitting idly by either. Zhuo Wenshu had a strict daily routine, and once he fell asleep, she would sneak out. She couldn’t rely solely on his punches to reduce his resentment; she needed a bigger plan.
One day, after carefully setting her plans in motion, she returned to the hospital to find that Zhuo Wenshu was gone.
Panicked, Shi Jiaojiao rushed to the nurse’s station. Apparently, he had discharged himself. She sped over to the tattoo parlor where his friends hung out, only to learn that Zhuo Wenshu hadn’t returned there either.
“Wenshu was in the hospital?” Fatty, one of his friends, frowned. “No wonder we hadn’t heard from him in so long. Why didn’t he tell us?”
He shot a questioning look at Shi Jiaojiao. She blinked innocently and pushed the blame onto Zhuo Wenshu without missing a beat. “Wenshu didn’t want to trouble you guys after getting out. He made me promise not to tell anyone…”
The truth was, she had conveniently “lost” Zhuo Wenshu’s old phone and hadn’t let him contact anyone. While in the hospital, the only time Zhuo Wenshu had been able to connect with the outside world was through a brief video call to his mother at the nursing home.
Ah! The nursing home!
Brushing off Fatty’s concerns with a few well-placed excuses, Shi Jiaojiao jumped back into her car and headed straight for Yushan Nursing Home. The moment she parked and stepped out of the car, Zhuo Wenshu appeared, eyes blazing red. He grabbed her arm and slammed her against the car door, his rage practically tangible.
His hand tightened around her bruised neck, pressing down on her most vulnerable spot. “Where’s my mother? She’s not here—where did you take her?”
“Shi Jiaojiao,” his voice was as cold as venom, “do you really think I’m afraid to kill you or go back to prison?”
His words were deadly serious, but his grip wasn’t as strong as it could be. His thumb hovered over her pulse point, a constant reminder that her life was in his hands.
Shi Jiaojiao had long since moved his mother out of the nursing home. She hadn’t told him yet because she was setting up something bigger, something that needed precise timing. Sighing softly, she reached out to touch Zhuo Wenshu’s stubbly hair—a habit he still wouldn’t let her indulge in—and, before he could get angrier, she let her hand drop to his arm. Her expression was full of feigned sorrow as she said, “I bought a house. I moved Mom in with us. I wanted to surprise you, but then you discharged yourself early without telling me.”
Zhuo Wenshu didn’t believe a single word. His grip tightened on her, but Shi Jiaojiao bit her lip, tears brimming in her eyes. “Wenshu, can’t you trust me, even a little?”
But he wasn’t moved. “Cut the crap,” he growled. “Take me to her. If you’re playing games, I’ll make sure you don’t see tomorrow’s sunrise.”
“Then let go of me,” she said calmly. “I’ll drive us there.”
Her tone was so steady that it gave Zhuo Wenshu pause. He released her, but not without a final warning. “You better not try anything.”
If I had been playing by the rules, you’d have killed me already, she thought bitterly as she climbed back into the car. Zhuo Wenshu slid into the passenger seat, and the drive was silent.
It was early afternoon, and Shi Jiaojiao kept one eye on the road and the other on Zhuo Wenshu’s expression. Each time he caught her staring, his fierce gaze made her want to shrink back in fear.
This man’s heart had turned to stone during his years in prison. Breaking through that stone would require immense force.
But Shi Jiaojiao wasn’t afraid. After all, she was a novelist. She knew how to turn dead ends into dramatic plot twists. Her first hammer strike was coming.
The afternoon sun bathed the world in warm yellow light as Shi Jiaojiao rested her elbow on the car window, taking a back road that wound through a crumbling, half-demolished neighborhood. The air was thick with dust, and Shi Jiaojiao let the wind blow through the slightly opened window, even as it carried the stinging debris inside. She bit her fingertip—a signature gesture she always did before planning something drastic—and her fingers lazily brushed her fringe from her eyes, which gleamed with hidden intentions.
Just as the traffic light began its ten-second countdown, a group of burly men in black appeared out of nowhere. With lightning speed, they yanked open the car door, and before Shi Jiaojiao could scream, they pressed a cloth over her mouth, dragging her out of the car and throwing her into a waiting van.
Zhuo Wenshu reacted immediately. Within seconds, he had leaped into the driver’s seat and floored the gas pedal, speeding after the van that had just kidnapped Shi Jiaojiao.
This high-speed chase through the streets was straight out of a drama—exactly the kind of scene that always popped up in cliché-filled novels. It was ironic that now, it wasn’t the leading couple experiencing it, but them.
Inside the van, Shi Jiaojiao kicked off the black-clad thugs who had grabbed her and scrambled to the rear window. Pressing her face against the one-way glass, she saw her car tailing closely behind, and let out a sigh of relief.
The three burly men, now without their masks, sat around Shi Jiaojiao. One of them, a massive guy whose muscles practically strained against his suit, was nervously thumping his chest with his fist, his expression panicked. “Damn! I thought we were screwed! What if he hadn’t followed us or called the police? What would we have done then?”
Shi Jiaojiao waved her hand dismissively. “Relax. His life is in my hands, and he doesn’t have his phone.”
This was the first hammer blow in her plan—a calculated risk to see if she could finally crack Zhuo Wenshu’s defenses. The next step would be revealing the house she had prepared for him and his mother, but before that, she needed to create a sense of shared danger—a classic emotional hook.
Still worried, the muscular man asked again, “But what if he borrows a phone to call the police? We agreed to just play along, but if anything goes wrong, we’re throwing you under the bus.”
Shi Jiaojiao rolled her eyes at him. “We’re in a demolition zone! The nearest public phone is broken, and even if he borrows one, do you think he can catch up on foot?”
The man seemed to have taken a personal interest in challenging her plans. “But what if he robs someone for a phone and calls the police?”
Shi Jiaojiao gave him a bemused look, as if studying a strange creature. “You should write novels with an imagination like that!”
She wasn’t too worried. She had planned everything meticulously, from the timing to the route. The car even had a signal jammer installed to prevent any calls from being made. Zhuo Wenshu, having spent years in prison, had developed an aversion to the police. He wouldn’t risk involving them unless he absolutely had to.
Moreover, she hadn’t told Zhuo Wenshu where his mother was, and with his suspicious nature, he wouldn’t rest until he found out. She was betting that he would follow them, no matter what.
True to her prediction, Zhuo Wenshu was practically driving with his foot jammed into the gas pedal. His car’s powerful engine quickly closed the gap between them. The road was narrow, and Zhuo Wenshu drove like a man possessed, pushing the nose of his car up against the back of the van, causing sparks to fly as metal scraped against metal.
The driver of the van screamed, his face turning red with panic. “Oh my god! He’s crazy! There’s a ditch right next to us—we’re going to crash!”
The bodybuilder beside Shi Jiaojiao, now fully panicking, kept slapping her on the back with his huge fists. “We need to stop! He’s going to kill us!”
Shi Jiaojiao felt like she was going to cough up blood from the force of his hits.