Chapter 47 considered all the worst-case scenarios.

The carriage was quiet, with only the steady sound of the engine.

Ruan Yao was still wearing Huo Yanzhi's coat, and she secretly glanced at the man driving beside her out of the corner of her eye.

He stared intently at the road ahead, his profile appearing deep and distinct under the flickering streetlights. His long, slender fingers gripping the steering wheel exuded a refined strength.

In her past life, these hands were most adept at causing trouble for her.

She watched for a while, then secretly watched for a while longer.

"What are you looking at?"

The man's eyes remained fixed straight ahead, and his voice suddenly rang out.

Ruan Yao's heart skipped a beat, like a child caught doing something wrong. She quickly looked away, her cheeks flushing.

She wanted to ask, but he hadn't given her an answer to the question about the storage room yet.

But the words were on the tip of her tongue, and she swallowed them back.

"It's nothing." Her voice sounded weak and thin.

The car was quiet again.

After a while, Huo Yanzhi's voice rang out again.

How do you know how to grow orchids?

Ruan Yao was taken aback for a moment, then realized that he was curious about her behavior in the greenhouse.

She could have continued using her grandfather as an excuse, but the words took a different turn.

She turned her head, her bright, doe-like eyes looking at him, her tone carrying a hint of deliberate teasing.

"Huo Yanzhi, are you very concerned about my private life?"

Huo Yanzhi's fingers tightened almost imperceptibly around the steering wheel.

He was simply puzzled by the many abnormalities in her life, the skills she shouldn't know or possess, which were like mysteries etched into his heart.

But when she said it, it took on a different meaning.

"Just out of curiosity."

"Oh?" Ruan Yao deliberately drew out her words, leaning forward to close the distance between them. "Aren't you curious about anything else?"

Warm breaths, accompanied by the girl's sweet and soft fragrance, wafted over, and Huo Yanzhi felt the air around him begin to warm up.

His Adam's apple bobbed slightly as he tried to regain control of the conversation and distance himself from the conversation.

"Didn't Miss Ruan just call me Mr. Huo?"

Ruan Yao understood the subtext in his words; he knew she had been unhappy.

Far from feeling embarrassed at being caught, she instead felt a mischievous pleasure.

"So, do you want me to call you Mr. Huo, or... Yanzhi?"

The girl's voice was soft and gentle, with a subtle, almost imperceptible hook.

Huo Yanzhi's Adam's apple bobbed very slowly.

He didn't turn his head, but out of the corner of his eye he could catch a glimpse of her lips, which opened and closed, glistening with moisture.

She always did that; she could easily create cracks in the defenses he had built.

Those dark desires that he had forcibly suppressed deep in his heart began to surge uncontrollably.

Seeing that he didn't speak, Ruan Yao became even bolder.

"Huo Yanzhi, you still haven't given me an answer to what I said to you at the hospital that day."

The moment those words were spoken, the ambiguous tension in the carriage seemed to freeze for a moment.

The red light came on, and the car came to a smooth stop.

Huo Yanzhi didn't look at her; his deep eyes were fixed on the traffic ahead, his jawline taut.

Time passed second by second, each second feeling like it was repeatedly crushing Ruan Yao's heart.

Her hands, resting on her knees, unconsciously tightened around the hem of her skirt.

Has she been too hasty again?

Just then, Huo Yanzhi spoke.

"I have no plans to get married for the time being."

Ruan Yao didn't speak, her long eyelashes concealing the turbulent emotions in her eyes.

She slowly sat up straight, lowered her eyes, and looked at her interlaced fingers, lost in thought.

Huo Yanzhi could sense the change in the girl's aura beside him; that vibrant, joyful energy had instantly vanished.

When the green light came on, the cars rejoined the traffic flow.

Outside the train window, the city lights shone brightly at night, but inside the carriage, all was quiet.

After an unknown amount of time, the car drove into a brightly lit street, and deafening music pierced through the car windows, faintly drifting in.

It is a famous bar street in northern Beijing.

Ruan Yao seemed to suddenly remember something and abruptly raised her head.

"parking."

Huo Yanzhi stepped on the brakes and brought the car to a stop on the side of the road.

Ruan Yao unbuckled her seatbelt, took off her coat which still held his warmth, and placed it on the passenger seat.

“I remember now, my best friend Jiang Tangtang is having her birthday party at ‘Nightfall’ today and asked me to come over. I’ll get out of the car now.”

After she finished speaking, she got out of the car without waiting for his response.

A cool evening breeze blew by, and Ruan Yao, wearing only a thin dress, couldn't help but shiver.

Huo Yanzhi frowned as he looked at her standing by the roadside. "I'll take you there."

"No."

Ruan Yao shook her head.

"It's right here. I can go in by myself."

The moment the car door closed, it shut out all the noise from outside.

Huo Yanzhi didn't start the car immediately. He sat in the driver's seat, watching that slender figure from behind.

He assumed she would go straight into the bar.

But no.

Looking in his rearview mirror, he saw Ruan Yao standing alone by the roadside, amidst the dazzling neon lights, her head bowed.

Huo Yanzhi did not move.

He forced himself to step on the gas, leaving that slender figure standing under the streetlight completely out of the rearview mirror.

There's no turning back.

Since you've decided not to entangle us in this life, you should harden your heart.

The engine started, and the black Bentley smoothly merged into the traffic, leaving the neon lights and the figure behind.

The lights outside the car window rushed past, stretching into blurry beams.

Huo Yanzhi gripped the steering wheel, his eyes fixed ahead, but the image of Ruan Yao standing by the roadside with her head down lingered in his mind.

He remembered how she carefully folded his coat and placed it on the passenger seat before she got out of the car.

I remembered the fleeting disappointment in her eyes when she forced herself to say she was going to a party.

A dull, throbbing pain shot through my heart.

He knew she was very sad.

Huo Yanzhi's gaze fell on the endless stream of cars ahead, the city's dazzling lights reflected in his unfathomable pupils.

Jiang Tangtang's birthday...

Huo Yanzhi tapped his fingertips unconsciously on the steering wheel.

A detail he had just overlooked suddenly came to light.

In her past life, Ruan Yao also threw a birthday party for Jiang Tangtang, but the date wasn't today.

She wasn't going to any party at all.

After being rejected by him, she made up an excuse and fled the suffocating car in a disheveled state.

So where is she now, all alone?

"squeak--"

The ear-piercing sound of tires screeching through the night sky.

The black Bentley made a reckless swerve in the middle of the road, ignoring the honking and curses that followed, and sped back the way it came like a madman.

What should have been a few minutes' journey now felt incredibly long.

When the car stopped again in front of the "Nightfall" bar, Huo Yanzhi's heart almost jumped out of his chest.

That familiar spot by the roadside was now empty.

She wasn't there.

The figure he longed for was gone.

A chill ran from the soles of his feet to the top of his head, and Huo Yanzhi's heart sank.

He strode toward the door of the "Nightfall" bar.

Deafening music and a heat wave mixed with the smell of alcohol hit us.

The dance floor was filled with people dancing wildly, while men and women sipped their drinks in the booths.

He paid no attention to anything else, his eyes rapidly scanning the swaying crowd on the dance floor and every dimly lit corner of the booths.

No.

She wasn't there.

Huo Yanzhi's expensive suit and cold aura clashed with the decadent atmosphere of the place, quickly attracting the attention of those around him.

A woman in a sundress approached, holding a wine glass, her breath sweet and fragrant.

"Handsome guy, all alone?"

"Get out of here."

Huo Yanzhi didn't even turn his head, but squeezed out two words through gritted teeth.

The woman shuddered at the terrifying aura emanating from him, sobering up considerably, and awkwardly retreated.

Huo Yanzhi walked through the noisy bar, his heart beating faster and faster, heavier and heavier.

He searched the entire bar, but couldn't find Ruan Yao.

Huo Yanzhi retreated from the noisy bar, a huge panic gripping him.

Where did she go?

Where can she go?

Countless terrifying thoughts exploded in his mind, and his blood almost froze.

What if she encounters bad people again?

What if she gets drunk in her grief and is taken away by someone...?

Huo Yanzhi dared not think any further.

All the composure and restraint he had forcibly suppressed crumbled at this moment.

Huo Yanzhi took out his phone, his fingertips trembling slightly from the force. He found Qin Feng's number and was about to dial it.

Just then, a soft, slightly uncertain voice came from across the street.

"Huo Yanzhi?"