"..."
The boy's footsteps drew ever closer, and her own heart pounded deafeningly.
What is she nervous about?
Damn it, Mu Yiran herself didn't know why she was so nervous!
She had been lying next to that stinking cleaning building for who knows how long, and now the air was thick with the stench of excrement.
This was nothing like the reunion with Shi Youxi she had imagined!
I need to go boating...
After she finished brushing her teeth and rinsing her face, she greeted Shi Youxi with a perfect new look!
"...New neighbor? Why aren't you saying anything?"
"I just moved here too, and I know all the other residents on this floor, but I haven't said hello to you yet..."
Shi Youxi glanced at the woman's fair nape and exposed arms, and smiled:
"Or are you just socially awkward, and breaking down the door is your way of saying hello?"
His tall figure had already overshadowed Mu Yiran's projection on the door. Without thinking, she lowered her head and said:
"It's him, the secret Marseille, the thick Su Gang Ma!" (Sorry, I'm drunk.)
He staggered as he stepped into the house.
Perhaps she was too immersed in the role, because when Youxi casually mentioned in Chinese that she had dropped something, Mu Yiran turned her head without hesitation.
He turned around without hesitation...
She turned her head...
There was nothing on the ground!
But it was too late. Shi Youxi grabbed the woman who was suddenly retreating and used his index finger to lift the brim of her hat.
"Got you?"
"....."
The wide sun hat brushed past the woman's face and lightly landed on the shoes of the two people standing opposite each other, making them both feel pain.
Mu Yiran and Shi Youxi looked at each other, staring at the boy's face so close to theirs, and neither of them uttered a sound.
Little beauty... no, I can't call her little beauty anymore.
Mu Yiran just wanted to shout: This damn beauty!
He actually dyed his hair a light pink.
The midday sun streamed through the corridor windows, illuminating Shi Youxi's profile. Mu Yiran felt as if she were looking at a leaf under a tree, its surface translucent with light.
Only she caught a glimpse of this stunning side.
“You…” Mu Yiran hesitated before speaking, and a slightly cool hand touched her cheek.
Shi Youxi stared intently at the woman's face, his fingertips touching her eyelashes, then drifting down to the mole on the tip of her nose that haunted his dreams every night, and the lips he had sketched countless times over the past six months.
He could clearly feel the trembling and warmth emanating from beneath that thin layer of skin...
Alive, real.
"It really looks like it..."
It's more like every one of the previous ones.
Mu Yiran: "What?"
Shi Youxi's phoenix eyes were deep and unfathomable. His hand loosely gripped Mu Yiran's neck, a small razor blade hidden in his palm ready to slice into the throbbing veins beneath her skin at any moment. He stared at Mu Yiran's face and suddenly chuckled:
"It seems you can speak Chinese. Please introduce yourself."
What's your name?
"......"
Mu Yiran felt something was strange. It seemed that Shi Youxi had changed more than just his hairstyle. She knew all too well what his smile was like.
Mu Yiran's eyes were filled with Shi Youxi's smiling expression, whether he was happy, angry, or even when he was throwing a tantrum and being sarcastic towards her, his smile was more beautiful than this one.
But it's still beautiful.
Countless smiling faces overlapped, clearly forming the face of the boy before her. Mu Yiran pulled his hand away and said:
“I, my name is Mu... um, Mu Yiran.”
"My name is Mu Yiran."
“Mu, Yi, Ran?” Shi Youxi read each word carefully.
"Which one?"
Mu Yiran almost said it was Cheng Ran's Ran, but she pursed her lips and corrected herself: "Ran with the female radical."
“Ran…” Shi Youxi murmured, then burst into laughter, muttering to himself:
"So, is this our first meeting? My name is Shi Youxi. In the future... please take care of me."
He had no intention of listening to the woman's answer; he just wanted to say it.
The razor blade landed in his palm, and without hesitation, he sliced it across the woman's slender neck—
"Stop it!"
Before Mu Yiran could even see what was happening, she was suddenly shoved behind her by Condis's elbow, and the tall British boy stood in front of her like a wall.
Seeing Candice raise his arm, Mu Yiran quickly stopped him, "Wait! Candice!"
She darted between the two tall men, nestled in the hole in the ground, looking left and right, and said directly to Shi Youxi, whose face was grim:
"What are you doing? Kids are starting to fight now?"
Upon hearing these words, Shi Youxi's cold phoenix eyes instantly rippled like a stone thrown into a calm lake, creating a stormy sea.
"you...."
As soon as she said this, Mu Yiran felt something was off. The hand she was about to reach out and pinch Shi Youxi's cheek abruptly changed direction, turning instead to speak to the nearly 1.9-meter-tall, 20-year-old Kandis:
"I'm talking about you!"
Kandis: "......."
"Ran, why are you talking about me..." He pointed to Shi Youxi's left hand, "He was just about to—"
Mu Yiran gave a forced smile, grabbed Kandis's hand and pushed him into the apartment. "Someone just reminded me that I lost something. What do you want? To borrow the bathroom? Let's go inside and talk!"
"...No, I'm here to return your things..."
The door was closed in front of Shi Youxi, the gap narrowing. Mu Yiran met his gaze, his dark eyes burning her, and she slammed the door shut.
"......"
The corridor fell silent again, leaving only the boy's slender back. Shi Youxi's gaze was fixed on the void, the razor blade clutched in his hand. Only when warm blood flowed from between his fingers did he give a self-deprecating smile.
"A little kid? Ha..."
Shi Youxi clenched his fists and waited a while before taking out his phone and making a call. As if sensing something, he looked up and stared straight at the peephole on the door in front of him.
Mu Yiran, who was peeking from the other side of the door, shrank to the side, no longer daring to look.
Candice was forced to sit on the shoe cabinet in the entryway. "Ran, what are you looking at? Shi Youxi is still outside the door? See, I'm telling the truth! He really did try to..."
His Chinese vocabulary was limited, and after thinking for a long time, he managed to come up with a single word:
"He has ulterior motives towards you!"
"He won't."
Condis was taken aback by her certain tone: "Why? Are you very familiar with him?"
Mu Yiran paused for a moment, then put her hands on her hips and looked at the blue-eyed boy. "I haven't even asked you yet if you're close to him. How do you know his name is Shi Youxi?"
Candice frowned: "I've seen him a few times at family parties."
A party at home?
Candice gave a muffled "hmm," not wanting to say more, and Mu Yiran, being cautious, didn't ask any further questions.
She is different now than before when she transmigrated. Even if her personality has changed drastically, with the protective layer of her physical body, her persona will not collapse no matter how badly it crumbles.
But things are different now.
Let's not even talk about when "Mu Yiran" will come back.
She didn't even know what the relationship was between "Mu Yiran" and Candice.
Mu Yiran must be extremely careful in everything she does.
Thinking of this, Mu Yiran sent Candice back. The door across the corridor was closed, and Shi Youxi didn't know whether she had gone home or left.
Condis deliberately shouted in the corridor to tell Mu Yiran to be careful.
"Or I can move downstairs. If you need anything, you can call me from the balcony, and I can climb up through the window—it's super fast!"
"...Does the downstairs apartment also belong to you?"
"Not now, but if you think it's okay, I'll make it that way..."
Inside the door, Shi Youxi leaned against the wall. He hadn't closed the door properly, and he could hear Candice's conversation with the woman clearly.
Only after hearing the woman reject Candice and tell him to leave did he speak to Shi Si on the other end of the phone:
When will we be able to find out?
Shi Si: "It's hard to say. Try to do it at night. The apartment next to yours is rented out, so they should be able to find out her identity information. But since you suspect she was sent to seduce you or... get close to you, why don't you just bring her back?"
Shi Si was very puzzled.
Women like this would appear every now and then after Shi Youxi went abroad, and after a while, Shi Si could tell that it happened.
Those women were more or less like Cheng Ran.
But Shi Youxi always handled things on his own, while Shi Si was always the one who was notified to clean up the mess. Even when he was stabbed by those women, Shi Si never received the boy's call for help.
Why is this time different?
"It's none of your business," Shi Youxi said coldly.
Shi Si stopped instructing his subordinates, closed his eyes, and touched his chin. Damn it, he still couldn't help it!
"You're so high and mighty! You're so pretentious! If you're so capable, go and investigate yourself! Now you want to work as a team? Too late!"
"Then I'll look it up myself."
Shi Si: "Hey, hey, hey, just kidding—"
The phone call was disconnected, and Shi Si's cries vanished without a trace.
Shi Youxi closed the door tightly, leaving only a light on the ceiling in the entryway, and stared at the wallpaper on his phone's home screen.
If Helian Xin were here right now, she would definitely recognize it.
This is the photo she saw more than a year ago, which she thought was of Cheng Ran.
The photo was edited by Shi Youxi.
It doesn't resemble Cheng Ran at all; it's a face he modified based on the person he saw.
The boy's pupils clearly reflected the face that was etched into his mind and kept appearing in his dreams.
It couldn't be her...
It couldn't be her.
Someone must have taken this photo and leaked it, which is why it looks so similar.
It couldn't be her, absolutely not.
No! No! No! No!
Like brainwashing, Shi Youxi repeated it over and over again, extinguishing the fire that spontaneously combusted in his heart.
Every time Shi Youxi thought of that face, he would repeat it, but it was no use. He closed his eyes and tried to stop thinking about it, but the word "little friend" was like gasoline, burning fiercely and impossible to suppress.
Shi Youxi felt that he was having an attack. He poured out the medicine and put it in his mouth. The medicine took effect, and dizziness surged into his brain like a tide.
He didn't know how much time had passed before he realized that night had fallen. He was sitting on the floor in the entryway, his phone had been lit for a long time, and the low battery warning had obscured his face.
Shi Youxi's gaze fell on it. He didn't turn off the reminder. After a long while, he got up, went into the room, grabbed something, and opened the apartment door.
...
After Condis left, Mu Yiran took a quick walk around the apartment and saw some onboarding documents and personal identification on the living room table.
Her original name was Mu Yiran.
This person was hit...
The ID was brand new. Mu Yiran looked at the ID photo carefully. At least from the photo, Mu Yiran looked exactly like her, even the position of the mole was exactly the same.
Aside from that, Mu Yiran didn't find anything else. Everything in the apartment was new, but it was clear that Mu Yiran seemed to have a bit of OCD. Everything was arranged according to color gradation, either extremely dark or white.
Basically all of Mu Yiran's personal belongings were there, including her cell phone, which was placed on her office desk.
So where did Mu Yiran go? She didn't even take her phone with her.
Mu Yiran didn't know what to do, so she decided to wait and see if Mu Yiran would come back tonight.
And then there's Shi Youxi...
Actually, she hadn't figured out how to reveal her true identity to Shi Youxi yet.
Mu Yiran hesitated for a moment.
Will Shi Youxi blame her? Blame her for not keeping her word? Blame herself for not going to see him for so long?
She needs to prepare something, just in case he gets really angry, so at least she can use it to appease him. But she doesn't even have any money right now, what should she do...?
Thinking like that, I don't know when I fell asleep.
She was fast asleep and didn't even hear the door open.
Shi Youxi stood by the sofa, quietly gazing at the woman whose head was tilted to the left and whose cheeks were puffed out from sleeping. Perhaps because of the cold, she lowered her head and shrank back like an ostrich.
Shi Youxi was stung by the woman's action and suddenly reached out to grab her neck, beginning to tighten his grip.
"Buzz—" His pocket phone vibrated, interrupting his actions.
"....."
Shi Youxi blinked, withdrew his hand, and answered Shi Si's call. He wasn't worried about waking Mu Yiran at all and put it on speakerphone.
Shi Si: "We found her. This woman's name is Mu Yiran. Her parents are Chinese immigrants. She was born in a small town in England in 1996. Her mother has passed away, and her father is said to be missing due to a large debt. Oh, she also has a younger brother, but we haven't found him yet..."
Shi Youxi interrupted him: "Do you have any photos?"
"Yes, I sent it to you, but..." Shi Si glanced at the photo on the computer and asked in confusion, "Why did Qi Pan choose such an ordinary woman this time?"
Nothing special?
Shi Youxi's brow twitched. He seemed to know something. He exited the call interface, opened the text message, and saw an unfamiliar face in the photo. His fingers trembled unconsciously. Shi Youxi looked away and looked at the woman on the sofa.
No...
It's just a face; a little plastic surgery can make it look like that!
"I checked this woman's whereabouts over the past few days. Aside from the school's surveillance footage, there's nothing else. Qi Pan is quite resourceful; he cleaned up the traces very well. No wonder he's from the Shi Men (a prestigious organization). But! We brothers are still the better ones, you get it..."
While Shi Si was still subtly and overtly indoctrinating Shi Youxi about the importance of teamwork, he heard the young man on the other end of the phone ask in a low voice:
What are this woman's habits?
Shi Si: "Habit? What are you going to do? Are you still planning to chat with her? Hurry up and deal with it!"
Suddenly realizing something, Shi Si became alert:
"You wouldn't be trying to seduce Qi Pan just to get rid of her, would you?!"
...
Mu Yiran was woken up by her phone ringing. Despite her aching body, she grabbed the phone from the table.
Suddenly, a string of curses in both Chinese and English rang in my ears.
"Where are you! Why didn't you go with Shi Youxi when I told you to? He's already at the academy for classes, where are you?"
Mu Yiran was jolted awake by the noise. With a start, she realized that the person on the other end of the phone was the woman from yesterday.
The apartment was empty, just like yesterday; Mu Yiran still hadn't returned.
The blonde woman was furious. She sent several photos of a boy with a swollen and bruised face. "I'm warning you, do as I say, or you'll never see your brother again!"
Mu Yiran had no choice but to quickly wash up and rush to Qiao Lisi. Before she could even prepare, the blonde woman waiting in the corner outside the classroom pushed her in and shoved a cup of coffee into her hand.
The spacious classroom was filled with neatly stacked molds and gemstones, and large workbenches were arranged in sections. The students were all immersed in their own designs.
This was the scene that Mu Yiran had been most looking forward to when she came to Qiao Lisi for her studies, but she had no mind to appreciate it now.
The design courses are very independent, so the students didn't react when they saw her. Mu Yiran spotted Shi Youxi at the back of the classroom immediately.
I must say, that pink hair really does attract attention.
The young man was drawing a design at his desk when he noticed someone approaching. He looked up and met Mu Yiran's gaze. Shi Youxi stared at her intently and suddenly said:
"elder sister."
Mu Yiran's blood froze instantly. "What?"
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com