Chapter 83 Trapped
Pei Lian leaned back on the sofa, his silver hair edged with light by the lamp, a few strands falling across his forehead, obscuring the emotions in his eyes.
The man had long eyelashes that were slightly lowered. Despite his stunning appearance, he was surrounded by an eerie aura that seemed completely out of place with his looks.
My thoughts drifted uncontrollably away.
When did it start?
Did it begin when he had people follow her and monitor her life? It began when her life was laid bare before him without reservation.
He enjoys appreciating photographs of artworks.
When it was learned that she had dissociative amnesia, the girl's fragile and broken nature transformed into a beautiful embellishment.
Therefore, the man hired more people to record her life.
On busy workdays, being able to admire the alluring photos when I return to the basement of the villa each night is a comfort.
He could see what the girl looked like at different times.
Not long after the girl regained her childhood memories, she was lost and helpless, sitting alone by the window, tears streaming down her face, her shoulders trembling slightly.
But when she receives a call that seems to be from a close friend, she wipes away her tears and responds in as cheerful a tone as possible, as if she doesn't want the person on the other end of the line to worry about her.
When a girl is in a bad mood, she likes to wander around aimlessly.
When she encounters stray dogs in the park, she will deliberately go to a convenience store to buy a sausage, squat down, carefully peel it open, and watch the dog gobble it down.
In the photo, she is passing by a flower bed and sees a kitten that is not afraid of people, and she can't help but want to reach out and touch it.
If the kitten scratches her impatiently, the girl will puff out her cheeks and squat down, seemingly muttering something under her breath.
He glared at the kitten for a while, then finally pulled out some disinfectant wipes from his bag and wiped the scratched area.
As she turned to leave, she couldn't help but look back after a few steps. Not long after, she returned to the same spot with the small can of food in her arms.
No matter how bad her mood was, the girl never seemed to transfer her negative emotions to unrelated people or things; she always processed them silently on her own.
Moreover, she was a pampered young lady who had been cherished since childhood, yet she did not have an excessively arrogant or spoiled attitude, and she would not look down on or neglect the outside world because of her different status.
She is perhaps more like any ordinary girl.
This is quite rare in a pampered family environment, which shows that the girl's mother taught her very well, and she herself seems to have been born with a kind of purity.
A kind of purity that allows his possessiveness and collecting desires to grow wildly.
She has an incredibly soft heart, yet possesses an unyielding tenacity.
It makes you want to bite into it and see what's inside.
The girl and he were complete opposites.
He disregarded rules, and morality was nothing more than a shackle binding ordinary people to him.
The girl was a work of art in his eyes, and the qualities she possessed were the very qualities he despised most: warmth.
But this temperature, like some kind of parasitic plant, silently entangled the brain and heart.
"This shouldn't have happened."
"He won't let that happen."
In the villa's basement, the anatomical chart that had hung there for years was now covered by layers of photos of the girl.
The man once thought he was in absolute control, scrutinizing the people in the photographs as if they were collectibles, weaving a web of what he believed to be an unbreakable barrier with his surveillance lens.
But he didn't realize that as he watched those scenes again and again, her laughter, her tears, and the subtle tenderness she hid in her heart seeped into his mind.
Perhaps, without anyone noticing, this net had already turned against him—trapping him.
By the time you realize it, it's probably too late.
A slight noise came from the second floor; it was Ruan Yi and Gu Zhi rummaging through their things.
Pei Lian pulled himself out of his strange thoughts and his gaze fell heavily on the second-floor stairwell.
He seemed to have successfully convinced himself, and his out-of-control emotions had disappeared.
The two people on the sofa were staring intently in the same direction.
The air felt thick with an impenetrable darkness. Each of them had their own thoughts, yet at this moment they stared at the staircase leading to the second floor with the same almost greedy gaze.
The sounds of Gu Zhi packing his luggage could still be heard upstairs, with the soft zipper clicking intermittently.
Ruan Yi went downstairs and bent down to rummage through the pile of documents in the corner of the living room, trying to make sure that no important information had been missed.
A suffocating figure suddenly blocked her way.
Fu Jingchen stood up at some point, his tall figure casting a heavy shadow that enveloped her entirely.
The man's eyes held a turbulent resentment and an unyielding stubbornness.
His Adam's apple bobbed, and his gaze was fixed on Ruan Yi's eyes, as if trying to find the truth within them.
"Then... what about the 'inspection' that Xiaoyi promised me?"
Their relationship was just one step away from being completely different.
Ruan Yi frowned subconsciously when he brought it up so bluntly.
Pei Lian is still here, and this pervert actually dares to say it now! Anyone would immediately recognize him! Shameless!
A strange sense of irritation and repulsion welled up inside her, and she even took a half step back, creating some distance between herself and the crowd.
"That?" she said casually, even with a hint of dismissive sarcasm.
"It was just a casual remark, did you really take it seriously?"
The girl's expression was as if she were looking at a troublesome old object.
She's exactly like a heartless woman who turns her back on someone after pulling up her pants, completely destroying the previous ambiguous and entangled relationship.
"Xiao Yi! You..."
The man seemed to have been hit hard by those words; he froze, his eyes almost overflowing with shock.
"It's that feeling again."
He was finally 100% certain that something was wrong with Ruan Yi in front of him.
How could Ruan Yi's attitude towards him have changed so much in such a short time?
One second they were breathing and entwined in his arms, the next they became so cold and harsh, even using such a hurtful tone to renege on their debt.
This is not how she would ever be.
The girl's thoughts seemed to be forcibly twisted in a strange direction by an invisible hand, and her feelings for him were completely overturned as a result.
From the moment Gu Zhi appeared, it was as if a reset button had been pressed on her; all the closeness and ambiguity were wiped out, and she even felt disgust instead.
The man stared at her unusually distant eyes.
His heart felt like it was being squeezed tightly by a hand, the pain making it almost impossible for him to breathe.
Ruan Yi must have been manipulated through some means.
Pei Lian stood up, walked over slowly, a perfectly gentle smile on his face, and spoke as if he were having a casual chat.
"Ruan Yi, did it go smoothly when you went to pick up Gu Zhi from the airport? Did you encounter any trouble?"
His voice was soft, with a soothing rhythm, as if guiding the girl to lower her guard.
Upon hearing this, Ruan Yi's brows furrowed almost imperceptibly, her temples throbbed, and her gaze momentarily became unfocused.
My previously clear thoughts were suddenly stirred by a blurry ripple, which vanished in an instant.
"It went smoothly." Ruan Yi blinked quickly, as if trying to dispel the strange feeling, her tone sounding very natural.
"It's nothing. I actually miss A-Zhi a lot too."
Pei Lian's gaze never left her face.
The girl's right eye twitched very slightly at the corner when she answered, a sign of nervous tension.
The frequency of blinking is also much faster than normal, and each time you blink, you can see that the eyeballs are rapidly vibrating under the eyelids.
Her words seemed uncertain, as if she were trying to hide something, and the way she swallowed also revealed the strangeness in her subconscious.
These micro-expressions and body language don't lie.
Is she lying? No, it should be... she's trying to convince herself that what she's saying is true.
When memory is distorted, thoughts are forcibly steered in a predetermined direction, resulting in a vague sense of confusion.
This is proof that the subconscious is resisting manipulation.
She probably noticed something was wrong even earlier than they did.
But he captured another point more clearly.
Even though Ruan Yi was resisting, the controlling force was strangely powerful.
Her unfocused gaze lasted only a moment before being replaced by an almost instinctive firmness, as if an invisible thread was firmly pulling her thoughts along.
Just a second before she deviated from the intended trajectory, she was immediately pulled back.
This is very unusual.
As a doctor, he understood better than anyone the difficulty of mind control and hypnosis.
Specific environment, long-term psychological suggestion, and drug assistance.
To achieve such complete control in broad daylight and in such a short time requires extremely stringent conditions.
But the girl's state at that moment was firmly grasped.
This only shows that the manipulators' preparations were far deeper and more thorough than they imagined.
It was definitely not a spur-of-the-moment decision.
The man had already made his judgment, but his face remained expressionless. He even slightly curved the corners of his lips, his tone carrying just the right amount of agreement.
"Really? That's great. You siblings haven't seen each other for a while."
Pei Lian's tone was gentle and patient, revealing no doubt whatsoever. Only his narrowed eyes flashed with a knowing, cold light.
It seems that Gu Zhi...
"It's dirtier than he thought."
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