In the study of the Ji family's old mansion, the sandalwood bookshelves cast a cold shadow.
Ji Luoqin stood by the window, a newly delivered document between his fingers, the edges of the paper crumpled from his grip.
The above is the final result of the Su family's bankruptcy liquidation, and also irrefutable evidence of his embezzlement of public funds. You can almost smell the gunpowder between the ink marks.
"You've arrived."
He didn't turn around, and his voice was devoid of emotion; only the soft rustling of the curtains in the wind could be heard, as if he were seeing someone off.
Yu Jiuyuan walked in, her high heels clicking as the hem of her white dress swept across the carpet, creating a soft, rustling sound.
Her pinky ring glowed with a faint blue light in the dim light. On the system panel, Ji Luoqin's favorability rating was stuck at 85, but negative emotions, like wildly growing vines, had already filled the value bar.
"Young Master Ji, did you come to me to discuss terms?" She walked up behind him, at a distance that was neither too close nor too far, just enough to smell the cool rose scent on him, mixed with a faint tobacco smell.
Ji Luoqin finally turned around, her eyes bloodshot like a spider web, yet she stared intently at her, as if trying to etch her image into her very bones: "You did it."
It's not a question, it's a statement.
He knew better than anyone that there must be an invisible hand pulling the strings behind the scenes to gather so much evidence in just three days and to make Su Jingshu turn against him so decisively.
The owner of these hands could only be the seemingly harmless young lady in front of us.
"So what if it is?"
Yu Jiuyuan laughed, the innocence in her eyes shattering into tiny stars, revealing the madness hidden beneath, "Young Master Ji should have known this day would come when he attacked Sheng Han."
She deliberately brought up Rong Shenghan, as if rubbing salt into his bleeding wound.
Ji Luoqin clenched her fist tightly, her knuckles turning white, her Adam's apple bobbing with suppressed rage: "For him? You really want me dead?"
"Death is too good for you."
Yu Jiuyuan took a step forward, tiptoed closer to his ear, and said in a sickeningly sweet voice, "I want you to watch the Ji family fall, watch the Su family perish, watch yourself lose everything, and finally beg me on your knees."
Her breath, carrying the scent of gardenias, brushed against his ear, yet felt more biting than the winter wind.
Ji Luoqin's gaze fell on her lips, then he suddenly grabbed the back of her neck and kissed her fiercely.
The kiss was ruthless and merciless; when his tongue pried open her teeth, he could almost taste blood.
Yu Jiuyuan didn't struggle. Instead, she reached out and hugged his neck, welcoming his kiss as if she were dancing a death waltz.
The blue light from the pinky ring suddenly flashed intensely, like a lit fuse.
The system panel exploded with dazzling light in my mind, and Ji Luoqin's favorability rating soared at an astonishing speed: 86, 90, 95... and finally settled steadily at 100. The positive emotional fluctuations broke through 200, like magma during a volcanic eruption, scorching and burning.
Ji Luoqin's movements suddenly stopped, and the anger in her eyes was instantly replaced by shock.
He could clearly feel that what was surging in his chest was not hatred or anger, but a more complex and turbulent emotion: the resentment of being schemed against by her, the excitement of seeing her sharp edge, and the descent into depravity of knowing she was poison but willingly drinking it.
“We’re crazy…” he gasped, his forehead pressed against hers, his voice hoarse as if it had been sanded with sandpaper, “We’re all crazy.”
Yu Jiuyuan smiled, her fingertips tracing his Adam's apple, the movement carrying the composure of a victor: "You were the one who went mad first, Ji Luoqin."
She clearly remembered that when they first met at a dinner party when she was a child, his eyes held a possessiveness that seemed determined to win her over.
I remember the ruthlessness with which he drugged her.
I remember his arrogance when he made her beg him.
I also remember the moment when he was at the horse farm, knowing that she was using him, he still reined in the black horse for her.
This man was trapped from the very beginning, trapped in the web she wove, trapped in the attraction he refused to admit, until now he has completely succumbed.
What do you want?
Ji Luoqin suddenly asked, the madness in her eyes mirroring her own, "Just tell me, and I'll give you everything else. The Ji family's shares, the power I hold, even... my life."
"I don't want anything."
Yu Jiuyuan pushed him away, straightened her disheveled skirt as if brushing away something dirty, and said, "I just want you to accept your defeat wholeheartedly."
She turned and walked toward the door, the sound of her high heels on the floor exceptionally clear, like a bell tolling for his failure.
As he reached the door, he suddenly stopped without turning around: "Oh right, I forgot to tell you."
“Your brother Ji Nianqin has already shifted all the blame onto you. He says that you did all of this behind his back.”
Ji Luoqin suddenly looked up, the last glimmer of hope in her eyes shattered completely.
He watched Yu Jiuyuan's figure disappear behind the door, then suddenly chuckled softly, a laugh tinged with self-mockery and despair, which ultimately turned into a heavy sigh.
Sunlight streamed in through the window, casting a lonely shadow at his feet.
He knew he had lost completely, lost to this madman, and lost to his own heart that had long since gone out of control.
The system notification sounded in Yu Jiuyuan's mind just as she stepped out of the gate of the Ji family's old mansion.
The sunlight fell on her, warm and cozy, like the temperature in Rong Shenghan's arms.
She glanced down at the pinky ring; the blue light had returned to normal, as if nothing had happened.
Another objective has been achieved.
She should have felt as relaxed and triumphant as she did when she completed Yuan Xu and Rong Shenghan's mission, but there was an inexplicable emptiness in her heart, like a desolate wasteland swept by the wind.
Perhaps it was the madness in Ji Luoqin's eyes that resembled her own, perhaps it was the feeling of farewell in his last kiss, or perhaps... she was just really tired.
"Young Miss." The driver opened the car door and waited respectfully.
Yu Jiuyuan got into the car, closed her eyes, and leaned back in the back seat.
Rong Shenghan's gentle smile, Xie Zhecheng's neat handwriting, Lin Yanran's arrogant expression, Yuan Xu's focused profile, and Ji Luoqin's lonely figure, perhaps standing by the window at this moment, watching the direction she left in.
What an absurd game.
She thought.
But since we've started, we're going to see it through to the end.
The car slowly drove away from the Ji family's old residence. The once magnificent building in the rearview mirror grew smaller and smaller until it disappeared into the traffic.
Yu Jiuyuan opened her eyes, looked at the street scene flashing past the window, and a faint smile appeared on her lips.
Next, it's Xie Zhecheng and Lin Yanran's turn.
In her training manual, there are two more names waiting to be put to rest by her own hand.
Before that, all she wanted was to get back to the villa as soon as possible, snuggle in Rong Shenghan's arms, smell the ebony scent on him, and temporarily forget all her scheming and madness.
At least, when she's with him, she doesn't have to be so crazy.
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