The phone trilled repeatedly, the sharp sound cutting through the heavy silence of the car, but no one answered.
She dialed again, her heart hammering a frantic rhythm against her ribs, only to meet the same hollow ringing. Suddenly, her eyelid began to twitch—a Zuo Yan Tiao [a Chinese superstition that a twitching left eye signifies approaching disaster]. It was the same visceral, chilling premonition she’d felt when Gu Na had her “accident” at the Ji family wedding. It was as if an invisible thread was yanking at her soul, screaming at her to save someone before they slipped away.
She bolted upright, her voice sharp with urgency. “Turn around. Go to Director Gu’s villa immediately.”
Bo Wang cut a sideways glance at her, his grip on the wheel tightening. “You’re delusional,” he muttered. He had no intention of diverting; he wanted to go back to his own territory, and he wanted to go now.
A wave of suffocating panic crashed over her. Without a second thought, Lu Zhiling wrenched her hand from his possessive grasp and began pounding frantically on the car door. “Then let me out! I’ll go myself!”
Her tone was frigid, biting with a defiance that tasted like copper. Bo Wang’s expression went from cold to a terrifying, frosty stillness. He slammed his foot onto the gas, the engine roaring like a caged beast as the speedometer climbed. With a sharp clack, he unlocked the doors, his narrow eyes glowing with a dark, suffocating gloom.
“Lu Zhiling, I am under no obligation to take orders from you,” he hissed, the air in the car thickening with his lethal aura. “If you think you’re so capable, then jump. Jump out and see if I blink.”
He truly didn’t care if she lived or died in that moment. To him, she was a creature who dared to lose her temper while under his protection.
Lu Zhiling turned to look at him, a physical chill vibrating through her marrow. The world outside was a blur of lethal speed. After a long, agonizing silence, she reached out, her fingers trembling as she grazed his sleeve.
“I’m terrified something has happened to Director Gu,” she whispered, her voice fracturing. “Please… just take me to see her.”
The car began to lose its aggressive momentum.
“Bo Wang, please. I’m begging you.”
Bo Wang looked down at the small, pale hand clutching his arm. He watched as the joy that had lit up her face moments ago withered into a deathly, waxen pallor. He frowned, a flicker of irritation—or perhaps something more possessive—crossing his features. “Isn’t she just your late brother’s Qian Ren [ex-lover]? Your brother is dead, Lu Zhiling.”
He couldn’t fathom it. He didn’t understand the bond, the debt, or the sheer weight of what Gu Na represented to her.
Lu Zhiling didn’t dare provoke the lion further. She kept her hand on his arm, her pleas becoming a rhythmic, desperate chant. “Please, just take me there. I just need to see her. Please.”
Her eyelashes fluttered like the wings of a dying bird, wet with the threat of tears. Bo Wang stared at her for a heartbeat longer, his jaw set. Finally, he exhaled a sharp breath, whipped the steering wheel to the left with one hand, and tore off toward the villa district.
The villa area was draped in a tomb-like silence.
“There—that one,” Lu Zhiling pointed. The house SG [a corporate acronym, likely referring to the entertainment or management group] had provided for Gu Na was swallowed in darkness. Not a single light flickered, suggesting a peaceful sleep that felt eerily wrong.
Before the car had even fully settled, Lu Zhiling unbuckled and scrambled out. She sprinted through the courtyard and threw herself at the front door, leaning on the doorbell. Silence.
Panic surged. Even if Gu Na was a deep sleeper, the Bao Biao [bodyguards] stationed downstairs should have been at the door in seconds. Their training demanded vigilance.
She flipped open the cover of the fingerprint lock, her breath coming in shallow hitches. She wasn’t registered. The code… what would the code be? Her mind went blank, a white noise of terror screaming in her ears. She paced, forcing her lungs to expand, forcing herself to think like her brother.
She punched in her brother’s birthday.
Click. The lock disengaged.
As she vanished inside, Bo Wang sat in the driver’s seat. He retracted the convertible top, the cool night air doing nothing to soothe the simmering resentment in his gut. He lit a cigarette, the orange cherry glowing in the dark as he watched her. He felt like a common driver—summoned and dismissed at her whim, all for the sake of a dead man’s ghost.
Bang!
The sound of a heavy chair hitting the floor echoed from inside the villa.
Bo Wang’s eyes turned predatory. In one fluid motion, he discarded the cigarette, drew his pistol, and stepped out of the car. He exhaled a final plume of smoke and strode into the house.
The car’s high beams spilled into the foyer, illuminating Lu Zhiling. She stood frozen next to an overturned chair, her face a mask of horror. Bo Wang followed her gaze. Two bodyguards were slumped in their chairs, their chins tucked into their chests. They weren’t just sleeping; they were under a chemical heavy-lidded slumber that no noise would break.
“Something is wrong,” she breathed.
Because Bo Wang had been so dominant in the recent power struggles, Gu Na had insisted on downsizing her security for “privacy.” It had been a fatal mistake.
Lu Zhiling slapped on the lights and raced upstairs, the sound of her frantic footsteps echoing against the marble. Bo Wang followed, his shadow long and ominous.
The smell hit them before they saw it—the metallic, cloying scent of fresh blood.
In the European-style master suite, everything looked pristine, which only made the center of the room more grotesque. Gu Na lay on the expansive bed, dressed in a white Gao Ding [Haute Couture] gown. Her eyes were closed, her expression serene, her hands folded over her stomach like a saint in repose.
Beside her lay a crimson-stained fruit knife.
Blood had blossomed from her wrists, saturating the white silk of her dress and the expensive linens. She looked like a white rose blooming in the heart of hell—exquisitely beautiful, yet chillingly lifeless.
Lu Zhiling approached the bed in a trance. Her fingers shook violently as she pressed them against the side of Gu Na’s throat.
A pulse. Faint, thready, but there.
“Director Gu! Wake up! Look at me!” Lu Zhiling cried out, trying to hoist the woman up. But Gu Na was a dead weight, her limbs sliding like water, her body ready to collapse the moment support was withdrawn. Lu Zhiling simply wasn’t strong enough to carry her; she could only manage to pull her to the edge of the bed, both of them now slick with the dark, cooling blood.
“Bo Wang!” she shrieked.
Bo Wang stepped into the room, his face an unreadable mask of ice. He looked at the carnage as if it were a mere inconvenience, his expression devoid of pity.
“I can’t carry her! Help me, we have to get to the hospital—she’s still breathing!”
Bo Wang stood his ground, looking down at the pool of red. “Don’t bother,” he said, his voice as final as a gavel. “She won’t survive the trip.”
In the harsh glow of the chandelier, he looked less like a man and more like a Yan Wang [the King of Hell/the Reaper], cold and certain in his judgment.
Lu Zhiling looked up at him, her eyes shattering into a thousand shards of grief and desperation. The tears finally spilled over, hot and blurring her vision.
“Save her. Please.”
She crawled toward him metaphorically, her voice breaking into a jagged plea. “Bo Wang, I’m begging you… take her. I’m not strong enough… I can’t do it alone…”
She was drowning in self-reproach. If she had come sooner, if she had been stronger, if she hadn’t let her brother die—the thoughts were a cacophony in her head.
Bo Wang stared down at her. He had seen her stoic, he had seen her defiant, and he had even seen her jump into the water to end it all—but he had never seen her this humble. She was stripped bare, pleading for a life that wasn’t even her own.
For a few heavy seconds, he didn’t move. Then, with a sharp exhale, he holstered his weapon and stepped forward.
He leaned down and easily swept Gu Na’s bloody form into his arms. His eyes met Lu Zhiling’s with an inky, possessive intensity—a look that promised this debt would be paid in full—before he turned and strode out toward the car.
Lu Zhiling scrambled after them, grabbing a silk handkerchief from the vanity. In the backseat of the speeding car, she pulled Gu Na’s limp head into her lap, her own hands stained crimson as she tied the cloth around the carved wrists, praying for a miracle she didn’t know if she deserved.