Jiang Zongyan watched her retreating figure, his eyes gradually darkening.
Jiang Ruitian was puzzled and rubbed her chin.
“Brother, did you and Suisui have a fight? Why did you two seem so strange the whole way here...?”
“Your allowance for the rest of the year is all being confiscated!”
Before she could finish, Jiang Zongyan cut her off.
“What?!”
Jiang Ruitian realized what he meant, and instantly felt as if the sky had fallen.
“Brother, what gives you the right to confiscate all my allowance? What did I do to offend you?”
Before she could finish, Jiang Zongyan shot her a cold look.
He curled his lips into a sinister smile and ground out each word through clenched teeth. “I give you money to go out and have fun, and you use it to hire male models and touch their abs?”
“Uh.”
Jiang Ruitian froze awkwardly.
Damn it, her brother had found out about the male model!
She should never have posted that smug post on her social media.
Wait, that didn’t make sense. Her brother had never looked at her social media before, which was why she had acted without a care.
“You’re bad enough on your own, but you’re even leading Suisui astray!”
“...”
Jiang Ruitian had no way to argue. She obediently grabbed her earlobes with both hands, pouted, and put on a pitiful, adorable expression. “I’m sorry...”
Jiang Zongyan pressed a hand to his forehead, his temples throbbing.
“If there’s a next time, you’re going to intern in the United States. Don’t stay in Tang City and get on my nerves.”
The moment she heard that she might be exiled abroad, Jiang Ruitian hurriedly nodded like a pecking chicken. “I know I was wrong. I really do. I’ll never take Suisui out to touch men’s abs again.”
The moment she finished speaking, she heard Jiang Zongyan’s fingers crack ominously.
Good. Very good. She had actually touched them herself.
Jiang Ruitian shuddered and leaned back, trying to put as much distance between herself and her brother as possible.
“...”
A jealous man was terrifying.
—
When Zhou Suisui returned home, Cui Wu was directing the chefs as they prepared lunch.
Seeing her return so quickly, Cui Wu asked curiously, “Why are you back so soon, Miss?”
“Mm.”
Zhou Suisui greeted her. “Sister Wu, I don’t want lunch. I’m going to rest for a while. Don’t wake me later.”
With that, she hurried back to her room.
Cui Wu was completely bewildered. What had happened to the young miss? Why did she look as if she had lost her soul?
Upstairs, in the bedroom.
Zhou Suisui threw herself onto the bed and hugged a pillow, her thoughts in complete disarray.
Jiang Zongyan liked her.
Once the thought appeared, she couldn’t drive it away.
She remembered the first time she had gone to ask for his WeChat. He had coldly told her that he didn’t give his WeChat to just anyone.
She had pestered him relentlessly, brought him meals, and coquettishly asked him to hold her...
While he complained that she was being spoiled and melodramatic, he had still held her securely in his arms...
When had his opinion of her begun to change?
But... how could he have fallen in love with her?
This wouldn’t do!
After being reborn, her only goal had been to protect her brother and prevent the tragedy of her previous life.
She had never considered dating, much less falling in love with her brother’s archenemy.
If her brother found out, he would be devastated.
Zhou Suisui tossed and turned. She was exhausted, yet she couldn’t fall asleep.
Her thoughts were a tangled mess, like a ball of yarn.
Impossible to sort out, impossible to cut apart.
—
Meanwhile, at the Jiang family villa.
Jiang Zongyan leaned back in his study chair, his fingertip scrolling across his phone screen as he reread his chat history with “Thorny Little Rose.”
At first, she had sent him all kinds of messages just to pester him: adorable fox stickers, bomb emojis whenever she was annoyed, and deliberately flirtatious remarks...
—[Brother Yan, they say old men know how to treat women. Is that true?]
—[Good morning, Brother Yan!]
—[I drank my milk and ate breakfast, but something still seems to be missing... Oh, right. It’s you.]
—[Brother Yan... just answer me, please!]
—[Hmph! I’m never talking to you again~~ old man!]
Every expression and sticker was as lively and vivid as she was, like a little sun that had forcefully burst into his bleak, monotonous world.
The more he looked, the more a gentle smile unconsciously curved his lips.
He didn’t know when he had begun to fall for her.
Perhaps it had been at first sight, when the smiling girl had walked toward him outside the company. Dressed in a pure white dress, she had been like a blooming white rose, bursting into his vision with petals not yet fully unfurled.
Perhaps it had been in the private room at the club, when she had been terrified out of her mind yet still refused to get off his lap.
Perhaps it had been her mischievous schemes and all the ways she had thought of to tease him... disrupting his composure and making his gaze follow her involuntarily.
Perhaps love truly didn’t need a reason.
At the thought of how she had avoided him earlier, the light in his eyes turned cold.
Perhaps he had frightened her.
But he didn’t regret it.
He no longer wanted to keep playing this game of hide-and-seek with her.
—
At the Zhou residence.
Zhou Suisui was hugging her pillow and staring blankly into space when her phone suddenly rang.
She picked it up and saw that Jiang Ruitian was calling.
“Suisui, what happened just now?” Jiang Ruitian’s voice came through the phone. “My brother has been acting strange ever since he came back from the mountain. He’s been wearing a black expression the whole time. Did you two have a fight?”
“No. Don’t overthink it.”
Zhou Suisui gave a vague answer.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t know my brother was so petty. He actually saw my social media post and rushed over...”
Jiang Ruitian sounded apologetic, but also somewhat shaken. “My brother has never dated anyone, and he’s never liked anyone either. He has no experience with this kind of thing, so don’t hold it against him!”
“??”
Zhou Suisui furrowed her delicate brows. “That can’t be right. Didn’t my brother say your brother had a first love he could never forget?”
“What first love? How could that be possible?”
A flicker passed through Zhou Suisui’s eyes.
She believed that.
There was no way he had someone else in his heart. After all, he had suffered that incident in high school and developed a psychological fear of women.
“Sweetie, didn’t you say your brother liked men?”
She still couldn’t help asking.
That was right. Jiang Zongyan liked men. There was absolutely no way he could like her!
“Ah? I made that up. It was just a rumor I invented! He already chewed me out for it!”
“...”
Zhou Suisui grew anxious. “Didn’t you say he was going back to the United States in a month?!”
“That month is almost over. He should be going back soon, right?” she said, reassuring herself.
Jiang Ruitian was surprised. “He didn’t tell you? He went to the United States a while ago specifically to deal with this matter. He made other arrangements for the work over there, so he won’t be going abroad again.”
After saying that, she suddenly realized something. “Suisui, did you misunderstand and think my brother was going overseas because you were worried about having a long-distance relationship?”
Jiang Ruitian laughed. “Don’t worry. My brother has already made arrangements. He won’t leave you behind.”
Zhou Suisui: “...”
Oh, my God.
This was truly the end.
She had thought that no matter how much she teased and flirted with him, he would never fall for her.
After a month, he would go abroad. By the time the truth came out, he wouldn’t be able to come after her.
But now, he wasn’t leaving.
And just now, he had said those things to her...
Thinking back to the way he had just pinned her against the wall, the intense possessiveness swirling in his eyes made her legs go weak and her throat tighten.
Just then, her phone buzzed.
When she saw the name on the screen, she was so startled that she nearly dropped it.
—There’ll be another update later.
