“Guh…”

Qiao Biluo’s eyes tightened. Her lips that were painted full of lipstick opened and closed, while the rest of her face bunched together in pain.

Li Shaoling remained impassive. His eyes were slowly becoming colder and his grip wasn’t loosening at all. In fact, it was tightening so firmly that her eyes were rolling back.

Then he suddenly let go, flinging her away like she was a piece of trash.

Like a deflated balloon, Qiao Biluo’s entire figure slumped. She coughed as hard as she could, greedily breathing in fresh air.

Beads of tears began to fall as she held her chest with a wounded look. “Shaoling, how could you do this to me?”

Meanwhile, Li Shaoling was plucking out his IV needle and coldly getting off the bed, before going straight for the door.

However, the moment the sickroom door was opened, he found two bodyguards dressed in black and wearing shades standing outside.

They were stuffing the doorway, stopping him from leaving.

Li Shaoling turned his sharp, cold gaze at Qiao Biluo as she rose to her feet.

“Shaoling, I’m doing this for your own good.” Qiao Biluo walked to him. “Look at you—you’re actually skinnier. It must have hurt, and I just wanted you to have a good recovery here at the hospital.

“Tell them to get lost.” Li Shaoling’s voice conveyed only impatience and disgruntlement.

Qiao Biluo bit her lip but shook her head. “Don’t do that, Shaoling. They are here to protect you. I was so afraid when I saw you get hurt, don’t you get it? I would die if you die too—”

Li Shaoling cut her short without any remorse. “Why were you at the concert hall?”

Qiao Biluo had been out of the country in the last few years, but somehow she showed up when he and Ji Weixi attended a concert.

And there was the fire too.”

“Oh, that…” A mysterious emotion flash in Qiao Biluo’s face but she kept a tender smile. “I came back three days ago. I wanted to surprise you, and heard that you were going to a concert…”

Tears of grief fell from her eyes even as she spoke tearfully. “I know you don’t like me, which is why I quietly followed you… I know it’s impossible between us, but I just wanted to look at you from afar!”

The veins on Li Shaoling’s temples throbbed. “Get to the point!”

Dilly-dally shilly-shally. All that she spouts was nonsense!

“I followed you to the concert and I was just sitting behind you. It’s just that you’ve never noticed me…” Jealousy appeared in Qiao Biluo’s eyes even as she continued worriedly, “When you fainted, I saw with my own eyes that the woman beside you ran away. I saved you by putting my life on the line—I did, Li Shaoling!”

Ji Weixi… ran away when he fainted?

He would believe that if it was any other woman, but he just knew that Ji Weixi would never do that.

The small figure in the sea of flames, cursing him hysterically and abandoning him? What a joke.

Li Shaoling’s lips curled into a smile that did not reach his eyes, even prompting fear. “Qiao Biluo, do you want to die, slandering my woman?”

“Shaoling… t-that was the truth!” Qiao Biluo tried to argue but was a lot less confident this time, and even her voice had grown meek.

“Where is Ji Weixi?”

“Ji Weixi…” Qiao Biluo seethed the name through her teeth, before putting up a blank look. “I don’t know her… I was only thinking about saving you, but… I saw her leaving with another man when she ran off.”

Li Shaoling’s eyes went red at the mention of ‘man’. “Who.”

Qiao Biluo shook her head. “I wouldn’t know—I only know you in all of River Town. But that man looks special: he had silver hair.”

Su Yang.

That manwhore again!

Li Shaoling looked around. “Where are my clothes?”

“Your clothes were dirty so I threw them away.” Qiao Biluo smiled tenderly at him. “But I had new ones prepared for you. I’ll come with you if you want to take a breather outside.”

“Bring them to me.”

“What.”

Li Shaoling commanded high-and-mightily. “Bring them to me.”

Holding back her anger, Qiao Biluo put a set of fresh clothes on the bed.

And before she could say anything else, Li Shaoling told her to get lost again.

“Shaoling, you…” Qiao Biluo knew that Li Shaoling’ had a bad temper, but she didn’t imagine that he hated her so much—she almost couldn’t believe her own ears.

“Get lost.” Li Shaoling’s voice was cold, and he had lost all patience.

“Alright, I’ll go. Please watch your health, Shaoling.” Qiao Biluo inhaled deeply several times, but even when she turned, she had a fierce look on her face.

The two bodyguards outside bowed as she closed the door. “Lady Qiao.”

Qiao Biluo shushed them and put her ears on the door, listening.

There were rustling inside as Li Shaoling changed his clothes, which was followed by a long silence.

Just when Qiao Biluo thought that something wasn’t right, she heard a loud bang—as if something had crashed.

She promptly kicked the door and entered, scanning the room fiercely.

But it was empty as expected.

The windows were open and the curtains flowing in the window. Qiao Biluo looked out to find a bedsheet tightly knotted into a rope that dangled down to the ground floor.

Li Shaoling had escaped!

“Sh*t!” Qiao Biluo’s face was both fearsome and venomous, and she cursed through gritted teeth. “That d*mned Ji Weixi! D*mn her!”

***

Ji Weixi was sitting on her sickbed impassively, even a little blankly.

She was thinking who the woman who saved Li Shaoling.

Even so, that was not what she was most concerned about: right now, she wanted to know if Li Shaoling was alive, and whether he was hurt or conscious.

She closed her eyes. She had thought about giving her son a call since he hadn’t returned for an entire night, and she wasn’t sure how the little one was faring.

But her phone seemed to have been reduced to ash in the fire.

She sighed and hung her head.

Even as drowsiness came to her, she could hear faint footsteps and the sound of the sickroom door opening. She turned muddleheadedly, assuming that it was the nurse coming in to change her IV.

She yawned when the footsteps were suddenly faded.

Slowly opening her eyes and rubbing them, her whole body stiffened immediately.

Li Shaoling was standing at the doorway and staring fixedly at her.

His face was pale perhaps because he was rushed there, and he was panting softly.

The entire sickroom seemed to be much narrower after his straight figure appeared.

Ji Weixi felt invigorated. The world became quiet as their gazes met, and she could feel her bloodflow quicken.

Abruptly, she fumbled to throw off her blanket and ran to him in her bare feet, leaping up at once to wrap her hands around his neck. Li Shaoling handily caught her waist so that she wouldn’t fall, and her dainty feet simply dangled in the air.

Ji Weixi closed her eyes. She chewed her lip in agitation as tears came to her eyes.

She simply could not put to words how she felt about his disappearance, and couldn’t even tell if she was happy or sad because of it.

But once she saw him, every emotion surged as violently as a great flood!