Chapter 10

“Xu Chang!! I want to see Xu Chang!!”
“You can’t do this to me! Let me see Xu Chang!”
“Xu Chang!! Xu Chang! Xu Chang!!”
The iron shackles on my wrists clanked sharply with my struggles. The only answer was the relentless drip… drip… of water seeping from a corner.
I swallowed, my throat raw from screaming.
Huddled in the corner, less from fear than from… the cold.
Yes, I’d known Xu Chang was growing suspicious of me.
But I truly couldn’t fathom how he could discard me so decisively.
Forget the years between us. Considering everything I’d done for him, he should have trusted me more, at least a little.
He just sold me out? Based on nothing but Lin Manzhi’s words?
I started chewing my nails, a nervous habit. The more I thought, the more tangled everything became.
In this mess, one thing was certain: I couldn’t die.
No matter what, I couldn’t die. The mission wasn’t finished.
And right now, the only one who could save me was Xu Chang.
That’s why I kept screaming his name.
I couldn’t fathom his feelings for me after all these years, but one thing was clear: no man spends five birthdays with a woman he doesn’t care about.
Especially not a man like Xu Chang… a devil devoid of humanity.
So even if it was a long shot, I had to try.
Just as I began screaming his name again, relentlessly, the iron door finally creaked open.
“Damn, aren’t you tired of yelling?”
“Xu Chang isn’t coming to save you! Fuck, if the Boss didn’t want to sell your organs…”
“I’d have had my fun with you right here.”
“…”
Gasping, I glared death at the man.
“Let me see Xu Chang…”
“Fuck, didn’t I just tell you he’s not…”
As his foot drew back to kick me, someone stopped him.
It was him… Brother Madman.
“Let me see Xu Chang. I have something to say to him.”
No response. So I raised my voice.
“I said I want to see Xu Chang! Xu Chang!”
The handcuffs clattered loudly against the bars. Then, a low, calm voice sounded from above me.
I froze.
“What’s all this shouting?”
“A’Qing, who are you throwing a tantrum for?”
“…”
I truly hadn’t expected Xu Chang to actually be there.
Hearing his voice, I couldn’t help but freeze for a second.
The man’s shoes were immaculate. Covered in dust as I was, I had to tilt my head back to look up at his pristine figure.
“Xu Chang, why suspect me?”
“I’ve been with you all these years. How could you suspect me without even asking?”
“Did you ever consider Lin Manzhi might be framing me…?”
I tried to make my expression as sincere as possible, until the man crouched down before me.
His fingers… gently brushed my cheek.
To an observer, it might have looked like he was comforting his lover.
“Even now… I find myself softening towards you.”
“A’Qing, blame yourself. You shouldn’t have crossed me.”
The hand on my jaw slid down to my throat. Slowly, his fingers tightened.
My breath hitched. I stared into his eyes, just stared.
They were like a black abyss—bottomless, hiding the beast with its gaping maw.
Then, he suddenly released me. I collapsed to the floor, coughing violently.
Through my haze, I heard him speaking to Brother Madman.
“She’s yours. Do whatever you want with her.”
“…”
Still coughing, I stared at his spotless trouser legs.
Before he left, those were my last words to him.
“Lin Manzhi must have lied to you.”
“Why… why won’t you believe me?”

Chapter 11

The man left.
The heavy clang of the lock echoed, and the basement fell silent again.
It felt like the end. Before me lay the path to hell.
But was it really over?
My fingers tapped against the bars as I planned my next move.
Truthfully, I had no idea who Lin Manzhi was.
Saying what I did was just to smear her name, to cast doubt.
Xu Chang was a paranoid man. Sowing seeds of doubt couldn’t hurt.
“Hey. Get up.”
On the third day of imprisonment in the basement, without food or water, someone yanked my hair.
“We’re taking you for a full physical. Wouldn’t want any diseased organs, would we?”
“Don’t worry though. People can live with just one kidney.”
“Especially since we’re selling you off somewhere else afterward.”
“…”
I was dragged and shoved into a car. These days, my mind was foggy, lost in dreams.
Dreams of fallen comrades, of my sacrificed mentor, of the first time I killed someone in front of Xu Chang.
When my hands were stained with blood, he had crouched down and gently ruffled my hair.
Saying, “Welcome to the family.”
He didn’t know I had just taken the life of the person most important to me.
“…”
Anesthetic seeped slowly into my veins, and the fragmented dreams merged into one.
The protagonist was still Xu Chang.
No wonder. I was obsessed with him, driven half-mad by the thought of him. Night after night, the only thing keeping me alive was the dream of putting him behind bars.
The dream took me back years ago, to when Xu Chang had just sidelined the syndicate’s leader.
He was starting to launder his image. Several times, I secretly passed intelligence to get him arrested, but he was always released soon after.
One night, he’d been drinking and asked me to walk home alone with him.
He was clearly tipsy. He asked me if I wanted to be with him.
Be with him? The phrase sounded alien coming from Xu Chang’s lips.
I shook my head, telling him I loved someone else.
That night, he stopped dead in his tracks, just staring at me.
A redness flickered in his eyes. The mountain wind rustled through the trees. He gave a derisive snort, his gaze challenging.
“Does your love even matter?”
It was the first time I’d seen that wild madness swirling in his eyes.
Then, he gripped my chin and kissed me.
“If you won’t be with me, you’re still mine.”
“…”
After that, he never spoke of feelings again.
A searing pain shattered my dream.
Icy water cascaded over my head.
I blinked, finding myself back in the present.
…
The man called Brother Madman stood before me.
Yellow teeth bared in a grin.
“Fuck, know what interesting thing I just found out?”
“The doctor advised against harvesting your organs.”
“Because you’re…”
“Pregnant.”
“The kid’s Xu Chang’s, right? Bet he still doesn’t know you’re carrying his spawn.”
“…”
Hearing this, my mind went completely blank.
Pregnant?
It had never crossed my mind that a life was growing inside me. His life.
Why did it have to be his?!
It felt like countless hands dragging me into an abyss, like the last pure corner of my soul had been violated.
I stood frozen, for a very long time.
“So, we’ve decided to help you get rid of it first.”
“Though I’d love to take your kidney at the same time, the doc says you’d probably die on the table.”
“Not that I give a shit about your life, but you’re still worth good money alive, got it?”
“…”
He patted my cheek. Then, as if remembering something, he crouched in front of me.
“Oh, right. Xu Chang won’t know about any of this.”
“Not even that you’re carrying his child.”
“…”

Chapter 12

“You always wear that same expression.”
“What, no more screaming or crying?”
On the way to the operating table, Brother Madman surprisingly struck up a conversation.
I hadn’t responded to a word he’d said these past days. But this time, I looked up at him.
“Ever heard the saying ‘Evil never prevails over righteousness’?”
He snorted.
“Fuck fate. That’s the one thing I don’t believe in.”
I tilted my head, staring at the swaying black cloth covering the car window.
“But I think I’ll be the one left standing in the end.”
“…”
Later, after the surgery, I was still alive.
I lay on a cot in the dim basement for over forty days, with no medical equipment to sustain me.
Conditions were primitive. They just made sure I didn’t die.
Locked away, I lost track of time.
Someone brought me barely enough food to survive. I ate when it came, starved when it didn’t.
When I felt consciousness slipping, I’d scratch marks on the wall, do simple sums to stay alert.
Until one day.
I was violently hauled off the cot and shoved into a car.
“Fuck, finally found a buyer.”
“Guy’s a psycho, but he pays well. And he’s crazy too.”
I rarely saw Brother Madman flustered. He slapped my cheek.
“What are you smiling about?”
“You know Xu Chang’s tearing the world apart looking for you?”
“Fucking hell, how did he find out you were pregnant?”
“I told him you were dead, but the bastard wouldn’t believe me! Now he’s coming for my head!”
“Cost me the chance to take your kidney!”
“Gotta sell you quick and get the hell out of here!”
“…”
From their fragmented conversation, I pieced together what had happened.
Lin Manzhi was indeed no innocent. She was planted by Xu Chang’s biggest rival.
Smart, but too clever for her own good. She got greedy, coveted the position of the boss’s wife.
Xu Chang did make her his wife, but only for a few days before she was exposed.
Her exposure, ironically, helped me. It meant everything she said was now suspect.
I became the wronged one.
Xu Chang started looking for me. Then he found out I was pregnant with his child.
He snapped. Now the entire underworld was giving him a wide berth.
Brother Madman wanted to kill me but feared Xu Chang’s revenge. So he decided to sell me and flee the country with the money.
The man who bought me? A psycho with a death wish.
That psycho liked to stitch living people’s limbs together.
Sew shut their mouths and eyes, then hang them up to admire.
…
This was the third day in the psycho’s house.
My feet were already stitched together.
The man in the steel mask looked up at me.
“What are you counting?”
A silver needle pierced my skin. This time, the tip dug into my arm.
I trembled in pain, but I smiled. Told him I was counting time.
“What time?” he asked.
“The time until Xu Chang finds me.”
He paused, staring at me with utter incomprehension.
The next second, he could make no more expressions.
The cabin door was kicked open. Men in black poured in.
Then, I saw Xu Chang.
…

The man stared at me, dazed.
I was hanging in mid-air. He must have clearly seen the dense network of wounds around my feet.
Brother Madman had wondered who leaked the news of my pregnancy.
It was me.
Brother Madman’s crew had a low-level informant from our Bureau. Just high enough to make contact and exchange intelligence.
When Xu Chang showed me that photo, I was already planning my exit strategy:
Before I left, I hid a recording in the most inconspicuous corner of my desk.
It showed me planning to confess my feelings to Xu Chang on my birthday.
One thing everyone overlooked: Xu Chang had never been in a relationship.
The night I rejected his confession, his pride was wounded. He’d never forget it.
I didn’t want him to know I “loved” him on a night of passion.
I wanted him to know I loved him as he pushed me into the abyss himself.
What’s the hardest thing in the world to let go of?
Love? No.
It’s guilt.
Love is just a flower blooming beside rich brocade.
Guilt is the root that pierces the flesh, spreading uncontrollably.
It can drive a person mad.
He almost frantically searched the room for me, looking utterly lost, a shadow of himself.
He cut me down and pulled me tightly into his embrace.
I felt his trembling hand stroke my hair.
His voice was hoarse, incredibly hoarse. I realized he was different now.
Everything he did around me became painstakingly gentle.
“Let’s go home.”
“…”
“… I don’t have a home.”
He froze, then pulled me even tighter, as if trying to merge me into his body.
He whispered apologies into my ear, over and over, like broken fragments of a prayer.
…
He put me in the car, then walked back into the cabin.
A man in black blocked the doorway. I couldn’t see inside.
But soon, inhuman screams erupted from within.
Probably the psycho.
I leaned against the car window, listening to the shrieks.
Staring at the cabin, the screams didn’t stop.
Like wails from hell,
And the primal scream of a terrified soul.
Xu Chang never got his hands dirty.
Until now.
Now, they were stained.

Chapter 13

Xu Chang took me home.
Everything seemed to go back to the way it was.
But something had changed. He never let anyone live in his downtown apartment.
Yet that day, holding me, he said it would be my home from now on.
I saw Lin Manzhi one last time.
The girl who smiled with such apparent innocence had her face contort with hatred when she saw me.
Held between two men, she glared at me venomously.
Screaming and cursing, calling me a police undercover.
“Xu Chang! You think she’s innocent?”
“She’s definitely an undercover!!! An undercover!!”
“You must have known!! Xu Chang…!”
The man’s face darkened the instant he heard the word “undercover.”
He snatched a priceless teapot from the table and smashed it into the girl’s face.
Standing beside him, I flinched violently.
He immediately turned, pulling me into his arms, soothing me.
“Qingqing? Scared?”
“It’s okay… Don’t be afraid.”
His kiss fell on my neck and shoulder. He looked at me with a kind of desperate hope.
“You’re not… are you?”
I didn’t answer.
He just held me, for a very, very long time.