Volume One, Chapter 103: Will you come up here, or shall I go down there?

When Shen Wany entered, Xue Yiyi had already finished making dinner.

Only then did she remember that she had forgotten to tell Lou Ye that Xue Yiyi was coming. Shen Wany picked up her phone and was about to message him.

She had not even opened the chat window.

Buzz.

The lock clicked open, and Lou Ye pushed the door and came in.

For an instant, Shen Wany stood in stunned silence.

She looked at Lou Ye.

Then at Xue Yiyi.

Before Shen Wany could utter a single feeble excuse to save face, Lou Ye was already asking, “Did Lu Jinnian go looking for you again?”

“No.”

Shen Wany shook her head.

Lou Ye seemed to have already known the answer.

He turned and left at once.

What?

Shen Wany froze.

Behind her, Xue Yiyi sucked in a sharp breath. “You two... have already gotten to this point?”

“Which point?”

“The point where you can come and go freely in each other’s homes.”

“...”

“Don’t change the subject! You know exactly what I mean!”

“...”

With Lou Ye gone, Shen Wany felt far more at ease speaking.

While they ate, she told Xue Yiyi about how Ke’s mother had come to see her and tried to coerce her into leaving the imperial capital.

Xue Yiyi slammed a hand on the table and sprang up. “On what grounds? Does she own the imperial capital? What a ridiculous attitude!”

After her outrage subsided, Xue Yiyi’s worry followed. “But if she really goes all out, what are you going to do?”

Shen Wany fell silent.

Whether Ke’s mother was the kind of person who would carry out her threats, Shen Wany still could not be sure.

But there was one thing she knew for certain: it was absolutely impossible for Ke’s mother to go on a smear campaign at Lou’s corporation.

The reception desk and security were in the first-floor lobby. Without a legitimate reason, she could not even get into the elevator area on the first floor.

And if she tried to bring those pamphlets full of rumors, security would escort her out before she could even hand them around.

Unless she had the shamelessness to stand at the entrance to the first-floor lobby and hand one to every person who came or went.

So long as someone took one.

So long as someone believed it.

Then it would only be a matter of time before it spread from ten people to a hundred, and the entire company knew.

Although most of the scandalous material Ke’s mother had collected was fabricated and stitched together, the strange power of gossip was that once truth and falsehood were mixed together, the lies too could become truth.

Just thinking that from tomorrow on she would have to face all kinds of looks and whispers at work gave Shen Wany a splitting headache.

But she had faced such things before.

The year Sun Yueqing’s incident broke, wherever she went at Imperial University, people pointed and whispered.

There were even students organizing protests on the university forum, demanding that the school expel her.

The reasons they gave were absurd.

A murderer’s daughter might well carry brutality in her bones; what if, one day in a fit of impulse, she took a knife to the teachers and classmates around her?

The uproar had been enormous. She had been shunned like a rat crossing the street, with everyone recoiling at her approach.

Only Lu Jinnian and Xue Yiyi remained as they always had.

There’s nothing to it...

Seeing the worry all over Xue Yiyi’s face, Shen Wany smiled and put some food on her plate. “When the enemy comes, a general will block them; when floodwaters rise, earth will dam them. Whatever she says, it won’t cut a piece off me. Eat, eat...”

Xue Yiyi nodded, as if remembering what happened back then. “Back then it got so bad, and in the end didn’t it just fade away? This time, you’ll make it through safely too.”

Shen Wany’s heart tightened.

Back then it got so bad.

She was called in by her adviser, then summoned for talks by the academic office and student affairs.

The teachers, whether comforting or tactful, all meant the same thing: at a time like this, she should stop coming to campus, take a leave of absence for a while, and wait until things died down.

But at that time, all the money she had had been spent hiring a lawyer to defend her mother. She even relied on Xue Yiyi for meals in the cafeteria.

If she could not even return to the dormitory, she really would have had no choice but to sleep on the streets.

More than that, convinced that her mother had been wronged, she held on with a single breath of stubborn fury: her mother would never kill, and she was not the daughter of a murderer. She waited for the trial results, determined to prove that she was not wrong.

But before the first trial even arrived, the talk in school targeting her gradually subsided.

Raised high, then set down lightly.

Just like that, it came to nothing.

As though... someone had secretly done something behind the scenes.

“To be honest, thinking about it now still makes me sigh a little.”

Xue Yiyi sighed. “That bastard Lu Jinnian... back then... never mind. People have to look ahead. Without him, how would you have your present-day romantic entanglements? Am I right?”

“Cough, cough...”

Shen Wany choked. She hurried to explain, yet had nothing she could truly argue against.

Thus the heavy night was turned around.

In the living room on the twentieth floor, Lou Ye was taking a phone call.

The cold severity of his expression gradually sank into something dark and terrifying. “Copy the surveillance footage.”

After hanging up, Lou Ye went straight downstairs.

The Maybach roared away.

The next morning, Xue Yiyi had no classes either, and the two of them talked until eleven before returning to the bedroom.

Thinking that Lou Ye had left at night without even eating dinner.

Thinking also of that abrupt mention of Lu Jinnian.

Shen Wany held her phone, hesitating for a long time, yet still did not send a single message.

Half-asleep, she fell into slumber, and nightmares soon followed.

In the dream, Shen Wany saw scraps of paper whirling through the air.

In the dream, Ke’s mother looked exactly like some deranged villain from a television drama, and with a shrill laugh she scattered those little black pamphlets everywhere.

Department offices.

Elevator hall.

First-floor lobby.

Outside the company gates.

Wherever she looked, there was a sea of white.

The crowd around her grew and grew. Everyone was staring at her, pointing, whispering, discussing.

Murderer.

Gambler.

Adultery.

Shameless.

...

All kinds of vile words floated before her eyes like a barrage of comments.

Snow-white scraps of paper.

Dense black scrolling remarks.

And the explanations she cried out were pale and powerless, soon swallowed whole.

“Shen Wany, I never thought you were this kind of person!”

Lou Ye stepped out from the crowd, and those cold words seemed to drain every last bit of strength from her body.

She plummeted into an abyss with no bottom.

Shen Wany jolted awake.

At once she saw the phone glowing by her pillow.

She had only slept for half an hour, and it was not even twelve yet.

Lou Ye had sent her a message.

Sis, I’m starving!

Will you come up, or should I go down?

Shen Wany very much wanted to pretend she was asleep and had not seen it.

But she feared that, as before dinner, he might ignore everything and open the door to come in.

If Xue Yiyi was asleep and did not hear it, that would be one thing.

But if she did hear it, then even if Lou Ye only ate a bowl of noodles and left, tomorrow she would surely be laughed at, wouldn’t she?

Shen Wany sighed and lit her phone to reply.

Do you have ingredients at your place?

Lou Ye did not answer.

Shen Wany sat up at once, put on her shoes, and went out.

She was afraid that if she delayed even a little longer, the lock would buzz open and Lou Ye would come in.

Stealthily, she opened the door, then quietly locked it behind her.

When she reached the elevator, she saw Lou Ye already inside, the door open, waiting.

“...”

Shen Wany looked helpless. “You can’t wait even a few minutes?”

“Not even one second!”

He reached out, caught her wrist, and pulled her into the elevator.

The moment the doors shut, Lou Ye’s kiss fell.

Only then did she realize she had misunderstood again.

This hunger was not that hunger.

Blush rose across Shen Wany’s cheeks and spread all the way down her neck.

When the elevator doors opened, Shen Wany shoved at Lou Ye, stamping on him in anger all the while. “This is an elevator! An elevator!”

If the property staff were lazy, that would be one thing.

But if they were dutiful and on watch, then...

“Sis...”

Lou Ye smiled. “From the second I pressed twenty, the surveillance had already been cut off automatically. Now, are you reassured?”

Shen Wany was startled, and then Lou Ye lifted her into his arms.

The door opened and closed again.

The familiar scent of lemon surged in from afar, cold and clear, settling all at once on Lou Ye.

The floor lamp dimmed into darkness.

The air turned scorching in an instant.