Xiao Cheng was dressed casually—the most simple military-green top and black trousers—yet on him, they exuded an air of refined nobility. His exceptional height and handsome features made him stand out even among this pack of burly, intimidating men, impossible to overlook.
He looked down at her from his height, his gaze sweeping over her from head to toe. The girl lay curled on the ground, her dark hair spilling in tangled waves around her—the elaborate bun at the back of her head had come loose at some point. Her plain clothes were covered in dirt, with scattered spots of blood blooming across the fabric.
She had a delicate, porcelain face. The tape and rag that had been stuffed in her mouth lay discarded on the floor. Her red lips were slightly parted, her breathing shallow and labored.
Her wrists and ankles were bound with ropes, the marks of her earlier struggles now visible under the harsh light—livid bruises that looked horrifying. She lay motionless, like a discarded doll in a heap of rubbish, fragile and pitifully vulnerable.
Suddenly, the girl, who had kept her eyes tightly shut, heard someone address Xiao Cheng. Her long lashes trembled. Slowly, she opened her eyes—and her gaze locked onto him without an inch of deviation. As if in disbelief, her pupils dilated, and she murmured his name.
“Xiao Cheng?”
Almost at the same moment, everyone in the room turned to look at her. Whoa—who was this woman, daring to call the boss by his full name like that?
Xiao Cheng himself didn’t seem surprised—after all, she’d done the same thing when they first met.
“Take her.”
“Yes.”
Zhou Jin didn’t hesitate. With a few swipes of his blade, he cut through the ropes that had bound Lin Aiyun for so long, then moved to hoist her over his shoulder in one arm. But catching a glimpse of Xiao Cheng’s raised eyebrow from the corner of his eye, he lightened his touch. Instead, he lifted her in both arms, cradling her horizontally. She was so thin that she barely registered in his arms.
“Wait.” Xiao Cheng’s voice stopped Zhou Jin just as he was about to head out. Zhou Jin paused in confusion and looked back, waiting for instructions.
Xiao Cheng stepped up beside them. His gaze dropped to a certain spot, and he reached out. The moment his fingers touched her, she instinctively flinched back—but the next second, she pushed her hand toward his palm.
He pried open her bloodstained hand, revealing a small shard lying in her palm, dug deep into her flesh. As he pulled it out, a sharp intake of breath sounded beside him. Xiao Cheng looked up at the source—she was gazing at him with tear-filled eyes, those big, watery eyes fixed on him with pitiful intensity, as if accusing him of being too rough.
So delicate.
“Do you not want that hand anymore?” Xiao Cheng toyed with the bloodied shard in his fingers, looking at Lin Aiyun with a hint of disdain for her foolishness. This thing couldn’t cut through the ropes, couldn’t save her—holding onto it had done nothing but hurt her.
Hearing this, Lin Aiyun shook her head. Of course she wanted her hand—who wouldn’t? But that shard had been her only lifeline in a sea of despair. Once she’d held it, she couldn’t bear to let go.
Thankfully, Xiao Cheng had come in the end. He had saved her—he was always that brilliant light, shattering the darkness.
Xiao Cheng didn’t miss the burning intensity in Lin Aiyun’s gaze—an inexplicable, extreme trust. Suddenly, he laughed. The shard flew from his hand with astonishing speed and force, embedding itself directly into Niu Wenshan’s chest. It had narrowly avoided his vital organs, but blood still gushed out, splattering across the face of Su Xiaomei, who was closest to him.
The sea of crimson shocked her into a scream—but she’d barely made a sound before someone clamped her jaw shut, forcing her to swallow her terror. Moments later, the acrid stench of urine spread through the air.
The others seemed unfazed. They simply brushed off the blood that had splattered on them and stood there impassively, as if long accustomed to such scenes. Their faces betrayed not a flicker of emotion.
Lin Aiyun felt a cold chill run through her. She squeezed her eyes shut in fear, but soon opened them again, compelled to confirm whether Niu Wenshan was really dead. When she saw that he wasn’t, her nails dug into her palm. Unconsciously, she lifted her gaze to Xiao Cheng, whose lips were curved in a half-smile.
It was the first time she had seen Xiao Cheng hurt someone. She’d always known that he had inevitably walked through blood and violence to get where he was—but he’d never shown her any of it, and had always shielded her well.
“What are you afraid of? I’m avenging you.” Xiao Cheng narrowed his eyes, wearing a faint, unreadable smile as he looked at her pale face.
“I’m not afraid.” Lin Aiyun stiffened her neck and retorted.
That earned her a cold laugh.
“Do you know what you were about to face tonight?” Xiao Cheng’s eyes were calm and still. At some point, he had walked over to Niu Wenshan. As he spoke, he fished around in the man’s chest for the shard—it was embedded deep in the flesh, a bit difficult to pull out. Unhurriedly, he stepped on Niu Wenshan’s chest for leverage and yanked it free.
Lin Aiyun’s heart lurched. She watched as he then pressed the shard against Su Xiaomei’s face. The man behind Su Xiaomei grabbed her hair to hold her steady so Xiao Cheng could work—she couldn’t move an inch, her situation no different from Lin Aiyun’s moments ago.
“Here—you tell me. What were you going to do to her if we hadn’t shown up?” Xiao Cheng raised his hand, signaling the man behind Su Xiaomei to release her.
The moment she was free, Su Xiaomei glanced at the shard hovering near her face. It was just a tiny piece, but it terrified her so much that her teeth chattered audibly. Her vision went black, and she dared not even breathe, afraid she’d end up like Niu Wenshan.
But she also didn’t dare not answer—and didn’t dare lie.
The man before her was handsome, seemingly younger than her, yet he was a capricious king of hell.
“Niu, Niu Wenshan would have had his way with her, then smothered her to death. The next day, he’d drag her outside the city and burn the body.” Su Xiaomei swallowed hard and laid out the original plan as briefly as she could, praying that after hearing it, he might show mercy and let her go.
Xiao Cheng tapped Su Xiaomei’s face lightly with the shard, his tone casual as he zeroed in on a key point: “You sound pretty experienced. How many times have you done this?”
“Just this once—” Before she could finish, she felt the sting of the shard cutting into her skin. Su Xiaomei quickly changed her story: “This is the third time. Really, truly.”
Toward the end, her voice cracked with a sob. Afraid he wouldn’t believe her, she repeated “really” several times.
Hearing this, Lin Aiyun frowned deeply, a look of sorrow crossing her face. She hadn’t expected there to be other girls who had fallen victim before her. These two were truly rotten to the core—Niu Wenshan… deserved to die.
“Do you think these people deserve to die?”
The sudden question was thrown at Lin Aiyun. She was taken aback, and before she could answer, Su Xiaomei’s desperate pleas rang out: “Please, I had no choice—Niu Wenshan forced me to do it!”
“Sob sob sob, Niu Wenshan is the one who deserves to die! He’s always liked young, pretty girls—especially those who come from out of town. Even if they die, no one really investigates, and no one has the time or energy to look into it deeply.”
“If my husband hadn’t stopped sending me money, how could I have ended up with him? I—I still have two children to raise. They’re innocent! Please, for the sake of the children, spare me—sob sob sob.”
Children? Lin Aiyun hesitated—but only for a moment. She suddenly remembered how Su Xiaomei had abandoned the idea of going upstairs to get her children, choosing instead to save herself.
And she was in this situation precisely “thanks to” those two children! For all she knew, they’d used the same method before—exploiting girls’ kindness to set traps.
Lin Aiyun was no saint. A mother and children like that didn’t deserve her sympathy.
“They deserve to die.” Those two cold, hard words made Xiao Cheng tilt his head up to look at Lin Aiyun. The lamplight fell across his handsome face, impossibly alluring.
Their eyes met in the air, gazes burning—as if each wanted to see into the very depths of the other’s soul.
But to Lin Aiyun, his eyes looked like a bottomless abyss. Though a smile tugged at Xiao Cheng’s lips, he made her feel as if she were trapped in the dead of winter—so foreign, as if she’d never known him at all.
It was only then that she realized she had oversimplified things. The Xiao Cheng of her previous life had been tempered by countless trials, his nature refined and settled over the course of time—a “good man” who had been washed clean under the laws of New China.
But the Xiao Cheng of now disdained pretense. His temper was violent and cruel, unrestrained—a thorough “villain” through and through.
As if to confirm her thoughts, the next moment the shard was pressed into Su Xiaomei’s hand. Xiao Cheng withdrew his hand expressionlessly, wiping the blood casually onto the clothes of the man beside him, and said slowly: “Hold it tight. Grip it firmly—don’t let it fall.”
“Okay—I’ll hold it.” Su Xiaomei didn’t dare refuse. She gritted her teeth and clenched the shard. Soon, the pain made her grimace, blood trickling between her fingers.
At that moment, two more men appeared at the entrance, each carrying a child by the scruff of the neck, tossing them onto the ground without the slightest regard for “respecting the old or cherishing the young.”
“Brother Cheng, these little brats are really sickening. Take a look at what I found.” Dongzi raised an object in his hand.
Under the bright light, nothing could hide—it was a string of human teeth, made into a bracelet, with crude doodles drawn on it, clearly the work of a child’s hand.
Lin Aiyun felt a wave of nausea rise in her stomach. She dry-heaved twice, the movement aggravating her injuries, causing her to convulse involuntarily. Her vision grew blurry, and she slowly slipped into unconsciousness.
Zhou Jin seemed to notice. He tightened his arms around her and looked down to check on her, only to have a slap land on his face. “What are you standing there for? If she dies, you can stop breathing too.”
Hearing that, Zhou Jin didn’t dare waste another second. He carried her upstairs at a brisk pace.
“So this is the girl we were looking for? She’s pretty.”
Dongzi had a loose mouth. Only after Zhou Jin shot him a warning glare did he sheepishly look away. But as he raised his head, he nearly collided with Xiao Cheng. Sensing something was wrong, he quickly wiped the smirk off his face and called out crisply: “Brother Cheng.”
“If you don’t handle this properly, you can go keep Jiang Yan company. I’m sure he’d be delighted.” Standing with his back to the light, Xiao Cheng’s features looked even sharper, his whole person radiating a casual, untamed air—yet Dongzi found it deeply unsettling.
“Clean job, guaranteed.” Dongzi straightened his back unconsciously and watched Xiao Cheng disappear around the corner.
The sedan was parked right at the entrance. When Xiao Cheng arrived, Zhou Jin was already seated in the driver’s seat. Out of habit, Xiao Cheng casually opened the rear door—only to see Lin Aiyun sprawled across the back seat, filthy from head to toe.
This idiot.
Xiao Cheng slammed the door shut and got into the passenger seat instead.
“The doctors and nurses are all from the provincial hospital, waiting on Yuanyang Road. They’re highly professional—don’t worry, Brother Cheng.”
What did he care? Why should he give a damn? No—it did have something to do with him.
Xiao Cheng turned his head to look at the face reflected in the car window. His whole body relaxed, and upon closer inspection, one could see the dark circles under his eyes—haggard and worn. Anyone who didn’t know better would think Xiao Cheng was some debauched libertine, but the truth was simply that he hadn’t slept well.
In all the days since leaving Lanxi County, he hadn’t had a single good night’s rest.
With that thought, Xiao Cheng glanced at the rearview mirror, catching a glimpse of Lin Aiyun’s head bumping against the car door with every jolt. His voice turned irritable: “Slow the hell down.”
“Got it, Brother Cheng.”
Zhou Jin slowed the car, not sure what had set him off, but figuring it was safest to just do as he was told.
The car soon arrived on Yuanyang Road, where a two-story Western-style villa stood—refined and imposing. The large iron gate swung open from the inside the moment the car appeared, and a team of doctors and nurses rushed out to lift her from the back seat onto a stretcher.
With his hands in his pockets, Xiao Cheng casually strolled past the slightly chaotic crowd and headed straight up to the second floor. By the time he’d showered and came back downstairs, they were still examining and treating Lin Aiyun.
Tsk, so slow. Xiao Cheng turned his head impatiently and lit a cigarette.
“Now, spread your legs a little—slowly, that’s right—just like that.” A male doctor’s deep voice carried through the door into his ears. Xiao Cheng’s hand, holding the cigarette, paused. Without a second thought, he kicked the door open.
The doctor, who had just put on gloves and was bending down for a closer examination, was startled. He instinctively turned to look at the intruder. Seeing Xiao Cheng’s scowling face, his voice trembled: “Mr. Xiao…”
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