“Did Shen Fenran send you?”

Mu Chaoxue fixed his gaze on her eyes. If she had shown even a moment’s hesitation, he would have dismissed the suspicion — thankfully, she did not.

Rong Qian had been waiting for him to arrive at a conclusion. When she heard the question, she nodded without the slightest hesitation — agreeing to it, so as not to arouse his suspicion.

Mu Chaoxue’s expression gave nothing away. He pointed toward the bathroom door. “Get out. Wait there.”

“Of course!” Rong Qian was more than happy to leave. Without another word, she went out cheerfully.

Mu Chaoxue was momentarily struck by her bright and open smile, thinking to himself — this woman, at least, he found he couldn’t dislike.

Rong Qian stepped out of the bathroom to find the room beyond was a bedroom. It was a spacious room, decorated in a Nordic style, the floors smooth and polished to a shine.

Rong Qian unceremoniously rubbed her hair dry with the bath towel, then pulled open the wardrobe. A quick sweep of her eyes — all white clothes.

She took out a dress shirt. It was a men’s shirt, quite oversized. Rong Qian peeled off her soaked top, slipped into the shirt, and rolled up the long sleeves several times until they were manageable. That felt somewhat better.

She walked to the window and pulled back the curtains. Looking outside, she could see the main gate, with security guards standing post here and there, coming and going in steady rotation.

Rong Qian pulled the curtains shut with a sharp whoosh. She had a sense of the place now — this was a villa. If her guess was right, it likely belonged to Shen Fenran.

Before Mu Chaoxue died, he had told her that he had been imprisoned by Shen Fenran for many years.

With her location confirmed, Rong Qian needed to think of a way out. She absolutely could not let Shen Fenran discover her presence. Who knew what he would do if he found her — would he lock her up as well?

Even if her combat skills were above average, there was no overcoming sheer numbers — that much, Rong Qian understood well enough.

She could not under any circumstances fall into Shen Fenran’s hands. She had to escape.

So she walked to the bedroom door and was just about to step out and scout the situation, when the door swung open to reveal two bodyguards standing right there.

Both men, seeing her, stared — clearly caught off guard, probably each wondering: where on earth did this woman come from?

Rong Qian blinked. She hadn’t expected Shen Fenran to have Mu Chaoxue monitored to such a degree. Still — just two bodyguards. Not a problem.

When Mu Chaoxue came out of the bathroom wrapped in a bathrobe, he walked right into the sight of Rong Qian dragging an unconscious bodyguard in through the door.

At the sight of this, Mu Chaoxue froze completely on the spot.

Rong Qian, meanwhile, saw that he had finished his bath and come out, so she simply dropped the half-dragged bodyguard to the side, walked over to the wardrobe, pulled out a set of clothes, and tossed them to him. “Get dressed and come with me.”

“What exactly are you doing?” Mu Chaoxue caught the clothes she had thrown at him, brow furrowed deeply.

Rong Qian looked at him candidly. “You’ve been imprisoned here by Shen Fenran, haven’t you? Well, now you have a chance to get out. I can take you with me.”

Hearing that, Mu Chaoxue glanced at the two bodyguards lying unconscious on the floor. He now had a clearer picture of what she was capable of.

“What are you standing around for? Get dressed quickly and come on!” Rong Qian urged him.

Mu Chaoxue asked her: “Who are you, exactly?”

Rong Qian sighed, knowing there was no avoiding it. So, as had become her custom, she said it with complete seriousness: “I’m here to save you!”

“Save me?” Mu Chaoxue clearly didn’t believe it.

Rong Qian had no time for lengthy explanations. She turned the question back on him: “Your name is Mu Chaoxue, isn’t it? If I didn’t know who you were, how would I know that Shen Fenran has been keeping you prisoner? Stop hesitating — come with me now, or you’ll regret it for the rest of your life.”

Mu Chaoxue was swayed by what she said. Mainly because he had long been wanting to escape from this place — regardless of who this woman was, if she had the ability to get him out, he had no reason to refuse.

So he turned, went back into the bathroom, dressed quickly, and followed Rong Qian out.

Mu Chaoxue knew the layout of the place; Rong Qian had sharp observational instincts. Working together, they actually managed to slip past the bodyguards’ lines of sight.

Escape seemed within reach — but then, just as they were passing through the second-floor corridor, Shen Fenran suddenly stepped out from one of the rooms, with seven or eight bodyguards trailing behind him.

At the sight of Shen Fenran, Rong Qian drew in a sharp breath and quickly pulled back Mu Chaoxue, who had been about to keep walking. They ducked out of sight.

By now Mu Chaoxue had also spotted Shen Fenran. His brow creased tightly, and glancing down, he noticed that Rong Qian was even more tense than he was. “Do you know him?” he asked.

“I’d recognize him if he’d turned to ash — he’s Shen Fenran, the one who’s had you locked up, isn’t he?” Rong Qian pressed her voice low, asking in barely a whisper.

Mu Chaoxue didn’t answer. Instead, he asked another question: “Are you afraid of him seeing you?”

“More precisely — he absolutely cannot see me.”

“Why not?” Mu Chaoxue pressed relentlessly. He wanted to know: what exactly was her relationship with Shen Fenran?

Rong Qian could tell what he was thinking. She explained simply: “Don’t read too much into it. There’s nothing between me and him. It’s just that he knows I’m acquainted with Shen Yi — if he spots me, he’ll make things difficult for me.”

“You know Shen Yi?” Mu Chaoxue’s expression shifted.

Rong Qian had been keeping her eyes on Shen Fenran’s movements and hadn’t noticed the change in his demeanor. She responded instinctively: “Yes, I know Shen Yi. Is something wrong?”

She finished speaking and looked back at him — only to find Mu Chaoxue’s face had gone iron-gray. He clenched his fists and said: “Since you know Shen Yi, then you should know that I look very much like him. So — are you trying to save me because you’ve been mistaking me for him?”

“I know you resemble Shen Yi, but I have never once seen you as him. You are two completely different people. My reason for saving you has nothing to do with Shen Yi — it’s because you are Mu Chaoxue, and that is all.” There was no reason to conceal anything from him. This was a matter between them — it had nothing to do with Shen Yi.

Rong Qian spoke sincerely, but in Mu Chaoxue’s eyes, there was nothing but hatred. “Do you know — who it is that put me in prison?”

“It was because of Shen Yi. If it weren’t for him, I would never have ended up like this.”

“Wasn’t it because you impersonated him to deceive and swindle people that you got arrested?” Rong Qian knew this wasn’t the time for an argument, but she had already blurted the rebuttal before she could stop herself.

The moment the words were out, she felt a flicker of regret.

This kind of thing — better to talk about it once they were out. “Forget it, let’s set this aside for now. Once Shen Fenran moves on, we leave immediately.”

“There’s something I want you to know.” Mu Chaoxue fixed her with a cold look and said: “Shen Yi is my enemy. I don’t want anything to do with his help.”

And with that, Mu Chaoxue gave a hard kick to a decorative vase in the corridor.

The vase, standing more than a meter tall, toppled with a resounding crash and shattered across the floor.

The sound reached Shen Fenran’s ears. He paused mid-step, and said in a flat, cold voice to the bodyguards standing there dumbly: “What are you all still standing there for?”

The group of bodyguards snapped to attention and surged forward at full speed.

Rong Qian stared at Mu Chaoxue, unable to hold back. “You absolute idiot!”