“Looks like I don’t need to introduce anyone—you should all know each other pretty well, right!”

Wang Heyuan, face swollen, was sprawled on the floor of the KTV’s luxurious private room, elbows propped on the sofa, gloating like a spectator eagerly anticipating this roomful of enemies tearing into each other. He of course knew about the grudges between Sun Xi and the bathhouse family. He’d watched plenty of those viral short videos about Sun Yuwen from a few days ago. Calling Sun Xi here was also to watch them fight like dogs—the more vicious the better.

“Alright, let me formally introduce him then. This handsome guy is Le Sheng Huang’s new owner from now on.” Wang Heyuan grinned. The smile pulled at his beaten and swollen eye, causing pain. He endured it and said loudly, “His name is Sun Xi! Sun Xi from the old Sun family on Xifeng Street!”

Sun Xi lifted his eyelids to glance at Wang Heyuan, showing no particular emotion. His gaze swept lightly across several faces before finally landing on Yu Kaixuan’s. He politely nodded and greeted: “Uncle.”

The private room fell quiet for a few seconds. Yu Jiuqi looked toward her father from several steps away, seeing him rarely display such genuinely serious expression.

Second Brother Kai usually put on a stern face when encountering matters, but mostly it was deliberately affected posturing used to intimidate people. In recent years, there were very few people he could call a threat.

Xiao Jiu had seen her father looking so stern and severe twice recently—both times were because of chance encounters with him.

Her heart sank. In that moment, her mind suddenly flashed back to the more brutal confrontation between them in that blizzard nine years ago.

Yu Jiuqi clearly remembered that at the time, the young Sun Xi knelt in the fresh snow, blood from his fingers dripping down, staining the white sweater red, then sliding down and embedding half a finger’s depth into the snow.

He cried so heartbreakingly, so regretfully, so helplessly. He knelt there begging Yu Kaixuan, saying Uncle I was wrong, I didn’t think it would turn out like this, I was wrong.

Yu Kaixuan in the prime of his life bent down, forcefully grabbed his sweater collar, practically lifting him into the air, saying viciously from now on get far away, don’t let me see you, and don’t touch my daughter again, understand?

He nodded blankly. Only then did Yu Kaixuan throw him to the ground and dragged away Yu Jiuqi, who had already cried herself voiceless, dragging her like a paper doll without a soul.

Xiao Jiu remembered stumbling and falling at that time. Inadvertently looking back, she saw him still kneeling in the snow, prostrate on the ground, his body also covered in white—like a tomb merged with the snowy ground, with only a few streaks of bright red piercing the eyes.

That image seemed engraved in her eyes—just a light blink would awaken it.

…

“He says you’re the boss here now?” Yu Kaixuan frowned, glancing at the shattered foreign liquor bottles all over the floor. “These were indeed broken by us. What do you want to do about it?”

Xiao Jiu blinked, lowered her eyes, suppressed excess emotions, shifted two steps to her father’s side, standing in the corner.

Sun Xi still stood at the doorway. Everyone seemed to avoid him, leaving him an empty space. He didn’t even look at the mess all over the floor and answered: “This place isn’t really my shop yet.”

Yu Kaixuan looked at him impatiently, then at Old Wang: “Is it or isn’t it?”

Before Old Wang could speak, Sun Xi answered first: “The contract is being processed.”

Yu Kaixuan stared at Sun Xi and asked: “Planning to come back?”

Yu Kaixuan’s question was cold and hard—suddenly, obviously unfriendly.

Xiao Jiu looked toward Sun Xi in response. In such a setting she didn’t dare transmit any signal, trying to remain natural, carefully examining his expression, thinking about how she should handle things if he said something reckless again.

In their cautious years together, aside from that accident, there had never been such a tense standoff as this moment—it could even be called a public execution.

Xiao Jiu felt light-headed beneath her feet, like a dying person who already sees death approaching—if he wickedly beckoned to her, her life would be over.

The only fortunate thing at this moment was, thank heaven, among the roomful of people, Wen Wen wasn’t there.

“Not really coming back—just thinking about investing a bit of business on this side.”

Sun Xi looked back at Yu Kaixuan, expression cautious, tone also carrying some care, saying: “Just as a side business, see if I can make some money.”

After speaking, he stood there straight and rigid, both hands hanging at his sides. His posture and words were both proper and well-behaved, completely different from usual. Like death had turned a circle and transformed, walking over as a reformed, harmless good person.

But almost everyone present, everyone except Xiao Jiu, wouldn’t believe Sun Xi had half a penny’s relationship with being a good person.

“What’s there to invest in this broken place Stone City?” Ge Fan suddenly interjected. “How can it compare to your big business in Beijing?”

Sun Xi actually thought seriously about it: “Stone City’s investment environment is average, but this place is good—city center, good location, next to merchants with high reputation and customer traffic. If operated well, it’s guaranteed profit without loss.”

After speaking, his gaze shifted back to Yu Kaixuan, eyes looking even more sincere than those words.

Yu Kaixuan still kept a stern face, coldly asking: “You’d set your sights on this long ago?”

Sun Xi was startled: “Set my sights on what?”

Yu Kaixuan gritted his teeth, more impatient: “Le Sheng Huang!”

Sun Xi first made an “oh” sound, then looked across more than half the luxurious private room toward the bruised and battered Old Wang inside. His gaze suddenly tightened, carrying extreme pressure: “It was also coincidence. President Wang has run his business for so many years without fresh feelings, tired out. I was lucky—just happened to catch him wanting to transfer it out.”

Wang Heyuan snorted coldly, wanting to refute his blatant lies with glaring eyes, but was scared back by that threatening look.

But these high-sounding words couldn’t fool Ge Fan, who raised his voice to ask: “Do you even know how to run a KTV?”

“Indeed don’t have much experience—will have to rely on Brother Fan, and also everyone here.” As he spoke, he swept a circle around the outer KTV employees, even nodding to Xiao Zhuang who had once smashed his head with a beer bottle, saying gently, “From now on, I’ll be relying on everyone. As long as you think well of me and are willing to stay, I very much welcome you all.”

With these words, the circle of young people started exchanging glances. After all, changing bosses was a done deal—rather than getting into group fights for unrelated people, better to calculate their own small interests. The tense situation suddenly relaxed.

Xiao Jiu glanced at her father, seeing he wasn’t moved at all by Sun Xi’s friendly and amiable rhetoric. His face was stern, even more vigilant. He stared at Sun Xi for a while, then spoke lightly but said something weighty.

Yu Kaixuan said: “Stone City isn’t Beijing.”

Sun Xi immediately understood: “I know, Stone City has Stone City’s rules.”

“Doing business here isn’t that simple.” Second Brother Kai narrowed his eyes.

Sun Xi nodded: “There are many things I don’t understand.”

“And you still dare come back?”

Xiao Jiu hearing this, sucked in a breath.

But Sun Xi met it head-on: “Then Uncle, may I consult you?”

“Consult?”

“Consult about how to do business here.”

“I don’t have anything to teach you.”

Sun Xi suddenly lowered his head, as if avoiding something.

Then softly replied with something logically inconsistent before and after, as if responding to a different question. He said: “I understand.”

Xiao Jiu slowly exhaled that breath, like lacking oxygen, a small bout of dizziness.

Old Wang suddenly felt something was wrong, very wrong. He’d called Sun Xi to fight the bathhouse, so why was this kid here paying respects to the pier instead?

Last night he had that defiant, arrogant, mixed-up swagger that served no one, but today upon seeing Yu Kaixuan, he tucked his tail like a lap dog picking only nice things to say. Yet the other party didn’t appreciate it—in a few sentences he was rebuked so hard he couldn’t even lift his head. Acting this cowardly?

Those who didn’t know would think it was a useless son-in-law meeting his father-in-law for the first time! Fuck, really fucking demoralizing!

Wang Heyuan’s mouth filled with a fishy taste. He spat it out loudly, pulling the topic back: “Hey hey hey, what about my liquor? Sun Xi, we can’t just settle it like this, right? How will you mix around in the future? How will you command respect?”

Sun Xi chuckled lightly, saying unhurriedly: “President Wang, there’s nothing that valuable—not worth hurting the harmony.”

Wang Heyuan got angrier: “What do you mean?”

Sun Xi said flatly: “Do you want me to spell it out in front of everyone? That’s not good, is it?”

Wang Heyuan thought of something. Looking at the circle of people, he suddenly clenched his teeth and went silent. Sun Xi seeing this situation, felt today’s farce should come to an end. He proactively said don’t delay the work upstairs and downstairs—I just happen to want to inventory the shop’s items with President Wang, can calculate this liquor together.

Yu Kaixuan said in a low voice, telling Ge Fan to inventory the losses and report a number to him later, then glanced at Xiao Jiu, Meng Huihong, and Zhu Duomei, meaning to leave first.

Zhu Duomei, silent for a long time, hugged her shoulders, sitting loosely on the high chair at the small bar, constantly glancing at Sun Xi by the door with an ambiguous expression, saying she’d stay—after all, she was the one who caused this.

And Xiao Jiu said nothing, closely following her father’s footsteps. At the doorway, brushing shoulders with Sun Xi, although deliberately avoiding, in that second when their figures briefly overlapped, in the hurry, Xiao Jiu’s peripheral vision swept past, seeing he still maintained that composed appearance.

Eyes lowered, lips pressed, whole body cold and stern—only his prominent Adam’s apple on his neck rolling up and down once.

During that chaotic scene just now, Yu Jiuqi was very certain—he hadn’t placed his gaze on her even once.

Not even once.

“Why did you still come?”

Just entering the Wendu Water Resort lobby, Yu Kaixuan sent away other people, turned to look seriously at Yu Jiuqi, staring at her to ask. Xiao Jiu had anticipated her father’s reaction and had long prepared an explanation, saying she saw the fight livestream in the small group chat, was worried and came to check, even pulling up the group chat to verify.

Meng Huihong didn’t care about Yu Kaixuan’s nervousness. She’d naturally long since figured out that Sun Xi was the murderer’s son who’d made the whole family restless recently. But from the brief contact just now, he didn’t seem as bad as everyone said—his aura was a bit intimidating, but he spoke and handled matters with propriety, and was quite respectful to Yu Kaixuan.

Aunt Hong momentarily forgot that Sun Xi had once beaten her biological son’s brain in, and straightforwardly said I think this young man is quite sensible.

“What do you know?” Yu Kaixuan was impatient. “You don’t understand him at all!”

“His father broke the law—he hasn’t committed any crimes. No need to knock everyone down with one stroke.”

“You know he hasn’t committed crimes?”

“Has he?”

Yu Kaixuan was about to say something, then stopped, turning to stare at Xiao Jiu again, saying this kid came back specifically to take over the shop upstairs—too abnormal. My side is fine, but you need to keep an eye on your mom. If she finds out, she’ll definitely make trouble again.

What Yu Jiuqi worried about most was also Wen Wen. These past two days she’d carefully and cautiously paid attention to Wen Wen—from the dance halls and lounges she frequented, to that cosmetics shop across from Stone City No. 2 High School, even patiently chatting with Young Master Xiaofu from time to time to grasp her mother’s whereabouts and state, just afraid she’d learn the news that Sun Xi had returned.

Xiao Jiu clearly understood that after the memorial service on the anniversary, Wen Wen had entered a fatigue period like a beast about to hibernate—strong liquor and romance could no longer invigorate her. Only hatred could awaken her vitality. And Wen Wen’s vitality was laced with hissing toxicity, possessing destructiveness.

It was precisely because she feared the unpredictable consequences of this destructiveness that Xiao Jiu used an almost foolish method trying to extinguish the source, naively believing she had this ability, that she could do it. Now thinking back, that blind self-righteousness was like a pathetic joke.

He clearly didn’t want to leave.

He’d changed his license plate, taken over the shop upstairs, and spoke carelessly to Ge Fan about those things—it was all deliberate.

Doing these things, he never planned to leave easily.

Did it have to be like this? Did he have to drag everyone into unrest?

Yu Jiuqi came back to her senses. Following her father’s just-expressed worry, she gave her carefully considered response plan. She said Dad, can you go talk to Mom, go now, tell her about this matter as peacefully as possible. Sooner or later it can’t be hidden—can only stabilize her emotions. In this matter, she’ll listen to you more. I know you still have work at the bathhouse. If it’s not complicated, I’ll help you with it. Is that okay, Dad?

Yu Kaixuan clearly understood his daughter wasn’t as weak as she appeared on the surface, but occasionally he’d still be shocked by the tough and strong core she revealed. He didn’t know if it was selfish thoughts at work as a father, but compared to Xiao Jiu’s current sensibility and thoughtfulness, he hoped she’d be a bit more willful, a bit more spoiled, throwing responsibilities that didn’t belong to her far away.

“Dad, is that okay?”

“Alright.”

Yu Kaixuan immediately contacted Wen Wen, learning she and Young Master Xiaofu were planning to eat at a newly opened steamed seafood restaurant. He casually said he was also nearby and would mooch a meal. Aunt Hong didn’t want to get involved and went back to handle the massage therapist scheduling. Xiao Jiu went upstairs, sitting in Yu Kaixuan’s office. Actually there wasn’t any particular work, but she still waited until closing time in case there were temporary situations needing handling, incidentally giving her father’s office a thorough cleaning.

Around after dinner, she received a phone call.

Thinking it was Yu Kaixuan or Wen Wen, she answered anxiously and uneasily, but unexpectedly it was Zhu Duomei.

Zhu Duomei said she was drinking at the craft beer bar diagonally across from Wendu Water Resort. Her phone was almost out of battery, and the shop’s portable chargers had all been taken. She asked if Xiao Jiu was nearby and if it was convenient to bring a portable charger over.

Yu Jiuqi breathed a sigh of relief, discovering she’d broken out in a fine sweat when answering the phone, laughing at herself for being too nervous and jumpy.

She casually threw on one of Yu Kaixuan’s down jackets and came to the craft beer bar. Scanning around from the bar, she saw Zhu Duomei with her tall black ponytail chatting with someone in the shadows. She walked over and patted her shoulder. When Zhu Duomei turned around, before Xiao Jiu could hand over the portable charger in her hand, she froze in place.

She wasn’t being jumpy, nor was she overly nervous. She even marveled at her overly powerful sixth sense that could accurately predict her life from now on would be full of accidents everywhere—or traps.

The person in the shadows was Sun Xi.

“Want to drink something together, Xiao Jiu?”

Zhu Duomei made room at the curved bar edge, glancing at Sun Xi, briefly introducing that because this afternoon Sun Xi had defended the family at Le Sheng Huang and handled things very appropriately in the end, she was treating him to drinks, making a friend. Zhu Duomei never set limits on making friends—as long as they looked agreeable. To some extent, both she and Ge Fan’s casual social ways were inherited from Meng Huihong.

“Sun Xi is a pretty good person.” Zhu Duomei, thinking she was concerned about Sun Xi’s identity, observed Xiao Jiu with her eyes beneath long lashes. “You shouldn’t be like your mom, implicating innocent people because of things from eight hundred years ago, right? Tsk, what era is this?”

Yu Jiuqi smiled: “I still have work at the bathhouse, Sister.”

Zhu Duomei pouted: “The bathhouse won’t stop turning without you, will it? Stay and keep your sister company for a while.”

Xiao Jiu couldn’t tell if it was because Yu Kaixuan’s down jacket was too thick, or if the craft beer bar was chaotically stuffy and oppressive, or if the direct gaze from diagonally across was too burning. She just felt hot all over, abnormally thirsty. Just as she was thinking of finding an excuse to completely slip away, she suddenly heard a sentence that made her unable to move.

Zhu Duomei pulled Xiao Jiu closer, saying: “Just keep me company for this drink. After I finish gossiping about Sun Xi and his ex-girlfriend, we’ll leave together.”

Yu Jiuqi couldn’t figure out how she agreed, how she sat in the chair, how she took off the thick down jacket—in a daze yet somehow reasonably staying.

When she came back to her senses, she heard a calm, waveless sentence float over from diagonally across, low and gentle: “Do you want to drink something?”

Only then did Xiao Jiu look at him, seeing those animal-like bright eyes currently emitting light, focused on her face, the patient inquiring expression just like treating a stranger.

Seeing Xiao Jiu didn’t respond, he politely asked again, like a gentleman accustomed to taking care of women: “Soda water?”

What exactly was he trying to do?

“Soda water.” He said to the waiter not far away. “Without gas.”

“Where were we just now?” Zhu Duomei took a sip of craft black beer, not noticing the subtle atmosphere between the two. She first explained to Xiao Jiu, “Oh right, forgot to tell you—the first time I met Sun Xi, he said he borrowed money from women.”

Xiao Jiu felt she was turning to stone.

Zhu Duomei sized up Xiao Jiu: “I was just like you are now—shocked. I even scolded him! Just now chatting, I found out it was his ex-girlfriend.”

The waiter placed the canned soda water on the bar. Xiao Jiu stared at it, stomach churning, throat dry—she really wanted to drink, but Sun Xi took it over.

Zhu Duomei continued: “His ex-girlfriend, back then it was a cliff-style breakup. She dumped him viciously—not only moving a knife on him but also calling the police to report him. Then a few years after breaking up, late at night she harassed him, calling to get back together. Sun Xi borrowed money from her to make her give up. Exciting, right?”

Yu Jiuqi felt weak all over. She suspected she might faint here, and also felt fainting wouldn’t be bad.

Zhu Duomei finished explaining, then turned to look at Sun Xi: “Later did you return the money to her?”

Sun Xi methodically opened that can of soda water, poured it into a glass, pushed it over, pushed it in front of Xiao Jiu, glancing at her: “Returned it.”

“All of it?” Zhu Duomei asked.

“Mm.” Sun Xi leaned against the chair back, emptying his vision.

“That’s right,” Zhu Duomei nodded. “Between people, it’s best not to owe each other anything.”

Yu Jiuqi drank water in big gulps, gaze falling into a deep blue shadow somewhere on the bar, thinking this ordeal should end here. Suddenly she heard Zhu Duomei ask another question that would kill her.

“Why did you two break up?”

Sun Xi said: “Which time?”

Zhu Duomei said: “There were several times?”

“The last time?” Sun Xi was silent for a while, seemingly thinking, elbow propped on the bar. After a long moment, he slowly said word by word, deliberately without any emotion yet concealing turbulence underneath.

“She said she would be better off without me.”

“What was the result?” Zhu Duomei asked.

Xiao Jiu’s eyes stung. That spot of light and shadow on the bar instantly blurred. She lowered her head, burying it in the glass of soda water, not daring to move a single fraction.

Her stomach calmed somewhat, her body regained energy, surrounding noise receded. Thus she also became clear-eyed and sharp-eared, clearly feeling the force of those three words crashing over.

“She didn’t.”

Sun Xi said decisively.