Although gun ownership is legal in America, the sudden gunshot still brought panic to the previously cheerful and lively campus in an instant.

After all, there had been previous news of campus shootings with thirty-three victims. This kind of indiscriminate terrorist revenge against society was all too common in America.

The venue had a high density of people and quickly began organizing evacuations, with the school also activating emergency security measures.

But when they arrived at the crime scene, aside from a few drops of blood on the ground and tire tracks gouged into the asphalt from a car making a sharp turn at high speed, nothing remained.

Inside the car, the eternally calm mechanical voice of artificial intelligence sounded.

3.0: [Mr. Yan, I have navigated to the nearest hospital, Henry Mayo Newhall Hospital, thirteen kilometers away, estimated twenty minutes.]

3.0: [Mr. Yan, your current speed has exceeded 120 mph. You are speeding. According to state law, if you continue speeding, your license may be revoked.]

“You’re noisy.”

“I’m talking to Suisui.”

3.0 followed the command and made no more sound.

Only the car’s screen kept flashing red exclamation mark warnings, mixing with the scalding, sticky blood on pale knuckles – everything awash in red.

The dark sky pressed down heavily in the distance, the road ahead seeming to have no end.

Only a man’s voice remained in the car, murmuring ethereally over and over.

“Suisui.”

“Suisui.”

“Suisui.”

But the back seat remained completely quiet.

Yan Tingli’s pupils moved slowly: “Answer me.”

I can’t seem to hear your breathing anymore.

Still no response.

“I’m begging you.” Yan Tingli stared ahead, flooring the accelerator, unconsciously saying, “I’m begging you.”

“No marriage.”

“I won’t force you to marry anymore.”

“As long as you…” don’t die.

His face suddenly turned deathly pale.

His heart felt like it was being ground back and forth by a rusty, dull knife, so painful that even those last two words were lost in his throat.

He had made a sound, so the commands refreshed, and 3.0 responded: [Mr. Yan, I understand your worry for your loved one and your current anxious, heartbroken feelings. Please stay calm and drive steadily. I believe Suisui will be safe and sound.]

“Loved one.”

“Loved one?”

He suddenly shook his head in panic, not knowing who he was talking to.

“No, she’s not my loved one.”

“I don’t want her anymore.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t take her away.”

Yan Tingli’s eyes showed no trace of light, his voice as timid as a child’s, gazing into the distance like mist, as if trapped in some nightmare.

It was April, the air stuffy and stagnant, spring thunder crashing down heavily, as if brewing a torrential downpour about to fall.

The fluorescent lights in the hospital made everyone’s faces look like pale corpses.

The operating room doors opened, and Beijing’s top medical expert removed his mask, then wearily announced a fact: “I’m sorry, too much blood loss. Young Master Yan couldn’t be saved. Please accept our condolences.”

Song Jie immediately collapsed backward from excessive grief, unable to stand, crying hysterically.

Yan Zecheng also helplessly leaned against the wall, burying his head in his hands and sobbing aloud.

Seeing their respective expressions of despair, he glanced at the cold operating room.

His chest also felt hollow.

This emptiness was different from past loneliness.

He pressed his chest, feeling the sharp pain, this uncomfortable feeling squeezing his tear ducts, prompting him to walk around his parents and unconsciously step into the operating room.

A white sheet covered Yan Congjin’s face, which was always smiling, easily winning everyone’s affection.

He looked for a long time.

Only then did he tremblingly extend his knuckles to grasp a section of Yan Congjin’s exposed finger.

Cold, stiff.

The distance between life and death.

So close, yet so far.

“Smack.”

He didn’t know how long it had passed when his hand was suddenly struck away forcefully, stinging with pain.

Turning his head, Song Jie glared at him with red eyes, shouting: “Don’t touch Xiao Jin!”

The look in her eyes as she stared at him was like seeing something ominous.

His expression was confused.

His chest felt even more hollow.

“Get out.” Song Jie’s rationality had completely lost control as she grabbed him and pushed him outside, “Stay away from Xiao Jin!”

He said slowly: “…Why?”

But there was no more response. The operating room doors had been slammed shut.

At Yan Congjin’s funeral, they invited monks from the temple to perform rituals.

Song Jie didn’t let him attend.

The enormous house was too quiet without Yan Congjin, who was always noisy.

He felt lonely.

His head resting on the piano stand, his chest felt like a large chunk had been carved out, filled with cold wind that chilled his spine.

The funeral seemed to be over, and hysterical arguing voices came from downstairs.

Shattering porcelain, overturned coffee tables, banging, and crashing.

In the past, when they fought, Yan Congjin would be in the middle acting as a peacemaker.

But he simply couldn’t do that.

Couldn’t mediate these things.

He stood at the stair landing, quietly watching.

Not knowing what to do.

“You and your son Yan Tingli are both murderers who killed Xiao Jin!” Song Jie, not seeing him on the stairs, pointed straight at Yan Zecheng, “Why don’t you all just die!”

“What do you mean, my son? Didn’t you give birth to him?”

“I couldn’t give birth to such a cursed lone star who brings misfortune to others and himself! It must be your Yan family genes that produce so many mental cases!”

Yan Zecheng was furious: “You’re talking nonsense! What kind of good thing are you?”

Song Jie turned and picked up a wooden box from the table, seeming to feel something terrible, throwing it far away: “This is the fortune slip the master gave me today, the same as the one drawn the year he was born!”

“Don’t you know what your ancestors did to build their fortune? I think all the sins accumulated from ancestral business have come back as retribution, creating such an antisocial personality.”

The primitive accumulation of wealth often accompanies ruthless capital harvesting. Yan Zecheng was most taboo about mentioning this and glared at her deadly.

The two fought earth-shakingly, no one noticing someone had stopped on the stairs.

The wooden box was smashed open on the ground, landing right at his feet, revealing the fortune slip inside.

He crouched to pick it up, his gaze slowly freezing.

[Lonely shadow cries to the frosty moon, heavenly secrets light in palm] [Family bonds like candles in the wind, romantic fate both vast and vague]

[To cross the Asura tribulation, one must seek life within death]

Horizontal inscription: [Extreme wisdom brings harm, deep affection doesn’t bring longevity]

The fortune slipped from memory, suddenly blurred, focusing on the hospital’s stark white walls under fluorescent lights.

Yan Tingli lowered his eyes.

Unconsciously picking at the scabbed blood clots on his hands.

But no matter what.

He couldn’t pick them off.

His vision was still blurred with patches of bright red.

His nose was filled with the sticky smell of blood, forcing waves of churning, twisting pain in his stomach.

He leaned against the wall, closed his eyes, and endured with a pale face.

A voice came from above, a nurse stopping in front of him.

Her lips opened and closed: “Sir, you’ve picked at your hands until they’re bleeding. You should try to stop.”

So it wasn’t her blood.

It was his.

“Thanks,” Yan Tingli raised a light smile: “I feel happy.”

The nurse felt confused but could only shrug: “Ok.”

After walking a few steps, she turned back to see that gentleman still leaning in his chair, continuing to pick at his hands covered in wounds.

Even harder.

As if he felt no pain.

The nurse frowned at the sight, hesitated, but still turned and left.

American people had complex mental states – she didn’t understand but respected them.

Shi Sui felt like she had slept for a very, very long time.

Her body felt heavy.

She wanted to move but couldn’t; her throat was also dry, desperately wanting water, but she couldn’t speak.

Her thoughts were chaotically jumping in the darkness without logic, repeatedly leaping about.

Shi Sui dreamed of that Qingming Festival when she was on the phone with Zhou Xuyan in that small apartment in Beijing, discussing studying abroad.

Looking up, somehow Song Jie had burst through the door and was standing in the study. The woman arrogantly lifted her chin, looking over with contemptuous and disgusted eyes: “So it’s you. Do your parents know?”

“We took you in, gave you such a good environment, and this is how you repay us – by not knowing your place?”

“Now, leave here, leave Tingli’s side.”

The scene changed, and she was pressed down from behind by Yan Tingli, surrounded by darkness, and the sound of clanking chains whenever she moved her hands and feet.

He turned her chin to kiss her, his gaze bottomlessly deep.

His words hoarse like a demon’s whisper: “Then bear me a child.”

“Once you have a child, where else can you run?”

In the dream, she cried and struggled in terror, feeling her belly slowly growing larger.

Yan Tingli satisfiedly stroked it: “So good, already three months. Once the child is born, we’ll get married immediately.”

Then she was desperately running on a road filled with black fog, the tracker on her foot flashing red.

The roar of a supercar, violent braking sounds. The car blocked her path, cutting off her escape route.

Yan Tingli got out in all black, his lips curved in cat-and-mouse composure: “Our child is still waiting for you at the villa.”

The villa.

That villa in Los Angeles with a basement.

Shi Sui crouched, holding her head, screaming hysterically.

After an unknown time, all this terror suddenly dissipated.

Summer sunlight scattered all the fog, and cicadas cried endlessly.

Shi Sui stood by a clear mirror-like stream, beside her Yan Tingli wore a sloppy white t-shirt, half his face still had ash she had smeared on him.

He lowered his head, mischievously rubbing his face against hers.

She angrily dodged into the water, he followed, and after some playful fighting, he cupped her face and kissed her gently.

“We can come here every year at this time.”

“We.” Yan Tingli emphasized childishly.

Shi Sui heard herself nod and say: “Okay.”

On the way back that evening, they found Ping’an.

Half a month later, when the small town’s summer was ending, the little tomatoes in the vegetable garden finally ripened.

That day at the dinner table appeared the tomato scrambled eggs that Shi Sui had been thinking about for so long appeared.

Both sour and sweet.

The most delicious little tomatoes she had ever eaten.

All the scenes suddenly blurred, becoming some unknown intimate moment.

The young man’s dark pupils were serious, stubborn, and expectant as they fell on her cheek.

“Suisui.” He called her name.

“Actually.”

“I love you, too.”

This time, Shi Sui let him speak the love he hadn’t finished saying.

“But,” he said awkwardly, “you have to love me more.”

Scenes of real and false memories flashed by, and Shi Sui felt like she had eaten a strange-flavored bean with mixed tastes.

Sour, sweet, bitter, spicy.

Finally, what she tasted was the saltiness of tears.

The chaotic memories receded like a tide, and Shi Sui’s consciousness gradually awakened.

Along with consciousness came the pain from her wound after the anesthesia wore off.

Shi Sui had lived an ordinary life like all common people since childhood; the worst illness she’d had was just a fever requiring IV drips.

Even then, as a child, she would fearfully hide in Li Yin’s arms.

Growing up, she became even more invulnerable.

During a flu outbreak, all her roommates caught colds and coughed, only she remained fine.

Gunshot wound pain was still too specialized for Shi Sui.

She woke up miserably, looking into her parents’ anxiously waiting eyes by the bedside.

Tears immediately fell.

“Don’t cry, don’t cry.” Li Yin didn’t dare move her carelessly, only stroking her hand continuously, coaxing in soft, gentle tones like comforting a child, “It won’t hurt soon.”

Shi Yue felt sorry for his daughter and immediately stood up: “I’ll call the doctor over to give Suisui some painkillers.”

The doctor came, changed the IV, and gave her some oral medication.

Only then did Shi Sui’s pain ease.

From the doctor’s explanation, she learned that she had been shot in the shoulder, causing bone fractures and muscle damage. It wasn’t life-threatening, but “it takes a hundred days to heal bones and tendons,” requiring good care, a light diet, and blood and energy replenishment.

Although not dangerous, recovery pain was unavoidable.

Shi Sui’s expression immediately became somewhat bitter.

Currently, she was still on IV nutrition, but when the doctor said she could eat, Li Yin fed her porridge and eggs at noon, plus a small plate of vegetables and beef.

Light, but nutritionally balanced and rich.

The lunch box was delivered by a Filipino maid who spoke little and left immediately after delivery.

Her parents didn’t mention it.

Shi Sui didn’t ask either, but as soon as the food entered her mouth, her tongue recognized whose handiwork this was before her brain did.

The porridge was cooked by him.

The other dishes weren’t, because although light, they were delicious.

With her right shoulder injured and unable to move, Shi Sui was fed by Li Yin, eating the delivered food bit by bit.

She hadn’t eaten for a long time and finished everything cleanly.

Li Yin watched from the side and couldn’t help saying angrily, “How could you encounter such a thing just from traveling abroad?”

Shi Yue immediately agreed: “America is still too unsafe. Once your injury stabilizes a bit, we’ll go home immediately!”

Shi Sui didn’t speak. She lowered her eyes and swallowed the last spoonful of porridge: “Did they find out who fired the gun?”

“Xiao Li hasn’t told us about that yet.” Shi Yue said.

Li Yin put down the lunch box, speculating: “He should be busy with that these past few days, too.”

From surgery until now, Shi Sui had been unconscious for about two days.

After receiving Yan Tingli’s call, they frantically took the earliest, fastest flight from China.

When they arrived, Shi Sui had already come out of emergency care and was lying unconscious in bed.

Seeing this made them both panic. Li Yin couldn’t help but cover her face and cry.

But compared to Yan Tingli, who had been guarding there for who knows how long, their condition was relatively good.

When they first saw Yan Tingli, his face was paper-white, those slender hands covered in crisscrossing wounds, all new and old, clearly self-inflicted scratches.

He sat on a chair one meter away from Shi Sui.

His pupils were vacant, motionlessly staring at the bed.

When he saw them, Yan Tingli bowed deeply, his voice light as snow: “I’m sorry.”

After they arrived, Yan Tingli left. Aside from having the maid bring some necessities, he hadn’t appeared again.

Li Yin was dissatisfied with his indifferent attitude. Suisui had blocked a bullet for him and was unconscious on the sickbed, yet as her boyfriend, he hadn’t shown his face for over a day.

But thinking of Yan Tingli’s dead-water-like appearance when they arrived, she intuitively felt things might not be as simple as she thought.

Not knowing the full picture, she couldn’t judge.

Not knowing how to bring up these complex feelings, Li Yin gently stroked Shi Sui’s thin eyebrows, lovingly kissed her forehead, and said seriously: “Suisui, from now on, you must love yourself first.”

These words hit Shi Sui’s complex heartstrings. She lowered her eyelashes, not knowing what to say.

If she had carefully considered it, she really might not have been able to make such a decision. But in that moment, instinct transcended reason.

By the time she realized what had happened, it was already done.

Shi Sui finally said softly, “I will.”

At the same moment, in a villa district several blocks away.

Outside was beautiful weather with bright sunshine.

No one knew.

In the sealed basement, terrifying screams that could nearly lift the roof continued.

But this “basement” would be better called a negative first floor.

It had a transparent window design – if the curtains were normally opened, sunlight would still enter.

Even the interior decoration was exquisitely matched, full of a comfortable, dreamy style.

But at this moment, the entire negative first floor was completely sealed.

On the wall directly across from the windows, a man was bound with both hands and legs spread wide, tied to the wall.

“What a pity.” Yan Tingli lowered his eyes, casually playing with the gun in his knuckles, saying with disgust, “Letting you come here first dirtied this place.”

Speaking, he squinted once.

Playfully fired another shot at the opposite side, using a silencer so the sound couldn’t escape the villa.

Theodore trembled all over, his expression so panicked he wished he could immediately faint.

This madman had already fired eight shots at him.

Like a cat toying with a mouse, each shot grazed along his limbs.

That last shot, he even felt it brush past his scalp.

Just a hair’s breadth away, and his head would have exploded, then splattered on the wall like a rotten tomato.

“Don’t move around.” Yan Tingli blew away the gunpowder smell from the barrel, saying gently, “Otherwise I don’t know if there’ll be an accidental discharge this time.”

Before Theodore could react, Yan Tingli raised the gun and unexpectedly fired another shot.

But this time wasn’t a malicious joke, because he felt sharp pain already coming from his shoulder blade, his whole body breaking out in cold sweat from the pain.

“Still won’t say who ordered this?!”

“You,” Theodore’s face turned pale, “how did you know?”

Yan Tingli slowly approached, looking down at him with eyes as cold as an Asura from hell.

His gloved knuckles grabbed his chin, saying contemptuously: “With a waste like you, could you know my whereabouts and dare to shoot at me?”

Although annoyed by the contempt in his words, Theodore admitted he indeed wasn’t made of stern stuff. Even if he had such thoughts, after learning about Yan Tingli’s wealth, he absolutely wouldn’t dare act.

But that person was also not someone to offend. His expression changed unpredictably, not knowing how to react, finally settling on silence.

Yan Tingli chuckled lightly: “Some backbone.”

The next second, he raised his hand to place the gun at his head, his lips curving in a strange arc:

“I’ll give you three more seconds. If you don’t speak.”

“Guess whether this bullet will go through your head, then—”

This time, before he even finished speaking.

Theodore had already reacted, screaming out a name, babbling in jumbled English: “It’s Yan Zecheng, your father! He leaked 3.0’s data and exposed your whereabouts.”

“He also investigated our grudges! He demanded I cripple you so you’d spend the rest of your life bedridden.”

Yan Tingli’s expression was meaningful.

He put away the gun, methodically tossing it up and down: “Why cripple and not kill?”

“Is it because he can’t reproduce and wants to borrow seed?”

Theodore just shook his head frantically, shouting: “I don’t know, I just take money to do jobs!”

“I don’t know anything! You can let me go now! Everything was your father’s doing!”

Yan Tingli frowned and fired another shot.

“So noisy.”

Theodore screamed in pain.

This shot hit his other shoulder blade with precision, as if the location had been carefully selected.

He was both scared and dizzy, and he fainted immediately.

Yan Tingli couldn’t be bothered to look at him anymore, clapping twice: “Take him away.”

Black-clothed bodyguards immediately emerged from the shadows, dragging the person away, stuffing him in a car trunk, and dumping him at the nearest hospital entrance.

In the darkness, everything returned to quiet.

The light in Yan Tingli’s eyes dimmed and died.

His footsteps slowly returned to the first floor. The newly hired Filipino maid respectfully said, “Mr. Yan, Miss Shi has awakened.”

His eyelashes moved slightly, and after a long time, he said: “…I know.”

Shi Sui’s right shoulder was immobilized, but fortunately, her left hand could still move.

All afternoon, to keep her parents from worrying, she forced herself to stay alert, entertaining herself by watching videos and occasionally sharing and chatting with them.

At night, the moonlight was like water.

Shi Yue returned to the nearby hotel and would come back during the day. Li Yin had been working around the clock for several days and was already asleep on the accompanying small bed, her breathing long and even.

But Shi Sui had slept too much these past two days; her body was immobilized, and she couldn’t even turn over freely.

The wound still ached faintly – not severe, but wearing.

She looked at the bright white moonlight outside the window, unable to sleep.

Agitated and restless.

Her left hand frantically scratched around on the bed in frustration.

Suddenly.

Shi Sui touched something, her fingertips pausing slightly as she slowly pulled it out.

She looked at the prayer sachet that appeared in her palm, clearly well-preserved and still like new.

Shi Sui’s eyes trembled heavily.

Also at this moment.

As if sensing something, she turned her head and saw through the frosted window the thick, tall shadow standing quietly there.

Already waiting for who knows how long.

Shi Sui gripped the sachet in her hand tightly, her thoughts circling once.

A few seconds later, she still expressionlessly took out her phone and sent a message: [Come in]

One minute later.

The door was gently pushed open, and Shi Sui met eyes with Yan Tingli, whose gaze immediately stuck to her upon entering.