“Beast?”

He repeated her words. The female assistant also glanced at her.

And Long Qi still curled up, watching the bus gradually drive away into the distance. The breath she exhaled covered the rain-streaked glass surface. She said faintly: “There’s a type of person who approaches you in a way they think understands you, caters to you, pursues you, guides your bad thoughts, tugs at your principles and bottom line, constantly inciting you and encouraging you in anything that can drag you down to hell…”

“After you’re influenced, they then lead the unsuspecting you onto a crooked path, and then use these past events to guide you to do even worse things.”

…

“If this isn’t a beast, what is?”

When Long Qi finished speaking, the car turned around and followed the bus onto the straight road. She leaned quietly against the chair back. The assistant looked at her cautiously, while Lao Ping said: “Speak plainly.”

The car followed the bus for two stops. When it stopped at a certain station, Dong Xi got off from the front door, using her hand to shield the rain from her forehead, and quickly walked into the convenience store beside the bus stop.

From the bus’s rear door, Gu Mingdong got off.

Long Qi gently pulled off one earphone from her left ear. She didn’t move her body, her gaze quietly following Gu Mingdong. Lao Ping instructed the driver to turn off the engine, then replied to several messages from business partners, and incidentally asked Long Qi: “So what beastly thing did that kid do?”

Long Qi didn’t answer. She took a black hair tie from the assistant and wound it around her hand circle by circle. Outside the window, the rain pattered.

“Hmm?” Lao Ping insisted on knowing, staring at her.

The convenience store door rang with a ding-dong. The counter clerk gave change to the current customer. After saying “Thank you for your patronage,” his gaze turned toward the door and said: “Welcome.”

Then he packaged oden for the next customer at the counter.

Dong Xi stood in the aisle in front of the second row of shelves, lowering her head to examine several bags of cat food in her hands. Her hair was a bit wet, loosely tied with a hair tie. A dark blue lunch bag hung from her wrist, with a transparent umbrella hanging beside the bag. Rainwater that hadn’t dried completely gathered at the umbrella tip. After brewing for a long time, it dripped onto the floor with a patter, beside her shoes.

Gu Mingdong stared at her from one side of the food cabinet. After a while, he pulled out his phone from his pocket and took a photo of her.

“Click”—the flash swept past the corner of Dong Xi’s eyes. She turned her head.

“First is tailing,” in the car, Long Qi’s fingertips tapped her knee one after another, “doing it as if it were such a coincidence to meet in every place.”

“Then being obsessed with you.”

“Liking you.”

“Wanting to possess you.”

“Being able to do anything for you.”

“Always saying things like ‘there’s someone you hate in your heart, let me guess who it is.'”

“Perceiving all your negative emotions. As long as you show even a tiny bit in front of him…”

Lao Ping interrupted: “You didn’t let him take nude photos of you, did you?”

The calm narration came to an abrupt halt. Long Qi closed her eyes and rubbed her forehead.

“There’s someone you hate in your heart,” inside the supermarket, in the aisle, four meters in front of Dong Xi, Gu Mingdong stood straight beside the shelf, saying slowly: “Besides me, there are two other people.”

The heating inside the supermarket rumbled loudly. The emotion in Dong Xi’s eyes went from the slight fluctuation of initial surprise, to gradual calm upon discovering it was him, and then slowly undulating again because of this sentence. The bag of cat food in her hands made squeaking sounds with the force. Another water droplet fell from the umbrella tip.

Inside the store: him and her, the female customer in front of the first row of food cabinets, two counter clerks, a female supermarket manager, and a male customer paying for oden—seven people in total.

“I’m not the person you hate most.” Gu Mingdong continued: “How strange. I almost laid hands on you, yet I’m not the person you hate most.”

Dong Xi withdrew her gaze, put the bag of cat food back on the shelf, and walked away with her back to him.

Gu Mingdong said: “I’ve seen the posts on the forum. You have kleptomania, huh?”

“Isn’t it because I’m afraid others have dirt on you? I can handle this kind of thing as early as possible during this period.” Lao Ping explained to her.

Long Qi still folded her arms without saying a word.

“Alright, I believe you wouldn’t take photos. Don’t be angry. It’s my fault.” Lao Ping admitted his mistake.

And Long Qi afterward spoke lightly: “If you really want to handle it, that’s fine too.”

“There really is something?”

“Yes, in England. Go contact them yourself.”

Lao Ping immediately caught on: “Oh, that lord is fine. That lord and you…”

“I hate him the most.”

“Who?”

“The person in the supermarket.”

Only then was Lao Ping pulled back to the topic, and seemed to breathe a sigh of relief. Before he could react, Long Qi continued: “Among the students he’s deceived, three haven’t returned to the right path.”

“So what exactly did he do?”

Inside the supermarket, Dong Xi’s breath merged into the moisture in the air—cold and cool. She turned her head back, reflecting Gu Mingdong’s entire person in her pupils.

Gu Mingdong expressionlessly indicated the cat food with a glance.

He said: “Your lunch bag is big enough. Put it in.”

In the gap when Dong Xi didn’t speak, he continued: “It’s fine. Many children from affluent backgrounds have this hobby.”

Dong Xi stopped listening, turned her head, and walked away directly. Gu Mingdong immediately followed up with another sentence: “The one who can’t stand to see you do this kind of thing the most is Ah Qi.”

Her footsteps stopped again at the corner. Gu Mingdong said slowly: “Dragons have reverse scales—touch them and they will rage. You are that scale on Long Qi’s body.”

The next sentence: “And she is one of the people you hate.”

Dong Xi’s hands were trembling.

He smiled, hooking his mouth and saying: “I have a plan to take revenge on her. Do you want to participate?”

“Do you occasionally do wrong things, Lao Ping? Things outside of legal and ethical boundaries.”

In the car, whether Lao Ping shook his head or nodded, Long Qi didn’t see with her eyes closed, but she replied to him as if she had gotten the answer: “This person Gu Mingdong will record videos when he uses every means to lure the other party into doing wrong things.”

“Then what?”

“Sell them.”

“Sell videos? It’s that simple?”

“No,” Long Qi slowly opened her eyes, “he uses the videos to coerce, making the other party sell—sell dignity, sell everything.”

Lao Ping didn’t ask about the following words. He seemed to understand instantly, replying: “Quite a business mind.”

And the female assistant who had been silently listening on the side gasped.

How much time does it take to see through a person?

Long Qi was slow, so obviously she spent more time than Jin Yiken. Although Jin Yiken once thought Gu Mingdong was interesting, the premise was that this kind of play didn’t touch the interests within his own circle. But Gu Mingdong moved against people in his circle. Once he saw through those little tricks Gu Mingdong was secretly playing underneath—those ant-like methods that even he sneered at—he found this person completely tasteless, even contemptible and disgusting.

So when Gu Mingdong was expelled from school back then, Jin Yiken had cast his vote.

So, at this moment, now, in front of Dong Xi, Gu Mingdong said: “Believe it or not, as long as you get close to me, Long Qi will have no peace day or night. Your every move can make her do anything hysterical. Then, the second person you hate, Jin Yiken who is far away in England, will also be affected by this. Both of them will pay the price for having wronged you in the past.”

After he finished speaking, he stared at Dong Xi patiently.

The female manager stared at the aisle where they were, turned her head, and spoke softly to the counter clerk. Outside the supermarket, fine rain pattered. Inside the supermarket, rain from the umbrella tip dripped down drop by drop, pooling into a puddle.

However, after a long silent confrontation, Dong Xi sighed.

Gu Mingdong’s gaze followed her, listening as she said in a weary voice: “Are you annoying or not…”

He pursed his lips.

“At school too, outside school too…”

…

“Always following me, always talking.”

…

“Provoking me, instigating me to steal things, constantly saying self-righteous things…”

As Dong Xi spoke, she placed her hand on the counter, touching the bag of cat food. Gu Mingdong began to point his phone’s camera lens toward her. The force between her fingers made the bag emit rustling sounds.

But she didn’t put it in the lunch bag.

Five seconds later, the force between her fingers relaxed. What came with it was her looking at Gu Mingdong and saying: “Childish.”

Gu Mingdong’s tightened eyebrows loosened. His gaze shifted from the phone screen to Dong Xi’s face in reality.

Dong Xi tossed the cat food into the shopping basket with normal force.

“Not everyone’s world center must revolve around old grudges. When things pass, they pass. I want to move forward. If you refuse to walk forward, it has nothing to do with me. But don’t drag me to stand still in place with you. I don’t hate anyone—not now, not in the future.”

As she said all this, the ripples that had once risen in the bottom of her eyes could no longer be found. Following the last faint “goodbye,” she picked up the shopping basket to pay at the counter, ignoring Gu Mingdong.

Outside the supermarket, Dong Xi came out carrying shopping bags and stepped onto a bus that had just arrived at the station. In both scenes, there was no appearance of Gu Mingdong following. Long Qi watched the bus drive away and said to Lao Ping: “Wait for me five minutes.”

Then she got out of the nanny van.

Gu Mingdong’s appearance in the supermarket looked lonely and defeated. Long Qi arrived at the door and knocked on the glass with her knuckles. He looked this way.

She wore no hat, no mask. Her eyes were bright and beautiful. She came openly, crossed her arms composedly. One of the two counter clerks stood dazed, the other reacted dramatically staring at this spot. Gu Mingdong sneered coldly at her.

“Are you finished playing childish games?” she asked.

“Big star, are you trying to provoke me?”

This appearance of pretending to rally himself the moment he was provoked was exactly the same as Long Xinyi. Long Qi didn’t respond to that sentence, only saying: “With your criminal record, being able to continue studying isn’t easy. Now that you’re back, cherish it well. Don’t research marginal things anymore. This advice is sincerely given to you from me as someone who’s been there. Being liked by people is already difficult—don’t go seeking to be hated.”

“Yo,” he still challenged her, “after dating a top student boyfriend, your soul is indeed different. In a few more months you’ll probably be able to open a reform class.”

“I can meet with Jin Yiken’s father at any time.” Long Qi followed up without hesitation, calmly watching him.

His expression changed slightly. Some youthful hostility quietly hid away. At this time, Lao Ping came behind her and patted her shoulder: “Don’t stay too long. It’s time to go.”

The clerk at the counter was holding up his phone taking pictures here. When Long Qi left, Gu Mingdong didn’t make a sound. But Lao Ping was curious and asked one more question when getting in the car: “What’s the relationship between your boyfriend’s father and him?”

“His father is the driver for Jin Yiken’s father.” She answered breezily.

So in the end, the so-called “family background” that got Gu Mingdong back into school to study again was the Jin Yiken family. Not many people knew about this. Gu Mingdong was one, Jin Yiken was one, she was the third, Lao Ping was the fourth. Bai Aiting didn’t know.

She continued: “Thank you, Lao Ping. You’ve troubled yourself today. If you have time in the future, help me keep an eye on that girl. She’s someone I wronged before. See if you have any connections that can help me look after her, especially don’t let that man get close to her.”

“Could information on her end be unfavorable to you?”

Long Qi didn’t say much more, replying: “If something happens to her, it would be very unfavorable to me.”

“Alright.” Lao Ping agreed.

“Also, don’t tell the England side.”

“Mm…” Lao Ping hesitated for a second or two, then agreed again, “Alright.”