As Xia Jun exited the corridor before he could make out the person in front of him, a sack was thrown over his head and he was forced into a vehicle. He tried to struggle, but Jiang Jingzhou and Liang Yuantai sat on either side, each pinning down one of his shoulders against the seat.

Unable to move, he had no choice but to quiet down. After a moment, he figured out what was happening and sneered, “Xia Xia, you’ve outdone yourself.”

The car cabin remained silent; no one responded to him. His head was confined in the sack, his nose making the fabric pulse with each breath.

Xia Jun laughed sinisterly, “I haven’t even settled scores with you yet, and here you come looking for me.”

“You’re getting people to take revenge on me? But if I show up covered in injuries right after getting out, and the police find out, won’t you be the one in detention next?”

“Have you ever been in detention?” His voice was hoarse. “Every day it’s boiled potatoes and stewed radishes. With your delicate nature, could you handle even one stay there?”

He continued talking to himself, but only the deep male voice in the music responded.

As the car sped along, the surrounding silence made Xia Jun grow anxious. He began speaking without restraint, spouting vulgar curses.

Xie Huai glanced at Xia Xia. The girl had wrapped herself in her coat, put in her earphones, and turned the music up to maximum volume. Her gaze fell on the scenery outside – the deep sky adorned with lead-gray clouds, the orange glow of street lights, the swaying tree shadows, the distant horizon and brilliant stars – anything but the crude man in the back seat who kept calling her “whore” and “little slut.”

Xie Huai reached out and gently ruffled her hair. Xia Xia turned to look at him and saw him smiling.

Xie Huai looked up and met Jiang Jingzhou’s eyes in the mirror. “Make him shut up.”

Jiang Jingzhou removed the sack from Xia Jun’s head. Upon seeing Xia Xia, Xia Jun burst into curses: “You’d better let me go now, or I’ll haunt you even as a ghost. I’ll never leave you alone – we’ll see who lasts longer!”

As Jiang Jingzhou pulled out a dirty rag to stuff in his mouth, Xie Huai said, “Wait.”

He took out a box of thumbtacks from his pocket, his expression indifferent. “Use these. I’ve been sleep-deprived lately, and muffled noises give me headaches.”

Through the rearview mirror, Xia Xia saw Jiang Jingzhou smile helplessly.

He forced open Xia Jun’s jaw and inserted the thumbtacks one by one into his mouth. After putting in ten tacks, Jiang Jingzhou sealed his mouth with tape.

When Xia Jun tried to yell, Jiang Jingzhou said lightly, “The tracks don’t have eyes. If you make another sound, they might slide down your esophagus.”

Xia Jun didn’t dare make a sound, but his eyes glared viciously at Xia Xia.

Xie Huai stopped the car in front of an abandoned construction site.

As Liang Yuantai and Jiang Jingzhou dragged Xia Jun out, Xie Huai remained still. He removed his bodhi bead bracelet and hung it around his neck like a necklace.

He wore a white T-shirt today, which made him appear thoroughly gentle, but the brown bodhi beads against the solid color added hints of wildness and rebellion, creating an indefinable quality. Xie Huai was like a gentle thug.

After pondering for a while, Xia Xia felt no description suited him better.

“What exactly do you want me to see?” Xia Xia asked, confused. “Murder is not an option, and beating him up won’t solve anything. He’s persistent – you can’t subdue him with force. If you beat him today, he’ll just come back tomorrow.”

“Who said I was going to beat him?” Xie Huai smiled nonchalantly. “Xia Xia, let’s make a bet.”

“What kind of bet?”

“I won’t lay a finger on him, but I’ll make sure he never dares come near you again,” Xie Huai said. “If he gets even a scratch today, I lose. Want to play?”

Xia Xia paused before asking, “What’s the stake?”

Xie Huai’s lips curved into a deeper smile: “If I lose, you give me a kiss.”

Xia Xia blushed and asked, “What if you win?”

Xie Huai looked at her, his expression full of youthful mischief. He drawled, “Then I’ll give you a kiss instead.”

Xia Jun lay on the ground. His mouth was stuffed with thumbtacks; any movement caused the tacks to shift and pierce the inside of his cheeks and tongue. He didn’t dare swallow, fearing he might accidentally swallow a tack. His saliva filled his mouth until it leaked through the gaps in the tape, making his chin dirty.

Xie Huai walked toward him, and terror crossed his face. Though the other two had been doing the physical work, he wasn’t stupid – he could tell Xie Huai was the one in charge.

Xie Huai crouched in front of him. Xia Jun made a muffled sound, and Xie Huai asked, “Want me to remove the tape?”

He smiled coldly, grabbed Xia Jun by the back of his collar, and dragged him up toward the abandoned building.

Though Xie Huai wasn’t as muscular as Zhao Yilei, he was surprisingly strong, dragging Xia Jun’s large frame effortlessly.

Xia Jun’s legs and back scraped against the ground as he was pulled up the stairs like a sack of potatoes.

The abandoned building had been deserted for years, and the stairs were thick with dust.

By the time Xie Huai dragged Xia Jun to the roof, he was covered in dust, with grit in his eyes and nose. He wanted to cough but couldn’t because of the thumbtacks and saliva in his mouth, only managing muffled grunts from his throat.

Xia Jun looked up at Xie Huai, who stood over him.

Behind him was a star-studded sky, but his eyes held an icy coldness that made even the autumn starlight seem warm in comparison.

That gaze instilled a deep fear in Xia Jun’s heart – Xie Huai was going to suffocate him.

He couldn’t sneeze, his breathing was obstructed, his head spun, and saliva nearly went up his nose.

Each second of suffocation felt like a century. Just when he thought he was about to die, someone ripped off the tape, and Xia Jun sprawled on the ground, spitting everything out of his mouth.

He opened his eyes to see Xie Huai sitting on a stone block in front of him.

Xia Jun retched violently several times, turning his head to wipe the dust off his face against the ground.

Looking around, he saw they were on the top floor of the abandoned building. The construction was never completed, leaving three sides without walls, open to the brilliant starry sky.

The autumn wind occasionally brushed their faces with a rustling sound.

Xia Jun’s mouth was full of blood, but his true nature couldn’t be contained, and he sneered again: “When I was your age-fighting in gangs, you weren’t even a sperm in your father’s balls.”

Jiang Jingzhou curved his lips in mockery: “Fighting? Our Young Master has never been in a gang fight in his life.”

Xia Jun paused at hearing how Jiang addressed Xie Huai: “Who are you trying to fool? You want to stand up for that little slut, so you’ll beat me up, but you wouldn’t dare kill me, would you?”

Xie Huai looked at him steadily: “What if I did kill you?”

Xia Jun said: “You wouldn’t dare.”

Xie Huai pointed at Liang Yuantai: “Do you know who his parents are?”

Xia Jun’s bravado faltered slightly as he looked at the man who had beaten him before, painful memories surfacing.

Xie Huai continued impassively: “Even if he crippled you, no cop in South City would dare investigate him.”

Xia Xia glanced at Liang Yuantai.

He wore a foolish smile, listening intently to Xie Huai’s words, completely missing that Xie Huai was using him to intimidate Xia Jun.

Xie Huai grabbed Xia Jun’s hair and pulled him up, asking: “Do you know who I am?”

“You said I wouldn’t dare kill you.” His expression was cold, devoid of emotion. “Let me show you if I dare or not.”

Jiang Jingzhou took out a rope from his bag and tied one end to a concrete pillar on the roof, and the other end to Xia Jun’s ankle.

Xie Huai grabbed Xia Jun’s previously broken arm and dragged him toward the edge of the building where there was no railing.

His movements aggravated Xia Jun’s old injury, making him howl in pain.

This was the seventh floor, and by the time Xia Jun realized what was happening, Xie Huai had already pushed half his body over the edge.

Xia Jun finally panicked but tried to maintain his composure: “What are you trying to do!”

Xie Huai released his grip and said flatly: “Go die.”

He let go, and Xia Jun’s body instantly plummeted headfirst from the seventh-floor rooftop.

The area was remote, and in the quiet night, there were no other sounds except the occasional rumble of planes overhead, accompanied by Xia Jun’s piercing screams.

Xia Xia ran over: “Xie Huai, have you gone mad!”

Xie Huai stood at the edge of the roof and turned to give her a gentle look.

Xia Xia: “It’s not just about him dying – you’ll go to prison for killing him!”

She lay on the ground to look down and saw Xia Jun’s ankles bound by rope, his body swaying in mid-air between the fourth and fifth floors.

He spoke incoherently, screaming shrilly: “Pull me up – quickly pull me up, I’m begging you—”

Jiang Jingzhou pulled Xia Xia up: “This is a professional climbing rope, I tied three strands. Even if his legs break, the rope won’t.”

“You guys are taking this too far.” Xia Xia’s face was pale from Xie Huai’s earlier push.

“You think this is too much?” Xie Huai played with the bodhi beads he had taken from his neck.

He smiled sweetly, all traces of cruelty and ruthlessness gone, once again becoming that gentle but roguish youth.

“This is nothing,” Jiang Jingzhou smiled. “You should have seen him before…”

He looked at Xie Huai: “…Young Master was much more brutal back then.”

“Have you ever seen ten thousand firecrackers?” Jiang Jingzhou spoke calmly, as if long accustomed to such things. “When someone offended him, he tied fifty strings of ten thousand firecrackers to that person’s body and lit them up.”

Xia Xia had thought Xie Huai’s current actions were the height of madness, but she hadn’t imagined the former Xie Huai was even more terrifying.

Ten thousand firecrackers were rare; one string could explode for three minutes.

Even one string tied to someone’s body could leave them with mangled flesh; fifty strings exploding together would probably result in shattered limbs and flying blood and flesh.

She stammered: “Th-then what happened?”

Jiang Jingzhou said carelessly: “After about a dozen explosions, the person fainted from fear. Fortunately, Young Master put out the fire in time, otherwise, this would be his third year in juvenile detention.”

Xia Xia paused, then asked Jiang Jingzhou: “Why do you call him Young Master?”

This was the second time she had heard Jiang Jingzhou address Xie Huai this way, counting the time in Principal Yi Meixian’s office. Last time she had been too distracted by her stomach pain to notice, but now she felt the title carried significant meaning.

Jiang Jingzhou smiled: “It’s a habit, hard to change.”

Xia Xia looked at him questioningly, but Xie Huai changed the subject: “Pull him up.”

Jiang Jingzhou and Liang Yuantai worked together to pull Xia Jun back up.

After hanging upside down for five minutes, Xia Jun’s face had turned liver-colored. He collapsed on the ground, pale-faced and trembling.

Xie Huai asked: “Are you clear-headed now?”

The sudden fall from height had terrified Xia Jun to his core, leaving him staring blankly at Xie Huai, unable to respond.

He didn’t answer.

Xie Huai expressed some regret: “Seems not.”

His foot moved slightly, and he kicked Xia Jun off the building again.