Chapter 3

I was already furious and had nowhere to vent.

While I was still the real heiress, shouldn’t I go over and teach him a lesson?

I barged into Gu Jingshen’s rented room like I owned the place, a kitchen knife in my hand.

I kicked the shoes at the door out of my way.

You neat freak. I’ll make you uncomfortable for once!

“Gu Jingshen!”

The moment I stepped inside, I found him on the phone.

My eyes slowly widened.

The Gu Jingshen in front of me looked like a completely different person.

He wore a perfectly tailored gunmetal-gray suit. The watch on his wrist was so expensive it practically dazzled me. His hair was slicked back, revealing sharp brows and cool, distant eyes. His whole bearing was so refined and aristocratic that I almost didn’t recognize him.

When he saw me, his normally aloof expression softened. The corner of his mouth lifted slightly, and he looked like the Gu Jingshen I knew again.

I ran over with the knife, looked him up and down, and blurted out, “Gu Jingshen, why are you dressed just like my dad?”

Gu Jingshen: “……”

His gaze drifted to the kitchen knife in my hand. He paused for a moment, but didn’t panic.

He spoke to the person on the other end of the call.

“We’ll talk tonight.”

Then he hung up and held out a hand to me.

“That’s dangerous. Give it to me.”

Only then did I remember why I’d come.

“You ungrateful wolf! Prepare to die!”

I raised the knife high.

Gu Jingshen didn’t dodge. His dark eyes fixed on me.

I decided it wasn’t any fun and tossed the knife down.

Then I planted my hands on my hips and scolded him.

“Where have you been all this time?”

“Do you hate me that much? Is being with me so humiliating? The moment you heard I was the fake heiress, you dropped the act. The very next day, you happily went back to your hometown to throw a party! Did you set off fireworks, too?”

“You ungrateful, treacherous, scheming wolf! You crossed a bridge and tore it down behind you! You’re worse than an animal!”

The angrier I got, the more I wanted to slap him.

Someone caught my wrist in a tight grip.

“I didn’t.”

Gu Jingshen spoke calmly.

“You didn’t?” I glared at him. “Then what’s with that outfit? You weren’t back home celebrating? You ungrateful wolf! If I’d known, I never would’ve sponsored you. I’d have been better off giving the money to a dog…”

Gu Jingshen sighed.

He let go of my wrist and turned to leave.

I pulled him back.

“What are you doing? Where are you going? I’m not done scolding you!”

I followed him into the bedroom.

Gu Jingshen bent down, gathered a pile of things, and dumped them into my arms.

I looked down.

The sparkle nearly blinded me.

There were all kinds of designer handbags studded with diamonds, a gold bracelet weighing hundreds of grams, diamond necklaces, pearls—one thing after another spilling into my arms.

I looked up at him.

“Where did you steal all this?”

Gu Jingshen frowned but didn’t answer. He kept piling the brand-name bags from the bed into my arms.

I got so scared I hurriedly said, “No more, no more! I can’t hold them all. They’ll get damaged!”

Gu Jingshen: “……”

Even I wasn’t so stupid that I couldn’t put two and two together.

The suit he was wearing was just like one of my father’s, and the fabric was unmistakably genuine.

The watch on his wrist cost more than my brother’s.

And the bag in his hand—I could tell at a glance that they were all authentic.

The awful truth was that all the money I’d given him couldn’t have covered even half the price of one of those bags.

There was only one explanation.

He was actually a rich young master.

He’d gotten tired of playing poor student while I sponsored him.

Now that I was no longer the real heiress, the game wasn’t fun anymore, so he’d reclaimed his true identity.

Was he here to humiliate me?

I thought of all the years I’d devoted myself to sponsoring him, giving him my whole heart.

I’d treated him as a friend and told him all kinds of secrets.

The humiliation of being deceived surged through me.

I was just about to swing a bag at him when comments suddenly appeared before my eyes:

【Sigh. For the female lead’s sake, the second male lead will have to go home and be the son of that bastard father of his.】

I blinked.

Had a line of text just floated by?

What did it say?

Second male lead?

Female lead?

Me and Gu Jingshen?

Were we in some enormous web novel?

What a joke.

I raised the bag again.

The comments reappeared:

【His father may be the richest man in Beijing, but whenever he’s in a bad mood—which is almost every day—he takes it out on his son and beats him mercilessly.】

【He even beat one of the second male lead’s ears deaf. That’s why the guy gave up his identity as a young master, left home with nothing, and wandered the streets. At least he didn’t have to endure his father’s abuse anymore, and he met the kindhearted female lead.】

【What a shame. The female lead’s destined male lead is about to appear and begin his rescue-the-fake-heiress routine. Poor second male lead is going to suffer for nothing.】

The lines were unmistakable.

They flashed right in front of my eyes.

I didn’t seem to be dreaming.

I froze for a moment, then went on my tiptoes and yanked Gu Jingshen’s shirt down.

Sure enough, there were large bruises on his body.

Could what the comments said be true?

I remembered one line:

【He beat one of his ears deaf.】

It was true that Gu Jingshen’s hearing hadn’t been very good when I first took him in.

Sometimes I’d stand beside him and talk. If my voice was even a little soft, he’d tilt his head to hear me better.

At first, I thought he was provoking me.

Then I took him to the hospital for a checkup and learned the truth.

I apologized to him and asked Dad to find the most reputable doctor overseas to treat him.

While he was having surgery, he had no family, so my little brother and I stayed at the hospital to look after him.

Of course, I’d forced my brother to come along.

He had to buy food for the three of us morning, noon, and night. In the evening, he even had to make the bed.

Back then, Gu Jingshen’s eyes had been distant and indifferent.

Sometimes he looked right at me, but it felt as if a sheet of frosted glass separated us. He was looking in my direction, yet his focus seemed to float somewhere far away.

There was no warmth in his gaze. It didn’t linger. It was as if I were just an irrelevant speck of dust in the air.

I’d thought he might have depression or autism, given how young he was.

That night, I made my brother memorize an entire book of jokes and tell them to Gu Jingshen.

Gu Jingshen didn’t laugh.

I was the one who laughed so hard I rolled around on the bed, clutching my stomach.

My brother shouted anxiously, “Hey, Sis! You’re lying on his IV line!”

I scrambled to my feet in fright.

But Gu Jingshen remained perfectly calm. He didn’t even furrow his brow.

All right, maybe that was just his personality. He’d get better once we spent more time together.

My brother and I ran wild in Gu Jingshen’s hospital room.

It was a VIP room, after all.

There was plenty of space.

Sometimes my brother and I even played badminton, making Gu Jingshen the referee.

He was very fair and never said a word.

The entire time, he just watched us argue, grab each other by the hair, and fight.

Even meals were never peaceful.

I told my brother he was too fat, then took the chicken leg from his bowl and gave it to Gu Jingshen.

My brother was furious, but didn’t dare complain.

He ate one meal after another with tears in his rice.

Then came the day the stitches were removed.

It was a sunny morning.

The doctor unwound the bandages around Gu Jingshen’s ear, layer after layer.

I stood beside him and asked nervously, “How is it? Can you hear me clearly?”

The treatment must have worked well.

When Gu Jingshen looked at me, it was as if the thick fog had lifted from his ink-black eyes.

A sparkle like starlight shone through.

“Yes.”

That was the first word he’d said to us in a long time.

My brother and I were so happy we nearly cried.

We threw our arms around Gu Jingshen.

“That’s wonderful!”

The person in front of us hesitated for a long time, then finally lifted both arms a little and hugged us back.

7

Thinking back, I realized the comments were probably true.

I looked at the large bruises across Gu Jingshen’s chest. They hadn’t healed completely.

For a moment, I didn’t know what to say.

Was I moved?

Or… still moved?

But more than anything, I was angry.

“Are you crazy? Do you want your father to beat you to death?”

“All for these bags?”

Gu Jingshen turned his face away.

“It’s nothing.”

“How can you say that? The wound is so deep.”

I hurriedly tried to take off his shirt again.

“Are there any others?”

Gu Jingshen dodged me, took my hand, and shook his head.

“There aren’t. You don’t need to check.”

The comments said:

【Second male lead, stop acting tough. Your female lead is here now—show her all your wounds!】

【That father is so cruel and cunning. He only hits the places that clothes cover.】

【The second male lead doesn’t even make a sound when he’s beaten. His dad’s cane is almost breaking on him.】

【Every strike is worth a bank card. The second male lead gritted his teeth and took ten blows. He even said it still wasn’t enough, which made his father so furious he nearly beat him to death. He had to recover in bed for almost a week, then rushed to see the female lead as soon as he could get up.】

Tears streamed down my face as I read.