A Different Person

Lin Yu's face darkened completely.

It wasn't that he didn't want to keep pretending, but rather that he simply couldn't anymore.

Under the dual torment of his fear of fate and blood loss, Lin Yu had begun to hallucinate.

He kept feeling that the world had grown bizarre; reality and fantasy were beginning to overlap, and a tiny speck of dust would inadvertently appear larger than Mount Tai.

The feeling was like the absurd hallucinations he experienced half-awake during childhood fevers.

Maintaining his calm and doing his best to ignore those bizarre illusions was already the absolute limit of what Lin Yu could manage.

Seeing that Lin Yu couldn't even keep up his act anymore, Xu Mingyao felt relieved.

Her earlier remark about tossing Wang Yanyan, Gu Xinran, Luo Xiaoxiao, and the others to Lin Yu was actually said in anger, but now, it was no longer just an angry threat.

For people like them, as long as you had money, you could have as many as you wanted.

They were nothing more than oversized toys.

But to say she didn't care at all would be deceiving herself. Yet, if the ultimate prize could be Qing Mo, even if the chances of winning were incredibly slim, Xu Mingyao was willing to risk it all.

However...

...

Xu Mingyao glanced sideways at Tao Yaoyao. The left side of her face, where she had been hit, was already starting to swell slightly. The corners of her beautiful peach-blossom eyes were flushed red, and her pitiful, helpless appearance made Xu Mingyao's breath catch in her throat.

Her heart felt as if it were being squeezed tightly, making even beating feel like a strenuous effort.

Her gaze lingered briefly on her face before she turned to the women behind her, who had originally been called over just for those two, and said:

"One hundred per round."

"Work hard."

As her words fell, Wang Yanyan, Gu Xinran, Luo Xiaoxiao, Zhou Yise, and Zhou Yijin were all somewhat surprised.

Such a huge payout?

This was truly unprecedented.

This was a little game among them.

Specifically, one person would act as the defender, and the rest would be the attackers.

Whenever the defender was breached once, the attackers would receive a reward.

If it was one per round...

That meant ten thousand per attacker.

This time it was one hundred...

Uncontrollable greed surged in their eyes as they looked at Lin Yu, as if they were staring at a golden pig that spat out gold coins.

Having stoked the group's greed, Xu Mingyao turned around, her gaze covertly sweeping over Tao Yaoyao.

Her expression hadn't changed. The massive amount of wealth failed to spark the slightest interest in her. She still kept her eyes downcast, looking pitiful, like someone who had done something wrong and been bullied.

Her heart uncontrollably softened again, while a trace of relief simultaneously arose within her.

However, she maintained a cold face, acting as if she didn't care about Tao Yaoyao at all, merely dropping a single cold word as she stepped away to leave.

"Let's go."

Xu Mingyao and Tao Yaoyao left one after the other. Just as the two reached the door and Tao Yaoyao was about to open it, a voice came from behind them.

"Xu Mingyao!"

Xu Mingyao stopped in her tracks and turned her head to look at Lin Yu.

Meeting Xu Mingyao's gaze, Lin Yu parted his lips, forcing out a fawning smile as he said with a trembling voice:

"Xu Mingyao."

"Miss Xu."

"Can we just say I was wrong?"

"No, no, no."

"I was wrong."

"Please let me go."

"Okay?"

"I can pretend that today's events never happened."

"No matter what demands you have, we can take our time and discuss them."

"Just don't do this."

"Even if you keep me locked up here and beat me for a few more days to vent your anger, that's fine."

"I can accept anything."

"Just take them with you and leave."

The spear of destiny was hovering a mere centimeter from his forehead; his fear of his fate made Lin Yu disregard everything else.

Right now, he only wanted this grim and terrifying spear to roll far, far away. For this, Lin Yu was willing to pay an infinite price.

Lin Yu's humble and fawning appearance reflected in Xu Mingyao's dark pupils, and she couldn't help but feel like laughing.

"Then hand Tang Manman and Xia Muzhu over to me for a week."

As Xu Mingyao's words fell, Lin Yu's face instantly sank, turning terrifyingly dark.

Those two had never been bargaining chips, so there was no question of giving them up.

"Change your condition."

Lin Yu suppressed the anger in his heart and said, maintaining his calm.

"Heh."

Xu Mingyao sneered. She stopped looking at Lin Yu and instead looked at the eager women, saying:

"Inject him with all the drugs we prepared."

After saying that, ignoring Lin Yu's hoarse curses, Xu Mingyao turned and left the basement, leaving the villa...

...

The taxi stopped steadily at the entrance of the villa. The young girl got out joyfully and entered the villa with brisk steps.

"Sister?"

"Sister?"

Walking into the three-story villa, the girl called out twice in a crisp voice.

But in the massive villa, the only response she got was her own gradually fading echo.

A question mark popped up over the girl's head.

Where is she?

She was somewhat puzzled.

Didn't her brother say that Sister Xu Mingyao asked him for the keys to this villa to stay here for a few days?

Where was she?

Su Yuyao tilted her head, a bit curious.

She had always really liked this distant cousin, Xu Mingyao.

When she was little, she used to play with her often.

She just didn't know why, after the fourth grade of elementary school, she rarely saw her anymore. Her parents even strictly forbade her from playing with her, telling her to ignore her if they ever met.

They even deleted her contact information from her phone.

Emmmm...

Su Yuyao smacked her lips a couple of times, unable to figure out why.

In her memory, she didn't seem like a bad person at all!

Su Yuyao didn't understand.

Just now, after finishing shopping and parting ways with her classmates, Su Yuyao thought that since she wasn't far from here, she would drop by to see this sister who used to treat her so well.

It was just that she didn't seem to be here...

Su Yuyao curiously wandered around the villa. After finding that there really was no one, she prepared to leave.

But when she walked to an empty space by the wall in the first-floor living room, she stopped, her fine eyebrows, as if hand-drawn by God, furrowing in curiosity.

She heard a very strange sound.

It sounded like weeping and complaining, but it didn't seem like unhappiness either.

The strange sound piqued Su Yuyao's curiosity. She carefully identified the direction of the sound and slowly groped her way toward it.

Eventually, Su Yuyao arrived at a door in the basement. The strange sound was coming from behind the door. She faintly sensed that something was wrong.

But she still couldn't overcome the curiosity in her heart. She gently pushed the door open a crack and peeked inside.

With just one glance, Su Yuyao, seeing a whole new world, was completely stunned. Her uninitiated brain went completely blank.

After the last opponent fell, the person seemed to still be unsatisfied.

He looked around blankly, and then, as if sensing something, he abruptly looked toward her direction.

Seeing the person look over, Su Yuyao's body trembled, bumping into the slightly ajar door.

Stared at by that person's fanatic gaze, Su Yuyao did not run away.

She looked at the person's familiar face, the blankness in her mind becoming even blanker, to the point where she even forgot to run away...

...