Chapter 2: Rebirth of the Soul
Xu Yuan was first struck by a sharp, searing pain, and after a guttural scream, she clutched her forehead tightly. Yet the blood would not stop, seeping steadily through her fingers. Everyone froze; an uncanny silence fell over the scene as they all thought—My god! The one who struck was actually the quiet, gentle Li Yanyan!
For several seconds, deathly stillness reigned, then chaos erupted once more. Descendants of several prominent local families surged forward from the crowd.
"Li Yanyan! Have you gone mad from poverty?"
"Li Yanyan, you dare hit a Xu family child? Aren’t you afraid you’ll rot in prison?"
"My forehead—if this leaves a scar, you’ll spend your life behind bars!"
From the shadows, her face emerged into the light, ghastly pale. Her expression was wild, unhinged, like a runaway phantom, the hem of her black dress flickering as though ablaze in the underworld, swaying in the wind.
"You dare beat someone into unconsciousness, and yet threaten to send others to jail!"
Zhong Huayan strode forward, first splashing champagne onto the faces of several girls. In the midst of the chaos, she seized Xu Yuan by her long hair and wrenched her back without a word. Her face remained impassive, but she gathered strength and raised her right hand.
Slap!
Xu Yuan: "You dare—"
Slap!
Xu Yuan: "Li Yanyan!"
Slap!
Xu Yuan: "Waaah… I’m going to tell my brother, my daddy!"
Zhong Huayan sneered—so what if you have a brother and a father? She had a younger brother too.
She continued to yank Xu Yuan’s hair—her limbs slender but her strength astonishing. Another series of slaps followed.
Slap, for bullying your classmates!
Slap, for colluding with your brother!
Slap, for endangering lives, for aiding evil!
After the tussle, Xu Yuan couldn’t withstand it any longer and fled upstairs to the second floor. Internally, she grumbled—since when was Li Yanyan so fierce?
As she set foot on the second floor, a light laugh echoed from the staircase.
Zhong Huayan, annoyed, looked up.
A man descended the stairs, each step measured. The spark of a rolling lighter flared as he lit the cigarette in his mouth. His eyes were long and fox-like, sharply defined. Even in black trousers and a white shirt, he exuded the air of a rake. Wisps of smoke drifted as he regarded the world with careless indifference. When he lifted the cigarette, a faint tattoo could be seen on his arm.
"Brother! This crazy woman bullied me!" Xu Yuan suddenly let out a breath, bursting into tears, her hoarse voice clutching at the man’s sleeve as if he were her lifeline.
Xu Yaochuan first lifted his sister’s face, nearly crimson with rage.
Then he looked up—and the moment he saw Li Yanyan’s face up close, his heart gave a violent jolt!
“So much like…”
“Brother, I’ve told you before, she really does look alike.”
Zhong Huayan laughed coldly to herself. How could she not? She was the very same!
Xu Yaochuan—the man who, for greed, had destroyed his wife, bringing about her death—one day she would have him flayed alive!
The man rubbed his cigarette between his fingers and stepped forward, trying to brush Zhong Huayan’s hair aside for a closer look.
She did not hesitate—her hand shot up and slapped his away.
Xu Yaochuan’s cigarette almost fell from his hand.
“Tsk, you struck my sister. This concerns the reputation of the Xu family.”
Just as the bodyguards on both sides were about to intervene—
“This isn’t just a Xu family matter.”
The voice was steady and calm.
At that moment, from behind the intricately carved screen on the second floor, stepped a man in his thirties. He was tall, dressed in a dark blue shirt with the sleeves rolled to his wrists, impeccably tailored. He held a porcelain teacup in his hand, his bearing extraordinary, refined and almost otherworldly, accompanied by several servants carrying tea and water. Viewed from below, he seemed almost to inhabit a different realm, his gaze unfathomably deep.
“This young lady is causing trouble in my hotel. I should be the one to deal with it first.”
A mantis stalks the cicada, unaware of the oriole behind.
Xu Yaochuan immediately sized up the situation. Fu Yanyan, that lunatic who chanted sutras and ate vegetarian food—if he saw this face, how could he not lose his mind?
“Since Mr. Fu has spoken, we’ll let you handle it first.”
Xu Yuan pouted in dissatisfaction, mortified by her public humiliation.
Xu Yaochuan patted his sister’s shoulder indulgently, coaxing her, “Brother will make it up to you, all right?”
Meanwhile, she was locking eyes with Fu Yanyan.
For once, there was a tremor in Fu Yanyan’s usually tranquil gaze, though he quickly masked it.
“Would you care to come up for some tea?”
His gentle invitation sent ripples through her heart.
Two butterflies unable to escape their fate met again, in so strange a fashion.
Across the broad huanghuali desk, she watched him leisurely prepare and pour the tea. In the steamy warmth, a servant switched on the dim lights.
Fu Yanyan was unexpectedly attentive. “Try this tea. Do you like it?”
Zhong Huayan watched him, feeling as if time itself was slipping by.
“Sparrow’s Tongue from Mount Yueyang,” she said, sipping.
He was genuinely surprised; few could identify a tea’s origin so precisely, simply by appearance and taste.
“What… is your name?”
“Li Yanyan.”
He turned the jade thumb ring on his finger without a sound, calculating—there was no child of any official or business family in all the capital with such a name.
“An ordinary background? You dare offend the Xu family?”
“First, they bullied me. Second, if anything happens, someone will back me up.”
She suddenly didn’t want to explain everything to her foster brother—especially since he was drinking tea with the likes of Xu Yaochuan.
Zhong Huayan added deliberately, “If it were your own sister, bullied so badly, wouldn’t you have slapped someone too?”
His gaze sharpened, his words ambiguous and profound.
“In that case, a slap wouldn’t suffice.”
The monks all said his soul was long gone, that he lived on in the flesh alone, that the greatest sorrow was a dead heart.
In the dim light, his eyes lingered greedily on the girl’s face.
He refrained from asking more.
Her features were gentler, not quite the same as Huayan’s, but there was a resemblance; even their natures seemed alike.
Meanwhile, she kept staring at the jade pendant on his wrist.
The piece was dull, with an openwork double-happiness character carved into it.
“Mr. Fu, have you never had a girlfriend?”
He was startled again.
She continued, “That pendant is called Double Happiness Dragon. There’s another, Double Happiness Phoenix—dates back to the Republic. These pendants were used for ghost marriages, pairing the living with the dead. Someone’s trying to harm you, slipping you a Double Happiness Dragon and secretly matching you with a spirit bride. This will affect your fate.”
He touched the jade, surprised—he had sought it out from a renowned Daoist family.
“Not only can you identify tea, you’re versed in antiques as well?”
She fell silent, feeling that if she said more, she might give herself away.
Just as she was about to rise and leave, Fu Yanyan noticed and cunningly remarked, “You broke quite a few things today, including some expensive wine.”
“I can’t afford to pay,” she replied with refreshing candor, but instead wrote her phone number on a piece of paper. “Mr. Fu, here’s my contact—if you need anything, call me.”
Zhong Huayan meant nothing else by it. She didn’t have millions at hand, but with her artistic skill, such a sum was only a matter of time. She had smashed things in haste and forgot what brand of wine was destroyed.
Yet her words and demeanor were ambiguous, enough to mislead someone like Fu Yanyan.
He had already scrutinized Li Yanyan earlier. If not for catching a glimpse of that familiar face through the screen, he wouldn’t have spoken to her at all.
Even if Huayan had perished in the fire, her presence was etched into his bones, impossible to erase.
And this face, even if it was a broken illusion, he wanted to recover and treasure it.
“When you say ‘need,’” Fu Yanyan pressed, “what kind of need do you mean?”