Chapter 69: The Mistress Ascends

When she woke up, still groggy, she realized her handcuffs had been removed.

Zhong Huayan’s eyes curved in a brief smile, but as soon as she glanced around and saw the same unchanging whiteness, a suffocating panic gripped her heart.

She didn’t even know what time it was.

Pushing the door open and creeping out, she found herself in a villa.

It was spacious. The vast living room was lined with bookshelves filled to the brim with books. Beyond the floor-to-ceiling windows lay a sprawling swimming pool, and in the distance, mountains rolled on, peaks upon peaks, endlessly. Through gaps in the trees, she could glimpse the sea, the faint sound of waves brushing her ears. Inside the villa was utter silence, shrouded by trees; without lights, it would be night here even in daylight.

She walked over and sat in a nearby chair.

The two brothers of the Xu family weren’t fools; they had certainly locked her up here.

Her stomach rumbled. Just as she turned, searching for something to eat, she noticed someone already seated at the dining table.

A man, dressed in black pajamas, with white gauze wrapped around his neck, held chopsticks in his hands. He was so still he seemed carved from stone, only coming to life as he turned, grimacing in pain, one hand clutching his neck as he spoke.

“You’re awake? Come eat.”

His voice was hoarser than before, and as his fingers toyed with the chopsticks, the silence in the living room was broken.

“Xu Chuyin, is your neck alright?” she asked, settling across from him as the housekeeper brought her bowl and chopsticks, even peeling a crab for her.

To her, Xu Chuyin was now a lifeline; as long as he was here, that madman Xu Yaochuan wouldn’t dare do anything to her.

“Auntie, please fetch the medicine box and treat her wrists. My brother never knows his own strength.”

She glanced at her wrists, about to refuse, but the housekeeper immediately took her slender hands and began applying ointment.

“Ah…”

“It hurts, doesn’t it?”

“Quite a bit. Thank you for yesterday.”

“Actually, what you said before makes sense—people bring disaster upon themselves. Let’s call it repayment for your mercy,” he said quietly.

He was always reserved, pushing his emotions deep down, so deep they were almost imperceptible. Yet his concern for her betrayed the falseness of his manners.

He looked weary, his phoenix eyes narrowed, perhaps out of fatigue, perhaps because his neck hurt. Judging by the gauze wound so tightly around his throat, and knowing his usual indifference to pain, the wound from yesterday must have been deep.

The table was laden with dishes to restore energy and blood. He barely ate, instead serving her food again and again, as if she were the true invalid.

Her gaze fell to several thick books stacked to the left of the young man—mostly medical anatomy texts, not new but marked up with notes and sketches.

“You still read these?”

Xu Chuyin suddenly seemed eager to talk, as if he felt Li Yanyan was someone real, someone who could understand and empathize.

“Yes. In truth, my real dream was never to attend Jingfu University.”

“You don’t want to go into business or the arts—you want to practice medicine?”

“Yes. I’ve always wanted to be a forensic doctor. But the Xu family never allowed it. Now I’m grown, and the old master probably holds little power anymore. There’s no need to revive our family’s business in the country. I want to reclaim my dream.”

Zhong Huayan understood. She had once longed for a carefree life herself, but reality taught her that enjoying a family’s privileges meant bearing its burdens.

“Why do you want to be a forensic doctor?” she asked. There were so many kinds of doctors—why that one in particular?

Xu Chuyin fell silent, his fingers trembling ever so slightly. The housekeeper, misreading the gesture, thought his neck was hurting again.

A storm of hatred brewed in his eyes, then eased into a faint smile.

“Yes, of all professions, why a forensic doctor? Perhaps it’s that each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. Li Yanyan, you’re actually quite fortunate—your family is so warm. Sometimes, that warmth pains others.

I never had a mother—she died young. Back then, the country’s laws were not as strict as today. My mother died for no reason, and the coroner simply ruled it suicide. But I know—absolutely not. My mother endured countless hardships to become a wealthy man’s wife. She was even willing to be a mistress, to bear endless scorn, for the sake of that lofty position. She would sacrifice anything for money and power. How could such a woman, obsessed with profit, end her life over a trivial setback?

Society’s cruelty is that the higher one climbs, lacking enough wit and relying only on desire, the faster one falls—ending in ruin. That’s why I’ve never cared for fame or fortune; I only wish for a simple life.”

She understood his knot of pain.

Someday, Xu Chuyin still wanted to clear his mother’s name.

“Maybe you think I’m ridiculous, giving up a bright future for a whore, forgoing better choices. But in my heart, a whore is at least not a beast. Besides, that whore was my mother.”

His eyes were devoid of emotion. In his mind, he saw only the woman lying cold on the ground; no matter how he screamed, she did not wake. She was gone forever, dying with her eyes wide open.

“I knew from a young age that my mother was a whore—everyone in the Xu family said so. Just because she, so young, used her body to supplant the real wife. Her means were disgraceful; even my father despised her, but she didn’t care—she seemed to relish being the other woman. When I was very little, she introduced me to more than ten ‘godfathers’—all of whom looked at her with undisguised desire. Growing up in such filth nearly suffocated me…”

Zhong Huayan, in fact, thought Xu Chuyin was especially suited to be a doctor—a forensic doctor, no less.

He was calm to his core.

Xu Yaochuan acted recklessly, but not Xu Chuyin; he was always watchful, always wary.

Suddenly, an idea struck her and she let out a soft laugh.

“What are you laughing at?”

“Young Master Xu, although you’re well-suited to be a forensic doctor, I don’t think you’re worthy. You Xu family members are all alike—you see yourselves as tragic, so you inflict that tragedy on others. Your mother’s death made you want to be a forensic doctor? Then when you and Xu Yuan bullied the poor and committed your misdeeds, you should have known—you’re no longer fit to hold such a sacred dream.”

Xu Chuyin was clearly startled, just about to reply when—

A fierce commotion erupted upstairs.

Suddenly!

A woman, barely clothed except for a thin veil, was hurled from the second floor!

She crashed into the swimming pool below, sending up a huge spray, her screams piercing the air!