"Iron Hand!"
A tall and slender handsome young man walked in. "Fourth Master."
"Take him away."
Zhan Se stood up with a shallow smile, straightened her messy skirt behind the curtain fabric, and flicked it away with flair. She lifted her gaze, "Fine, I can leave on my own."
However, as soon as she took a step, a gust of wind rushed in front of her, and her left arm was grabbed by a thief, her left wrist suddenly tight and cold.
What's this?
She looked down in surprise.
A string of soft jade beads carved into eighteen pieces was tightly clasped around her left wrist.
"What do you mean by this?"
"Fortune-telling fee!" The man's eyes were filled with a cold, sinister air, but his face surprisingly bore a mocking smile. His voice was light, shallow, hoarse, yet sensually deep.
This man, full of contradictions, had an utterly unique and conflicting personality, yet somehow managed to blend them together without seeming too abrupt. Such a feeling was strange, making her professional senses falter, and she was even more puzzled about which one was his true nature?!
Sometimes happy, sometimes angry, sometimes wild, sometimes restrained—a bizarre freak!
Fine, keep up the act!
With a smile, she tilted her head and shook the high-quality beads on her wrist, "Nice stuff, thanks. Since you're so sincere, I'll give you one more piece of advice—your parents' fate is shallow, your siblings' fate is thin..."
The man's expression changed abruptly.
Not even pausing for half a second, he kicked over the large tea table a meter away, and amidst the clinking sound of tumbling wine and glasses, he changed completely, his anger skyrocketing, and his usually steady voice rising eight octaves.
"Get lost!"
"No need to thank me... Goodbye."
Zhan Se walked out with a calm gaze, lifting her chin slightly.
What's all this fuss?
Standing at the door of the private room, Zhan Se was stunned.
There were two rows of straight and mighty men in black suits standing in the corridor. Every few steps, there was one standing with hands behind his back, silent and motionless, each person tall and upright, at least twenty in total.
The moment she walked out, Du Xiaoren came rushing over.
"Zhan Se, are you alright?"
Patting her hand, Zhan Se came back to her senses, laughing and walking with her, "I'm fine, nothing's wrong."
Glancing at her calm brows and eyes, Du Xiaoren was suspicious, "You weren't... by someone…"
"No."
"Zhan Se... Look quick!"
Grabbing her all of a sudden, Du Xiaoren's eyes shone, stupefied.
The man who came out of that private room, surrounded like stars around the moon, strode over, with a black coat casually draped over his shoulders, emanating a regal, proud, and aggressively dominant aura that was heart-shaking, woman-shaking, world-shaking–like a luminous, attention-grabbing stone, firmly capturing her gaze.
OMG, who is he?
"Du Xiaoren, you spaced out?" Zhan Se jabbed her.
"Heavens! Zhan Se, my heavens, you're incredibly lucky."
Looking at her excited face, Zhan Se frowned, deflated.
Li Chuanbo, known as the megaphone, came over and whispered in consolation, "Little sister, calm down. Next time you come to play, I'll let you in for free... once. That guy, let alone you, even our big boss can't afford to provoke him..."
"How arrogant is he?" Du Xiaoren was almost glued to him.
"Wow, little sister, that's not something you can ask about…" The megaphone said, then sneered toward Zhan Se, "Hey! Don't blame me for being nosy, but you really didn't lose out. Many young women wish for Fourth Master to take them, and they still don't get a chance..."
"Megaphone, has your tongue grown longer?" Lord Quan the Fourth took large strides and stopped in front of us.
"Come on, Fourth Master, I'm just cleaning up your mess... heh, please take your time leaving." Li Chuanbo, the KTV's second boss, had a mouth even gossippier than a woman's, always fussing over the world's affairs.
Lord Quan the Fourth paid him no mind.
He walked straight up to Zhan Se, staring down at her from his towering height, his tone laden with deep meaning.
"Girl, I quite like you. Shall we meet again another day?!"
Ha! Trying to shut her up?
Zhan Se scoffed internally.
Hiss...
A short gasp resonated around.
The atmosphere... became tense...
While everyone was waiting for the drama to unfold, the man merely looked at her with an unfathomable glance, the corner of his mouth slightly curling into an elusive smile, then shoved his hands into his pockets and sauntered away.
Zhan Se gritted her teeth!
What a pervert!
Cursing silently, standing in the corridor with the AC's cold air, her expression turned distant for a moment.
The events of tonight were too strange...
And that man, who had 'intimately' interacted with her as if fighting through an unseen barrier, left the deepest impression on her, not because of his wicked smile or his arrogant words, but rather due to the occasional furrows of his brow and the fleeting shadows of malevolence at the corners of his eyes.
From her perspective as a criminal psychologist, such a man's external persona was mostly facade, the real him was likely akin to the Post-Jurassic Era, where animals had died out—cruel, toxic, ruthless, shadowy, bleak, truly lethal.
He definitely had a story!
Analyzing others, she didn't realize at that moment that her life's destiny was about to be rewritten!
Life never leaves too much time for people to sorrow over the passing seasons. Zhan Se said goodbye to Du Xiaoren and went back home.
To call it home was actually just a temporary rental.
A month ago, her mother came from Yilan and had been living there. Also there were her stepfather and a half-sister shared by the same mother.
Exiting each successive fashionable district, she took three buses and meandered roundabout paths before finally entering the darkest part of the city--here lay a shantytown that the international metropolis hadn't gotten around to renovating yet.
The walls covered in soot...
Piles of clutter...
Trash emitting a strange odor by the roadside...
In the same city, yet they were worlds apart.
It started to rain!
Zhan Se scraped her mud-streaked canvas shoes against the corner's moss and knocked a few dying sounds on the door.
"Yo, deigning to come back?"
Lu Youde's unwelcoming clamor, mixed with the smell of alcohol, assaulted her as the door opened.
Ignoring her stepfather Lu Youde's cursing, she went straight into the house.