"Qianxia, you're finally here. Your sister is still sitting by the window, threatening to jump!"
Sheng Qianxia, still in her wedding dress that she hadn't had time to change out of, turned pale and looked up toward the fluttering red silhouette at the eighteenth-floor window of the hotel.
The cold of early winter in A City was bone-chilling at dusk, and her emotions were in turmoil.
"I heard she rented a room and waited for the man she loves. She waited for a whole day and night, but he never showed up..."
"She's threatening suicide over that?" How little she values herself.
The comments of the bystanders buzzed around her.
"She's set her sights on the young master of the Gong Group! How could the young master ever meet her for something like this?"
"So it's about the young master again!"
Women cried wolf about suicide every day, hoping to see the young master. If this could actually bring him here, the women of the city would be threatening suicide every day!
Although Sheng Qianxia was somewhat disappointed by her sister's foolishness, she was still greatly concerned; after all, the person sitting on the window ledge was her own sister.
With trembling hands, she dialed her phone and shouted toward the red figure on the eighteenth floor: "Sheng Qingxue, come down right now!"
"If he doesn't come, I'll jump!"
After saying that, Sheng Qingxue threw her phone down from the eighteenth floor.
Sheng Qianxia's heart twisted painfully, and she immediately had the staff call over the man who had stood up Sheng Qingxue the previous night.
Then, in a swift motion, she tore off the cumbersome hem of her wedding dress, borrowed a loudspeaker from the staff while walking toward the upper floors, and said powerfully:
"In 2002, a girl, trapped by love, committed suicide by jumping off a building. She landed headfirst and to this day, remains in a vegetative state."
"In 2005, a man threw himself from a high place, breaking his arms and legs, becoming a high-level paraplegic, and suffering from ruptured internal organs. He's still unable to take care of himself."
"In 2013, a woman jumped from a building and landed in a gruesome state, with her cheekbones shattered. She hasn't been successfully reconstructed until this day..."
"In 2016—"
Sheng Qianxia's voice echoed through the speaker, filling the entire building.
The conference in the twenty-sixth-floor hall was interrupted rudely.
Gong Beiyao, hearing this voice, suddenly stood up from his seat.
Ignoring the astonished looks of everyone around him, he strode out of the conference room—
By this time, Sheng Qingxue was almost frightened into tears: "Sheng Qianxia, what do you mean! Are you even my sister?"
"As your sister, it's my responsibility to tell you that if you jump from here, if you're lucky, you'll die on the spot. If you're unlucky, you'll end up disfigured, disabled, or a vegetable."
Sheng Qianxia said, "If you want to jump, then jump. Jump right now!"
Sheng Qianxia had reached the door by now.
The door was unshut, and the girl sitting by the window was immediately visible.
"He hasn't come yet, I won't jump! I'll wait until he gets here, then I will jump!"
Before the rescue team even arrived, as Sheng Qianxia was thinking about how to get Sheng Qingxue down safely, she heard a deep, magnetic male voice from behind her—
"Now that I'm here, why aren't you jumping?"
Sheng Qianxia, upon hearing this all too familiar voice, her body suddenly shook!
The male voice from behind, one she could never forget even after many years—
Wasn't she, at eighteen, just as foolish?!
Before Sheng Qianxia could react, Sheng Qingxue was already excitedly getting ahead of herself.
She immediately climbed down from the window and rushed towards Gong Beiyao—
"Young Master Gong, you finally came, I knew there must have been something holding you up. You're so busy, being a few hours or even days late is totally normal, I don't mind at all..."
"I never intended to keep the appointment." Gong Beiyao pushed away Sheng Qingxue, who was throwing herself at him, and said coldly, "Please maintain your dignity!"
Sheng Qingxue fell to the ground, having leapt at nothing, wiping her tears in embarrassment and injustice, but she refused to give up.
"Young Master Gong, I really like you. Please, would you consider dating me? If you don't date me, I won't be able to go on living."
Gong Beiyao didn't even spare her a glance, replying heartlessly, "Then go ahead and die."
Sheng Qingxue hadn't expected him to be so indifferent; she immediately burst into tears, screaming that she was going to jump off a building.
It took Sheng Qianxia a great effort to come back to her senses, only to feel a dull ache in her chest.
Sheng Qingxue was in love with Gong Beiyao?
Could there be anything more melodramatic than her sister threatening to jump off a building for her ex-boyfriend?
Sheng Qianxia had imagined thousands of possible reunion scenarios but had never thought that her past nightmare would intersect with her world again in this manner!
Sheng Qianxia grabbed Sheng Qingxue, her fists clenched subconsciously as she suppressed her anger, and tried to speak calmly to Gong Beiyao, "Don't you think you're going too far?"
"Too far?" Gong Beiyao's gaze stayed on Sheng Qianxia's face, seemingly unwilling to miss a trace of her expression.
His voice was icy, "If saying that is considered going too far, then what about someone who blackmails another into a relationship with their own life? Isn't that unforgivable?"
Sheng Qingxue, feeling utterly ashamed, pushed Sheng Qianxia aside and ran out of the room crying.
As Sheng Qianxia watched Sheng Qingxue's retreating figure, her heart ached, and she said to Gong Beiyao, "Her health isn't very good, and she's still a child. If she's done something wrong, she can be taught gradually..."
"Miss Sheng, she's been taught very well by you," Gong Beiyao said mockingly.
Sheng Qianxia's face turned pale instantly.
His distant 'Miss Sheng' made her past courage seem like a joke now.
It took her a moment before she said, "She... must really like you, or she wouldn't have done something so impulsive. Can't you give her a chance?"
She didn't even realize that the 'she' she spoke of was referring to Qingxue, or to her own eighteen-year-old self.
"If I have to date everyone who attempts suicide for me, I wouldn't have to do anything else. I could just spend my days dating women who queue up for a relationship with me," Gong Beiyao said with a touch of mockery.
Looking at her sarcastically, he added,
"Oh right, I almost forgot, Miss Sheng, you're also one of the women in line to date me. I wonder how many decades it would take for you to reach the front of the queue if you joined now?"
Sheng Qianxia's face looked extremely ugly, as memories she had forcibly deleted crammed back into her mind.
She remembered chasing after him, and on her eighteenth birthday, she even went to his bed, only for him to tell her to get lost!
She knew he looked down on her, and she wouldn't cling to him anymore!
"With so many people lining up for you, I'd rather not bother!" Sheng Qianxia's fingers grasped at the wrinkles on her wedding dress.
It was only then that Gong Beiyao noticed she was wearing a torn wedding dress.
She was getting married? To someone else?
An unexplained irritation filled the tip of his heart, and his tone became even colder and more merciless.
"You'd rather not bother? Who was it that cleaned herself up and threw herself at me in bed, begging to be taken?"