“Lunch… lunch! The lollipops… the lollipops are leaving again, master… my lollipops!” Guoguo, standing on Ye Tianxie’s shoulder, yanked hard at his hair, her aggrieved voice sounding as though she’d suffered some monumental injustice.
“Boo-hoo… Master, you said that once those people left there’d be lots of lollipops to eat. Master doesn’t keep his word… Master’s the worst, he isn’t the least bit good to Guoguo, not the least bit… boo-hoo…”
Ye Tianxie was defeated once again, and hurried off after Su Feifei.
“Miss Su.”
Su Feifei, who had just come down the stairs, turned her head, a pair of bright eyes regarding him with a distinctly puffed-up air. As if by fate’s arrangement, the two of them had come to live under the same roof so quickly, so smoothly. And between two people who had been strangers, there was somehow not the slightest trace of the awkwardness there ought to have been — and stranger still, none of the expected politeness either. Instead they had launched straight into bickering, and the bickering came so naturally.
This quarrelsome-sweethearts dynamic was the joint product of Su Feifei’s temperament and Ye Tianxie’s. But perhaps neither of them consciously realized that, though they had been at odds from the very start, deep down neither disliked the feeling in the least — on the contrary, two people with no connection at all were, in this strange atmosphere, gradually drawing closer.
“That… could you first give me back the ones you grabbed from me yesterday… ahem, the lollipops. It seems you have them on you.” Ye Tianxie steeled himself and got the sentence out with the greatest difficulty, then had the impulse to slam his head into a wall several times over.
What made him want to slam his head into that wall again was that Su Feifei did indeed produce an exceedingly strange expression. She didn’t answer at first, only studied his evasive gaze and mortified face with the utmost seriousness, and then, unable to hold it in any longer, gripped the stair rail and doubled over laughing.
“Hahaha… hahaha… I… hahahaha…”
Su Feifei held her waist as she laughed. And Ye Tianxie’s face grew darker and darker, until it was as black as coal that had never seen daylight.
Laugh. Laugh harder! Laugh yourself to death! Laugh till you can’t breathe, laugh till you throw your back out… Ye Tianxie cursed her inwardly in every “vicious” way a woman might dread.
At last Su Feifei bit her lip, straining not to laugh, then drew a lollipop from her bag, pinched it between a delicate thumb and fingernail, and held it out before Ye Tianxie, waggling it as she cooed, “Here, little brother — if you call me big sister, big sister will give you a lollipop… Hee hee hee hee…”
“Big sister! Big sister! I want a lollipop!”
…Naturally, the voice that cried this out was not Ye Tianxie’s, but Guoguo’s, who was gazing at it so longingly she was nearly in tears.
Sadly, not only was her body visible to Ye Tianxie alone — her voice could be heard by him alone as well. To everyone else’s eyes and ears, she may as well not have existed.
There is a limit to what a man can endure. He suddenly stepped forward, nearly colliding with Su Feifei before she could react, and then… a shadow flickered swiftly before her eyes, and the lollipop in her hand vanished. At almost the same instant, her bag grew noticeably lighter, and she discovered at once that all fifty lollipops inside it were gone as well.
This uncanny — one might even say inconceivable — sight made her heart lurch, and unbidden, the scene from that night replayed in her mind: how he had blocked a bullet with his body, and in the blink of an eye left four men on the ground. Not wounded, not unconscious — those four men were dead. He had killed four men with a casual motion.
A killer. In this era, a man who had killed always left an impression of terror, and for a young woman all the more so, enough to make her feel fear and dread. Su Feifei should have been no exception. And yet facing Ye Tianxie, she felt nothing of the sort — not the slightest trace of it. That strange feeling was something she couldn’t put into words at all.
“Do you really like lollipops that much?” Su Feifei covered her bag with one hand, smiling most peculiarly.
“I don’t!” Ye Tianxie’s reply was stiff.
“It’s all right.” Su Feifei’s eyes curved into two slender crescents. “A man with a few endearing little habits is all the more lovable. There’s no need to be embarrassed.”
“…” Three black lines popped out on Ye Tianxie’s forehead. He then very sensibly held his tongue and piled all fifty — no, fifty-one — lollipops on the table behind him. Right now, even with a hundred mouths and a thousand explanations, there was no chance Su Feifei would ever believe this particular habit wasn’t his.
“Hey! You asked for the fifty from last night… that orange one — give it back.” Su Feifei hurried forward a few steps and called out. Meeting Ye Tianxie’s probing gaze, her face colored faintly, and she said in a deliberately soft, delicate voice, “That lollipop was a love-token left to me by a little brother named Lei Feng on a very dark night. You can’t have it…”
She snatched the orange lollipop away and ran off with a peal of laughter.
“Oh la la! So many lollipops — they’re all mine, oh la! Master’s so good… but that big sister’s even better. I really like this big sister with all the lollipops.”
The moment Guoguo’s hand touched them, all fifty lollipops strangely vanished, spirited away to who knew where, and she went drifting into Ye Tianxie’s bedroom with a merry “la-la-la” to enjoy her treasures. Her words made Ye Tianxie want to bury himself under a blanket and weep.
Are you kidding me… I bought those lollipops. I swallowed my pride to get them back… That Su girl is the villain who stole them in the first place… so how has she ended up being the better person here?
Knock, knock, knock…
Knock, knock, knock…
A knocking sounded at the door. Ye Tianxie’s home was ordinarily silent, so silent it held almost no sign of life — and by comparison, today had been extraordinarily lively. Ye Tianxie went over and opened it, and as he expected, outside stood one of the bodyguards who had accompanied Su Feifei. He didn’t come in, but said very politely, “Hello, Mr. Ye. My surname is Du. Boss Su asked me to bring over some things the young miss may need… Also,” — he deftly took a plain slip of paper from his pocket and handed it to Ye Tianxie with both hands — “this is the boss’s private, unlisted number. He says that if there’s anything you need help with, feel free to call it… Additionally, the boss says the first payment has already been transferred to your account, Mr. Ye. You may confirm it at once.”
Taking the slip of paper, Ye Tianxie wasn’t particularly surprised that the first payment of three hundred million had arrived so quickly. Su Luo was a most successful businessman, and his success was no accident — it rested on the many principles by which he conducted himself. For instance: whatever could be done at once, he would never postpone to a second occasion. He had said the three hundred million would arrive before nine tomorrow morning… and that time was his deadline, not his intention.
(End of Chapter 79)