Chapter 3
Chapter 3: A Scummy Move
Ye Wan Lan’s lashes trembled. “Uncle…”
Lin Huai Jin’s voice turned colder. “Don’t call me that.”
For four years, he had been disappointed again and again until disappointment hollowed out into something numb.
Ye Wan Lan could not remember how many times he had gone looking for her—begging her to leave Zhou He Chen, to come home, to quit the modeling world and return to school long enough to at least get a diploma.
All he ever got back was contempt.
A heart was made of flesh. It could not take being stabbed over and over.
Eventually, Lin Huai Jin gave up.
He had poured out everything he had, and still he could not drag Ye Wan Lan’s life back onto the right path. What else could he do?
He had once adored his niece. When he learned his own brother had left a child behind, he searched the country in a frenzy and finally brought her home from an orphanage in Harbor City.
Ye Wan Lan had always been clever. She had never needed him to teach her how to be kind.
But when she turned fourteen, everything changed so abruptly he could no longer recognize the girl he had raised.
He told himself it might be rebellion. He guided her patiently.
Then she graduated middle school and dropped out anyway, chasing modeling.
And after that, she became a stand-in—something so humiliating Lin Huai Jin could not even say it aloud without feeling sick.
Four years passed. He lived as if he had no niece at all.
Lin Huai Jin kept walking.
“Uncle.”
A voice called after him—soft, obedient, almost careful. “I have nowhere else to go. Can I come back?”
Ye Wan Lan could not explain what had happened to her body. Even if she did, Lin Huai Jin would never believe it.
She knew what those four years had done to him. She had no defense. All she could do was watch her family drift away, bond by bond, until nothing was left but cracks.
She lowered her lashes. Her fingers tightened.
Murderous intent swelled in her chest, vast and violent, barely contained.
Lin Huai Jin finally spoke. “If you’re back, then stay home and behave.”
He did not turn around. He did not pause.
—
At the same time, at Maple Leaf Hotel.
Rong Yu did not even wait for the elevator. He sprinted up to the seventh floor, two young guards chasing after him, faces pale with panic.
“Ting Feng!”
Rong Yu kicked the door open. The moment he saw the man on the bed—alive, intact—relief punched the air from his lungs.
“You scared me to death. I thought you—”
He stopped.
His eyes locked on the red marks scattered across the man’s neck and chest. Then he spotted the cash tucked into the open collar.
Rong Yu’s mind blanked.
Who had slept with his brother?
Not only slept with him—she had thrown money down and run?
What kind of…
A scummy move.
“Ting Feng, wake up!” Rong Yu lunged closer, voice cracking. “You’ve been taken advantage of! Who did it? Brother, you have to make that scummy woman take responsibility!”
Yan Ting Feng was already awake. He had been resting with his eyes closed, sifting through memory.
There was nothing there.
He sat up slowly, long fingers fastening the buttons of his shirt. His voice was calm, but rough around the edges. “It hit suddenly. I don’t remember her face.”
Since he had “woken” from that past incident, his health had never been good. Old damage left him with episodes that could drop him below even a child’s strength. When it happened, he needed to be alone.
Last night had been an accident.
He remembered fragments—fighting a girl, fierce and precise. Even through the haze, he had felt her gaze on him: cool, thorough, like fingers skimming over every inch of him.
She did not kill him.
She did not even hurt him.
So… she had only slept with him?
Yan Ting Feng’s eyes darkened a shade. “Security footage.”
One of the guards looked ready to sink through the floor. “It’s all gone. Every camera in the hotel, even the ones on the nearby streets—wiped. Sorry, Young Lord. We can’t restore it.”
Rong Yu gaped. “So the one who slept with you is a top-tier hacker too?!”
“Mm.” Yan Ting Feng swung his legs over the side of the bed, expression gentle, gaze deep. “We’re leaving.”
Whoever she was, she was careful. He would not find her quickly.
But he would find her.
A guard handed him his coat.
Yan Ting Feng slipped into a long black trench coat, then peeled off a disguise mask. His true face was even more striking—clean, sharp, and luminous in a way that did not seem human.
Rong Yu hesitated, then muttered, “Brother… honestly, you can’t blame her entirely. You really are a feast for the eyes.”
Yan Ting Feng looked at him and smiled—soft, but edged like a blade. One brow lifted.
Rong Yu shut his mouth immediately.
He had said nothing.
—
All day, Lin Huai Jin could not settle.
After work, he went straight home. Even when he saw Ye Wan Lan sitting neatly on the sofa with a book in her hands, he still did not relax.
“You actually look like a human being today,” he said flatly. “These past two years you were so obsessed with Zhou He Chen, I thought you’d been possessed.”
Ye Wan Lan was silent for a moment. Then she offered a faint smile. “Don’t worry, Uncle. From now on, it will only be me.”
Lin Huai Jin frowned. “What are you plotting now?”
“Nothing.” Ye Wan Lan stood. “It’s about time Wen Li gets out of school. I’ll go pick him up. Aunt should be home soon too, and I’ll buy eggs on the way back.”
Lin Huai Jin stared. “You’re picking him up?”
Lin Wen Li had always been cold by nature. Over the past four years, his relationship with Ye Wan Lan had rotted so fast it was almost frightening—until they could not stand each other at all.
“Yes.” Ye Wan Lan’s voice stayed calm. “We should build some rapport.”
She left without another word.
Ye Wan Lan had been born with memories of a past life.
In this one, she had no father. When she was five, her mother abandoned her to marry into a wealthy Harbor City family. Ye Wan Lan was sent to an orphanage.
When she was twelve, Lin Huai Jin brought her back to the Lin Family home. From then on, she gained an uncle, an aunt, and a cousin.
Lin Wen Li was brilliant. He tested into River City No. 1 High School with a citywide top-ten score. This year, he was a second-year student. Final year was coming, and the workload was heavy.
But his mind was frighteningly sharp. Exams—big or small—were never a challenge.
At seven that evening, the school gates were crowded.
Lin Wen Li did not stay for evening study. As soon as class ended, he left campus.
He was around 1.8 meters tall, brows dark and straight, features striking enough to turn heads. His presence was even more intimidating than his looks.
River City No. 1 High School’s all-black uniform somehow looked like it had been tailored for him.
His face remained blank, distant enough to make people uneasy.
“Wen Li, um…” A classmate walking beside him whispered, eyes darting. “Is that your cousin? She looks like she came to find you.”
Lin Wen Li lifted his eyes, cold.
The girl stood not far away, dressed in a loose white shirt and high-waisted black trousers. A V-neck revealed the long line of her throat. She looked relaxed, almost languid.
As if she sensed his gaze, she turned her head.
The classmate froze, visibly stunned by her face. “Wen Li, your sister is—”
Lin Wen Li did not want to be surrounded. In the end, he walked over, expression hard, and yanked a few bills from his backpack.
“I only have two hundred left,” he said coldly. “Take it and disappear.”
Ye Wan Lan’s heart stopped as if a hand had clamped around it and squeezed. For a moment, even breathing hurt.
“I came to pick you up,” she said softly. “Let’s go home together.”
Lin Wen Li did not respond.
Over the past four years, he had seen Ye Wan Lan clearly—fake, greedy, vicious.
Whenever she appeared, it was for money. At first he believed her excuses, gave her his living expenses, and survived on plain buns for a month.
Then he learned where the money went: a pair of cufflinks for Zhou He Chen.
Pick him up? Go home together?
Ridiculous.
Lin Wen Li turned and walked off without another glance.
Ye Wan Lan followed at an unhurried pace, half a step behind.
Then people stepped out of the shadows ahead, blocking the path.
“Miss Ye,” the leader drawled, flicking a cigarette to the ground. “So you finally showed your face. We thought you were going to hide forever. Tell me—why did you have to provoke us?”
Lin Wen Li stopped. “What is this?”
“Yesterday I snapped Qin Xian’s hand,” Ye Wan Lan said, as if commenting on the weather. “And crushed his ankle. Now they’ve come looking for me.”
Lin Wen Li turned his head slowly.
For the first time, his expressionless face showed something like confusion—and shock.
How could she say that so casually?
The Qin Family might not match the Zhou Family in River City, but it was still one of the city’s established powers.
The Lin Family branch that had been pushed into River City could not compare at all.
Lin Wen Li had seen how these young masters moved—cruel, dirty, the kind of methods that made people disappear without a sound.
Even if he hated Ye Wan Lan, he did not want her dead. His voice dropped. “Let’s go.”
This was River City No. 1 High School. No matter how arrogant the Qin Family’s people were, they would not dare cause an incident here.
The leader stepped closer anyway, gaze sharp. “Miss Ye, you’d better behave. If this gets to Mr. Zhou, do you think you can still stay by his side? Move.”
Zhou He Chen had always been Ye Wan Lan’s lifeline.
The leader looked down at her, waiting.
Waiting for her to beg and fold like she always did.