Chapter 5

Gu Nianxi spoke at length, only to discover when she finished that Bai Jin had been distracted.
Her anger immediately flared. “Have you been listening to anything I said? Bai Jin! Bai—”

A warm hand covered hers.
Bai Jin caught the hand clutching her collar. Like a startled butterfly, it released the fabric with a single flutter of its wings, yet could not fly away because of Bai Jin’s restraint.

“I heard you,” Bai Jin murmured. “Sister was praising me.”

“…As long as you heard me.” Gu Nianxi instinctively sensed danger and tried to pull her hand away, but failed.

“But I don’t understand, Sister.” Bai Jin raised her eyes, her pale irises once again filled with Gu Nianxi’s reflection. “What changed your attitude toward me?”

This question had been lingering in her heart since yesterday.

At first, she had assumed that Gu Nianxi’s protective behavior was merely the beginning of another cruel game.
The naive Eldest Miss even insisted on wrapping her malice in exquisite sugarcoating. Bai Jin had thought that if Gu Nianxi wanted to play, she would play along.
But Bai Jin soon discovered that Gu Nianxi’s attitude toward her truly seemed to have changed.

Breakfast that morning no longer consisted solely of dairy products. Her properly measured clothes were being made on an expedited schedule and would reportedly be delivered to the residence that afternoon.
Even the servants had become respectful. When she asked Butler Ye about it, he discreetly informed her that these were the Eldest Miss’s instructions.
—From now on, Bai Jin’s food, clothing, accommodations, and transportation were all to meet the standards appropriate for the Gu family’s Second Miss.

Everything pointed toward a genuine change in Gu Nianxi’s attitude.
Today, Gu Nianxi had even given the project to her… and seized her collar to say all those things…
Why did she think so highly of her? Why did she have so much confidence in her?
What exactly had happened to change her opinion of Bai Jin?

Bai Jin could not understand, so she reached out and took hold of her.
She tightened her grip around Gu Nianxi’s hand, preventing her from escaping. She stared into Gu Nianxi’s eyes, unwilling to miss the slightest change in her expression.

Gu Nianxi’s face turned red, perhaps from anger [read the original at bailiantales.com]or perhaps from embarrassment.
Bai Jin believed there was no difference between how those two emotions manifested in Gu Nianxi. Both were rich, fragrant… and delectable.

Gu Nianxi glared fiercely at her.

“Who said I’ve been treating you well? I haven’t done anything.” She exerted more force, but her hand remained firmly trapped.
The warm sensation of being enveloped reminded her of Bai Jin applying medicine for her last night, when she had similarly held Gu Nianxi’s leg and prevented her from moving…
Bai Jin was surprisingly territorial, Gu Nianxi thought. All she had done was grab her collar, yet Bai Jin had reacted this strongly.
She had stepped on Bai Jin several times last night. Bai Jin could not have held that against her too, could she?

It might be better to put everything out in the open so that there would be no further misunderstandings, Gu Nianxi thought.
She cleared her throat and raised her chin. “Fine… I admit that I was prejudiced against you before and did quite a few terrible things.”
“I still don’t like you now. But we’ll have to live under the same roof for some time, and constantly fighting each other won’t benefit either of us.”
“Don’t worry. You won’t have to put up with me for long. In a few years at most, I’ll leave the Gu family. As for the project, hmph, don’t think I deliberately let you have it. I know my own limitations. Giving that project to me would only waste it. I might as well let you take it and keep yourself busy—that’s still better than having you standing around being an eyesore.”

Gu Nianxi said many things, but Bai Jin seized upon only one sentence.

“You’re leaving the Gu family?”

Her grip involuntarily tightened. Gu Nianxi must have been hurt by it because she glared at her fiercely. “What does that have to do with you?”

Bai Jin fell silent.
…Yes. It truly had nothing to do with her.
She had no standing to question Gu Nianxi, nor did Gu Nianxi have any reason to consider her feelings when deciding what to do.

“Let go!”

Bai Jin released her.

Gu Nianxi rubbed her reddened hand and complained, “Your grip is far too strong!”

She picked up the resort proposal, flipped through several pages, found the contractor’s information, and showed it to Bai Jin. “Here. I’ll throw in one [read the original at bailiantales.com]more piece of information for free. There are risks associated with the contractor the Gu Group originally selected. Remember to investigate them carefully. If something happens later, don’t blame me for not warning you.”

The contractor was the project’s hidden trap. They had embezzled company funds and falsified financial statements, causing all the money invested during the project’s early stages to go down the drain. Gu Nianxi remembered that Bai Jin had been overwhelmed by the problem at the time. She had needed to pull strings at the bank and secure a loan before the project finally had sufficient cash flow.

Seeing Bai Jin still staring blankly, she frowned. “Are you listening to me?”

Bai Jin seemed to snap back to her senses and softly replied, “Mm.”

Gu Nianxi thought she was behaving somewhat strangely, but did not dwell on it. She stuffed the project proposal into Bai Jin’s arms. “Anyway, don’t cause trouble for me in the future, and I won’t cause trouble for you either. Do you understand?”

Bai Jin said nothing.

Gu Nianxi thought she probably needed some time to process everything. “All right, it’s still early. I’m going outside for some air. You can discuss the project with your representative, okay? Send me a message when you’re done.”

She turned around. Bai Jin instinctively reached out, only to stop herself. Gu Nianxi did not notice. Her hair brushed over Bai Jin’s fingers and swiftly slipped away, after which the door closed behind her.

Bai Jin lowered her head.
The sensation of Gu Nianxi remained upon her hand, and her fragrance still lingered in the air, yet the conference room was already empty.
Sunlight streamed through the window and fell across her body, casting a long shadow over the spacious conference table.
Bai Jin’s eyes darkened. She raised her hand and studied the lines across her palm, then could not resist closing her eyes and inhaling Gu Nianxi’s lingering fragrance before gently kissing her palm.

But an intangible trace of fragrance was not what she wanted to kiss. She wanted to kiss the real Gu Nianxi, from the tips of her hair to the tips of her toes.

Gu Nianxi actually intended to leave the Gu family.
Did she believe that now Bai Jin had returned, there was nothing left for her to fight over?

Bai Jin’s tongue brushed against her front teeth.

If Gu Nianxi left the Gu family, where could she run? Jing City was both vast and small. If Bai Jin thought of a way, she would always be able to find her.
But what if she left Jing City? What if she went even farther, overseas? Even if she ceased being the Gu family’s young miss, Gu Nianxi still possessed assets of her own. With money, she could always flee somewhere very far away…

She was so naive and so fragile. What if she was hurt outside?
A delicate flower that left its greenhouse could not withstand the wind and rain.

Bai Jin exhaled heavily.
The instant she learned that Gu Nianxi wanted to leave, the destructive urge within her swelled to its limit. Her mind automatically began devising every possible method of forcing Gu Nianxi to stay.

Those damned hormones. That damned physiological reaction. This damned, uncontrollable possessiveness!

Bai Jin thought, I clearly don’t like Gu Nianxi, so why is my body so dependent upon her? The thought of Gu Nianxi leaving made her feel like a living creature being deprived of the air it needed to survive. She instinctively wanted to bind Gu Nianxi tightly and keep her by her side, no matter how despicable the methods she had to use.

Obtain her.
Control her.
Possess her.

She should think calmly. She should cast aside every distracting thought and control this abnormal desire.
But the body was always more honest than the heart. Bai Jin could not escape. She could only remain where she stood, watching in despair as her craving spread like wildfire across a dry plain, enveloping her layer by layer.

*

Gu Nianxi took the elevator downstairs.

Ah, she had finally gotten everything out in the open!
She felt much better, as though she had resolved an enormous problem.

She had no intention of remaining with the Gu family.
The Gu family Read on BaiLianTales could bring her nothing but misery… She refused to suffer the same hardships she had endured in her previous life.

Her steps were light as she casually opened her phone and saw the messages that had been arriving continuously since yesterday.
Most of them were from the fair-weather friends who had been in the private room at “Floating Jade”—the wealthy young ladies and young masters of Jing City’s elite circles.
The person who had sent the most messages was Yue Wenjing:
[Nianxi, why aren’t you replying to me? QAQ]

Gu Nianxi could not be bothered with her. She swiped across the screen and blocked her.

From the rest, she selected the important people whose families were prominent enough to dine at the same table as the Gu family and replied to them. She essentially declared that Bai Jin was her younger sister and that the details would be announced later at their coming-of-age ceremony.

After finishing her replies, she stopped at one person’s chat.

Xu Yushan.

He was the Xu family’s second young master in Jing City, the youngest son of the family patriarch, and a child born late in his father’s life. He had been spoiled beyond control and was known throughout Jing City as a rich delinquent who did whatever he pleased.
In Gu Nianxi’s previous life, he had been Bai Jin’s fiancé.

She and Xu Yushan were not particularly close. In her previous life, she had looked down upon him, believing him to be arrogant, domineering, and utterly ignorant. But when it came to marriage, she believed that no one in Jing City was worthy of her except the eligible direct descendants of the Gu, Lin, Xu, and Wang families.
That was why she had felt so aggrieved when she learned that the Gu family intended to match Xu Yushan with Bai Jin while arranging for Gu Nianxi to marry the eldest son of a newly prominent family—a divorced man fifteen years older than her who already had a child.

She had resorted to dishonorable methods to steal Xu Yushan away. Only later did she discover that Xu Yushan and Bai Jin had formed an alliance and established a fake engagement. Bai Jin wanted control over the Gu family, while Xu Yushan wanted to help his elder brother deal with the Xu relatives who had been overreaching. Their interests aligned perfectly.
Xu Yushan’s delinquent behavior was entirely an act. Like Bai Jin, he was not someone who readily revealed his true thoughts to others. He had helped Bai Jin considerably during the later stages, so in the end, Xu Yushan and Bai Jin still became engaged.

The day Gu Nianxi took her own life was the day of their engagement.

She stared at the chat for a long while before finding someone else through the search bar and making a call.

The other person answered quickly, his voice languid. “Hello? Eldest Miss, how do you have time to call me today? Who are you trying to deal with this time?”

“Do me a favor, Wang Xun,” Gu Nianxi said.

After giving him her instructions, she ended the call.
In the future, Bai Jin would discover that her adoptive parents’ deaths had not been an accident but had been deliberately orchestrated. On her way to investigate, she would encounter the greatest crisis of her life. If Xu Yushan had not sent people to meet and protect her, Bai Jin would have died.
Although Gu Nianxi had decided to leave the Gu family, she did not want to owe anyone a favor. She had no idea who had sent the people who killed Bai Jin’s adoptive parents, but to prevent Bai Jin from dying… it was better to take precautions in advance.

With another matter resolved, Gu Nianxi felt even more relaxed.
She began wandering around Hongsheng, the company under the Gu Group.

The lobby on the first floor of Hongsheng was exceptionally spacious, with numerous display panels positioned along the right side. When Gu Nianxi approached, she discovered that it was a charity art exhibition. Most of the paintings were works created by students sponsored by the Gu Group, making the exhibition a form of brand promotion as well.

As she continued looking, the corners of her mouth turned downward, and she fell silent.
The children’s brushstrokes were immature, and their colors bright. Yet after she rounded a corner, she found an oil painting with an exquisite frame hanging in the farthest corner of the exhibition, completely out of place among the other works.

Light shone down from the small lamp above the display panel, spreading a ring of shadow beneath the solid wooden frame.

As Gu Nianxi stared at the painting, the hand hanging by her side began trembling uncontrollably.
She drew the practiced deep breaths, slowly inhaling and exhaling… allowing the lingering fear from her previous life to dissipate before carefully examining the painting.

It was evident that the artist had received little professional training, relying entirely upon innate inspiration in every brushstroke and use of color. Amid a vast expanse of deep blue, a tiny fledgling was spreading its wings as though preparing to fly beyond the confines of the canvas.
Several slender shadows fell across the fledgling’s wings, resembling the shadow of a cage.

A signature had been written in the lower-right corner: G.N.