After Redeeming the Cold, Aloof Heroine, I Ran Away - Chapter 3

A gaze as sharp as wind-blades and frost-swords pierced toward her. Out of instinctive guilt, Jiang Xian looked away and thought, I wasn’t the one who did it. Why are you looking at me?

Although she had averted her eyes, she could still feel, from the corner of her vision, the hatred coming from the person on the bed. It was as if Jing Lian wanted to cut her into a thousand pieces.

Jiang Xian clenched her palm. In that instant, she realized that in this confrontation of gazes, she could not lose. If she wanted to ensure that the character setting did not go OOC, she had to face the challenge head-on.

So in the next moment, she restrained the emotions in her eyes and stared back fearlessly, her gaze carrying a touch of disdain and contempt.

Their eyes met. Neither of them looked away, and neither yielded. Jiang Xian did not avoid her gaze either. She pushed the door open with one hand, lifted her foot, and strode inside. She walked with a free and carefree gust of wind around her, soon stopping before the bed.

Jing Lian’s gaze followed her the entire time. Even when Jiang Xian stood in front of her and looked down at her, there was not the slightest trace of panic in her eyes. She simply stared straight at Jiang Xian, directly and unblinkingly. Her gaze was like an endless black hole, as though it wanted to swallow Jiang Xian whole.

Interesting.

Jiang Xian had met an opponent.

She continued staring back at Jing Lian. She lifted one knee and lightly pressed it against the edge of the bed, then raised her hand and gently pinched Jing Lian’s face. Her thumb and four fingers parted, just enough to grip the flesh on both sides of Jing Lian’s cheeks. Her skin was faintly cool and delicate. Jiang Xian’s hand, which had been using force, loosened slightly. She held Jing Lian like that, lifting her face while bending down. Her cheek drew closer, nose tip to nose tip, and Jiang Xian could hear the other woman’s faint breathing.

Her hair was not yet dry. Water droplets slowly fell from her long curls, drop by drop, landing on Jing Lian’s chest like plum blossoms blooming across her snow-white skin.

During this brief exchange of gazes, Jing Lian finally looked away. It was not surrender, but disdain—disdain so strong she did not want to see Jiang Xian’s ugly face. She looked at the floor, at the ceiling, at the broken vase—anywhere but at her.

“Have you thought it through?”

Seeing that Jing Lian had lost this round, Jiang Xian leaned a little closer. Her curly hair spread across Jing Lian’s chest like seaweed, soaking a large patch of her clothes and faintly revealing the trace of the snow-white undergarment beneath.

Jing Lian was silent for a long time. Her face remained turned to the side. After a while, her cold, clear voice slowly spat out a few words.

“Stop dreaming.”

After saying that, she looked back again, her stubborn eyes flickering.

“Unless I die.”

A trace of a disdainful smile appeared at the corner of her mouth, as though she were saying that if Jiang Xian dared take another step forward, she would rather kill herself than willingly submit under her hand.

Ahem. A trace of softness flashed through Jiang Xian’s heart, and the fingers gripping Jing Lian loosened again. The plot of the original book flashed through her mind.

Die? Jing Lian would not die yet. She still had important things to do. The reason Jing Lian had not escaped this island was because there was something even more dangerous watching her.

She had no choice, which was why she was willing to stay here. She simply did not know that she had jumped from one pit into another. At least in this pit, she could still drag out a feeble existence. So even though Jiang Xian imprisoned her, whipped her, and wanted her, Jing Lian absolutely would not flee or leave.

This could barely be considered one willing to strike and one willing to suffer.

“Die? Do you have the right? Or rather, do you have the courage?”

Jiang Xian leaned close to Jing Lian’s ear. Her low voice slowly breathed out, the warmth brushing across Jing Lian’s cheek. The fine pale hairs on Jing Lian’s skin, so close at hand, stood up one by one, as if angered by her provocation.

That sentence seemed to seize Jing Lian by her lifeline. For the first time, a hesitant light appeared in her pupils. She looked somewhat lost, somewhat helpless, as though to a certain extent she had admitted that she could only be a canary in a cage. After that brief chill, those tiny raised hairs also sank down tiredly, lying obediently against her skin.

She looked very young. The soft fuzz on her face had not yet faded, making her look like a fair-skinned peach.

Only her lips and cheeks had lost all color, giving her a somewhat sickly look.

“In ten minutes, the family doctor will come to bathe you and apply medicine. You can relax for a while, because I have no desire for people covered in wounds. Those marks are disgusting to look at. As long as you obediently recover and listen to me, we can slowly move on to what comes next.”

Jiang Xian’s fingertip gently rubbed the skin along Jing Lian’s jaw. Her piano-playing hands carried a thin layer of calluses, just wrapped by Jing Lian’s soft skin, making her fingertip tingle faintly. She had already begun to grasp the feeling of playing a wildly arrogant pervert, and she was starting to immerse herself in it.

So it turned out that being a pervert was this comfortable.

Only now did she lower her eyes and carefully examine Jing Lian’s appearance. Her face was small, only the size of Jiang Xian’s palm, and shaped like a goose egg. Her brows and eyes were cold and aloof. Her double eyelids formed long, narrow crescent eyes. Her nose bridge was small, straight, and delicate, while the slightly upturned tip of her nose was the finishing touch, adding a few degrees of cold pride to her otherwise gentle features. Her lips were waxy white, without a trace of blood, making her look no different from someone who had suffered from a lung illness for years.

Her hair was also dry and yellowish. Her body was thin and frail. When Jiang Xian lowered her gaze, she could see several protruding bones at her chest.

Sigh. It seemed that before helping Jing Lian take revenge, Jiang Xian still had something else to do: she had to nurse Jing Lian’s body back to health.

Jiang Xian was immersed in this, using her gaze to trace Jing Lian’s features. In that instant, she had long since forgotten to observe the other woman’s emotions.

Caught off guard, a sharp pain came from the web of her hand. At some point, Jing Lian had turned her face and bitten into the space between Jiang Xian’s thumb and index finger. Immediately after, with lightning speed, she slipped off the bed, stepped barefoot across the floor covered in blue-and-white porcelain shards, and ran out.

Everything happened in an instant. By the time Jiang Xian reacted, all that remained was the bloody bite mark on the web of her hand and a trail of small, bloodstained footprints on the floor, winding toward the spiral staircase.

“Quick, catch that arrogant little thing for me!”

Jiang Xian’s mind was screaming, but not a single word came out of her mouth. Without time to treat the wound, she hurriedly strode out and chased after the string of bloody footprints.

The trail of footprints disappeared in the first-floor hall, leaving no trace for a moment. Jiang Xian stood where she was, looking left and right, but still saw no sign of the person who had fled.

The marble floor had been swept until it gleamed like a mirror, reflecting her slender figure. At that moment, crisp footsteps sounded through the villa. Jiang Xian followed the sound and saw two housekeepers in blue-and-white uniforms walking toward her. One was tall and thin, the other short and plump.

The tall and thin one was Xiao Ya. The short and plump one was Auntie Wang. She had a round face, dark skin, and held a square tray in both hands as she walked toward Jiang Xian with a smile.

The two of them seemed to have no idea what had happened.

Before Jiang Xian could speak, the two had already arrived in front of her. Auntie Wang smiled brightly, lowered her head to a ninety-degree angle, and said in an extremely flattering, ingratiating tone, “Boss, I prepared this soup for Ninth Miss. I guarantee that after she eats it, she’ll be completely obedient to you and absolutely let you do whatever you want!”

“Ninth Miss” was the title the housekeepers had given Jing Lian, because she counted as Jiang Xian’s ninth girlfriend in the truest sense, even though Jing Lian herself did not acknowledge it.

Jiang Xian suddenly remembered something. In the original book, Jing Lian had given herself to Jiang Xian for the first time precisely because she had eaten something. After that, Jing Lian’s feelings toward her changed. On the surface, Jing Lian pretended to obey her, but in reality, she was setting traps step by step, luring Jiang Xian in until she finally achieved perfect revenge.

The original owner had been straightforward and terrible, but because she was also pitifully stupid, she naturally would not have thought of drugging someone. So the idea of drugging Jing Lian had actually been thought up by Xiao Ya and Auntie Wang together.

So it was not only the original owner who was rotten. The people surrounding the original owner, in order to support and flatter her, did not hesitate to come up with such despicable ideas.

As Jiang Xian thought this, she clenched her fingers tighter. Because of the tension, blood from the web of her hand dripped down like drops of red, falling soundlessly onto the white marble floor.

Xiao Ya and Auntie Wang had not yet noticed that something was wrong with their master. The two exchanged a smile, smug expressions appearing on their faces, as though they were waiting for their master’s praise.

They were so careless that for a moment, they forgot to read the room. They did not sense the low, solemn atmosphere in the air, carrying the smell of blood and rebellion.

As the saying went, joy at its peak turned into sorrow. Just as the two were secretly laughing happily, Jiang Xian swung her arm and slapped both of them across the face. Two crisp smacks rang through the villa, scaring away all the gray sparrows pecking for food on the windowsill.

Jiang Xian felt her palm go numb. She lowered her eyes and stared at them, her gaze as if it wanted to crush them on the spot.

At that moment, the two met her eyes. The smugness on their faces had long vanished, replaced by fear.

They knelt on the ground in terror, hurriedly saying that they were wrong, that they were wrong, while also shifting blame onto each other and accusing one another.

“Xiao Ya cooked the porridge.”

“Auntie Wang added the drug.”

“Xiao Ya served it.”

“Auntie Wang brought it up.”

“It was you.”

“It was you.”

One on the left and one on the right, they loosely clung to Jiang Xian’s legs, begging her not to fire them.

“Enough.”

Jiang Xian coldly shook off their hands. She lifted her foot and lightly stepped on Auntie Wang’s mottled left hand. Slowly, slowly, she bent down and stared directly into Auntie Wang’s eyes. In those eyes of a woman past her prime, tears shone through fear and trembling.

Jiang Xian stared at her so directly that it seemed she wanted to pierce through her eyes.

Auntie Wang closed her eyes in fear and turned her face away. Two little pearls of tears fell along with the movement.

“In the future, if you dare disrespect Ninth Miss again, or come up with some rotten idea for me, I will crush your hand.”

As she spoke, the tip of her foot lightly rubbed the back of Auntie Wang’s hand twice before moving away.

The two nodded like chicks pecking rice and apologized sincerely. Auntie Wang in particular rubbed her hand while tears and snot streamed down her face.

“It was all my idea. I won’t dare do it again.”

Jiang Xian curled her lips. A hint of reluctance appeared in her heart. As the saying went, those near cinnabar turn red, and those near ink turn black. Presumably, these two had also become cunning and sinister in order to cater to the original owner.

Giving them one more chance was also giving herself one more chance.

“All right. Now I’ll give you two something to do. Ninth Miss is missing. You have half an hour to find her.”

She was still unfamiliar with this villa. She needed useful people to assist her if she wanted to handle things smoothly.

Sure enough, half an hour later, news of Jing Lian arrived.

The good news was that they had found her.

The bad news was that she was hiding in the gap between two villas, a space so narrow it was only two palms wide.

Aside from her, no one could get inside.