One moment, Gao Hongyi had been clinging to Gu Yebai’s side like a contented kitten, gently nuzzling against his neck.
But the moment Gao Hongzhi suggested arranging a dinner party, the atmosphere turned icy cold.
“Wait… Dad?”
Gao Hongyi’s voice shot up sharply, a tremor running through it as she instinctively straightened up.
The key words her father had just said exploded in her mind.
“Pretty,” “sunny and cheerful,” “neighbor”…
These words seemed tailor-made for the girl who had been lingering in front of Gao Hongyi’s eyes for the past two days.
…
Bai Xialin!
That girl who wouldn’t just stay put in Seoul and had to come all the way to Donghai in Huaxia.
She had even run into her today when coming home from school, downstairs at Tomson Riviera.
The other girl had been wearing sportswear and canvas shoes, her high ponytail swaying in the wind.
Beneath her airy bangs were clear eyes like glass marbles.
She had smiled so sweetly, even taking the initiative to add Gao Hongyi on WeChat.
She remembered the profile picture was a UFO…
She had also said with a smile that she really wanted to get to know her Bai Shu.
…
Gao Hongyi clutched her chest in pain, her heart pounding violently.
She had felt something was off about her ever since she ran into her right after returning to Donghai from Shencheng.
It was too much of a coincidence, too deliberate.
It was like she was a meticulously woven net, trying to trap Bai Shu… No, let me confirm the name first.
Maybe it wasn’t Bai Xialin.
She needed to verify her appearance.
If the girl was completely incomparable to her, Gao Hongyi wouldn’t mind too much.
“Dad…”
“What’s that girl’s name?”
Anyone but Bai Xialin.
As long as she was ordinary-looking, plain and unremarkable, she might be able to barely tolerate it.
After all, at St. George’s International School, she was the school beauty, possessing an almost arrogant confidence in her own looks.
Except for that cherry blossom girl, Mizumuro Mio, who had appeared from Bai Shu’s phone, and… Bai Xialin.
Everyone else was just mediocre trash.
On the video call, Gao Hongzhi seemed to be turning to ask someone beside him, his voice tinged with a smile.
“Laobai, what was your daughter’s name again?”
Another male voice answered gently.
“Bai Xialin.”
“Right, Bai Xialin! Look at my memory! She’s not from Huaxia, she’s from Seoul. She’s studying abroad all alone, unfamiliar with the place… Her dad is a senior executive at Samsung Group, our work overlaps, and we’ve hit it off privately too. I haven’t met someone so talented and easy to talk to in a long time, so—”
“No!”
“No, no, no, no!”
“Absolutely not!!!”
Gao Hongyi interrupted Gao Hongzhi harshly…
The living room fell into dead silence.
Her pupils contracted sharply.
Her eyes, originally as black as ink, characteristic of a Huaxia person, were suddenly tinged with an enchanting, demonic red, reminiscent of a vampire rising from a coffin at midnight.
She had never yelled at her father like this before.
She was elegant, composed, restrained.
She was the eldest daughter of the Gao family.
Though not from a distinguished lineage, she took pride in her surname.
But now, in the face of love, everything was falling apart!
She revealed her paranoid, almost crazed true nature.
The girl in Gu Yebai’s arms was like a cat whose tail had been stepped on, her fur bristling.
Her breathing was so rapid it was almost a gasp.
“My Bai Shu is not allowed to meet Bai Xialin!”
“Absolutely not!”
“Dad, I don’t agree to this dinner! And I don’t want to socialize with any peers! Having Bai Shu is enough for me! All other socializing is garbage! Useless! Superfluous!”
The girl with hair like red silk and a cool, aloof demeanor had vanished.
…
In her place was a girl pushed to the brink, nearly broken.
Anyone who saw her would feel a pang of distress and find her frightening.
“Dad, what are you trying to do?”
“Why are you arranging a meeting between the person I love most and a pretty girl?”
“Do you want your daughter to end up alone for the rest of her life?”
“Do you want me to die?”
Tears welled up without warning, falling drop by drop onto Gu Yebai’s shoulder, burning hot.
“Bai Xialin… she’s a poisoned dagger.”
“She’s a fox in sheep’s clothing!”
“She did it on purpose! Showing up right when Bai Shu and I were finally settling down, pretending to be sunny and harmless, deliberately… deliberately trying to take my Bai Shu away!”
Gao Hongyi’s voice grew softer and hoarser, yet carried a desperate stubbornness.
“Dad… for my happiness… please…”
Gao Hongzhi fell completely silent on the other end.
He clearly hadn’t expected such a strong reaction from his daughter and was momentarily speechless.
On the video screen, his expression shifted from surprise to embarrassment, then to subtle heartache.
Gu Yebai gently pulled her closer, speaking for her.
His voice was gentle yet helpless.
“Uncle Gao, the day Hongyi and I returned to Donghai from Shencheng, we did run into Bai Xialin downstairs. Just like you said, she seems very sunny and cheerful… Hongyi might be feeling a bit insecure, which is why she reacted so strongly.”
“Hongyi loves me and is afraid of losing me, that’s why she’s like this.”
Gao Hongzhi cleared his throat, trying to ease the tension: “That girl isn’t some kind of monster…”
“No, she is a monster!”
Gao Hongyi lifted her head abruptly, tears clinging to her lashes, her red pupils gleaming with unsettling intensity.
“Dad, I’m begging you, let Bai Shu and me leave now. We’ll study abroad. Go to Paris, New York, Tokyo… Anywhere without Bai Xialin is fine!”
“You child…”
Gao Hongzhi sighed, his tone finally softening with helpless affection.
“Calm down first. Dad won’t force you. The dinner is canceled, not happening, alright?”
Gao Hongyi’s shoulders slumped slightly, but the red in her eyes didn’t fade.
She buried her face in Gu Yebai’s neck, taking a deep breath as if greedily absorbing his scent.
“Bai Shu…”
“I’m so scared.”
“You belong to me forever, right?”
“I’m not going to school tomorrow. I’m staying with Bai Shu. No one is allowed to separate us…”
“Bai Shu, let’s do something more exciting.”
She pressed closer, her lips almost brushing his ear, her warm breath ghosting over his skin like a thin, lingering snake’s tongue.
“If… there was a little life calling me ‘Mom’ and calling you ‘Dad’…”
“Then it would be completely safe.”
“No one could take you away from me.”
“No one would dare come near you anymore.”
“Heh heh—”
She laughed softly, her shoulders trembling with the motion, her eyes curving into crescents, but the laugh held no warmth.
“Heh heh heh…”
The laughter grew, seeming to spill from deep within her chest—a long-suppressed madness.
Suddenly, Gao Hongyi sat up straight, cupping Gu Yebai’s face in her hands, forcing him to look at her.
Her red hair cascaded down like a curtain, enclosing them in a small world that belonged only to them.
Then came a deep, undeniable French kiss.
“Bai Shu, I’m beautiful, aren’t I?”
“Say something!”
“Even if your eyes are avoiding me… I know your heart was beating fast when you looked at me just now.”
“Your hands are shaking too.”
“You… want me too, don’t you?”
“Don’t deny it.”
“Your mouth might be lying, but heh…”
Her red eyes glanced down.
“Besides your mouth, every other part of you is telling the truth.”
“If Mom and Dad aren’t on my side, then we’ll run away.”
A sudden clap of thunder exploded outside the window, like the sky being ripped open.
Immediately after, a torrential downpour poured down.
Raindrops hammered against the floor-to-ceiling windows in a dense, frantic rhythm, like countless hands pounding on the glass simultaneously—urgent, frantic, impossible to refuse.
The Bösendorfer upright piano, model 130, placed in front of the windows, stood with its bench empty.
No one was sitting there.
Yet, in the lingering echo of the thunderclap, the first piano note sounded without warning.
Deep, resonant, like a sigh forcibly pulled from the very core of its strings.
Then came the second note, the third…
The melody surged forth like a tide, slow yet irrefusable.
Notes intertwined, coiled, and rose in the air, like countless invisible red threads extending from the keys, traversing every inch of the living room, silently winding around necks, hearts, souls.
‘Don’t even think about defying my will…’
“Bai Shu.”
“You… are mine! Forever!”
“Heh heh heh—”