Fu Bing shook uncontrollably.
Her eyes were fixed on the smartphone screen, still lit up on the carpet.
It was a fox-shaped mask, identical to the one the captain wore!
She had once touched that mask, but at the time she was too nervous to discern its shape, vaguely aware only that it was some kind of animal.
The man who had shamelessly humiliated her in the dark corner actually possessed such a respectable identity.
Fu Bing felt like vomiting.
He was even wearing the embroidery she had made. He had kept a simple piece of her embroidery for ten years. Yet, when she was in trouble, he humiliated and assaulted her... And now he stood beside her without any sense of guilt.
Fu Bing’s hand trembled as she grabbed her phone again and quickly left the room.
Xiaomei, carrying a tray of food, was about to knock on the door when Fu Bing bumped into her, causing Xiaomei to stagger back.
The soup on the tray spilled.
"Sis, where are you going?"
Fu Bing didn’t hear her. Her mind was fixated on one thought: She had to see that man! She needed to see him!
Fu Bing managed to reach his room and, without any hesitation, pushed open the door.
The door slammed hard against the wall.
Everyone inside turned to look.
Fu Bing was pale, on the verge of fainting at any moment.
Seeing her expression, Qin Jinhai immediately stood up and walked toward her, issuing commands as he moved.
Qin Jinhai shielded Fu Bing, preventing others from seeing her current state.
Fu Bing looked at the towering figure in front of her, a trace of familiarity stirring within her.
Had she gone mad? She was actually finding traces of Qin Jinhai in this man.
After everyone had left and the door was closed, Qin Jinhai turned to face Fu Bing.
Fu Bing suddenly snapped back to reality and asked through clenched teeth, "Who exactly are you?"
Qin Jinhai was taken aback. "Why do you ask that?"
"Why do you wear a mask? What are you trying to hide?" Fu Bing squeezed out every ounce of strength she had, her voice hoarse as she demanded, "Are you that man from the prison?"
Qin Jinhai stood petrified, as if struck by lightning.
Cold sweat increasingly covered Fu Bing, making her look as though she had just been pulled from the water.
She stared at the back of the man’s neck, which was mere inches away.
Words tumbled out uncontrollably as tears streamed down her face.
"Who exactly are you?"
Her despair pierced the air, pinning Qin Jinhai in place.
Qin Jinhai struggled to regain a sliver of reason from the chaos. "What did you see? Or what did someone send you?"
"Never mind who sent me what! Just tell me who you are. Were you in that prison? In that cell...?"
Fu Bing couldn’t finish her sentence.
Even if she fell into a gutter, even if she were trampled upon, she would find a way to survive. But she could not tolerate being violated, being forced against her will. The man who had forced her back then now stood right in front of her, admired by others.
Qin Jinhai turned to face her, his eyes regaining their usual sharpness.
Even with the mask, his formidable aura was palpable.
That familiar presence muddled Fu Bing’s mind, and she stared blankly at the man before her.
The answer was on the verge of revealing itself.
The man lifted his hand and slowly began to remove the mask in front of her.
To Fu Bing, his movements seemed to unfold in slow motion.
He lifted his hand, untied the knot, and the fox-shaped mask slipped away, bit by bit, revealing the man’s face before Fu Bing...
Fu Bing felt as if her heart had shattered.
The man in front of her was indeed Qin Jinhai!
A thousand unspoken words caught in Fu Bing’s throat.
Suddenly, laughter erupted in the silent room.
Fu Bing began to laugh, a low, soft sound.
The more she laughed, the more tears flowed.
Qin Jinhai felt a suffocating pain in his heart.
Fu Bing lifted her reddened eyes and said in a hoarse voice, "Qin Jinhai, is it fun to play with me? Do you feel a sense of achievement watching me in despair and pain? When I was wrongly imprisoned, in so much pain that I wanted to commit suicide, you appeared before me with a different face, forcing me to submit to you..."
Her voice cracked, becoming almost inaudible.
At this moment, she clearly recognized a truth. Her past with Qin Jinhai had nothing to do with love. From beginning to end, it was all just Qin Jinhai’s game. It was a series of manipulations; she was merely a plaything for the young master of a top elite family, something he found interesting. What happened to the plaything, what it thought—it was all irrelevant to this young master!
"I never intended to play with you, I..."
"You didn’t intend to play with me, yet every step was meticulously designed. Qin Jinhai, you’re really something!"
"You deliberately gave me a compelling reason to save Han Hu. Then you had her come to Jiangnan for plastic surgery, found ways to lure me to Jiangnan, got Old Master Jiang to persuade me to compete, and manipulated me into continuing to charge forward like a fool!"
Every step was impeccably planned. She had thought that although there was hatred between them, there was at least a little bit of affection. But it turned out that even this affection was her own fantasy! All of it was just her own damn imagination! The man in the dark prison cell—that was the real Qin Jinhai!
For the first time, Qin Jinhai couldn’t look directly into Fu Bing’s eyes.
Her eyes were her most striking feature. They were open and bright, and a single glance from them could dispel all exhaustion. But now, those eyes were filled with nothing but pain. Even if his intentions had been for her good, what she experienced, what pierced her heart, was still torture. What he brought her was always more harm than protection.
Qin Jinhai felt an unprecedented sense of defeat.
He had tried so hard to love her, to protect her, but he kept hurting her. If she had not met him, she would not have been imprisoned, nor would she have suffered such torture in jail. Sending Aunt Ning to accompany her was merely a balm applied after the trauma had already formed. If not for him, she would never have been imprisoned at all.
Qin Jinhai stood before Fu Bing; the distance of less than half a meter between them felt like an unbridgeable chasm.
What were they to do? What was to become of their future?
Qin Jinhai didn’t dare to think any further.
Suddenly, almost obsessively, he pulled the nearly fainting Fu Bing fiercely into his arms and said viciously, "To me, you’ll always be the one and only; even you cannot belittle yourself! Your imprisonment is my fault. If I were stronger, you wouldn’t have suffered such injustice. Even now, I can’t directly confront those people. The harm you’ve suffered indeed came from me."
"Fu Bing, you can hate me! You can take revenge on me in any way you want! The only thing you cannot do is take revenge on yourself! You’ve done nothing wrong. You deserve to live well. Use your own methods to bring me down!"
"And you better not shed tears for me! I just want you. I’m pathologically fixated on keeping you by my side! No matter how long it takes, once I can eliminate the hidden dangers, I will still appear before you, shamelessly clinging to you! Who else but you once fell in love with me, bringing sunlight and brightness into my life?"
"If I hadn’t received those things, I could have gone on without them; I could have continued to live in the dark corners!"
"But you shattered that darkness, so now I can only cling to you desperately!"
"Fu Bing, you can’t embrace me only to abandon me now!"