Chapter Seven: Jiao Jiao, You Wouldn’t Want to Scream Either, Right? (1/2)
“Wen Zhijiao!”
The man’s voice boomed like thunder, clapping on Wen Zhijiao’s eardrums and making her head almost spin. Despite her attempts to lift her chin and roughly pull his hand away, the feeling of suffocation only worsened, growing more intense by the second.
With a final, desperate effort, she summoned all her strength to raise her head, hoping to catch at least a glimpse of the person who was clearly trying to choke her. However, with her current weakened state, she could only do so much. In the end, all she could make out was his sneering mouth, sharp teeth glinting in a twisted grin.
…Those teeth—aren’t they Pei Ye’s?!
Right as soon as the realization set in, Pei Ye suddenly exerted force and slammed her hard to the ground.
Confused, she couldn’t even fully grasp the situation she was currently in. All she could only feel right now was an overwhelming sense of anger and despair as a burning sensation surged from her ears to her face. She knelt on the ground, her hands pressed against the floor. Slowly, she then tried to drag herself upward. Just as she was struggling to stand, she suddenly heard a loud thud crash in front of her.
Pei Ye had dropped himself to the ground as he knelt on one knee before her. Gripping her shoulders with his bony hands, he suddenly pinned her against the wall. When she looked up, she saw that his eyes were bloodshot and his teeth were clenched. His hoarse voice was laced with cruelty as he sneered, “You vile woman! Do you think that just because you’re associated with the Jiang family, I won’t dare to touch you?!”
Wen Zhijiao’s throat suddenly felt like it was on fire. Her face was flushed with anger while a buzzing noise filled her ears. Even so, she hadn’t stopped crying. Tears continued to stream down her cheeks, dampening her trembling lashes. She tried to open her mouth, wanting to vent, but found that she couldn’t say anything at all. All the profanities that she had wanted to unleash seemed to suddenly get caught in her throat.
Pei Ye’s hand then slowly slid from her shoulder up to her chin, grasping it tightly. “Next, I’ll send you the code 3289238902weuioqweuio @Jinjiang Literature City1晋江文学城/jjwxc: a well-known Chinese online platform for serialized novels. Just you wait!”
In the next second, his snarky voice had gradually turned mechanical, chaotic, and somewhat indescribable. Wen Zhijiao, who had just been feeling overwhelmed with anger and frustration right now, was naturally caught off guard by his words. Witnessing his strange behavior, she couldn’t help but feel a surge of fear.
Wen Zhijiao tried to scoot away from him; but even as she retreated, Pei Ye still didn’t snap out of his unusual state. He continued to speak in strange, incoherent phrases. At one point, he even began to recite random advertisements in the middle of his speech.
“Still pretending, huh? Looks like you don’t know fear at all when you’re not afraid of visiting the one and only official XX Pavilion2undisclosed website, but it’s meant to express that it is an illegal website that features pirated contents. to read novels on the internet, right?”
Help! Of course, she knows that XX Pavilion is not the official website!
Despite her desperate attempts to crawl away, Wen Zhijiao only found herself being caught by Pei Ye once more. He seized her by the legs, muttering more incomprehensible words under his breath. Since her mental state was already fragile to begin with, it wasn’t surprising anymore that this turn of events had finally led her to collapse and reach its breaking point. There were no signs of hesitation as she stretched out her hand to grab a decorative vase lying on the ground nearby.
The moment her fingers brushed the surface of the vase, Wen Zhijiao quickly wrapped both of her arms around it. Spinning around, she hurled the vase directly at Pei Ye, who was still half-kneeling and holding onto her legs.
Go to hell! Even a madman like Jiang Yuancheng wouldn’t dare treat her like this?
Kacha3“咔嚓” (kāchā): typically represents the sharp sound of something breaking, snapping, or shattering.!
The vase immediately shattered at the impact while thin trails of blood began to slowly trickle down Pei Ye’s head. And yet he remained unfazed, simply pressing his thumb on the blood that had trickled down to the corner of his lips before lightly licking it off.
Wen Zhijiao: “…”
“Fuck you! You—” Feeling completely overwhelmed, Wen Zhijiao finally couldn’t hold back and cursed at him. Despair filled her eyes. But even though there were tears streaming down her face, the corners of her lips still curled up, slowly twisting into a weak, desperate smile. “I… You… What did I do wrong?!”
Just the absurdity of it all made her laugh.
“Your mistake is that you touched someone you shouldn’t have!”
Right after Pei Ye said those words, the entire scene that had just played out suddenly shifted, almost endlessly shrinking, as it turned into a single film strip.
A massive book then appeared out of nowhere, swallowing everything into its pages before slamming itself shut with a thunderous sound. On its cover, a line of golden characters could be seen shimmering faintly. But it was only for a brief moment because several heavy chains decided to materialize again. It wrapped itself around the book again, locking it tightly with a series of clinks and clanks.
Wen Zhijiao’s body—
Her body suddenly jolted, and she quickly opened her eyes. But since she’d only just opened them, her vision hadn’t fully adjusted yet. In the dim light, everything couldn’t help but appear slightly blurred before her.
Wen Zhijiao was at a loss for a few seconds until the driver in the front seat finally decided to speak and broke the silence. “Miss Wen, we’ll be arriving at the manor in a few minutes. You…”
Her eyes gradually widened. Looking around, she immediately caught sight of her tear-streaked face in the rearview mirror, along with the worried expression etched on the driver’s face. Instinctively, she pulled out some wet wipes to clean her face. But as she did so, she failed to realize that she was starting to space out again. For a moment, her gaze had now become unfocused while her mind was completely blank.
She was still inside the car… So, does that mean that everything that had happened earlier was just a dream?
Right. Something that outrageous just had to be a dream. Dreams are not necessarily logical. Since she bumped into Pei Ye earlier and was upset by him, this must have led her to having such a ridiculous dream. Not to mention, she was also reading a novel before she drifted off to sleep.
Wen Zhijiao kept patting her chest, as if she were trying to calm herself, when she suddenly recalled the dream that she had from the night before. It was the same massive book, the same heavy chains, and the same golden title printed on the cover of the book…
Could all of this really be a coincidence?
As the car pulled into the estate’s parking lot, a servant promptly opened the door for her. Wen Zhijiao stepped out of the car, immediately heading straight for the residential area. Hastily making her way to her room, she then opened a drawer and pulled out a notebook before starting to jot phrases down on the pages.
Xinpu Road. Car accident. CEO *** Temptation. Pei Ye. Being choked. Novel. She hurt someone. Strange dialogues.
No, wait. This isn’t right.
Knowing that there’s something missing, Wen Zhijiao struggled to recall the complete title of the book that she had seen in her dreams. It wasn’t long though before she finally realized what the line of golden text seemed to be… She stretched out her hand, slowly writing down the words from her dream: CEO *** Love【Locked】
Wen Zhijiao: “…”
It seems like a word has changed?
After setting down the pen that had a fluffy pom-pom dangling from its top, she propped her chin on the palm of her hand and then stared hard at the keywords that she had scribbled all over her notebook, trying to piece everything together for an answer. But unfortunately for her, it didn’t go well and only added to her frustration, as she soon realized that these random keywords made even less sense combined than the garbled dialogues that were said earlier from her dream.
Forget it. Just thinking about it only gave her a headache. Perhaps it was also because she was still affected by the dream that she still couldn’t help but feel slightly short of breath.
Wen Zhijiao pushed her notebook aside. As she stretched her body, she accidentally knocked her phone to the ground. With a thump, the phone screen automatically lit up, a web novel page then suddenly coming into view.
She stared at the screen, her brows slowly furrowing. A few seconds later, she suddenly realized something. Wait… in the dream… the things that Pei Ye said—aren’t they similar to those random garbled characters that only usually appear in stolen texts4in illegal webnovel website, there are usually notes or watermarks inserted into the novel’s text that sometimes causes a “humorous” disruption in the flow of the story.?
As soon as this thought occurred to her, countless connections from her previous dreams also began to click into place.
Wen Zhijiao’s brain was not working for a long time. As she bent down to pick up her phone, her fingers were trembling.
…Could it be that all of this is just fiction?
To confirm her suspicion, she quickly grabbed her phone and began searching for those keywords. However, despite trying to type in the names of Jiang Yuancheng and Pei Ye, as well as the title of the novel in the search list, she found nothing—just a few fanfictions. Undeterred, she deepened her search, this time focusing on the plot, but in the end she still found nothing relevant. After a half an hour of searching, she finally decided to set her phone down.
Finally, the corners of her lips slowly curled up. Inserting her fingers into her hair and letting it run through its long strands, she then later lowered her head to her arms. It wasn’t even a few seconds when a muffled laughter suddenly broke out. It filled the air, but there seemed to be a trace of exhaustion in its sound.
Great! That’s great! After spending so long with Jiang Yuancheng, she seemed to have finally gone crazy. Otherwise, what would even make her think of this crazy nonsense?!
Buzz, buzz, buzz—
The phone suddenly vibrated.
Wen Zhijiao looked down and saw that it was a message from her mother.
『 It has been confirmed that the Master will arrive at City A within a week 』
She immediately felt a sense of relief. Well, that was until the next message came and appeared on her screen.
『 A5common prefix in Chinese to denote familiarity or to make a name sound more affectionate or informal Sui will also be joining him. 』
Wen Zhijiao’s scalp almost went numb when she saw this message. She almost immediately called back. “Mom, I told you not to tell him!”
She couldn’t help but jump out of her seat to pace a few steps. “Why don’t you just let him stay in City C?”
“Even if the original engagement is no longer valid, he is still your brother. Do you think he would harm you?” Her mother took a sharp breath before continuing, “It’s precisely because you keep saying there’s no problem, but there are problems everywhere, that I insisted for A Sui to tag along. He’ll stay until the engagement is over, and then, when everything’s finished, he’ll also be returning with us to City C.”
“In the past few years, you’ve only stayed with us for a few days each year. And somehow it has also been difficult for our family to find a way to spend more time with you. Isn’t this the reason why I’m also worried about you?”
Her mom’s voice dropped a little as she said these words.
Wen Zhijiao was speechless for a moment. Placing her hands on her head, she still softly grumbled, “But Wen Sui is so annoying.”
“You’re right. I’ve never met anyone who can tolerate you more than he does.” Her mother’s voice carried a hint of complaint as she continued, “It’s a pity. He has developed such a good temperament, but now it’s all going to benefit some other girl.”
Wen Zhijiao was at a loss for words. She quickly opened her mouth to discredit him. “What else can he do besides telling on me to you guys?! I don’t want to talk about this anymore!”
Not even caring about what her mom had to say, she just directly hung up the phone and stomped around in anger.
While the Wen family wasn’t from a wealthy lineage, they owned a company and had a few chain supermarkets in City C for them to be still considered well-off. Wen Zhijiao was their only child; but since she has always been playful, her parents didn’t place much expectations on her. For her future, they have only thought about putting the company shares in her name and arranging a marriage for her.
Wen Sui was then brought home under these following circumstances. And the Wen family was not at all disappointed by their decision. He was indeed an impressive young man, excelling in both character and academic performance. Not only that, but he was also hardworking and had some talent in business. With his guidance, she had once heard that their family business was doing well.
T/N: Welp, can’t believe that I actually managed to finish this. Sorry for the long wait. I suddenly entered my reading phase, that’s why my attention kinda got strayed away. Anyways, no worries, I will be updating part 2 in a few days. And I have no more books to read, so yes I’m on my translating mode again hehe.
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