“It’s okay. They should be here already, or trying to figure something out from the outside.”

“Really?”

“Trust me. Just try to calm down.”

Chen Yuan endured the throbbing pain in his head. The elevator in this Fengting District had always had minor issues, but it had never had a major breakdown like this. Of all the bad luck, he had to run into it today… and with his own mother-in-law, of all people.

‘It’s definitely the fault of that couple who was arguing downstairs.’

Chen Yuan could just picture the two of them, pulling at each other by the elevator, frantically mashing the buttons and screeching as they argued.

“Okay… I-I’ll calm down.”

Jiangg Ruxue repeated Chen Yuan’s words. Her frantic heart actually began to calm, his gentle reassurances easing her terror.

She was breathing heavily, trying her best to ignore the oppressive feeling of the enclosed space. She didn’t even dare to look around anymore, afraid she might suffocate.

“I think I hear something. It’s pretty chaotic,” Chen Yuan said softly.

“Why don’t I hear anything?”

“Be still and listen closely.”

“Okay.”

Jiangg Ruxue did as Chen Yuan said, even quieting her breathing, trying to catch any other sound besides the SCREECH, SCREECH grinding from above.

She hoped that rescue workers were really in position downstairs.

Doing everything they could to get them out.

And not that the entire world had been sealed off, leaving her eternally trapped in this airtight space.

But, straining her ears, she heard nothing…

Jiangg Ruxue couldn’t help but ask in a trembling voice, “Is it possible no one’s coming? I want to press the alarm button again.”

“Don’t! Who knows what will happen if you stand up,” Chen Yuan said, steadying Jiangg Ruxue, his own heart pounding. “Forget it, just come over to my side. You should be able to hear it. People are really here to rescue us.”

“Okay.”

“Come on, crawl over.”

Chen Yuan couldn’t worry about anything else now. He reached out and wrapped an arm around Jiangg Ruxue’s waist, but as he leaned toward her, the SCREECH from above grew louder. Steeling himself, he held his breath, embraced Jiangg Ruxue, and switched places with her.

She wasn’t heavy; she was actually quite petite in his arms. As they drew close, the scent from her body became more distinct, a faint… and extremely tantalizing fragrance.

“I hear it! There are voices!”

Jiangg Ruxue pressed her ear to the elevator wall, overjoyed. She finally let out a sigh of relief, the tension draining from her shoulders.

The joy in her eyes was palpable, as if she had suddenly returned to the real world from a sealed-off floating island.

In an instant, she came back to life.

Chen Yuan’s lips curled into a subtle smile. In that dazed moment, he saw Jiangg Yao’s face in her features.

He lay slanted against the side of the elevator, thinking, ‘When I tell my girlfriend about this later, she’s going to be stunned. I’ll have to brag about how I kept my cool in a crisis.’

A few seconds later, a staticky voice called out from the side of the elevator, “Hey! Can you hear me!?”

“We can hear you!” Jiangg Ruxue quickly replied.

“We’ve confirmed your floor. You’re safe. We’re about to open the elevator doors and get you out. Do not move!”

“Okay.”

“I’ll repeat myself: don’t move. The rescue team will be there any second…”

…

As a rescuer helped her, Jiangg Ruxue jumped down from the elevator, nearly losing her footing on the solid ground!

Leaning against the wall, surrounded by a circle of living, breathing people, she was overcome with the blissful relief of surviving a disaster.

Right after, Chen Yuan jumped down as well.

He stood to the side, brushing the dust off his clothes. Despite the dead of winter, a thin layer of sweat beaded on his forehead.

Jiangg Ruxue didn’t look much better. Her hair was a mess, her once-clean clothes were covered in dirt marks, and a button on her front had even popped open.

“Excuse me, what is wrong with your elevator? Don’t you perform regular maintenance? Nothing serious happened this time, but what if it had? Could you have shouldered that responsibility!?”

Having calmed down a little, Jiangg Ruxue’s elegant brows shot up as she immediately went on the offensive.

“Miss… please calm down.”

The property management staff member tried to placate her, bracing themselves.

“It was lucky this young man was in the elevator with me. If I had been alone, I would’ve had to teach you a thing or two about proper maintenance!”

Just as Jiangg Ruxue was raising her finger to point at the staff member’s nose and curse them out…

“President Jiangg!”

Her assistant rushed over in a flurry. Seeing Jiangg Ruxue standing there, alive and well, her frantically pounding heart finally calmed down a bit.

“You scared me to death, President Jiangg! I couldn’t reach you no matter how many times I called. I only realized there’d been an accident when I got to the elevator… What would I have done if something had happened to you?”

“It’s all this useless district’s fault!”

Jiangg Ruxue didn’t even glance at her assistant, simply letting her brush the dust off her clothes.

Chen Yuan, who was standing to the side, was in a bad mood too, but he wasn’t throwing a fit like her.

He just watched quietly from the side, thinking, ‘Whoa, my mother-in-law is so intimidating when she gets angry…’

‘And what’s with this “President Jiangg”?’

‘Looks like my girlfriend’s family background is just as I thought—either rich or powerful.’

“No, there must be compensation, or this isn’t over!” Jiangg Ruxue crossed her arms, a far cry from the terrified woman she had been just moments before.

Her entire aura was ice-cold.

It made the person in charge’s heart leap into their throat.

“Of course, compensation is negotiable. But let’s not talk about it here… Miss, shall we move elsewhere?”

“Heh, I don’t need your paltry sum of money. I’m saying you should compensate him.”

To Chen Yuan’s surprise, Jiangg Ruxue pointed at him and directed her tirade at the manager.

…

「Hundreds of kilometers away, in Mingzhu City.」

In a private room with antique charm, a group of people sat around a large, round table.

There was a young mother holding her child, girls in their twenties, white-haired elders, and young kids—all were present.

“That price for your rented place is great! It’s spacious, too. Are the upstairs and downstairs neighbors noisy?”

“It’s fine. I had it specially soundproofed.”

“With the soundproofing, no one can hear you even if you shout in the room, so I practice piano at night.”

“That’s so nice. Yaoyao, you still play piano. The last time I even touched one was five years ago…”

Jiangg Yao and Jiangg Ning were sitting together, with their cousin in between them.

More than ten elders attended this family dinner, but there were only a few from their own generation.

The three girls were around the same age and had been close as children. But in the blink of an eye, their cousin had been married for years, while Ningning and Yaoyao were still single.

Reminiscing about the past, their cousin sighed wistfully.

She recalled how she too had once been a beautiful, innocent young girl who could play the piano and guzheng with ease. She’d had a slender waist and full hips, and a face full of collagen…

But after having a baby, she could never go back.

“My youth! All sacrificed for this little monster!” The cousin glanced at her young son, who was playing on a phone with some other kids.

“He’s great. You’ve raised Teng to be so well-behaved,” Ningning said gently.

“Well-behaved? All he knows is playing games all day,” the cousin said, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. She suddenly called out to her son, “Be careful! Don’t drop your Aunt Yaoyao’s phone.”

“He’s trying to take it from me!” the boy with the bowl cut shouted, shoving another kid his age.

“It’s fine. Let’s eat. Just let them play.”

Jiangg Yao watched the two kids marveling at her Genshin Impact account, a smile playing on her lips.

Just then, a waiter came in from outside, pushing a serving cart.

*BUZZ BUZZ—*

*BUZZ BUZZ—*

Messages from Green Bubble kept flashing at the top of the screen.

Jiangg Yao was completely oblivious, focused on eating and chatting with her cousin.

The two little rascals playing the game saw the messages popping up continuously, but instead of telling her, they navigated to Green Bubble and turned on Do Not Disturb for Chen Yuan.

Then they went right back to furiously playing Genshin Impact!

…

Chen Yuan typed out the whole ridiculous story of what happened that evening and sent it to Jiangg Yao, but he received no reply.

‘She must be busy,’ he thought.

He arrived at the underground parking garage while lost in thought.

A little while ago, Jiangg Ruxue had spoken up for him, viciously chewing out the property manager. Of course, Chen Yuan hadn’t asked for any compensation; he was just scared stiff listening to her from the side.

‘His mother-in-law… she’s pretty ruthless when she’s scolding someone.’

Her aggressive posture had the manager breaking out in a cold sweat.

Chen Yuan was starting to wonder if his girlfriend was even her biological daughter. Their personalities were so different, but the resemblance was undeniable.

By the time Chen Yuan finally sat down in the back seat of the car, more than ten minutes had passed.

“What took so long?” the driver in the front seat asked curiously.

“Don’t even ask. The elevator broke down,” Chen Yuan said, still holding the wet wipe Jiangg Ruxue had given him. He wiped the dust from his knees. “Let’s get going. I’ll tell you on the way.”

…

「9:30 PM, in the bathroom of a certain hotel.」

In the creamy, rippling water, Jiangg Ruxue’s beautiful body was submerged.

Her eyes were shut tight, and fine droplets of water trickled down from the strands of hair at her temples.

*SPLASH—*

A pair of jade-like arms gently stirred the water. Jiangg Ruxue’s hair was tied up in a bun, and she reached up to loosen the hair tie.

She was supposed to take a night flight back to Mingzhu City, but after what had happened, she had completely lost the mood to go back.

All she wanted was to rest well for a night and calm her nerves.

She didn’t even answer calls from the company, leaving everything for her assistant to handle.

She had hastily booked a hotel to come here and take a proper bath.

Jiangg Ruxue lifted a fair leg, frowning at a red mark on her knee. It was still tender to the touch; there was probably a bruise forming underneath.

“Sigh…”

She let out a soft sigh.

As she stood up, a tantalizing scene was revealed.

「A moment later.」

Wrapped in a white bath towel and drying her hair, Jiangg Ruxue walked into the hotel bedroom. She sat down at the vanity, preparing to put on some light makeup before finding a quiet restaurant to get something to eat.

“So annoying… this hotel doesn’t even have a yoga mat. I was hoping to get some exercise in tonight.”

Jiangg Ruxue picked up an eyebrow pencil and touched it to her brow.

She was putting on her makeup, but her mind began to wander.

‘By the way… that young man from tonight, his name was Chen Yuan, right?’ She recalled what he’d said when she asked for his name.

“That kid… he’s a bit like my late ex-husband.”

Jiangg Ruxue recalled the moment in the elevator when she had turned to look at him. His eyes and brows were handsome; you couldn’t help but… take a second look.

…

「Meanwhile, Chen Yuan had arrived at a restaurant.」

He was starving and picked a random table, ready to have a big meal.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep