Chapter 135: Chapter 133: Su Xinyao Goes to Xiangjiang

Su Tang held the warm, red egg, her surprised gaze falling on Lin Jianqiu’s slightly rounded belly. “Really? That’s wonderful! Sister Qiu, you have to take good care of yourself. Don’t get too tired.”

Lin Jianqiu’s cheeks had the characteristic glow of early pregnancy. She gently placed her fingertips on her belly, the smile in her eyes as sweet as honeyed spring water.

“I only got it confirmed at the hospital yesterday. I still can’t quite believe it.”

She turned to Chang Jia, her tone one of mock complaint.

“This guy was so excited he couldn’t sleep last night and just had to come over first thing this morning to give you the eggs.”

Chang Jia scratched his head, a goofy grin on his face. “How could I not be? This baby came at the perfect time. I’m over the moon.”

As he spoke, he straightened his back, as if a great weight had suddenly been placed on his shoulders—a weight he was more than happy to bear.

Lu Xiao patted his shoulder. “Congratulations. From now on, you’d better treat Sister Qiu like a princess.”

The group chatted and laughed for a while before Chang Jia pulled Lu Xiao away to the barracks.

Su Tang, meanwhile, linked arms with Lin Jianqiu and walked into the courtyard.

Since she was pregnant herself, the hospital allowed her to come in a little late each day. Chatting with Lin Jianqiu for a bit wouldn’t make a difference.

Lin Jianqiu said this child was hard-won. She had only conceived after her relationship with Chang Jia had improved.

They both treasured this child immensely.

“Sister Qiu, look at you now. Who would have thought you’d be like this, compared to how you were when you first arrived?”

A smile bloomed on Lin Jianqiu’s face at Su Tang’s words.

“I love my life now. I have Chang Jia, and I have you.”

The joys of life were the companionship of friends, family, and a loved one.

…

At that moment, in the train station, Su Rui’an looked at Su Xinyao with a slight frown.

“Sister Xin Yao, are you really leaving?”

He didn’t understand. Just two days ago, Su Xinyao had been determined to stay here. How could she have changed her mind so suddenly?

“Yes.”

Su Xinyao said the word coldly. There was no point in her staying here anymore.

’But I don’t want to die,’ she thought. ’If the Lu Xiao route is a dead end, then I have to find Zhou Rui, just like in my previous life.’

’The only one who can save me now is that man from my past life, the one with whom I was so entangled in love and hate.’

Su Rui’an gazed at Su Xinyao’s profile, his Adam’s apple bobbing. In the end, he didn’t try to persuade her any further.

He watched the green train slowly approach in the distance, feeling nothing but emptiness in his heart.

“Take care of yourself, then.”

Hearing this, Su Xinyao looked at him and couldn’t resist saying, “Leave the Northwest soon. You can’t beat the two of them.”

’Even I couldn’t win against them, let alone Su Rui’an.’

The train started to move. Su Xinyao leaned against the window, watching Su Rui’an’s figure shrink until he was just a small black dot.

She pulled a yellowed old photograph from her pocket. The photo had been with her ever since she was reborn.

In the photo, Zhou Rui wore a sharp suit, his eyes holding a defiant, roguish charm.

In her past life, when she met him, he was being cornered in an alley by a group of local thugs.

On a strange impulse, she had called over the patrolling police, and from that moment on, she became entangled with this man who would one day dominate the business world.

He would give her diamond-encrusted hairpins, but he would also lock her in his villa for three days and three nights if she so much as spoke an extra word to another man.

’I thought that in this new life, we would have nothing to do with each other,’ she mused. ’But I never expected that fate, after all its twists and turns, would still pull us together.’

“Zhou Rui…”

Her fingertip traced the man’s features in the photograph, a complex smile playing on her lips.

“This life, it’s my turn to find you.”

The train swayed and rattled for three days and two nights. Su Xinyao transferred trains three times, then took a passenger ship for over twenty days before finally reaching the city where Zhou Rui lived.

Xiangjiang.

Even back then, Xiangjiang was already a bustling metropolis. The streets teemed with people and all kinds of sports cars—a world away from what she had seen in the Northwest.

Su Xinyao tucked the old photograph back into an inner pocket, her heart finally settling a little.

She found the cheapest inn nearby.

Originally, she should have arrived in Xiangjiang much earlier than planned.

But on the day Zhou Rui killed her, she had heard him say she had been someone else’s substitute her whole life, and her heart had grown heavy with resentment.

To avoid being a substitute, she had gone through hell and back to get to the Northwest, hoping to attach herself to the future powerhouse Lu Xiao. But in the end, it was all for nothing.

’Is it possible,’ she wondered, ’that in this life, the only way to escape my fate is to get entangled with Zhou Rui all over again?’

Su Xinyao stared at the woman in the mirror. Her face was haggard from the long journey, but her eyes were shockingly bright, like two embers that refused to be extinguished.

For the next two weeks, Su Xinyao became the most inconspicuous shadow on the streets of Xiangjiang.

She served dishes in a teahouse and sewed buttons in a clothing store. By day, she worked desperately to save money; by night, she roamed the streets and alleys of Yau Ma Tei, clutching Zhou Rui’s photograph.

Only in a place like this, teeming with people from every walk of life, could she hope to find Zhou Rui.

The sharp suit in the photograph was glaringly out of place amidst the gritty, bustling atmosphere. Whenever she held up the picture to ask, she was met mostly with shakes of the head or wary glances.

Then, on the evening of the seventh day, as she was squatting on a street corner eating fish balls, a man with a patchy buzz cut at the next table, a cigarette dangling from his lips, suddenly glanced at the photo beside her hand.

“Hey, pretty lady. You looking for Zhou Rui?”

Su Xinyao’s chopsticks froze. Forcing herself to appear calm, she looked up. “You know him, sir?”

The man exhaled a smoke ring and chuckled. “Young Master Zhou? Smashed up Long Biao’s casino a while back. He’s laying low right now.”

“Only been here a few months, but he’s ruthless. Word is he’s got powerful backing.”

He gestured to the west with his cigarette butt. “Heard there’s a card game at the Paramount tonight. Ten to one he’ll be there.”

Su Xinyao’s heart leaped into her throat. In her past life, she only knew that after Zhou Rui made his fortune, he frequented high-end establishments. She never knew he had been so brazen in his youth.

She popped the last fish ball from her bowl into her mouth, pulled out two coins, and placed them on the table. “Thanks.”

As night fell, Su Xinyao stood outside the main entrance of the Paramount.

The doorman, dressed in a crisp red uniform, looked at her with unconcealed contempt.

She took a deep breath and was about to step forward when her path was blocked.

“Do you have an invitation, miss?”

Just then, the roar of an engine sounded from behind her.

A car pulled up at the bottom of the steps. The doors opened, and two burly men in black tank tops got out first, followed by a tall, slender figure.

The man was wearing a black shirt, the sleeves casually rolled up to his forearms, revealing well-defined muscles.

A cigarette was perched between his fingers, its tip glowing and fading in the dim yellow streetlight. It was the same defiant face from the photograph, only now it carried a feral intensity.

If Su Tang had been there, she would have cried out in shock: Mu Tianrui.

He was completely different from the gentle, shy man she knew from the Northwest.

His eyes were now filled with a wildness. Beneath the shattered mask of gentleness was the brutality of a man who had seen blood.

He was here to handle some family business. As for what kind of business… those who knew, knew.

Grandpa Mu, however, didn’t know. If Grandpa Mu found out, he would probably break his legs.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep