To Covet (GL) - Chapter 68

She raised her hand, intending to touch my face, her expression a forced smile that gave no indication of her true feelings.

I instinctively tried to dodge, but found my body stiff and sluggish, refusing to obey. I watched as her hand took a detour in the face of my disgusted gaze, landing on my shoulder.

“Don’t be afraid. It’s not like I’m going to tell tales,” my undisguised defense and wariness greatly displeased Gao Rui. “You have to trust me, just as I trust you won’t reveal my business.”

The nature of the secrets is completely different, I thought.

One is baseless slander and defamation without evidence, while the other is an unfounded private rumor. The former requires proof, or it will be sued and denounced. The latter… even if vigorously clarified, will remain an indelible scandal.

“Stop staring at me like that, Yu Keyi,” Seeing my face turn ugly, Gao Rui crossed her arms, looking extremely dissatisfied with my attitude. “I’m not some peeping tom who likes to pry into other people’s privacy. It was you who…”

She took another step closer to me.

“It was you who initiated it, huh. Seriously, you didn’t even try to hide it.”

“And in a place like school.”

“Sister Yu, sometimes you need to restrain yourself. This time I saw it, but next time, it might not be someone who can keep your secret.”

So the person I saw before leaving the stands was not my imagination.

I then recalled the scene: someone was watching in the shadows when I pressed Yu Zhouwan against the wall and kissed her. However, no matter how much I tried to remember the moment, I couldn’t find any trace of unease, let alone the fear and panic of having a secret discovered.

The only thing present was a belated excitement at realizing someone had been peeping, like tearing off an itchy scab—hissing in pain on one side, and on the other, watching the blood run down the skin with exhilaration.

Call it selective denial, or a complete disregard for dignity, but at this moment, all I could think about was Yu Zhouwan utterly collapsing from shame when she learned about this.

“So, what do you need me to do?” I asked her.

“Does that mean you agree?”

“Yes,” I was curious about her motives. “As long as it’s not murder or arson, I can consider it.”

It was my second time in this residential area, and I still didn’t know the way. Following a slowly moving private car, I stumbled and found a door I hadn’t seen before.

I felt a gaze following me after I left. I repeatedly looked back, but my view was always obstructed by the bushes along the winding path. Since it was getting dark, I couldn’t see anything.

If Lu Xiaoting hadn’t walked out on her own, I might have ignored this intuition.

“What’s wrong?” I asked her. “Is there something else?”

Lu Xiaoting shook her head.

“You’re his illegitimate daughter, aren’t you?” she asked.

“I’m not,” I countered, realizing my face was a little stiff when I spoke. “That’s not important. It doesn’t affect my hatred for him and his current family.”

“Then I was wrong. I’ve never seen you before, and I always thought you hated him because of your identity. I’m truly sorry.”

I didn’t understand why she needed to apologize for this and nodded mechanically in response.

I was so preoccupied with listening to Lu Xiaoting’s account of the past that I hadn’t noticed her ill-fitting clothes. The gray shoe on her foot had a large tear, looking like it would fall off if she took two more steps.

“Is there anything else?”

“Would it be convenient to exchange contact information?” Lu Xiaoting hesitated for a long time before asking. “There are some things I want to confirm with you.”

In Lu Xiaoting’s narrative, the cause and effect of the entire event were simple. However, with this subtle relationship now established between us, there was always something indefinably strange.

Lu Xiaoting said that her mother was the owner of the food factory where Yu Hanyang worked.

Lu’s mother’s career was taking off, and she was looking to expand into other areas, seeking to broaden her business and network. Yu Hanyang proactively introduced her to Shi Yunya, who had just returned from abroad. Shi Yunya agreed to connect them, allowing Lu’s mother to invest in her friend’s pharmaceutical company—which had essentially transitioned into health food due to mismanagement. As the health product industry was currently booming, they hit it off, signed the papers, and invested a large amount of money.

And one of the people behind this company was Shen Yue—who was then named Shen Yuhang.

He was eager to prove his abilities to his family but ended up making a mess. Not only did he sell illegal ingredients disguised as health supplements, but he also got involved in the private trading of equity and state assets.

This explained why Shi Yunya just watched as others took over the business without a word—they were all familiar with each other’s secrets. Regardless of who got the lucrative deal, there was no need to break ties over a share of the profit, and they tacitly agreed not to bring up the past.

The illegal production of health supplements led to the delayed treatment and death of a heart patient. To shift the blame and revive his company, Shen Yuhang, with his father’s help, successfully staged a ‘golden cicada shedding its shell,’ pulling himself out and pushing the exposed scandals online onto others—including Lu’s mother, who had signed the documents. They became the public enemy, with many people blocking their doors, smashing things, demanding money, and even threatening their lives.

Before the trial began, Lu’s mother, believing she had caused someone’s death and unable to bear the psychological pressure, chose to commit suicide.

Lu Xiaoting transformed from a pampered only child who never had to lift a finger to a ball being kicked around by relatives, becoming a beggar dependent on others. She was sent to work in another city before even finishing middle school.

Admittedly, I could clearly hear Lu Xiaoting’s bias toward her mother.

In her narrative, her mother was just an innocent victim caught up in the situation. But I thought that as a shareholder, Lu’s mother couldn’t have been completely unaware of her partners’ actions. She likely just defaulted to agreement for the sake of profit, choosing to see no evil and speak no evil.

I asked her how she met Gao Rui. Lu Xiaoting scratched her face, saying it was due to various coincidences, and she had worked as a nanny in Gao Rui’s home for a period.

I had planned to delve further and ask about some more details from back then, but Lu Xiaoting said she was rushing to her night shift in the restaurant kitchen and would talk later when she was free.

I considered myself to have learned my lesson and would temporarily reserve judgment on all subjective statements—especially those from people closely involved in the situation, like Lu Xiaoting.

Her mother died, and her bright life instantly collapsed. If it were me, I would also want the perpetrator to pay with their life.

All the pieces of information in my mind jumbled together, tightening into a knot. Recalling Shen Yuhang’s death, I couldn’t help but let my thoughts wander into the realm of murder.

I regretted that I had been too focused on the shock of Lu Xiaoting’s statement and busy sorting out the cause-and-effect and character connections to ask about the seemingly insignificant people in her story.

Such as Yang Chun, or Gao Rui, or Gao Anqin.

Dinner included the stir-fried beef with onions that I hated. Yu Zhouwan wasn’t home, and Yu Hanyang’s face spoiled my appetite. I ate a little, made an excuse that I still had homework to do, and went back to my room and locked the door.

While copying classical poetry, I was pondering Lu Xiaoting’s story. A knock on the door came. I glanced up at the clock; it was late at night.

“Do you want a late-night snack?” She gestured to the dessert on the table. “My foreign teacher bought it and asked me to bring it back. If you don’t mind, have some. Didn’t you eat much dinner? Aunt Chen messaged me tonight.”

I grabbed Yu Zhouwan’s hand, quickly shut and locked the door, and pulled her onto the bed. While kissing her, I undid her clothes, my hand constantly exploring downwards.

“Yu Keyi,” she mumbled my name. “Wait a moment… I need to take a shower…”

I stared into her beautiful eyes. For a moment, I felt an impulse to confide in her, to let her know what had happened during the day.

When did I start taking all intimate acts—kissing, making love, sharing and experiencing each other’s fetishes—for granted?

In the end, I suppressed the urge to confide. I helped her take off her last piece of clothing. In the steamy air, her soft skin made me want to take a strong bite.

I kissed Yu Zhouwan’s eyes, hoping the hope and desire they conveyed wouldn’t be a lie.