The desolation of the desert, the loneliness of the border, the helplessness and hardship on the road to peace … were all told with the melody of the pipa.
The sound of the pipa fell from the roof, and the girl leaned in the hanging basket, as if she had really transformed into Zhaojun, who left the country alone a thousand years ago. She looked down at the pipa in her arms, and pumped all her feelings into her performance.
She had no time to pay attention to the way the staff spoke in whispers; she had no time to pay attention to the envious eyes of the other Little Flowers; she also did not notice the fiery eyes of the man who accompanied her across the ocean back to her country, fixed on her…
*
At 3 a.m., dark clouds covered the bright moon, and cold wind sent gusts of chilly air.
There were still program rehearsals in the studio, but Su Jin had already changed out of her stage costume and into the clothes she came in. She walked quickly out of the station under Lin Yan’s escort.
There was a familiar nanny car parked outside the TV station, a smooth and spacious model. Su Jin used to work too hard and often did not get enough sleep, so she had to catch up on sleep in the car.
The door of the nanny car opened and Fang Xie, who was waiting inside, got out and welcomed her. He had just finished socializing and reeked of cigarettes and alcohol, which was particularly irritating.
“Sister Su!” Fang Xie’s tipsiness had not yet dispersed. His face and ears were red, and he asked attentively, “I heard the Director say that you..Were you deliberately hiding your clumsiness to give me a surprise? When did you practice the pipa? Why didn’t you tell me in advance?” The time he spent eating badly and sleeping poorly during this period had shed a handful of hair from worry.
However, Su Jin did not answer. She only lightly glanced at him and boarded the nanny car.
Behind him, Lin Yan quickly followed. Su Jin silently got into the car, and the man then lowered his head to get into the car as well.
“Eh-eh-eh! What are you doing, ah?!” Although Fang Xie was slightly drunk, it wasn’t to the point of losing his mind. He hurriedly stopped the tall and strong man and asked sternly, “This is Su Jin’s nanny car. Please leave.”
He took Lin Yan as a rabid fan trailing behind and immediately raised his single chest trying to push the man away.
Su Jin’s soft voice came from inside the car in time, “Fang Xie, let him get in.”
“…” Fang Xie looked at the man and then at Su Jin with incomprehension: “…Who is this one?”
Was he a hitchhiker, or one of the other guests on the same stage? But looking at the man’s appearance and dress, he didn’t look either of the two.
But neither Su Jin nor Lin Yan answered him.
Fang Xie could only suppress the questions in his heart and sat in the car silently.
The car door closed, and only the small light overhead remained in the dim carriage. The dim light fell on Su Jin’s face, adding a touch of restrained elegance to her delicate face.
…Restrained elegance?
Fang Xie immediately flung this terrible adjective out of his mind. How could such a sissy word be used to describe Sister Su who walked the world with a hammer?!
He looked at Su Jin, and then at the man who remained silent and sitting upright. He gave off the impression of a large beast locked in a cage, exuding a trace of danger from his tailbone straight to the sky.
Too, too strange!
He gulped and spoke carefully in the swaying car: “Sister Su, you…” Why do you look a little different today?
But before he could finish his words, Su Jin interrupted him.
“Fang Xie, you never used to call me ‘Sister Su’.”
“Wh…?”
‘Su Jin’ revealed a helpless smile and hesitated for a moment. Her pearly teeth bit her lower lip, and she suddenly raised her hand and took off the peaked cap on her head with a flourish! Like a waterfall, the girl’s hair cascaded down her shoulders and hung down to her waist.
This wasn’t Su Jishi’s hair at all! Su Jishi prefered a sharp, dashing style, with a cut just slightly above her shoulders.
“You, you are…” Fang Xie held his head, suspecting that he had drunk too much wine at tonight’s social gathering. The alcohol had wasted his sanity earlier and made him hallucinate.
The person in front of him had the exact same face as Su Jishi, with an extremely similar figure, but if she was not Su Jishi, then the only possibility was…
“——Long time no see.” “Su Jin’s expression was a mixture of guilt and heartache as she said softly, “I’m Su Jinqing, I’m back.”
“!!!” Fang Xie was shocked. A thousand words clogged his chest in an instant, but he didn’t know which one to say first.
Su Jinqing actually came back! Where exactly did she go during this time? Why couldn’t everyone find her? Why did she suddenly decide to come back? Was it because she saw Su Jishi’s news online? How come she didn’t wait for them at the company? What would she think about the farce the company orchestrated, swapping a racoon for a princess((Racoon for a princess/wild cat exchanged for Crown Prince – a legend/a case of a lost prince during the Song Dynasty))…
…But answering these questions, there was a more important question…
Fang Xie’s throat rolled, and he blurted out —— “Then where is your sister?”
He didn’t expect that Su Jinqing would ask the same question—— “Then where is my sister?”
Both of them looked at each other.
Three seconds later, they read the same shock on each other’s expressions.
Su Jinqing had returned, but where was Su Jishi?
Where did Su Jishi, who suddenly disappeared from the rehearsal stage, go?
*
—— Where is Su Jishi?
Su Jishi also wanted to ask herself this question.
In the pitch-dark deserted wilderness, Su Jishi and Xiao Xia were holding each other, walking deep and shallow in the woods.
Recalling everything they experienced in the basement parking lot a few hours ago, Su Jishi felt like she was having an inexplicable and strange dream.
…Who would have thought that the ‘Mr. Mu’ who called Su Jishi to the parking lot for some reason would be Mu Xiulun’s father?
Mu Minde, the head of EXP Mining Corporation, was indeed ‘Mr. Mu’. The title was totally right.
As soon as Su Jishi and Xiao Xia stepped out of the elevator, two burly men close to two meters tall blocked them. They were polite and said ‘This way, please, Miss Su’, but their tough attitude had nothing to do with politeness.
Su Jishi had been “invited” in this manner recently, but the person who invited her last time was the haughty Mrs. Mu.
And this time … It was the same arrogant Elder Mr. Mu.
Mu Minde was 65 years old, but didn’t appear old. His hair and beard were dyed black, and only from the wrinkles in the corners of his eye could you take a peek at his age. He was dressed in an iron gray Zhongshan suit and sat in the back seat of the car with sheer elegance.
Xiao Xia was terrified and kept shivering like a small quail. She gathered the courage and stood in front of Su Jishi, but Su Jishi pressed her behind her compassionately.
Mu Minde did not introduce himself. He only lifted his eyelids and gave Su Jishi a haughty look.
He looks very much like Mu Xiulun, especially his facial contour, his eyes and nose, seemingly cut carved from the same mold. No matter who saw them, they would never mistake the blood relationship between the two.
Su Jishi thought of the rumors about the ‘adopted father-son’ relationship between them, and inwardly guessed something.
…Their water was sure deep, really deserving of being a rich and powerful family.
Even in the face of this aggressive uninvited guest, Su Jishi stood straight and calmly looked at Mu Minde in the car. Then she asked: “May I ask what you need from me?”
Mu Minde’s eyes were like sharp blades, scraping her from head to toe, inch by inch. From the looks in his eyes, it was as if standing in front of him was not the top actress in the entertainment industry, but a piece of meat on the chopping.
Su Jishi was undaunted and said, “If you do not want to talk, then we do not need to waste time.”
After saying that, she tugged Xiao Xia’s wrist and was about to walk back.
Unfortunately, she had just taken a few steps when those two tall bodyguards stopped her.
“Stop right there,” Mu Minde finally willingly spoke, “Su Jin, I called you here because there’s a matter I want you to do.”
Mu Minde’s words were quite nonchalant, but it sounded like Su Jishi had to work for him whether she agreed or not.
Su Jishi turned to look at him, raised her eyebrows and asked, “What is it?”
“I want you to leave my son.” Mu Minde’s words were loud and clear, “A woman like you, who can sell her body for money, will never be recognized by our Mu family!”
“…???”
Wait a minute, the boss of an influential family had nothing better to do than to take her out of the New Year’s Eve gala rehearsal site in the middle of the night, just for this kind of shit?
Mu Minde didn’t care about Su Jishi’s reaction and said, “Have you been curious about why your scandals are emerging lately? I can tell you, these are just the first wave. If you keep tangling around Xiulun, don’t blame me for releasing stronger evidence —— Remember, since Xiulun can make you popular, I can knock you into the bottom, too.”
Su Jishi really wanted to laugh.
She dared to say that her inexplicable ‘mistress’ dirt recently was directly released by this Elder Mu!She had been curious as to what kind of person had the ability to buy off public officials and find out everything about something as private as a gift of property. At first, she and her agency suspected that there might be marketing accounts or gossip tabloids, but if they were both, there was no need for them to publish such an explosive expose on an anonymous website.
If this was at the behest of Mu Minde, then everything made sense.
Su Jishi felt really weak and innocent at this moment, and wanted to hammer people’s brains out a little.
The last time she was ‘invited’ by two black-clad bodyguards, Mrs. Mu asked her to get close to Mu Xiulun as a spy; and this time she was ‘invited’ by black-clad bodyguards again, because Elder Mu wanted to ask her to stay away from Mu Xiulun.
Mu Xiulun, Mu Xiulun, Mu Xiulun…
Why was he everywhere? She wanted to draw a line in the sand with him, but everyone thought they were close.
Faced with the threat Mr. Mu posed, Su Jishi smirked and retorted, “Do you want to suppress me? What a coincidence, I am thinking of quitting the entertainment industry, too. How about this? If you can really let me leave the entertainment industry tomorrow, I will immediately hire a gong and drum team the day after tomorrow and blow the suona at the entrance of the EXP Corporation. We’ll pave your way with paper flowers and cheer to the skies —— I’ll guarantee that you’ll walk smoothly on this flower road. What do you think?”
Xiao Xia couldn’t resist popping her head out from behind her, tugging her sleeve and reminding her, “Su-Su-Su-Sister Su, that’s not the right way to use the term walk the flower road.”
Su Jishi pondered over it and suddenly realized: “Oh, it’s not called taking the flower road, it’s called C-position funeral procession.”
Mu Minde: “…”
Mu Minde: “……”
Mu Minde: “……….”
Mu Minde had sat in the president’s seat all his life, and had long been used to others looking up to him. For every decision he made and every word he uttered, there were naturally countless people who had gone before and after him to help him accomplish it.
It was safe to say that no one had ever tried ‘disobeying’ him in years.
He originally thought that Su Jin, whom his son kept, must be a timid and fearful doddering flower, and that if he let her suffer a bit, he would get rid of the vain woman as soon as possible. Unexpectedly, Su Jin actually had such a hardened side.
Was she really the same girl who sold her body to treat her seriously ill mother in the investigation report?
No…She must give her a lesson.
Mu Minde squeezed a cold hum out of his throat, and let the cane in his hand strike the ground heavily.
The bodyguards accompanying him immediately understood his intention, and they quickly encircled Su Jishi, tackling her left and right.
Su Jishi had learned some simple self-defense techniques, but before she could save herself, a handkerchief covered her mouth and nose——
Shit!
The last second before falling into unconsciousness, Su Jishi’s mind flashed like a lightning bolt to the last time she was taken captive. That time, she shook herself and evolved from an ordinary geological dog to a golden starlet; so this time, she would go from a starlet, to what…?
The author has something to say:
After going through some data all afternoon, I wanted to give the little sister’s boyfriend a name that sounded good.
Then everything ended with ‘Yan(rock)’… simple and rough.
Peek-Aboo 
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