Chapter 60: Even I Did Not Compromise

Qiao Xu’s eyes were red as she nervously dug her fingernails into the web of her thumbs.

A large, warm hand covered her trembling hands. "Don't be afraid. I am here."

"I will never let anything happen to your mother, Qiaoqiao. Trust me."

Xu Si'an coaxed her in a soft voice. He knew that under the circumstances, Qiao Xu was under immense psychological pressure and consumed by anxiety.

"Xu Si'an, if I had listened to Shen Zhiwei and left you, would all of this have never happened?"

The man's expression noticeably chilled.

Keeping his grip on her hand, he replied, "Qiao Xu, how can you still be so naive after four years? Do you actually believe the words of someone like Shen Zhiwei?"

"Do you honestly think she cares for me?"

"You're wrong. What she's after is the influence I hold behind me, the kind that could give the Shen family a helping hand."

Qiao Xu shook her head, gently pulling her hand away. "That's not true. There is love in the way she looks at you."

"Love my ass." Xu Si'an's grip tightened fiercely on the steering wheel, and the car's speed climbed steadily. "Someone like her who uses emotions as currency doesn't know the first thing about love. If it wasn't me, it could have just as easily been Xu Shiran."

"Four years ago, both of us were drugged. I fought through it just for you, yet she crawled right into Xu Shiran's bed."

"That kind of love is damn filthy."

Qiao Xu muttered softly under her breath, "Then are you feeling regretful?"

Xu Si'an's facial expression almost fractured entirely. "What on earth are you talking about?"

"Nothing."

Qiao Xu fell silent, afraid of distracting him from driving.

When they were just a few kilometers from their destination, Qiao Xu's phone buzzed with a notification. It was a photo showing a distinct, raised palm print across her mother's cheek.

[Consider this your return.]

A chill settled deep in the soles of Qiao Xu's feet. Her return?

Had Shen Zhiwei just exposed herself?

Qiao Xu dialed the number back, expecting it to ring out unanswered like before, but it picked up immediately. "Qiao Xu, tell me, does it hurt?"

"Your father is already dead, yet you still refuse to learn your lesson."

Xu Si'an snatched the phone from her hand, switched it to speaker mode, and motioned for her to speak.

"What are your conditions to let my mother go and make me break up with Xu Si'an?"

The man driving glanced at her, a cold sneer forming in his heart.

This woman was truly begging to be fucked until she cried.

On the other end of the line, Shen Zhiwei's laughter sounded unhinged. "Do you think I even want that anymore? Xu Si'an is just a man, and there is no shortage of lapdogs willing to grovel at my feet."

Xu Si'an let out a cold laugh. "Too bad I refuse to be your lapdog. You're so filthy I'd be afraid of catching a disease."

"Unlike my wife, who is sweet from head to toe."

Shen Zhiwei didn't seem surprised to hear Xu Si'an's voice. "Xu Si'an, if Qiao Xu ever found out that both of her parents died because of you, do you think she would hate you to her core?"

"Because of me? Weren't they killed because of you and Shen Zhao?"

Xu Si'an tapped the screen to start recording. Qiao Xu bit down hard on her lower lip to keep herself from crying out.

"So what if they were? What did I even do?"

"Her father was practically dying anyway. He died because his surgery failed, not because I forced him to."

Shen Zhiwei sneered maliciously. "Xu Si'an, you have ten minutes left. The moment time runs out, I'll have someone throw this old woman right off the edge of the roof."

"Qiao Xu, this is the price you pay for daring to strike this young lady."

Xu Si'an knew that this was likely retaliation because he had choked her the other day.

He truly regretted not finishing her off right then and there.

"Shen Zhiwei, I'll trade myself for my mother! Do whatever you want to me, just let her go!" Qiao Xu's emotions began to spiral out of control, her voice turning shrill.

Xu Si'an snatched the phone back. "Shen Zhiwei, you'd better pray I die today. Otherwise, between death and a prison sentence, you are guaranteed to pick one."

He hung up the call and tossed the phone into the back seat. Qiao Xu stared at him with reddened eyes.

"Xu Si'an, what are you doing?"

"Qiao Xu, never try to reason with a madman. Shen Zhiwei is a thoroughly unhinged lunatic."

Qiao Xu had been wrong about one thing: did Shen Zhiwei love him? Hatred born from love? Ha!

It was nothing more than her own bitter refusal to accept defeat.

Shen Zhiwei had been pampered in the palm of her hand since childhood, a wealthy young heiress whose every ounce of pride had been crushed beneath Xu Si'an's feet.

During that engagement banquet four years ago, Xu Si'an had announced in front of hundreds of guests: "Shen Zhiwei isn't worth a single fraction of Qiao Xu. At least my Qiaoqiao is entirely devoted to me, whereas Shen Zhiwei would take any man who comes along."

"An engagement? I'm only ever marrying Qiao Xu."

Later that night, the banquet was cut short when someone drugged Xu Si'an, and twenty bodyguards forced him into a room.

Shen Zhiwei had stripped bare and crawled onto the bed, but Xu Si'an had smashed a glass table lamp in the hotel suite and used the shards to carve deep gashes into his own arm.

He knew that Xu Shiran loved Shen Zhiwei to the point of madness.

So he told Xu Shiran that if he didn't show up in half an hour, he would slice open Shen Zhiwei's carotid artery.

Xu Shiran hadn't disappointed him; he arrived within ten minutes.

The moment he walked through the door, he saw Shen Zhiwei lying on the floor draped in a blanket, and the instant he tried to lift her, she pressed her body against his.

How could a man not react to the woman he adored standing before him completely naked?

When Xu Si'an left, he had deliberately tipped off reporters and left a room key resting by the doorway.

By the time the scandal broke, he was already airborne on a flight to Los Angeles.

The man driving spoke in a low, cold voice, "Qiao Xu, four years ago, when I was drugged and held down by twenty people while Shen Zhiwei was forced onto me, I still didn't break."

"Can't you ever give me just a little more trust?"

Qiao Xu kept her head bowed. "I'm sorry."

"What the hell do I want your apologies for?"

"Don't cry. Even if I die, I won't let you become an orphan."

Xu Si'an’s thumb brushed gently across the corner of her eye. "What are you crying for? I'm not dead yet."

"Can you stop saying that word?"

The word seemed to pierce straight through Qiao Xu's nerves; she simply couldn't bear to hear it.

"Fine, fine, fine. Just stop crying, alright?"

"The moment you cry, it makes me want to ravage you."

Tears spilling over anew, Qiao Xu cursed him through her sobs, "Xu Si'an, are you out of your damn mind?"