I Will Never Love a Woman Like You

Bu Yao was always like this. The moment something went against her wishes, her lofty, overbearing nature came out in full force.

She often treated the butler more gently than she treated Xing Yue. Of course, the butler was a servant who obeyed her every whim. He never resisted an order and went along with everything she said.

Xing Yue couldn't do that. She wasn't a servant of the Bu Family. She hadn't signed an employment contract, and she couldn't spend every moment at Bu Yao's beck and call.

This was nothing to the Bu Family. If they wanted to, they could easily find He Zhiwen. But Bu Yao was still furious about what had happened between Xing Yue and He Zhiwen in the car that night.

"You'd better think carefully before you speak to me," she said, standing before Xing Yue, her eyes cold with resentment. "No one but my family can help you."

Listen to her. Just listen. Xing Yue's lips twitched into a smile uglier than a grimace.

The Bu Family had money and power. They could hire skilled investigators and Extraordinary Snakes with an exceptional sense of smell. They could get to the bottom of the case with ease. An ordinary person like Xing Yue could do nothing but wait for news.

Bu Yao wouldn't have said that without good reason. She must have sent people to investigate right away and found stronger evidence. She might even have a fair idea of where He Zhiwen was.

But Bu Yao was in a bad mood, and she wanted Xing Yue to soothe her. She wanted Xing Yue to beg.

The pressure made Xing Yue feel sick. Her pale lips trembled. "Don't act like your family is doing this to help me. You know who gave Jiang Yue that letter. After I left that night, your mother must have gone to He Zhiwen and said something. That's how Jiang Yue got the recommendation letter. Your family is investigating to clear its own name, to shake off suspicion. It has nothing to do with me."

Ten years of resentment burst out. Xing Yue had always shown Madam Bu respect in front of Bu Yao, but today she couldn't hold back. "Your mother gets to play the saint every time. She pretended to offer me an opportunity, and everyone envied me because they thought the chairwoman of New Shadow Entertainment was going to make me a star. In truth, she hates my guts. She let Jiang Yue in to stir up trouble. Without her pushing it along, my studio would have buried that garbage on the trending list. Would it have blown up like this? Watching me get mocked and doubted, watching me run around like a stray dog—your mother must be enjoying it more than anyone. She's sanctimonious and utterly fake!"

With Qiao Rui's ability, she would have found a way to contain something like this. At the very least, she would have paid to get it off the trending list. But a whole day had passed since the audio leaked, and Xing Yue's studio hadn't even issued a statement.

It was all because of that damned show. Her studio had a contract with New Shadow Entertainment. If someone over there hadn't held Qiao Rui back, she wouldn't have sat by and done nothing. Who else could give the company an order like that but Madam Bu?

Now Madam Bu was playing the good person again, posing as someone who could help Xing Yue, someone who could save her. But if not for Madam Bu, Xing Yue wouldn't have suffered any of this in the first place.

Smack! A sharp slap landed across Xing Yue's face.

Bu Yao was livid. No one had ever spoken about her mother that way.

Xing Yue stood frozen for two seconds. She couldn't even feel whether her face hurt. All she knew was that Bu Yao's slap had torn a hole in her chest. Cold wind poured through it, leaving her heart in tatters.

She grabbed Bu Yao's wrist and dragged her toward the front door. Her voice was steady and utterly cold. "Get out. Leave my house. I will never love a woman like you."

She had been delusional to get back together with Bu Yao. In Bu Yao's eyes, they belonged to different worlds. How dare Xing Yue insult the elegant, noble Madam Bu?

She was a lowborn wretch worth less than the guard dog at the Bu Residence. How dare she speak out of turn?

Xing Yue used nearly all her strength to drag Bu Yao outside. A dull roar filled her ears, drowning everything else out. After driving her away, Xing Yue locked the door, leaned against it, and slid helplessly to the floor.

She sat there until her limbs were cold and her legs had gone numb. Then she rose unsteadily and poured herself a glass of warm water.

Qiao Rui called. Usually brisk and fiery, she sounded unusually gentle. "You didn't come to the office today, Xing Yue? I know what happened today is upsetting, but there's still work to do. Take two days off and come back the day after tomorrow."

She didn't know what had happened behind the scenes. She assumed the trending posts were true and that Xing Yue had met her married ex at night. Xing Yue did have such an ex-girlfriend, after all, and the voice in the recording was hers.

Qiao Rui figured Xing Yue had mishandled her love life and given someone ammunition. It wasn't that serious. What big star didn't have a little dirt on them? After a couple of days of scolding, public interest would fade.

"I'm not going," Xing Yue said flatly. "Not now, not ever."

Qiao Rui nearly swore. "What? You're not coming back? Come on, you can handle a little pressure. It's not the end of the world. Two days off should be enough, okay? We signed a contract. You can't just decide not to come in. Do you want to breach it? Stop acting out, Xing Yue. Listen to me..."

"Mm. Follow the procedure." Xing Yue's face was ashen.

Qiao Rui's voice shot up. "What do you mean, follow the procedure? Are you really—Xing Yue? Hello!"

Xing Yue turned off the phone. She looked at the still-new device, removed its SIM card, and put the card back in her old phone. Then she dropped the phone Bu Yao had given her into a flowerpot full of water. At last, things were quiet.

Remembering that there was still one person in the world who truly cared about her, Xing Yue forced her aching eyes open and checked her messages. Neither her texts nor her call history showed a sign of that familiar person.

Strange.

Xing Yue logged back into WeChat and finally saw the messages Bo Wuxue had sent her during the day—

[Ahhh! Guess what gift I got? An adult doll that looks exactly like my snake body!]

[That woman gave it to me, hehe.]

[Photo.]

Xing Yue opened the photo. It really was an adult doll identical to Bo Wuxue's snake body. It looked so lifelike that, viewed through a screen, it was hard to tell the difference at a glance.

Every detail of Bo Wuxue's snake form had been copied almost perfectly.

Bo Wuxue's fiancée had probably heard that she was obsessed with her own python body and had a thing for herself.

No wonder Bo Wuxue was excited. She designed adult toys as a side business, too. This gift had hit her tastes dead on.

She was probably on a lovely date with her fiancée right now. She likely had no idea what had happened to Xing Yue today.

Xing Yue was happy for her best friend, but she couldn't stop feeling lonely. It felt as though someone else had taken part of Bo Wuxue away from her. The ache was no less painful than breaking up with a girlfriend.

She hesitated over what to reply. She didn't want to spoil Bo Wuxue's wonderful date, so she decided to wait until tomorrow...

Xing Yue put down her phone. She was so exhausted she barely wanted to breathe, yet the doorbell chose that moment to ring without pause.

Her expression cooled. She went downstairs barefoot, not bothering to put on shoes. Despite the cold face she put on, her steps were quick.

Before she had even opened the door, she began complaining. "I told you, I will never love a woman like you. Stop bothering—"

Tan Xiang'e stood outside.

Xing Yue's voice cut off. She froze, dazed. She didn't even know whom she had wanted to see when she opened the door. She was afraid it would be Bu Yao, and afraid it wouldn't.

The thought left a bitter taste in her mouth. She felt ridiculous. No wonder Bu Yao always called her cheap.

Tan Xiang'e watched Xing Yue's expression change several times in the space of a few seconds. Unsure whether to go in, she lifted the medical kit in her hand. "You weren't at the office, so I came to check on you. We still need to continue your treatment."

She had heard about Xing Yue's situation. The missing person appeared to be Jiang Yue's wife. Before that, Jiang Yue had come to her with all sorts of strange questions.

But when Tan Xiang'e asked around, she learned that Jiang Yue's Older Sister was unmarried. How could Jiang Yue have a sister-in-law? Finding it suspicious, she told the police. Jiang Yue claimed she had lied because she didn't want to reveal that her sister was married.

After all, pretending to be single seemed fairly common among influencers. Nothing had come of Tan Xiang'e's report.

Xing Yue invited Tan Xiang'e in and poured her a glass of water. "Doctor Tan, I'm going to take a shower. I'm covered in sweat."

"No rush," Tan Xiang'e said.

There was no one to heal Xing Yue tonight. She didn't know how she would get through the treatment.

While applying the anesthetic, Tan Xiang'e brought up Jiang Yue's visit that night. "She asked me what species those four Snake Eggs were. I don't know why. Her wife disappeared that same night. This couldn't... have anything to do with me, could it?"

Her conscience troubled her. She was afraid the two incidents might be connected.

Xing Yue had been lying flat, but she sat up abruptly when she heard that. Oh no. Something must have happened to the four little snakes too.

"I'm going to the police station. Would it be a problem if we put the procedure off for a day?"

Tan Xiang'e stopped her, looking uncomfortable. "Don't go. The Snake Eggs are already gone. They disappeared the same day He Zhiwen did. For some reason, whoever stole them left them with a family in a village. Unfortunately, the family didn't know how to care for them. They had no incubator, and no snake to keep them warm. They just put them on the heated brick bed. By the time the police found them, they had all died."

Without an incubator to regulate their temperature, Snake Eggs needed to be coiled around and incubated by a snake to survive. The villagers hadn't known that. Besides, they were an elderly couple, long past the age when they could freely control their tails.

They had thought the heated brick bed would keep the eggs warm. They hadn't taken them to a hospital, either. The eggs had died from the cold.

The more Tan Xiang'e thought about it, the more she felt she might have had a part in it. Guilt made her hand unsteady even as she held the scalpel. "Why would the thief act so strangely? Why steal the eggs only to neither sell nor raise them? If it was revenge and they wanted the eggs dead, why go to the trouble of taking them to such a remote village? Could He Zhiwen have been trafficked into the mountains too?"

Xing Yue had barely had time to process the deaths of the little snakes. Tan Xiang'e's words gave her a new fear.

A Spirit Snake was already in grave danger. Any listing offering one for sale would cause an uproar. Perhaps He Zhiwen was being traded on the Black Market without being identified as a Spirit Snake.

She might have been sold deep into the mountains to be used by an aging bachelor and forced to bear children. She might have been sold to an unfamiliar country as a performing snake in a circus. Or some depraved buyer might have bought her as a slave to abuse.

No wonder Jiang Yue had volunteered the information that He Zhiwen was a Spirit Snake to the police. They were surely watching for sales of Spirit Snake flesh and scales, organ trafficking, and the like.

Their investigation had gone in the wrong direction from the start. In fact, He Zhiwen wasn't being sold for being a Spirit Snake at all. She was being sold as an ordinary woman.

Anger surged through Xing Yue. She clenched her fists until her fingers went white. How could such a cruel wife exist? It was horrifying.