Vicious

Xing Yue, you're more pathetic than ever

"How about we ask Miss Bu for help?" Tan Xiang'e ventured.

With things as they were, Xing Yue was in danger too. They couldn't afford to lose another day. They might as well appeal to the Bu Residence. Perhaps its people could find He Zhiwen sooner.

Tan Xiang'e had a feeling that what she'd said that night was somehow connected to the deaths of the four Snake Eggs. She couldn't shake her guilt. Part of her hoped Xing Yue would ask the Bu Family for help, because if He Zhiwen never came back, she wouldn't be able to live with herself.

Xing Yue wanted to, but they'd had that awful fight just an hour ago. Going to Bu Yao might only make her angrier...

Time was running out. All she could do was try. "All right."

Xing Yue hadn't been back in years. As the car followed the familiar road, her heartbeat grew erratic, and memories flashed through her mind.

She remembered her first visit to the Bu Residence clearly. Its palatial splendor had stunned her. She'd been twenty-five then and had traveled a few times, enough to think she'd seen the world.

But when she saw the front gate of Bu Yao's estate, taller than her house, she'd frozen on the spot. It looked like a European noble's castle. She had no words for how shocked she was.

Tan Xiang'e had plenty. "Wow! Wow!! Wooooow!!!"

"I thought that gate back there was the main entrance. You're telling me it's just where the gardeners go in to water the trees? This place is incredible!"

"Holy shit! Don't tell me this whole greenbelt belongs to Bu Yao's family. Wait, is this the Bu Family's private garden? What kind of family plants over four hundred mu of maple forest? I mean, this is... damn! Filthy rich doesn't even cover it!"

Tan Xiang'e was so stunned she could barely string a sentence together. At first, she'd thought Xing Yue had driven into a public park. Only when she saw gardeners in uniform watering the trees did she realize they were already inside the Bu Residence.

They were far, far too rich. She leaned excitedly out the car window to look around. "I can't believe it! Feather Ripple Maple, the queen of maples! Even the worst specimens start at sixty thousand a tree, and decent ones cost two hundred thousand. They've planted over four hundred mu of them! Four hundred! Four hundred!"

The Feather Ripple Maple had earned its name from the way its wind-stirred leaves resembled feathers touching a lake and sending ripples across it—a soft, romantic sight.

The butler had once told Xing Yue how the maple forest came to be. As a child, Bu Yao liked to turn back into a snake and hide among the red maples while playing hide-and-seek with Madam Bu. If Madam Bu found her too quickly, little Bu Yao got angry. If Madam Bu pretended she couldn't find her, Bu Yao got angry too.

So the few maples they'd originally had became a vast forest where Bu Yao could play. That way, Madam Bu could search in earnest without finding her too easily.

Xing Yue hadn't known what to feel when she heard the story. A little bitter, perhaps, and a little envious.

Bu Yao had always had a temper. No one had ever told her she was wrong or that she couldn't do as she pleased. She'd lived so extravagantly that anyone passing by would have said, "If you won't teach your daughter properly, someone else will one day."

But ask those same people if they'd trade lives with Bu Yao, and they'd nod their heads off.

At last, they passed through the maple forest and reached the main entrance.

The servants saw that Xing Yue had come to visit and let her through.

"Is your eldest daughter here?" Xing Yue asked the first person she caught in the hall.

A composed voice sounded from inside, neither warm nor cold. "Xiao Yue. What a rare guest."

Following the voice, Xing Yue spotted Ji Wenyan arranging flowers on the sofa. The woman's hair was pinned into an immaculate bun, and she wore a pale blue-gray, front-buttoned long robe. She trimmed a flower stem with unhurried elegance.

"I hear you want to terminate your contract with the company?" She set down the scissors and gently adjusted a flower without once looking Xing Yue in the eye. "Have you thought it through? If you're certain, I'll find someone to take your place. The company has no obligation to wait for you forever."

Her pace was so measured she might have been making small talk over a meal.

Xing Yue pressed her lips together. "Isn't that exactly what you wanted, Madam Bu?"

The company had never intended to give her its resources. Why else let Jiang Yue come in and turn everything upside down? Forcing her out and leaving her with a steep contract penalty—hadn't Madam Bu arranged all of it?

Xing Yue had no wish to waste words on Ji Wenyan. She made her way to Bu Yao's room from memory, but as she reached for the door, the red double happiness character pasted on it stopped her short.

Ten years, and it was still there...

She would have been lying if she said she felt nothing.

Xing Yue drew a deep breath and stood outside for a long moment before going in. The room looked just as it had when she left. Even the night-light she habitually kept on the bedside table was still there.

She didn't know whether devotion ran in the Bu Family, but Bu Yao was devoted. Her love had burned so fiercely that Xing Yue couldn't have missed it.

Bu Yao sat on a small sofa reading. At the sound of the door, she lifted her eyes, then lowered them to her book again. "Get out. Leave my house."

Her cold words were identical to what Xing Yue had said that night.

Only then did Tan Xiang'e realize the two had quarreled. She gave Xing Yue a discreet push from behind and mouthed, "Hurry. Saving her comes first."

Xing Yue steeled herself and slowly sat on the edge of the sofa. "This isn't the time to fight. Can we... put our relationship problems aside for now?"

Thinking back on it, what she'd said to He Zhiwen in the car hadn't been appropriate. During that same period, she'd often fallen asleep holding Bu Yao.

To Bu Yao, they had been on their way to becoming girlfriends. It was like a woman flirting with you, then turning around to get a hotel room with someone else. Xing Yue could hardly claim innocence.

Bu Yao looked up at the face suddenly trying to placate her, her anger undiminished. "You and I have nothing to discuss except our relationship."

"Can you please not do this?" Xing Yue felt a headache coming on. Urgency showed on her face. "Someone's life is at stake, and this is all you care about? I know you found out where He Zhiwen is. Can't we rescue her first and talk about everything else afterward? I'll admit what I did wrong."

Bu Yao had only been cold before. Xing Yue's tone was like throwing firewood onto a volcano about to erupt.

She tossed her book aside, her chest rising and falling. "Shut up! You're not acting like someone who admits she was wrong."

Seeing the tension mount, Tan Xiang'e pulled Xing Yue aside and whispered, "What are you doing? That's not how you make it up to a woman. You keep bringing up your ex—of course Miss Bu's getting angrier! Yes, we're here to save He Zhiwen, but you can't say her name. Appeal to Miss Bu's feelings. Make it about her, not about teaching her to get her priorities straight and see the bigger picture. None of that matters. She wants you to say you love her, that you can't bear to be without her, that you want to be with her every day. Don't you get it?"

Sometimes all it took to soothe a woman was calling her "baby" a couple of times. There was no need to lecture her about reason and composure.

That was what Bu Yao wanted: for Xing Yue to love her and miss her. She didn't want to hear how Xing Yue would risk herself for another woman, or watch her humble herself for one.

Tan Xiang'e figured Xing Yue would hold back with her in the room. She tactfully went outside to wait, closing the door behind her.

Only the two of them remained. Xing Yue looked at the woman whose back was turned to her. Bu Yao wore a red, oil-painting-patterned slip dress that ended at her thighs. Its neckline cut straight across her chest, and her long orange-red hair was loosely swept up, exposing a swanlike neck as smooth as jade. She was at once alluring and ladylike. Just looking at her, Xing Yue could almost catch her soft, warm scent. Even with her face set in anger, Bu Yao was irresistibly beautiful.

Xing Yue took Bu Yao's injured hand. The soft, fair skin looked so delicate. She hadn't realized how hard she'd gripped it. "Baby, I know I was wrong. So much happened today, and when you picked a fight with me, I... I lost my temper. I know I shouldn't have. Will you give me a chance to make it right?"

When Bu Yao had confronted her, Xing Yue had even snapped, "So what if I did get a hotel room with her?" In that sense, she had made the fight worse herself.

Bu Yao pulled her hand away. The corners of her eyes quietly reddened, and her nose stung. Biting her lower lip, she remained unswayed. "Get out!"

Before Xing Yue tried to soothe her, she'd only been angry. Now she was angry and hurt.

Xing Yue stayed where she was.

Bu Yao lowered her legs from the sofa and tipped up her chin. "What? Will you put up with even more humiliation for He Zhiwen? Now I've seen it. You're more pathetic today than you've ever been!"

Her soft pink toes pressed against Xing Yue's trouser leg. She said nothing more, yet the way her foot slid up and down spoke volumes, every movement thick with mockery.

Xing Yue knew what Bu Yao meant. Her hand silently clenched at her side, then fell limp. In the end, she crouched, picked up a high heel from the floor, and took Bu Yao's foot in her other hand to put the shoe on her.

When she reached for Bu Yao's other foot, Bu Yao pulled it away and placed it in Xing Yue's lap. Then she slowly walked her delicate toes upward, each step landing on Xing Yue's body—her ribs, her chest, her cheek...

"Didn't you say you'd never love a woman like me in this lifetime?" Bu Yao looked down at Xing Yue, who was kneeling on the floor to put on her shoes, and scoffed. "Then why come back? You're not sincere. What are you apologizing for? What mistake are you admitting?"

Xing Yue bowed her head. Her red lips brushed almost imperceptibly against the smooth top of Bu Yao's foot. As she spoke, her lips rested against the skin.

"I really know I was wrong. I mean it. I shouldn't have said anything that crossed the line to another woman... Please forgive me this once, Miss Bu."

Bu Yao was still furious. Just remembering what Xing Yue had said made her seethe. "Then do you know what to do from now on?"

"I'll keep my distance from other women."