Chapter 65: It Is Time for Me to Collect the Interest

Zhu Yuan stared blankly at the notebook she had originally hidden in the suitcase in her hospital room.

A bone-chilling cold made her whole body tremble uncontrollably, and she looked at him in terror, "How is the diary in your hands?"

The room's lights suddenly turned on.

Sheng Yu did not answer her; with one hand pressing her down, she could not snatch the diary, and could only watch helplessly as he opened the book right in front of her.

"My dear Yuanyuan... Yuanyuan." He chuckled, though it was unclear if it was mockery or a cold sneer.

The man's warm fingers easily pinched her chin, and he leaned down to whisper in her ear, "Seeing Lu Huaizhan call you that, liking you so much, does it make your heart flutter?"

Zhu Yuan was forced to lift her chin, meeting the man's eyes, which were as dark as thick ink.

Sheng Yu was the kind of person who could make one feel fear from the very marrow of their bones.

Whether it was the first time they met or now.

"Give the diary back to me," she said in a low voice, her tone humble and pleading.

"You want it?"

Sheng Yu stared at her face, his eyes devoid of any warmth, yet he asked her, "Answer me one question first. That night, why did you cook two bowls of noodles for me?"

One bowl was for revenge.

What about the second bowl?

Just as Zhu Yuan was about to speak, the man threatened her coldly, "If I hear even a hint of a lie, neither your grandfather nor your brother in prison will have an easy time!"

Zhu Yuan's eyes trembled violently, and she closed her mouth.

Her silence annoyed Sheng Yu, "Speak!"

"Because I thought you were pitiful." Tears welled up in Zhu Yuan's eyes, and her tightly clenched hands lost their strength and loosened.

That night, Sheng Yu was just a pitiful man who had been backstabbed by his father, hiding in the shadows to miss his mother while nursing his wounds alone.

She admitted she wanted to take revenge for his humiliation of her, but at the same time, she had held back out of compassion.

Hearing her answer, the man lowered his head and laughed.

"Heh, you pity me?" Sheng Yu suddenly released her chin and expressionlessly took a pure black lighter from the coffee table drawer, "You'd be better off pitying Lu Huaizhan's infatuation."

The lighter's flame flickered to life.

The tongue of fire instantly licked across the open diary!

"No!"

Zhu Yuan's eyes turned bloodshot, and she lunged to grab the diary, but Sheng Yu grabbed her arm and threw her back onto the sofa.

Her head hit the sofa armrest, and she saw stars immediately.

She scrambled to get up desperately, blood faintly seeping from her bandaged right hand, and she ignored the twist in her right foot; her eyes seemed stained red by the firelight, and she lunged forward as if having lost her reason, using her bare hands to pat out the flames.

Most of the notebook had been burned away, the edges scorched yellow and black, yet there wasn't a single word on the inner pages.

Only then did she realize this wasn't Lu Huaizhan's at all; it just had an identical cover.

She turned her head abruptly; Sheng Yu stood under the light, his brows and eyes sinister and indifferent, "You like Lu Huaizhan so much that you aren't even afraid of being burned by fire for his things."

"Where is the diary?"

He knew the beginning of the diary, so he must have read it.

Whether she liked Lu Huaizhan or not had nothing to do with him, but the diary was something Lu Huaizhan had left behind; he had no right to take it away.

The man slowly crouched down in front of her, his slender fingers gripping the back of her neck to press her into his embrace, and he kissed the corner of her mouth ambiguously, "It must have been very hard to endure from the moment you learned the truth until now, right?"

No wonder she suddenly moved her grandfather to a different ward, yet managed to suppress the urge to confront him over the phone.

Zhu Yuan tried hard to dodge his lips, but she was held fast by the back of her neck and could not break free; she was forced to tilt her head back, yielding to his sudden, deep kiss.

In the silent room, the sounds of her struggling, whimpering, and the wet, sticky noises continued to emerge.

"Mmph—"

Ignoring the pain, Zhu Yuan pulled her hand away from his restraint and, without hesitation, raised her hand to slap Sheng Yu!

"You only know how to use force and coercion to make me submit! From beginning to end, you are just a dark, petty person coveting your good brother's fiancée! All that talk about not being interested in your good brother's fiancée, all that 'kindness' in lending me money so I could help you provide cover—it was all your despicable schemes!"

Fingerprints soon appeared on Sheng Yu's fair face, and he gritted his teeth and let out a cold laugh.

"Force and coercion? Finally couldn't help but speak your mind."

What a fitting term for him.

He looked down at her from above; the deep kiss just now had left her body limp and weak, and she could only kneel there.

Sensing him approaching again, a danger more intense than ever before enveloping her, Zhu Yuan had no time to think; she turned and used all her strength to crawl away.

But she was grabbed by the ankle and dragged back by the man, who flipped her over and easily pinned her beneath him.

The disparity in strength destined her to become the man's captive.

The man's cold voice, accompanied by the sound of tearing fabric, landed clearly on her bare shoulder.

"Didn't you want to pay me back and draw a line between us? Money or favors, it's time for me to collect the interest."

The night grew deep, and the Hot Spring Villa gradually fell into silence.

The carpet in front of the floor-to-ceiling window of the second-floor master bedroom, where the lights had been turned on and then off.

The man's scorching fingertips moved from the woman's lower abdomen downward, and as his ear was bitten, a wicked, cold voice poured into her ear, "Has Lu Huaizhan touched you like this?"

Zhu Yuan gritted her teeth, a fine layer of sweat breaking out on her pale skin.

"Has that sickly body of his ever made you feel good?"

From beginning to end, Zhu Yuan did not say a word, just gritted her teeth, neither crying nor calling out.

The man tortured her maliciously.

"It hurts..." She could not resist in the end, her whole body trembling.

Sheng Yu smiled with satisfaction, lifted her chin, and captured her lips and tongue.

A long time had already passed, yet he still would not let her go.

While he pressed against her, kissing her with venting fury, he recited the contents of Lu Huaizhan's diary; he had a photographic memory, and those stinging words were all etched into his mind.

To kill a man is but to behead him; Sheng Yu was subjecting her to death by a thousand cuts.

Zhu Yuan closed her eyes in pain, salty tears rolling down; the man tasted them and demanded more from her body with even greater madness.

Not until the horizon turned the color of a fish's belly did the man toss her, now unconscious, from behind onto the pillows of the messy bed.

The sound of rushing water came from the bathroom.

Zhu Yuan gradually regained consciousness; she braced her hands to crawl up, but her body felt too heavy, and the pain throughout her was such that she felt as if she would fall apart with the slightest movement.

She had not eaten a thing from yesterday evening until now.

She closed her eyes, resigning herself to her fate.

She did not know how much time had passed; the sky should have been fully bright, but she could not open her eyes, feeling as if she were about to die.

Hearing the man's footsteps approach, she was like a frightened bird, her heavy body trembling reflexively, covered in mottled red marks.

Especially around her waist and thighs, it was a ghastly sight.

She struggled to open her eyes a slit and saw a glass of water placed on the nightstand, with a white Medicine beside it.

The man stood by the bed, dressed neatly, his tone condescending: "Take the Medicine, and I will let you leave."