Chapter 13

Li Jia’s hands bore long, exquisite manicures—the style her manager had commissioned for her. They accentuated her already slender fingers, making them even more beautiful. But it was precisely this that made the marks from her nails digging into her palm appear all the deeper.

Ye Chengxing gazed at the Omega’s bloodied palm. The glaring red gave her pause for a second or two.

She was still gripping Li Jia’s wrist and could feel the stiffness and wariness in her body with perfect clarity.

Along with the tiniest tremble imaginable.

Ye Chengxing didn’t release Li Jia’s wrist. Instead, she shifted slightly aside to let Xiao Bai bring over the basic medical kit.

The Omega’s palm had been clawed open until it bled, and beads of blood were still welling up.

How much force must she have used to mangle her palm like that?

As Ye Chengxing watched, she couldn’t help but speak up. “Li Jia, does it hurt?”

In this world, most questions whose answers were already known were asked for other reasons.

Just like this one.

It didn’t even sound like a question. Instead, it brimmed with concern and heartache on the verge of spilling over.

Li Jia fell silent upon hearing Ye Chengxing’s words.

No one had ever asked her if she was in pain. They only called her crazy before backing away in fear.

…What a foreign feeling.

She had already experienced this unfamiliar sensation several times on this “Ye Chengxing.”

Xiao Bai brought over the medical kit and, following Ye Chengxing’s instructions, opened it and placed it at hand.

Ye Chengxing took out a cotton swab, intending first to wipe away the beads of blood and then disinfect the wound.

She dabbed away the blood beads, then gently applied hydrogen peroxide to the wound with the swab.

Li Jia’s expression didn’t change, but Ye Chengxing distinctly felt her body tense the instant the swab touched the injury.

“It really does hurt, doesn’t it?” With no answer from Li Jia, Ye Chengxing sighed and softened her disinfection even further.

Li Jia had dug in so fiercely that the wounds were shocking.

From the moment it happened, Ye Chengxing had sensed that Li Jia was in the throes of a trauma response.

The plot hadn’t described it in much detail, but piecing together the fragments Lin Que had let slip that morning during her visit gave a rough sense of events back then.

In a way, the unmasked Lin Que had pulled Li Jia up from the muck—and disguised himself as someone who expected nothing in return.

Nothing in return…

At the thought, Ye Chengxing recalled how Li Jia had only started acting strangely after her own words. Guilt welled up inside her.

She had been too careless, treating the whole affair too simplistically.

This sudden turn had also forced her to swallow the words about suing to break the contract—originally meant for after lunch.

If she couldn’t guarantee it would end well, she would rather hold off until certainty was assured.

After all, hope followed by disappointment was the cruelest blow.

And those photos…

They had clearly been taken without Li Jia’s knowledge. Mentioning them rashly might inflict even greater damage.

Ye Chengxing pressed her lips together.

The wounds on Li Jia’s palm were scattered and sizable.

After disinfecting them, Ye Chengxing applied ointment and carefully wrapped them in gauze.

The Omega stared somewhat dazedly at her palm. With the blood wiped clean and medicine applied, what had been a bloody mess now showed only pristine white gauze.

Ye Chengxing tidied the scattered medicines and gauze back into the kit. “Keep them dry for the next couple of days, but don’t worry—they’ll heal up fast.”

Both hands were now bandaged.

Li Jia lifted the fingertips of one hand to brush the gauze on the other.

Gauze was hardly smooth to the touch.

She had rarely bandaged wounds before. More often, she left them alone or slapped on medicine haphazardly only when unavoidable. Pain? Once you grew accustomed to it, you adapted.

Yet in this moment, she realized she wasn’t as adapted as she’d thought.

Between enduring pain in stoic silence and being fussed over with worry… she preferred the latter.

Her fingertip lingered there briefly before Li Jia turned to Ye Chengxing. “Sister, thank you.”

Her voice was soft and low.

Unlike the forced familiarity of the past few days, it carried a rare hint of genuine emotion.

Ye Chengxing didn’t catch the subtle shift.

She answered with a smile, her eyes curving into lovely arcs.

These past few days, she had grown used to Li Jia’s repeated cries of “sister.” Not hearing it moments ago had felt strangely off, and now it sounded sweeter than ever.

With the medical kit packed away, Ye Chengxing smoothed her clothes and rose to her feet.

Just then, a message came in from her assistant.

Ye Chengxing opened it to find that her assistant had booked a lawyer for the afternoon if she was available.

After a quick reply, Ye Chengxing marveled at her assistant’s efficiency. She dimmed the screen and pondered when to bring it up with Li Jia.

Glancing at Li Jia, who was still a touch dazed, she decided to wait until after the meeting.

The contract would be terminated, no doubt—but the thought of Lin Que’s brazen smirk as he wielded those photos as a threat filled her with disgust.

What she wanted was for those people to pay dearly for their misdeeds. She wanted Li Jia bathed in acclaim and surrounded by flowers—not dragged down with them in their fall.

But the details of the lawsuit needed careful planning.

Still, the message jogged her memory about other things.

“Li Jia.” Ye Chengxing reactivated her phone screen.

The Omega lifted her lashes at the sound of her name.

Ye Chengxing angled the screen toward her with a smile. “I just realized—we haven’t exchanged numbers yet?”

Without waiting for a reply, she tapped the screen, found the angle awkward, and scooted over to sit beside Li Jia. “Have you tried that phone? What do you think?”

Li Jia looked up, meeting the bright, gentle smile in Ye Chengxing’s eyes.

They were quite close now.

She caught that faint oolong tea scent once more.

After two seconds of staring, Li Jia lowered her gaze and tapped a string of numbers into the contacts page Ye Chengxing had opened for her. “The phone… it’s great.”

It was no illusion.

The airy oolong tea scent enveloped her almost completely.

She had smelled it before, but unlike her previous distaste, this time she inexplicably found it pleasant.

Once Li Jia had entered the numbers, Ye Chengxing opened the notes field.

She sat right beside Li Jia, who could easily glimpse the screen with a glance.

“Why add an ‘A’?” Li Jia stared blankly at the letter prefixed to her name.

Wasn’t the name alone enough?

As she spoke, Ye Chengxing finished typing the final character.

She looked up, meeting Li Jia’s eyes, her lips still curved in a natural smile. “Because with the A, your name will always be at the top of my list.”