"Is being a beer girl really that profitable?" She sat on the sofa folding clothes, "How much can you earn in a day? Is it just selling alcohol?"
Chen Yi lazily opened his eyes: "Professional drinking companion. For every bottle you drink, the customer buys ten. Getting your thighs groped by men—would you be okay with that?"
"I would," Miao Jing replied calmly.
A lighter suddenly flew through the air, hitting her head. The pain made Miao Jing grimace.
He stood up, dragging his leg angrily as he went to his room to change into a T-shirt before heading out.
"Where are you going?"
"Am I paralyzed? Can't I go out?" He tossed back the words, "You stay home and behave."
Chen Yi didn’t have the face to freeload off his so-called friends, nor did he dare to borrow money or resort to shady means for quick cash. Instead, he found casual work at a construction site, offering a pack of cigarettes and a few flattering words to the foreman before joining the renovation crew. As a construction laborer, his sharp mind and quick learning, combined with his tall, strong build, made him especially useful for tasks like demolishing walls, laying bricks, and painting.
Payment was settled daily—200 yuan a day, enough to get by.
When Chen Yi quietly returned late at night, Miao Jing was stunned by the dust coating his hair and eyebrows, his grimy clothes, and the work gloves tossed by the door.
"Buy some meat. I want to eat meat." He gritted his teeth as he set down the money, then turned and headed into the bathroom to shower.
He kept at this job until his leg injury fully healed. With a stable income and no worries about daily expenses—and since the construction site offered lodging—Chen Yi would bring his dirty clothes home to wash. Miao Jing had to scrub them vigorously by hand to get them clean. When her summer vacation arrived, she began bringing him meals and helping out daily.
The summer heat was especially intense. Chen Yi was with the renovation team, working on a new apartment that hadn’t yet been connected to electricity. The cramped space was stifling and filthy. Miao Jing brought a lunchbox, ice water, and half a watermelon. She found Chen Yi shirtless, leaning against the wall as he rested on the floor, which was covered with newspapers and book pages. His T-shirt lay discarded nearby, his legs sprawled casually. In one hand, he held a cigarette; in the other, a book.
It was unclear where the book had come from—perhaps used as floor padding, for plastering walls, or simply discarded by someone. The pages were worn and yellowed, filled with novels like Water Margin, The Count of Monte Cristo, How the Steel Was Tempered, The Red and the Black, and even a copy of Lei Feng’s Diary.
He was deeply engrossed, his short hair dusty, his deep honey-toned muscles glistening with sweat and grime. Dust coated his chest and shoulders, and red scratches and smudges streaked his muscular lines. Miao Jing watched as his thick eyelashes fluttered. His cigarette-holding fingers turned a page, and he unconsciously took a drag, his lashes fluttering again before he slowly exhaled the smoke—like a still life painting, or a serene male sculpture.
Chen Yi didn’t notice her standing there for a long time. It wasn’t until Miao Jing walked in and sat cross-legged beside him, softly telling him to eat, that he looked up. She asked what he was reading.
"The Hunchback of Notre Dame," he replied, his gaze still distant, a hint of laughter in his voice. "It’s really good. I never realized before—there are so many interesting books. Much more fun than playing games."
Miao Jing’s eyes seemed to gather dust as she blinked abruptly.
He set the book aside and began devouring his meal, eating roughly and swiftly, sweeping through the food Miao Jing had brought like a whirlwind. Then he reminded her to buy a few things on her way back and take his dirty clothes home to wash.Miao Jing sat for a while. As he wanted to take an afternoon nap, he lay down on the newspaper again, covering his face with a book, telling her to go back early too. Miao Jing packed her things and headed home. Before leaving, she glanced back at him one more time.
Returning home, she washed his clothes. Soaking them in the basin, she added a lot of detergent, but they never seemed to get clean. She scrubbed until her fingers turned red, yet the paint stains stubbornly remained. Throwing the clothes back into the basin, dirty water splashed onto her. She couldn’t help burying her face in her knees and sobbing loudly. After crying, she pulled out her phone to call Wei Mingzhen, then rushed out of the house to the home of the man she had escaped with, hoping for any news about the two of them.
By the time Chen Yi’s leg had fully healed, those turbulent days had quietly passed.
After graduating from vocational high school, Chen Yi was still under eighteen. He didn’t engage in street racing—gambling with his life held little appeal. He had the chance to truly step into society, going with friends to play pool at a club. He was skilled at pool, winning against many and meeting all sorts of people along the way. Noticed by a nightclub manager, he landed his first formal job as an in-house security guard at a nightclub.
In those days, young ruffles no longer mimicked gangsters wielding knives in street fights. Robbery and extortion had become outdated, repackaged into new forms: demolition crews, loan shark debt collection, entertainment venues, and exclusive supply chains—all rebranded as legitimate business.
Chen Yi never worried about money again. The first time he walked through his door in a suit, the ordinary attire carried a fit and unrestrained aura on him. He seemed never to have been naive, always steady, wild, and audacious.
Chapter 21: At the Mercy of Others
The man’s lips were neither gentle nor sharp, but sensually full, landing hot and soft on her cool cheeks. His movements were rough and frantic, devoid of any gentlemanly grace, instead driven by a primal urge to devour, to claim, to seize and declare dominion without delay. Outside the car window, the torrential rain hammered down, isolating them from the world, each drop pounding against Miao Jing’s skin and heart—a turmoil long absent yet stirring countless ripples. Her breath quickened as she struggled to suppress her reactions. The fervent kisses moistened her face, eventually wandering to her lips, where they boldly forced their way in, aggressive and domineering, plundering her breath and saliva. The sharp scent of tobacco wrapped around her like an inescapable shackle, leaving her body weak and her eyes aching, until her limbs grew stiff and numb.
Gasping for air, Miao Jing trembled as she raised her hand and slapped Chen Yi hard across the face.
The sound echoed sharply in the car. Jolted by the pain amid his fervor, Chen Yi froze for a moment, then lifted his dark, fierce eyes to fix on her fragile, delicate face and her lucid, tear-filled gaze. Almost instinctively, he dragged Miao Jing from the passenger seat into the driver’s seat. Uprooted, her fair feet dragged across the car seat as she collided with him. She urgently called his name, but in an instant, she was hauled into the cramped driver’s space by two large hands, tumbling onto the hard, tobacco-scented man.
“Chen Yi! Chen Yi!! Have you lost your mind?!”His cheek still bore finger marks, his breathing more frantic than the storm outside the window, his eyes blazing with a deranged intensity. Miao Jing, provoked by him into mental and physical disarray, stumbled and collapsed against him, her hands pounding and twisting in a futile struggle. Before she could utter another word, Chen Yi effortlessly twisted and turned her, seating her like a doll across his thighs, forcing her to face him directly. Meeting his mischievous, smoldering gaze, she seethed and raised her hand, wanting to strike him in fury. Chen Yi seemed to grin faintly, then abruptly seized her delicate wrists—her hands were easily pinned behind her back and pressed against the steering wheel, rendering her as immobile as a puppet on strings.
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