Chapter 103: Two People Escape; The Villa is Bombed, Something Happens to Jiang Xuanshen… part 1
The atmosphere was more than a little awkward.
“Fine,” Jiang Chenyan compromised. “I’ll pick them up.”
He bent down, his fingertips slowly reaching toward the scattered ceramic shards. He was truly tired of Jiang Xuanshen’s volatile temper.
Ever since he arrived, these two had been fighting every few days.
He would just pick them up carefully. Under the current circumstances, it wasn’t convenient to throw the shards at Jiang Xuanshen’s face. At least, not yet.
Weighty stares fell densely onto the back of his hands. Jiang Chenyan didn’t need to look back to know that the servants and bodyguards in the living room were all staring at him.
Perhaps because he was distracted, his finger had just touched a sharp shard when a cut opened up. A bead of bright red blood emerged, dripping onto the grey-white ceramic.
Xiao Yi was still crying.
“Enough.”
Jiang Xuanshen’s voice suddenly rang out, breaking the suffocating silence.
He didn’t understand it himself, but seeing that bit of blood on Jiang Chenyan’s fingertip caused a strange surge of irritation to well up in his heart, leaving him restless and frustrated.
He waved his hand, ordering the butler to watch these two. Without another word, he turned and went upstairs alone, his back disappearing around the corner of the spiral staircase.
Xiao Yi immediately stepped forward, carefully taking Jiang Chenyan’s hand, his eyes red. “Does it hurt a lot?”
“It’s nothing.” Jiang Chenyan pulled his hand back. The wound on his finger was still bleeding, but such a small injury wouldn’t even take fifteen minutes to heal.
Jiang Chenyan originally thought Jiang Xuanshen would use this incident to torment Xiao Yi tonight, but unexpectedly, he didn’t.
It was a sleepless night.
Jiang Chenyan leaned against the headboard. The disguise potion on his face could only last for half a month at most. By his count, he had already been in this villa for a full week.
During this week, Jiang Chenyan hadn’t been idle. He had long since figured out the patrol patterns of the bodyguards in the villa. For example, every night from seven to nine, the guards in the outer courtyard changed shifts. During this period, there was a three-minute gap in the patrol of the eastern wall.
Meanwhile, two personal bodyguards were permanently stationed outside Jiang Xuanshen’s study. Unless Jiang Xuanshen personally brought someone in, no one could get close.
Jiang Xuanshen had indeed been very busy lately. He almost always left early and returned late, usually smelling of alcohol.
Jiang Chenyan knew he couldn’t wait any longer.
News came from Kai Lan’s side. They had already had several frontal clashes with Cyrus’s people, suffering heavy losses. Shen Shiyue, representing the Alliance, found it difficult to act openly due to his identity and couldn’t spare attention for them. Now, they could only rely on themselves.
The late-night wind carried a chill. Unable to sleep, Jiang Chenyan threw off his blanket and stood alone on the second-floor corridor, looking at the night view below through the massive floor-to-ceiling window.
Only a few streetlamps in the garden outside the villa emitted a dim, yellow light. In the distance, the city’s neon lights flickered like an unreachable sea of stars.
Suddenly, a tall figure silently stopped behind Jiang Chenyan. Carrying a heavy scent of alcohol, the figure enveloped him in a shadow.
Jiang Chenyan didn’t need to look back to know who it was.
Jiang Xuanshen’s eyes were deep and heavy as he stared fixedly at Jiang Chenyan’s back.
“It’s so late. Why aren’t you sleeping?” His voice was raspy from the alcohol, sounding more lazy than usual in a way that was hard to describe.
Jiang Chenyan turned his head. “Aren’t you also awake?”
“Mhm.” Jiang Xuanshen walked to his side, took out a cigarette pack, and pulled out a cigarette. With a click from the lighter, an orange flame jumped, lighting the cigarette.
The Alpha took a drag and exhaled a faint smoke ring. “I thought you’d be very afraid of me after I kidnapped you. It seems you aren’t afraid at all.”
“…”
Jiang Chenyan lowered his eyes and said nothing. What was there to be afraid of?
Jiang Xuanshen slowly pulled out another cigarette and held it out to Jiang Chenyan. Although confused, Jiang Chenyan’s slender fingers naturally took it, lightly holding it between them.
The flame flared up, its warm yellow light reflecting on Jiang Chenyan’s eyelashes and casting a small fan-shaped shadow.
Jiang Chenyan lowered his head, bringing the cigarette to the flame. His lips lightly held the filter as he took a deep drag and slowly exhaled. The smoke curled up, blurring the emotions in Jiang Chenyan’s eyes.
Jiang Xuanshen’s gaze fell on that flickering light.
Up close, the man’s features were still very plain—the kind of average look you’d forget after one glance. Yet, under the reflection of the firelight, those eyes seemed to hold a shallow pool of water, calm and steady, hiding something indescribable.
That feeling was too familiar. So familiar that Jiang Xuanshen’s chest tightened, as if forgotten fragments were slowly being pieced together.
“Did you know? You look quite ugly.”
Jiang Chenyan’s brow furrowed. Ash fell onto the back of his hand. What was this? An attack on his appearance?
Jiang Xuanshen’s tone shifted. “But you always give me a very familiar feeling.”
The fingers holding Jiang Chenyan’s cigarette paused. The cigarette almost slipped from his grasp, and the heat from the burning tobacco made his fingertips feel numb.
“You are someone Xiao Yi cares about. I mistakenly thought that bit of hesitation and irritation was because of Xiao Yi, but now I’ve realized that’s not it.”
“I seem to care about you a bit too much, even though you’re so ordinary.” But also so special, Jiang Xuanshen didn’t say the last part.
Jiang Chenyan frowned. He knew all too well that a person’s habits were carved into their bones.
Perhaps it was the way he held the cigarette just now, or the way he slightly squinted his eyes when exhaling smoke. Those shadows belonging to another person hidden in the details would still be noticed by Jiang Xuanshen.
However, Jiang Chenyan didn’t really believe the “care” Jiang Xuanshen spoke of.
He crushed the cigarette butt, pressing the remaining half against the nearby metal table edge, leaving a charred mark.
Both fell silent at the same time.
The night wind blew a bit cold. Jiang Chenyan finally spoke his mind. “President Jiang, you don’t understand what true liking and love are. Love isn’t like this. This is also unfair to Xiao Yi.”
Jiang Xuanshen laughed. The laughter was light, but it carried a near-obsessive certainty. He took a step forward, his tall figure completely enveloping Jiang Chenyan in shadow. “He was the one who provoked me first. Since he provoked me, he has to stay with me for a lifetime.”
“A lifetime is very long. Do you want him to suffer for a lifetime?”
Jiang Xuanshen looked away. “You don’t understand anything. I love him, and that’s enough.”
The man was right; Jiang Chenyan truly didn’t understand.
He fiddled with the cold cigarette butt, looking at the fingerprint left on it. He suddenly felt it was a bit absurd.
Jiang Chenyan couldn’t decipher the entangled lines between the two.
Perhaps love was about letting go, but Jiang Xuanshen couldn’t learn that. He trapped Xiao Yi within a small space, weaving a dense, airtight net with his self-righteous affection, trapping both of their breaths and the light that should have belonged to them.
…
To escape, the first step was to unlock the alloy shackles on Xiao Yi’s hands and feet, as well as a locator that couldn’t be easily removed once implanted. The former required Jiang Xuanshen’s genetic sequence to unlock, while the latter would immediately send an alert to Jiang Xuanshen if forcibly removed.
Recently, Jiang Xuanshen had appeared in the villa less and less, rarely returning at night.
Jiang Chenyan heard the news through Shen Shiyue—something had happened to the Jiang family.
His brothers in name, Jiang Qingyan and Jiang Qingye, had stumbled during a border patrol mission. The Military Department issued a notice stating the two were suspected of collaborating with the enemy and were currently being held by the Alliance High Military Court, awaiting sentencing.
The Interstellar Alliance had many enemies scattered across the star sectors—from brutal, bloodthirsty alien colonizers to information brokers roaming in grey areas. Anyone could be the mastermind behind this “defection” case.
The Jiang family had been a massive tree for a hundred years. Jiang Qingyan and Jiang Qingye weren’t that stupid; how could they defect at a time like this?
Therefore, there was a major problem here.
Although Jiang Chenyan hadn’t had much contact with them, he had heard of them. They were soldiers who had crawled out of mountains of corpses and seas of blood; they had the Alliance’s honor carved into their bones.
This entire affair was weird from start to finish.
So Jiang Xuanshen couldn’t sit still. No matter how much he was at odds with his family, he couldn’t just watch his two brothers be pushed to the witness stand.
Because Jiang Xuanshen was temporarily unable to spare attention for them, this was their chance to escape.
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