Heart Stealer - Chapter 11

Chapter 11

My eyelashes were still damp; I had spent the entire journey here in tears.

Fu Jing approached, his breath coming in heavy rasps. My face was reflected in his dark pupils.

“Sweetheart, if you had just said the word, I would have picked you up from the airport.”

Fu Jing cupped my face, his voice soft and coaxing.

All the grievances of the past few days erupted in an instant. My lip wobbled, and the tears started falling again.

“Who bullied you this time?”

“I didn’t think you’d poke a hole in it,” I sobbed.

“In what?”

I looked down and rummaged through my bag for a moment before finally pulling out the pregnancy test and handing it to him.

Fu Jing gave it a casual glance, but his gaze suddenly locked onto it. His calm expression shattered piece by piece.

He stared at the two bright red lines, falling into a long silence. Finally, his voice came out low and hoarse. “Is this real?”

A few minutes later, our argument drifted across the riverbank.

“If you didn’t poke a hole, then did I?” I was so angry my face was flushed.

Fu Jing softened his tone, wrapping his hand around my fist. “Fine, let’s not discuss that. Do you want the baby?”

I cried out, “You had the nerve to poke the hole but you don’t want the baby?!”

“…”

“Scumbag!”

“I want it.”

“Well, I’m not giving birth to it for you.”

“…”

After much persuasion, Fu Jing managed to drag me back to the hotel.

That night, lying beside him on the pillow, I started muttering to myself, “I didn’t poke a hole, and you didn’t either. It couldn’t possibly be a manufacturing defect, could it?”

Fu Jing listened to my analysis without saying a word.

I continued, “They’re a big brand, so that’s unlikely too. Then what could be the reason-”

I suddenly paused, realizing there was another possibility.

The woman had found a man on the side.

Fu Jing looked up, a hint of sharpness in his dark eyes. His tone was light as he asked, “Are you really going to force me to think in that direction?”

Seeing my stunned expression, his face darkened. He pulled me over into his arms.

“Certain measures aren’t a hundred percent safe. I suggest you close your mouth and be quiet for a while.”

Once the room fell silent, the exhaustion from the jet lag finally began to hit me.

Just before falling asleep, I suddenly remembered the main issue. I flipped over and sat up, fuming. “Bai Qiaoqiao said you were making a cake for her.”

Fu Jing let out a weary sigh. “Qianqian, I don’t know how to bake cakes. I remember you don’t like anything with cream.”

“How do you know that?”

Under my burning gaze, Fu Jing opened his eyes again and looked at me. “You said so back in high school when you were at the campus store.”

I began to calculate seriously. Fu Jing is five years older than me.

When I was a freshman in high school, he was at the university next door.

“Wow.”

“What are you ‘wowing’ about?”

I sprawled across his chest, pinching a lock of my hair to poke at him. “So you’ve had a crush on me since back then.”

If we really looked back, Fu Jing and I probably met around that time.

My dad wanted me to get into the university next door, so I looked up the top students from previous years. I even managed to get Fu Jing’s QQ number from the school directory and started asking him math questions anonymously.

I had never told anyone this secret, but it seemed like he had known all along.

As if sensing my confusion, Fu Jing sighed and tucked the blanket around me. “Your alt account was always liking posts on your main account.”

Seeing my bewildered expression, he closed his eyes in resignation and patted my head. “Be good. It’s too much brainwork. If you can’t figure it out, just go to sleep.”

Just as I was about to drift off, I started whining again. “You’re changing the subject. We were talking about the cake. Where did Bai Qiaoqiao get that photo?”

“I don’t know.”

“AI generated?”

“Maybe.”

“You better not be lying to me…”

“Qianqian, go to sleep. Someone is already handling it.”

Over the next few days, I was tethered to Fu Jing’s side; I couldn’t go anywhere.

When he talked business, I had to follow.

When he visited companies, I had to follow too.

The sentence I heard most was: “My wife is pregnant.”

When he said it, he kept a poker face, simply waiting for the other person to show a look of surprise and say, “Congratulations!”

Then he would give a slight smile and reply, “Thank you.”

A week later, during the night, I was leaning against the desk accompanying Fu Jing during a video conference.

I was nodding off from drowsiness when my phone suddenly began to vibrate wildly.
When I answered, the sound of Bai Qiaoqiao sobbing came through the line. “Sister, please, save me!”

My face darkened. “I’m not saving you, you liar.”

I hung up immediately.

Fu Jing asked me with his eyes: *What’s wrong?*

I showed him my call log, but before I could say much, Bai Qiaoqiao called again.

“Are you ever going to stop-”

This time, Bai Qiaoqiao’s voice was laced with terror. “Someone, please save me-”

The sound of her crying was punctuated by the crack of a whip and screams of pain.

Fu Jing and I locked eyes, realizing something was seriously wrong.

Fu Jing ended his video conference, grabbed a coat from the side to drape over my shoulders, and took my hand as he led me out.

“Do you know where she is?”

“I don’t,” Fu Jing said, adjusting my windbreaker hood. “I’m calling the police.”

By the time the police found Bai Qiaoqiao, she was lying in a luxury apartment, covered in bruises and wounds.

When she saw me, she lunged forward and burst into loud, wailing sobs.

Her once smooth black hair had turned into a bird’s nest. “Thank you… thank you.”

The doctor examined her thoroughly. Aside from the superficial injuries, there were signs of attempted assault on certain parts of her body. However, because she had fought back with everything she had, the perpetrator hadn’t succeeded.

Bai Qiaoqiao lay on the hospital bed with her eyes closed, shivering every few moments.

She couldn’t even sleep peacefully.

Fu Jing learned the full story from the police.

After Bai Qiaoqiao and I had our falling out, she had approached Fu Jing a few times. Realizing she had misunderstood the situation for all those years, she decided to seek a different path for herself.

But having lived a smooth, sheltered life under Fu Jing’s protection for the first half of her life, her little bit of cleverness was clearly not enough to survive in that cutthroat industry.

Not long ago, she was tricked into signing a contract by the boss of an entertainment company.

He claimed he would help her develop her career abroad, but as soon as she stepped off the plane, her passport and phone were confiscated.

Everything that followed was a public relations crisis orchestrated by the other party to target Fu Jing.

Seeing that our relationship was stable and their plan hadn’t succeeded, the man took his anger out on Bai Qiaoqiao.

If she hadn’t been smart enough to steal a phone and call for help, she might have been killed by now.

On a bright, sunny afternoon, I was about to push open the door to her hospital room when I suddenly heard a heated argument coming from inside.

To be precise, it was Bai Qiaoqiao’s one-sided accusation: “I’m not leaving! I’m going to be an actress!”

A man sneered, “Are you out of your mind?”

“You’re the one who’s out of your mind!”

He choked on his words, his tone turning stiff. “Come study abroad with me. I’ll give you however much money you want.”

“I don’t even like you.”

The man was silent for a moment before suddenly exploding. “If you don’t like me, why did you flirt with me? Asking me every morning if I’ve had breakfast, telling me to wear more clothes when it’s cold… Bai Qiaoqiao, tell me, why would you send those things if you aren’t interested in me?”

Me: “…”

Fu Jing: “…”

So, it turns out she was just mass-messaging people.

Bai Qiaoqiao went silent.

The man ran a hand through his messy hair, stood up, and said coldly:

“Fine. It’s not like I, this Young Master, am lacking for women. I’m a real idiot for traveling thousands of miles just to see you.”

Fu Jing pulled me to the side to hide, pulling me into his arms and making a shushing gesture.

Bai Qiaoqiao: “Waaaah…”

There was a clatter of things being moved inside, and the man kicked the door. “Shit, I dare you to cry one more time!”

Bai Qiaoqiao cried even harder.

I tried to rush inside. “He can’t hit her, can he?”

Fu Jing held me back. “Wait and see.”

Then the noise stopped. I pressed myself against the door like a thief to listen closely. Faint murmurs drifted through the crack in the door.

“Alright, alright, I was wrong. I shouldn’t have yelled at you.”

“You did yell at me.”

“Yes, I was wrong. Why don’t you hit me to make it better?”

Fu Jing leaned into my ear and whispered with a smile, “What do you know? That’s called ‘flirting.'”

He led me away, and I looked thoughtful the whole way back.

Just as we got into the car, I opened my mouth and blurted out, “Waaaah…”

Fu Jing stiffened and turned to look at me. “What are you ‘waaaahing’ for?”

“Didn’t you say it was flirting?”

His lips twitched. “Qianqian, you’re different from her.”

“How am I different?”

He lowered his head slightly and whispered in my ear, “I prefer it when you cry *then*. The harder you cry, the more I like it.”