The Favored Heiress
Chapter 601: Aren’t You Afraid of Me Hurting You Again?

Chapter 601: Chapter 601: Aren’t You Afraid of Me Hurting You Again?

Shang Yu’s guilt was as heavy as his current caution.

He dared not touch, nor look.

Those marks, in his view, were all his ’evidence of sin’.

At this moment, Li Qiao, not having received an answer from Shang Yu, couldn’t help but turn her head to look at the man behind her.

His eyes were interwoven with dimness, his handsome face shadowed with a defeated, quiet grey—all expressions that should not have been there were now simultaneously present.

Li Qiao licked her dry lips and tugged at his hand, pulling with not much strength towards the bed, "Stay with me for a while."

Her tone could be said to be very firm.

Shang Yu did not refuse; he almost obediently lay down on his side, but his dark eyes locked tightly on Li Qiao.

Aren’t you afraid I’ll hurt you again?

These words lingered on his lips, he wanted to ask them time and again, but it was as though they lacked heat and he could not bring himself to speak them outright.

Until—

Li Qiao lifted the covers for him, tugging his shirt into the bed, and finally resting her head on his arm. A series of movements as fluid as water, completely natural.

Once she had settled down, she let out a small sigh, hugged his waist, kissed the man’s sharply defined jaw, and then closed her eyes to sleep.

From beginning to end, her proximity and trust were no different from usual.

Without any guard, without any disdain, even if his shirt still carried the smell of blood and dust, Li Qiao still instinctively cuddled into his embrace.

Shang Yu, with his eyes closed, felt his Adam’s apple slide up and down in complete disarray.

His arm, which had been held back from her, finally lay over her shoulder through the thin blanket, gently patting, lulling her to sleep.

The morning sun rose from the east, and on the dormitory bed, the two lay with foreheads touching, fast asleep.

...

Nearing noon, Li Qiao awoke.

The bedside to her touch was cool, and Shang Yu’s figure was nowhere to be found in the simple dormitory.

She sat up and moved her limbs around. Aside from a faint pain at her side, the rest of her injuries seemed negligible.

The medicine Ah Chang had gotten yesterday was a special recovery drug always kept at Poor People’s Kiln.

It was something she and Xia Lao Wu had come up with back in the day; she just didn’t know if it had expired yet.

Li Qiao looked down at her palm, thinking, well, she was still alive, so it wouldn’t kill her.

Before long, Li Qiao quickly took a shower, glanced at her side in the bathroom, and saw the serious bruise, including her arms and legs which also were covered in many bruises.

She pursed her lips, unconcerned, dressed herself, and poured a few pills from a small cloth bag, swallowing them before leaving the room.

Near the dormitory building’s sports field, a helicopter was parked at this moment.

Complicated insignia adorned its body, from afar appearing like a vase, but up close like gibberish characters.

Li Qiao glanced casually a few times, her eyes flickering, she then saw two tall and lean figures nearby the office building.

Li San was the first to spot her. His thick brows furrowed, scolding from a distance, "Why aren’t you lying in bed?"

Walking unhurriedly over, Li Qiao asked in a raised eyebrow at the moment Shang Yu turned to look back, "When did you get up?"

The ignored Li San: "..."

Shang Yu eyed her steps, lifted his foot, and walked toward her.

In the sunlight, his tall figure stood before her, blocking the slanting rays above her head.

Looking at the blue fingerprint on her chin, he pursed his lips, "Before ten."

Li Qiao naturally took his hand, frowning slightly, "You got up so early, why didn’t you sleep a bit longer?"

Last night he had gotten into a fight at the market, and back at the factory, his illness had flared up—a test of both physical and mental endurance.

No matter how good one’s physical condition, it would be hard to withstand that.

The man curved the corners of his lips, smoothing the furrow in her brows with his fingertip, "Not tired."

Li Qiao gave him a sidelong glance, her face still bearing unscabbed wounds, as she walked brazenly up to Li San and gestured with her lips towards the helicopter, "Whose is that?"

Li San, holding a cigarette between his lips, glanced at Shang Yu out of the corner of his eye, "You ask Shaoyan."

Li Qiao arched her eyebrows in surprise. Before she could speak, from behind the office building Nan Xin, Wei Lang, and three assistants emerged one after another.

How should I put it?

Each of them, upon seeing Li Qiao, looked at her with an indescribable expression.

Admiration? Adoration? Awe?

Li Qiao couldn’t decipher it.

At lunchtime, several people sat in the office eating a simple meal.

Li San, holding chopsticks, let his gaze shuttle back and forth between Shang Yu and Li Qiao, "Leaving in the afternoon?"

"Hmm," the man answered.

Li Qiao was slightly surprised, turning her head to ask, "Where to?"

Back to South Sea?

"To recover from injuries," said Shang Yu, passing her a bowl of bone soup, discerning her confusion, his palm landed on her head and he gave it a little rub, "Recover from the injuries, then go back to South Sea."

Li Qiao uttered an ’oh,’ took the soup, and began sipping it slowly.

At this moment, Nan Xin was gnawing on a rib with no regard for her image, she pulled out a napkin to wipe her hands, looked up, and asked, "Darling, who bit your shoulder?"

Shang Yu’s hand, which was picking up food, paused over the plate, his knuckles turning faintly white.

Li San, noticing the sudden change in his expression, faintly guessed the possibility.

Li Qiao, the person involved, continued to drink her bone soup unhurriedly, and found time to answer, "Dan Min."

Nan Xin snickered knowingly, "I knew it had to be her, with her narrow-mindedness and low-class tactics. Does she have something on her leg too?"

Otherwise, she wouldn’t have been able to injure Qiaoqiao’s waist to the point of fracturing her bone.

"Yeah, she wrapped iron inside the knee pads."

Nan Xin, filled with righteous anger, wanted to slam the table, but before her hand could touch it, a piece of rib was stuffed into her mouth.

Li San, looking at the rib in her mouth, licked the corner of his lips, "Eat your food."

...

At two o’clock in the afternoon, Li Qiao and her company were ready to leave the factory.

Before departure, she returned to the dormitory to put the documents, medals, and medicine pouch given to her by Bai Yan into her briefcase and walked out with it.

Soon, she sauntered out of the main entrance, where a few bodyguards huddled in a corner smoking.

Their conversation caught Li Qiao’s attention.

"What does it mean that the Underground Boxing Gym has been... annihilated?"

"Heard it’s because they couldn’t afford to pay and got wiped out by someone."

"How were they wiped out?"

"Apparently, the gym lost a match, and besides the amount paid by the audience, the gym also needed to pull together over a hundred billion to pay the bettors. They couldn’t come up with the money, so someone wiped out the entire place. Now, the gym has likely changed owners."

Li Qiao strolled forward slowly, the bodyguards behind her still musing over the gym’s annihilation.

Ahead, Shang Yu’s figure suddenly came into view.

She blinked, walked over, tossed her briefcase onto the helicopter seat, glanced sideways at him, and said calmly, "The gym has been wiped out?"

At that moment, the man stood with one hand in his pocket, his handsome face exuding an air of nonchalant nobility, "Yeah, so what?"

Li Qiao bent down to enter the cabin and, once seated, touched her forehead thoughtfully, "Did we get the principal back?"

The front row Wei Lang and the three assistants in the rear seat, "..."

Miss Li, shouldn’t your focus be on how exactly the gym was wiped out?