Scorching Warm Water – Chapter 11

Wen Yan had never played it either. “Neither have I.”

“It’s okay, I’ll teach you both.” Shao Tingyu smiled warmly. He reached out, gathered all the cards on the table into a pile, straightened them, tapped the stack against the tabletop to align them neatly, and began explaining the rules to Qiu Xue and Wen Yan.

Both were top-tier students who’d gotten into Qinghua—they understood the rules after hearing them just once, learning without any difficulty. And practice made perfect; after listening to Shao Tingyu explain the rules, they both joined in the game.

Qiu Xue was quite lucky. In the two rounds she played, she drew Merlin both times—that key good-alignment role with a god’s-eye view (the character never has to close their eyes throughout the game and can identify the evil characters). Merlin needs to hide their identity while subtly hinting to the good-alignment players who the bad guys are—a role that carries a lot of responsibility. But in both rounds, even though she felt she’d spoken very earnestly, there was always some guy who insisted she was a wolf, and she nearly fainted from frustration.

Over those two rounds, though, Wen Yan also drew good-alignment roles and trusted her with unspoken默契, and they completed their missions and won both times.

“This game is way more fun than Werewolf. It’s actually pretty interesting. But hey—why haven’t we seen Senior Jin Yang at all? I haven’t spotted him once. It’s like he didn’t come to the party.” Qiu Xue leaned in close to Wen Yan and said.

“No idea. Maybe he had something on.” Wen Yan replied.

“Such a shame. I really wanted to see him.” Qiu Xue wore the look of an adoring fangirl.

Wen Yan couldn’t help saying, “Xuexue, correct me if I’m wrong, but… you do have a boyfriend, don’t you?”

“…Uh, just because I have a boyfriend doesn’t mean I can’t look at handsome guys? Blame Jin Yang for being too gorgeous—people like that make you fall for them at first sight for life.” Qiu Xue complained.

Wen Yan laughed at that.

“Who? Who’s too gorgeous? Who?!” Shao Tingyu leaned over and asked.

“No one… we were talking about a male celebrity.” Qiu Xue made something up on the spot.

“You two play on—I need to take a call.” Just as a new round of Avalon was about to start, Jiang Luer stood up and said, then soon click-clacked away in her high heels with an alluring sway.

Qiu Xue suddenly felt a little guilty. “You don’t think the chairperson heard me, do you?”

She’d heard some rumors about Jiang Luer and Jin Yang—that campus power couple. The gossip was that Jiang Luer was a Scorpio with an extremely strong possessive streak.

“Probably… not.” Wen Yan said, her brow furrowing slightly. “But Xuexue, you go ahead and play with them. My stomach’s feeling a bit off—I need to hit the restroom.”

“Huh? Okay, go ahead.” Qiu Xue replied.

Wen Yan rose from the sofa and left as well.

Not long after she left, Shao Tingyu edged a little closer to Qiu Xue’s seat. “First Jiang Luer leaves, and now Junior Wen follows? What’s going on?”

Qiu Xue said, “Nothing—Yanyan just went to the bathroom.”

…

Once she got to the restroom, Wen Yan realized her period had started. Luckily, she had pads in her bag—her cycle always came around the middle of the month. But on top of her period, she also had a bit of an upset stomach.

After she was done, she stepped back out onto the terrace. September had already turned to autumn, and the night was pleasantly cool. Moonlight poured down like woven silk, coating the spacious terrace in a silvery glow. As Wen Yan passed a table laden with all sorts of desserts, she paused, unable to resist reaching out and picking up a fine bone-china plate holding a vanilla-raspberry mousse ball.

Just as she lifted a forkful to her mouth, a young man in a sea-green T-shirt walked up to her. Wen Yan recognized him—it was Shao Tingyu, who’d been playing games with them earlier.

“Why haven’t you gone back inside? Eating out here?” Shao Tingyu asked.

Wen Yan was about to say she’d head back after finishing, but Shao Tingyu spoke first: “You’re hungry, right? Me too.” With that, he also reached for a vanilla-raspberry mousse. “But we’d better save room—there’s barbecue coming up later.”

“Mm.” Wen Yan nodded, forking another bite into her mouth. This time she took a bigger piece.

Her gaze was suddenly drawn to a tall building far off in the distance.

This building looked like a giant rocket poised for launch, its entire body radiating a subdued blue technological glow that traced and outlined its modern, sharply angled contours. It stood especially towering in the night, with a massive, highly recognizable sailboat logo floating at its very top. The building was strikingly prominent in the CBD and towered far above the surrounding structures.

Wen Yan recognized that logo—Yaoheng Group.

Noticing that Wen Yan was looking across the way, Shao Tingyu also turned his gaze toward the towering buildings beyond the hotel. Yaoheng’s headquarters was the most eye-catching, and it gave him an idea for something to talk about with Wen Yan. He said to her, “Let me tell you some inside info—but don’t go spreading it around.”

Wen Yan turned her head. “What?”

“You know why our chairperson Jiang Luer is so loaded? Because her mom is Fu Baoxin, the chairman of Jin’ao Optoelectronics, and her dad is a major light-industry tycoon in Mingcheng. She also has a pretty impressive uncle—her uncle is Fu Lanzhuo, the chairman of Yaoheng Group.”

“…”

Wen Yan’s fingers tightened slightly around the bone-china plate.

Seeing her seem stunned, Shao Tingyu curved his lips into a smile. “Pretty surprising, right? And there’s something else—Jiang Luer and I go way back. We’re practically childhood friends, we—”

“Minister!” Before Shao Tingyu could finish, a female student appeared behind him and called out. Shao Tingyu’s body stiffened slightly as he turned around.

“Junior Zhou? What’s up, Junior Zhou?” He greeted her.

The girl glanced at Wen Yan, then said to Shao Tingyu, “I have a question for you, Minister.”

“Oh? What is it?”

Seeing the two of them start chatting, Wen Yan didn’t interrupt. She took her unfinished vanilla-raspberry mousse and left.

Shao Tingyu watched Wen Yan’s retreating figure and wanted to call her back. He opened his mouth, but the words wouldn’t come out.

“Minister, which student council department has the most members? Or are they all about the same? Can you tell me, Minister?” The girl in front of him pressed.

…

Ten at night.

The party’s fervent energy came to a halt. The crystal light strings that had glowed like daylight in the night still shone on, but the crowd on the terrace was steadily thinning. The pool’s surface, no longer churned by playful figures, returned to a mirror-like calm.

At this moment, Wen Yan was in a restroom stall, sitting on the toilet, her hands gripping the fabric of her skirt over her knees so tightly her knuckles went white.

When you’re on your period, you have to watch what you eat—no cold drinks, for instance. But earlier while playing the game, she’d forgotten and had downed an iced beverage out of thirst. Now she was paying for it with excruciating abdominal cramps.

On top of that, her stomach wasn’t feeling too great either.

Her phone buzzed—a WeChat message from Qiu Xue.

【Yanyan, are you done yet? Zou Feng came to pick me up—he’s already downstairs at the hotel.】

Wen Yan typed back: 【You go ahead first, Xuexue. We’re not going the same way anyway—I’m heading back to school.】

Qiu Xue didn’t stay on campus on weekends; her family lived in Dongcheng District, while Qinghua was in Haidian—completely opposite directions.

Qiu Xue: 【Alright… I’ll head off then. Looks like almost everyone’s gone. Take care getting back to school by yourself!】

Wen Yan: 【Mmhm.】

By the time Wen Yan came out of the restroom, most people had already cleared out. There were still a few faces she recognized from having seen them on the terrace earlier, but she couldn’t put names to them and they weren’t familiar with each other, so Wen Yan didn’t go over to talk. She headed to the elevator alone.

By this hour, Subway Line 4—which could take her straight to Qinghua’s gate—had already stopped running. Only buses were available, so Wen Yan made her way toward the bus stop.

She’d checked on her map app—the nearby Route 17 could take her to Qinghua. Just then, she spotted a Route 17 bus pulling up at the stop, and on instinct, she started running.

She didn’t catch it. She only caught its tail—the bus hadn’t stopped for long before closing its doors and pulling away.

When Wen Yan came to a stop, she was gasping for breath.

She caught a faint whiff of cigarette smoke. Not long after, that smoky smell drifted closer to her side, and only then did Wen Yan notice there were five or six guys at the bus stop too—all with huge tattooed arms, one of them shirtless, and three with bleached-yellow hair. On top of the pungent cigarette smoke, they reeked of heavy alcohol.

Wen Yan instinctively clutched her canvas tote bag tighter and quietly shuffled a few steps to the side, putting more distance between herself and them.

But the group edged back toward her.

Wen Yan suddenly decided she didn’t want to take the bus anymore—she’d call a ride back to school. But when she looked up, there wasn’t a single taxi in sight on the road.

All the vehicles passing by were private cars.

“Little miss, all alone?”

“Where ya headed?”

One of the guys, a cigarette dangling from his lips, asked her.

He was getting closer.

Wen Yan ignored him and prepared to leave the area.

A glaring pair of headlights suddenly blazed on, the car almost screeching to a stop right in front of her.

Wen Yan squinted to make out the vehicle that had pulled up in front of her, and saw the driver get out.

The man was dressed all in black, his face sunk in shadow, an icy aura radiating from him. His gaze swept casually over the tattooed crew, and his voice, as cold as frozen steel, said to her:

“Get in.”