Surrounded by Wolves
Jiang Wu’s lashes trembled. She wasn’t quite sure what Huo Lingyi meant. But it surely couldn’t be that.
Jiang Wu found a suitable line. “They’re all no fun. Busy talking business, no time for me.” She was avoiding mentioning Huo Qingzhi, afraid she’d give something away, so she steered the topic aside. “The French, though, are much more interesting.”
Huo Lingyi listened. “How so?”
“They’re very open, very bold, ” Jiang Wu said vaguely, testing the waters. “I even saw someone the other day. He let a girl sit on him. At first I thought they were a couple,” Jiang Wu said, applying the medicine for Huo Lingyi, letting it out with feigned carelessness. “Then I heard the girl call him ‘brother’.”
Huo Lingyi didn’t answer her question right away. He only looked at her.
Under his gaze, Jiang Wu felt uncomfortable all over. She went back over her own words and thought there was nothing in them that would slip. She added uneasily, “That sort of thing isn’t right, is it? It isn’t appropriate.”
But Huo Lingyi said, out of nowhere, “How was she sitting on him?” He looked at her and spread his hands. “Demonstrate.”
Jiang Wu choked and pulled his hand back down. “Don’t move around.” She stammered, “They… just sat like that.”
“Between family who grew up together from childhood, being a little close is perfectly normal.” Huo Lingyi mused, with a trace of his habitual coaxing deception. “A brother and sister can hold hands, hug, even kiss on the cheek from the time they’re small. Didn’t we do that all the time when we were little? What’s the problem with it? If it’s only resting for a while, what problem could there be?”
It sounded familiar. Huo Lingyi had often said them to her when they were small. And so Jiang Wu had formed the habits, holding her brother’s hand when they went out to play, asking her brother to carry her, rewarding her brother with kisses on the cheek. But now it was different.
Just as Jiang Wu’s thoughts were in disorder, she heard Huo Lingyi’s next sentence. “Or perhaps ‘brother’ is only what she calls him. If they have no blood relation… Then nothing they do is going too far.”
Jiang Wu’s chest tightened slightly. She finished applying his medicine. Huo Lingyi stood, opened the window to air out the smell of the ointment, then took out a scented candle and set it beside them. He switched on the candle lamp.
Huo Lingyi went on. “If one day you’re worn out from playing outside, and there’s no proper place to rest. You can rest on me too. Use me however you like.”
Jiang Wu declined tactfully. “That won’t be necessary.”
Huo Lingyi asked, “Have you grown distant with me?”
“No.”
The melting oil of the scented lamp spread through the air. Huo Lingyi said, looking at the lamp, “Still, that’s only my own view. If you really can’t work it out, then go search it up, see what other people say.”
Jiang Wu, hearing this, brushed her fingers lightly against her phone. “I just happened to see it; it isn’t such an important thing. Go look at that model first, see whether you like it.”
Huo Lingyi looked at her a moment longer before walking over to the shelves. While his back was turned, Jiang Wu picked up her phone and started searching. [brother-sister relationship]
Third Brother was right. Rather than spending all day letting her mind run wild, judging whether this thing was right or not, she might as well go see what everyone had to say. Just as Jiang Wu was earnestly waiting for an answer.
Under the topic of brother-sister relationships, a heavily upvoted post came up on the screen. [Our red thread is hidden in our veins]
Jiang Wu:?
She was dazed for a while, then scrolled through the recommendations with a peculiar look on her face. A screen full of [BG] [Pseudo-Incest] [Recommendations]. [An older brother with a younger sister really is the tastiest!!!] Everywhere, filthy-minded girls out hunting for a meal. Jiang Wu revised her keywords several more times and finally got some normal answers.
Huo Lingyi wasn’t in any hurry. He poured Jiang Wu a glass of milk and set it beside her.
Jiang Wu came back to herself, turned her phone face-down over the screenful of unmentionable posts, and asked about the gift she’d given him. “How is it? Do you like the model?”
Huo Lingyi looked at her and said, with an unreadable weight, “I like it.”
“That’s good, then.” Jiang Wu picked up the milk he had handed her and drank it, covering her embarrassment as she went.
Once Huo Lingyi had gone to assemble the model, Jiang Wu picked up her phone again and curled into the sofa to read posts. Perhaps she was tired, or perhaps it was that she couldn’t find many proper posts. She began to grow drowsy, and still wouldn’t give up.
A long time passed. In the whole room, there was nothing left but the faint sound of Huo Lingyi fitting the model together. The warm fragrance of the sleep-aiding scent spread slowly through the air. Huo Lingyi, counting the time, got up. As expected, he saw the person already asleep on his sofa. From a distance, he looked at that pair of shapely legs curled on the sofa. The phone slipped from Jiang Wu’s palm and fell into the crack of the sofa.
He didn’t go over right away. Instead, carrying the secret pleasure of having, within all his precise calculation and scheming, finally gotten her to sleep here in his room, he admired her for a long while. She slept quietly, not in the least aware of the strangeness around her, nor of that increasingly obvious air of danger.
The man walked to her side and bent down. Long fingers brushed aside the loose strands falling across her cheek, revealing that bright face that haunted a man’s dreams. The backs of his fingers scraped over the pale skin, accusing her. “Ah Wu left me behind again.” Huo Lingyi felt the warm, smooth touch of his fingertips. “I want so badly to lock Ah Wu up somewhere with me, where no one can find her. Then you wouldn’t abandon me and go running around with those two.”
Huo Lingyi was very satisfied. The person now deep in sleep wouldn’t refuse him, wouldn’t push him away. Still less would she stop to think about whether the relationship between them was right. He smiled, interrogating the sleeping person, and the words came out sinister. “So… which brother made you feel it had gone past the line?”
“Let me guess.” Huo Lingyi propped her up, let her lean against his chest, and slowly stroked her cheek. “Eldest Brother? Second Brother? Or both.”
“Not going to say?” Huo Lingyi took hold of her jaw. “Then if I have to guess it myself, it won’t be so simple.”
In her dreams, Jiang Wu felt a strong sense of being pressed down. She made two soft sounds. But she didn’t wake. In her haze, she seemed able to hear the voice outside.
Huo Lingyi lowered his head and looked at her lightly knitted brows. “Huo Yingli? The good brother who agreed to let Ah Wu freeload off him.” Almost at the same moment, Huo Lingyi felt a faint tremor pass through the person in his arms. “How do I know?” He began to laugh, answering as though he could hold a conversation with her. “Because there’s a bug I’ve planted on Second Brother. I heard everything.”
The force of Huo Lingyi’s hand didn’t ease but grew heavier. ” And his talk of a bracelet that stays on forever, hearing it made me want to put a chain on you too.”
“As for Eldest Brother…” Huo Lingyi felt some regret when he came to this. It wasn’t easy to plant a bug on Eldest Brother. But if it wasn’t something Huo Yingli had done, then it was something Huo Qingzhi had done.
So… “That brother who trapped his sister on his lap, wasn’t it? He crossed the line too. Only I haven’t…” From childhood, Eldest Brother had a father, Second Brother had a mother; only he had neither.
Huo Lingyi gripped her chin. ” Only I haven’t. But not only I can’t, Ah Wu.”
The room was silent, without a sound. The next instant, a faint click broke it. The door to Huo Lingyi’s room was opened without any warning. Huo Lingyi raised his head impatiently, as though he could already guess who it was, and looked at Huo Qingzhi standing in his doorway. “Eldest Brother, this is very rude of you.”
In the whole family, only one person had the authority to force his way into his room. Huo Qingzhi looked at the way Huo Lingyi was gripping Jiang Wu. “What are you doing?”
Huo Lingyi made no attempt at all to conceal his behavior. “Ah Wu fell asleep here.”
Huo Qingzhi thought he hadn’t changed in the slightest since he was small. From childhood, Huo Lingyi had liked to sneak the sleeping Jiang Wu away and hide her, keeping her in his own place. It had made Jiang Yaping and Huo Tingshan think several times over that Jiang Wu was lost. The whole household would search high and low.
Huo Qingzhi believed that, in the beginning, Huo Lingyi’s behavior had served the same purpose as smashing a vase to draw the adults’ attention. When they came looking for Jiang Wu, they would pay a little more attention to him. But reality often runs contrary to a child’s thinking. They would only think of him all the more as a child who didn’t know better. And under that vicious circle.
Huo Qingzhi, afraid he would develop ill will toward their young sister, tried to understand him. But the one who understood Huo Lingyi before he did was Jiang Wu.
She would always, amid all the noise and accusations, stand on Huo Lingyi’s side. “I was the one who wanted to play with Brother. I like playing hide-and-seek with Brother. Anywhere Brother takes me is fine.”
And when Huo Lingyi asked her why she spoke up for him, she retorted, “Brother stays with me, isn’t that because he likes me?” Then she patted his face and said, “I like you too.”
No one could resist that. Huo Qingzhi understood.
So, Huo Qingzhi walked straight into the room, straightening his cuffs. “Brat, I don’t feel like beating you today. Be sensible and hand her over.”
Huo Lingyi had no intention of letting go. “Why should I give her to you? Who knows what bad things our seemingly respectable Eldest Brother will do once he’s taken Ah Wu back.”
Huo Qingzhi didn’t waste any more words on him and strode forward. He bent down, his arm passing naturally beneath the crook of Jiang Wu’s knees, and as he moved to lift her, he felt resistance from Huo Lingyi pressing down on her waist.
Jiang Wu was fast asleep.
The two strange forces around her felt like vines climbing upward from her legs, winding tightly around her. Neither side wanted to let go. She felt the possessiveness from both sides, her skin tingling as if being consumed, marked by a temperature she couldn’t place. The air was scorching.
Huo Qingzhi lowered his eyes and reminded him, “If you use any more force, she’ll wake up.”
Huo Lingyi raised a brow. “So, what if she wakes up? She chose to sleep here. Why would she pick me and not you? What did you do, Eldest Brother?”
Huo Qingzhi took a deep breath. What could be more insulting to a man’s pride than his wife running away from him, then falling asleep in another man’s room after complaining about him?
Huo Qingzhi stared at the person provoking him. “If you don’t want Ah Wu to find out that you once put a tracker on her…” His voice was soft, but the pressure behind it was heavy. “Then let go.”
Huo Lingyi’s expression immediately stiffened. When Huo Qingzhi reached for Jiang Wu again, Huo Lingyi could no longer hold on to her, and she was lifted away.
Huo Lingyi was unwilling to give up. “Eldest Brother, you’re scheming against me now? You knew I bugged Second Brother, but you never stopped me. Wasn’t that because you wanted to use me to keep track of what he might do with Ah Wu behind your back? Does Ah Wu know how scheming you are?”
Huo Qingzhi didn’t answer. “You were the one who planted it. Not me. Besides, that injury on your arm looks pretty deliberate too.”
Huo Lingyi didn’t deny that he had intentionally hurt himself. “So what? Ah Wu still worried about me. If she didn’t care about me, even being covered in injuries wouldn’t make her stay.”
The more Huo Qingzhi listened, the darker his gaze became. His arms tightened slightly around the person he was carrying.
In her sleep, Jiang Wu felt as though those vines had wound even tighter around her. As though they wanted to drag her back into their territory and trap her there.
Huo Qingzhi’s steps slowed as he passed the entryway, only to find someone standing in front of him. He frowned, startled out of his thoughts. Behind him, Huo Lingyi also looked surprised when he saw the newcomer.
“Why are you here?”
Wen Ciying looked over the scene with great interest and said dryly, “Brothers are so thoughtful. You don’t need to worry about her. I’ll take Ah Wu back to rest.”
Everyone in the household gave her some respect. Wen Ciying was the least likely to make demands, and even Huo Lingyi, who argued with everyone, couldn’t help but give in.
The next morning, Jiang Wu woke up exactly where she had hoped, in Wen Ciying’s room. She stretched, rolled over, and ended up resting her head on Wen Ciying’s arm. She woke from the movement and opened her eyes sleepily.
Jiang Wu looked at her and murmured a greeting. “Morning…” Half of Jiang Wu’s face disappeared beneath the blanket as she freely praised her. “bb, your bed is so soft and smells so nice. I love it.”
Then, still half asleep, Jiang Wu heard Wen Ciying say, “If you woke up in your Eldest Brother’s bed this morning, would you say the same thing?”
Jiang Wu instantly woke up. She widened her eyes and stared at Wen Ciying for a moment before sitting up. “Why would you say that? How would I wake up in… Wasn’t I yesterday…”
Her words abruptly stopped. After thinking for a moment, she realized she had no memory of going to sleep. The last thing she remembered was reading posts in Third Brother’s room and then falling asleep.
Jiang Wu moved her lips. Among the countless questions she wanted to ask, she suddenly realized something. “Is… is Eldest Brother… back?”
Wen Ciying nodded, giving her a look of someone enjoying the drama, then got out of bed. “You’re that scared he came back?”
“No.” Jiang Wu stubbornly denied it. “I knew he’d come back sooner or later. I’m not scared.”
Wen Ciying asked, “Come back to do what?”
Jiang Wu did not answer. She walked into the bathroom and pretended to brush her teeth, effectively blocking her own mouth.
After learning that Huo Qingzhi was back, Jiang Wu began avoiding leaving the room. She stayed inside and refused to go out.
At lunchtime, Huo Qingzhi sat in the living room reading a briefing while listening to the housekeeper and butler talking after coming downstairs.
“The Young Ladies aren’t coming down for lunch?”
“No. They ordered food. I’ll bring it upstairs later.”
Huo Qingzhi knew exactly why Jiang Wu wasn’t coming down.
What he didn’t know was how she had developed this bad habit of running whenever there was a problem and hiding from him whenever she was upset.
It needed to change.
Huo Qingzhi wasn’t in a hurry. He leaned back and continued reading the paper. Just then, Huo Tingshan came downstairs with a stern expression and a very dark face.
The butler quickly asked, “Sir, will you be having lunch at home?”
Huo Tingshan waved a hand. “No.”
“And Madam…”
“Madam?” Huo Tingshan sounded helpless. “Madam is probably in Monaco by now. Forget lunch.”
The butler understood. “Another argument?”
Huo Tingshan suppressed his temper. “She’s a grown woman and still runs away from home whenever she gets upset. Look away for one second, and she’s gone.”
After saying that, Huo Tingshan noticed Huo Qingzhi staring at him. He couldn’t resist defending himself. “What are you looking at? You haven’t started a family yet. You’ll understand when it happens to you.”
Huo Qingzhi looked away. Now he knew who Jiang Wu had learned it from.
Huo Tingshan gave the butler a few instructions, then said a couple more things to Huo Qingzhi before hurriedly leaving.
When Jiang Yaping ran away, it wasn’t the same as an ordinary person leaving home in a temper.
During the first two years of their marriage, he had assumed she was simply angry and would come back once she calmed down. Later, he discovered that once Jiang Yaping left, she genuinely went off to enjoy herself. She really could live without him.
Before Wenni’s accident, she could still help him coax his wife and was a good daughter who helped keep the marriage together. After that incident, the frequency of Jiang Yaping arguing with him rose sharply, and his precious Wenni no longer had time to help smooth things over.
Those three useless boys were absolutely no help when it came to marital relations.
At noon, after lunch, Jiang Wu was still debating whether she should return to her own room when the butler came upstairs to call them. Standing in the doorway, Jiang Wu looked surprised. “Aunt is here?”
“Yes.” The butler smiled. “She arrived rather suddenly. Sir and Madam are both out.”
Meaning that the younger generation needed to go downstairs and greet her. Otherwise, it would seem rude.
Jiang Wu agreed and asked Wen Ciying if she wanted to come down too. Wen Ciying vaguely remembered this aunt. She seemed much more pleasant than the group of uncles.
Wen Ciying didn’t dislike her, but she had always believed the family’s social obligations had nothing to do with her and couldn’t be bothered participating. “You go.”
Jiang Wu didn’t force her. By the time she went downstairs, the living room was already full of people. Even though Jiang Wu had prepared herself, seeing Huo Qingzhi there still made her heart sink. She tried not to show anything unusual. But her aunt still noticed her discomfort and teased, “Why is Ah Wu suddenly acting shy?” She patted the seat beside her. “Come sit here. I came today specifically because of you.”
Jiang Wu blinked. “Me?”
“Yes.” Her aunt pulled her closer. “That painting you stopped from being auctioned in Paris belonged to the Su family of Hai City. As it happens, I know Elder Su. He called me and said that when the painting enters Hong Kong through customs and goes through museum inspection, they may need you there.”
Jiang Wu immediately became interested. “Of course I’d be willing. But it still depends on the arrangements of the relevant staff.” After all, she had only just joined the museum. She might not necessarily be assigned to a project of this level.
“Elder Su has already contacted them. They need to assign an appraiser anyway, and you were the one who wrote the report in Paris, so you’re naturally more suitable than anyone else. In a little while, the old man will also come to Hong Kong. When he does, Aunt will take you to meet him.”
The butler brought over some washed cherries. They chatted and ate at the same time. Jiang Wu casually reached for a tissue, then realized the tissues were on Huo Qingzhi’s side. She pressed her lips together and instinctively glanced in his direction. Her gaze met the man’s, who seemed to have already been waiting.
Jiang Wu casually looked away. Just as she was about to give up on the tissue, Huo Qingzhi reached out and passed it over. There was one person seated between them.
The distance was neither close nor far. Just right. Jiang Wu paused for two seconds. Huo Qingzhi didn’t move either. Jiang Wu could only reach out and take it. As though afraid of touching him, she carefully avoided his hand and turned back to continue talking with her aunt.
Even though their parents weren’t home for dinner, guests still had to be properly entertained. As the eldest son in the family, Huo Qingzhi took on their parents’ role and had the kitchen prepare dinner.
A child from their aunt’s family came over and pestered Huo Lingyi to show him his race car. Jiang Wu stayed in the living room alone with her aunt.
When elders cared about younger relatives, there were only so many things they tended to ask about. As they chatted, her aunt lowered her voice and said, “When you went to Paris, Madame Abel told me that you seemed to be seeing someone?”
Jiang Wu choked on the juice she had just swallowed and coughed several times. “What do you mean, seeing someone?”
“She said she saw you wearing a pink diamond, and that it looked like the final lot from a previous jewelry auction.” The more Aunt spoke, the more excited she became. “I’ve seen that one before too.”
Unfortunately, at that exact moment, Jiang Wu saw Huo Yingli coming back from outside. Jiang Wu’s heart skipped. She still remembered how Huo Yingli had deliberately taken her to that jewelry exhibition just to find out who had given her the pink diamond. He had questioned her about it for two whole days.
Jiang Wu’s first instinct was to hide. She reluctantly answered Aunt, “No. It belongs to a friend. I’m just borrowing it. Hey, how’s dinner coming along? I’m starving.” Jiang Wu hurriedly found an excuse. “I’ll go check. You sit here.”
As Huo Yingli entered, he caught sight of Jiang Wu practically fleeing. He paused at the door, narrowed his eyes slightly, then smiled at Aunt. “Aunt, long time no see.”
Aunt immediately called him over. “Perfect timing. Ah Wu refuses to tell me. Quick, tell me. Is Ah Wu seeing someone?”
Huo Yingli chuckled. It turns out she was afraid to talk about this.
Jiang Wu thought she had escaped the trouble in the living room, only to remember halfway there. She was heading in Huo Qingzhi’s direction. Her steps stopped abruptly. Just as she was about to turn around, she heard Huo Yingli’s voice from not far away.
“I asked her too. She wouldn’t say.”
Jiang Wu turned back and reluctantly headed toward the kitchen. Fortunately, Huo Qingzhi wasn’t there. That made things much easier. She pretended to be perfectly calm and chatted with the chefs for a while, but the kitchen was too smoky, so she had to leave. One of the chefs told her there was a chocolate ice-cream cake in the tea room refrigerator that Aunt’s family had brought over.
Jiang Wu immediately became interested and wandered over. Unexpectedly, the moment she pushed open the door to the tea room, she saw Huo Qingzhi inside. He was wiping down a knife he had just washed, and a chocolate cake sat beside him. Hearing the door, he didn’t even look up. “What do you want?”
Jiang Wu felt that shutting the door and immediately leaving would look too obvious, so she walked in. She tore her gaze away from the cake and lied, “A drink.”
“In the refrigerator.”
“Oh.”
He said nothing else. Strange.
Jiang Wu walked to the refrigerator, opened it, and started choosing a drink. She took her favorite lemonade, then began picking out drinks for the guests as well. From time to time, she listened to the sound of Huo Qingzhi cutting the cake beside her. Before long, more and more bottles had piled up in her arms. Then she spotted a bottle of plum wine in the refrigerator.
Just as Jiang Wu reached for it, one of the drinks in her arms began to roll free. Before she could catch it, a large hand appeared in front of her and steadily caught the falling bottle.
Jiang Wu was stunned for a moment. At some point, Huo Qingzhi had come up behind her without her noticing. He held onto the cabinet door with one hand while the other caught the bottle for her. Once again, she had that strange feeling of being trapped in a small space and unable to move.
Jiang Wu looked at the hand in front of her. Cold air spilled from the open refrigerator, while the warmth of the man behind her was impossible to ignore. She wanted to quietly say thank you, but somehow couldn’t get the words out.
Huo Qingzhi took the bottle. “If you couldn’t carry all of this, why didn’t you call me?” As he spoke, he took another bottle from her arms.
Jiang Wu didn’t understand why he paused at first. Then she realized he was simply waiting for her to loosen her grip and hand the bottles over. She quickly transferred the rest into his arms. “Then you carry them.”
Jiang Wu wanted to leave, but Huo Qingzhi, who was blocking the refrigerator door, didn’t leave her any way out. A sense of crisis began to creep into her mind.
The culprit calmly arranged the bottles into a basket beside him and said, “It’s not appropriate to always sleep in other people’s rooms. When are you coming back to sleep?”
Jiang Wu instinctively glanced toward the tea-room entrance. She hadn’t closed the door when she came in. Anyone could walk past and hear them. “Aunt is still waiting for me outside. I’ll go first…”
Jiang Wu had barely taken a step when Huo Qingzhi stopped her. He asked again, “When are you coming back to sleep?”
Jiang Wu didn’t want to answer, but she couldn’t avoid it forever. She certainly couldn’t stay in Wen Ciying’s room permanently. And when she returned to work on Monday, she would have to move back to Kowloon Tong because it was more convenient for commuting.
Helpless, Jiang Wu lowered her voice. “When we get home… will you do something worse to me?”