After Reuniting, My Beautiful Ex-Lover Fishes for Me Every Day - Chapter 1

Chapter 1: Distressed

Nine in the evening was originally supposed to be the most boisterous time in Ning City, but due to an early-warning rainstorm, the entire city appeared less lively than usual on the surface.

The popular energy had vanished from the streets, and the intricate alleys of the Old District became a “feng shui” treasure land for stray animals to seek shelter from the rain. Inside a trash can in a certain “Dead End” alley hid a litter of feral cats; following a sharp cry from the mother cat, this trash can, which had stood firm throughout the entire storm, was suddenly overturned by a powerful external force.

Clang! With a loud crash, a human-shaped black shadow plummeted straight down from mid-air, smashing solidly onto the tilted trash can. The mother cat shrieked and fled in a panic, and the kittens shaken out were instantly soaked by the rain, emitting several weak whimpers.

“…”

Wei Changli, who had been kicked in the chest by someone, hissed as he sucked in a breath of cold air from the pain. However, the animal cries interspersed within the rumbling rain briefly pulled his consciousness back. The young man extremely quickly cast a sliver of his gaze toward the surrounding environment behind him, then slowly raised his head. The rain reflected a dark red wound on his forehead, where a dull green diamond-shaped glass fragment was embedded in the skin and flesh.

A group of thugs had cornered him in the dead-end alley in a semi-circle. This group came with ill intent, their distorted shadows cast upon the narrow walls of the alley by the flickering streetlights at the entrance.

“Still running, Young Master? Weren’t you quite capable just now? Let’s see where else you can escape to.”

The man in the lead let out a sinister laugh, the torrential rain flowing down the distorted muscles of his face in streaks of cold light. Like a large predator toying with captured prey, he crouched down and forcefully grabbed the other’s chin, admiring his cold expression washed by the rain.

At this moment, upon Wei Changli’s pale face hung a pair of burning red eyes and brows; his lips even displayed a fresh, honey-like luster. This color, utterly out of place with the rest of his body, was abrupt and gaudy—he had been drugged with aphrodisiacs by these scumbags.

“Boss, this type is really hard to come by; you wouldn’t find one this fresh even searching with a lantern in the clubs…”

The floral-tattooed, muscular man standing next to the thug leader licked his lips quite lewdly at the young man before them. While rubbing his hands together, he said impatiently: “The people above said to ‘teach him a good lesson,’ so can us brothers tonight—”

“Look at your impatient, bird-like state, thinking about nothing but the thing between your legs all day! Keep shouting and I’ll cut your ‘stuff’ off first to feed the dogs!”

The thug leader cursed while crouching, then turned his head and roared: “What the hell are you still standing there for? Bring the rope! This brat isn’t well-behaved; damn it, he could run this far even after being drugged. If we hadn’t cornered him in a dead end, and if I hadn’t bashed his head with a wine bottle, would you have been able to catch him?!”

Hearing this, the tattooed man immediately looked sheepish. He obediently handed a bundle of coarse hemp rope to the thug leader and retreated to the side with a hunched back. The leader gripped Wei Changli’s arm, intending to pin his hands behind his back, but at that exact moment, the muscles around the man’s eyes suddenly tightened—a premonition of ominous coldness struck his crown along with the rain—

This young man, who was originally slumped on the ground and appeared to have lost all ability to resist, suddenly exerted force. Using a nimble and tricky strength, he gripped and pressed the maimen (pulse gate) in the center of the man’s forearm. In an instant, the thug leader felt a burst of sour numbness rise from his arm and spread to half his body; his hand holding the rope loosened uncontrollably!

“I’ll @ your *% ‘s *!”

The leader cried out in pain. The tattooed man closest to him sensed something was wrong and immediately moved forward to assist. Following that, a sharp wind pierced through the rain and mist; the hemp rope he had just personally handed over lashed back cruelly across his own face. One whip had just landed when another rose with lightning speed, precisely striking his eyeball!

Accompanying the tattooed man’s pig-like screams, Wei Changli scrambled up from the ground. He wiped the wet rain from his face and ruthlessly pulled the glass shard from the wound on his forehead. A moist, hot crimson liquid meandered from his brow to his eyelashes, and those shimmering eyes seemed to be quenched in blood.

Before anyone could react to the sudden turn of events, the young man pressed the sharp fragment—capable of slicing a human artery—against the side of the thug leader’s neck.

“Don’t move.”

His voice was hoarse, yet the tone was very young, creating a powerful contrast with the merciless movements of his hands.

The thugs were intimidated by the tattooed man’s screams and concerned for their boss’s life; for a moment, no one dared to move.

The stinging pain of the sharp tool piercing his skin shot straight to his brain nerves. For a second, the leader felt his hair stand on end. This brat, who looked like he had no combat ability, had actually precisely pressed the fragment against his carotid sinus; one second and he could be sent to meet God.

In an instant, the identities of prey and hunter were swapped. The previously expressionless Wei Changli lightly curled his lips. The touch of red at the corners of his eyes took on an eerie luster in the gloomy rainy night, like a totem painted for ancient sacrifices:

“There are many people who want my life right now, but unrefined trash like you is a rare sight. You aren’t here seeking revenge because of the Wei family… So, have I offended you before?”

Of the two main figures of this thug gang, one was held hostage as the new “hostage,” and the other was rolling on the ground in pain from having his most fragile eye whipped by the hemp rope. The rest were nothing more than a disorganized rabble with no real combat power; they looked at each other in dismay, none daring to act rashly.

Wei Changli waited for them for a few seconds without much patience. Seeing no response, he pressed the glass fragment a bit deeper into the leader’s neck. The restrained man’s Adam’s apple bobbed, his eyes reflecting a fear as cold as the night rain.

Dark red blood was dispersed into silken textures by the pouring rain. The carotid sinus, under pressure, faithfully reacted to the change in external force, causing the heightened blood pressure to drop to a precarious threshold.

“Let go of our boss… You, you-you know that doing this… is against the law!”

A slightly panicked voice squeezed out from one of the small-time lackeys.

Wei Changli spoke indifferently: “Your legal awareness is quite strong then.”

“Let go of our boss and we won’t settle scores with you!”

Another voice followed immediately.

As the former young master of the Wei family—once one of the four great families of Ning City—Wei Changli had experienced a kidnapping as a child. After being rescued, the family assigned specialists to teach him martial arts and combat. A person who has undergone long-term training can easily discern whether others have a foundation; thus, he saw at a glance that besides the leader and the tattooed man, the others were just empty bluffs… and very spineless bluffs at that.

So, Wei Changli asked again: “Who instructed you?”

“It was that guy surnamed Shen, Manager Shen. Specifically, we don’t know much; he just gave us the drug and said it worked as fast as knockout drops—one cover of the mouth and he’d know nothing… who would have thought…”

One person spoke first, but his voice grew lower and lower, finally stealing a glance at the young man through the curtain of rain.

Manager Shen.

Wei Changli’s eyelids pressed down slightly as a greasy, lecherous face flashed through his mind.

But he didn’t delve further, silently adjusting his breathing.

The presence of the powder he had accidentally inhaled into his lungs was indeed becoming stronger. Wei Changli could feel the drug taking root and sprouting in his body, like countless malicious roots “disciplining” his every nerve until they bloomed into gaudy, inferior flowers, reducing him to a vessel for desire.

He did not linger for the fight. He knocked out the strongest combatant, the leader, with a hand-blade strike, then turned around and leaned down, appearing to pick something up from the overturned trash can.

The thugs immediately became alert, fearing there might be some discarded baseball bat or iron rod—something even more handy—inside the trash can. Several lackeys on the periphery took the opportunity to bolt; an impulse to flee in total defeat spread among the thugs.

Wei Changli was certain they didn’t have the guts to act. Following the weak, dying sounds, he found the three kittens soaked through by the rain in a puddle of mud. Just now he had only caught a brief glimpse; only now did he realize these kittens were even younger than he imagined—they hadn’t even opened their eyes.

The chance of survival was slim.

Wei Changli’s eyelashes trembled gently. The gaze fixed on the little creatures was focused and calm, as if he were evaluating whether the probability of survival was higher if he took them away or if he gambled on the mother cat returning. Then, he reached out and scooped up all three kittens; only a thread of body temperature remained on their rain-soaked fur.

Wei Changli tucked the kittens into his bosom. When he turned back, he saw that the thugs who had just blocked the alley entrance were gone. To avoid drawing his attention, they hadn’t even dragged away their boss who was fainted on the ground.

“…”

Wei Changli took off his jacket and, using the hemp rope, made a simple cloth bag. He put the three kittens inside and walked out of the alley alone.

The rain that night grew even heavier. The ground-sweeping wind danced into small-scale tornadoes in the empty streets. The nighttime temperature dropped lower and lower, the chill stabbing into his skin through his pores. After walking a hundred meters, Wei Changli finally realized a most serious problem:

He didn’t know the way around the Old District.

Not long ago, Wei Changli was still a young master of a wealthy house with a private car; in his whole life, he had rarely stepped into this land awaiting demolition. Even though he had moved into a low-rent apartment here, his seclusion over the past week made him like a small insect stuck to a vast spiderweb—he simply lacked the ability to navigate out of these urban ruins independently.

Wei Changli pulled his phone from his pocket. The meager remaining battery on the screen and the signal—which was approaching zero—were blurred by the rain. The glowing light appeared weak and tiny in the deep night, liable to be swallowed by the endless darkness at any moment.

Worse still, the presence of the aphrodisiac drugs absorbed into his body became increasingly prominent. The dry heat rising from the bottom of his abdomen clamored as it flooded into his four limbs and hundred bones. He felt like a roasted shrimp that had just come out of the oven only to be placed in a refrigerator—the sensation of “ice and fire” tortured him almost to the point of madness.

If someone had told him half a month ago that in half a month’s time he would be a homeless wanderer in the middle of the night, with a “certain” hellish buff included as a surprise, Wei Changli would surely have thrown out a few bills to tell that person to go to the psychiatric department to get their brain checked—

However, worldly affairs are unpredictable. The Wei family, once one of the four great families of Ning City, could be completely annihilated in a single night, and the former noble son of a wealthy house could become the mud under anyone’s shoe.

On the empty, deserted street, Wei Changli was like a lonely ghost about to dissipate in the rainy night. He endured the physical discomfort as he wandered through the labyrinthine old town, ultimately failing to find the way back to the low-rent apartment.

He had no choice but to collapse into a narrow alley, similar to the previous one, just before his strength was exhausted, allowing the rain to drench him in a stupor.

The brick wall behind him was in disrepair; a protruding piece of masonry poked Wei Changli’s back painfully. Yet he did not resist this discomfort; being able to perceive the outside world was a signal to him that he hadn’t yet lost his sanity… though this signal was rapidly drifting away along with his conscious mind.

In his daze, Wei Changli suddenly felt a slight movement in his bosom. He forced his eyelashes open and looked down to see a kitten had somehow crawled out of the cloth bag. It was propping up its thin, bony paws and stretching its neck, constantly trying to burrow into his chest.

“Are you cold?”

Wei Changli hooked the kitten’s tail with his finger, then gathered it into his feverish palm.

“I’m sorry. If I’d known, I would have picked a different alley to run to.”

The kitten couldn’t understand human monologues, but the little thing was surprisingly obedient, nuzzling against Wei Changli’s palm.

“I have a cat at home too. If I don’t go back for this long, that ‘little ancestor’ will probably be getting anxious waiting…”

His tone drifted and softened; in the bleak night, he was like a flower rapidly withering.

Physical and mental strength reached their limit. The exhausted young man stopped speaking, his thin eyelids slowly drooping.

Suddenly, from the depths of the rainstorm, a massive roar of a car engine erupted. Like the bellowing of a steel beast, it rapidly approached. A beam of warm yellow headlight pierced the grey rain and mist. A black car body braked urgently at the alley entrance, the tires letting out an overburdened shriek as they rubbed against the ground.

His descending eyelashes stopped halfway. Wei Changli’s breath suddenly hitched.

A silhouette against the light descended like salvation.