Chapter 82: The Legendary Song Ziyue

This time, Tingting obediently finished her meal and then curled up beside Ling Tian to sleep. Perhaps she truly was exhausted; now that she was no longer hungry, the girl drifted off very quickly. Ling Tian could not bear to wake her and did not dare move at all, and before long he too fell asleep.

He slept wonderfully, not waking until nearly noon. Turning his head, he saw Tingting beside him, sleeping soundly with her arms wrapped around him, one slender little leg draped across his stomach. He nearly laughed. Luckily it was not pressing on any crucial part of him, or she would probably be clamoring for sausage again.

Tingting’s hair was scattered over his shoulder. Her little face was delicate, her lashes long, her skin fair, her lips pink. In sleep, she looked like a tiny angel.

Now, in the broad light of day, the mood had finally returned to normal. Ling Tian once more regarded Tingting as a little sister and no longer entertained any improper thoughts. Smiling, he lightly patted her cheek and said, “Tingting, time to get up. It’s morning already.”

“Mmm, big brother!” Tingting woke at once. Evidently she had been sleeping lightly, though she was still a little dazed. Only after seeing clearly that it was Ling Tian did she fully come to her senses. She had slept far too sweetly through the night.

Though a little embarrassed, Tingting quickly tidied herself, washed up, and changed into Song Xiaomei’s clothes. When the two of them appeared together, everyone was left staring in shock.

“Ling Tian! You could even lay hands on a girl this young?” Song Xiaomei was the first to demand an explanation.

“Boss, I never imagined you were into little girls. You’d even make a move on a brother’s younger sister?” Dai Jin had returned, and he too was stunned to see Ling Tian and Tingting emerging from the same room.

“Ling Tian, you’ve gone too far!” Lin Youya also joined in reproaching him. This time it was not jealousy; she had heard Tingting’s story from Song Xiaomei that morning and felt terribly sorry for the girl. She had never thought Ling Tian would take advantage of someone in such a moment.

Faced with everyone’s accusations, Ling Tian was speechless, at a loss for how to explain himself. Though he had not actually done anything to Tingting the night before, there had still been a little intimacy between them, and that had indeed gone beyond what was proper between brother and sister.

“I was scared last night, so I asked big brother to stay with me,” Tingting said at this moment, speaking up for Ling Tian. In truth, she also felt somewhat guilty. After all, she had held Ling Tian in her arms all night, and she really did like him.

“So that’s how it was. Still, Tingting, you need to be careful in the future. Don’t let him eat you alive. Ling Tian may be my brother-in-law, but he’s a complete lecher. You must watch out. In this whole world, a man as unmoved by temptation as our Shi Xiaocai is probably the only one left.”

Song Xiaomei could not get through three sentences without mentioning her Shi Xiaocai. In truth, she wished he were a little more lustful. Alas, he was far too composed in the face of temptation, and she still had not succeeded with him.

Everyone nodded in agreement at Song Xiaomei’s words. Ling Tian did not bother to argue. He was a lecher, certainly—but a lecher with taste. A girl like Song Xiaomei did not even catch his eye, though of course he dared not say that aloud.

After eating a little, Ling Tian received a call from Tiger. Song Ziyue had invited him, and he gladly went to meet her. Tingting was left in the care of Song Xiaomei and Lin Youya. The two girls, overflowing with sympathy, felt especially sorry for Tingting, so they took her out shopping for clothes, bringing Shi Xiaocai along as their attendant. Dai Jin and Yuanbao went off to continue collecting protection fees.

The place was an old abandoned factory, desolate and empty, with gloomy weather and bursts of cool wind.

This was where Song Ziyue had asked Ling Tian to come. An ordinary person would not have dared enter; the place had an eerie air to it. But who was Ling Tian? A man who dared beat ghosts and court a police beauty would naturally think nothing of such a place. On the contrary, he found Song Ziyue rather distinctive.

Step by step, Ling Tian entered the deserted factory. In the vast workshop, a few odds and ends were piled about. In the broad open center stood a lone figure with back turned to him, standing straight and looking out the window.

A white shirt, blue jeans, short hair, about five foot seven, neither fat nor thin. The clothing was ordinary, yet the whole person seemed anything but ordinary.

Standing there with back to Ling Tian, that figure possessed an air of transcendence, as though untouched by dust even in this forsaken factory. Ling Tian was momentarily dazed. Who was this? Such presence.

Presence and charm are things everyone carries, though each in a different way. Some rely on fine clothes and surroundings to set off their bearing; some surround themselves with followers to make themselves seem imposing.

But there is another kind of person: no matter what sort of environment they are in, no matter what they wear, even if they stand utterly alone between heaven and earth, they still possess a force that no one can ignore.

The person before him was exactly that sort, someone whose existence Ling Tian could not overlook. And those who could make him feel this way were rare—rare in his previous life and rare in this one.

By all rights, this should be Song Ziyue. Yet she was far too different from what Ling Tian had imagined.

In his imagination, Song Ziyue ought to have combined Lin Youya’s nobility, Li Youran’s reserve, Han Bing’s intelligence and voluptuous figure, with an extra trace of arrogance none of them possessed. That would be fitting for a female underworld boss.

The Song Ziyue before him, in terms of bearing, gave Ling Tian almost no sense of womanly softness. Yet she stirred in him a feeling of mutual recognition. For within that imposing silhouette was loneliness—the same kind of loneliness he had often known in his previous life.

“So, you came. You’re quite bold. Aren’t you afraid I might destroy you?” At last the figure turned around and looked at Ling Tian coldly, examining him carefully.

Ling Tian laughed. “To die beneath a peony is to die in romance. For the chance to meet the legendary Song Ziyue, even death would be worthwhile.”

From her voice, Ling Tian judged she was a woman. It was not seductive, but clear and pleasing to the ear. Since she was a woman, then she must be Song Ziyue.

After she turned, Ling Tian also studied this legendary girl with care. The lighting was poor, but her delicate features still stood out clearly to him. Then his gaze fell to her chest, which seemed rather flat. But who was Ling Tian? A miracle doctor. At a glance he could tell that she had bound herself there on purpose, making her breasts appear smaller.

In short, if the girl before him were carefully dressed up, she would certainly be an extraordinarily beautiful woman, especially because of that unmatched force in her very bones, a force that would conquer the hearts of many men.

Though many men do not like domineering women, if such a powerful great beauty were conquered in body and soul and made to submit upon one’s bed, there would still be no shortage of admirers. And this was the famous Song Ziyue.

Having finished his assessment, Ling Tian decided that this woman was fully qualified to be his wife. If she was a piece of uncut jade, then he was willing to be the one to carve her.

This was not the first time Song Ziyue had seen Ling Tian, but this time she looked at him very carefully as well. This man appeared as careless and unruly as ever, yet in his eyes she caught the scent of her own kind. He and she were the same sort of person: their outward temperaments were different, but in their souls there was something identical.

She was beginning to acknowledge him a little. Perhaps... perhaps it was time for her to find a man. Her heart trusted no man, yet her body still carried a vague longing. The only question was whether this man was truly worthy.

With that thought, Song Ziyue slowly walked up to Ling Tian. They stood very close now, seeing one another more clearly. She did not rein in her imposing presence, but it had no effect on Ling Tian. He was not one of her subordinates and feared her not in the slightest.

“I hear you’ve been going around saying you’re my boyfriend, saying I’m your woman?” Song Ziyue spoke again, her eyes fixed steadily on him. Ling Tian’s handsome face and flawless figure did please her rather well.

“I do say that often. Any beautiful woman I take a liking to, I mean to make my wife. And you, Yue’er, are one of my targets.”

Ling Tian spoke with complete honesty. He felt Song Ziyue was not an ordinary girl. He did not want to lie to her or speak in false, sugary terms such as calling her his one and only. He, Ling Tian, could not devote himself to only one woman, but any woman who became his, he would cherish well.

“Yue’er?” She gave a faint laugh. “It’s been a long time since anyone called me that. You are honest; not like certain men who make false promises of devotion. You make all this feel like a game. But let me ask you something: why do you want to pursue me? I don’t believe I’m beautiful. Is it because I’m the leader of the Purple Moon Gang, or because I’m the provincial party secretary’s daughter?”

Song Ziyue was a rational woman, not at all some love-struck fool. She did not believe Ling Tian truly liked her. The two of them had never had any intersection before. His behavior was nothing more than a man’s desire to conquer.

“I’m pursuing you because you’re beautiful, and because you’re special. It has nothing to do with your status.”

As far as Ling Tian was concerned, the daughter of a provincial party secretary was not necessarily worth his notice. There were plenty of provincial party secretaries in the country.

“But you’d never seen me before. How did you know I was beautiful?” Song Ziyue genuinely did not think of herself as possessing feminine beauty.

“In the past, I went to a nightclub with friends. I had no interest in the girls there, so later a friend told me that in Riversea there were four beauties who were notoriously hard to win over: Li Youran and Lin Youya from Riversea University, the cold-faced policewoman Han Bing, and you, the boss of Riversea’s number one gang. The moment I heard it, I became interested and said I would win all four of you. If a woman isn’t beautiful, I truly can’t be bothered. So yes, I’m pursuing you entirely because you’re beautiful.”

She laughed. “You really are interesting. Then how many have you won over so far?”

Far from being angry, Song Ziyue found him very amusing. Life itself was only a game; one should play it however one wished, so long as one could afford the stakes.

As for Ling Tian calling her beautiful, she did not take it seriously in the least. She was only one object in his game. She was still considering whether or not to join it. She had never played a game of feelings with a man before. When she was young, she feared that she herself would take it seriously; once she grew older, she feared the other person would. But Ling Tian... he did not seem like the sort who ever would.