The remnant spent almost an hour teasing Nikolai before exhausting itself and returning to rest in his consciousness. He, on the other hand, couldn’t rest even if he wanted. His mind might have felt battered by everything that happened today but his body was still brimming with energy.
He felt so restless that he barely knew what to do to make himself feel better. No, that wasn’t quite accurate. Actually, he knew what to do. In times like this, he would usually either find a woman to have sex with or train his body until it collapsed.
The first option wasn’t possible at the moment because he was only craving for one woman—Long Jinjing. Having sex with other women no longer interested him. Or more accurately, he couldn’t seem to get it up anymore for other women except for Long Jinjing. This would leave him with only the second option which was to train his body and exhaust it to the limit.
“Should I return to the headquarters and drag some people to spar with me? Yeah, let’s do that.”
With a clear destination in mind, he changed directions and took the route back to Shadow Winds’ headquarters. It was almost midnight. The seemingly endless road made his thoughts start to wander and remember the remnant’s words to him earlier.
“Impossible. There’s no way that I’m in love. I, Nikolai Vetrov, have fallen in love?” He snorted and curled his lip, but his eyes reflected the turmoil of his emotions. “This is just lust. Yes, that’s it. This lust should eventually go away on its own after sufficient time away from Jinjing has passed.”
While he was trying to persuade himself, he failed to notice that he missed the way back to the headquarters and was automatically driving to another familiar route. When he finally realized what happened, his car was already parked in front of Long Jinjing’s condo building.
“Are you fucking kidding me?”
He was taken aback by his own distracted actions. The ringing of his phone snapped him to attention. He answered it.
“Boss Hao, is that you parked in front of Miss Jinjing’s building?” It was Shun.
For a moment, Lu Zihao didn’t know how to answer.
“Hello? Boss Hao? Huh? Did he hang up?”
Lu Zihao cleared his throat. “It’s me. Wait a bit and come to my car to report.”
“Understood, Boss!”
The call ended. Lu Zihao glanced at the condo building. Only a few units had their lights still on. This was a quiet neighbourhood and people here usually slept early and also woke up early. He found Long Jinjing’s unit. Her bedroom light was still on. He frowned.
Why wasn’t she asleep yet?
He was tempted to disregard his promise to stay away from her after their breakup and barge into her place. As soon as the thought entered his mind, however, he forcefully tamped it down. He glared at Long Jinjing’s brightly lit bedroom window before driving away from the building and parking the car at the nearby children’s playground.
About a couple of minutes later, there was a knock on the car window. Then Shun entered the car and sat in the passenger seat.
“The light in her bedroom is still on,” Lu Zihao said, not waiting for his subordinate’s greeting.
“Ah yes, Boss. About that. Miss Jinjing hasn’t been turning the light off in her room at night.”
Lu Zihao frowned.
“Ever since your breakup, Miss Jinjing sleeps with the light always turned on in her room.”
Lu Zihao fell silent for a few seconds before asking, “Is she…alright?”
“I think she’s well enough.”
“Well enough? What the fuck does that mean? Be more specific!”
Shun immediately sat up straighter and reported everything that he had observed while shadowing Long Jinjing. Lu Zihao listened with rapt attention, interrupting his subordinate now and then to clarify some of the tiniest details.
“So you’re saying that she lost weight?”
“Yes, Boss.”
“How can she allow herself to lose weight when she’s already so thin?”
Shun didn’t answer. Lu Zihao didn’t care because he wasn’t expecting an answer, anyway. He glanced at the condo building with an angry expression. Beneath the anger was deep worry. The urge to barge into the woman’s place and feed her some food filled him, but like before, he tamped the thought down.
“Dammit.”
All he could do was curse at the situation. They already broke up. In addition, Long Jinjing made him promise to stay away from her as much as possible. Her reason was that it would only hurt her more if she frequently saw him after their breakup. Since she looked so pitiful with tears flowing down her face when she told him this, he couldn’t bear to deny her request even though he was honestly against it.
He could deal with her shyness. He could even deal with her anger. But when she cried in front of him, he felt completely helpless and unable to do anything.
This was especially the case during the last three days leading up to their breakup. She might have shed all her inhibitions and went wild while they were having sex, but afterwards, she would break down and sob in his arms.
This was why he had been unable to make himself manipulate Long Jinjing into extending their 30-day relationship by seducing her out of her wits. Those tears of hers had unarmed him, causing him to give her what she wanted—to break up with him.
Shun interrupted his thoughts. “Boss Hao, I don’t know if I should report this….”
“You know that I hate it when people dilly-dally when talking to me. Just speak!”
“Yes, Boss. Robin said something when the two of us were changing shifts earlier today. Oh, we arranged our own schedules. Robin’s shift is during the day while I watch over Miss Jinjing at night.”
Lu Zihao nodded, not really minding how they set up their respective schedules. All he cared about was for Long Jinjing to be well-protected 24/7. Yes, it was for protection. He, Nikolai, wasn’t stalking—ehem ehem—”monitoring” her due to his self-interest. Not at all!
“Robin said that Miss Jinjing has been spending a lot of time with a guy at work recently,” Shun said.
Lu Zihao’s expression immediately turned dark.
