Volume One, Chapter Thirteen: Don't Touch Me!

Jiang Wan could not handle alcohol, most likely due to her childhood experiences.

For as long as she could remember, her parents had always been deeply in love.

When she was five years old.

She woke from her sleep and caught them drinking together.

Bathed in the moonlight, they exchanged cups with each other.

Her father repeatedly whispered sweet words to her mother: “This life, the next, and the one after that… we will always be husband and wife, always a family.”

To young Jiang Wan, the scene resembled some kind of sacred contract ceremony.

The next day.

Feeling left out of the ritual, she secretly took her father’s wine, drinking as she solemnly vowed, “This life, the next, and the one after that… I will always be with Mom and Dad…” Together.

She never finished the last three words. Before she could, she collapsed onto the floor with the bottle.

When she woke again, her stomach had been pumped at the hospital.

The first thing she saw when she opened her eyes was her parents’ anxious faces, relief flooding them when they realized she was awake.

After learning why she’d drunk the wine.

Her father, half exasperated, half amused, wrapped his arm around her mother and told her with a smile, “Silly girl, you are our only child. As long as your mother and I are together, where else could you possibly go?”

“You will always be our daughter. We will always be a family.”

It was only after her father’s reassurance that Jiang Wan’s worries were soothed.

But by the time she turned sixteen, those words had lost their latter half.

She came home after an extra study session and found her father drinking alone.

At that time.

The Jiang family company was in a financial crisis, and her parents’ relationship had started to change. Her mother asked for a divorce.

Jiang Wan wanted to keep him company, but her father snatched the bottle away.

“You’re underage. No drinking.”

He scolded her while trying to comfort her. “Don’t worry. I’ll get the company back on track, and I’ll take care of you and your mother. I won’t let either of you suffer.”

Her father was still full of fighting spirit, but her mother, afraid to be implicated, insisted on the divorce. In the end, he gave her all their assets to appease her, keeping only an apartment for himself and his daughter.

“It’s alright, sweetheart,” he still tried to reassure her. “When I make more money, your mother will come back. She’s never suffered a day since marrying me, and I couldn’t stand to see her suffer now.”

He worked himself to exhaustion, running everywhere, day and night.

But before her mother saw him rise again, she’d already found a wealthy businessman and remarried.

When Jiang Wan was nineteen, she snuck home during a school holiday, hoping to surprise her father.

Instead, she found him in the living room in broad daylight, drinking himself into a stupor.

Beside him sat a wedding invitation.

That’s when she learned her mother was getting married.

“Sweetheart, have a drink with me?” her father asked with a drunk, bloodshot gaze, trying to smile.

Jiang Wan saw the smile on his face and felt her heart ache bitterly.

She threw down her luggage and sat in front of him.

But after just one sip—

She collapsed onto the sofa, completely unconscious.

“I’m sorry, sweetheart…”

Before she drifted away, she heard her father’s apology. “I lost your mother.”

“It was my fault. I wasn’t good enough.”

After that.

Every time she came home for the holidays, she never saw her father that defeated again.

He was still ambitious, dreaming of great achievements with her, painting a future where, after she finished her studies, the two of them would fight side by side.

“Dad, let’s have a drink together.”

The winter break when she started dating Lu Wenzhou, Jiang Wan suggested it herself, hoping a little wine would give her the courage to confess her relationship.

But she overestimated her tolerance—and underestimated how well her father knew her.

Once again, she collapsed after barely touching her glass.

She heard her father say, “With your alcohol tolerance, you shouldn’t drink casually outside—only with people you trust.”

“That rascal’s reliable, right?”

“Bring him home next New Year. I want to see what my future son-in-law’s drinking capacity is.”

“He’d better not be worse than me.”

“Our sweetheart can’t choose a husband like her father.”

…

When she returned to England after the break,

Upon hearing about the conversation between father and daughter, Lu Wenzhou swirled his wine glass with intrigue.

“Future son-in-law?”

He raised an eyebrow, clearly pleased with the title.

Jiang Wan shot him an annoyed glance. “You haven’t passed the test yet, you—”

Before she could finish, Lu Wenzhou pulled her over.

He parted her legs, seating her astride his lap, facing him.

“Aren’t you going to help me?”

He sat on the sofa, but his tone and gaze, despite his subordinate posture, were full of commanding dominance.

Jiang Wan couldn’t help but laugh, half exasperated. “My dad’s testing you. How can I help?”

“Let’s rehearse. See if I can hold my liquor.”

He said this, downing his glass of red wine in one go.

As the empty glass fell onto the carpet, his hand slid up her back, threading through her hair to cradle the back of her head.

Lu Wenzhou lifted his chin and kissed her lips.

He still had wine in his mouth.

The alcohol burned their tongues, sending their minds reeling.

Jiang Wan didn’t drink directly, but she became intoxicated by him all the same.

She lay in his arms, humming and nuzzling against him like a kitten kneading its paws, making his heart itch with longing.

At that moment, Jiang Wan finally felt happiness again.

But they both broke their promises.

They never made it to the next New Year.

Lu Wenzhou vanished into a winter night, and her father ended his life in a heavy snowstorm.

She was left all alone, bewildered, helpless, with nowhere to turn.

*

The painful memories clung to Jiang Wan like vines, threatening to drag her back into hell.

She snapped her eyes open, her red-rimmed gaze fixing on a face both familiar and hateful.

A man was undressing her.

Jiang Wan, furious, shoved him away with all her strength. “Don’t touch me!”

She pushed his hands off, rejecting his touch with unconcealed disgust.

Lu Wenzhou’s face darkened.

He ignored her resistance, determinedly stripping away her clothes.

“Let go of me! You bastard!”

Jiang Wan cursed, lashing out with hands and feet.

But the man’s body was unyielding as iron, impervious to her blows.

He pressed on, removing every last piece of her clothing.

“Get off me, you scum…”

Jiang Wan’s whole body was burning, her mind foggy as she hurled insults at the man before her.

Every word and every phrase was laced with hatred.

She wanted nothing more than to skin him alive, to shatter every bone in his body, grind him into a pulp.

Weakened by the alcohol, her limbs had lost all strength.

No matter how hard she fought, most of her effort was wasted.

Lu Wenzhou paid no mind to her struggles.

Once she was naked, he hefted Jiang Wan over his shoulder and carried her to the bathroom.

“Let me go! Let me go!”

Jiang Wan continued to struggle, restless and frantic, until he dropped her into a bathtub filled with warm water.

She was like a drenched, furious kitten.

Her emotions grew even more agitated, her limbs thrashing wildly.

The water sloshed violently, spilling everywhere.

“Don’t move.”

Lu Wenzhou grabbed her hand, his voice low and commanding.

He stared down at her in the tub.

The soft, affectionate kitten who once curled up with him after a drink had become a dripping, angry creature, baring her claws at him, bristling with aggression.

His dark eyes became even more intense.

Ignoring his soaked clothes, he began to wash Jiang Wan’s body.

But as soon as his hand touched her skin—

Jiang Wan seemed to snap, sinking her teeth into his arm.

Beads of blood seeped through his damp shirt, blooming into circles of red.