"Let go of me!" Jia Lingyi tried to shake off the man who was holding on to her arm, but he was just too strong.
His eyes were glazed over, and there was a crazed look in them.
Jia Lingyi could not help but feel scared. Had she provoked a crazy person?!
"Explain to me! How do you know this?!"
Lui Zhiyuan could not calm down. First, she had asked him if he knew Xia Mengqi, even though no one else knew how he was connected to her, not even Xia Mengqi herself.
And then, she knew the origin of her favourite vase?
Lui Zhiyuan did not think that any of this was a coincidence at all!
It wouldn't be a big deal if she were just following him because she was looking for a sugar daddy, but she mentioned Xia Mengqi!
He could not let that go!
Lui Zhiyuan was still trying to figure out what this woman knew when he felt a sharp kick at the back of his leg!
"What are you doing?! Let go of my friend! Don't you have any shame?! A grown man bullying a young girl!" He heard a tiny voice yell behind him.
Lui Zhiyuan watched with a bewildered look on his face as the girl who kicked him linked hands with Jia Lingyi.
"Lingyi! Let's go! We have to stay away from perverts like this!" Sun Miao said, trying to pull her friend away.
Jia Lingyi glared at Lui Zhiyuan, still badly shaken up by what had happened.
He looked like a normal person, so why did he lose his mind as soon as she talked about the origin of the vase?
Jia Lingyi remembered the same thing had happened when she asked him if he knew Xia Mengqi.
She shook her head mentally. Forget it, Jia Lingyi told herself she would just take it that she had been bitten by a dog.
She let Sun Miao pull her away.
"I don't care what your deal is, young lady, and I don't care if someone has put you up to this, but you had better stop this behaviour. Stop following me around, you are not going to get anything out of it!" Lui Zhiyuan warned her coldly.
Jia Lingyi felt her head hurt when she heard this. She was following him?!
Did she look like she had nothing better to do with her time?
Before she could reply, though, Sun Miao had already beaten her to it.
Sun Miao turned to face Lui Zhiyuan, her hands on her hips.
"Lingyi, is following you? Excuse me, sir, but are you blind? My friend has been in the hospital for a long time! She just got out! How could she be following you?!" Sun Miao snapped at him.
Lui Zhiyuan frowned. It was true that she was in a hospital gown the first time he ran into her.
For some reason, he wanted to ask why she was in the hospital, but he didn't in the end.
"Come, Lingyi, let's get out of here. Some people are just crazy. There's no need to waste time on them!"
...
Jia Lingyi tiptoed back into the dorm. After everything she had been through today, she just wanted to fall into her bed and sleep.
She turned on the lights, hoping that the other girls would be too sleepy to notice, however, she was met with shock instead.
Her mother, Zhao Anqi, was sitting on her bed, coldly watching the entrance, obviously waiting for her.
"Moth…!" In the end, Jia Lingyi could not bring herself to call this woman mother.
Although she never had a mother in her past life, she knew good mothers were not supposed to treat their kids the way Zhao Anqi treated the original Jia Lingyi.
Zhao Anqi sneered, obviously angry.
"\do you want to be kicked out of the group, Lingyi? You are just doing whatever you want, right?! Who told you that you could leave the dorm?! Or have you forgotten the company rules?"
Zhao Anqi was very impatient and stern to Jia Lingyi, more like a manager than a mother.
But then, Jia Lingyi remembered that Zhao Anqi had always been more of a manager than a mother to the original girl, even before she debuted as an idol.
"No, I had something to do, I...."
"What was so important, you couldn't inform the company about! Do you think that you get unlimited freedom just because you got out of the hospital? The company is already working hard to clean up your image after your last stunt! Why do you keep causing trouble?!" Zhao Anqi berated her!
"I ...I'm sorry...." These were the only words that Jia Lingyi could force out.
She was not sorry, however, she wanted all of this to end.
"Whatever! Come with me! The CEO wants to see you!"
Jia Lingyi frowned at this. The CEO....wasn't that, Yin Chen, Yin Roulan's brother?!
.....
"CEO....I already talked to her, and I made sure that she would never do something like this again. Lingyi has been acting out of character ever since her last incident....but she knows her place and how much this company has done for her....she will never act out again!" Zhao Anqi said, trying to placate Yin Chen.
Yin Chen looked up at Jia Lingyi, and for the first time since she woke up, she met the gaze of the man who was behind all the bad things that happened to the innocent Jia Lingyi.
The man had a cold and dark aura around him, and Jia Lingyi could instantly tell that he was a dangerous person!
However, a cold smile appeared on her face. She wasn't a pushover either!
Yin Chen looked at Jia Lingyi, a smile on his face, too.
He thought it was interesting how she met his gaze and refused to look down.
The Jia Lingyi he remembered would have never done something like this.
Does someone almost dying give them a lot of guts?
"Jia Lingyi....where did you go?" Yin Chen finally asked, without taking his gaze from her.
"I went to get a phone," Jia Lingyi answered lazily.
Anyway, she already got it and set it up before she got back.
They would not go as far as taking it away from her.
"If you wanted a cellphone, you should have just said so. There's no need for you to leave without permission, right? Besides, you know the company has your best interests at heart. We would surely get you a phone that would benefit you the most!"
Even a blind person could tell that Yin Chen's words had a double meaning!
"Really? Has the company ever really had my best interests at heart?" Jia Lingyi fired back, refusing to give in.
"You.....!"
"Jia Lingyi! Have you lost your mind?!" Zhao Anqi screamed at her.
She looked at Yin Chen, an apologetic look on her face.
"I will take her out and have a good talk with her, CEO!"
Zhao Anqi pulled a smiling Jia Lingyi out with her.
Jia Lingyi was more or less satisfied with how today had turned out.
This was just the beginning!
....
"What was the meaning of that, Jia Lingyi?! Do you know how I had to beg just so you wouldn't get punished for this? All you had to do was apologise! But you had to go on to ruin yourself! You...."
Jia Lingyi stopped listening at some point, and she just let her mother go on and on.
Finally, seeing that Jia Lingyi was not paying attention to her, Zhao Anqi snapped.
"You had better act right, Jia Lingyi! Don't forget that all you have is this face! You can always be easily replaced! Damn it, if I didn't think you could become popular, I would never have picked you out of all the children in orphanage!"
Jia Lingyi sneered. That's right. She had almost forgotten that tiny detail. She was adopted after all.
This woman ...was not even Jia Lingyi's biological mother!
Zhao Anqi cleared her throat, feeling a bit guilty.
"Well, I'm leaving now. Practice well with the group," she said, her words rushed out.
"Mother," Jia Lingyi called out, impatient.
"What?" Zhao Anqi snapped at her.
"I am an adult now, mother. Where is my money? The money I earned from being an idol?"
Jia Lingyi's gaze zeroed in on Zhao Anqi asked her this, and Zhao Anqi shuddered.
She felt like this girl could see through her!
"I .....well, of course I'm keeping it for you! If you really need it, we will need to talk about it and calculate the whole amount! I have to leave now!"
Zhao Anqi made her escape as soon as she said this.
Jia Lingyi sneered as she watched the woman scurry away.
She would be a fool if she really believed she would be getting anything back from that so-called mother of hers. But at least it would keep her away for a few days.
She had to find a way to break free from these people, and she had to do it fast!