# Chapter 42
He walked behind the bar and poured himself a drink. "Want one?"
The golden liquid looked beautiful, and the fruity aroma was quite enticing, but I knew these drinks could sometimes be stronger than Chinese liquor—one glass would be enough to knock me flat. So I stayed on my guard.
Yang Yun snorted with a laugh. "I forgot you're a good little boy. But then again, you don't seem all that good to me. When does a good child run away from home?"
"I'm just staying there temporarily!" I corrected him. That was an important distinction.
"Any difference?" He took his glass and strolled over slowly, leaning against the bed, taking a sip. "Me or Brother Fei. Pick one."
My hair stood on end. I glanced at the door—seven, no, eight steps. I could probably make it if I rushed now and disappeared into the crowd. Probably... there might be a chance, if I was lucky. But I had to take the gamble no matter what.
"Go ahead and try to run if you want. But I can guarantee you—run again and your fate will be very grim." He took another sip. "Extremely grim."
I swallowed hard involuntarily. A chill crept up my spine. Suddenly I realized how terrifying Yang Yun was. This was different from the fear I felt toward Shangguan. With him, it was an instinctive kind of dread, and even at my most frightened, I never felt panicked.
But Yang Yun was different. He seemed to represent an unknown world—one that appeared beautiful on the surface but was filled with danger underneath. Around him, I felt deeply unsettled.
"What do you want?" I gritted my teeth. "I don't believe you have any designs on me."
"Finally willing to use your brain?" He raised an eyebrow with a smirk. "Then try guessing what I want. Figure it out, and... well, maybe I'll let you go."
With just those words, he kept me locked up for three days. But no matter how much I thought about it, I couldn't figure out what he was after.
He had no feelings for me. Though his glances and actions sometimes seemed intimate, to me it was all mockery. He also didn't seem to be informing Shangguan of my whereabouts—because for those three days, he was practically confined to the room just like me. I never saw him make a single call to Shangguan.
Having ruled out those two possibilities, I was even more confused about why he was keeping me here. People always had ulterior motives when they detained someone, but what did I have that he could possibly want? Was it simply that if I wouldn't choose Shangguan, I had to choose him? I thought until my head nearly exploded, but I still couldn't understand why he was keeping me. I despised this feeling of being unable to find answers yet forced to keep searching. But I had no choice—Yang Yun's gaze told me that if I couldn't figure it out, things would go badly for me.
Of course, I had considered escaping. But when I discovered the door had a keypad lock, I abandoned that route. As for the windows, they weren't locked—but if I dared to jump from the seventeenth floor, what was there left to be afraid of?
Under Yang Yun's pressure, my mind was working in overdrive. But even though I thought until I felt sick, I still couldn't figure out what he wanted.
A sharp pain on my face snapped me back to reality. I jumped up abruptly. "What do you think you're doing!"
Yang Yun shrugged. "Calling you to eat. Come on, the pizza's here."
Hearing the word "pizza" made my stomach turn again. There was no helping it—anyone would feel sick after eating the same pizza for nine meals over three days. Of course, Yang Yun the freak was an exception.
During those three days, my greatest realization was that you could never judge things by their appearance. Take Yang Yun, for example. On the surface he seemed refined, clean, elegant—but in reality, he was an absolute lazy bum! This guy never cooked, not even instant noodles. When he needed to eat, he'd just make a phone call and order pizza, and only spicy flavor, because that was the only kind he liked... never mind about considering my feelings, but how could he stand eating the same thing every single day?
I'd raised objections about this before, but he'd just glanced at me coolly. "Then you cook."
...
So I ended up eating pizza with him every day. God knows that I... I wasn't all that fond of spicy flavors either. But between cooking and eating pizza, I courageously chose the latter.