He Jinxing’s recent behavior seemed off.

He knew perfectly well what was going on.

And so, during the time it took for the substance in that drink to take effect, he had Secretary Liu call his private doctor. Under the doctor’s extremely anxious gaze and observation, he closed his eyes and carefully considered the unusual behavior he had been experiencing recently.

The most crucial question was: what exactly did he want?

At first, he might have found this young miss, who was engaged to the He family, somewhat interesting. For some reason, she would hide from him like a mouse before a cat.

After several encounters, Gou An’s timidity seemed to gradually fade with the historic act of handing over a note with a phone number written on it, although her face would still puff up reluctantly when she was forced to call him ‘Young Uncle’…

She probably didn’t even realize this herself.

Then came more and more coincidences. Perhaps because there were indeed too few girls in the He family, He Jinxing successfully brainwashed himself and began to genuinely regard Gou An as a junior member of the He family and developed a degree of indulgence and care for her that even surpassed that shown to He Ran or He Yuan…

Initially, it was indeed done with the attitude of treating a junior, but perhaps the whole development of the incident began to change from this point.

It would be really stupid to be moved by a piece of food that ended up in his bowl, but on second thought, the probability of getting He Ran to notice that his young uncle had been talking about serious matters at noon and hadn’t had time to eat, and then getting him some food, was probably lower than the probability of the earth exploding tomorrow.

He Jinxing has always been a grateful person.

Although, at present, considering his actions as repaying that ‘favor’ was a bit excessive.

Before the coming-of-age ceremony banquet, when the old man in the family suggested that they should take this opportunity to promote a few more younger relatives to the Gou family, He Jinxing, standing in the study, said, “Don’t just think about the younger generation, I’m single too.”

Even now, recalling it, the shock on Old Master He’s face really was quite remarkable.

Before deciding what he wanted to do, He Jinxing couldn’t allow any unexpected events to occur, so he carefully selected a slightly less outstanding junior from among her peers—

But who could have known, the unexpected still happened.

His nephew, who had just been over 1.7 meters tall a couple of summers ago, has grown eight centimeters in two years and now appeared like a carbon copy of himself when he was young. He smiled brightly and clung to the Gou family’s daughter like a cheap American dessert with too much sugar, calling her ‘jiejie’.

And Gou An herself was easily bribed and accepted the younger brother without any resistance. The two had been huddling together like little animals, chatting happily.

He Yuan’s perfectly feigned weakness was far more appealing to a young miss like Gou An than He Ran, that simpleton.

At the bar earlier, watching the pool table, he saw the tall, slender figure of the young man looming over Gou An, smiling and giving her pointers on how to play. The two were practically touching…

This directly forced He Jinxing, who had been watching the fight from the sidelines in his private room, to step out and enter the fray himself.

Actually, billiards was too refined and static for He Jinxing, and it wasn’t interesting at all.

What did he like?

Was he jealous?

Before this, He Jinxing had never thought that the two questions—one he asked himself and the other he was asked—would appear in the list of life’s worthwhile questions.

If someone had asked him this a year ago, he might have raised an eyebrow and asked the person asking if they were crazy.

Now it seemed that he himself was the one who was sick, and he was seriously ill.

“Fortunately, the blood oxygen level is normal. The heart rate is high, but other vital signs are normal. At present, it should just be a normal aphrodisiac.”

The doctor carefully removed the blood pressure monitor from the man’s arm. “Mr. He, please be careful. Don’t knowingly drink medications of unknown type or efficacy without proper information…”

This line was similar to what you’d hear from a new mom on the street, angrily scolding her young child, ‘Did you even bring your brain? Don’t put everything you pick up on the ground into your mouth!’

He Jinxing was a little embarrassed by the tactful way he phrased it.

The man changed his sitting posture as he sat on the soft sofa.

Although the blood test results haven’t come back yet, and the drug analysis report was still on its way…

But as his blood began to boil, his body started to feel hot, and the sensation of all his energy surging towards his lower abdomen told him that Gou An had forced him to drink something wonderful—

He should probably thank her.

If the wine had contained insecticide, then He Jinxing might have had to pay a terrible price with his life for a single act of impulsiveness and indulgence.

“Thank goodness it’s just this kind of thing.”

Secretary Liu, who clearly shared the same thought as his employer, breathed a sigh of relief and muttered, “If this was a life-threatening poison, then we’d have been in big trouble.”

He Jinxing rubbed his temples, wincing in pain. Facing a room full of his subordinates who were worried sick and were now looking at him with disrespectful and reproachful eyes, he felt for the first time the urge to apologize.

In the end, he didn’t say anything because he felt that the person he felt most sorry for was himself.

I’m sorry, because of a moment of being blinded by greed, I almost killed myself.

For a man who has only thought of himself and his own interests for the past twenty-eight years, this was something he should deeply reflect on and regret…

What a humiliating disgrace.

… … translated by Maela @ whitemoonlighttranslations.com

The blood test results confirmed that it wasn’t anything serious, and that enduring it wouldn’t cause any harm, so He Jinxing dismissed everyone.

Notifying Secretary Liu and his private doctor was merely a stopgap measure for his own safety; as for watching him embarrass himself due to the drug’s adverse reaction—that was really unnecessary.

Once the lounge returned to its initial silence, He Jinxing locked the door and collapsed back onto the bed.

He placed his hands clasped in front of his chest, closed his eyes, and savored the novel experience of his body being out of his control, while a voice kept repeating in his mind: “You asked for it, you asked for it, you asked for it…”

After waking up, I would keep my distance from Gou An.

End all the abnormalities and get back on track.

Be just like before, he tried to convince himself.

As the drug’s effects fully took hold, his blood began to boil. He Jinxing took off his coat, leaving only his pants and vest, and lay on the bed. He could feel sweat seeping through his skin, gradually making his body sticky…

Sweat dripped from his forehead into his eyes, causing a stinging pain.

His breathing quickened, his heart pounded like a drum, and an uncontrollable desire almost completely consumed his mind, clamoring for something—

He could almost smell a faint, sweet fragrance.

The smell was about to be etched into his mind, like the hand reaching in from outside the Maybach window.

The smell had lingered on the car seats for a long time, so he simply changed cars.

They brushed past each other on the steps of Endless Night.

When she took the button from his upturned hand, it felt like a cat’s claw had inadvertently scratched the palm of his hand…

Those images, which should have been long forgotten, buried deep in his mind as he was busy thinking about important matters every day, suddenly seemed to break through some seal and leap out from some corner, vivid and three-dimensional.

It was Gou An.

… …

Half-asleep, He Jinxiing struggled against the effects of the medicine. Once his body was covered in sticky sweat, he simply soaked himself in the bathtub.

It was already late autumn, and a person of sound mind wouldn’t take a cold shower anymore. Suddenly immersing himself in a cold bathtub, his skin tightened instantly from the cold.

In the bright light of the bathroom, He Jinxing was plunged into a strange dream.

In the dream, He Jinxing watched himself from a third-person perspective, but he knew his dream self’s thoughts well. He floated in mid-air and watched as dream He Jinxing, who had also drunk the spiked wine, did not lock himself in but instead left his rooms and went to the deck.

The moonlight was dim, and the cold, dark seawater lapped rhythmically against the ship’s hull. He found himself moving like a ghost, his gaze clear and resolute, through the shadows of the deck—

Even though his dream self knew the drug was already taking effect.

But on that familiar figure hurrying through the darkness, there was a noticeable difference: above the man’s soft, black hair, which was limp from sweat, there seemed to be floating text, similar to the interface of an otome game being developed by his subsidiary’s game company. It read: [Favorability: 10].

This level of favorability was based on Gou An’s relationship with the figure. Gou An who had drugged him.

This information made no difference to dream He Jinxing. Upon discovering that he had been drugged, he was only momentarily surprised by Gou Yu’s daughter’s audacity, but the expected shock and anger didn’t come.

Without even informing Secretary Liu or his private doctor, he immediately went to Gou An’s lounge after realizing what kind of nasty drug had been given to him.

The idea was surprisingly simple and brutal: whoever administered the drug was responsible for resolving the issue, and who that person was was completely unimportant.

For a moment, He Jinxing was somewhat shocked by how things were unfolding in his dream, but he quickly realized that, according to his usual way of thinking, he would indeed make such a choice—

When faced with most of life’s choices, he only thought about them clearly; he didn’t take them to heart.

Since Gou An did such a thing, she wouldn’t dare to make a fuss about it no matter what happened to her afterward, and this matter could be quietly forgotten…

Moreover, she had just broken off her engagement with He Ran—

He could marry her, there was no problem with that.

With this in mind, and with a strange thing above his head that never changed its value from [10], he opened the door to Gou An’s resting longue.

Sure enough, a person was lying on the sofa in the lounge. In the moonlight, her soft black hair fell to the edge of the sofa, the messy hair covering her face. Her body was limp, and only half of her body was exposed to the moonlight that streamed in the moment the door was opened in the dim light…

Like a dying swan.

He Jinxing closed the door, locked it, and went forward.

He bent down expressionlessly, lifted her chin with one hand, and then, in the dim indoor light, immediately recognized that this was not Gou An.

It seemed to be Miss Lu who he had met a few times, and had been getting along well with his nephew before and after the dissolution of his engagement. She was quite unlike Gou An—

Gou An was like a Damask rose, blooming wildly and recklessly under the scorching sun, delicate and beautiful; Lu Wan was like an unknown wild flower that tenaciously grew in the corner until it saw the sun and then bloomed instantly, full of uncertainty…

He Jinxing released her without hesitation.

By the time he reached Gou An’s resting lounge, he had exhausted all his strength. He stumbled backward, and fell onto another chair rather than sat down, his chest heaving, but he didn’t move again.

The air seemed to freeze.

The drunk and the drugged person each occupied their own sofa.

The culprit herself has not appeared.

He Jinxing endured the torment of the drug’s effects, his lower abdomen burning so intensely that he suspected he might be crippled in the future, yet he didn’t touch a single hair on the head of the person he shouldn’t have.

He sat there blankly all night.

… …

When He Jinxing regained his consciousness, he began to suspect that paranormal events existed in the world.

At this very moment, the cool sea breeze did nothing to dispel the restlessness he felt, and he realized that he had unknowingly left the securely locked private lounge and the bathtub filled with ice water…

He was now wearing a few clothes haphazardly thrown on, and judging from his appearance, he probably wasn’t even wearing underwear. It was also unclear whether the buttons on his shirt were fastened in their correct positions.

His hair was soaked, a mixture of water and sweat, clinging damply to one side of his cheek. Water droplets, scalding from his body heat, dripped down his cheek and then gathered on his chin.

Without even looking in a mirror, he knew how pathetic he looked. If a second person saw him like this, it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that he would lose all his dignity.

But this was clearly not the worst of all.

The worst part was that the person in charge of the He family now found himself standing in the same place as in that absurd dream, in front of the familiar lounge door.

There were no strange numbers above his head, of course.

His hand was already on the doorknob of the lounge.

Whether to walk away or open it had become an urgent question, and it was right in front of him.

From the Day the Engagement was Broken translated by Maela @ whitemoonlighttranslations.com

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A note from the Author:

The ‘what if’ scenario here isn’t entirely faithful to the original story; it depicts plot changes. For example, the drugging scene mentioned earlier has been altered.

In the original: the female lead takes the Chinese medicine, and the male lead gets drunk. Now things have changed: the female lead is drunk, and the male lead has taken the traditional Chinese medicine.

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