These words were spoken in a whisper.

It was too unlike him that it frightened Hui Yin even more. She struggled, but he didn't budge. Lu Shen gently rested his chin on her head, and didn't speak another word.

He remembered her getting drunk on their engagement party, and as he was carrying her in his arms to put her into the backseat of his car, he heard her murmur, "I like him much better..."

There was sorrow in her face, and Lu Shen had asked despite himself, "Who do you like better?"

Her eyelashes fluttered, her eyes opening to stare at him blearily. But before she could fall asleep again, she had answered, "Fai..."

Fai was the name she bestowed on him when he lost his memories.

That was when Lu Shen had learned Xiao Yin didn't like his present self. The one she loved was Fai, the man who was simple and wasn't him. He had fooled himself into thinking that she would fall in love with him sooner or later as he and Fai were the same person...but she didn't.

Lu Shen could only hold her when he embraces her forcefully like this, so that she won't flee. His laughter earlier was for himself, for his obsession with her, for his tantrums, for not letting go of someone who desperately didn't want him. Truthfully, he thought to himself, aren't you a fool? He had seen her PV, he had seen his own actions mirrored by that singer, he had seen the ending where the girl he captured would eventually cause his own demise.

And still, you want to keep her?

He didn't refute her words because he was crazy, crazy for still wanting to keep her despite all the warning signs.

"Lu Shen, let me go!"

With a sigh, Lu Shen released her.

Hui Yin abruptly stopped struggling.

Eh? He actually obeyed?

Before she could look up, the tender and heart-wrenching expression on his face was already wiped away, masked by his usual indifferent look.

"Even if you don't want to marry me," he said, with none of the weakness in his tone before, "You will still marry me in the end, Xiao Yin."

She knew he was saying the truth.

Hui Yin didn't know what he was planning, but she could feel the red thread chaining them together, pushing them into the same path as her previous life. So she stopped arguing with him, because she knew what she had to do now.

"Lu Shen, do you have any information about the culprit?"

She said it calmly, as if they were discussing the weather, outrightly ignoring his threat and proposal.

His expression became closed-off.

"Don't trouble yourself with unnecessary problems."

"But you still haven't managed to catch him right? I know that it was him who trespassed in your villa that night. What does he want? Do you have any idea about his identity?"

He brushed off her questions and turned around to leave. "It's not safe for you to go back to your apartment, so you'll have to stay here. Have the maids escort you to your room."

"Lu Shen, I have the right to know! If he was the one who caused your accident, then he must have known that I saved you. I'm probably also in danger..."

Hui Yin was grasping at straws to make him tell her more, but she didn't expect for his entire body to become still, almost like a statue.

That's right, she was the one who saved him...then, from the start, he didn't need to go through all this charade because the culprit must have already known...

He had stayed away in the hope that the culprit wouldn't target her, but in the end that only gave him the opportunity to hurt Xiao Yin more!

"Idiot!" The curse came in a hot uprush of loathing, and Lu Shen slammed his fist against the brick wall.

Hui Yin winced. Was he cursing her?

After he calmed himself down, Lu Shen instructed, "Meet me in my study."

He then left.

Hui Yin looked at his retreating back with a shake of her head. That proposal was so out of the blue it made her feel befuddled. Such a severe bipolar disorder should be diagnosed by a therapist as soon as possible...

"Tsk." Hui Yin clicked her tongue. "He really is worse than a girl..."