After being kicked out of the wealthy family along with her yandere childhood friend

Pei Jin noticed Bai Tao's strange reaction.

When she came out of the bathroom last night, her face wasn't flushed from the hot water.

Pei Jin leaned against the wall by the toilet door, his fingers unconsciously twirling along the seam of his pants, savoring the wonderful feeling of last night.

When Pei Jin entered the toilet in the morning, there was a puddle of water on the floor, which was wet.

His gaze shifted from the puddle, and the small pinkish-white fabric of the white peach was hanging on the tip of his nose.

It's a small piece, with light pink flowers printed on a pink and white background, and lace trim outlining a delicate, soft arc around the edge.

It hung on the wire behind the door, next to his dark gray underwear.

Pei Jin's gaze lingered on the small piece of pinkish-white fabric for a moment, then quickly shifted away as if burned.

Like a pervert, he couldn't help but sniff it lightly.

It was sweet and cloying, so thick and rich in this small space that it seemed impossible to dissolve.

He raised his hand, and just as his fingertips were about to touch the fabric, he suddenly clenched his fist.

Pei Jin grabbed the keys from the table and ran away.

He bought breakfast: two servings of soy milk and two servings of steamed buns, and placed them on the coffee table.

He tucked the note under the breakfast bag. It was the same pink sticky note as yesterday, which read: Remember to eat breakfast, remember to eat lunch, and don't eat instant noodles.

He looked at the words and felt like a nagging old man, but in the end he just put them under the breakfast bag.

Bai Tao received five more small orders in succession. Ever since that girl left a picture in the comments yesterday, her account seemed to have been activated by something, and the number of private messages increased from two or three to more than ten.

Some came to ask about the price, some to praise her, some to urge her to update, and a few actually placed orders.

One message pop-up after another appeared on the phone screen. Bai Tao kept her head down, her fingers flying across the tablet, drawing lines, applying colors, and adding highlights.

Just as I was eating a steamed bun and wondering whether I should wait a little longer to take another order, my phone rang.

It was buzzing, and the coffee table was shaking slightly.

Bai Tao glanced at the screen; it was an unfamiliar number, a string of digits she had never seen before, with the location showing as Beijing.

She didn't answer; she swiped her finger to turn off the ringer.

Less than half a minute later, the phone rang again. Bai Tao stared at the string of numbers for two seconds, and suddenly had an inexplicable, uneasy premonition.

"Hello?"

Bai Tao asked tentatively, her voice soft.

A hurried, rough male voice came from the other end, with a heavy local accent and an barely suppressed anxiety.

The background noise was loud, and Bai Tao could understand every single word spoken, but when they were put together, her mind seemed to have been paused, buzzing.

"Hey, are you Pei Jin's boyfriend? He was hit on the head by a falling package while working in the factory this afternoon, and he's in the hospital getting bandaged up right now."

"What?"

Bai Tao's voice squeezed out from her throat, with a moment of stunned silence.

He froze on the sofa, his fingers still gripping the tablet, but the tablet had already slid off his knees and was now face down on the sofa cushion.

Who is he talking about?

Pei Jin?

But why is Pei Jin in the workshop?

Doesn't he work in an office building?

Bai Tao's fingers began to tremble, not in a noticeable, large-scale way, but in a subtle tremor that seemed to seep from the very bones.

The person on the other end, fearing she hadn't heard him clearly, repeated it loudly, assuming she hadn't heard him due to a bad signal.

"Hey? Is this Pei Jin's family? Pei Jin was injured when a package fell on him and he's in the hospital now."

"What hospital?" Bai Tao's voice no longer sounded like her own; it was high-pitched and thin.

"People's Hospital".

Bai Tao wore a white spaghetti strap dress with a sun-protective jacket over it.

She tried several times to zip up the sun-protective clothing, her fingers trembling the whole time. The zipper pull got stuck in the fabric and she couldn't get it to go in.

She took a deep breath and pulled up this time.

When the taxi stopped in front of her, she opened the door and got in, saying in a tight voice, "People's Hospital, please hurry."

The driver glanced at her in the rearview mirror, didn't ask any questions, and stepped on the gas.

There were seven or eight men squatting outside the emergency room of the People's Hospital.

They had dark skin and strong muscles; some wore blue work clothes, some wore faded T-shirts, and some were shirtless with reflective vests over their clothes.

They squatted on the ground with their hands on their knees.

Everyone's expression was not good; their brows were furrowed, their lips were pursed, and occasionally someone would raise their head to glance in the direction of the emergency room before looking down again.

Seeing Bai Tao running towards them from a distance, they all stood up.

When the seven or eight grown men stood up from the ground, they looked like a moving wall, reeking of sweat.

"Is it Pei Jin's family?"

The man at the front spoke.

Bai Tao adjusted her bag, which was about to fall off, the strap slipping off her shoulder several times.

She was running so fast that her chest was heaving violently, and her breathing was rapid and shallow.

Her voice caught in her throat before coming out, high-pitched and thin, with a tone she herself had never heard before, as if she was about to cry.

"Yes, that's me. What's wrong? Where's Pei Jin?"

Before Bai Tao could catch her breath, several older men anxiously surrounded her.

They talked all at once, their voices overlapping, piecing together the gist of the matter.

"We have a big item today."

Old Sun's voice was the loudest, drowning out everyone else's. He stood in front of Bai Tao, gesturing frantically with both hands to describe the size of the package.

"I wasn't watching where I was stepping when I was loading the goods onto the delivery truck."

"One side shifted, causing uneven force, and it happened to be on Pei Jin's side. He was hit in the back and fell off the delivery truck."

Another voice came from Bai Tao's right, very urgent and fast.

Bai Tao felt a chill run from her toes to the top of her head in an instant.

She felt the whole world flicker before her eyes, and then return to normal.

"he……"

"The girl went for a checkup and hasn't come out yet."

The guy diagonally opposite Pei Jin, carrying things and who was unsteady on his feet, was called Lao Sun.

Old Sun is forty-five years old this year. He used to own a fertilizer company. It wasn't a big company, but it was enough to feed his family.

Later, a relative tampered with the fertilizer, causing him to lose everything.

His wife divorced him, and the child stayed with his wife. He now lives alone in a rented room near the courier station, sharing the room with another coworker. The rent is 800 yuan a month.

A grown man in his forties, with red eyes, stood at the entrance of the emergency room. When he saw Bai Tao, who had an exceptionally outstanding demeanor, run in, he was at a loss like a child.

He rubbed his hands on his body several times, his palms were sweaty, and he didn't know where to put them.

"Are these Pei Jin's family members?"

Old Sun's voice was trembling; once he started talking, he couldn't stop.

"It's all my fault. The carriage was full of potholes, and I lost my balance. If it weren't for me—if it weren't for me losing my balance—it's all my fault."

His voice grew softer and softer, his eyes redder and redder, and by the last few words, it was as if something was choking him, leaving a lump in his throat.

Bai Tao steadied herself and took several deep breaths.

She lowered her hand from her chest, clenched it into a fist, and dug her nails into her palm.

She spoke to Old Sun in a voice that even she herself found unfamiliar, a voice so steady it didn't sound like her own:

"No one expected this accident. Let's wait for Pei Jin to come out."

She had just heard that Pei Jin had come with them in the car. Although he had fallen, since he could walk, it shouldn't be too serious.

About half an hour later, Pei Jin finally finished the examination.

A nurse helped Pei Jin out; it was more like she was holding his arm than helping him.

The nurse was young, and looked like she had only been working for a short time. Her face still showed the naivety and undisguised thoughts typical of interns.

This afternoon, everyone in their department was talking about a really handsome man who had come. Several unmarried nurses circled the emergency room entrance several times under the guise of delivering medical records, medicine, and water.

She won the opportunity by playing rock-paper-scissors against her other colleagues.

Her hand rested on Pei Jin's arm, while Pei Jin had one hand on his neck and kept trying to pull the other hand away from the nurse's grasp.

His expression carried a kind of impatience that he couldn't express, a kind of polite but suppressed irritation.

His head was tilted slightly, his brows were furrowed, and his lips were pressed into a thin line.

Bai Tao was blocked behind several grown men. When they saw Pei Jin come out, they all consciously gave up their positions.

When Pei Jin saw Bai Tao, the moment his pupils focused on her face, he seemed to be struck by something, and his movements froze for a moment.

He instinctively pushed the nurse aside.

The nurse was pushed to the side by him, staggered half a step, and her expression changed from sweet to surprised.

Pei Jin didn't look at her.

His gaze remained fixed on Bai Tao.

Feeling guilty.

The guilt one feels after their lie has been exposed.