Mister Li, the Heart Bandit

It was six in the morning when Ji Weixi woke up.

She turned her eyes—the room was all-white and a little dizzying.

Thick curtains blocked out sunlight which was doing all it could to enter, filling the room in warmth.

She shifted her body but only felt a great pain in her head, and a retching nausea.

She tried to sit up with much difficulty when her hand was suddenly covered by something cool.

A voice at once cold and warm cautioned her worriedly. “Don’t move.”

Ji Weixi pause. The voice was both familiar and unfamiliar, and she had to search her mind.

Turning her head with some effort, she found a man sitting at her bedside whose upper body was bandaged heavily. His face was melancholic beneath his loose silver hair, and there was indescribable worry and cherishing in his eyes as he watched her.

He sighed softly. “You’re finally awake.”

Ji Weixi’s brain drew a blank for several seconds before she hesitantly asked, “A-are you Mister Su?”

There was unfamiliarity and wariness as she addressed him—a sense of distance she deliberately maintained.

A pained looked flashed past his eyes, but he mustered a smile. “Yes, it’s me.”

“You saved me?”

“It’s nothing.” Su Yang pursed his pale lips apologetically. “Sorry if I’ve shocked you.”

Ji Weixi shook her head. “No, you don’t have to apologize… you’re hurt too.”

She turned her eyes to the bandages wrapped around his body.

Su Yang smiled. “I’ve accidentally got a little wounded.”

Seconds of silence followed his words, but afraid that she would think too much, he quickly added, “It’s not from saving you… don’t worry too much…”

Ji Weixi smiled at him. “Thank you for saving me.”

Su Yang had to avert his eyes from her smile, his fingers clenching at a spot where she can’t see. “You’re welcome.”

Ji Weixi sat up then, even if it took a lot of strength out of her. Su Yang tried to help, but eventually withdrew his outstretched hand quietly.

Leaning on the bed, Ji Weixi panted for a while, her voice showing her worry. “Where’s Li Shaoling?”

She remembered that he had fainted and stayed unconscious before she fainted too.

She was very worried. She wanted to see him!

On the other hand, Su Yang’s eyes which had just regained a little luster darkened at the mention of Li Shaoling.

His face was pale and his voice flat. “Are you talking about… the man who fainted beside you?”

Ji Weixi quickly nodded, anxiety showing in her eyes. ‘How is he? Where is he? I have to see him!”

Su Yang lowered his gaze, and his breath seemed to become choppy. “He was taken away by a woman.”

Ji Weixi froze. “A woman?”

“Yeah. A woman who looks almost the same age as you, but I don’t know her.”

“Do you not know where he is, Mister Su?”

“I’m not sure. Sorry, it had been a dire situation, so I didn’t have the time…”

Ji Weixi’s breath left her lungs while her heart raced mysteriously. She suddenly had a foreboding feeling, but shook her head and forced a grin. “Don’t apologize, Mister Su. It’s not your fault, and you were the one who saved me.”

Su Yang was about to say something when someone knocked on the sickroom door—it opened, and his assistant entered. He nodded at Ji Weixi before talking to Su Yang with care and concern beside his ear. “Maestro, it’s time to switch your meds.”

Su Yang stood up. “You have to call the doctors if you feel uncomfortable,” he told Ji Weixi with much concern. “I’ll come by again after I changed my meds.”

Ji Weixi nodded, and watched as he left.

It was only after the door closed behind Su Yang that her smile faded.

Li Shaoling…

A woman…

What was actually happening? Where was he?

***

A luxury ward in another River Town Hospital.

The man on the sickbed had his eyes peacefully closed. His long brow kept a faint shadow over his eyes.

There was a coil of bandage over his head. His thin lips were rather pale beneath his flawlessly handsome face, like a prince in slumber.

Be that as it may, his left hand was most conspicuous: despite coils upon coils of bandages over it, fresh blood was still seeping out.

“Lady Qiao, you have been here for the whole night. Come out for a while, have something to eat.”

A middle-aged man advised as he entered, and he was speaking to a blonde lady with black eyes sitting bedside.

Her face was a mix of the western and orient ancestry: high-brow, sunken eyes, and loose double eyelids. Her gaze that was as beautiful as a painting never left the man on the sickbed.

However, the man’s advice left her frowning and she shot a fierce look at him. “I’m saying it again: I’m not hungry, and get lost!”

Clearly taken aback, the middle-aged man quickly arched his back in a respectful bow. “Lady Qiao, I’ll leave right now.”

The sick room was closed softly.

That was when the eyes of the man on the bed shifted.

He slowly opened his eyes. There was only darkness in his eyes—empty and without a sense of distance.

The woman promptly got to his feet and cried, “Shaoling! You finally woke up!”

Agitated, she quickly pressed the buzzer for a doctor, but she stopped and quickly tried to stop the man, who had sat up despite much difficulty and pulled out his oxygen tube.

“Shaoling, what are you doing!? You’re still very weak!”

Li Shaoling leaned on his bed, with one of his long legs curling up.

Even when dressed in a blue-white patient gown, the thick air around him that kept people away that could not be dispelled.

He still looked like a king even though all he did was sit there, full of killing intent even if he wasn’t moving and saying a thing.

“Why are you here?” He then asked coldly.

“I saved you, Shaoling!” The woman blinked hurtfully, reaching out to touch his handsome face only to be ruthlessly slapped off by Li Shaoling.

“Shaoling, I am your savior for better or worse—you should be gentler with me.” The woman

Li Shaoling sneered. “Qiao Biluo. You really don’t know when to die.”

***

The woman was before him was Qiao Biluo.

A quarter European, she lived in River Town as a child before leaving for Europe with her father Qiao Juetian when she was eleven. The third child and only daughter of her family with two elder brothers, she had always been the pearl in her family’s eye, a young lady who always got what she wanted.

Although her father was a Chinese national, her paternal grandmother was a princess from a European royal family, which led to her mixed ancestry.

Qiao Juetian’s own paternal grandfather was very trusting of him, and had handed him the entire family’s estate before he passed away. That was how the Qiao family became a European royal family with Asian ancestry.

It also meant that Qiao Biluo became a princess of her family’s seventh generation.

Her position was only too obvious.

Even so…

“Don’t call me that.” Li Shaoling was extremely disgusted by how she kept calling his name.

Nonetheless, Qiao Biluo quickly tried to stop him as he attempted to get off his bed.

Then, as she was about to say something, she suddenly felt a large hand abruptly clenching over her throat.