The Villain's Wife

"I think so, yes." He shrugged. "I am not sure though. You should ask Yuanfeng… maybe he knows something."

"Oh!" Lily put the stone back inside the jewelry box before closing it. "We should probably leave now. We can go to the columbarium before heading back home." For some reason, the rock together with her grandmother's diary made her curious.

If not for the moon rock that she received from Eliza a few weeks ago, Lily would not have thought anything about it. However, in her world, coincidences rarely ever happened.

"Alright." He nodded. "Can I borrow one of these books?"

"Sure." She nodded. When she was a child, she remembered playing with the books on the shelves. "Be careful not to damage the others." She stood and walked towards the bookshelves. "What is that?"

She looked at the leather book with gold markings on it.

"Italian." He answered. "I believe this is The Prince."

Instantaneously, Lily's eyebrow lifted. "The Prince?" She took the book from him. "The Niccolo Machiavelli's, The Prince?"

"Hmmm. I can't read Italian but yeah… IL PRINCIPE Di NICOLO MACHIAVELLI is pretty understandable." The thing about The Prince was that it was written in Italian instead of Latin. Of course, this might be because Machiavelli was from Italy.

"It is The Prince." Lily eyed the other books in the shelves as she wondered, what kind of treasure would she find if she searched this place. "That is very strange." She uttered. Seeing Lilian's favorite book here… was a very strange thing.

"This book Is pretty old too, it's from the 1550's." He added.

"The Prince was published in 1530's." She said. "This means… this is a very old copy. I am not an expert in books but this might be one of the oldest copies in the world. So— " she met his curious eyes. "Why would a housewife have a copy of this book inside her secret room?"

Zhou Jingren only shrugged in response. Lily gave the book back to her husband before she stared at the other stack of books inside the room. Just as she remembered, this room had always been like this. The room was always full of books that she didn't know, papers that she could read.

"Let's go?"

"Sure." She nodded as she held the jewelry box and notebook closer to her chest. She then held Zhou Jingren's hand as a small smile slithered onto her face. It seemed that her grandmother was also keeping secrets on her own, she thought.

...

After they left her grandmother's house, Lily, Zhou Jingren and Qin Yuanfeng went to pay their respects to Grandma Ye before Lily insisted that they go to the Qin Mansion as she wanted to check her grandmother's room.

"Are you sure?" Qin Yuanfeng frowned. "It is pretty late."

"It's five in the afternoon." She retorted. Since she discovered some crazy coincidences, Lily had been really curious about things. She could just go home and think about it all night, ah! With this curiosity, Lily knew that she won't be able to sleep tonight.

Zhou Jingren only shrugged when Qin Yuanfeng turned his gaze towards him. Sighing, he turned his gaze outside of the car. He wondered why Lily would insist on visiting the place where she experienced abuse for years. Qin Yuanfeng would never be able to do that.

This was one of the reasons why he chose to not see his father anymore. Another sigh escaped his lips before the sound of Zhou Jingren's phone interrupted the silence inside the car.

"Hm?" Zhou Jingren answered. "Really? Alright… I might personally go there.Hmmm. Yes… alright." He quickly ended the call and turned towards Lily then towards Qin Yuanfeng who was sitting in the front seat of the car. "Qin Chuan… took Qi Xia" He said.

"What?!" Lily asked, surprised.

"There was an explosion in Qi Xia's office. A fire broke out and some people died. This all happened a few hours back. Bei Tian said… Qi Xia was not one of the people who had died. Instead… someone took him."

"And that someone is Qin Chuan?" Qin Yuanfeng asked. Just like Lily, he was pretty surprised to hear about this matter.

"Not confirmed yet. But… Bei Tian's men found some traces of him, working with some questionable people just a few days back and he was coincidentally around the area when the explosion happened."

Lily frowned as she pursed her lips. "So… he had the guts to come after the people who planned all this." She sighed. Without asking for their help Qin Chuan had actually dealt with the people who fooled him. That meant… "Then… Tang Lingyun must have told him. There is a possibility that she is already dead— or if he is that cruel then, there is also the possibility that she is alive somewhere, regretting her decision to play with someone who does not have anything to lose."

"And you are planning to see Qin Chuan?" Qin Yuanfeng chimed in.

"Only to see him torture Qi Xia," Zhou Jingren stared at Lily. Of course, he would also ask him about the backer that Xuan Hui told him about. "And to ask him if he will also do the same thing to my cousin."

"Will you stop him?"

For a few seconds, Zhou Jingren turned silent before he shook his head. "No." Zhou Huifang and Qi Xia had played with Qin Chuan's emotions. They not only ruined his relationship with his daughter, they also copied the face of the woman that he loved in an attempt to control him. These actions were bound to come back and bite them.

And it happened. It did not take too long for Qin Chuan to start his retaliation. A man like him must have blamed both Qi Xia and Zhou Huifang for ruining his life. Though he was the one who made the wrong choices, it was only normal for him as a person, to blame it on other people. After all… he was already broken. Just like everyone else, Qin Chuan was already broken long before he met Su Ma.

"Playing with his emotions... It was their choice." He added. "Now… they will be forced to deal with the consequences of their actions."

...

Proofreader: Dragon777