Chapter 484: Chapter 484 - 478: Ahhh, No, No, No...

Jing Jihan stood still, only glancing sideways at her with a smile.

Shi Su originally intended to run away after throwing the snow, but seeing him remain motionless, she couldn’t help but glance at him again.

Snow was scattered across the man’s head and handsome face, which she had just flung, standing tall and unmoving in the wind and snow. The indulgence in his eyes and his unwillingness to argue with her were overwhelmingly obvious. The morning sunlight cast a long, tall silhouette behind him on the snow-covered ground.

Next to Jing Jihan’s shadow, another figure, caught up in the playful mood, grabbed another handful of snow, this time aiming straight for his collar.

Jing Jihan finally dodged, avoiding the snow from getting inside his collar, while suddenly letting out a laugh with an inscrutable meaning. He casually stuffed her knitted scarf into the pocket of his iron-grey coat, not caring about appearances, with a thick sense of danger in his eyes: "Are you sure you want to play like this?"

"I..." Shi Su slowly retreated with a guarded expression. Even though the man’s gaze clearly saw through her movements, she still held onto a hope of luck, continuing to slowly move backward. Suddenly, she grabbed another handful of snow, shrieking: "I am sure! Hahaha..."

After throwing snow at him, she laughed and shouted to run, but the man was tall with long legs. As soon as she ran forward, he took one stride to easily catch her into his arms.

Laughing, Shi Su struggled, turning to see that he still held a clump of snow in his hand, when she hadn’t noticed when he had grabbed it.

Was he going to take revenge on her?

"Ahhhh... No, no, no, don’t... It’s cold, cold... It’s too cold..." Shi Su raised her hand to cover her neck in a struggle, fearing he would really stuff the snow into her collar.

The man held her, stopping her struggle, pretending to shove snow at her. Shi Su continued to scream until he pressed her under a tree. As the action to stuff the snow frightened her, she shuddered, but instead of icy coldness, she was suddenly kissed on the corner of her mouth by the man.

Shi Su glanced up, seeing the man’s face so close, she blinked, reached back for snow on the tree trunk, suddenly grabbed a handful, and mischievously pushed it against his hand, knocking the snow out of it and then clapping the snow from her hand onto his face.

Jing Jihan paused at her unexpected close-range attack, then stood still, looking at her with a dangerous gaze.

Shi Su laughed and screamed as she ran away, as if fearing he was really angry and wanted to have a snowball fight. As she ran, she grabbed snow from the ground, holding a handful in one hand, ready to defend and attack.

She ran roughly two or three hundred meters away, only circling around the lake behind, and turned to see the man unhurriedly following along. At this distance, she couldn’t see if he was holding snow, and didn’t know what mood Jing might be in after being provoked. She warily held onto the snowball and hid beneath the porch by the lakeside.

This was almost the end of the Shi Family’s backyard.

Suddenly, Shi Su heard a sound from inside.

At first, she didn’t pay much attention, still observing the figure of Jing Jihan approaching her from the other side. Turning away, she then heard the voices of a few girls inside, noisy, as if laughing playfully, then as if mocking, and it seemed mixed with sobbing.

"Hey, stop moving, what are you running for?"

"At such a young age, you already know to run out and cling to someone, huh? Isn’t a Shi Family enough for you? Oh, right, although you’re from the Shi Family, you’re originally not a Shi, right? Your useless mom insisted on marrying a man without even a job, against Mr. Shi’s objections, ended up with an unhappy marriage followed by domestic abuse, and after divorce, she brought you back to the Shi Family, naming you with their surname. But how could the Shi Family truly raise a daughter of a gambler and abuser as their child, say it’s a Shi Family lady, but at such a young age... What are you? Sixteen? Seventeen? Last month-end, you actually caused such a scene at the Gu Family banquet, even splashed Mr. Gu with alcohol, and finally, claiming youth and ignorance, you were taken away? Do you know how many of our sisters lost the chance to speak on stage that night because of your mess?"

"Why hiding? What’s wrong? Are you afraid of us? Aren’t you supposedly a Shi Family lady? Your mom back then, for marrying a loser, almost cut ties with the Shi Family and ran away, later brought you back afraid you’d starve, what’s with acting like a high-born lady now?"

Originally, Shi Su thought it was just some kids of today’s visiting relatives hiding here fooling around, turning to walk to the other side, but the more she listened, the more something seemed wrong.

She then heard the low sobbing turn into soft crying.

"Why are you crying? Have any shame crying? We’re going to take a photo of you like this, you drenched Mr. Gu with alcohol without him even seeing your face, didn’t even know you were a little brat. Come on, turn around, let us take a photo, later we’ll secretly show Mr. Gu what kind of little girl you really are. Didn’t you, at such a young age, dare to rush above and pull Mr. Gu’s clothes off? Now let’s have you strip clean for a close-up... stop crying, stop pretending to be pitiful, hurry and turn your face, let us take a good picture!"

Shi Su looked inside, seeing at the end, around the corner behind a high wall of the corridor, three well-dressed young girls surrounding another small, fair, thin girl, who was squatting in the corner in disarray, with scattered snow-covered clothes and sweater-skirt beside her. She only wore a thin shirt, even with torn collar revealing much of her shoulder and calves, her long hair messed up, trembling as she cried.

Seeing that little girl’s state, along with the few slaps on her reddened face, forced to lift her chin for a photo by one of the people in front.

The girl crouched in the corner, trembling but not daring to rise, as the three girls besieging her mixed malicious smiles: "Don’t hide, warn you not to hide, after the shot, we go, rare chance to follow family into your Shi Family today, finally caught you, where can you hide now!"

The scene seemed to overlap with the small figure curled up in a corner of Jiang City’s Shi Family villa twenty years ago.

In that instant, Shi Su’s rationality momentarily collapsed, abruptly kicking open the small door blocking the end of the porch and the corner. The door panel hit the wall with a loud "bang," echoing at the backyard’s far end of the Shi Family.