Chapter 147 — The Long-Awaited...

Zhou Yanning felt as though her heart would leap out of her chest, her breath hot and hurried. This was the first time Yang Ce had ever held her of his own free will—the first time in her memory, at least; of those earlier memories in which she had supposedly become Yang Ce's girlfriend, she could recall not a single thing.

Still, Zhou Yanning had come to terms with it. So long as her heart was at ease, what did it matter which time was truly the first? "If life were only as it was at first sight"—how many lovers would envy a feeling like that, and never obtain it.

Fearing he might frighten Zhou Yanning, Yang Ce held her only briefly before letting go. Chen Shutang, though, shot Yang Puqi a half-smiling, half-scolding glare, as if to say: so you take advantage of Jiajia's amnesia to bully her, you great lecher.

Yang Jiyan pretended not to understand, grinned, and said, "Jiajia, let me introduce you—this is Lin Yanhe. The two of you were good sisters once."

"Huh?" Zhou Yanning was startled for a moment. So this was the Sister Lin that Chen Shutang had told her about yesterday. How beautiful she was, with a kind of delicate, fragile loveliness. Every woman around Yang Ce was so outstanding.

"Hello, I'm Lin Yanhe. Please look after me." Lin Yanhe pursed her lips and offered Zhou Yanning a friendly hand.

"Ah—oh!" Only then did Zhou Yanning realize she had been staring, which was rather impolite. Embarrassed, she said, "Zhiyun, you're so beautiful that even I can't help being smitten."

Praised by Zhou Yanning, Lin Yanhe grew a little shy. "Jiajia, you're very beautiful too."

"All right, you two, stop complimenting each other. Whether someone's beautiful is for me to decide! This master hereby declares the beauty contest open!" Yang Ce chuckled. "You have half an hour—go put on your sexiest clothes. Of course, wearing nothing is acceptable too—and then your senior beauty critic, Teacher Yang Ce, will pass judgment on you!"

At Yang Cenbin's outrageous talk, Lin Yanhe and Zhou Yanning gave a little squeak and lowered their heads in embarrassment. Only Chen Shutang glared and kicked Yang Puqi. "You wretch—do you have a death wish? How do you even come up with such wicked ideas?"

"Just a joke, only a joke!" Seeing Chen Shutang's displeasure, Yang Ce sobered up quickly and scratched his head. "I was only talking nonsense."

With three beauties before him, he had evidently grown a little too pleased with himself. Getting that headstrong little girl Chen Shutang to wait on him alongside other women would be harder than climbing to heaven. Still, this difficult task simply had to be accomplished—the harder it was, the more challenging, Yang Lanxu thought to himself in secret.

Yang Ce wiped the lecherous grin off his face and replaced it with a look of stern righteousness. "Mengyan, in a little while help Zhiyun prepare a room. She'll be staying here tonight too."

"Prepare what? Why not just have her stay with Jiajia and me?" Chen Shutang said with a smile.

"Stay together?" Yang Xutang's eyes went wide at once, his expression more wretched than if he were about to cry. "There's no need for us all to be together, is there? The bed at our place—it can't fit that many people."

"I wonder which scoundrel it was who picked out a huge bed back then—never mind three, four or five could sleep in it without a problem," Chen Shutang said with a cold snort. "Though I must say, he was remarkably farsighted."

Yang Ce cursed inwardly. Why had he prepared that bed so early? He could have waited until he'd won over all these little girls, young ladies, and little peppers one by one before buying a bed—there was no rush! A blunder, a blunder. Damn it, why couldn't that bastard Zheng Laoliu have burned down the villa? Then one fire would have taken care of the bed. Yang Ce thought resentfully: serves him right—serves him right for being blown to bits. Who told him to burn the wrong place?

"Sister Lin, you don't mind staying with us, do you?" Chen Shutang took Lin Yanhe's hand and asked.

"Of course I don't mind." Lin Yanhe glanced at Yang Puqi with some apology, yet she could not refuse Chen Shutang. When Yang Ce had taken her out to spend the night, Lin Yanhe had understood what he wanted; but now it was plainly impossible.

Yang Xunai sighed. Yet he could hardly show himself to be too desperate, so he could only think to himself: only men have it so hard.

Sure enough, Chen Shutang gave him not the slightest consideration. She simply took Lin Yanhe and Zhou Yanning by the hand, went upstairs, and locked the bedroom door. Yang Ce looked at the lock on the door and shook his head helplessly.

Though that lock was as good as nothing to Heng, Yang Ce still did not force it open. No matter what was said, he could not embarrass Chen Shutang too badly. In truth, Yang Shuoxuan could understand what Chen Shutang was feeling at this moment.

This little girl had followed him through wind and rain all the way from high school to this point, and at last her devotion had borne fruit—only for several other women to appear at his side. Anyone in her place would feel bitter about it.

Chen Shutang had accepted it in silence, had swallowed her grievance, but in her heart she surely still believed that she was Yang Duoji's most proper girlfriend—that at the very least she held first place in Yang Juehuan's heart.

So no matter what, Chen Shutang would never give Yang Moyi the chance to do anything—and if anything were to be done, it would be done with her, Chen Shutang. After all, she still had a little dignity to preserve; she meant to secure her place at the front.

But if she and Yan did anything, then what of Lin Yanhe and Zhou Yanning? Chen Shutang simply could not bring herself to do something so shameful with the others listening nearby. Yet to let Yang Ce and Lin Yanhe go off together—that would surely leave her uneasy. If they weren't all under one roof, of course, it wouldn't matter; the crux of it was that they were all in the same house.

So Chen Shutang had chosen this solution, even if it meant Yang Ce suffering a little.

Having grasped the heart of the matter, Yang Shuoxuan no longer felt wronged; instead, he was somewhat ashamed of his earlier disregard for Chen Shutang's feelings. Still, it was no great matter—wasn't there still his little sweetheart? Only a wall away. Tonight he would simply leap over to Wang Xiaoniu's villa.

Yang Ce lay in the small bedroom—the master bedroom had been yielded to Chen Shutang and the others. He could not sleep, for the scene of the company fire kept flashing through his mind: the company ablaze, Lin Yanhe's despairing expression, Zheng Laoliu holding the gasoline can.

At last his work was done, and he had time to think carefully about his own special ability. Yang Yongjin believed it was a hallucination of his—and also did not believe it was mere coincidence.

A hallucination could not possibly appear so real, and the crucial point was this: the hallucination had come true. Moreover, something similar had happened before, that time the BMW's brakes had been sabotaged.

Why, exactly? Could he really possess the power to predict the future? But what did that power depend on to work?

In the past, all his abilities had been realized through his will—that is, once his brain sent out the signal, the power took effect. That included the ability to probe others' thoughts: though it had its trigger conditions, it too could only work after he concentrated his attention.

What about this precognitive ability, then? Was it also controlled through his brain signals? At that thought, Yang Ce began to experiment.

Yang Juehuan's method was simple: he would think—think about what was going to happen in a little while.

To be continued

974. I Am the King of Assassins