Chi Yingyu vented nearly all the resentment she had built up over the past few days into that single punch. Si Yina, unable to dodge in time, took the hit directly. In an instant, bright red blood began to flow from her nose.
Si Yina exercised regularly, but her physical fitness only barely matched Chi Yingyu’s; after all, even Si Yina’s personal bodyguards were no match for the girl.
Infuriated by the blow, Si Yina abandoned all technique to prevent Chi Yingyu from using her skills. She lunged forward, closing the distance to grapple. One hand grabbed Chi Yingyu’s clothes while the other reached for her hair, intending to resort to a child-like, rowdy street brawl.
But Chi Yingyu wouldn’t let her have her way. Seeing the hand clutching her collar, she pivoted and executed a perfect shoulder throw, slamming the bastard onto the ground with a resounding thud.
Throughout the process, Si Yina never let go of Chi Yingyu’s collar. Even as she crashed to the floor, she used her entire body weight to drag Chi Yingyu down with her.
Watching his sister-in-law fall, Jiang Lai’s heart—which had been hanging by a thread—tightened painfully. It was fine when his sister-in-law had the upper hand, but now that they were wrestling on the ground, he couldn’t just stand there like a wooden post while she was being bullied.
Jiang Lai rushed over to break up the fight, primarily to protect Chi Yingyu. The two were rolling on the ground now, and his sister-in-law was likely to get hurt.
After all, Si Yina had no sense of “martial honor.” She used the most desperate tactics, entangling herself with Chi Yingyu, locking her legs around her, and refusing to let go of the collar she’d grabbed from the start. Her other hand even began tearing at Chi Yingyu’s hair.
The fight was brutal, but Chi Yingyu was not one to show weakness. Her strength did not falter for a second. Si Yina was already “seeing red”—beyond the bloody nose, her lip was split, and her once-pretty face was on the verge of being disfigured.
Jiang Lai reached them, trying to pull the two apart. “Enough! What is this… Stop it! Both of you, stop right now!”
But they were both seeing red. At this moment, even with Jiang Lai right there pleading with them, neither would let go.
Jiang Lai shared a brief look with Shen Ruxue. In an instant, with unspoken chemistry, they divided the task. Shen Ruxue went to Chi Yingyu’s side, while the more difficult Si Yina was left to Jiang Lai.
Both women were deaf to words now; only physical intervention could separate them. With this thought, Jiang Lai dove into the fray. However, since he couldn’t actually use force against them, he was essentially stepping in just to take the hits.
The moment he got close, stray hands struck him from unknown angles, making him grit his teeth against the sharp pain.
But what were a few hits? As long as he could stop them. If this continued, things would spiral out of control. Si Yina had been taught a sufficient lesson, and if the fight went on, his sister-in-law would surely get hurt too.
When Chi Yingyu saw her brother-in-law appear in front of her, she instinctively pulled back the hand she had raised. Shen Ruxue, staying close, seized the opportunity to pull Chi Yingyu up.
But Si Yina didn’t care about any of that. Completely lost to her rage, she landed several blows on Jiang Lai. When Jiang Lai tried to grab her hands to calm her down, she slapped his hands away with a sharp crack.
Seeing Chi Yingyu standing to the side, Si Yina tried to lung forward to land a few more hits, but Jiang Lai wrapped his arms around her, physically restraining her.
“Stop fighting! Calm down! Si Yina, if you haven’t hit enough yet, then I’ll just stand here and let you hit me!”
Si Yina was at the peak of her fury. Seeing Jiang Lai blocking her like that filled her heart with an extreme, inexplicable rage that she couldn’t vent.
Why?
The other side had started it! And she couldn’t even win the fight—there was such a clear gap between them, and her opponent held every advantage.
Si Yina’s lip was split, her body was covered in bruises, and her nose was bleeding; she was a pathetic mess. Meanwhile, Chi Yingyu stood there with a composed air, with nothing more than a bit of dust on her clothes and a few strands of hair pulled out.
Clearly, Si Yina was the one who suffered more, so why was Jiang Lai standing directly in front of her, choosing to protect the other girl?
But Si Yina had no idea of the depth of the bond between Jiang Lai and Chi Yingyu. Even if that bond were diluted a thousand times over, Si Yina wouldn’t be able to compare. To cry “unfair” here was simply asking for humiliation.
Jiang Lai stayed between them, terrified they would start brawling again. Once separated, the two women who had been blinded by rage slowly began to cool down.
Si Yina’s heart went cold because of Jiang Lai’s blatant favoritism, while Chi Yingyu was worried she might have accidentally hurt Jiang Lai. The atmosphere between them reached a strange, eerie equilibrium.
Chi Yingyu looked at her brother-in-law standing between them and wanted to pull him behind her, but Shen Ruxue gripped her wrist tightly. “Going over there now will only make things worse.”
Sigh.
Shen Ruxue said this with a bit of a selfish motive. She didn’t want to see her sister looking so disheveled. She had an endless, protective favoritism toward her own family. Compared to some “sister’s girlfriend,” she cared much more about whether her own sister would get hurt.
The sister she had pampered and protected in the palm of her hand was actually fighting someone over a woman. Fortunately, she wasn’t seriously injured; otherwise, Shen Ruxue would never have forgiven the two people in front of her.
But even though Shen Ruxue held her sister’s wrist tightly to keep her back, Chi Yingyu still broke free. She stepped forward and once again pulled Jiang Lai into her protective embrace.
At that moment, Shen Ruxue felt a pang of bitterness. She felt it wasn’t worth it for her sister. Simultaneously, she felt an intense curiosity about this woman—whose name sounded so much like her own husband’s. What kind of magic did she possess to leave her sister so utterly infatuated?