“ Why is it so cold? ”
Jiang Lai gently stroked Shen Ruxue’s cheek, feeling the temperature of her face, then softly took her hand.
Right now, Shen Ruxue’s entire body felt like a block of ice—bitterly cold to the touch.
Jiang Lai had originally planned to take advantage of the darkness, using the cover of night to quickly reach an area with signal.
Deep down, she refused to believe that there wasn’t a single spot with signal anywhere in the entire estate.
Even if the coverage was limited, what about near the walls?
If nothing else, she could stretch her hand out through the railings.
There were always more solutions than difficulties—as long as she could get close to the wall, she could even climb her way out.
But now, the plan to keep searching in the dark could no longer continue.
Shen Ruxue’s body could not hold on any longer.
She was freezing all over.
At the very least, they had to wait until she slowly recovered.
Thinking this, Jiang Lai took off her own clothes.
When Shen Ruxue saw this, she raised her hand, wanting to pull the clothes Jiang Lai had removed back onto her.
“What are you doing? It’s so cold right now—why are you taking your clothes off?”
Shen Ruxue could also feel how stiff her own body had become from the cold, so she could guess what Jiang Lai was trying to do by removing her clothes.
She shifted her body slightly, trying to move to the side, hoping this action would make Jiang Lai give up the idea of giving her the clothes.
“I don’t need them… you’ll get cold too…”
“Of course I know I’ll get cold. I’m not that stupid. I took my clothes off so both of us can share them.”
Jiang Lai looked at Shen Ruxue, who appeared dazed—probably because the cold had frozen her mind.
So Jiang Lai reached out and directly pulled Shen Ruxue into her arms.
Jiang Lai had thought that such an intimate action would make the other person feel shy and struggle, but throughout the whole process, Shen Ruxue remained obedient, just like a well-behaved little kitten.
Jiang Lai gazed at Shen Ruxue sitting obediently in her arms and thought of her own daughter.
She gently stroked the girl’s head with her hand, then covered her with her own clothes.
At least this way, Shen Ruxue’s body heat would not be lost too quickly.
Although Jiang Lai’s body was not particularly warm right now, it was still better than nothing.
At least she was holding Shen Ruxue tightly in her arms, blocking any drafts.
The icy-cold Shen Ruxue pressed against Jiang Lai’s chest.
Jiang Lai glanced at the hand Shen Ruxue still had outside and gently took it, tucking it together inside her own clothes.
Throughout the entire process, she did not dare use even a little extra strength, afraid she might hurt the wounds on Shen Ruxue’s hand.
Jiang Lai frowned, her heart aching as she looked at everything.
Those large and small scars on her hands must have come from struggling to break free from the ropes that had bound her.
Although it pained her to keep looking, Jiang Lai already felt that she was not a qualified adult.
In a critical moment, she had actually let a child make such a sacrifice.
Jiang Lai remained silent.
In the end, she simply held the girl in her arms even tighter.
It was her fault.
If it weren’t for her, how could Shen Ruxue have encountered something so terrible?
Jiang Lai could not bear for her own daughter to face danger, and Shen Ruxue was someone else’s precious daughter as well…
Carrying a deep sense of guilt, Jiang Lai pressed tightly against Shen Ruxue’s back.
What she did not know was that this action instantly caused Shen Ruxue—who had still been stiff in the head—to blush faintly across her cheeks.
Shen Ruxue only felt that her body, which had been somewhat stiff from the cold, suddenly grew a little hot and restless.
Right now, there was only one thought in her mind: why did her husband’s body after gender transformation look so good?
It was way too seductive…
In the past, even when Shen Ruxue did not know Jiang Lai’s true identity, she could still faintly sense the unique charm coming from Jiang Lai.
But ever since she learned that Jiang Lai was actually her husband, all those annoying feelings in her heart had completely disappeared.
In their place was pure appreciation, the kind where love makes everything beautiful in the lover’s eyes.
Now she finally understood why that woman with the surname Si was so obsessed with her husband and had even done so many ridiculous things multiple times.
Just as Shen Ruxue was gradually sinking into Jiang Lai’s soft and gentle embrace, she suddenly thought of her younger sister.
If she remembered correctly… her younger sister was currently in a romantic relationship with the current Jiang Lai.
Before this, Shen Ruxue had also repeatedly treated Jiang Lai as her younger sister’s girlfriend, but what exactly was going on here?
***
While Jiang Lai held Shen Ruxue tightly in her arms and rested against the edge of a tree, Chi Yingyu outside had already gathered everyone in a state of extreme anxiety.
Although the police were already searching for them based on the last known location, Chi Yingyu still could not feel at ease and went to the place where she believed they had been taken.
On the way to find Jiang Leyi, most of her thoughts remained on the shared location with Jiang Lai.
She paid attention to it every moment until the shared location could no longer refresh its final range.
At that time, because there had already been some distance between the two, the map was zoomed out.
Even though they could know the general area where the signal had last disappeared, they could not pinpoint an exact spot and could only keep searching across the large area.
After all, the disappearance point was in the suburbs.
The suburban area had roads leading in all directions—one could head into the mountains, go to the countryside, or even reach an entire private estate a bit farther away.
And before having solid evidence, the police had no way to investigate inside a private estate.
They could only slowly search the surrounding area for surveillance cameras and see if they could find any evidence.
Chi Yingyu could have stayed at home and waited for news from the police, but she always trusted her own intuition.
She felt that her brother-in-law was inside that private estate.
However, the police had already checked—the ownership of the private estate did not belong to Si Yina at all, but to someone completely unrelated to her.
Without direct evidence, all the police could do after going there was ask a few questions and request cooperation in pulling the surveillance footage.
They could not force a search inside.
After investigation, there appeared to be nothing wrong with the estate.
But all of this only made Chi Yingyu even more suspicious.
She stood not far from the estate’s main gate, constantly observing the environment inside.
If at the beginning it had only been intuition and doubt, now she was one hundred percent certain that her brother-in-law was definitely inside.
Because in the evening, many more figures had suddenly appeared at the estate’s main entrance.
Chi Yingyu was very familiar with several of those figures—weren’t they the female bodyguards they had encountered before?
Their appearance also made Chi Yingyu firm up her resolve.
No matter what, she had to get inside and take a look.
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