When he pulled me out of the sea, I thought I'd met a playboy.
Then, three days later, he bid against me for the same painting at an auction, casually offering 150 million. I looked at his bidding paddle: No. 888. He looked at mine: No. 007.
“Miss Shen, the next time we meet, could you treat me to tea?”
“My tea is expensive.”
“I have plenty of money.”
Only later did I learn that money wasn't what he was short on. It was his life.
Murong Hanchuan, the head of the mysterious international organization “Dark Night Empire.” His left hand controlled a third of the world's arms trade, while his right held the blood debts of hundreds of lives.
And who was I? The last disciple of the traditional painting master Mo Chan, and the head of the multinational Jiangshan Group. One of my paintings could sell for tens of millions, and a single word from me could rock the stock market.
We should have been on parallel paths.
Until his father killed my master.
Until I discovered that the Jiangshan Statecraft Painting hid no ancient artwork, but a three-hundred-year-old family secret.
Until my breathtakingly beautiful senior sister smiled at me and said, “Junior sister, you don't even know who you are.”
He wanted to protect me, but I pushed him away. He wanted to marry me, but I pointed a gun at him.
“Murong Hanchuan, say that again.”
“Shen Qingmo, in this life, if your empire falls, I'll pick it up for you. If you lose your life, I'll live for you.”
Later, he really did almost die. On a snowy plain, after three gunshots and severe blood loss, he was still clutching that painting as he lost consciousness: the sunset I'd casually painted on a deserted island, the one he'd used as his phone wallpaper for three years.
Honestly, seeing the mighty Dark Night Emperor kneeling at the door of my studio to learn traditional Chinese painting looked an awful lot like love.
