The year I loved Li Ye most, I took a fatal blow meant for her. As I lay dying, I pressed my mother’s blood-jade bangle into her hand. “Li Ye, if I die, keep it as a memento.” She wept inconsolably and brought in the best doctors in the city that very night to keep me alive. After I survived, I weathered bloodshed and hardship to make her the widely respected “President Li.” But at my father’s funeral, her pampered boy toy swaggered in wearing that very blood-jade bangle. I watched him parade around in a custom-tailored suit, flaunting it at every opportunity. I grabbed his hand and smashed it against the incense burner. The sound of jade shattering, bones cracking, and Dong Xiuyuan screaming rang out all at once. But Li Ye rushed straight over and seized my wrist, gripping so hard she nearly crushed my bones. Her eyes were anguished and wild. “Ji Xuan, do you have to destroy everything I care about?” I watched her shield someone else and smiled. “The things you care about? The bangle… or him?”
