The Guan Family.
Ever since the night Guan Baocheng had gone on a frenzy, smashing nearly ten million worth of his own antiques, he hadn't been the same. Once he had regained his senses, he felt as though his entire world had collapsed.
To make matters worse, Jiang Yucheng had publicly declared at the banquet that the Jiang Family no longer had any relationship with them. In the following two days, several companies that partnered with the Jiangs had one after another terminated their cooperation with the Guan Corporation.
Guan Baocheng collapsed from the stress and fell ill.
Bai Shuqin had succumbed even earlier, falling sick the very night they returned from the banquet.
With two members of the family down, Guan Qishen was forced to temporarily take over the company's affairs. He was kept so busy that his feet barely touched the ground. However, just as he was leaving the office yesterday, he was involved in an unexpected car accident that left him with a fractured arm.
Yet, compared to the three of them, Guan Ruirui was in even worse shape.
For two consecutive days, she had been trapped in the exact same nightmare.
A leaden, dark sky. The rooftop of an abandoned school building. A girl whose lower body was almost entirely soaked in blood, looking at her with eyes full of despair and supplication.
The dream always ended with the rooftop door that Ruirui had hurriedly slammed shut.
In her ears, she could still hear the girl's mournful crying.
"Save me... Please, save me..."
The voice sounded as if it were whispered right against her ear.
Guan Ruirui snapped her eyes open, only to find that blood-stained girl sitting right beside her bed. Her eyes were drenched in bloody tears as she stared fixedly at Ruirui...
"AAAAHHHHH!!"
Guan Ruirui's scream shattered the midnight silence of the Guan Family villa.
A moment later, the bedroom door was pushed open, and Bai Shuqin walked in weakly, dragging her sickly body.
"Ruirui... Ruirui, what's wrong? Did you have a nightmare?"
Guan Ruirui threw herself into Bai Shuqin's arms, sobbing hysterically.
Bai Shuqin tried to soothe her, her voice filled with heartache. "Don't be afraid, Ruirui. Tell Mommy, was it just a nightmare?"
Still clinging to her mother, Guan Ruirui could only nod through her tears.
Bai Shuqin pulled her back slightly, her voice remaining tender. "Then... did you dream of me?"
The moment Guan Ruirui looked up, Bai Shuqin's face had transformed into the pale, blood-weeping visage of that girl.
"AAAAHHHH!"
The scream echoed through the entire villa once again.
Guan Baocheng rushed in next, and as Guan Ruirui sobbed out her terror to him, he too shifted into the form of the dead girl.
Guan Ruirui was on the verge of insanity.
After two days of these dreams within dreams, her mental state had completely fractured. She could no longer distinguish between the nightmare and reality.
It had reached the point where even when she saw Bai Shuqin while awake, her first instinct was to grab whatever was nearby and hurl it at her.
Afraid to stay in the house a second longer, Guan Ruirui changed her clothes and rushed out the door.
She failed to notice that the villa behind her seemed to be shrouded in a mass of dark clouds. Despite the bright summer sun, not a single ray of light could penetrate the Guan home.
As Guan Ruirui fled, wisps of dark energy leaked from the shadow clinging to her back, tainting every place she touched.
...
Elsewhere, Pei Yuancheng had just returned home, his face dark with frustration after being snubbed by Jiang Xuxu.
The moment he stepped out of his car, a figure suddenly lunged at him.
The person had bloodshot eyes, sagging bags under their lids, and a sallow complexion. They looked like a vengeful ghost.
Pei Yuancheng genuinely thought he was seeing a ghost in broad daylight and instinctively reached out to shove the person away.
It wasn't until he heard a familiar, aggrieved cry that he stopped.
"Brother Pei!"
Only then did Pei Yuancheng realize that the person was Guan Ruirui!
He looked at her haggard state; she looked like she hadn't slept for days. She was in such a wretched condition that she didn't look like the little princess of the Guan Family at all. His lip twitched. "Why do you look like this?"
Guan Ruirui's spirit had been tormented for two days. Hearing his voice, she burst into tears again.
Sobbing, she collapsed into Pei Yuancheng's embrace. "Brother Pei, I've been having nightmares for the past two days. I can't take it anymore, waaah..."
Pei Yuancheng looked down at her with a hint of impatience.
Before he had reunited with Jiang Xuxu, he felt he had made the right choice by picking Ruirui.
But after seeing Xuxu again, he realized that the girl in his arms couldn't compare to her in any way.
Ruirui wasn't as beautiful, her personality wasn't as good, and now even her only advantage her family background was inferior.
Pei Yuancheng was considering whether he should completely abandon Guan Ruirui and put all his eggs in one basket.
He had originally assumed that given his place in Jiang Xuxu's heart, she would happily become his girlfriend the moment he gave her a chance.
But Xuxu's attitude today made him realize he had been overthinking things.
Words alone might not be enough to make Xuxu believe him.
He had to take actual action.
The first step was to draw a clear line between himself and Ruirui.
Unaware of his intentions, Guan Ruirui continued to cry, rambling incoherently about her nightmares.
She kept saying she was afraid, but her logic was so muddled that Pei Yuancheng couldn't understand a word of it.
He only felt that Guan Ruirui was far too delicate.
It was just a nightmare, yet she expected him to coddle her.
Thinking of this, Pei Yuancheng became even more certain that a pampered, weak little princess like Guan Ruirui was not a good match for him.
Having made up his mind, he pulled her away.
"Ruirui, stop crying. Get in the car first; we'll go somewhere else to talk."
The front of his villa wasn't a private enough place. Since he had decided to break up, he naturally wouldn't bring her inside, nor did he want people to see them entangled and start gossiping.
Guan Ruirui was consumed by her terror and didn't notice him being intentionally distant. She obediently followed him into the car.
Once inside, she continued to cling tightly to his arm, looking completely dependent on him.
Pei Yuancheng felt helpless, but also a twinge of guilt.
This girl only had eyes for him. If he broke up with her, she would be devastated.
However, it was unavoidable.
With that thought, he suppressed his impatience, determined to make the breakup a dignified one.
"Ruirui, actually, I was planning to come find you even if you hadn't come to me."
Guan Ruirui looked up at him, her dark circles prominent. "Brother Pei, I knew you were thinking of me."
Looking at the bruising under her eyes, Pei Yuancheng felt that Ruirui was truly difficult to look at right now. He cleared his throat and tried to pull his arm out of her grasp.
"I have something to say to you."
Neither of them saw that as Ruirui held him, the wisps of dark energy on her body followed her movements and coiled around Pei Yuancheng's arm. Even when he pulled away, the energy remained, tangled around him like invisible silk threads.
Guan Ruirui finally sensed that something was wrong with his attitude.
She spoke cautiously, "Brother Pei, what did you want to tell me?"
Pei Yuancheng sighed and said, "Ruirui, I feel that we aren't a good match."
Before Guan Ruirui could react to his words, the driver in the front seat suddenly let out a cry of alarm.
The two of them instinctively turned their heads, only to see a car heading straight for them from the opposite direction...
"Bang!"
The two vehicles slammed into each other with a violent force.
The massive crash instantly thundered through the entire street.
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