Huang Zhentian gasped for air, veins bulging on his neck, red veins in his eyes. The suffocation had stunned him for a moment. He was overweight, and lack of oxygen took a while to recover.
When he finally realized what Lin Shanghuai had done, he sprawled in the chair like a dead pig, breathing weakly, "You! Do you know who my father is!!"
Boring.
Lin Shanghuai, walking back to his seat, threw away the now dirty card, crossed his legs, and propped the toe of his leather shoe against a table leg, scratching it idly. He felt bored, but his face still looked as harmless as before. However, no one present dared to underestimate him now.
"What's the matter? Who doesn't know you, Huang San'er? Your mother became your father's mistress at sixteen, and now she's the boss lady of Hongcheng Daily Chemical Factory."
"Have you forgotten your own family background?" The corners of his eyes were sharp and upturned, making his eyes look arrogant.
Qi Sui stood aside, frozen.
At this moment, she wished everyone present would forget her, or that she could become invisible.
But that wouldn't happen.
Delicate white fingertips curled and tapped on the table.
"What are you daydreaming about? How did you get in?" He pointed his chin at the nearby waitstaff. "Go, get this dummy a new deck of cards. Have her shuffle them properly."
Qi Sui stiffly took the deck from the waitstaff, deliberately ignoring the pity in his eyes. She felt every joint in her body creak as she clumsily shuffled the cards, listening to Huang Zhentian's heavy breathing across the table as he loudly cursed the unruly Young Master Lin in front of him.
But Qi Sui's mind was elsewhere.
Not for any other reason.
It was because this seemingly smiling Young Master Lin, under the table, was rubbing his beautiful, expensive leather shoe against her bare calf. Starting from her ankle, it slid all the way up to the back of her knee.
He seemed to enjoy the feeling of pressing flesh under his foot. The man's toe became more forceful, and several times, Qi Sui felt his warm body heat. Like a snake, he used his ankle, covered in fine-patterned cotton socks, to rub her calf, as if coiling around a pillar.
The sensation was strange.
It wasn't itchy or painful, but something in between—a unfamiliarity of skin-to-skin contact with a stranger. She was forced into this inappropriate behavior with a stranger, like suddenly popping a cold wild cherry into her mouth, numbing her lips so she felt nothing.
She had never—
Never been this intimate with any male before.
Qi Sui was a country girl. Sex education was essentially nonexistent. Many people still believed that "sharing a bed on the wedding night leads to a baby," let alone such intimate gestures.
Her mother only told her that the places covered by her bra and underwear couldn't be touched casually by others, but other places didn't matter.
She opened her mouth to say, "Young Master Lin, why are you kicking my leg?"
But instinctively, she felt that such words couldn't be said openly in this setting.
So that foot became increasingly audacious.
Several times, he hooked high, even brushing the edge of her linen shorts, the shoe tip carrying a bit of sticky body heat, like a snake infected with a feverish virus, trying to force its way into her flesh.
She didn't care whether the shoe was clean or not, nor whether others were watching her. Instead, her face flushed red, and she gripped the edge of the black skirt tightly with one hand, afraid he would flip it open.
Qi Sui thought simply.
It was just her calf. He could rub it if he wanted. But if he lifted her skirt in front of so many people, revealing the ugly shorts underneath, that would be mortifying.
Qi Sui wanted to move away, preferably disappear quickly.
But in public, everyone's eyes were on the table. Only this Young Master Lin tilted his head, resting it on his hand, his face slightly frowning, his dark eyes fixed on her, his tone unreadable.
"Got bugs crawling on you?"
Hearing this, Qi Sui stiffened, lowering her head and mumbling, "No... no..."
Unexpectedly, Lin Shanghuai didn't intend to let her off, as if he had taken some interest in her, snorting like teasing a cat or dog: "What a dummy. No fun."
As he spoke, under the table, his toe pressed unhappily on a bit of protruding leg flesh, grinding with light force.
Qi Sui's figure was the typical "good for childbearing" type, but only in comparison to others. Looking directly, she was just a bit fleshy, with slightly more fat accumulation than girls of the same age. The rest was quite thin.
The flesh on her calf was mercilessly pressed by him, both itchy and numb.
Qi Sui wrinkled her face, feeling he was just like Wang Laolai in the village, saying one thing but meaning another.
"Lin Shanghuai! Don't think you're someone just because you came to Hongcheng. I tell you, you're nothing but a fart!"
Huang Zhentian across the table was so angry his head seemed to swell. The waitstaff didn't dare to provoke him, and the dealer was barely breathing, holding the deck of cards, hesitating to deal.
"Deal the cards. What are you waiting for, me to beg you?" Lin Shanghuai looked at him with curved eyes, wearing a smile, but it startled the dealer, who hurriedly dealt the cards.
He acted as if Huang Zhentian across from him didn't exist, his tone leisurely: "Don't worry. I don't plan to make a name for myself in this crappy place."
The county town that others dreamed of was just a "crappy place" to him. He smiled arrogantly. "I just can't stand a coward like you, full of guts and grease."
"Hey, Huang San'er, you weren't like this with my old man. Didn't you almost kneel to that old man a couple of days ago and call him 'ancestor'?"
Finished, he disdainfully tugged at Qi Sui's sleeve, smiling. "Isn't that right, dummy?"
Qi Sui blinked, looking at him, then at Huang Zhentian, who was so angry he looked like a melon. She bit her lip and dared not speak.
No matter how dull or slow she was, she knew now was not the time to speak. It was best to keep her mouth shut.
"No fun."
Lin Shanghuai touched a card, directly spread his hand, and slapped it on the table. Twenty-one exactly, the highest hand. He stood up, and the chips on the table clattered as he brushed them all to the fuming Huang Zhentian across from him.
"It's yours, Huang San'er. If it's not enough, ask your daddy for more."