Evil Awe-Inspiring

Her posture is calm and unhurried. It seems like here is her house and I am just the visitor.

I take the beer speechless. She smiles: "Why do you see my face like seeing a ghost? Am I so scary?"

I say with a bitter smile, "Shouldn"t I be surprised? You just appear in my house from nowhere." I ponder, look at the clock again, and suddenly ask, "My two friends in my family? Are you?"

"Hey!"Vivi Yang laughs, "Don"t think me silly! I"m not the kidnapper."

Then she slowly comes to me, takes me to sit down on the sofa together. She takes the beer bottle in my hand and drinks it for herself and sighs, "Actually, I just come to see you and have a chat with you. It"s nothing else."

"The nothing else means sneaking to my house?" I can"t help mocking her.

Her face looks calm: "Yes, I just come in to have a drink and have a rest. Anyway, there"s no one in your family. Do you want me to stand downstairs to wait?"

"My G.o.d!" I smile bitterly and touch my nose, "If I don"t know you. I almost though you are such guys who say the aggression as enter."

Now I"m sure she doesn"t mean to be malicious. I soften a little. I look at her: "I remember the last time you said that we might not meet again, right?"

She is silent for a while. There is a faint melancholy in her eyes. She picks up the beer and takes a big drink, then a long breath, "Things are impermanent... There are will always many changes." She smiles and shakes her head, "Well, don"t talk about this anymore, say something more relax. This time I come back to do some business. Now they are almost done, I suddenly feel a little bit... Well, it"s a bit unpleasant. I really want to find a friend to have a drink and chat with."

Then her charming eyes are staring at me and she says: "We are still friends, aren"t we?"

Don"t know why, being stared by her eyes. I suddenly feel a bit dry. I can"t help to remember that night under the hillside. She hugged my head, we watched the stars together. Now, her eyes are brighter than the cold stars of that night.

I subconsciously pick up the beer bottle on the table and a big drink. Only when I drank it, I just respond that it"s her bottle and I can"t help feeling embarra.s.sed. Looking at her, her delicate cheek is tinged with a little red, and she is looking at me with a strange look.

"Well, we are friends." I sigh. Then I cautiously say, "but next time you come to find me, don"t use this method to enter my house. There is something in the world calls mobile phone! There is another kind of thing calls doorbell. OK?"

She puckers her face in a smile, and sighs again.

I ask her in low voice: "Why are you so upset?"

"Well, the things here are not so much smoothly this time." She makes a slight understatement, but she seems not want to talk about this much. Then laughs, "And you. I didn"t expect your life is pretty good. Are the two girls all your girlfriends?"

"Of course not..." I meditate for a moment, but still answer honestly, "One of them is my girlfriend. The other one is... sort of a friend lives together."

I notice that when I utter the words "girlfriend", there is a strange expression flashing in her eyes, but then she hides it very well.

"Actually, I saw you the other day." I speak with great caution.

"Well, it was at the charity auction, right?" She smiles, "I saw you too."

"Really?"

"Yes!" She smiles wired, "I can guarantee when I saw you, you didn"t even know. I was already watching you when you walked into the lady"s bathroom with the beautiful female director of the casino."

My face is red instantly. She has the beer a drink and smile lightly: "You two had stayed in bathroom for half an hour. Then another man and woman went in." She glances at me and teases, "I really don"t know you have such a habit. Or has the country been opened to such a degree?"

I"m stunned, just want to explain. She waves her hand and says, "It"s OK! I don"t want to interfere with your private affairs. I just feel interesting. You don"t look like to do that in such a place."

I give it a hard cough and say, "Of course I am not! The situation of that day was... It was just a coincidence, an accident."

She doesn"t seem to have any intention of getting entangled on this topic any more. She immediately changes the topic. This time, her tone is less ridiculous: "Yes, I didn"t expect... You had left Juan Yeh, but still walked into this circle finally."

"What?"

"I mean Miss Nanny Fang." She has some deep meaning in her tone, "Chen Yang, you maybe don"t know her background, but it"s not good for you to keep too close connects with her. I mean it! This circle"s water is too deep. It"s complicated. You don"t belong here." She shrugs her shoulders. "Of course, this is just a suggestion from me as your friend, you may just ignore it."

"Vivi," I sigh, "Actually, I have one thing really want to ask you. But I also feel if I ask you directly, it might offence you."

"You want to ask me about the things with Juan?" She smiles.

"Yes!" I sit up straight, look at her eyes, "We were attacked that night, after that Juan"s business plan were canceled, his situation became very tough. All of these things, you…?"

She immediately interrupts me and says, "You want to ask me if these are my original conspiracies?" The smiles on her face slightly mockery and a faint sadness.

I don"t know why, instinctively, when I see the expression on her face, I immediately regret, even feel a little ashamed because I suspected her!

"Chen Yang..." She hesitates a while and says. "What I want to tell you is... In this world, many things are very complicated... It"s not that simple. Perhaps in your life, things are simple, either black or white, right or wrong... But the world I live in is completely different. "

"But I need an explanation." I stare at her uncompromising: "I don"t want to let myself doubt you. If I doubt you, I can"t keep you as a friend!"

In her eyes, in that instant, a little excitement flashing, but she hides it well again - the woman"s ability to control and hide her emotions is amazing!

"Well!" She thinks better of it and says with a slow but sincere tone., "Well, I can tell you a little... But just stand on the "friend" position!"

Then she slowly gets up and goes to the window, has her back to me, as if watching the lights outside the window: "At that time, Juan and our family"s business were far more complicated than you imagine. You know, Juan has a huge organization behind him. He is just an agent on the stage, and he"s not the only agent in organization. It is said that their internal organizations are not united. Although our family always run casino business in United States only, but we don"t mind to corporate with some partners with good background abroad. But considering that the organization behind Juan is very unstable at the moment, I am firmly opposed to that business cooperation. In my opinion, money needs to be earned, but I don"t want to let my family involve the organizational struggle behind Juan. We don"t have to. So I firmly oppose it. But unfortunately, in our family, my supporters are not too many, and most people are attracted by the huge benefits that may be obtained. As for risk, not many people can face up to it. And they have been hoping to catch up with this line, which is an opportunity for us to expand our business in East Asia."

Then her tone fades slightly. "I can admit to you that during my stay in China, Juan"s opposition did come to contact with me... The man you have known, Jimmy Chou!"

I stand up and stare at her.

She looks back at me. Her eyes are both helpless and imploring. She says softly, "Don"t hurry, please listen to me finish first."

She sighs and keeps saying: "Jimmy Chou wish to cooperate with me. I can"t tell you the specific details. This is the secret of family business. I have no right to tell you. But what I can tell you is I had turned him down." She stares at my eyes and says, "Frankly speaking, I"m not such a n.o.ble person. In our circle, I"m fastidious about cheating. The reason why I refuse him is not because I"m willing to cooperate with Juan, but I saw that he just wanted to use us as a way to attack Juan. As for me, even if I want to break this cooperation, I also want to find ways through other channels. Let me make it clearer." She looks at me seriously.

"From my heart, I don"t want to cooperate with this organization, and I don"t want to have any contact with this organization. No matter the Juan side or the Jimmy Chou side... Neither of them, I want to cooperate with!"

My face is slightly relieved.

Then she slowly says, "Chen Yang, I now regard you as my friend. I have few friends, very few, you are one of them. So I don"t want to lie to you. Before that night, I realized that someone wanted to do something to me!"

"Well?" I stare at her.

"Don"t stare at me in that way." She"s a little upset, "I did notice that someone wanted to attack me. But they looked down on me too much. Who am I? Our family can run business in La Vegas for so long time, how come to be shrunk by such a small case? That night," She sighs, "Before that, I have noticed that some people were monitoring me. These guys were not Juan"s people, because he didn"t need to do that. So I were sure that someone wanted to do something to me. That night in casino, I deliberately abandoned my bodyguards and drove out alone, just to give them a chance!"

I do not speak. I just look at her with no expression.

She smiles. There are some frustration in her smile, some complicated meanings. She turns to look at my eyes: "But I didn"t expect you were downstairs. As for me let you get in the car, in fact, it was an accident, a small accident. I do not deny it. At first, I were planning to use you. At least you are Juan"s staff. I can convince him that I was attacked by others."

"Keep talking." I say in light.

"The following things, you have all known." She says in smile, "However, I didn"t intend to harm you. Do you know? That night, three people around me kept following them. They were all the experts. I"m not afraid of sneak attack. The only thing I didn"t expect was... You would have tried so hard to save me. And it hurts you badly."

I"m suddenly sneering and speaking angrily, "Hah! Hah-hah!! So I am a fool! That day, even if I didn"t drag you down the hill, you wouldn"t have anything, would you? There would be no danger, right? It was me who was so stupid to drag you down the hillside and thought I was saving you!"

In her eyes, there are some apologizes. She says softly, "I really didn"t mean to laugh at you. Actually, in my heart, I did appreciate you very much."

"Appreciate?" I hum and shake my head.

She grits her teeth and says, "You believe it or not, that"s the way it is... As for Juan later lost his position and power in the organization, these consequences were not what I expected. And..."

She suddenly changes her tone. There is a flicker of indifference in her eyes: "Moreover, even if I knew in advance that this would happen, I would still do it! I must consider my family"s interests. Juan has nothing to do with us. I don"t have to sacrifice anything for him!"

I am speechless.

I feel I have nothing to say.

I even think there"s no any excuse to criticize her.

Did she do anything wrong? No.

In her position, everything she had done was to gain benefits for her own family. There is no meanness or shameless way of her means. At best, it was meeting Jimmy Chou"s scheme with hers own plan. As to whether Juan would lose anything, frankly speaking, in her position, she could not think about that at that time.

I don"t say anything, she goes on saying, "My family reacted immediately after this happened... As a representative of my family, I was attacked here, and I had already noticed that someone was spying on me, and I was ready for it. They wanted to plot against me, huh, wouldn"t I plot against them? I had prepared something early, and I had some evidences that convinced family that the opposition in Juan"s organization attacked me. In this case, the family finally decided to seriously consider whether the business cooperation is safe, and finally made the decision to cancel it!"

She sighs: "About Juan, I never think of to hurt him. And I didn"t corporate with Jimmy Chou either. If I did that, let me tell you, Juan"s situation might be 10, or 100 times worse than current."

I am silent for a long time before sighing and expressionless: "Well, I admit that what you said is true and reasonable... You are not targeting Juan, nor do you mean to harm him... But the fact is, Juan has lost his power now just because of you! Am I right?"

She sneers, and there are some angers in her voice: "Chen Yang! Can you not be so childish? In our circle, either you die or I live. We can only try to keep our own interests. As for others, who cares? In this case, Juan lost power and he could not blame any others. I said, I have nothing to do with him, no friendship! I don"t have to think about his benefit. There is no need to sacrifice my own family interests for his interests!" Then her tone is colder: "Don"t say I didn"t mean to hurt him. That"s the situation that I don"t need to do at all. If it is necessary that I must harm Juan for my family, I will do without any hesitate!"

I"m speechless again.

Intellectually, I know she is right. That"s all right!

But emotionally, Juan is my eldest brother, my boss, even like my father!

May I just be indifferent?

After a moment"s thinking, I speak difficultly, "But, at that time, you can obviously avoid the attack, but you deliberately let it happen!"

"I am for the family." She is very calm, and then she whispers, "Chen Yang... That night, we were both down the hill, all the things I said were not fake! I am also really take you as a friend of mine. Otherwise, I don"t need to tell you these things today."

"All right," I sigh and look at her: "You took advantage of me. I am not angry. Really! I won"t argue with you about these things. But you should know Juan"s position in my heart!"

"I know." She sighs.

I struggle in my heart, but I still grit my teeth and say, "Well, I don"t know if I can continue to treat you as a friend now."

Her eyes flare, and I look at her and shake my head slowly. "Do you know? Actually, I doubted you later in the hospital. Everything happened too coincidentally! Although I don"t understand too many intrigues, but I do understand one simple truth that who is the ultimate beneficiary, who is the biggest suspect!" I look into her eyes, "But I don"t want to doubt you. Even when I think of these things, I will force myself not to keep thinking about it. I just don"t want to doubt you, Miss Vivi Yang!"

"I said, I didn"t mean to target Juan." She sighs.

"I understand." I nod, "in your position, you are right."

We look at each other in silence for a moment. The atmosphere is somewhat dignified. Neither of the two speak anything.

She comes over and picks up the beer on the table, raises her neck and pour all the wine in the bottle. She drinks too fast so that she chokes a little, gasps for a few breaths, and has a faint red tide on her face, then she seems to laugh.

"Chen Yang, now, are we still friends?" Her eyes are too bright to make me even dare not to look.

Then she puts down the bottle, seems do not want to listen to my answer at all. She strides to the door. Before going out, she suddenly turns around and smiles. "By the way, your girlfriend and the other girl are out for shopping now. My men are following them. They will probably come back in twenty minutes. I was sure they were not at home before I came up here."

I open my lips want to say something, but I still do not say anything.

She notices my expression and sigh: "Chen Yang, you take care of yourself. You are a strange person. You are very hot-blooded, very impulsive, very loyal to friends, even very simple. These are features I admire you very much. Because in my position, I will never be able to do so."

Her eyes are full of bitterness: "Maybe... When I"m free, I"ll come to you to drink and talk." She looks into my eyes: "My friends are very few, you are always one of them! As for what you think of me... I don"t care!"

After that, she goes away without a backward glance.

I look at the empty door, but there is something in my heart. There seems to be something blocking in my heart, and a knot that I can"t solve is torturing me.

I sit down slowly and look at the empty beer bottle on the table, somewhat stunned.

On the wine bottle, as if there is still a faint trace of her lip gloss. I stare at it with some concentration, but my heart is thinking about her words repeatedly...

Are we still friends?