Chapter 245: Madness Called Love

"You are being mean." Shen Qui complained when Lyca suddenly pinched his wrist. "I am still wounded, you know."

Lyca glared at her man. "You got careless."

Shen Qui smiled before he started coughing.

"How could you act like a hero?" she asked. "Acting like a hero is tiresome." She remembered all the tv series that she watched. Every time, the hero would always end up wounded and bruised while the villain was just commanding people to beat up the villain. Of course, she wouldn't want Shen Qui to be the villain either. After staring at Shen Qui for a few more seconds, Lyca finally decided to call the doctor and Ronan.

The Doctor didn't take too long to inform them that he is already safe which was a little surprising considering the amount of blood that Shen Qui lost. In the end, the doctor just gave Shen Qui a few more medicines that he needed to take for his recovery.

"You were lucky, the bullet didn't hit any major artery or organs." Ronan immediately said when the doctor left. However, Shen Qui was too engrossed as he stared at Lyca who was already sleeping on the couch. "Rue told me she's different. I didn't know… it would be this different." Ronan muttered.

"You can leave us."

"Hm?"

"She's sleeping. Let's talk when she wakes up."

"Oh!" Ronan nodded when he realized that the wounded Shen Qui who was in the hospital bed was actually worried that their conversation would wake up the sleeping Lyca. Ronan stared at Lyca as he sighed inwardly and nodded. "Alright… I have some things to do anyway."

"Hmmm." Shen Qui nodded, his gaze never left the woman who is silently sleeping. Then he smiled. "Turn off the lights on your way out."

Ronan nodded in response. Love can do wonders to people— he immediately told himself not to fell into this madness called love in the near future.

...............

Meanwhile, Jessica was fuming as she gripped her phone tighter. Tears were already streaming down her face. She looked at the images on her phone again as she covered her mouth with her other hand. On the image was Shen Qui. He was clearly wounded. Clearly, these are some shots taken from a CCTV.

She stood from her bed and walked out of her room.

"Young Miss, I'm sorry but the mayor is not allowing you to leave the room." A tall man uttered the moment Jessica walked out of her room.

"Where is he?" she asked. "Where is my father?"

"There— There is a celebration going on on the other side of the mansion. The Mayor and his people— "

"Why?"

"That— "

"Why are they celebrating?" Almost immediately her brain spiraled out of control. Did Shen Qui die? She wasn't even thinking about who sent her the video. Or the reasoning behind the action. All she knew was the fact that Shen Qui might have died. Is that why her father was celebrating? 

"I don't — "

"Did they kill someone?"

"Young miss, I really don't know." The guard said.

"Then… let me go and see my father."

"But young miss, I can't allow you to leave."

"Just this once! I want to see my father!'

"I'm sorry, Young Miss. The Mayor told us not to let you out no matter what happened." This was one of the Mayor's orders. After the mayor tried his best to change the headlines about his daughter, the mayor is now doing everything to make the public forget about those images.

Because of this, the mayor had been very busy lately. He and a lot of people in this household saw how the mayor tried to clean his daughter's reputation while he neglected some of his duties in the city. This had caused a lot of stress for the man. How could the guard do something that would only add more stress to the mayor?

Jessica glared at the man before she walked back inside her room. "AHHHHH!"

When the guard heard Jessica's voice he immediately froze. For a few seconds, he wondered if he should go inside. What if she was only acting? The Mayor clearly informed them about her habit of fooling her maids.

"AHHHH… Help!"

But what if she was really in danger? With this in mind, the guard run inside the room only to feel a sudden pain behind his head. He had been fooled, the guard thought as he fell on the carpeted floor with a loud thud. 

"Stupid." Jessica hissed before she dropped the lamp next to the guard. Then she made sure to grab the keys to her room and lock it on the outside as she ran towards the other side of the mansion. How could she let her father celebrate with his men after killing Shen Qui?

How could he let that man be happy while she was sad?

Jessica gritted her teeth as she continued walking while avoiding some maids and guards that were walking in the hallway. Jessica's familiarity in this household was the only reason why it was easy for her to navigate the area while avoiding everyone. After all, this was not the first time something like this happened. 

When she was a child, her father used to lock her inside her room or any small rooms and closets inside the mansion to punish her. At first, the small little Jessica would just cry and shout some apology to her father. Soon, she realized that these rooms actually had some sort of secret passages. Of course, this was not like the passages with secret rooms.

This house was built tens of years ago when the time of slaves was pretty common. If her guess was right these passages were built to help the slaves steal some food for their families outside of the mansion.

Since Jessica was a child, she had used these passages to get inside and outside of the mansion without his father knowing. Every time she did something, her father would immediately send her to one of these rooms and she would almost always sneak out. Too bad, these passages don't extend to her room. Those servants were smart enough to avoid putting passages to the suite room and just put it near the stairs and the kitchen as well as the main hall where celebrations happen. 

After a few minutes of navigating through the passages, Jessica exited on one of the exits just below a stair. From here, Jessica would sneak inside her father's office where she would wait for the man to come inside. Then she would… punish him for taking away the man that she loved. Jessica immediately got into the Mayor's study and found the gun that the Mayor was hiding below his table. Of course, she wasn't planning on killing the mayor. A bullet to the mayor's leg would be enough punishment for that man.

Using the lighting and the bookshelves inside the room, Jessica easily concealed herself as she waited for the mayor to arrive. 

After a few minutes of waiting, the mayor indeed appeared inside the study. However, he was still with his men. So, Jessica chose to stay in her hiding place and listen to their conversation.

"You sure about that?" Mayor Dongfang asked a younger man who was wearing a blue turtleneck shirt and eyeglasses.

"Of course. Anyone who lost that much blood would eventually die. Even if they would do some blood transfusion, there is no guarantee that he would survive."

"Hmph! Then call the Long Family! Tell them to come here. Q is dead." The mayor's words made Jessica held her breath, she immediately covered her mouth as tears welled in her eyes.

"Mayor, I think we needed to wait for a few more hours before we call them. Our spies didn't inform us about his death. All they said was an operation was already made. There is still a possibility that the man would wake up."

The Mayor snorted. "He is still weak. Even if he wakes up, he wouldn't be able to manage everything. I wanted us to swallow all of his businesses. Without him, Santa can't do anything to us. I think I heard that Q just opened a jewelry store with some new gems that they just got from a shipment abroad? Why don't we tag that as smuggled goods? Close the store down and have the gems for ourselves?"

The man in the turtleneck squinted before he nodded. "That is indeed a very good idea. I will inform major— "

"So, this was the reason why you hurt Q?" Jessica's hoarse voice immediately changed their expression. She walked out of the dark corner, sobbing. "You wanted more money, more of everything?"

"Jessica… what are you doing here?" The Mayor asked, his eyes were on the gun in his daughter's hand. "Why do you have that gun? I already told you… women are not supposed to hold guns. Come… give it to me." He tried to maintain his calm expression as he ignored his daughter's crazed expression. "Come… hand it over and we can talk." He added.