1 Hurt.

PROLOGUE

Psychiatrist's Room, 2008.

"Mr. Ye, are you sure you want to do this?" the psychiatrist asked me calmly.

I wiped away my tears with my handkerchief, and nodded my head.

She began the therapy.

I saw so many images clouding my head, and I told myself, I wanted to be rid of these memories which would just hurt more as I grew older.

Then, everything came to a standstill, and when I woke up again, I felt a calmness I had never encountered before.

Evanescence Bar, 2014.

It was my twenty-sixth birthday that night, but I had no friends to celebrate with, and I was living alone in the city, away from where my family stayed.

I chose that I would not be Cree Ye tonight, but rather, the white-collared executive Ye Qi.

Cree was cold and ruthless. Ye Qi was warm and many people liked him.

I entered the bar, and at that point, I saw the person who had run away from paying his debt to me many times.

I gave chase, and ended up crashing into a woman. She was young, and the curiosity in her eyes struck me with awe. She held on to me tight, and I accidentally peered down where I shouldn't have. Her partying attire was extremely low-cut, and immediately, I couldn't think of anything else but to taste her lips.

She was thrown aback when I devoured her lips, in front of those present. But they would not know that I am the mysterious and rarely-seen Mr. VIP Cree Ye.

Her eyes fixed themselves to mine, and we lost all sense of whatever was happening, and I cared not to bother if anyone was watching, or not.

I challenged her to a round of drinks, and she looked at her watch, before hesitatingly accepting.

"Ye Qi."

"Ruolan."

We partied so wildly and so madly, but I hadn't expected to wake up the next morning to wake up feeling so lonely and disappointed, in an empty bed.

Qiao Ruo hated her life.

She was born as the only child to a middle-income couple, who died unexpectedly in a car crash on the way to attend a wedding, when she was just five. She resented how her parents had left her behind, placing her in the care of her money-craving aunt, a widow called Yan Ning. Though she possessed a good relationship with her aunt's only daughter, her aunt had only brought her up on the account that she marry into a wealthy family, and given the chance, she would sell her to a rich old man. Yan Xiazhi, her young cousin, was a different case. She was young, refreshing and innocent.

Qiao Ruo was nothing like that. She lived a life of lies, she had to get around by borrowing from others, because everything her aunt managed to get would go to Yan Xiazhi first. Every summer holiday, she worked like a horse to raise money to give to her demanding aunt and to clear her debts.

She ended up entering a regular university on a loan she undertook to pay off herself, but the minute she received a job offer to become a reporter, she jumped at the opportunity. She took on the pseudonym Ruolan for her articles.

But only after entering the company for the first time, she realized the job was not as easy as it seemed. She put up with months of bullying, and ended up having her scoop stolen by her colleague, the scheming Wang Tong. This Wang Tong had been the very person who had bullied her and aimed to have her kicked out of the company. She firmly believed Wang Tong was in cahoots with the owner of the company, and sleeping with the owner's young son.

Her reporting boss gave her one more chance, and that was to secure a scoop which was, to follow the mysterious heir Cree Ye, a man who was said to have never had a woman in his life, to a bar downtown, and capture any juicy news of a possible scandal. Cree Ye was said to be the adoptive son of a low-profile millionaire Ye Nantian, who despite his wealth, seldom made his appearance anyway where paparazzi could obtain ample information about him. So Cree was targeted instead. And what was special about this mission? The fact that a woman had yet to catch his attention, so her boss actually wanted Qiao Ruo to go for this opportunity.

She wanted to open her mouth to argue that she was not a hooker, but her job was already on the line since she had already lost so many opportunities in the past to obtain scoop. Her boss warned her that this would be her very last chance, and she had to give it her all, or she would not be able to continue living in the city, given all her debts and how she barely made enough every month to cover all her bills and expenses.

But she hadn't expected that it would all end up being ruined by the handsome stranger who had goaded her into getting drunk, and the worst part was that she had ended up waking next to him in a strange room. She was not oblivious to what had happened, and she remembered briefly the wild events that had happened the night before, and how she had given herself up in passion to a total stranger. How could she even face the world after what she had done?

The only thing she could do was escape, but she had ended up leaving her wallet behind, and now she had no means of surviving for the rest of the month. There was nobody she could go to for help, and nobody who would care about her.

If only her parents hadn't died young.

If only her parents hadn't left her behind.

If only... she wasn't Qiao Ruo. Maybe she shouldn't have even been born in this world, if she was destined to such hardship and torment.

Maybe the society wasn't even aware of her existence.

She remembered clearly her boss' words. "You're young and beautiful. Put your assets and your looks to good use."

Initially, she was not going to give herself away without a thought, just like that. Yet, it had happened, when she was attracted by Ye Qi and had slept with him in the aftermath of their wild and hot drinking session. She had surrendered herself to him in a moment of passion, without considering the consequences, and now, she had a lifetime to regret her decisions. What if it caused her to never get married in the future? What if she would end up alone for eternity?

Back in the countryside, they looked down on unmarried women who had lost their virginities. She didn't appreciate being judged for her drunken mistake. But every feature of the handsome man, had been etched deep inside her memory.

She felt disgusted with herself, and detested herself even more for being so cheap and easy, and she sincerely hoped that she would not meet the man again.

But five minutes later, her phone rang, with an unknown number appearing on the screen of her phone. She probably didn't have to answer it, but she wouldn't give up any chances to score her scoop of Cree Ye. She had been communicating with unreliable independent sources, all for the sake of any news of Cree.

Qiao Ruo heard a woman's hideous laughter on the other side of the line, and the woman warned her that she was going to get it from her. Immediately, she recognized the voice to be that of her rival, no other than the despicable Wang Tong, the exact person who had been petty enough to even push her on the ground in the pantry at work just because she was getting coffee and the woman also wanted a drink!

What did Wang Tong want this time? She gritted her teeth and held back her tears, before turning around and looking into the face of a man with a creepy smile, who was also armed with a metal pole.

It was too late, and in a matter of seconds, he had swung the pole at her head, causing her to faint from the impact. But just before she blacked out, she felt a hand, and then emotions stampeding into her at lightning speed.

Emotions that were not even hers....

.......

When she woke up again, Qiao Ruo was in the hospital, clad in the striped patient 'uniform' and lying under a clean blanket and sheets, a phenomenon she had never seen before. She knew clearly that she had no money, and she had to get out as soon as she could!

She still felt the pain of being smashed across the head with a metal pole, although her assailant had not done it with extreme, brutal force. The wound had been closed off by a medical plaster, and the kind nurse offered her some painkillers. 

"I need to go," she explained. "I don't have money to pay your hospital bills."

"Mr. Ye has paid them off for you. Rest assured you don't have to worry," the nurse informed her with a smile. She looked to be about twenty, and she was very patient while speaking to Qiao Ruo. "The doctor has also examined you, and announced that your injuries are very mild. But he also said that you have to remain under observation."

"Who is Mr. Ye?" she asked.

"He brought you in."

"I don't know any Mr. Ye," she began, and then her eyes turned to the wallet lying on her bedside cabinet. "How did that get there?"

"It was taken in with you when you were brought to the hospital," the nurse explained. She looked closer at the nurse, and read her name tag which read as "Hongli Wu". Hongli described Mr. Ye's features meticulously, but nothing about him rang a bell in her mind. Perhaps, he was just a benevolent stranger trying to help a person in need, and was just performing a good deed by sending her to hospital. She would find a chance to repay him in future, but for now, she didn't even have enough for her own sustainability. If she remained in the hospital, they could feed her, but she still needed to go and get her scoop to avoid losing her job.

Maybe she hasn't lost the wallet after all, she thought.

Her smartphone beeped, and she read the message from her boss.

"Did you manage to get anything?"

"Cree didn't turn up" she typed back.

"So I heard about right. However, I've overheard Wang Tong from the enemy team claiming Cree Ye was seen with a drunken woman just outside the bar. Unfortunately, the pictures she captured were too dark and could not identify the woman or Cree Ye."

No way! she thought.

"Hey, if you still need your job, I'll need you to go to the VIP gym that Cree Ye frequents. I'll send you the details. I have information from my source that Cree Ye goes there every Tuesdays and Thursdays."

"I'll be on it at once."

It was Tuesday afternoon, so she had less than a day to get everything done. She persuaded the doctor to allow her to be discharged that night, and since she wasn't in danger, he permitted it as long as she continued to have follow up appointments at her neighbourhood clinics.

She peered into her wallet to realize that her money, supposedly only left with fifty dollars that month, had increased by four hundred!

Mr. Ye had been too kind.

After some roaming around the department store, she settled on a decent designer brand of sportswear known as Sports Armour. Excitedly she shuffled between the sections of the department store with a full basket of sports clothes, zooming into the fitting room to try on her choices of outfits for presenting the best first impression to Cree. She had to do absolutely the best of the best, and intrigue him deeply so that her chances of getting into his good books for the interview were maximised!

She looked at her reflection in the full body mirror located in the fitting room and cleared her throat, repeating in the most innocuous voice ever, "Sir, I need your help. I don't know how to use these machines, they are completely different from the ones in the previous gym I went to!"

How should she catch his attention?

Over all, how should she keep her act up?

It dawned on her that could probably pretend she was a socialite whose parents had became rich recently, and hence she was unsure how to act like one, because she wasn't used to it yet!

But what kind of woman would he like?

According to the internet, most rich and successful men preferred young and innocent women! There had been stories conducted on wealthy millionaires, and from her understanding, these men preferred weaker and more vulnerable women, who they found easier to control and provide for with whatever their wealth allowed for!

She confirmed her decision that she would put on a pretense that she was the naive and innocent child of a fictional couple she created, called Mr and Mrs Frank Lan, and she was Ruo Lan, their only daughter!

In the past, she had been commended for her acting skills, and she had even almost took on a job as a girlfriend for hire! She would do all she could to convince him, and interest him all she could in order to get into his good books! Even if it meant pretensiously being someone she wasn't, and faking an innocent character!

In fact, she was the complete opposite of the woman she feigned to be, bold, audacious and possessing such initiative! If not that Wang Tong had lackeys that were bigger and stronger than her, she would have not allowed Wang Tong a single day of peace! Plus, she had her job to be concerned about, and Wang Tong was just an annoying thorn in the flesh. One day, her true nature would surface, and she would not let off all those who had hurt her, starting from Wang Tong!

However, she had to take everything lying down for now, and be patient so she could eventually fulfill her long awaited dream of becoming a reporter... so that she could provide to her family and not be used by her aunt any more, and to get back all what she had lost from Wang Tong! It was a long road, but she had to persevere and not give up easily!

Because she was born poor, it didn't mean she had to end up poor!