The Female CEO Falls in Love with Me

Chapter Two Hundred Sixty-Two: Seven Years

Nian Yufei understood that Li Yan would leave once he got the ticket, so as she handed the ticket to him, she said to Li Jie, "Sister Li, could you please step outside for a moment? We have something to discuss..."

Li Jie nodded. If it were anyone else, she might have been suspicious, but with Li Yan, no matter how displeased she was with him, she trusted him. Leaving him here posed only a risk of flirting, not a life-threatening danger. She couldn't help but scoff inwardly; this guy is truly shameless. While I protected Xiao Di, he flirted with her. When we protected the two girls from Beihai, he lured them away. Now, I'm just protecting this young pianist, and he's already flirting with her...

She also began to doubt inwardly whether it was all just a coincidence or if this guy had ulterior motives. If it were a coincidence, then he must flirt with a lot of girls to have so many overlap. If he had ulterior motives... was it against Jie Rui? Against me?

After Li Jie left with a heart full of doubts, Li Yan, who had put the ticket away, spoke frankly, "The last time someone tried to kill you, it was two people from the Republic of Li. Seeing how calm you were, you must know who wants you dead. Yet, you still dare to invite guests from the Republic this time?"

"Please sit." Nian Yufei pointed to a chair. They had just come in and were standing while talking.

Li Yan thought for a moment and then went over to sit down.

"Thank you for saving me last time. You were right, I do know someone wants me dead..." Nian Yufei sat down on another chair, with a bitter smile, "It's not that I'm calm, but that I've experienced life and death so many times before, I've become numb to it..."

At this moment, her demeanor no longer showed the tranquility of others, nor the grace of a pianist, nor the vitality and liveliness of a young girl, only revealing helplessness and sorrow.

"I don't know if it was the Republic of Li people who want me dead, and even if I did, it doesn't matter... Actually, I met you before." Nian Yufei thought, after this, he probably wouldn't come to find her again, so she might as well speak out.

"You've seen me before?" Li Yan was slightly surprised. This one sentence also implied more meanings. Last time, with a piece of beef, he saved Nian Yufei at gunpoint, but that wasn't necessarily as an assassin, it could have been as a martial artist or something. But now, this statement suggested that she might have known his identity as an assassin for a long time! "How come I have no impression?"

"Of course you forgot me... because it was many years ago. Back then..." Nian Yufei began to zone out a bit, "Back then, I was only this tall... that was seven years ago, and I was only ten years old then."

Seven years ago?!

For a seventeen-year-old girl, seven years is more than half of her memorable life. And Nian Yufei's life is different from others; for her, that was a fork in her life's path, and these seven years occupy most of her life's memories.

For Li Yan, seven years is also a very distant point in time. There are always some things that are habitually forgotten, some things that are to be abandoned in the memories of life. These days, he can barely remember what he looked like seven years ago, or what he did because he doesn't want to recall it.

But the human brain is mysterious, and about memories, even if faded and even after decades when conditions are ripe, it can suddenly bring back memories.

These keywords were combined in his brain, successfully recalling fragments of Li Yan's memory and piecing them together into a recollection of an event.

"I remembered."

"You remembered?"

"At that time, I was there to kill you."

"Yes, you were there to kill me..."

This should have been a tense atmosphere, yet when talking about this matter, both were so calm. At least, on the surface, they were calm.

...

Seven years ago, Li Yan didn't have a great reputation, just considered an emerging talent. At that time, 'their' organization had just formed, and there weren't many people. He took on many assignments then, primarily C-Class and B-Class tasks, with fewer A-Class, and he hadn't touched an S-Class task yet. It was a period of rapid development for him.

One of these tasks was to hunt a target on Cloud Island. The task was only C-Class in difficulty, but the reward was quite high, higher even than some B-Class tasks, so it attracted many assassins to compete. At the peak of his rapid ascent, Li Yan naturally wouldn't miss such a good opportunity. So, he was practically the first to find the target, yet once he found the target, he hesitated for the first time!

The client's target was to kill everyone in a villa. After sneaking into the villa, Li Yan saw that besides the nanny and servants, the owners were a beautiful young woman and a girl under ten years old. No one would spend money to hire assassins to kill a nanny; the owners were the real targets. But faced with a powder-faced, jade-carved little girl, he really couldn't bring himself to do it.

An assassin isn't the same as an executioner; an executioner carries out orders with less psychological burden than an assassin motivated by profit. And this burden can sometimes skew some assassins, making them perverse, but for most assassins, it instead makes them calm, gentle, and even willing to do good deeds for mental balance.

For assassins, there's no target with less psychological burden than infamous politicians, martial arts figures, or rich people lacking conscience. The elderly, the weak, women aren't too difficult, except for children; unless devoid of humanity, it is generally difficult to take action.

However, humanity does have its price.

Those who hire killers basically have temporarily shielded away their humanity; extermination of the entire family, killing witnesses, is their purpose. A professional killer with some savings might have the luxury of pondering over what to do and what not to, but when in urgent need of a sum of money, perhaps just a few thousand yuan can make them sell their humanity.

Back then, Li Yan hesitated. He was the first to arrive, yet he lurked in the villa for a whole day and night. Initially, he waited for the male owner to return, thinking only killing both the male and female owners was something he could do.

But many others were also competing for this job; he didn't wait for the male owner to return, yet other assassins arrived one after another.

Facing competitors, he struggled at that time, but ultimately did not take action first.

Thus, the nanny, servants, and the beautiful young woman were all killed by assassins' bullets. At a crucial moment, the little girl, whom he couldn't bear to kill, gave him his first taste of meddling.

—If he didn't save her, his day and night of hesitation would have been meaningless, merely allowing her to live one more day.

He hid the little girl in the attic, holding off several rounds of attacks from the assassins himself. At that time, no one knew it was him, only assuming there was a martial arts expert in the villa protecting the little girl. He picked up the female owner's phone but couldn't contact her father. After guarding for another day and night, with no police involvement, the young girl finally received a call from her father. Knowing everything, her father sent someone to pick her up.

Li Yan didn't say much to her, he let her see his face, hesitated whether to kill her, but at that time, he still had his principles and beliefs. Ultimately, he protected her until rescue arrived, then quietly left.

It was his first and only failure!

Or perhaps it wasn't a failure because he essentially didn't make a move. He simply abandoned that assignment and even played the part of a bodyguard for a moment. Afterwards, he continued his rise, completing A-Class tasks, S-Class tasks, mostly appearing as accidental deaths, leaving those aware in the Assassin Realm moved. The name King began to spread, and "they" began to rise... And as for the little girl he rescued on Cloud Island, he never paid attention again, not even probing into her father's identity or the client's identity back then. Everything was just a past experience for him.

...

"You came to kill me, but in the end, you saved me. If it wasn't for your protection for a day and night, I would have died many times at the age of ten..." Nian Yufei said softly.

A person who witnessed her mother die in front of her at the age of ten and almost died several times would no wonder be indifferent to death.

Li Yan didn't know what to say, never expecting that the little girl he saved in his hesitation back then had become a beautiful young pianist and still remembered him.

"The ones who wanted me dead that time were my brothers... born by the same father. You can probably guess what kind of person my father is and also imagine... I'm actually an illegitimate daughter. My mother and I always had a good living condition, but I seldom had opportunities to see my father. Although he loved me dearly, in the first ten years when I needed fatherly love the most, I didn't get much...

Perhaps out of compensation, in addition to providing for our living expenses, my father was reportedly ready to leave some of his assets to me, which angered my brother with the same father but a different mother. At that time, he had already been working alongside my father for a while. He considered the family business rightfully his alone, and the sudden appearance of a... 'bastard' sister to share it wasn't something he could accept. In a moment of impulse, he took someone's suggestion and hired killers..."

While hearing Nian Yufei's story, Li Yan didn't feel much because, over the years, what hadn't he seen? Reality is often more exaggerated than novels or films, and stories like hers are quite common — just by hearing the start, one can guess the whole process.

But he still listened to her words because... Nian Yufei probably didn't have the chance to confide these to others! Though he didn't know her specific process of growing up, undoubtedly, her father had smoothed everything, took very good care of her, and protected her. Even so, it couldn't make her grow like an ordinary person.

How many close friends could one have with such a life? Can such experiences be casually talked about? He, as someone in the know, allowed her to speak without reservation.

"Everything has already passed, it's useless to dwell on it. Living your life now may be what your mother wanted for you!"

Li Yan said as he stood up, no matter her current situation, it wasn't something he wanted to understand, let alone get involved with. Leaving was the most suitable choice. (To be continued, to know what happens next, please visit www.qidian.com, for more chapters, support the author, support genuine reading!)