Bossy Lover – CH 001

Chapter 1. The End of the Road

Colorful neon lights floated and shimmered across the city sky. The streets and alleys were a cacophony of noise, bustling with traffic and surging crowds.

Su Mi ran like a madwoman. No matter how beautiful the scenery and people, they warped into a bizarre blur in her rapidly shaking vision. She was panting, straining with every fiber of her being. But it wasn’t fast enough—how could someone who hadn’t eaten for three days run any faster? Still, she couldn’t stop.

Finally, in a narrow alley in the city center, a high wall blocked her escape. Laughter echoed from behind her.

Sweating profusely, Su Mi was forced to turn around. She instinctively wrapped her arms around herself, a futile gesture to feel safer. Several tall shadows completely blocked the alley’s entrance.

“Help! Help!” Knowing it was useless, she still cried out with a dry, hoarse voice, desperate for a miracle. Yet, on the street just beyond the alley, not a single car or person passing by stopped to heed the girl’s cries.

The tall, thin man in the lead sneered, “Run? I told you to run!”

Several men behind him began to unbutton their pants. “Today,” one of them said, “we brothers will teach you some rules.”

Their words were simple, and Su Mi understood almost all of them. Her entire body shook, but her pale lips trembled most violently. In her broken local language, she pleaded, “If you let me go, I’ll do anything else!”

The tall, thin man stood back, his hands clasped behind him, his eyes cold. “Miss, hasn’t anyone told you? ‘Hope City’ is a place for the poor and the desperate. And you… oh, you’re so poor.”

Before Su Mi could react, the men lunged. She screamed and pressed herself against the wall, trying to break through their encirclement, but they easily caught her. Just as she tried to struggle, her long hair was pulled, and she was instantly flung to the ground, her back searing with pain. Her limbs were pinned to the filthy concrete. With a sharp “hiss,” she heard the sound of fabric tearing, then felt a sudden chill as rough hands made contact.

“Smooth!” one man exclaimed in surprise.

“Looks thin, but turns out to be top quality!”

Su Mi struggled with all her might, tears silently streaming down her thin face.

A blindingly bright light flashed. Even with her eyes tightly shut in humiliation, Su Mi could feel the background of her vision suddenly brighten. The man who had been kneeling between her legs, about to make his move, also let out a surprised “Huh?”

They quickly stood, and one man dragged Su Mi up and pressed her against the corner wall.

A black stretch sedan was parked at the entrance. Even from this distance, its sleek, heavy-duty design suggested its enormous cost. The lights dimmed, the engine cut off, and three men in military police uniforms opened the doors and stepped out.

This did not inspire any hope in Su Mi. She had lived in the city’s poorest sector long enough to see clearly how the military police colluded with the underworld, working together to appease the rich and exploit the poor. How could they possibly be extending a hand of justice?

She noticed the man restraining her attention was now fixed on the military police. This might be her only chance to escape. Her breathing grew heavy with tension.

However, something unexpected happened.

The three gendarmes walked up and pointed their guns at the men.

“Ou Er, where is that batch of ore?” The leading officer drew his weapon.

The tall, thin man bristled: “What ore?”

“Bang!” A clean, sharp shot to the head! The men were stunned, completely unable to react to a killing over an argument. From Su Mi’s perspective, she saw only a small, bloody hole splattered in the back of Ou Er’s head; a few drops of warm blood even splashed her face.

The gang still had five members, but they were no match for the three gendarmes. A few minutes later, they were all handcuffed and forced to kneel on the ground, their necks cinched by the officers’ grips and their faces pressed into the side of the car. Su Mi stood rooted in the corner, terrified to move.

Next, she watched the gangsters being beaten into a bloody pulp until they finally confessed the location of the “goods.” The men collapsed to the ground, barely breathing. One man, whose eyeball had sunken from a heavy punch, wailed weakly in pain. Su Mi looked at the bloody hole on his face and was horrified.

Even then, the military police had no intention of letting them go. They wiped the blood from their hands and looked back at the car with an air of respect.

An officer opened the backseat door and whispered something. Then, a man slowly stepped out. His face was blurred in the shadows due to the backlight, but that didn’t stop Su Mi from seeing he was tall, straight-limbed, dressed in a well-ironed suit, and wearing shiny leather shoes. With his hands tucked in his trouser pockets, he walked over to the men on the ground, his head slightly lowered as if observing insects.

If the brutal violence of the gendarmes was frightening, then this man, though silent and unarmed, radiated an even greater sense of majesty and coldness in his stillness.

“Tell your boss,” his voice was calmly low, “I don’t like betrayal.”

“Yes, Sir! We were wrong! Our boss was wrong!” The people on the ground cried with relief.

He glanced at his men. “One person is enough,” he said.

The men nodded and raised their guns. “Bang, bang, bang!” A few soft sounds followed, and the men on the ground fell without a single groan. The man who had lost an eye, though lucky enough to survive, trembled with fear, clutching his head and sobbing softly.

“Get out of here!” a military policeman shouted.

The man rolled and crawled, staggering out of the alley.

Su Mi tried to shrink back further into the corner, but the man raised his head and looked directly at her. Although she couldn’t clearly see his eyes, Su Mi was startled. Killing to silence the witness… will they let me go?

Just as she was trembling with fear, the man walked towards her without warning. Under the street light, he was like a black tree, tall and quiet.

She saw a young, robust face emerge from the darkness. His features were unexpectedly calm and handsome, like a majestic sculpture from ancient times, rising serenely from dark river water.

He stared at Su Mi, his eyes calmer and sharper than anyone she had ever encountered, giving her a powerful sense of oppression for no reason.

Su Mi’s body became increasingly stiff. But he suddenly moved. He reached out and unbuttoned his suit jacket. This should have been a warning sign, but his movements were so dignified and gentle that Su Mi felt a little puzzled. Then, he actually raised his hands and put the jacket on her.

Su Mi was completely stunned.

However, before she could even process a thank you, he turned around and said indifferently, “Kill her.”

He walked toward the car without looking back. The military policeman standing behind her pulled out a gun and pointed it at her eyebrows.

The young officer’s face was calm and indifferent, utterly unfazed by the thought of extinguishing an innocent young life. Su Mi faced the muzzle of a gun for the first time, a lump in her throat. Her mind went blank, unsure what to do. Would it hurt? Death was perhaps only a moment away, but the very moment of death, so foreseeable, was so unbearable and terrifying.

She was unwilling to accept it. She truly was unwilling. What kind of joke had fate played? Why was she here? Did Earth and her 21 years of memories even exist, or was it all just a dream?

She smiled bitterly. She didn’t know that the ragged, thin girl, so small and desperate in the large coat, with a sad smile in the night, made the officer, who had killed countless people, feel a moment of daze.

Her next move was completely thoughtless and uncontrolled. As if possessed, she reached out, almost tenderly, and gently grasped the cold muzzle of the military police’s gun. She used her scarred but still slender fingers to move the weapon away from her. The military policeman was momentarily unresponsive and did not fire.

Several other officers noticed the hesitation, turned around, and pointed their guns at her.

Yet, she seemed completely oblivious to the threat of death. Her shoes had been lost while running, and she walked barefoot, cold, and dirty to the front of the car, stopping behind the man.

She slowly squatted down and gently hugged his legs, neatly wrapped in the suit trousers.

“Please, save me…” she whispered in a small voice, the pain she had suppressed for so long finally surfacing. Looking up at him, she begged, “Please, don’t kill me…”

She didn’t know who he was or whether he was good or evil. His men had killed so many people in front of her; it was also he who had personally ordered her execution to silence her. But he was also the only one who had gently wrapped her in his clean, luxurious clothes.

In the flickering light of the street lamp, the man’s profile slowly turned. His expression was even colder and harder than the night itself. In that moment, Su Mi was startled. This man was clearly more ruthless than anyone else, yet she had the absurd idea of begging him for help?

“I never help anyone.” The man lowered his head and looked at her stained fingers buttoned on his trousers.

Several gendarmes stepped forward and bent over to drag her away. She no longer had the strength to struggle and collapsed in their arms.

But at that moment, she heard his cold voice: “I only exchange benefits. What do you want in exchange for your life?”