Every Day the Villain Continues to Fail
[Quick Transmigration]
o0o
"Knock knock"
The continuous vibration from the door reverberated through the thin body pressed tightly against it. The sudden knocking caused his whole body to tremble.
"Madam, could you please open the door?"
Outside was the polite and gentle voice of a young man, faintly muddled by the sound of the pouring rain.
Why was Qi Ren here at this time?
"Madam, the Second Master requests your presence in his study for an important matter," Qi Ren said, knocking rhythmically on the door. His voice became increasingly soft, as if coaxing a startled prey. "Please open the door."
Ruan Yao asked nervously, "Who was screaming just now?"
The woman’s scream had been so shrill and despairing, it seemed as if her throat might tear apart.
Through the door, Qi Ren’s reply was vague. "A stray cat wandered into the kitchen. Madam Zhang is terribly afraid of such animals. Apologies for frightening you, Madam."
A stray cat? Could it really cause such a commotion?
Ruan Yao's original persona, according to the setting, didn’t care about the likes and dislikes of the servants. Hence, he had no knowledge of Madam Zhang’s fear of cats.
Ruan Yao instinctively felt that Qi Ren was lying.
Or rather, was the person outside the door really Qi Ren?
Biting his lip, Ruan Yao tried to dismiss the man at the door. "I understand. I’ll head there shortly. You can leave first."
Ruan Yao’s heart was in chaos. Right now, he just wanted to figure out the connection between the 'Gu Jin' on his phone and the one he encountered in the study. Though they had the same face, one was a blazing sun capable of scorching everything in its path, while the other was as chilling as a cold moon on a dark night.
Even locking eyes with him was akin to falling into an icy abyss, raising every hair in terror.
That man was far more dangerous than Gu Jin.
"He’s not Gu Jin... is he?" Ruan Yao asked in a trembling voice.
The system didn’t speak. Instead, a large green checkmark appeared on the screen.
Not Gu Jin… then who could he be? Bearing the same face and spouting strange words…
"Madam, the Second Master insists on seeing you in his study. If you don’t go, he will be angry" Qi Ren hadn’t left yet, persistently knocking on the door. His words, though phrased as persuasion, carried an undercurrent of coercion.
The torrential rain drowned out all the noise from the hall downstairs.
Qi Ren was an obedient, almost cowardly man who would never pressure Ruan Yao like this.
Ruan Yao couldn’t deduce who the man with Gu Jin’s face might be. Frustration boiled within him. "I get it!"
After all, he couldn’t just let Qi Ren stand outside his door knocking all night.
His pale fingers rested on the metal doorknob, the smooth, cool surface pressing into his palm.
"Hurry and open the door, Madam." The man outside seemed to still be smiling.
The lock turned halfway. To the person outside, it must have seemed like an innocent lamb willingly offering its tender flesh.
Ruan Yao’s movements suddenly froze.
Gu Jin’s voice from the phone echoed in his mind, circling endlessly:
"Don’t open the door for anyone."
"The killer is hiding in this villa!"
Ruan Yao shuddered, pulling his hand away. The doorknob, turned halfway, clicked back into place.
Avoiding the topic, he tried to hasten the departure of the man outside, who may or may not have been Qi Ren.
His soft voice quivered uncontrollably. "I suddenly remembered I have something else to do. You should go first. If there’s anything urgent, I’ll call the Second Master"
The phone screen dimmed and lit up again. Ruan Yao typed furiously, faster than ever before, his fingers flying across the screen.
Reply to me quickly, reply to me quickly.
Hugging his phone, Ruan Yao lowered his lashes, silently chanting in his heart.
What he didn’t know was that beyond the thin door, the man in the hallway, whose patience had clearly worn thin, slowly curled his lips into a bloodthirsty smile.
"Why won’t you open the door, Yao Yao?"
Abandoning his facade as a meek, unremarkable secretary, the man’s voice reverted to its naturally raspy and chilling tone, like the hiss of a snake. "Are you that afraid of me?"
His cold, clammy fingers gripped the doorknob as his low, murmured words seeped through the door, making Ruan Yao shiver uncontrollably.
"Do you really think this door can keep me out?"
Stop talking, stop talking, Ruan Yao covered his ears, pressing his back firmly against the door. His whole body trembled as he realized the man was separated from him by only a thin layer of wood.
Something that could be broken through at any moment.
"You’re being very naughty"
"And naughty children must be punished"
o0o
Meanwhile, Gu Rongming was in the living room downstairs, frowning as he dealt with the earlier commotion.
An overweight middle-aged woman sat on the sofa, her hands trembling so badly that she couldn’t even hold a cup steady. Hot water spilled onto her skirt, but she seemed oblivious to it.
The woman must have been quite charming in her youth, but time had worn her down into a heavy, bloated figure. Her eyes, lined with fine wrinkles, were clouded with fear and confusion, her expression panicked and vacant.
"Madam Zhang, don’t be afraid. We’re all here. Please tell the Second Master what happened," Qi Ren said softly, handing the woman a neatly folded handkerchief. He kept his tone gentle.
Madam Zhang appeared to have seen something utterly terrifying. Her pupils dilated uncontrollably, and she mechanically took the handkerchief, clutching it tightly in her hands.
Qi Ren stood close enough to hear the chattering of her teeth.
"A ghost… a ghost..." she stammered, her face a picture of abject fear.
Gu Rongming’s eyes were half-closed, still exuding that unchanging calm demeanor of an unperturbed jade Buddha.
Qi Ren, having been with him for so long, could instantly tell that Gu Rongming was subtly angry.
There were no such things as ghosts in this world, which left only one possibility, some audacious person was playing tricks behind the scenes. Whoever dared to challenge the Gu family like this must have sinister intentions.
Qi Ren remained patient. Back in college he had minored in psychology, which gave him some experience in comforting someone like Aunt Zhang, who had been severely frightened.
“Aunt Zhang, don’t worry. We’re all here now. That... person wouldn’t dare do anything to you.”
Qi Ren’s gentle, scholarly face was well-suited for his calm temperament. When his eyebrows curved into a reassuring expression, it was hard not to lower one’s guard around him.
After trembling for a while, Aunt Zhang finally calmed down somewhat and stammered, “It was... the master...”
The moment she spoke, everyone was stunned!
Gu Rongzhang had been dead for more than half a month. His body was still in the police morgue. How could he possibly appear at the Gu residence?
Could it really be a ghost?
Gu Jin, who had just returned from searching the kitchen and garden without finding anything useful, entered to hear Aunt Zhang’s shocking declaration.
“Impossible! That old man has been dead for half a month!” Gu Jin slammed the table in frustration, his expression dark, his deep-set eyes radiating a ferocious temper. “Don’t you dare keep spouting nonsense!”
“It must be that psycho coming back again! Who else does he want to kill now?”
“Gu Jin!” Gu Rongming’s stern voice rang out, wishing he could immediately throw this troublesome fool out of the house.
Aunt Zhang was startled by the reprimand and let out a shrill scream. “It really was the master! I couldn’t have mistaken him! He looked exactly like the master, his face covered in blood, so much blood! The master has come back! He’s back for revenge! He was smiling, he was still smiling!”
By now, Aunt Zhang seemed to have been frightened into madness by the so-called ghost. She was trembling uncontrollably, her face unnaturally pale, more ghastly than Gu Rongming’s chronically sickly countenance.
She clutched at her hair and muttered to herself, “The murderer hasn’t been caught. The master has come back to take revenge himself! He’s come back to find the one who killed him!”
Gu Rongming frowned deeply. He knew they couldn’t extract any more useful information from Aunt Zhang. He shot a cold glance at Gu Jin and muttered a curse under his breath, “Useless idiot,” before motioning for Qi Ren to wheel him away.
Gu Jin let out a cold snort but couldn’t help glancing toward the second floor.
At the end of the hallway was Ruan Yao’s room.
Gu Jin’s brow furrowed, and after a brief hesitation, he took three steps at a time up the stairs.
Gu Rongming paused slightly “Where’s the madam?”
“She should be in her room” Qi Ren replied.
No sooner had Qi Ren finished speaking than Gu Rongming’s phone vibrated.
Gu Rongming’s expression shifted.
It was a message from Ruan Yao.
“Where are you?”
“Someone pretending to be Qi Ren came looking for me!”
“He wants to kill me!”
Gu Jin would later recall feeling fortunate that he had arrived at Ruan Yao’s room a step ahead of Gu Rongming.
As he rushed toward Ruan Yao’s room, an increasingly strong sense of unease gripped his heart, pricking his nerves like a sharp needle.
When Gu Jin arrived, the door to Ruan Yao’s room was slightly ajar. Through the narrow gap, he could see an overturned high-backed chair and tattered clothes shredded into strips.
He recognized the clothes as the ones Ruan Yao had worn today.
A thin silk shirt now hung miserably from the chair’s leg.
Gu Jin’s heart nearly stopped. The unflappable Gu family’s eldest son found himself afraid to push open the door.
His voice, usually brash and commanding, came out dry and hesitant as he cautiously called out, “Yao Yao, are you okay?”
A faint sob was his only answer.
Finally, he mustered the courage to push the door open.
Ruan Yao lay spread-eagle, bound to the ornate, European-style bed at the center of the room.
His wrists and ankles were tightly secured with strips of fabric torn from his shirt, the bindings so tight they left bruises and purplish marks.
The only covering left on his body was a thin scarf draped around his waist. His bare, fair chest was exposed to the air.
The rosy points on his chest stood out against his pale skin, glistening as if they had been bitten and swollen, a glossy sheen covering them.
Bite marks trailed from Ruan Yao’s slender neck down to the areas concealed by the scarf, and his delicate waist bore angry red fingerprints from forceful grips.
The sight was almost enough to shatter Gu Jin’s composure.
Ruan Yao, spared from pain thanks to an unused pain blocker, thought he might have died from agony otherwise.
The intruder, who looked exactly like Gu Jin, had somehow forced his way into the locked room and pounced on him, licking and biting like an animal.
Even after discovering that Ruan Yao was a man, the intruder didn’t stop. Instead, he bit harder, especially targeting Ruan Yao’s chest.
Pinned down and unable to move, Ruan Yao could only curse the man for being insane, which seemed to excite him further...
Though he didn’t feel pain, Ruan Yao still felt humiliated.
Anyone would be angry at being stripped and subjected to such treatment.
And being tied up in such a compromising position was simply outrageous.
When Gu Jin pushed the door open, Ruan Yao was terrified that he would expose his identity, revealing to everyone that the so-called “madam” of the house was, in fact, a complete imposter.
Though efficient at his work, this level of embarrassment was too much to bear.
Gu Jin’s reaction was surprising.
The normally temperamental man carefully cradled Ruan Yao’s bruised wrists in his palms, gently massaging them as if handling a priceless treasure.
Ruan Yao, wearing nothing but a thin veil, was scooped into Gu Jin’s arms.
“Does it hurt?” Gu Jin asked softly.
By design, the original character was naturally delicate, a trait that subtly influenced Ruan Yao.
He had been holding back his emotions, but Gu Jin’s question made his pent-up grievance overflow.
Tears shimmered on his long lashes before falling like fleeting stars, soaking into Gu Jin’s suit.
His trembling voice was laden with resentment, his words clinging like syrup. “It hurts so much.”
“Ding! Gu Jin’s affection score has increased by 80.”
o0o
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