A total of five vases were arranged on the windowsill.
"Stay back!"
"If you take another step closer, I'll kill her!"
He Junkang tightened his grip on the knife.
A smug, triumphant expression flashed across his face as he shouted at the police officers, "Since I can't have her heart, and I can't have her body—"
"Then I'll die with her!"
Several police officers stood anxiously inside the room, just a few meters away from him, yet completely powerless to act for the moment.
All because his blade was pressed directly against Guan Yao's neck.
The delicate, fair skin of her neck had already been grazed by the tightly pressed blade, leaving a trail of blood.
Hoping to calm He Junkang down first, an officer tried to reason with him. "Don't get so worked over up. Think this through—is doing this really right?"
*Clack!*
A vase was smashed onto the floor, shattering with a crisp crash.
He Junkang pulled back the hand he had just used to hurl the vase. "I don't care! I love her!"
Seeing how agitated he was, the officer continued, "You need to understand that what you're doing right now constitutes armed intrusion, unlawful entry, and kidnapping. If you stop now, there's still a possibility of leniency."
*Clack!*
Another vase was smashed onto the floor, shattering with a crisp crash.
He Junkang pulled back the hand he had just used to hurl the vase. "I don't care! I love her!"
The officer tried a softer, more emotional appeal. "Think about your family, your parents..."
*Clack!*
A third vase was smashed onto the floor, shattering with a crisp crash.
He Junkang pulled back the hand he had just used to hurl the vase. "I don't care! I love her!"
Based on the information gathered when they first arrived at the scene, the officer made one final attempt. "The college entrance examination is tomorrow, you—"
*Clack!*
The fourth one.
Thrown by Guan Yao.
?
He Junkang slowly produced a question mark.
Meanwhile, one of the police officers happened to catch Guan Yao's eye.
He saw Guan Yao standing with her back to He Junkang, using her finger to point at the hand He Junkang was holding the knife with.
Message received.
Naturally, He Junkang had no way of seeing this exchange between Guan Yao and the police.
His attention was entirely focused on the shattered vases on the floor. For the first time, his smug expression faltered, and he looked momentarily bewildered by the turn of events.
Guan Yao said, "I know, you don't need to say anymore."
"You love me, right?"
...
True to the behavior of someone with obsessive-compulsive disorder combined with manic and violent tendencies, He Junkang reached out toward the fifth vase in the distance.
The vase caught the gentle caress of the sunlight, refracting shards of glittering light.
A pair of small, delicate hands quietly crept from the inside onto He Junkang's right hand, the one holding the knife.
The fifth vase was a bit too far away.
He Junkang couldn't help but lean his body forward.
With a sudden burst of strength!
Generally speaking, under the vast majority of circumstances.
A woman's upper body strength is far less than a man's, accounting for only about thirty percent.
However, to use arm wrestling as an example—
If you can't even beat one hand with both of yours, Guan Yao can only say:
Sis, you clearly need to hit the gym.
In a flash of lightning!
Executing the plan she had rehearsed in her mind, Guan Yao pushed off the ground with both feet and lunged forward with all her might!
The police officers reacted swiftly; having kept their eyes locked on the suspect all along, they certainly weren't going to miss this opportunity.
Before Guan Yao even hit the ground, the officers had already surged forward.
The next second, Guan Yao landed.
And He Junkang was already subdued.
Because the situation had been so perilous, no one had any spare attention for the broken glass covering the floor.
As her wits returned, Guan Yao felt a searing agony wash over her arms and calves, as if she were being pricked by ten thousand needles at once.
On her arms, countless shards of glass were deeply embedded in her flesh like the sharp fangs of a demon, trailing down her limbs to pool into a small patch of blood among the glass fragments on the floor.
Her calves were in an equally gruesome state. The glass had mercilessly torn through skin and muscle, gushing blood and turning the surrounding debris a brilliant crimson.
Guan Yao's brows were tightly furrowed, her teeth biting down hard on her lower lip as beads of sweat the size of peas rolled down her forehead. Yet her gaze remained unyielding, locked onto He Junkang, who was still struggling violently even as he was pinned down.
She watched as his smug self-satisfaction turned to panic, and finally, to utter despair.
It wasn't until the handcuffs clicked into place that the dust finally settled.
Living a second life, Guan Yao was no longer some naive and clueless student; she knew very well how to handle a situation like this.
Physical blows couldn't break a psycho like He Junkang.
To utterly crush him required a devastating mental and psychological blow.
One of the police officers turned around and looked at Guan Yao, startled for a moment by the fierce look in her eyes.
Walking over to her with a solemn expression, the officer looked at her disheveled state and said with concern, "Let me take you to get your wounds treated first."
Guan Yao shook her head. "No need, thank you, Officer."
"The college entrance exams are tomorrow, I need to get back to studying."
"You guys take him back first. I'll hail a cab to the hospital myself in a moment."
"As soon as the exams are over, I'll go straight to the station to give my statement."
The officer tried repeatedly to persuade her, but Guan Yao's mind was made up.
Faced with her insistence, the officer had no choice but to haul He Junkang away.
As the group passed by her, Guan Yao spoke directly to He Junkang: "Do you think your love is special? How naive."
"Look at you now—pathetic and disheveled. Now look at me. Even when threatened by you, I easily broke free."
"You are no match for me at all, neither in physical strength nor intelligence. You thought you could control me? You can't even control your own life, yet you're still here dreaming up pathetic fantasies."
"The crazy things you did for me won't make me feel an ounce of affection for you; they only make me despise you all the more."
"You're like a clingy, shedding stray dog, constantly making a nuisance of yourself without even realizing how repulsive you are. Your persistence is nothing more than a delusional farce in my eyes."
"Once you're locked up inside, enjoy the solitude."
"No one will come to visit you, and no one will care about you."
"The rest of your days will be spent in regret and loneliness."
"As for me, I will be surrounded by people, living a happy and fulfilled life. Did you think you could threaten me with death? In reality, you were only pushing yourself into an endless abyss."
Guan Yao paused, took a deep breath to suppress her other emotions, and smiled mockingly at He Junkang: "Reform well, and get out as soon as you can."
"When you finally get out, take a good look at where I am then. I'll let you see what a world of difference looks like, and make you realize just how utterly insignificant you really are."
"And one more thing."
"Even though you directed this farce, remember this: I am the star of this show."
"And looking at the outcome, it's pretty obvious..."
"You will always be nothing more than a pathetic, minor character who never even made it onto the main stage."
...
Once everyone had left, the police officer thoughtfully closed the door behind them.
Sitting on the sofa, Guan Yao stared up at the ceiling as memories of the past rushed over her like a tidal wave.
This was the second time she had lived through this event.
The same time, the same events, but a different soul—this time, the outcome was entirely different.
In her previous life, although she was successfully rescued, He Junkang's knife had pierced her neck, resulting in severe injuries that required emergency surgery and caused her to miss the first day of the college entrance exams.
Even though she sneaked out of the hospital the next day against the doctor's orders, crawling into the examination room wrapped in bandages, she still passed out before she could finish answering the questions.
Having only taken two subjects, she naturally and predictably wound up entering a vocational and technical college.
What followed, of course, was the endless grind of being an ordinary corporate drone.
Rushing about day in and day out, until He Junkang was released from prison, tearing apart the last shred of her dignity like a rabid dog and ruining the life she had scraped together with every ounce of her strength.
Just as he had ruined the brilliant script of Guan Yao's life a decade ago.