Chapter 4: Waking up From a Long Dream  

She felt no connection to the body that lay in front of her. She was oddly at peace, and she witnessed Bai Ye Qian hunching over her lifeless body to check for a pulse.

She felt absolutely nothing even at the sight of his disdain. He was looking at her corpse with an expression of hatred that she wouldn't have been able to bear before.

The indifference helped her shed the ounce of feelings she had for the cretin who roamed in front of her. Bai Ye Qian ceased to be someone she would ever show any kindness to. Even the anger she felt at the moment felt like it was someone else's. Such was the state of her being.

Oh, how she hoped that she could recognize emotions again. She wanted to hate passionately and fulfill her desires to her heart's content. As the thought passed her, she felt an indescribable pain overtaking her soul. It tore through her as if a scorching knife had repeatedly sliced through her skin.

She startled awake, her fingers gripping onto the rumpled sheets on which she lay, her face glistening with cold sweat. A ray of light from the streetlamp below hit her face. Her eyes were wide open, fear, and shock explicit in them.

Her throat burned, as did her body, but she didn't seem to realize where she was.

"Is this Hell?" she thought, a quick sob passing her lips. No, indeed, it was not hell. It had been a long time since she was here, but it was her bedroom, the one she had used since she moved out of her family home.

She sat up abruptly, wanting to get a better look. She wracked her mind for an explanation for her confusion.

Did she come back to life?

No.

Dream. It had been a long dream. A very wretched dream that her mind had conjured up, feeding on her fears. She pressed her palms against her sweaty forehead and realized that she had a fever.

Delirious, that's all. She sighed and closed her eyes for a second, gathering her wits. The clock on her bedside table read '3 AM'.

She settled back and focused her thoughts on how the dream had come about.

Dreams were a manifestation of fears and instincts wrapped up into one puzzle. That was how she looked at it. Much like authors who wrote stories they saw in their dreams, she believed that the human mind held a lot more information that was available to the subconscious mind.

Yun Sui Bo had indeed asked her to marry a man named Bai Ye Qing. He had done so a couple of months ago. The boy had seemed nice enough but her subconscious mind must have picked up on something that she hadn't noticed.

The rest of it? Those must have been projections of her fears. Yun Qian Meng pulled her phone out from under her pillow and quickly typed in a text.

[Li Min, ask Li Jun to follow Bai Ye Qing for the next three weeks. Do a thorough background check as well.]

[Yes, Miss Yun.]

The reply from her executive secretary was prompt. With her mind at peace, she counted sheep and finally fell asleep again. This time, no nightmares plagued her.

- - - - -

Her alarm rang at five-thirty in the morning. She peered through her sheets, rolling on the gigantic bed until they tangled with her legs. She stretched, her babydoll riding up her body, her impressive curves and smooth skin on displace.

Her hands poked out, rummaging through the bed to find her phone and then finally slapping around on the bedside table where it was charging. She looked at the time, switched the alarm off, and then scrolled through the newspaper to see what the news around the world was.

Nothing much. The world was still in a disarray.

Next, she pulled out a website that listed the daily earnings of the richest people in the country and looked at her income from the previous day. Not bad. The stock market was doing good, as were the companies that she invested in.

At nine-thirty, her daily reports and updates from all accounts would come in, so she tiptoed to the bathroom and took a nice, hot shower.

She lived on the topmost floor of the hotel, much higher than the surrounding buildings. Coupled with the fact that the curtains were closed, she had no problem with walking out of the bathroom naked, her body still wet. She picked out the clothes she would wear for the day and placed them on the bed.

There was something about airdrying her body that she loved. Even her hair was just left to dry naturally. Blowdrying was one of the worst things she could do to her hair. She considered it one of her best assets, so she didn't even dye her hair or use the usual products. Much like her clothes, her skincare and hair care products were made specifically for her. Until she expanded her company, Venus, to the industry.

Thereafter, she only made products that she would use on a daily basis or someone who loved their body equally as her. Some called her vain, others shallow. She could shrug it off. What good would it bring her to act like a white lotus?

She tried to be good to her parents, treated her employees well, and minded her own business. Did she have to go around and advertise her good deeds so that she could be seen as this ethereal creature? She thought not.

At sharp seven in the morning, her executive secretary, Li Min, called her phone. Yun Qian Meng bounded out of the room, knowing that her secretary had arrived. She got to the gate of the hotel and entered her car promptly.