Chapter 10#
Ji Yang took his medication before bed that night.#
The next morning, he woke to find the clock on the wall pointing at 10:08 AM. The alarm either hadn’t gone off or he’d slept through it.
The sun blazed high outside.
Being late was now a certainty.
After a long staredown with Little Bai, who’d slept at the foot of his bed, Ji Yang scratched his hair and fumbled for his phone.
Only then did he realize the battery was nearly dead. After plugging it in, he found the friend request for the new account had been accepted at some point. Nie Xu’s profile picture was a night sea with a moon hanging above it — it looked like an actual photograph when enlarged. His display name was simply NX. Given that this person was currently his top priority, Ji Yang pinned the chat, thought for a moment, and changed his contact name to: Designated Textbook of the Gym’s Enrollment Office.
He sent a GIF as a greeting.
Dead silence. Like a still pond.
Frustrated, he changed the name again: Master of Mental Reply + Young Master Yang’s Ten Greatest Failures in Life.
Accepting without complaint this person’s complete disinterest in small talk, the next second he honestly reported: “Sorry, I overslept. Could I come by a bit later?”
The other side replied: “With your sense of time, it’s hard for me to believe you’re doing anything remotely serious.”
He was in the wrong, so there was nothing to argue about.
Ji Yang surrendered: “My fault.” Then added: “You have to accept the occasional innocent blunder from a person with mobility issues, right?” He snapped a photo of Little Bai and sent it. “Besides, I strongly suspect your son turned off my alarm. He was meowing at me all night. Is he in heat or something?”
Ji Yang fired off message after message. The reply came: “He’s been neutered.”
Ji Yang realized: “Oh, so your son is a little eunuch.”
The phone fell completely silent.
Ji Yang counted — at least two replies. Not bad. He smiled faintly at the phone.
When he headed downstairs carrying the poor, neutered Little Bai, he ran into the butler Zhao Yuan.
Or rather, Zhao Yuan had been specifically waiting for him.
Ji Yang had only seen this old man on his first day transmigrating into the book — like a mouthpiece behind Old Master Ji Yansong. Now, encountering him alone, Ji Yang noticed that compared to Ji Yansong’s years-polished slickness, this old fellow Zhao Yuan carried an unmistakable air of hidden ruthlessness.
A vertical furrow between his brows on that face full of wrinkles, appearing and disappearing like a ghost in daily life.
“Do you need something?” Ji Yang stopped his wheelchair at the doorway and asked.
Zhao Yuan bowed slightly: “Where is the Fourth Young Master heading?”
It sounded like an interrogation.
“To find Nie Xu. Every time I ask, you say he’s busy.” Ji Yang put on a serious face and countered: “Does Uncle Zhao know what he’s been busy with?”
“A batch of important goods was lost at the dock. We’ve been tracing their whereabouts these past few days.” Zhao Yuan maintained his usual composed demeanor, yet inexplicably disclosed this to him.
Ji Yang felt a tinge of sarcasm.
When you scheme against others, you don’t think twice — now that the tables are turned and Nie Xu has outmaneuvered you, what’s the deal?
Ji Yang cut to the chase: “I can’t even find the man right now. Tell Grandpa to assign someone else to investigate.”
Zhao Yuan paused, as though choked. His next words carried a soothing tone, and also seemed like a test: “I heard that on the night the dock incident occurred, it was Nie Xu who went to pick up the Fourth Young Master from the police station? Was there anything unusual that day?”
Ji Yang answered with sincerity: “He carried me. Does that count as unusual?”
If carrying counted.
The face that always seemed to wear an impassable, unsmiling mask lost its composure. The muscles along his cheekbones twitched twice before he continued: “Nie Xu holds the safety of countless business dealings behind the Ji family in his hands. Every move of his is of critical importance. The Master entrusted the man to the Fourth Young Master so that, while maintaining close contact, you should always remember you are a Ji family member. If you find any clues or traces, tell Uncle Zhao. Uncle Zhao will handle it.”
Ji Yang: “Oh, is that Grandpa’s intention? Hearing Uncle Zhao’s tone this early in the morning, I thought you wanted to handle me along with everything else.”
Zhao Yuan was silent for a few seconds: “The Fourth Young Master is exaggerating.”
Ji Yang had no intention of letting it go easily: “Am I exaggerating, or does everyone just think I’m irrelevant, treating me like a fool to be fooled?”
Zhao Yuan wouldn’t test him for no reason.
It had to be on Ji Yansong’s orders.
Ji Yang didn’t care how they played their games. The original owner had been cast aside and pushed out of the Ji family from the very beginning.
But this blatant exploitation right now — did they really think he was that easy to manipulate?
His arrangement with Nie Xu was inherently unequal.
A young master driven mad by “love” could only temporarily lower the Ji family’s guard. As the plot progressed, he would soon lose his usefulness.
He couldn’t let himself be used as a chess piece by the Ji family before even earning Nie Xu’s trust.
So on the Ji family’s side, apart from the identity of a lovestruck young master, he could not offer any exploitable avenue whatsoever.
Whether it was monitoring Nie Xu or anything else.
If he actually did that, the consequences could be even worse than being a beggar.
His attitude was clearly something Zhao Yuan hadn’t anticipated.
Zhao Yuan took two steps back, his tone lowering: “The Fourth Young Master misunderstands. It’s just that those goods are very important to the Ji family. Every link must be thoroughly checked.”
Ji Yang said irritably: “If you can’t check it properly, that’s because you’re all useless.” He spun his wheelchair with a mocking air: “But it doesn’t matter. I’m not blood-related to the Ji family anyway. Whether you’re useless or not has nothing to do with me.”
Watching Zhao Yuan freeze on the spot,
Ji Yang knew the severity of those words was enough to crush his scheming plans.
Ji Yang arrived at the training grounds just before noon.
Aside from that night when he’d almost taken a wrong turn, he had never come to this side of the estate. In the distance, he spotted an open area at the property’s edge.
In the center was a section of paved ground enclosed by chain-link fencing, scattered with several groups of obstacles: high walls, rope nets, tire formations. Quite a few people were there, seemingly in the middle of training — shouts, sweat, coarse wind and sand swirling up waves of heat, filling the air with a briny, scorching atmosphere.
Where Nie Xu stood was a raised platform overlooking the training ground.
He held a tactical tablet in his hand. With his visual acuity, he had actually spotted the person over ten minutes ago.
Taking at least three wrong turns along the way, pausing for quite a while when the cat jumped down and needed to be chased after, adding up to at least fifteen extra minutes of detouring.
He’d gotten quite skilled with the wheelchair, but the roads around this training ground had been specially built and maintained for daily training purposes — full of obstacles and uneven terrain.
Jiang Lei finished assigning tasks and climbed up.
Looking down at the people undergoing assessment, he said quietly: “The person Li Lu planted — are you sure you’re not going to use this chance to weed him out? You rushed back specifically. I thought you’d decided to make your move.”
Nie Xu’s stylus traced across the tablet: “Leave them for now. This batch of goods is traveling a new route. Perfect time to test the security level.”
Jiang Lei gazed off at the Ji family’s main villa in the distance and sighed: “Finally. For the past two years, we’ve been turning a blind eye — the brothers have been suffocating under the pressure. When the shipping route was exposed early, I was worried. You not choosing Ji Chengyi turned out to be a happy accident after all.” Jiang Lei thought of something and added: “The Ji Corporation’s financial problems have been building for years. They wanted to plug the gap using funds from the Lan Hai Bay project. Now with this batch of goods lost, the hole can’t be filled. I’m curious what brilliant ideas the old fogies on the board will come up with next.”
Beneath Nie Xu’s calm tone lay a sharp edge: “Their suppression tactics are still the same old tricks from twenty, thirty years ago — thinking they can rest easy for a lifetime by clinging to the Ji Corporation’s tree.”
Jiang Lei thought about these past two years and couldn’t help recalling the certain young master who’d been used as a tool of suppression.
His gaze swept casually to the edge of the training ground — and sure enough, there was the person.
Shocked: “People really shouldn’t curse their own words out loud. How did you get him over here?”
Nie Xu glanced over in that direction: “He came on his own.”
“You don’t think… he’s still pulling the same trick, do you?” Because of what had happened before, Jiang Lei really didn’t want to suspect this, but he couldn’t help it: “You said someone was coaching him. That old fogey sensed the goods had already set sail and chased after our people — and this young master shows up right on his heels. The timing is a bit too convenient.”
Nie Xu considered it: “Doesn’t seem like it.”
“Doesn’t seem like what?” Jiang Lei asked.
Nie Xu tilted his chin toward the distance: “Doesn’t look like someone who’d throw his life away for the Ji family.”
Before, being deceived into it would have made sense.
Now it was a completely different story.
Down below, Deng Jiao and Han Biao were both present. Neither of them reacted at first when they saw the person. After all, the young master who had suddenly appeared before them had a ring of fine sweat around his forehead, hair plastered to his neck, and despite the heat, not a trace of color had returned to his face.
He was immaculately dressed, carrying Little Bai — whom everyone in Building Four knew — lending him a faint air of holding the emperor hostage to command the nobles.
Han Biao was different. He had a massive build, and his previous anger erupted completely the moment he recognized the person.
He swaggered to block the entrance and sneered: “What brings the Fourth Young Master to our muddy ground? Wasn’t the warehouse enough last time? Want to try a different spot today?”
With one person taking the lead, it was easy to stir up everyone else’s emotions.
“Why not pick me.”
“Me!”
“Me too!”
What had clearly been justified outrage over a past incident, under the current circumstances, suddenly became a vivid image of the many bullying the few — the strong preying on the weak.
What no one expected was that the young master himself, in a moment of carelessness, got his wheelchair caught in a pothole and fell to the ground.
The entire scene froze.
Then everyone clearly heard the young master mutter under his breath: “Fuck! I definitely didn’t check the almanac before leaving the house today.”
Then the young master turned his head, his expression becoming awkward yet innocent: “Even though I’d very much like to apologize, but… would it be too much trouble to ask someone to pick me up first?”
Everyone: “…”
In the end, it was Deng Jiao who spoke up to stop it: “Han Biao! It’s an assessment! Do you want your whole squad getting disciplinary action?”
She turned to look at the person on the ground, her expression hard to read, and managed: “Fourth Young Master… are you alright?”
“I’m fine. It was my own operating error. Thank you, sis.” The young master curved those beautiful eyes into a smile, and just like that, he made Deng Jiao’s face flush red.
Ji Yang’s fall had actually been pretty hard.
The scraped skin on his arm throbbed with a sharp sting. His legs had the same familiar dull ache as before. There were pebbles on the ground — he wasn’t sure if there were any open wounds.
He was wearing long trousers and instinctively rolled them up, only to discover several small wounds on the residual stump. Not big, but deep — as though sharp pebbles had pierced through. Blood had already seeped out, conspicuous against the blindingly white skin.
His attention was entirely on his leg, so he didn’t notice Han Biao and the other men instinctively reaching out to help, nor their twisted expressions from barely suppressing their anger.
Until a shadow fell over his head.
A pair of black combat boots stopped beside him.
Nie Xu, in his capacity that went beyond the bodyguard role, wore no formal suit and no sunglasses.
Under the blazing noon sun, the dark aura he usually carried had receded almost entirely, leaving behind a sharp figure in a black t-shirt and army-green trousers. Amidst the chorus of “Brother Xu” and “Boss,” he easily submerged Ji Yang’s presence.
Ji Yang tilted his head up, looked at the figure backlit by the sun, and broke into a wide, brilliant smile.
“Brother Xu.”
Han Biao and the others recalled the rumors of recent days, and their expressions turned even more peculiar and strained.
By the time Ji Yang escaped the training ground and settled into the fourth-floor office of Building Four, it was already half past twelve.
He held a cotton swab, poking at his leg while remarking: “Terrifying stuff. At the time, I really thought they wanted to beat up a disabled person.”
“I didn’t see where you were scared.” Nie Xu glanced at his actions with no intention of stepping in to help.
“Could I have shown it on my face?” Ji Yang stopped what he was doing and looked around muttering: “This is your turf. It’s not work hours. I haven’t hired anyone with my money. Acting lawlessly here would just be asking for a beating.”
It was still several months before the rift with the Ji family depicted in the book. Offending a big shot on purpose — he wasn’t that bored with life.
Nie Xu was noncommittal: “I can see you’re quite flexible about bending and straightening.”
Ji Yang sighed: “A man must bow to the circumstances.”
This office was supposedly for handling daily affairs, but it clearly wasn’t used often. The space was large, but aside from a filing cabinet, a big desk, and a sofa, there was almost nothing else.
When Ji Yang had come up earlier, he noticed a Hummer and several Jeeps parked downstairs.
This style stood in complete contrast to the opulence of the main building — two entirely separate worlds.
Without warning.
“Zhao Yuan came to me this morning.” Ji Yang said.
Nie Xu wasn’t surprised: “So?”
“So how about you take on one more role? Be my assistant.” Ji Yang miscalculated the pressure and hissed from self-inflicted pain. He lowered his head and blew on it. After blowing, he looked up and adopted a persuasive, reasoning posture: “Zhao Yuan went so far as to seek me out. Your upcoming actions must be quite restricted. Tying yourself to me 24/7 should be able to deflect a significant portion of the attention watching you, wouldn’t you say?”
Without waiting for Nie Xu to answer, he hurriedly lowered his head and blew on it two more times.
Nie Xu seemed unable to tolerate his pampered manner and frowned: “Is that all you wanted to say?”
“No.” Ji Yang denied it.
He thought for a moment, then revealed his true purpose in seeking him out: “I agreed to Peng Jiaying, the director of the Ji Corporation’s New Media Department, to help him keep his department intact. I’ll do you a favor and guarantee this public opinion shill will always stand on your side. How about you let him affiliate with Jian Yuan?”
The moment “Jian Yuan” left his lips, Nie Xu smiled.
But there wasn’t a single degree of warmth in his eyes.
He leaned forward, pressing both hands down on either side of Ji Yang, his gaze sweeping across his face inch by inch.
“Young Master.” He seemed to snap back into the bodyguard role in an instant, but his voice was frigid. “You know a little too much. I’m now quite suspicious — were you pretending these past two years, or do you have some secret I don’t know about?”
Inwardly, Ji Yang cursed Zhao Yuan’s ancestors eighteen generations deep.
He hadn’t wanted things to be this complicated at the start.
But Zhao Yuan had come to him.
Building Four had, beginning roughly a few years ago, relied on a bodyguard company called “Jian Yuan” behind the scenes for personnel defense selection, centralized training, and regular deployment of top-tier security personnel.
No one knew that “Jian Yuan” belonged privately to Nie Xu.
And security services were merely his most surface-level business segment.
After the Ji family’s downfall, Fan Zhou and some of those so-called wealthy bosses only belatedly realized the scope of “Jian Yuan’s” operations had already spread across the country and overseas.
And right now, it was merely showing the first signs.
The Ji family had wanted to use that batch of goods to cripple one of Nie Xu’s arms — who would have expected them to take such a spectacular fall, essentially doing all the work for someone else.
It was only natural they were anxious.
Squeezing out a living between the cracks, he could only cling to “Jian Yuan” as his lifeline.
They were close enough that Ji Yang could even catch the scent of sun on Nie Xu’s skin — that sharp, midday-summer-afternoon smell.
Which made his oppressive presence far more bearable than on his first day transmigrating.
Forced to hold up the cotton swab, Ji Yang declared his loyalty: “You can suspect me all you like, but you can’t question my stance, right?”
“Just how far can your stance take you?” Nie Xu reached out and took the cotton swab from his hand, his gaze dipping slightly: “Sitting in a wheelchair, covered in blood after a fall — in a place full of bodyguards? And then let Jian Yuan’s reputation plummet?”
“Heaven above and earth below bear witness.” Ji Yang raised his hand. “I truly didn’t think of that.”
Nie Xu looked at him for a moment, then stood and crouched down.
Ji Yang instinctively hugged his injured leg and shrank back: “What are you doing?”
“Didn’t you ask me to be your bodyguard and assistant?” Nie Xu lowered himself into a position beneath Ji Yang, seeming not at all opposed to the arrangement.
Or perhaps he had his own plans.
But looking at the man crouching before him, Ji Yang’s scalp tingled.
“I’ll do it myself, I’ll do it myself.” Ji Yang reached for the cotton swab.
Nie Xu lifted his hand out of the way and glanced at him: “I told you to disinfect, not to trace circles around the wound. At this rate, will you finish applying medicine by next year?”
One minute later, Ji Yang leaned back against the sofa, head tilted up.
He bit into his arm, voice hoarse.
“Brother Xu, if you wanted to get back at me, you could’ve just said so directly.”
It hurt like hell!