Chapter 107#
As soon as Jianyuan’s announcement went up, people quickly noticed that this was no longer just another case of public internet trial.
【Did anyone else notice? This isn’t a simple corporate statement at all. The announcement says it was jointly initiated by Jianyuan’s behind-the-scenes boss in their personal capacity, alongside the group.】
【Who exactly IS this behind-the-scenes boss of Jianyuan?】
【I agree this doesn’t add up. Remember, Jianyuan has been kicking up massive waves in Fanzhou this past year, yet they’ve kept their operations as low-profile as possible. Why would they suddenly go all-out over something like this?】
At times like these, there are always people with sharp instincts who have already caught glimpses of the truth through the faintest threads of clues scattered across various events.
【I have a bold guess here. What if we step outside the commercial cooperation between Jianyuan and Yiyuan, and look at this purely from a personal angle?】
【Such as?】
【Such as the CTO of Jianyuan publicly stating that the behind-the-scenes boss has a personal grudge against the former Jishi Group. Now let’s trace back — Ji Yang, as the fourth young master of the Ji family, not only extricated himself from such a major family upheaval, but conveniently attached himself to Jianyuan. More importantly, does anyone still remember — when the truth behind the Qiming maritime disaster from twenty years ago was reopened, wasn’t it dug up that Yiyuan had a hand in orchestrating the behind-the-scenes public opinion? Hypothetically — just hypothetically — what if that so-called personal grudge is tied to that tragedy? So… does anyone else feel something’s off here?】
【Sounds completely absurd, but how come I feel like you’re onto something???】
In truth, there was no shortage of wild theories circulating online, but only this one gained significant traction among a considerable number of people.
Some people even specifically went to Ji Yang’s account to ask.
Only, as with any game of telephone, by the time the question reached Ji Yang, it had already transformed into something entirely different.
It was the day after the online controversy broke.
Ji Yang didn’t go to the office. In the afternoon, when he received a message from Yu Qin inviting him to dinner, he was sitting on the sofa scrolling through his phone.
Whether fans or passersby, the internet had essentially split into two camps, and the point of contention was peculiar.
One side said: “Reading those analyses had me laughing out loud.”
“It’s obviously just a business partnership. Couldn’t they at least fabricate something that sounds plausible? Where exactly is anything shady?”
“It’s a perfectly serious matter. Why do some people have to drag in private feelings? I swear some brains only have room for romance nonsense.”
The other side’s stance, meanwhile, was:
“The original tipster grabbed a fake story and went full throttle with the rumors, only to get immediately sued by the husband himself. Dead from laughing.”
“Some people really do think he’s just a pure-hearted, pretty-faced streamer. The man’s already operating businesses thousands of miles out — you think he’s some innocent lamb?”
“I’m a fan, but with years of experience under my belt, I’m one hundred percent certain — they’re NOT innocent. Absolutely not. And I have a premonition that the relationship between these two goes far beyond what we see on the surface.”
The earlier controversy had long since stopped being believed or discussed. Instead, different factions had latched onto the question of Ji Yang’s relationship with Jianyuan’s behind-the-scenes boss as their new theme, producing wildly exaggerated speculations.
Some insisted it was a disabled young master playing the fool, biding his time to seize the throne.
Others argued it was a fallen young master with an unbroken will — a paragon of youthful entrepreneurship.
Either way, Ji Yang’s image underwent a dramatic transformation. From a controversial internet celebrity young master who had turned himself into a walking brand, he was suddenly reframed with a sheen of extraordinary, razor-sharp cunning layered over his persona.
As if he was the grand strategist behind everything, capable of anything.
He was the one who orchestrated the Ji family’s bankruptcy liquidation. He was the one who discovered the cultural relic smuggling case while on a business trip. He was the one who initiated the investigation into the long-buried maritime disaster.
He was a reborn argali — the apex predator.
Born into the Ji family, destined to be both their karmic nemesis and their nemesis for aiding their evil ways for so many years.
Reading all this, Ji Yang burst out laughing.
And that was when it happened.
No one expected “One Yang” to suddenly post an update.
The latest post: the young master, cradling a beautiful white Ragdoll cat, sat on a dark sofa in a slightly disheveled posture, his expression lazy and languid. The background was the cool, hard-edged luxury interior of a high-end residence.
The caption beneath the photo of Little White read: I’m a three-legged cat, and all my strength and schemes are just enough to scam a few dried fish treats…
Fans:
【LOL, is this supposed to be a denial?】
【Even with prosthetics worth millions, I really am too fragile to take care of myself.】
【Translation: I just wanted a few dried fish treats (a man’s good looks), and I used every ounce of strength and scheme I had (so did you seduce him?). But some people think I could punch a tiger to death (the good looks are already in hand, so could some people please stop ruining my image?).】
【Actually… could it be that… being disabled has absolutely nothing to do with brain power?】
【What the person above said is right. Got it. Ate the treat fair and square.】
【Ate it fair and square.】
【Ate it fair and square.】
……
Ji Yang watched as the thread gradually veered off course, his cheeks aching from all the sour expressions.
A hand reached from behind and scooped Little White out of his arms.
It also happened to glance at his phone screen.
“You’re pulling that face even when they’re praising you?”
Ji Yang tilted his head up, looking at his outfit. “You’re heading out?” Then he added: “The dried fish treats I mentioned referred to the measly profits we earn compared to Jianyuan. These people are dead-set on twisting it — next thing I know, my account will be banned.”
Nie Xu set the cat free and nodded. “Mm. I’ll drop you off on the way.”
He then took Ji Yang’s phone from him.
Nie Xu stood behind him, scrolling through the page for a while before saying to Ji Yang: “Your explanation is steering things in a slightly off-color direction. I’ll have someone handle it.”
“What’s off-color about it?” Ji Yang knelt up on the sofa, turning toward Nie Xu to grab his phone back.
Nie Xu raised his hand higher. “You got where you are today entirely on your own. None of those things would have unfolded as quickly as they did without you. If you really tally it up, the netizens’ speculations aren’t unreasonable.”
“Don’t flatter me,” Ji Yang practically lunged onto Nie Xu, grabbing his arm. “I’ve said it before — my highest goal in life is to coast and rot in peace. I have no interest in being a savior, and I couldn’t save anyone anyway.”
To keep him from falling, Nie Xu wrapped an arm around his waist and handed the phone back.
Ji Yang slid down.
Nie Xu bent forward with him, both hands braced on the back of the sofa.
“Are you serious?” Nie Xu asked.
Ji Yang met his gaze. “I couldn’t be more serious, brother.”
Nie Xu let out a laugh. “Stop calling me that at times like these.”
“Then what should I call you?” Ji Yang reached up again, wrapping his arms around Nie Xu’s neck, and whispered softly: “Brother? Brother Nie? My dear beloved? You know — my life has been full of hardships, and fate dealt me a sudden blow. Now that I’ve been so fortunate to meet you, not after your money, nor asking you to give me some legitimate title — all because I love you.”
Nie Xu raised an eyebrow. “And what’s this supposed to be?”
“The mysterious tycoon and his disabled little wife?” Ji Yang’s hand slid along Nie Xu’s shoulder as he asked, with perfect solemnity: “Didn’t you say men over thirty are easily swayed by the kind of ‘I don’t want your money or your name’ routine? Your birthday’s coming up, isn’t it? Let me test the waters.”
Nie Xu laughed in exasperation. “So you’re saying I’m older than you? Then what are you after?”
Ji Yang tugged on the tie Nie Xu had taken to wearing frequently these days and chuckled lightly: “Of course I’m after both your money and your looks.”
Thanks to all this fooling around, Ji Yang nearly ended up late.
The private kitchen restaurant Yu Qin had chosen was lovely, situated in the suburbs.
The storefront wasn’t flashy — a grey brick screen wall embedded with a small brass-lettered sign.
Inside the courtyard, a winding water channel wove its way through. The private dining room faced the black pine tree in the courtyard center, and you could hear the rustling whisper of pine needles whenever the wind blew through.
Yu Qin had already been waiting for a while.
Ji Yang walked in and said, “Sorry, I’m late.”
“Not late at all.” Yu Qin glanced at the two bodyguards parked outside and said, “He really does care about you. I’m rather glad now — that the person you found is someone like him.”
Ji Yang glanced outside as well. “He doesn’t let me go out alone anymore these days.”
“Is he still tracking down the main source behind this whole online thing?” Yu Qin asked.
Ji Yang nodded. “The first round of official interrogation results has come out. He’s been incredibly busy lately. He’d originally planned to come in and say hello, but got pulled away for an emergency.”
Yu Qin said they could eat together another time.
Ji Yang took off his jacket and draped it over the chair beside him.
Every time he met with Yu Qin, the conversation inevitably turned to people and things from the past. Ji Yang sometimes wondered whether he could truly fill the void in Yu Qin’s yearning for the past — their emotions, even, couldn’t always be perfectly in sync.
But being together was comfortable. Ji Yang didn’t carry that kind of scholarly grace and calm that Yu Qin had, so occasionally he tried to imagine, through Yu Qin, the household where his mother had grown up.
Yu Qin would try his best to describe it for him.
He would talk about how Yu Fei had been praised for her striking, spirited looks since childhood, how she had legions of friends and got along with everyone.
He would mention how doting the grandparents were toward this daughter — spoiling her endlessly while having absolutely no idea what to do with her.
Ji Yang could feel it — what Yu Qin was really doing was patching the gaps.
They were both approaching each other carefully, getting to know and accept one another like family.
Later, the conversation turned to Ji Yang’s trip to the border to find Nie Xu.
Yu Qin said, “I’m still not sure — if something had happened to you two, would I have regretted not following Nie Xu’s suggestion and refusing to perform the hypnotic regression on you?”
“There are no ‘what ifs,’” Ji Yang said. “And I don’t think it was the wrong choice. My mother asked you to carry this out — it was something that needed to be done, wasn’t it?”
Yu Qin shook his head. “But none of us had any guarantee. No one could predict the outcome. Which is why I’ve always believed your mother was being cruel to you in this matter. After all, you were too young at the time. Even now, I still can’t fully understand her decision.”
On this point, Ji Yang perhaps understood even more deeply than Yu Qin did.
This uncle had carried his mother’s charge across borders for years, perpetually hunted by the Ji family and the Xile Gate, forced to change his identity and his name. For all these years, he had lived as an ordinary psychologist — like a box containing that key, cast into the boundless sea of humanity.
Ji Yang was different. He had witnessed the explosion of the Qiming. He had been deep inside the scene of the smuggling case. He had survived the collapse of the laboratory.
Let alone the fact that he possessed memories of a previous life that no one else had.
He knew — if Nie Xu hadn’t gone overseas in advance. If his identity had been discovered long ago. If the Ji family were at the height of their power, if the Xile Gate and the Gravekeepers rose again — just how many lives would that web of crime shatter, and how agonizing a price would every person caught within it have to pay?
Ji Yang simply couldn’t understand.
Why his mother, across two lifetimes, would make such completely different choices.
He also couldn’t figure out — if he really was the so-called key, why he couldn’t find a single trace of anything remarkable in his memories related to it. It was like knowing with certainty that the thing was right there, yet being unable to find the notch to reach out and touch it.
Ji Yang replayed Yu Fei’s words one by one, turning them over with careful, repeated deliberation.
“Truly my son — you’re just so good-looking.”
“I brought you into this world because I wanted you to grow up safe and sound. Unfortunately, I failed.”
“What our generation couldn’t accomplish — it can only be left to you.”
“My darling, just remember one thing… The most important person in my life has always been myself. I hope you’ll be the same.”
The chip had clearly already been placed on him, and then taken away again.
After that, Ji Yang was sent back to the Ji family and survived.
The Nie family must have received some condition from Yu Fei — that was the only reason they’d let him grow up as the Ji family’s legitimate grandson all these years. That motivation — wanting desperately to destroy him yet being unable to afford to let him die — combined with Ji Changshou’s strange reaction when the coffin-opening was mentioned…
Ji Yang’s head split with pain.
Yu Qin soothed him. “The so-called memory retrieval, to put it simply, is more like a kind of trigger mechanism. But the human brain is the most uncontrollable of things — and it’s also capable of deception. So don’t push yourself too hard.”
Deception.
Right. He had been blurring the focus this entire time.
“The most important person in my life has always been myself. I hope you’ll be the same.”
I hope you’ll be the same — that sounded more like the motherly instruction and hope Ji Yang had felt. The key wasn’t in that part. The key was…
Herself.
Herself.
Not referring to Ji Yang.
Referring to Yu Fei.
Referring to her own self.
That night, the man who had just declared in front of Nie Xu that all he wanted was to coast and rot in peace suddenly rose from his dinner table across from Yu Qin.
“What’s wrong?” Yu Qin picked up his jacket, his expression turning grave in response to Ji Yang’s abrupt reaction.
Ji Yang looked at him.
And slowly spoke the words: “If I dug up my mom’s grave, do you think my grandparents would come beat me up in my dreams?”