Chapter 13 - 2#
At first, Ji Yang didn’t quite understand why he had brought up that first sentence.
It wasn’t until he finished speaking that Ji Yansong narrowed those slightly clouded-looking eyes. “Assistant? You agreed?”
“Mm.” Nie Xu responded.
Ji Yansong’s expression betrayed nothing, but he nodded and then said, “Very well. You don’t need to worry about the matter of that shipment at the docks. You’ve been in the Ji family for fifteen years—you know what kind of grandson I have.” Here, he suddenly said, “He likes you, Ah Xu. What do you think?”
Ji Yang faintly sensed a kind of… a game of strategy between the two sides.
He instinctively turned to look at the man.
Nie Xu met his gaze, and in a voice calm as still water, said: “The Fourth Young Master and I have different positions. I will only do my duties properly.”
Ji Yang silently bared his teeth at him.
If it weren’t for that whipping, which had given him the fortune of seeing what Nie Xu looked like in private—and because of the foreknowledge that had led to two more encounters revealing the man’s true self—he would have absolutely believed it: that this was a perfectly loyal man who would never cross any boundaries.
Ji Yang realized that Nie Xu had been controlling the situation all along, and said this only because he understood Ji Yansong too well.
As expected, Ji Yansong chuckled, an unmistakable sense of relief in it.
He turned to the several old men nearby and said, “Ah Xu has had this temperament since he was a teenager. Two years ago, when my grandson broke his leg in a car accident, I handed him over, and he didn’t utter a single word of complaint.”
The other old men chimed in in agreement:
“Young people—there’s no need to be too harsh.”
“I actually think little Yang is a straightforward child.”
“You’ve been putting too much burden on Nie Xu these years. Besides being Chief Security Officer, being an assistant to little Yang is a nice fit.”
What a bunch of hypocrites.
Ji Yang could practically hear these old farts preaching on the outside while internally dying to shove him toward Nie Xu.
A pathological kind of liking. The suppression that naturally comes from a difference in status.
The Ji family wanted to use this to restrain the current Nie Xu. What they didn’t know was that the man had already seen right through their character.
Ji Yang suddenly felt relieved.
Good thing that on the day he’d transmigrated, he had laid his cards on the table at the last minute and called it a partnership. Otherwise, even if Nie Xu had agreed at the time, once this charade was no longer needed, the man might very well have torn him apart with his bare hands.
Ji Yang looked at Nie Xu with a heartbroken expression, feigning loyalty: “You agreed to help me just because I’m the young master of the Ji family?”
Ji Changshou slammed the table. “Enough!”
“Are you not embarrassed enough?!”
Ji Yang thought, No wonder the old master doesn’t value you, and retorted right back: “Your illegitimate child is even older than the legitimate one—you’re not embarrassed by that? Abandoning your wife for a woman outside—you’re not embarrassed by that? Your own son likes men—and now you feel embarrassed?”
Ji Changshou raised his hand in fury. “I’ll beat you to death, you worthless bastard!”
“Go ahead.” Ji Yang maneuvered his wheelchair to dodge the movement, adding fuel to the fire as he went: “Beating your own disabled son—you’re not embarrassed by that.”
And then an utterly absurd scene unfolded in the Ji family hall.
A father chasing his son.
One burning with rage, the other stumbling and dodging while recounting the sorrows of the past. The summary: father doesn’t love him, mother is gone, he’s like a little cabbage withered and alone. His past closeness with Wei Qiming and the others, even his efforts against Ji Chengyi—all of that was real. But that was all your fault, old man!
Amidst the chaos and commotion, the entire scene was turned completely upside down.
Until the old master spoke up: “Ah Xu, stop him!”
Nie Xu reached out and seized Ji Changshou’s arm, instantly rendering the man completely immobilized.
A collective gasp erupted from the crowd.
Because the Ji family’s Fourth Young Master had caught the wheel of his wheelchair on a table leg and toppled forward with a lurch.
At the critical moment, he was caught by the waist, halted just short of crashing to the ground.
Ji Yang discreetly tugged on Nie Xu’s sleeve, then turned around with reddened eyes. “Brother Xu.”
Only then did everyone notice—the young master’s arms were trembling, his body bore injuries, his hair lay softly against his cheeks, and his lips were deathly pale on that delicate face.
How utterly fragile he looked.
Ji Changshou’s face was a mottled mess of red and green. He wrenched himself free in fury, flinging down his sleeve. “Not a shred of a man in you!”
The young master leaned his entire weight on his own bodyguard, his eyes cold, his voice soft: “That’s right. You fathers who only know how to raise your hand against your own children—you’re particularly manly.”
Ji Changshou moved to advance again.
The crowd surged forward in a flurry of persuasion, and the matter was finally restrained.
The meeting had originally been about resolving the matter of Ji Chengyi being threatened, but because of this interlude, the so-called trial against Ji Yang came to an unceremonious end.
Half an hour later.
Ji Mingyue pushed Ji Yang along the long corridor of the rear garden.
“Are you really okay?” Ji Mingyue looked him over with suspicion. “I thought you’d had a relapse just now. Even my mom said right in front of me that First Uncle went too far, and she told me to ask if you wanted me to call a doctor.”
Ji Yang laughed twice. “I pinched myself—he never even touched me.”
“Why?” Ji Mingyue didn’t understand.
Ji Yang glanced back at her. “Look at me—in my condition, and you want me to let him wave around that so-called supreme paternal authority? Let their family have their loving little reunion? And everyone else thinks I’m the one with something wrong with my head—why should I?”
Ji Mingyue snorted. “You sure know how to put on a show now.”
She snorted again. “But you’re smarter than before, at least.”
Ji Yang gave an “mhm.” “Putting on an act—who can’t do that?”
He hated Ji Changshou. Just like he hated that drunkard father from his previous life—the one he personally sent to prison in the end.
Ji Yang thought about the scene from tonight, then recalled Ji Mingyue’s parents, the Third Branch of the Ji family. He couldn’t recall much about them from the book.
But looking at it now—if they had let their daughter grow up alongside the original host, at the very least they couldn’t have harmed him.
The corridor lights flickered between brightness and shadow, blocked by the vegetation beneath the trellis.
Ji Yang suddenly said: “No matter what happens, you absolutely cannot agree to marry that thing, Qi Yiming.”
“Why do you suddenly care about me?” Ji Mingyue asked.
Ji Yang sighed. “Because even though your mouth is venomous, you’re still more lovable than the rest of the Ji family.”
“Drop dead!” Ji Mingyue kicked his wheelchair.
Just as they rounded the corner, they suddenly heard sounds coming from the garden pavilion.
Ji Mingyue immediately crouched down, sneaking about like a thief.
“What are you doing?” Ji Yang was already low to the ground, but still asked her in a hushed voice.
Ji Mingyue shushed him and pointed toward the direction of the sound. “You forgot? That’s our family’s secret base. Second Aunt’s affair with Uncle, the woman your dad hooked up with before he remarried, and that time you caught Grandpa and that little nanny when you were six—it all happened right there.”
Ji Yang’s worldview shattered.
He finally understood why Ji Zhonglin’s taboo affairs didn’t seem so strange anymore. Was there anyone in this family who wasn’t tainted???
Ji Mingyue: “Quiet—let’s see who’s actually over there.”
Two shadowy figures, intermittent voices.
They could barely make out that one of the voices belonged to Ji Chengyi. He said: “I know you had no choice. Grandfather’s orders—you couldn’t disobey.”
He said: “Last time I lost my composure a little. Do you know what it felt like seeing you hit by someone like that?”
He said: “Nie Xu, you saved me again today. Just like that year.”
The reply came in a voice so composed and calm it was almost excessive: “In my position, I am responsible if anything happens to anyone in the Ji family. Saving you is my duty.”
Ji Mingyue looked at Ji Yang with deep sympathy.
In a low voice: “Nie Xu really is different—he’s a man Grandpa trained. Honestly, if you’re competing against Ji Chengyi, your chances aren’t great.”
Ji Yang: “I’m not competing.”
Nie Xu was the real deal.
But running into this here—Ji Yang was actually a little annoyed.
He shifted forward a bit, leaned against the corridor railing, and blew a long, sharp whistle.
As the people over there turned to look simultaneously, Ji Yang caught the flash of shock in Ji Chengyi’s eyes—and in the other man, someone who had seemingly sensed their presence from the start.
Ji Yang was lazy and languid, his smile trailing like silk.
“Having an affair right under my nose—do you think I’m blind?”