Chapter 33#
That slightly mocking term—“be good”—set Ji Yang’s teeth on edge.
Jiang Lei, injured, sat in the back seat of the pickup truck. The last spot was left for Ji Chengyi.
The pickup cut through the night across Zhouling Town. The voices of several people in the truck bed were torn apart by the wind, with only You Li’s incessant chatter occasionally carrying a word or two inside.
The front was extraordinarily quiet.
Ji Yang didn’t know the specifics of the conflict that had taken place, so naturally he had no intention of speaking up.
The last person to open his mouth was, unexpectedly, Ji Chengyi—and he was speaking to him.
“You’re closer now,” Nie Xu glanced at him, then looked away. “I don’t lack that much of a sense of honor.”
“Really?” Ji Yang was skeptical. “What if what I do ends up harming Ji Chengyi’s interests?”
Nie Xu frowned. “What does one have to do with the other?”
“It does.” Ji Yang said.
Even if you didn’t witness Ji Chengyi’s injuries tonight, who knows when the plot will catch up—and when it does, I’ll be the one bearing the brunt.
Nie Xu nodded as though he understood. “Tell me. What exactly do you want to do?”
Ji Yang smiled faintly. “I want to use the current situation in Zhouling and have ‘One Yuan’ fan the flames. I have to get my hands on President Huang’s deal.”
Things have gone sideways anyway. The circumstances won’t allow me to keep playing ‘weak and fragile.’ If you don’t look out for yourself, heaven and earth will destroy you.
“You want to blow it up.” Nie Xu saw through him at a glance.
Ji Yang didn’t deny it. “But doing so will escalate the tensions between the first and second branches of the Ji family. I imagine that’s not something my dear third brother—ever the patient strategist—would like to see?”
Nie Xu: “I have no objections.”
“You really have no objections?” Ji Yang was a little dumbfounded and confirmed again.
Nie Xu let out a derisive laugh. “You’ve long since guessed the truth behind Jian Yuan’s motives. With a tumor like Zhu Guangsheng still in place, even if Jian Yuan swallowed the entire Ji shipping empire whole, it would still leave a bad taste.”
Meaning—whether I do this or not, things were going to blow up sooner or later?
Ji Yang fell silent.
It wasn’t that he had nothing to say. It was that he was a little unsettled.
This was the first time Nie Xu had laid his purposes so bluntly before him—his ambition to build an entire empire out of Jian Yuan.
And in a place like this.
Was it because of trust?
Of course not.
He was a piece on this chessboard that shouldn’t have been there in the first place. Whether it was opportunism or sailing with the wind, it could only be said that by coincidence, their directions were aligned. Ji Yang, in keeping with his own survival principles, happened to be walking the same path for a stretch—and it was also to avoid the original ending in the book.
Ji Yang forced a grin. “No need to go into that much detail with me.”
“What?” Nie Xu bent down closer. “Scared again?”
That faint scent of blood still lingered. Ji Yang’s scalp tingled. He spoke slowly: “No.”
“Even if you were, it’s too late.” Nie Xu said lightly, then straightened up. “Make yourself at home. Pour yourself some water.”
Then he brushed past Ji Yang and headed upstairs.
Ji Yang stayed downstairs for two minutes, thinking about leaving—but then remembered it might be rude to depart without saying goodbye, so he stayed.
He didn’t have the habit of wandering around someone else’s house when the owner wasn’t there, so he grabbed a floor cushion and took it to the outer corridor.
It was the perfect vantage point, opening off the side of the wooden building.
From there, you could see an unspoiled stretch of ocean and beach in the distance. The sound of waves drifted over faintly, and even the sweltering wind carried a sliver of pleasantness.
After sitting for five minutes, Ji Yang found himself fully focused on swatting mosquitoes.
Pleasant, my ass. All bullshit.
Ji Yang tracked a mosquito from top to bottom, left to right—then caught sight of a pair of bare feet stepping onto the wooden boards to his right. He froze.
His gaze moved slowly upward, landing on a man who had just finished showering, still holding a towel in hand.
The yellow light overhead was mostly blocked, and the shadow beneath Nie Xu’s brow ridge concealed the expression in his eyes.
Smack! Ji Yang slapped down on his own knee.
On that rather nice-looking set of loungewear, a mosquito imprint was instantly stamped.
Nie Xu’s voice cut clearly through the quiet night. “What are you doing?”
“Swatting a mosquito.” Ji Yang tossed the carcass aside and shot back, “You went to shower without saying a word? Made me wait forever.”
Nie Xu laughed—a laugh laced with exasperation.
“Anything else?”
Ji Yang shook his head. “No. I just hadn’t said goodbye to you yet.”
The air grew still.
Nameless insects stirred in the grass. On his first night in Zhouling, Ji Yang—sitting in what he suspected was Nie Xu’s temporary home—heard his own bodyguard speak softly after a long pause: “Politeness gets fed to the mosquitoes. You really have your leisure moments.”
Ji Yang suspected he was mocking him again and looked up from below. Their gazes finally met—a pair of eyes studying him with quiet seriousness.
Ji Yang: “Can’t this young master turn over a new leaf? I’m a model student—going forward, I’ll greet everyone with a hello.”
Nie Xu tossed the towel over the railing.
“Hmm. Then this young master of mine—why don’t you get up off the ground first?”
Ji Yang glanced at the floor cushion he had long since tossed aside.
“The main thing is that thing isn’t comfortable.” Ji Yang said.
Nie Xu followed his gaze. “It’s for kneeling as punishment. How comfortable could it be?”
“Ah? Who kneels?” Ji Yang was surprised. “You Li?”
Nie Xu glanced at him sideways. “So curious, huh? Want to give it a try?”
Ji Yang: “…”
Not at all! Okay?!