Chapter 39#

That hand gave Ji Yang the impression of being dry and rough, covered in thin calluses worn smooth from years of gripping blades and guns.

After he finished licking it, Ji Yang immediately regretted it.

How stupid.

Why would he do something like that?

In the end, Ji Yang concluded that over all this time, Nie Xu had used him, acknowledged him, and helped him. Upon closer inspection, Nie Xu had never employed any truly harmful methods against him. On the contrary, Ji Yang occasionally had the illusion that Nie Xu was actually quite tolerant of him.

When the submissive compliance of the “lower-ranked one” lacked a bit of that air of reluctance, that was what had indulged Ji Yang’s guard.

A few seconds, or perhaps even less, the commotion outside vanished without a trace, and that hand finally let go.

The moment Ji Yang got free, he struck first. “Who told you to cover my mouth in the first place?”

Nie Xu wasn’t angry. He simply said, mildly, “You were asking too many questions. Besides, you lick someone’s hand just because they cover your mouth? Are you a dog or something?”

Ji Yang pulled his lips into a fake smile. “I am, and if it happens again, I’ll definitely bite you.”

Click. A soft sound.

The lights in the room blazed on.

Ji Yang raised his arm to shield his eyes from the glare.

Nie Xu stepped back half a pace as though nothing had happened, and said, “Let’s go.”

“Where to?” Ji Yang lowered his hand and asked.

Nie Xu looked back at him. “The lights coming on means the transaction is over. Your grandfather came to the hotel specially to ‘see you’ — and as his grandson, aren’t you going to meet him, or do you need to be invited?”

“Is this an invitation?” Ji Yang was speechless. “This is clearly coercion.”

Although he called it coercion, Ji Yang had no intention of resisting.

Nie Xu opened the door and stepped out first.

Two people were still standing outside the room door, both unfamiliar faces.

The moment Ji Yang approached, one of them opened the door and said, “Please, Fourth Young Master.” Then, addressing Nie Xu behind Ji Yang, he added, “Brother Nie, the Old Master wants you to come in too.”

Ji Yang entered first.

Once inside, he suspected he’d walked into the wrong room.

The few articles of clothing he’d left at the foot of the bed, the unfinished biscuits on the coffee table — even the half cup of water he’d just poured from the electric kettle before leaving and hadn’t had time to drink — everything had been cleared away completely. At a glance it looked like tidying up, but on closer thought it seemed more like a search. Did he have anything worth searching for?

The Old Master sat on the sofa in the room, with Zhao Yuan standing behind him.

A tea set was arranged on the coffee table in front of him. Four cups — three of them bearing traces of having been drunk from.

But the people who had been sitting there were gone.

Ji Yang stood before the coffee table without speaking.

The Old Master leisurely poured another cup to refill it, and spoke: “You don’t even call me Grandpa anymore?”

“I wouldn’t dare,” Ji Yang said. “Last time you threw an inkstone at me — that could at worst make me bleed. But if you throw a teapot at me now, that boiling water would ruin my entire face.”

Ji Yansong’s hand paused mid-pour, then he continued, “Such a temper. What can that little nothing company of yours ever amount to?”

“Nothing for you to worry about,” Ji Yang retorted every sentence. “If I can’t survive, I can always go beg for food.”

The Old Master set down the teapot, leaned back on the sofa, and watched him in silence.

Ji Yang gazed back without expression.

The Old Master’s astonishing tolerance this time was within expectations. As expected, even now he hadn’t lost his temper, but simply said, “You look more and more like your mother.”

Ji Yang: Is something wrong with you? May I ask?

Ji Yansong: “Don’t cause trouble with your father. The main house has been renovated — there’s hardly any trace of your mother left. But it’s where you grew up. That’s your home. That’s where you should be living.”

“Did you come here specifically to persuade me to return to the Ji family?” Ji Yang raised an eyebrow.

Ji Yansong glanced at him, then looked beside Ji Yang, and said: “Axu, you explain it to him.”

Ji Yang turned his head.

Nie Xu took a document from Zhao Yuan, walked back, and handed it to him.

Ji Yang flipped it open and saw: Equity Transfer Agreement.

Nie Xu spoke: “This is your grandfather’s personal gift — a ten percent non-voting share in Haicheng Group. It doesn’t count against the eldest branch’s original entitlement. It belongs to you personally.”

Ji Yang picked up the agreement and tapped it against his hand. “What is this? An exchange? Compensation?” He looked at Ji Yansong as he spoke. “Or… is this a fig leaf for your less-than-honorable dealings — underground transactions conducted under the guise of one’s grandson?”

“Fourth Young Master!” Zhao Yuan’s voice rang out sharply. “I hope you’ll watch what you say.”

Ji Yang didn’t even spare the old man a glance. He held up the agreement and said, “I don’t care what you’re trying to do. I’m not blind to Haicheng’s current situation. Setting aside the question of how much this ten percent is worth — even if I keep it, what else can it do besides make people hate me? Pray for the stock to recover and sit at home waiting for money to fall from the sky?”

“You don’t want it?” Ji Yansong asked.

Ji Yang: “If you have money, you can just give it to me directly. I won’t complain about too much. But this kind of thing — forget it.”

“Still too young.” Ji Yansong raised his teacup and took a sip.

After setting it down, Ji Yansong rose from the sofa and spoke slowly: “If you don’t want it, so be it. After all, you have the Ji surname — you still have the capital to be willful. Let’s go.”

He was calling for Zhao Yuan.

Zhuan Yuan stepped forward, took the agreement from Ji Yang’s hands. His expression was respectful, but his tone carried a heavy implication of ungrateful: “If the Fourth Young Master is determined to dash the Old Master’s hopes and refuse to have anything to do with any of the Ji family’s business, then when the time comes and you want this agreement back — there won’t be another chance.”

Ji Yang: “Then leave that chance to you, Uncle Zhao.”

The corner of Zhao Yuan’s mouth stiffened.

The Old Master was already standing at the door.

He called out again: “Axu.”

“I’m here,” Nie Xu responded.

Ji Yansong: “To prevent any errors in the aftermath of the transaction, you’ll stay here tonight. The Ji family’s descendants may be disobedient, but they can’t be foolish. Keep an eye on him.”

“Yes.” Nie Xu nodded.

The Old Master walked out with his cane, Zhao Yuan close behind.

Ji Yang remained where he was, looked around, then turned to Nie Xu: “You—”

Nie Xu raised his palm slightly, signaling him to be quiet.

Ji Yang asked with his eyes: Huh?

Nie Xu walked a circuit around the room and finally located, with pinpoint precision, a listening device in the corner of the windowsill.

Ji Yang watched that tiny blinking thing, his scalp tingling faintly. He mouthed: Who put it there?

Nie Xu answered with a look: Who do you think?

Alright, Ji Yang understood.

Whether the Old Master was distrustful of someone or not, there was definitely someone monitoring from the other end of that bug.

If they loved eavesdropping so much—

Ji Yang backhanded several teacups off the coffee table. They shattered on the floor. He shouted: “I’ve had enough! You keep saying you want me to come back to the Ji family, but the moment there’s something dirty involved, I’m the only one you can think of!”

He didn’t need anyone’s cooperation. One person was drama enough.

He even grabbed the magazines that had originally been in the guest room and threw them out, shouting: “And you! Nie Xu! Whatever Grandpa says goes — what gives you the right to spy on me!”

“Are you a dog?” He hurled back the very insult Nie Xu had aimed at him — never one to let a slight go unreturned. “You’re so obedient! When I told you to like me, why didn’t you listen? Was that on purpose?”

Then, with a hurt tone, he added: “I hate that you’re as dense as a plank of wood!”

……

At this moment, downstairs, in an unremarkable silver car parked by the roadside outside the hotel.

Lu Li sat in the passenger seat.

The driver was his subordinate, Fang Qi.

The sound coming from the equipment echoed clearly through the small space of the car. Awkwardness and silence spread.

Fang Qi asked cautiously: “Sh-should we keep listening? This young master goes on about love all day long — he doesn’t even know the transaction details, he won’t go blabbing online.”

“You think what the Old Master wanted us to listen for was this?” Lu Li retorted. He reclined his seat most of the way back and propped his feet up on the dashboard, crossed at the ankles.

Fang Qi was baffled. “Then what should we listen for?”

“Contingencies.” Lu Li’s tone was equal parts loathing and nostalgia. “The Old Master just won’t admit it. His once-prized underground business empire — without Nie Xu, it would’ve stopped turning long ago. When people get old, they get fearful. Every move he makes is guarding against that one contingency.” Lu Li gestured toward the listening equipment. “But this little gadget hasn’t been crushed yet purely because Nie Xu and I maintain a tacit understanding — a face-saving exercise. As long as the Old Master feels secure, we people below can go about our business in peace.”

Fang Qi was somewhat surprised by this attitude. He hesitated: “Brother Lu, I always thought you respected the Old Master a lot. They all say you were personally promoted by him…”

Lu Li’s brows rose ever so slightly, then his gaze drifted for a moment. “Indeed. Without his grooming, how could someone like me ever have had the chance to stand at his side?”

Fang Qi only half understood.

Who is ‘he’?

The Third Young Master?

Fang Qi: “We all assumed the trip to Huizhou to catch the Fourth Young Master was on the Old Master’s orders.”

“He was too in the way,” Lu Li said.

Fang Qi: “After having the Eldest Miss break off the engagement with the Qi family, and including this agricultural livestream — the Fourth Young Master’s public reputation is actually pretty good now.”

Lu Li couldn’t help but recall that trip to Huizhou. At the airport, Ji Yang had recklessly called over the airport’s emergency medical team. Irritation crept into his voice: “A good reputation doesn’t mean much. Who’s to say the livestream wasn’t rigged?”

At that moment, from inside the listening device, Ji Yang’s voice piped up again with a couple of lines.

“I already heard Mingyue say it — Third Brother went to Zhoulun for just a few days and his mother was heartbroken. Is there still any room for me in the eldest branch? The illegitimate child waltzes into the house, and I’m the one who’s become wild grass by the roadside…”

The voice was rich with emotion and feeling, each syllably clearly enunciated, brimming with raw, vented fury.

Fang Qi noticed his Brother Lu looked even more irritated than before.

He quickly said: “Should I cut the signal?”

“No need.” Lu Li frowned with certainty. “As long as Nie Xu is in there, he’ll let that listening device sit where it is. Just bear with it.”

Saying just bear with it, Fang Qi felt it wasn’t really bearing with it. It seemed more like he was bothered by the Fourth Young Master’s words — words that weren’t exactly false — which made his sharp, unrestrained features look dark and brooding.

Fang Qi didn’t dare provoke him now.

He was just about to move the equipment further away when, without warning, the device that had been clearly receiving every sound a moment ago fell completely silent.

Fang Qi turned his head. “Didn’t you say he wouldn’t intervene?”

Lu Li got up with a frown, then glanced up at the hotel floors, and cursed: “Is Nie Xu out of his mind?”

Inside Suite 2807 at this moment.

Ji Yang sat on the sofa, arms folded, his voice rising and falling, yet his face was completely expressionless.

He had even started preparing to sing “Little Cabbage” — then suddenly he saw Nie Xu pry the listening device open barehanded, and the red light instantly went out.

Ji Yang: “……You can do it that way?”

Nie Xu tossed the thing casually onto the table and gave him a look. “If not this way, did you plan to perform a one-man errenzhuan all night?”

“I was even covering for you — why didn’t you say that?” Ji Yang rolled his eyes. Now that the device was gone, he asked directly: “What exactly was the transaction about tonight?”

“New merchandise — a new model of the batch that was previously lost,” Nie Xu said succinctly.

But Ji Yang understood.

It had to be something like weapons. Previously, Zhao Yuan had searched for a batch of old ones but never found them.

On this topic, Ji Yang instinctively lowered his voice: “So will it fail again this time?”

Nie Xu: “It won’t.”

It won’t? Then the transaction would succeed?

Nie Xu didn’t wish to say more, but Ji Yang could sense it — that being told what the transaction was about had probably already been his maximum limit. Ji Yang was only standing at the edge of this matter, yet he could already feel just how deep the waters below truly were. He also realized that the so-called revenge described in the book — overturning the Ji family — was not a conclusion. It was a process.

Haicheng was declining day by day, yet here Ji Yang stood at Ji Yansong’s side, fulfilling his role as bodyguard more and more competently.

He himself had become a genuinely monitored target.

Although things felt like a tangled mess, Ji Yang still asked with concern: “That equity transfer agreement tonight — should I have signed it?”

“Did you want to sign it?” Nie Xu asked.

Ji Yang: “The news said Haicheng has a chance of being dissolved and relisted. That’s all real money. Hengyuan and Shengji in Huizhou — they were clearly involved in Ji Corporation’s financial fraud, and still nothing has come of it. So how can I be certain that Haicheng won’t have a chance to rise again?”

Nie Xu sat down on the sofa across from him and remarked casually: “Then why didn’t you just sign it?”

“Because I trust you.” Ji Yang propped his elbows on his knees and his chin on his hand, smiling. “Did I do the right thing?”

Nie Xu looked at him.

Finally, he gave him a definitive answer.

“Haicheng will never relist.”

Nie Xu even deigned to elaborate: “The Ji Corporation’s debt structure is rigid. The enormous interest generated by the earlier share buybacks, plus the old industries’ inability to generate revenue — they’ve become an inescapable burden. The Ji Corporation will only sink deeper and deeper into debt until it’s completely crushed. As for Hengyuan and Shengji — they’ve been investigated too; it just won’t be made public. The best outcome for them is to sit and wait to be acquired.”

Nie Xu leaned forward. “Do you know what that means?”

“What?” Ji Yang was caught in the grip of those eyes, as if looking into an ancient well with no bottom.

Nie Xu spoke slowly: “It means being caught in a siege — surrounded on all sides by enemy forces.”

Ji Yang felt those words carried a hidden meaning. A chill crept up inch by inch, making him instinctively lower his hand.

Knock, knock, knock. Someone knocked on the door.

Ji Yang stood up, but Nie Xu pulled him back. “I’ll get it,” he said.

Ji Yang followed behind. The person visible through the opened door wasn’t a stranger.

Fang Qi wore an ingratiating smile. “Brother Nie.”

“Lu Li sent you up?” Nie Xu opened the door wider.

Fang Qi scratched his head sheepishly. “Brother Lu said he was worried you’d have a hard time on your own tonight, so he told me to come up and stand by. If you need anything, just say the word — I’ll be right outside the door.”

Ji Yang sneered from behind him: “If you’re going to eavesdrop, just eavesdrop. Why dress it up so nicely?”

Fang Qi was choked up — he couldn’t speak, and he couldn’t stay silent.

The fake fury he’d heard over the wire had become the real thing. Ji Yang continued his cold laughter: “It’s Lu Li again, isn’t it? If he’s so dedicated, let him come up himself. What does he want to hear? I’m going to tell Nie Xu to lie in my bed — would he dare listen?”

Fang Qi was numb from the bombardment. The things he’d just listened to in the car didn’t even have one-tenth the power of this.

Was this his complaint that Nie Xu didn’t love him, finally exploding?

Fang Qi awkwardly appealed to Nie Xu: “Brother Nie, what should I—”

“Don’t bother with him.” Nie Xu blocked the doorway. “Just stay at the door.”

“Okay—”

The word hadn’t even fully left his mouth before the door slammed shut with a bang, leaving him eating a faceful of it.

Fang Qi thought to himself: Being able to go in and out of the Old Master’s circle multiple times truly isn’t for ordinary people — even being told to get into bed, he can stay completely stone-faced.

Inside the room, Ji Yang protested: “Why did you stop me?”

Nie Xu shot him a sidelong glance. “Forgot why you’re being watched?”

“Because I’m popular?” Ji Yang asked.

Nie Xu — who had somehow dug up the clothes Ji Yang had thrown at the foot of the bed, the ones that had vanished earlier — tossed them to him.

“Because you’re too disobedient.”