Chapter 46#
On one hand, Ji Yang was feeling defiant because he’d been looked down upon; on the other, he was confused by Nie Xu’s easy compliance. He’d said he seduced him, and the feedback he got back was about technique rather than the act itself.
But for Ji Yang, that couldn’t have been more convenient.
Stepping out of the airport, the midday sun was so blinding he could barely keep his eyes open.
Nie Xu drove away from the airport while Ji Yang reached out to Fu Cheng through his account.
His DMs were piled up like a mountain. He scrolled for ages before finding Fu Cheng. Their chat still ended at Fu Cheng cursing him out. And the most recent one was only from a week ago. Truly relentless.
Ji Yang, in a friendly tone: “You there? You didn’t get locked up, did you?”
Fu Cheng—whether he was some kind of superhuman or just constantly monitoring him—replied instantly: “JI YANG I’FUCK YOUR WHOLE BLOODLINE! Deliberately coming to disgust me?”
Ji Yang: “Go ahead and fuck. Or should I bring you another bed?”
Fu Cheng: “??? You XXX…”
Fu Cheng cursed him out hysterically for a full ten minutes. Staring at the screen full of filth, Ji Yang really wanted to hurl his phone out the car window.
He held back.
Finally, Fu Cheng ran out of steam and said: “My Fu family might be nothing in your Ji family’s eyes, but we’re not about to go down over something this small. Don’t go thinking you’re so special just because you’re popular now…”
Ji Yang: “About what you mentioned last time—the secret regarding Ji Chengyi. Are you selling or not?”
Fu Cheng: “…Fourth Ji, are you sick? Before, I begged you and you didn’t even blink. Do I look like someone desperate?”
Ji Yang: That’s exactly what you look like.
Ji Yang replied: “I know your parents just sold your old family home to cover your debts. Sell the information to me. As long as you get your act together and make sure nothing like that happens again, I guarantee the Fu family won’t be dragged down by you. How about that?”
Fu Cheng hesitated: “You’re bluffing a ghost. The Ji family has Ji Chengyi in power now. With whatever little authority you have, I’d rather go to him than you.”
Ji Yang, with absolute certainty: “You wouldn’t dare.”
Ji Chengyi, the protagonist and “shou,” had faced plenty of discrimination in Fanzhou’s second-generation elite circles before. The more orthodox the family, the more they valued bloodline and origin. Even if some didn’t say anything to your face, that disdain lived in every detail.
And Fu Cheng, a second-gen who was better off than some but inferior to others, was exactly the type to trample others beneath their feet the most.
They hadn’t really been targeting “Ji Yang” out of any personal grievance—they were just born with an innate sense of superiority and a streak of base character.
Ji Yang raised the stakes, sending a voice message: “I have someone up top.”
Fu Cheng: “Who?”
Ji Yang glanced sideways at the person driving, then replied: “Someone Ji Chengyi tried to win over multiple times but couldn’t. As for who it is—don’t worry about it.”
Fu Cheng went silent for a long time.
After a while, he finally responded: “Someone Ji Chengyi couldn’t even win over? And your words are supposed to carry weight?”
Ji Yang: “I’m good-looking. If your information has value, I’ll even sell myself to get it done for you.”
When he said this, Ji Yang could clearly feel the glance sweeping over from the seat beside him.
Fu Cheng: “…?” Presumably truly out of other options, he finally said: “Fine, I’ll tell you. But you’d better keep your word, or don’t blame me for tearing everything apart.”
“Then you go first.” Ji Yang wasn’t moved by the threat at all. “I’m very expensive. I need to see if your information is even worth the price.”
Fu Cheng was probably choking on his own anger.
But in the end, he still told him.
According to Fu Cheng, the street race two years ago had been organized by him. Ji Chengyi had been invited too, specifically to cause trouble for someone. But Ji Yang had called it off, saying Ji Changshou had just warned him to behave.
In the end, the accident happened, and the first person from the Ji family to arrive at the scene was Ji Chengyi.
A young master from a prominent family getting into a serious car crash, and an illegitimate son braving no grudges to rush to the scene first—this earned Ji Chengyi quite a reputation back then.
Fu Cheng: “But later, I spoke with the construction crew that found you. There’s something that doesn’t match Ji Chengyi’s own account. He didn’t show up after your accident—he was there the entire time.”
Ji Yang frowned: “Where?”
Fu Cheng’s tone was dripping with mockery: “Right on the stretch of road where you crashed. Based on the mountain path he described, there’s no way he could have ended up there. Unless Ji Chengyi somehow foresaw your accident in advance? Besides, just off that stretch of road is a ravine several dozen meters deep. Once you go off, there’s almost no chance of survival. Ji Chengyi even used ‘rescue operations should prioritize the safety of the rescuers’ as an excuse to stop people from going down. But you were damn lucky—they pulled you out alive, just with a broken leg.”
Compared to the information Tao Jisheng had provided, Fu Cheng’s lead could only serve as corroboration. Still, it indirectly proved that Tao Jisheng hadn’t been lying.
This matter was all but confirmed.
Ji Yang didn’t know how to describe what he was feeling.
After all, his memories only started two years after the car crash.
Sometimes he felt distant from this body—so far that all those pains and memories seemed to be behind a pane of frosted glass. But in this moment, those fine, persistent aches unique to the eve of a rainy day felt etched into his very soul. The truth was reminding him: yes, this was all as real as real could be.
According to Fu Cheng, Ji Chengyi had likely been trying to kill him. The original owner had been blessed with incredible luck, ending up merely disabled.
This didn’t match the book at all.
In the book, Ji Yang’s disability had been entirely his own fault. Ever since he transmigrated into this novel, everyone’s attitude and the described past had confirmed as much. Now he was being told it was all a conspiracy?
Was it that Ji Chengyi as a person was the problem, or were there some personal subjective biases mixed in?
While Ji Yang was wrestling with this question, Fu Cheng told him one more thing.
Ji Yang was bewildered: “Wei Qiming?”
Fu Cheng: “Brother Wei has always kept a close eye on Ji Chengyi, you know that. Last time I specifically went to the prison to visit him. Guess what he said?”
Ji Yang: “What?”
Fu Cheng: “He told me he thinks he was set up. And the person who did it was your third brother. He said that day at the auction wasn’t a coincidence at all. Looking back, someone deliberately reminded him that Ji Chengyi would be at that auction. And when the legal proceedings came later, it was confirmed that the person who reminded him was one of Ji Chengyi’s men.”
Information after information came crashing down at once. First Ji Yang had the expression of an old man squinting at his phone. Then it dawned on him. Finally, he laughed out of sheer fury.
Ji Yang still remembered the day of the auction—how Ji Chengyi had nearly been taken hostage.
It had caused quite a stir, even making social news.
Ji Changshou and Yao Zhaoling had flown back overnight, pointing at his nose and cursing him for keeping company with such a bunch of useless people.
Ji Yang had thought the plot was being accelerated. He hadn’t realized someone had manually fast-forwarded it.
Ending the conversation with Fu Cheng, Ji Yang leaned back against his seat with a thud.
Nie Xu glanced over at him.
Ji Yang: “Aren’t you two childhood sweethearts? Didn’t you know his thoughts were this… winding and serpentine?”
Ji Yang recalled every detail of their interactions and couldn’t even tell which of Ji Chengyi’s words were true and which were false.
Nie Xu glanced at the rearview mirror, pressed the accelerator, and spoke in an even tone: “Who told you we’re childhood sweethearts?”
The sudden increase in speed startled Ji Yang into instinctively grabbing the overhead handle. “Nobody needed to tell me that—the whole Ji family knows.”
“Faux. We’re not close,” Nie Xu said.
The car weaved through traffic on the elevated highway, overtaking several vehicles in succession. He could still reply with perfect composure: “The street race accident was investigated from multiple angles at the time. It happened right during the first phase of the Lan Hai Bay project, and the Old Master had Lu Li handle the follow-up.” At this point, his jawline tightened for an instant—the masseter bone protruded slightly before quickly smoothing out again. His emotions were like hidden reefs beneath the ocean, invisible on the surface. He said only: “I’ll have someone re-investigate this from the ground up. Stop contacting Fu Cheng for now—I’ll have someone deal with it.”
Ji Yang rode the momentum with a smile: “My boss is reliable.”
Ji Yang looked back through the rearview mirror and spotted two cars following. “Are these the people who’ve been tailing you? Isn’t this a bit much?”
“Lu Li’s people,” Nie Xu said.
Ji Yang was startled: “He found out we went to the airport?”
“No. They came from another road. Hold on tight.”
The moment he finished speaking, Nie Xu suddenly wrenched the steering wheel, using the oncoming traffic at a U-turn to force the tailing vehicles to a grinding halt at the intersection.
Hearing the piercing screech of brakes from the cars behind, Ji Yang remarked: “He’s really keeping a tight leash on you.”
Nie Xu then slowed the car slightly, as if deliberately waiting for the cars behind to close in. But just as they were about to bump up against his bumper, he lightly turned the wheel and slipped between two large trucks. In the rearview mirror, the two cars were trapped behind the trucks, forced to fall back.
After playing cat-and-mouse for a short while, the two trailing cars suddenly gave up the chase entirely.
“Where’s their perseverance?” Ji Yang couldn’t help but comment.
Nie Xu: “Tailoring surveillance requires not being detected. The fact that they stopped means Lu Li ordered it.”
Ji Yang thought about how Lu Li treated his subordinates and guessed the people in those cars were probably getting their ears chewed off right about then.
Because the car had changed direction, they eventually parked at a cliff overlooking the sea.
Ji Yang leaned against the car window, making a phone call.
The person on the other end said they were seeking cooperation through Huang Kai.
The surname was Jin.
What a coincidence—the very same “Big Boss” surnamed Jin whose involvement had nearly derailed Ji Yang’s partnership with Huang Kai.
The other party: “Fourth Young Master, you’re something else. Ever since President Huang connected with you, his business and influence have been growing day by day over at Xianshi. I heard even that kid Lin Yue is falling over himself to find you. I don’t mean anything by it—I just want to discuss a bit of business with Fourth Young Master.”
Ji Yang replied lazily: “Not interested.”
Suddenly, the crying of a boy came through the line.
Begging for mercy: “Master Jin, I was wrong, I was wrong! Let me go, please? I really don’t know what President Huang did—he just took me out for a meal, that’s all, I don’t know anything else…”
Then came the sounds of punches and kicks, accompanied by the boy’s cries of pain.
The man surnamed Jin: “I heard Fourth Young Master used to enjoy himself quite a bit back in the day. You wouldn’t be someone incapable of showing mercy to a pretty thing, would you?”
“Oh.” Ji Yang spoke slowly. “Master Jin, I think you’ve got me confused. I’m a cripple—I’m the one who needs others to show me mercy.”
…
Meanwhile, Nie Xu stood at the edge of the coast.
Through the earpiece, Qi Songqing’s voice carried a note of suspicion: “Whose background are you having me look into?”
Nie Xu glanced toward where they had parked. “Ji Yang.”
Qi Songqing: “You can’t be serious. Wasn’t it supposed to be Ji Chengyi pulling the strings? I thought you’d suddenly had a change of heart, regretting how you spent those years focused on your own affairs and never paying any attention to him, and finally couldn’t hold back anymore. And now you’re telling me you want to investigate Ji Yang? What’s going on? Is something wrong with him?”
Nie Xu’s voice blended into the sound of the crashing waves, like a question that had been left unaddressed for so long it could no longer be ignored.
“He might be. But more importantly, the problems he’s facing already outweigh that premise.”
Qi Songqing: “So you just couldn’t hold back after all.”
The person in the car waved at him.
“Ending the call,” Nie Xu said.
Before Qi Songqing could voice his opinion, Nie Xu hit end and strode over.
“What’s wrong?” Nie Xu asked from outside the car window.
Ji Yang pointed at the phone: “This Master Jin is insisting on signing me. I told him I have a boss, but he doesn’t believe it.”
The man surnamed Jin: “Fourth Young Master, I’m offering to sign you because you’re decent-looking. Don’t push it. Don’t try to scare me with some ‘boss.’ I, Master Jin, have been in this game for years—go ask around on the streets, I…”
“Jin Husheng.” Nie Xu took the phone. “Are you courting death?”