Chapter 69#
Twenty nautical miles east of South Island.
An old cargo ship with no markings whatsoever was adrift, no different from the countless derelict vessels abandoned on the ocean surface. Only up close could one see an extremely faint wisp of smoke rising from above the exhaust pipe at the stern, indicating that the engines were still running at low power.
Nie Xu stood on the platform on the wing of the bridge, finished replying to a message, heard footsteps approaching from behind, and extinguished his phone as usual.
The person who came out of the cabin hatch was none other than Zhao Yuan.
Behind him followed several men in matching black suits.
Zhao Yuan wore an unremarkable gray suit. Compared to the time when he had been a butler, having shed the robe he had worn unchanged for ten years made his back appear slightly stooped. Beneath the black brim of his cap, his eyes were sharp and sinister.
“What messages are so urgent that they can’t wait?” Zhao Yuan said, hands clasped behind his back, his gaze sweeping over the phone in Nie Xu’s hand.
Nie Xu turned to look at him. “Uncle Zhao has been managing more and more these past few years. Shall I open it for you to see?”
“Nie Xu.” Zhao Yuan’s eyes grew a shade darker for an instant. “Do you really think you can make this go away just by leaving the Chamber of Commerce? If you agreed to the old man’s proposal to come to South Island to retrieve the goods, you should know—this is your last chance.”
“Last chance to get dragged into the mire?” Nie Xu was unmoved by the threat. He said slowly, “I’d say it’s more accurate to call it your last chance, Uncle Zhao.”
Nie Xu ignored Zhao Yuan’s unsightly expression and continued, “Ji Yansong wants the goods buried on South Island. He probably still doesn’t know that you diverted a large quantity of gold bars from the shipping profits in your early years—they’re still on South Island, aren’t they?”
The moment Nie Xu finished speaking, the several men behind Zhao Yuan went rigid in an instant.
Every hand moved to their waists. The atmosphere was stretched to its breaking point.
Zhao Yuan stared fixedly at Nie Xu.
A few seconds later, Zhao Yuan waved his hand, signaling his men to stand down.
“Put your hands down,” Zhao Yuan said. “None of you are his match.”
After the men behind him retreated two steps—
Zhao Yuan: “How much else do you know?”
Nie Xu: “How much I know depends on Uncle Zhao’s sincerity.”
The veins on Zhao Yuan’s forehead bulged. After a while, he said, “I genuinely don’t know where your father’s things were kept. You should know—you survived at twelve precisely because of your exceptional talent in oceanic dynamic scheduling and safety balance. Only you can read your father’s original blueprints. Over the years, what the old man has given me has always been nothing more than incomplete photocopies. Nobody knows where the original complete set is.”
Nie Xu let out a soft laugh. “Uncle Zhao is still as fond as ever of telling half and keeping the rest to yourself. No matter. The Ji family can hardly rise again these days. Whether the goods can be retrieved or not doesn’t actually matter that much to me.” He looked at Zhao Yuan. “But Uncle Zhao is a different story. I hear your overseas investments have lost more than half their value. Otherwise, why would you be so eager and proactive to come along to South Island?”
The current state of the Ji family had left this man—who had hidden within the Ji family estate for far too many years—seemingly stripped of his acuity for the market and his command over it. All that seemed left on him was the viciousness and cruelty that had been buried in his bones in his early years.
Every line on Zhao Yuan’s face stood out in ridges. His voice sounded as if it had been wrung out from his throat.
He said, “What I want is money. I didn’t sign up to lose my life.”
“Is that so?” Nie Xu said. “I can also pretend I don’t know about your skimming. Similarly, I’m just like you, Uncle Zhao—all I want is to keep my father’s things as a keepsake. I don’t want to be controlled by anyone over a few items.”
Zhao Yuan weighed the matter for a long time.
A wave struck from the open sea, and the ship’s wing rocked and swayed. Zhao Yuan seemed to snap awake from it.
He tried to find on Nie Xu’s face some evidence that he was lying, or to see through what he truly thought.
He found nothing.
Zhao Yuan: “I truly don’t know where the blueprints are. However, I can hand over the falsified records from Zhao Changgen’s possession. You may not know this, but back then there was an inventory list of items unloaded when the Qiming docked here, along with forged records for the crew aboard.”
“Really?” The roar of the waves made everything in the surroundings sound slightly distorted. Nie Xu said, “Then it’s a deal.”
Zhao Yuan lowered his triangular eyes. “Naturally.”
The commotion at sea could not reach Lanjiao Village.
Lanjiao Village was surrounded by hills on three sides, with only a gravel road wide enough for two cars running from one end of the village to the other. Along the roadside grew dry grass stems, withered from the frequent trampling of human feet.
The old banyan tree at the village entrance was the most conspicuous landmark near the beach. Its canopy spread enormously wide, and the aerial roots hanging from its branches swayed gently in the wind like curtains of brown.
But with enough people, the air turned stiflingly hot.
About two seconds after Ji Yang’s words—“Money? We have none”—fell beneath the banyan tree, there was silence. Then the dark-faced man leading the group crumpled the paper in his hand into a ball and hurled it viciously to the ground.
He jabbed a finger at Ji Yang’s nose. “Say that again!”
“A hundred times over, it’s the same answer.” Ji Yang lowered the front legs of his chair and leaned forward. “The Ji family owes you for electricity—that’s the Ji family’s responsibility. I only took over the shipping route operating rights. The previous outstanding bills weren’t signed under my name.”
The other party immediately became visibly agitated.
Waving his crew behind him while shouting at the top of his lungs, “You sit on the Ji family’s money pile and tell us it wasn’t your signature? Your surname is Ji! If you don’t pay, who will?! Everyone, isn’t that right?!”
“That’s right!”
“Exactly!”
“How can rich people be so unreasonable!”
The clamor of voices grew louder and more heated.
The number of viewers in Lin Yue’s livestream was rapidly approaching three hundred thousand.
【What’s going on? I just joined and I’m completely lost.】【I feel like the young master’s attitude is pretty strange this time—completely different from when he was selling fruit for the fruit farmers the other time.】【Above comment—I felt it too!】【It’s because these people are just unreasonable, right? Honestly, what’s with the guy in black leading the charge? I feel like he’s here to stir up trouble.】【Little assistant, did you bring backup? I think that guy is about to throw hands.】【Assault is illegal. This money isn’t supposed to be the young master’s responsibility anyway. This is coercion. We should call the police.】【I’m starting to worry too, looking at Ji Yang.】
Lin Yue also watched Ji Yang with some concern.
Someone was saying, “Stop wasting words with him.” Someone else: “He’s just stalling for time.” And yet another: “That guy in black next to him is obviously a bodyguard—they came prepared.” The scene grew even more chaotic, but no one actually charged forward. There was logic in Ji Yang’s explanation, and he was far too calm. That kind of composure usually meant the other side held cards.
The dark-faced man glanced down at the base of the banyan tree. Jiang Lei hadn’t moved from where he leaned against the trunk. He pulled one hand from his pocket and kneaded the back of his neck, his gesture so casual it looked like he was just waiting for a result.
That result came faster than anyone had anticipated.
“Fourth Young Master.”
The voice squeezed through from the back of the crowd. Not loud, but carrying the weight of years. The crowd parted on both sides, revealing a man in his fifties. He wore a blue work shirt that had been washed so many times it had faded to near-white, the sleeves rolled up to his elbows. On his exposed forearm was a long old scar that ran diagonally from the inside of his wrist to the crook of his elbow. It had faded to nearly the same color as the surrounding skin, showing only a faintly indented trace in the light.
In his hand, he carried a string of keys. Five or six hung off the iron ring, jingling once with every step.
Zhao Changgen.
Beneath the banyan tree, everything went still. It wasn’t just the villagers who fell silent—even Ji Yang’s gaze shifted off the dark-faced man and settled on Zhao Changgen. He had never seen this person before, but he knew: the property dispute over the dock warehouse, the root cause of the cold-chain electricity fee conflict, and that Jining Shipping flag buried under old cargo at the bottom of a pile—they were all connected to this man.
“Let me say a word on behalf of the Fourth Young Master.” Zhao Changgen walked to the center of the crowd. He didn’t look at Ji Yang but addressed the dark-faced man and the villagers behind him. “Regarding the electricity fees—the Ji family’s liquidation team already verified the accounts last month. The money is in the liquidation process; it just hasn’t reached your hands yet. We shouldn’t make things difficult for a young man, should we?”
“Boss Zhao.” The dark-faced man’s tone softened by half. “It’s not us making things difficult for him—it’s him making things difficult for us…”
“Boss Zhao, you’re one of the most respected bosses on South Island. You really need to speak up for us on this.”
【This guy has some clout, huh.】【Boss? What kind of boss?】【He doesn’t seem like an unreasonable person.】【Wait, why is the young master smirking like that?】
Ji Yang was unaware that every move of his was being broadcast on camera. He simply took the agreement from the cold-chain manager who had just rushed over, and raised his voice: “Boss Zhao.”
The man turned to look at him.
Ji Yang stood up from his chair and said with a smile, “Better late than right on time. Just like me—the electricity had been cut for two months and nobody made a fuss. The moment I show up, the trouble starts the very next day. I looked into it. The electricity bills up until now had never lapsed. Just last week, they suddenly announced they were going to cut the power—the power company said the lessee was in arrears, but the lessee is the Ji family liquidation team’s temporary account. That property memorandum you’re holding—you should have reached an agreement with the liquidation team on that, shouldn’t you?”
Zhao Changgen fell silent for a moment, then spoke: “What is the Fourth Young Master trying to say?”
“I’m saying I can cover the money.”
Ji Yang’s one sentence silenced the entire scene for a good while.
Ji Yang stood steady. When his right foot shifted, the brace on his leg bumped against the inside of his trouser leg. Ji Yang held out the agreement. “I’ll cover the money, and we’ll share the responsibility. This isn’t a free gift—it’s an advance against future compensation. The storage and transfer costs for the cold-chain section will be factored into the route operating costs—a reasonable and lawful cost allocation. Sign it?”
The pressure swung entirely to the other side.
Seeing that the other party still didn’t respond, Ji Yang pulled the agreement back and smiled.
He took two steps back and sat down in the chair again.
With open palms, he addressed the crowd.
“As you’ve all seen—when it came to owing money, our dear Boss Zhao spoke so righteously and magnanimously. Now that I’ve offered to pay, he’s the one hesitating. So where exactly does the problem lie?”
Finally, someone in the crowd belatedly caught on.
The looks directed at Zhao Changgen turned suspicious.
Zhao Changgen said nothing. His five fingers tightened ever so slightly.
It was the man in black—the one who had been the loudest from the very start—who, seeing the situation turning, threw a punch at Ji Yang and lunged forward.
Shouting as he charged: “I’ll fight all you rich young masters to the death!”
The scene erupted in screams.
Ji Yang leaned back slightly.
All anyone heard was a howl of pain.
The man was sent sprawling face-first into the dirt by a single kick from Jiang Lei, mouthful of mud and all.
Lin Yue rushed over with a frown. “Young Master Ji, are you alright?”
“I’m fine.” Ji Yang waved his hand.
Halfway through waving, he caught sight of the phone in Lin Yue’s hand. He immediately let out a long sigh. “That scared me half to death. So barbaric. No martial virtue whatsoever.”
【LOL, where exactly did you get scared to death?】【Dude, when that guy charged at you, you didn’t even flinch.】【The guy who did the kicking is a bodyguard?】【That’s called self-defense, okay? Not barbarism.】【If you don’t like barbaric people, then what do you like?】【Ji Yang said offhandedly: “I like someone considerate and gentle—who calls me baby."】
Jiang Lei had none of the composure of someone who had just kicked a man.
His eyes were filled with an earth-shattering shock.