Ji Yang actually found something a little strange.
Ji Chengyi’s initiative, to be precise.
His interest in Nie Xu seemed to go beyond the stage of mere attraction that the novel had established for this point in the story.
At least, things weren’t supposed to have progressed this far yet.
After failing to recruit Nie Xu for the Lan Hai Bay project last time, Ji Chengyi had arranged to meet him privately again so quickly—and late at night, no less, immediately after the old master had declared that Nie Xu would be working as Ji Yang’s assistant.
He had even gone out of his way to reminisce about the past. It was hard for Ji Yang to believe he didn’t care.
Moreover, Ji Chengyi was much more hostile toward him than he had been in the novel.
In the original story, Ji Chengyi could endure being called a bastard by the original Ji Yang day after day while remaining calm and restrained. No matter how badly the two of them clashed, he had always maintained that gentle, dignified composure.
Yet Ji Yang’s casual remark about an affair had apparently struck a nerve.
Ji Yang watched him approach. Since Ji Yang was sitting down, their eyes were now almost level.
A hint of an anger Ji Chengyi himself hadn’t noticed crept between his brows.
“I’m curious. What gives you the right to say something like that? What position do you think you’re in?”
Ji Yang replied, “The position of someone sitting down?”
Ji Chengyi didn’t lose his composure as he had before. Instead, he smiled slightly.
“I don’t know what’s gotten into you lately, Ji Yang. But between the two of us, you know perfectly well who’s the one who’s truly beneath contempt.”
Ji Yang smiled too.
The supposedly resilient, kind-hearted protagonist shou was suddenly showing an unkind side. Somehow, that made him a little easier to look at.
Aside from his surprise, Ji Yang didn’t feel much of anything. He lazily accepted the judgment.
“A wealthy young master like me, with a broken leg and no favor from the family, can’t exactly do much beyond these low-class tricks, can I?”
Ji Chengyi stared at him without speaking.
It was as though he were trying to figure out how Ji Yang had suddenly become so shameless just by looking at his face.
“You befriended Wei Qiming to go after me. Now that he’s practically guaranteed to end up in prison, you must be disappointed, right?”
Ji Yang raised his eyebrows.
“If I told you I’m actually rather grateful to you, would that sound insincere?”
Why was he suddenly bringing up Ji Zhonglin again? Was he trying to make himself seem more important to Ji Zhonglin?
Ridiculous.
However, Ji Chengyi didn’t say anything further.
Instead, he turned to Nie Xu.
“Nie Xu, in any case, thank you for today. I’ll be waiting for your answer at the banquet three days from now.”
Then he left without another word.
Ji Yang looked at Nie Xu and saw him gazing at Ji Chengyi’s retreating figure. Half of his face was hidden in the shadows beneath the pavilion’s eaves, his expression unreadable.
Ji Mingyue whispered into Ji Yang’s ear, “What’s going on?”
“How would I know?” Ji Yang whispered back.
He couldn’t remember much of the novel’s plot, and what he did remember wasn’t complete. He only knew there had been plenty of banquets, both large and small. Nie Xu had mentioned a banquet to Jiang Lei during the day, and now Ji Chengyi was bringing one up, too. Was this some major event from the original storyline?
Ji Yang asked Ji Mingyue, “What’s this banquet for?”
“A business banquet,” Ji Mingyue explained. “Ji Chengyi secured the government’s engineering design contract. Now everyone in Fan Prefecture, from raw material suppliers to property developers, wants to hitch a ride on this opportunity.”
At this point, she hesitated before looking at him.
“I heard Grandfather intends to officially introduce Ji Chengyi as a member of the Ji family at the banquet.”
Ji Yang remembered now.
This was the protagonist shou’s triumphant moment after turning his fortunes around.
No wonder Ji Chengyi’s attitude had changed compared to before. It turned out he was finally approaching the moment when he would step into the spotlight.
And it was at this very banquet that he and Nie Xu would formally enter into a “partnership.” Little did he know he was making a deal with the devil. Using the Lan Hai Bay project, Nie Xu would soon deliver a devastating blow to the Ji family, setting his true revenge into motion.
There was another important point, too: this was a crucial turning point in the development of their relationship.
Apparently, the vicious antagonist Ji Yang had even played a part in bringing them together.
He managed to dredge up a vague memory of what the original Ji Yang had done at this point in the novel. The original had already begun crawling around in the darkness of his own twisted obsession, determined to humiliate Ji Chengyi. He had placed a hallucinogenic ice bead beneath the base of the top champagne glass in the champagne tower.
In the end, the bodyguards at the venue discovered it.
Ji Chengyi had only drunk a little, but it still affected him. The old master ordered Nie Xu to take Ji Chengyi away from the scene. Meanwhile, once the culprit known as “Ji Yang” was exposed, he became the most humiliating joke of the entire banquet. The scandal spread throughout Fan Prefecture’s upper circles, crushing the last remnants of the Fourth Young Master’s former glory into the dirt.
“Brother Xu! Brother Xu!” Ji Yang called from the walkway.
Nie Xu looked over.
Then he approached.
As Nie Xu stepped out of the shadows and into the light along the covered walkway, Ji Yang could clearly see his stern, chiseled features, devoid of emotion or even the slightest trace of warmth.
“Something you need?” Nie Xu asked.
Ji Yang said, “I was just joking earlier. You’re not offended, are you?”
Beside him, Ji Mingyue covered her mouth and muttered quietly, “I always thought he was hard to approach because he worked for Grandfather. But weren’t you acting pretty cocky just now? Why are you chickening out?”
Ji Yang covered his mouth and whispered back, “You wouldn’t understand.”
He and Nie Xu weren’t following the same path as Ji Chengyi and Nie Xu. Whatever those two did together—whether they used each other or became entangled in a complicated relationship—the prerequisite was that it couldn’t affect Ji Yang.
He had no intention of actually becoming the “other man” for the time being, nor did he want to stir up trouble. So he needed to make his position clear.
Ji Yang looked at Nie Xu again and smiled.
“Having an affair is fine, too. We can just change locations. This place…” He paused. “Well, the feng shui isn’t great.”
The moment he finished speaking, Ji Mingyue kicked him lightly.
Nie Xu glanced at the two of them.
Then he addressed Ji Mingyue.
“It’s getting late, Miss. Would you like me to arrange an escort to take you back?”
“Uh, no need.” Ji Mingyue immediately waved her hands. “Well, you see, I was the one who told my bodyguard to go back and rest. Brother Xu, please don’t punish him.”
She pushed Ji Yang’s wheelchair.
“You can take him back instead. If Grandfather asks, I’ll explain.”
With that, Ji Mingyue turned and left.
She moved so quickly that Ji Yang barely had time to react. Watching her retreating figure, he turned to Nie Xu and asked, “Do you often mistreat your subordinates?”
Nie Xu glanced at him and replied, “Staff rotations aren’t under my jurisdiction.”
Ji Yang: “…”
That still proved the man had spent so long cultivating his authority that people were afraid of him.
Ji Yang’s day had been quite the roller coaster.
Before going to bed, he was still thinking about the upcoming banquet. But before the protagonist’s big moment could even arrive, the auction incident had already made the headlines.
The next day, a massive headline occupied his phone screen.
“Ji Group’s Third Young Master in Danger! Emergency Rescue Unfolds at Auction House!”
The article featured a roughly ten-second animated clip showing a group of people emerging from the building.
Wei Qiming being escorted by the police.
Ji Chengyi shielded in front of Ji Zhonglin.
And the onlookers held back by bodyguards.
Ji Yang hadn’t left the building with them, so he didn’t appear in the footage.
But that didn’t mean he wasn’t the center of attention.
Netizens were fired up.
“I was at the shopping mall next door yesterday! Oh my God, my friend was asking what had happened at the time. I never imagined it was something like this!”
“Did you hear what the guy being arrested said? Was the ‘Xiao Yang’ he mentioned the Ji family’s Fourth Young Master?”
“Of course it was him. He was the one pulling the strings.”
“That’s disgusting. Rich-family power struggles are terrifying. There was so much blood. I wonder how badly the victim was hurt.”
“Everyone in Fan Prefecture knows what kind of person that Fourth Ji is. Everyone also knows how much he hates the Ji family’s Third Young Master. It had to be him.”
“Didn’t someone say he was there, too? Why hasn’t anyone seen him?”
“Someone, post a photo! I want to see what this disgrace to the wealthy looks like.”
Ji Yang discovered that someone really had posted old photos of the original Ji Yang from previous trending topics.
These were from before the car accident.
Ji Yang took a moment to admire them. The original had dyed his hair in garish, multicolored shades. Some photos showed him outside a nightclub late at night; others captured him bullying people, his expressions exaggerated and twisted.
Fortunately, he had decent natural features, so he didn’t look particularly ugly.
Ji Yang ran his fingers through his current hair. After the original broke his leg, he had probably lost the motivation to dye it. It was now naturally black, though a little long.
Since transmigrating, Ji Yang had trimmed it, giving it slightly more shape and texture than before.
Meanwhile, Peng Jiaying had just sent him several messages.
“Isn’t Wei Qiming the guy from that nightclub last time? You already reported him to the police, so why is everyone saying you ordered him to do it?”
“Do you need our PR team to step in?”
“Get on your own account! So many people are insulting you.”
Ji Yang logged into his account, “A Certain Yang.”
The comments weren’t entirely insults.
Apart from a few people who went straight to cursing his parents, most didn’t even believe the account belonged to him.
Instead, they were saying things like:
“Weren’t you the one who claimed to be Ji Yang from the Ji family? Now that something’s happened, why are you hiding like a coward?”
“Scared, are you?”
“You loved showing off your wealth, didn’t you? Well, look at you now. Everyone’s insulting you. Blogger, come out and explain yourself! Otherwise, you deserve all this abuse.”
His phone chimed again.
This time, it was You Li.
He didn’t say anything, simply sending Ji Yang a link to an account.
Only afterward did he message him.
“This account’s popularity is rising incredibly fast. You’d better contact someone and get it deleted.”
Ji Yang didn’t even open the link. He replied first.
“Didn’t you go back to school? You’re an intern bodyguard moonlighting as a network administrator, too? Your dedication is genuinely moving.”
You Li sent him a smiling emoji.
“The whole school is talking about this. It’s impossible not to hear about it.”
Ji Yang opened the link. It had been posted by a netizen named “Snow-White Bunny.”
It was a side-profile photo of Ji Yang sitting in a car. The angle matched what the girl who had taken it might have captured, and the timing was excellent. A gentle breeze brushed his face, and he had closed his eyes briefly while tilting his head to avoid the sunlight.
When Ji Yang opened the comments, he found the girl frantically explaining herself.
“I posted this photo before the news broke. I just thought he looked good! I had no idea who he was.”
Someone asked her, “Is this the only photo you have? Is this really the Fourth Ji?”
The girl replied, “It really is the only one. I don’t even know if it’s him. My friend and I were passing by at the time, and we thought he might be some young celebrity. We wanted to go up and ask for a photo together.”
Another netizen asked, “Then why didn’t you? I don’t think he looks like the Fourth Ji. The guy in this photo is way too handsome. And that’s a Hummer! The whole thing doesn’t match.”
The girl replied, “Sob, sob, we didn’t dare! The car probably belonged to the man beside him. He looked like someone important. My friend and I were intimidated, so we didn’t dare approach.”
A netizen commented, “I used computer software to compare the facial features. This is one hundred percent Ji Yang.”
“So it really is him!”
“Then what was he doing there? Checking whether his scheme had succeeded?”
The post’s popularity continued climbing at a speed visible to the naked eye.
Ji Yang opened the girl’s private messages.
Ten minutes later, the account “A Certain Yang” published a new post.
It featured the very photo that had gone viral, accompanied by the caption:
Just woke up to discover that everyone knows how beautiful I am.
Netizens exploded.
“!!! You really know how to ride the wave!”
“You’re proud of stealing a netizen’s photo?”
“Even infamy is fame, huh?”
You Li: “…What on earth are you doing?”
Ji Yang sent him a screenshot in reply.
The page had just refreshed, and his follower count had increased by more than 9,999.
Ji Yang replied, “I’ve actually managed to catch this enormous wave of traffic.”
You Li: “.”