Chapter 55

Ji Yang could feel Nie Xu’s hand running over the back of his neck, carrying a faint hint of comfort and reassurance.

The effect was remarkable.

Ji Yang’s thoughts gradually returned, and he realized that his entire body was pressed against Nie Xu’s chest. Through the thin fabric of their clothes, he could hear the steady, powerful beat of Nie Xu’s heart. Like an anchor, it gave Ji Yang something to latch onto, allowing everything in the dream to gradually fade away.

Ji Yang shifted, wanting to sit up, only to discover that his arms and legs were weak.

In the end, he simply gave up moving. He turned his head slightly and asked, his voice still hoarse from just waking up, “When did you get back?”

“I just walked in.” Nie Xu’s voice came from above his head. “What did you dream about?”

Ji Yang shook his head and raised a hand to his forehead.

He didn’t know how to describe that absurd scene.

His viewpoint had been very low. Logically speaking, with the moon hanging high in the sky, there shouldn’t have been such enormous waves and torrential rain. He could only attribute it to a reflection of his state of mind, further influenced by the painting and the Ji family’s current predicament, which had made everything appear especially bizarre and surreal.

Ji Yang merely said, “Maybe I was sleeping in the wrong position.”

Ji Yansong had left the country in secret, and his return was equally low-key.

However, with things at such a critical juncture, even the slightest movement within the Ji family was bound to attract the outside world’s attention.

Ji Yang pulled himself out of the embarrassment and speechlessness caused by Nie Xu’s remark, “Don’t get the sofa dirty,” and quickly realized that some appearances of peace and quiet were only relative.

It was the top-notch security management at Berman Apartments that made everything here seem so private and free from prying eyes. It was Jian Yuan’s substantial investment that gave him enough confidence not to be swept along by the current. And it was Nie Xu’s sudden departure from his usual image during their conversation that had left him in the mood to examine the limitations of his own perspective and explore the subject of men’s instinctive desires.

In fact, from the moment Nie Xu stepped out of the apartment, the storm surrounding the Ji family began to unfold right on schedule.

Even though Ji Yang had no choice but to stay indoors, he could still sense the tension and widespread unease outside through the television and various online platforms.

\#Haicheng Group Suspends Trading#

\#Ji Shipping Assets Completely Frozen#

\#Illegitimate Son Controversy Resurfaces, Battle Between Legitimate and Illegitimate Heirs of the Ji Family Intensifies#

The Ji family’s news dominated the top of the trending searches. Clicking on any of the topics brought up a flood of analyses and comments from financial bloggers and legal experts.

— Haicheng Group, part of the Ji family, temporarily suspended trading during this morning’s session. The announcement cited major matters pending disclosure. According to insiders, the suspension is directly related to the freezing of assets in its shipping division.

— Relevant investigations indicate that Yongsheng Enterprises, under Ji Chengyi’s name, is suspected of fraudulent capital contributions and related-party transactions, with the amount involved reaching tens of billions. Industry insiders predict that this incident could very well trigger a chain reaction leading to Haicheng’s bankruptcy.

— It is rumored that the Ji family patriarch has returned to the country ahead of schedule, but he has yet to appear publicly. Sources say that the Ji family is urgently holding internal discussions, attempting to preserve its core industries before bankruptcy liquidation begins.

As Ji Yang looked at his phone, he wheeled himself around the apartment. Tens of billions. The figure was even larger than he had imagined.

Ji Chengyi’s intention to abscond with the money and abandon ship had become quite clear.

However, he probably hadn’t expected the cold-chain factory incident to trigger a chain reaction that would affect everything.

Ji Yang had deliberately brought up the car accident and the fact that his medication had been switched at the time because he was certain that, since Ji Chengyi had already schemed to manipulate the bidding process and was waiting for him to fall into the trap, he would inevitably make a move when faced with such an unexpected development.

As it turned out, after locking him inside the cold storage warehouse, Ji Chengyi must have already begun to lose his composure.

The situation had now reached a point where no single person could control it anymore.

Ji Yang’s mind was occupied with these thoughts.

His wheelchair accidentally bumped into a partition shelf. He turned around and discovered that there was actually another room at the far left end of the first floor, with its door closed.

It wasn’t that Ji Yang particularly wanted to pry into anything. He was simply trying to kill time.

He was just too bored.

The study was on the second floor, and he couldn’t even go looking for a book to read.

When Ji Yang reached the door, he assumed it was probably a storage room. After all, the gym was at the opposite end. He even found himself secretly hoping that, given their line of work, opening the door might reveal an entire arsenal.

As it turned out, he was sorely disappointed.

The room was too empty.

His first thought was that there was nothing inside.

But at second glance, his attention was instinctively drawn to the enormous mural on the wall. It looked very much like an enlarged version of Nie Xu’s profile picture on his messaging app: a crescent moon hanging over the sea at night. Upon closer inspection, however, he realized they were not the same.

The profile picture was an actual photograph of a night scene.

The moon in the mural looked more like a blood moon.

The turbulent, blackish seawater was faintly visible, along with sailing ships of various sizes scattered across the surface, their lights glowing yellow. In the distance, there were also tiny lights along what seemed both near and far to be a coastline. At first glance, the painting was beautiful. But the longer one looked at it, the more an unknown sense of dread and fear began to seep out from deep within, creating the feeling that if one were actually there, the sea would swallow them whole.

Youli had once said that most of the original members of Building Four had spent years sailing at sea.

Was this something Nie Xu had seen with his own eyes?

Otherwise, what kind of taste was that? Having someone paint such a huge mural inside the house and deliberately placing it in an empty room. Wasn’t he afraid of having nightmares?

He got his answer when the housekeeper came to prepare a meal.

The housekeeper was around the same age as Auntie Mo and was a cheerful, smiling woman. However, Ji Yang could tell that she wasn’t very talkative, and she certainly wouldn’t say anything unnecessary about her employer’s private affairs.

It was only when he mentioned the painting in that room that she seemed completely unconcerned.

Smiling, she said, “Mr. Nie said it was nothing special. He painted it himself, and I go in there every time I clean, too.”

“He painted it himself?” Ji Yang was shocked all over again.

He had this skill, too?

As the housekeeper trimmed the ends off the green beans, she said, “That’s right. When I first started working here, I thought Mr. Nie did that kind of work for a living. After all, he barely stays here for more than a few days at a time over the course of a year or so. It was only later that I found out he was someone who did big things.”

Ji Yang thought that being an artist really had nothing whatsoever to do with Nie Xu. He wheeled himself closer and asked, “Big things?”

The housekeeper replied, “Take the bay project in Fanzhou two years ago, for example. The richest family in Fanzhou was called… What was it again? Ordinary people like us don’t understand these things. Anyway, they wanted to develop some kind of bay project. They even claimed they were developing it jointly with the government, but in reality, they were forcing people to relocate. Most of the people living there were ordinary workers who depended on the sea-salt factories for their livelihoods. Wouldn’t that be cutting off their means of survival? Mr. Nie was the one who resolved the matter. He negotiated with the government to arrange proper resettlement, and in the end, he even paid out a huge sum in relocation compensation. Everyone was very grateful to him at the time.”

The bay project from two years ago. Wasn’t that Lanhai Bay?

Ji Yang was surprised by the balance Nie Xu had managed to strike in the middle of all this.

The Ji family had used the project to fabricate accounts involving nearly ten billion yuan. One could only imagine how many messy consequences had been passed down to ordinary people as a result. At the time, Nie Xu had clearly been the person in charge of the project. He had to make sure everything looked good on Haicheng’s side while also taking responsibility for every ordinary person affected.

The book said that he would stop at nothing to exact his revenge.

Ji Yang didn’t believe it.

For someone like him, the so-called willingness to stop at nothing probably depended on who he was dealing with, didn’t it?

Ji Yang reached out to help, but the housekeeper hurriedly stopped him.

“Mr. Ji, how can I let you do this kind of work? Put that down, quickly!”

Ji Yang dodged her hands and smiled. “It’s fine. You can just call me by my name. I’m just freeloading here, anyway. I might as well find something to do since I’m bored.”

The housekeeper looked doubtful.

At her age, she might not even know Nie Xu’s true identity, let alone the news circulating online.

Her gaze fell on Ji Yang’s handsome face. Remembering the dietary instructions Mr. Nie had specifically called to give her, she asked tentatively, “Then, Xiao Yang, what exactly is your relationship with Mr. Nie?”

Ji Yang replied, “You could say… I’m staying here temporarily. I had nowhere to go after being discharged from the hospital, so he brought me here. Didn’t you say he’s a good person?”

“That’s true.” The housekeeper nodded in agreement. She seemed to feel a little sorry for him and added, “If there’s anything you have trouble with in your daily life, or if there’s anything you’d like to eat, just tell me. I can also tell that Mr. Nie treats you differently.”

Ji Yang snapped off the two ends of a green bean, curious. “How is he treating me differently?”

“I can’t really explain it.” The housekeeper waved her hand and smiled. “Anyway, I’ve been cleaning Mr. Nie’s house for five years, and you’re the first person other than Mr. Nie himself to live here. I’ve cooked for him before, too. He’s never been particular about anything, but this time, he specifically told me that your leg pain was severe and that you’re picky about food. He asked me to prepare some nourishing medicinal dishes for you.”

Ji Yang wondered whether he was really that picky. Why hadn’t he noticed?

Still half-skeptical, Ji Yang said, “Maybe he just couldn’t stand me eating luosifen in his house?”

The housekeeper smiled, shook her head, and got up to start cooking.

The housekeeper was an excellent cook. Lunch and dinner were completely different meals, and they were indeed the two most substantial meals Ji Yang had eaten since being hospitalized.

After the housekeeper finished cleaning up the kitchen, Ji Yang told her to head home early.

He switched on a lamp in the living room, lay down on the sofa, and scrolled through his phone.

The time passed from eight to nine, then to eleven. Ji Yang himself didn’t even realize how often he was checking the time. Eventually, he became so sleepy that he fell asleep on the sofa.

When Nie Xu drove down to the apartment building, raindrops began tapping against the car windows.

His brows furrowed tightly.

On the phone, Jiang Lei lowered his voice, speaking somewhat quickly. “You’re really something. You told the old master right to his face that you were going back, and even said Ji Yang was at your place. I bet the old master still thinks you’re just putting on a show for him.”

Nie Xu drove into the parking garage. “What he thinks is his business. Keep an eye on that overseas deal for now. I don’t think it’ll be long before the foreign police make a move.”

Jiang Lei acknowledged this, then continued, “There were so many people gathered at the Ji family meeting today. The whole Ji family now knows you’ve taken their young Fourth Young Master home. Ji Yang has publicly severed ties with Ji Changshou, too. I wonder if the old master regrets using him as a pawn. Well, at least it gave you a legitimate excuse.”

Nie Xu parked the car and turned off the engine.

“It’s too late for regrets now.”

He had spent his entire life accustomed to keeping everyone under his control.

It was time he experienced what it felt like to be unable to control things.

Jiang Lei asked, “Have you arrived?”

“Mm.” Nie Xu got into the elevator and soon reached the apartment door.

Jiang Lei said, “I don’t understand. Did you really have to come back today?”

“I promised him.” Nie Xu checked the time. “That’s enough. He should already be asleep. Calling him would be too noisy.”

Jiang Lei fell silent for a moment. “…Fine.” After a pause, he continued, “When Qi Songqing said it, I didn’t believe him. I can understand how things feel different when you’re standing on the edge of a cliff, but you could at least have given me a heads-up so I’d be mentally prepared.”

Nie Xu asked, “Prepared for what?”

Jiang Lei said, “Prepared for the fact that you’ve decided to stop acting like a normal person. Under normal circumstances, would you rush back in the middle of the night just because you promised someone you would?”

Nie Xu neither agreed nor disagreed. He simply found Jiang Lei’s endless chatter annoying and hung up.

When his hand touched the doorknob, he wasn’t really thinking about anything.

It wasn’t until he opened the door and saw the warm yellow light spilling out from the living room that he froze for quite a while.

He had rushed back because of the promise he’d made that morning.

And because of the concern that had flashed through him the moment he saw the weather forecast predicting rain that evening.

For him, the feeling of having someone on his mind was a novel experience.

The person sleeping on the sofa was restless.

Nie Xu took off his jacket and tossed it aside, then crouched down in front of the sofa.

Seeing that Ji Yang’s breathing was unusually rapid and cold sweat was pouring from his forehead, Nie Xu didn’t waste time trying anything else. Frowning, he decisively slipped an arm behind Ji Yang’s neck and lifted him up.

He sat down on the sofa and let the person troubled by the nightmare lean against his chest.

He patted Ji Yang’s face. “Ji Yang, wake up.”

Ji Yang didn’t know whether it was because of the painting in Nie Xu’s room.

But he really was dreaming of something straight out of a disaster movie.

Turbulent seawater overturned the sails, and heaven and earth blurred into chaos. The blood moon opened its enormous jaws like a man-eating monster, while countless people ran across the deck, fleeing and screaming. Despair, cold, suffocation—all kinds of sensations wrapped tightly around him, leaving him unable to break free.

He felt as though he couldn’t breathe, yet no matter what he did, he couldn’t make a sound.

Until a distant voice kept calling to him.

“Ji Yang.”

“Ji Yang!”

Each call grew clearer and more stern than the last.

A warm touch pressed against his cheek and neck, driving away the bone-deep chill that had consumed him.

Finally, at the threat whispered right beside his ear—“If you don’t wake up, I’m going to take matters into my own hands”—Ji Yang opened his eyes, gasping for air.

For a moment, he felt lost, unsure of where he was. All he could do was passively wait for the overwhelming terror, the fear of being trapped in a world with no way out, to gradually fade.

Based on his past experience with nightmares, all he had to do was wake up. After a while, after just a little while, everything would be fine.

But this time was a little different.

He felt a hand press against the second vertebra of his spine, followed by a sigh-like murmur.

“All right. It’s okay. It was just a dream.”

Distracted for just a moment, Ji Yang had the glass of wine he’d just gotten back taken away from him again.

Peng Jiaying said, “Assistant Nie was looking at you just now. I saw it with my own eyes.”

Ji Yang: “…What the hell is wrong with you?”

He could see that from this far away?