Chapter 38

After ending the call, Ji Yang washed up quickly.

When he came out, the television was broadcasting the evening financial news.

The presenter’s crisp, measured voice echoed through the spacious suite.

“The Ji Corporation’s Haicheng Group issued a statement today confirming that Zhu Guangsheng, deputy general manager of the Shipping Division, has been relieved of all his duties for seriously violating company regulations and local laws. At the same time, the Ji Corporation announced the establishment of a special task force to enter the Zhouleng region and conduct a comprehensive investigation into the excessive shipping fees previously imposed, as well as compensation issues involving local fishermen…”

Ji Yang paused in the middle of drying his hair and picked up the remote control to turn up the volume.

The scrolling ticker at the bottom of the screen read that the Ji Corporation’s stock had stopped falling and rebounded by 3.2 percent that day.

They had acted pretty quickly. It seemed that sacrificing one person as a warning to others had actually worked to some extent.

The presenter continued, “After triggering the delisting process, the Ji Corporation’s stock entered the Third Board market. Companies with negative assets will face their final peak in stock sell-offs. The Ji Corporation’s decisive move this time is akin to cutting off an arm to save the body. If it can buy back shares or undergo restructuring, then once funds begin flowing back in, there may still be a chance for it to relist…”

Ji Yang only half understood what he was hearing.

It wasn’t until he was lying in bed and received a call from Ji Mingyue that he learned the decision had been made by Ji Zhonglin.

Ji Mingyue said, “Big Brother can at least be said to have put righteousness before family. You should’ve seen Second Aunt. She went completely crazy, grabbing Big Brother and crying, ‘He’s your own maternal uncle!’ I nearly burst out laughing. My mom had to smack me before I managed to hold it in.”

Ji Yang’s lips curved slightly. “Did the power recovered from Zhu Guangsheng go to the First Branch?”

“No.”

Ji Mingyue made no effort to conceal her disdain.

“Big Brother said someone new would take over the shipping division. But you know what Ji Chengyi is like. He’s so ‘humble’ that he doesn’t want to compete with the Second Branch.”

Ji Yang was rather surprised. “You don’t have a personal grudge against Ji Chengyi, do you?”

“I just can’t stand him,” Ji Mingyue replied matter-of-factly. “He’s been like that since childhood. He always looks so gentle and magnanimous, but somehow everyone else is always the one at fault. Only a straightforward man like Big Brother would fail to see what kind of person he really is.”

Ji Yang: “…He’s not straight.”

Ji Mingyue: “!!! What the hell are you talking about?! I’m telling Big Brother you’re spreading rumors about him!”

Ji Yang thought to himself that if he told her Ji Chengyi liked Nie Xu, her entire worldview would probably shatter and have to be rebuilt from scratch.

Ji Mingyue assumed he simply resented the fact that Ji Chengyi was more highly regarded by their eldest brother, so she asked, “Are you really not coming back?”

“I have no plans to, at least for now,” Ji Yang replied.

Ji Mingyue asked, “What are you hiding from? Do you know that the entire family gathered for dinner tonight, and your name kept coming up at the table? People from the collateral branches even suggested to Grandpa that your positive public image now qualifies you to return to the group in a higher position. You’re no longer the old Ji Yang. You’re Ji Yang 2.0 now! Go compete with Ji Chengyi for real, will you? I seriously can’t stand his mother. She kept sniveling and crying throughout dinner, saying he suffered so much in Zhouleng while facing all those violent fishermen. I nearly threw up my food.”

Ji Yang asked, “And go back just to be locked up for the second time?”

Ji Mingyue replied, “If you have a seat at the table, who would dare lock you up?”

“I won’t get a seat.”

After a pause, Ji Yang added, “If you can take my advice seriously, tell your parents not to get involved in this mess. Gather up the cash they have on hand and invest in something else. Anything is better than stubbornly clinging to Haicheng.”

The other end of the line fell silent for quite a while.

Then Ji Mingyue finally said, “Ever since you hit that person, I’ve felt something about you was seriously off. Honestly, do you know something we don’t?”

Ji Yang sat against the headboard. “Maybe I’ve finally unlocked my meridians?”

“Get lost,” Ji Mingyue said irritably. “You were the one doing the hitting, not the one getting beaten up.”

As she said that, she remembered whom he had hit.

She asked suspiciously, “When Zhu Guangsheng saw Nie Xu, he was howling and screaming, claiming Nie Xu beat him up that badly for your sake. Is that actually true? Didn’t he go to Zhouleng with Ji Chengyi? How did you two end up running into each other?”

“It’s a long story,” Ji Yang said, summing it up with those four words.

Ji Mingyue continued, “Whatever happened, you need to be careful. As soon as Nie Xu returned, Grandpa assigned him to stay by his side. It seems to have something to do with some overseas transactions. Even Lu Li has to follow his orders now. You have a history with him, and you’re unwilling to rely on the family. Be careful he doesn’t retaliate against you.”

The fact that the old master had chosen to put Nie Xu to work at his side at this particular moment was, in itself, a sign of how bad the Ji Corporation’s situation had become.

All the reservations and suspicions that had once mattered would become far less important when the family’s very survival was at stake.

Ji Yang was thinking about something else, so he replied casually, “We don’t have any history of conflict.”

Ji Mingyue: “…You’re the one who whipped him and ended up soaked to the skin yourself, aren’t you?”

Ji Yang finally caught on and replied slowly, “I already explained that. It was because I loved him too much. When love was unrequited, it turned into hatred.”

Ji Mingyue’s voice rose, full of incredulous disbelief at how shamelessly he could say such things.

“So you don’t hate him anymore because you’ve finally gotten what you wanted?”

“Not quite,” Ji Yang said. “It’s because I’ve realized that true love isn’t about getting someone, much less possessing them. It’s about letting them go, giving them their freedom, and looking up to them peacefully from afar.”

Ji Mingyue was speechless. “Are you writing poetry?”

“Not poetry. Marketing copy. Mr. Huang insists that I come up with a cultural tourism promotional proposal centered on the theme of great love.”

Ji Yang couldn’t help complaining.

“Even if you’re a million-follower influencer, when your client asks you to produce a multicolored black, all you can do is smile and say, ‘Of course. I’ll do my best.’”

Ji Mingyue was thoroughly amused.

As if she had been inspired, she sighed emotionally. “You really are… quite the motivational figure now.”

“I’m riding on someone else’s coattails,” Ji Yang said. That was true. In the past, it would have taken him some time to build an account to a million followers. And that was without even mentioning the conceptual company backing him now.

Ji Mingyue said, “You can only ride the wave for a while, but I think you could reach ten million followers in no time, let alone one million, if you really wanted to.”

Ji Yang asked, “By selling my face?”

“To be honest, I don’t see anything wrong with that.” Ji Mingyue suddenly seemed to have a lot she wanted to get off her chest. “I’ve carried the identity of the Ji family’s eldest daughter for over twenty years, and I’ve only recently started to feel as though I’ve truly grown up. My mother has been a Buddhist believer since she was young. She’s different from Second Madam, who’s good at socializing. At the Ji family’s banquets, everyone is talking about which major project they’ve secured today or which Fanzhou family has formed a powerful alliance with them tomorrow. My mother doesn’t care about any of that. My dad has a pretty good mindset because of her. He doesn’t get much attention from the family, and I used to care a lot when people said the Third Branch of the Ji family was the least significant. Now, I actually feel fortunate.”

Ji Yang didn’t have much of an impression of either of Ji Mingyue’s parents.

His impression of her mother was of a rather plump, gentle lady. On the several occasions when Ji Yang had been publicly criticized by the Ji family, she had never joined in or said a single word. When Ji Chengyi had nearly been abducted by Wei Qiming, Ji Changshou and his wife returned home, and Ji Yang had made a huge scene. Even then, Ji Mingyue’s mother was the only one who had asked through Ji Mingyue whether he needed a doctor.

“Your mother is a good person,” Ji Yang said.

“Your mother was wonderful, too.” Ji Mingyue was probably lying in bed as well. Her voice sounded muffled, as though she had burrowed under the covers while whispering to him. “My mother said that, even though Uncle forbade anyone from bringing it up, your mother was the kind of woman who stood up for what was right.”

Yu Fei?

A chivalrous woman from a scholarly family? Ji Yang couldn’t imagine it.

Ji Mingyue continued, “You should still remember her, right? You must have been almost six years old back then.”

“I’ve forgotten.”

The Ji family couldn’t even find a single photograph of her. Perhaps the original Ji Yang still remembered something, but he himself had absolutely no idea. Aunt Mo had mentioned that Yu Fei and Ji Changshou had once fought over a divorce, but she later fell ill and returned for the sake of her child.

By the time Ji Yang ended the call with Ji Mingyue, it was already very late.

Yet, for once, he found himself unable to sleep.

Perhaps he really was someone with shallow ties to his family. It had been the same in his previous life, and now, the current “Ji Yang” was no different.

He vaguely remembered reading somewhere that people with shallow familial ties were actually on their final lifetime in the cycle of reincarnation, having nearly completed their cultivation. Supposedly, it was a blessing of good fortune. Thinking of that, Ji Yang laughed at how far-fetched the idea was.

The bed was soft, and the bedside table held the kind of scented incense provided by high-star hotels. In the end, Ji Yang drifted off to sleep in a hazy stupor.

And so, he settled into the hotel.

It was close to the office of One Yuan. For the first couple of days, he needed to have his leg wound redressed, so he occasionally took his wheelchair to the office for a little visit.

His colleagues had gradually returned from Zhouleng.

The partnership with Mr. Huang had been officially signed and finalized, making it the company’s first project.

Ji Yang wasn’t involved in the project itself, but Qian Yitian, Qiao Qiao, and the others had created a small group chat for the team and added him to it. Every time they held a brainstorming session, they would drag him in as well, claiming that the young master was well-traveled and had especially unconventional ideas.

Ji Yang complained that they simply wanted free labor.

He generally didn’t refuse, unless he had something else to do.

That something else wasn’t particularly serious, either. He was thinking about which direction to take his account.

After all, the account was his personal one. In other words, the person had come first, and One Yuan had come afterward. When he first created the account, he hadn’t expected to attract such a large following.

Unable to come up with anything, he simply asked his followers directly.

He wasn’t particularly active on the account, yet his follower count was already approaching two million.

More importantly, he came across as very real and relatable.

The moment he announced that he wanted to do something serious, the comments came pouring in.

Hater No. 1: Food, travel, culture, sports—which are you any good at? I looked up your university. It’s some no-name foreign university where you bought yourself a diploma. Just stick to selling your products instead of trying to make everything so complicated. I’ll buy two more orders next time.

Ji Yang replied, “I can tell you have money to burn. Also, I only graduated from high school. Thank you very much.”

Hater No. 2: I have a great suggestion. Livestream gossip about the wealthy families of Fanzhou every day! I LOVE that stuff!!

Ji Yang replied, “You can air your own family’s dirty laundry all you want. But if you air someone else’s, that’s called a crime, not gossip.”

Hater No. 3: Pretty boys shouldn’t have to work so hard. Doing some suggestive content would be great. Stop pleasing yourself and start pleasing me.

Ji Yang replied, “You sure have a vivid imagination. Pay for the night and I’ll do suggestive content. I charge by the second.”

In the end, Ji Yang gave up.

Instead, he shared an advertisement for a new sponsorship he had accepted: a one-on-one chat app.

He used the app’s promotional slogan directly as his caption:

Don’t ask me if I’m there. All I’ll tell you is, ‘Can you say something that makes sense?’

The comments were practically unanimous.

I feel like I just got scolded.

I feel like I just got scolded +1.

…

The comments piled up so quickly that, in less than five minutes, the person in charge of the app had transferred the remaining payment into Ji Yang’s account, along with a rather cautious message:

Could we extend our partnership to one year, Fourth Young Master?

Ji Yang replied, “No.”

He immediately transferred the money to You Li instead.

You Li had already returned to school and said he was taking advantage of the remaining summer vacation to organize some sort of training camp with his classmates. He replied in seconds.

“???”

Ji Yang explained, “This money was way too easy to earn. Give it to Uncle You and ask him to deliver it to the family from the docks. Now that the case has entered the judicial process, they won’t be able to keep the money they received before.”

You Li replied, “…Thank you.”

“What are you thanking me for?” Ji Yang asked, puzzled.

You Li explained, “I only found out later, when my dad told me, that the family hadn’t wanted to take the money at all. That man surnamed Zhu forced them to accept it and deliberately provoked the deceased until he had an episode. He even told them that the entire Ji family was backing him, and that when the time came, they would lose both their family member and the money.”

Ji Yang wasn’t surprised.

He had simply learned about it earlier than You Li.

He had given the money because he couldn’t stop thinking about how easily a human life had been bought and paid for.

Ji Chengyi had been at the scene at the time. So when had his plan to cooperate with Zhu Guangsheng actually begun? If he had already been entertaining that idea from the start, had he deliberately delayed the rescue while he was there?

If Ji Chengyi had intended to frame him, then could Ji Yang also be held responsible, in some way, for that person’s death?

Ji Yang really didn’t want to make such assumptions.

But once your impression of someone has already sunk that low, it becomes difficult to imagine them acting with good intentions.

All Ji Yang needed was to make sure his own conscience was clear.

Fortunately, apart from receiving bits and pieces of information, he had almost no further contact with anyone in the Ji family.

The next time he saw them was already half a month later.

By then, he was wearing his prosthetic leg and could move around freely.

He heard that over the past half month, the Ji Corporation had undergone another round of restructuring and reorganization. In the end, Ji Zhonglin had been unable to stop the old master from stubbornly insisting on his own course. One after another, the old shareholders resigned and left, while the shipping business continued to be carved up.

There was a discreet rumor circulating outside that the old master was cutting off his own tail to survive.

But which tail was he cutting off, and what exactly was he trying to save?

Ji Yang was only half-convinced by the rumor.

That was until one evening, when he was preparing to go downstairs to buy something to eat, and saw two rows of bodyguards standing outside the hotel entrance.

Ji Yansong walked in, dressed in a traditional Chinese tunic suit and leaning on his cane.

Ji Yang didn’t recognize a single person surrounding the old man this time.

Well, almost none.

Nie Xu was standing beside the old master, wearing earphones and sunglasses. His entire posture radiated vigilance.

His identity as a bodyguard was unmistakable.

The old master seemed quite relaxed. He chatted and laughed with the group accompanying him, then turned his head midway to say something to Nie Xu. Nie Xu lowered his head to listen before nodding.

Ji Yang was standing near the elevator.

He didn’t know whether Ji Yansong was aware that he was staying at this hotel or whether the old man had deliberately avoided him on instinct.

Ji Yang even went outside to buy something to eat before returning. By then, the hotel lobby was empty.

Out of habit, he greeted the receptionist.

The young woman at the front desk smiled awkwardly at him.

A hint of hesitation crossed Ji Yang’s mind, but he still swiped his room card and went upstairs.

The twenty-eighth floor was very quiet.

Ji Yang stood outside his room, wondering whether he was simply being paranoid, when a faint click suddenly sounded.

The electricity to the entire floor went out, plunging the surroundings into darkness.

Immediately afterward, a hand came up from behind and covered his mouth.

People generally struggled instinctively in such situations, and Ji Yang was no exception.

But the hand was like an iron clamp. Ji Yang felt himself being dragged away from his door with ease. Judging by the distance, it was probably into the room next door. The door opened, he was pulled inside, and it shut behind him.

Ji Yang was pressed against the door.

The man carried a scent that wasn’t entirely unfamiliar to him, and the hand covering his mouth didn’t loosen.

His tone wasn’t particularly stern, either.

He addressed Ji Yang as, “Young Master.”

Ji Yang let out a muffled sound. Using the light filtering in from the window, he glared at the person in the darkness.

Nie Xu seemed to read his expression and gave a soft chuckle.

“Taking you away is simply part of my assignment. Your grandfather needs to use your room to conduct a transaction. The power outage is just a way to block surveillance. Can you understand that?”

Ji Yang shook his head to signal for him to let go.

Nie Xu released him.

Ji Yang lowered his voice and cursed, “Are you insane? Did I agree to this?”

“Your clean identity, along with the record showing that you’ve been staying here for half a month, provides the perfect cover,” Nie Xu explained.

Ji Yang glared at him again. “Then why aren’t you standing guard in the room? Why are you crouching here waiting for me? Helping the bad guys?”

“I’m just a bodyguard. I don’t have the authority to go inside.”

Ji Yang sneered. “Why not just say that old bastard doesn’t completely trust you?”

After his sarcastic remark, Ji Yang frowned and asked, “What exactly are they trading that’s so shady?”

“Right now, it’s best not to ask about things you shouldn’t know,” Nie Xu replied.

“Then…”

Ji Yang swallowed the rest of his words.

Nie Xu covered his mouth again. Footsteps soon sounded outside.