Ji Yang took his medicine before going to bed that night.
When he woke up the next morning, he found that the clock on the wall read 10:08 a.m. He had no idea whether his alarm hadn’t gone off or whether he’d slept right through it.
The sun was already high in the sky outside.
Being late was now a foregone conclusion.
Ji Yang stared into Xiaobai’s eyes, the cat having slept at the foot of his bed the previous night. After scratching his hair, he fished out his phone.
Only then did he notice that the battery was nearly dead. He plugged it in and discovered that the friend request from his new account had been accepted at some point.
Nie Xu’s profile picture showed a nighttime sea with a full moon hanging overhead. When enlarged, it looked like an actual photograph. His username was simply NX.
Since this man was currently Ji Yang’s top priority, Ji Yang casually pinned their chat to the top of his list. After some thought, he changed Nie Xu’s contact name to: Official Recruitment Textbook for the Gym.
He sent him an animated greeting.
It was like throwing a stone into a dead sea.
Indignantly, he changed the contact name again: Master of Telepathic Replies + One of President Yang’s Top Ten Greatest Life Disasters.
Accepting the fact that this man never engaged in casual conversation, Ji Yang obediently explained himself the next second.
“Sorry, I overslept. Can I come over a little later?”
The other party replied, “With your concept of time, it’s hard for me to believe you have any legitimate business.”
Since Ji Yang was in the wrong, there wasn’t much he could say in his own defense.
He immediately surrendered. “My bad.” Then he added, “You have to accept that someone with limited mobility might occasionally make an innocent mistake, right?”
Ji Yang took another picture, this time pointing his camera at Xiaobai.
“Besides, I strongly suspect your son turned off my alarm. He kept meowing at me last night. Could he be in heat?”
Ji Yang tapped out a whole string of messages before the other party finally responded with one sentence.
“He’s been neutered.”
Ji Yang had an epiphany. “Oh, so your son is a little eunuch.”
The phone fell completely silent.
Ji Yang counted the replies. The man had at least sent him two messages. Not bad at all.
He smiled at his phone.
When he carried poor, castrated Xiaobai downstairs, he ran into the butler, Zhao Yuan.
Or rather, Zhao Yuan had deliberately waited for him.
Ji Yang had only seen the old man once, on his first day after transmigrating into the book. Zhao Yuan had seemed like a mouthpiece for the old master, Ji Yansong.
But now that he had encountered him alone, Ji Yang realized something. Compared with Ji Yansong’s well-practiced smoothness, Zhao Yuan was the one who seemed to possess an unmistakable streak of cruelty beneath the surface.
His deeply wrinkled face had a vertical line between his brows, and he had a habit of appearing and disappearing without warning.
“Is something the matter?” Ji Yang asked from his wheelchair at the doorway.
Zhao Yuan bowed slightly. “Fourth Young Master, where are you going?”
It sounded more like an interrogation than a question.
“To find Nie Xu. Every time I ask, I’m told he’s busy.” Ji Yang turned the question back on him with exaggerated seriousness. “Uncle Zhao, do you know what he’s busy with?”
“A shipment of important goods went missing from the docks. They’ve been tracking its whereabouts for the past few days.” Zhao Yuan maintained his usual proper demeanor, yet for some inexplicable reason, he had chosen to reveal this information to Ji Yang.
Ji Yang felt a flicker of mockery.
So when they schemed against other people, they hadn’t thought anything of it. But now Nie Xu had turned the tables on them?
Ji Yang cut straight to the point. “I can’t even get hold of the man. Tell Grandpa to find someone else to investigate.”
Zhao Yuan paused, seemingly caught off guard. When he spoke again, his tone carried a note of reassurance, though it also sounded like he was testing Ji Yang.
“I heard that Nie Xu was the one who picked Fourth Young Master up from the police station on the night of the incident at the docks. Did you notice anything unusual that day?”
Ji Yang answered sincerely, “Does him carrying me count as unusual?”
That was assuming being picked up and carried counted.
Zhao Yuan’s face, which looked as though he had worn a solemn mask for years, nearly slipped. The muscles around his cheekbones twitched twice before he continued.
“Nie Xu is entrusted with the security of countless business dealings behind the Ji family. His every move is of critical importance. The old master has assigned him to Fourth Young Master, and while you should take this opportunity to interact with him more, you must always remember that you are a member of the Ji family. If you discover any clues, you can tell Uncle Zhao. I’ll handle the matter.”
Ji Yang said, “Oh? Is that Grandpa’s idea? So early in the morning, listening to your tone, I was beginning to think you wanted to deal with me too, Uncle Zhao.”
Zhao Yuan fell silent for several seconds.
“Fourth Young Master, you’re taking this too seriously.”
“Am I taking it too seriously? Or does everyone think I’m insignificant enough to be treated like an idiot?”
Zhao Yuan wouldn’t have tested him without a reason.
Ji Yansong must have put him up to it.
Ji Yang didn’t care how the members of the Ji family fought among themselves. The original owner had been someone the family had already abandoned and pushed out of the game from the very beginning.
But now they were using him so brazenly. Did they really think he was that easy to manipulate?
His arrangement with Nie Xu had already been unequal from the start.
A young master driven mad by “love” could only lower the Ji family’s guard for a short time. As the plot progressed, his usefulness would soon come to an end.
He couldn’t let himself become the Ji family’s pawn before he had even gained Nie Xu’s trust.
Therefore, as far as the Ji family was concerned, aside from his identity as a love-struck young master, he couldn’t give them even the slightest opportunity to exploit him.
Not to spy on Nie Xu, nor to do anything else for them.
If he actually did that, his eventual fate might be even more miserable than living as a beggar.
Clearly, Zhao Yuan hadn’t anticipated this attitude from him.
The old man stepped back twice, his tone softening.
“Fourth Young Master, you misunderstand. It’s simply that this shipment is very important to the Ji family. We have to investigate every link in the chain thoroughly.”
Ji Yang retorted without the slightest courtesy, “If you can’t figure it out, that just means you’re incompetent.”
As he turned his wheelchair, he added mockingly, “But it doesn’t matter. I’m not even the Ji family’s biological child. What does your incompetence have to do with me?”
Watching Zhao Yuan freeze, Ji Yang knew he had said enough to put an end to the old man’s scheme.
By the time Ji Yang arrived at the training ground, it was almost noon.
Apart from the time he had nearly taken a wrong turn on his first night, he had never visited this part of the estate. In the distance, he spotted a large open area at the edge of the property.
In the center was a paved training ground enclosed by a wire fence. Scattered across it were several sets of obstacles: high walls, rope nets, and tire courses. Quite a few people were there, apparently training. Shouts of command rang out as sweat poured down their bodies. The rough wind kicked up hot waves of dust, filling the air with a scorching, salty tang.
Nie Xu stood on an elevated platform overlooking the training ground.
He held a tactical tablet in his hand. Given his eyesight, he had actually spotted Ji Yang more than ten minutes earlier.
Ji Yang had taken a wrong turn at least three times. Xiaobai had jumped out of his arms halfway there, and he had spent quite a while chasing after the cat. All in all, he had taken at least fifteen extra minutes to get there.
He had become fairly proficient at maneuvering the wheelchair, but the paths around the training ground had been deliberately constructed and preserved for daily training. There were plenty of obstacles, and the terrain was uneven.
After finishing his task assignments, Jiang Lei climbed up to the platform.
Watching the people undergoing assessments below, he lowered his voice.
“Are we really not going to use this opportunity to eliminate the people Lu Li planted here? You rushed back specifically for this. I thought you’d already decided to make your move.”
Nie Xu’s electronic stylus glided across the tablet.
“Leave them for now. This shipment is taking a new route. It’s a good opportunity to test our security level.”
Jiang Lei gazed toward the main villa of the Ji family’s estate and sighed.
“Finally. For the past two years, we’ve been turning a blind eye to everything, and the brothers have practically been suffocating. I was worried when our shipping route was exposed ahead of time. You not choosing Ji Chengyi turned out to be an accidental stroke of luck.”
He thought of something and continued, “The Ji Group’s financial problems have been around for a long time. They wanted to plug the hole with funds from the Lan Hai Bay project. Now that this shipment has gone missing, they can’t cover the deficit anymore. I’m curious what other stupid tricks those old geezers on the board will come up with.”
Nie Xu’s voice was calm, but there was a sharp edge beneath it.
“Their methods of suppression are still the same old tricks from twenty or thirty years ago. They think they can rest easy for the rest of their lives just because they’re sheltered by the Ji Group.”
Thinking about the past two years inevitably reminded Jiang Lei of the young master they had used as a tool to keep them in check.
His gaze inadvertently swept toward the edge of the training ground.
And there he was.
Jiang Lei was stunned. “I really shouldn’t have jinxed it. How did you bring him here?”
Nie Xu followed his gaze.
“He came on his own.”
“You don’t think he’s still part of that same stupid scheme, do you?” Because of what had happened before, Jiang Lei really didn’t want to suspect the young master, but he couldn’t help it. “You said someone was coaching him. The old bastard realized the shipment had already gone out to sea, then immediately sent people after us. And now this young master shows up right after that. The timing is a little too convenient.”
Nie Xu pondered for a moment.
“Doesn’t seem like it.”
“What doesn’t?” Jiang Lei asked.
Nie Xu lifted his chin toward Ji Yang.
“He doesn’t seem like someone who’d throw his life away for the Ji family.”
Perhaps it would have been understandable if he’d been fooled before.
But now, he seemed like an entirely different person.
Down below, Deng Jiao and Han Biao were both present. When they saw Ji Yang, neither of them reacted at first.
After all, the young master who had suddenly appeared before them had a fine sheen of sweat around his forehead. His hair clung to the back of his neck, yet despite the heat, his face had not gained even the slightest hint of color.
He was dressed immaculately, without a speck of dust on him, and he was carrying Xiaobai, the cat everyone in Building Four knew.
There was something about the sight that made him look as though he were holding a hostage to command the troops.
Han Biao was different. He was an enormous man, and the instant he recognized Ji Yang, all the anger he had been holding back erupted.
He deliberately blocked the entrance, sneering, “What brings Fourth Young Master to our muddy little training ground? Was the warehouse not enough to satisfy you last time? Have you come to try out a different location today?”
Once someone took the lead, it was easy for everyone else to get riled up.
“Why not pick me?”
“Me!”
“And me!”
Their anger over the previous incident was understandable, given what had happened. But in this particular situation, the scene had somehow turned into a vivid example of the strong bullying the weak, with a whole crowd ganging up on one person.
What no one expected was that the young master himself would promptly get his wheelchair stuck in a dirt hole and tumble to the ground.
The entire scene froze.
Then everyone clearly heard the young master mutter under his breath, “Fuck! I definitely should’ve checked the almanac before leaving the house today.”
The young master turned around, his expression awkward yet innocent.
“Although I’d really like to apologize, um… could someone please help me up first?”
Everyone: “…”
In the end, Deng Jiao was the one who intervened.
“Han Biao! You’re in the middle of an assessment. Do you want your whole team disciplined because of you?”
She then turned to the person on the ground. Her expression was difficult to describe as she asked, somewhat awkwardly, “Fourth Young Master, are you all right?”
“I’m fine. I just lost control of the wheelchair. Thank you, big sister.”
The young master’s beautiful eyes curved into a smile as he called her “big sister,” and Deng Jiao immediately blushed bright red.
Ji Yang had actually taken quite a nasty fall.
The scrape on his arm stung sharply. His leg had that familiar dull sensation he remembered from previous falls, and with all the pebbles on the ground, he couldn’t tell whether there were any visible injuries.
He was wearing long pants, so he instinctively rolled up the pant leg. That was when he discovered several small wounds on the residual limb. They weren’t large, but they were deep, as though sharp pebbles had pierced the skin. Blood had already begun to seep out, standing out starkly against his almost blindingly white skin.
His attention was entirely focused on his leg, so he didn’t notice Han Biao and the other men instinctively wanting to reach out to help, only to hesitate with their anger still twisting their expressions.
It wasn’t until a shadow fell over him that he looked up.
A pair of black military training boots stopped beside him.
Nie Xu was no longer dressed in his capacity as a bodyguard. He wasn’t wearing formal clothes or sunglasses either.
Under the blazing midday sun, the darkness that usually seemed to cling to him had almost entirely faded away, leaving behind a sharp, clean-cut figure dressed in a black short-sleeved shirt and military-green trousers. Amid the chorus of “Brother Xu” and “Boss,” he easily drew Ji Yang’s attention away from everything else.
Ji Yang tilted his head back. Looking up at the man standing against the light, he broke into a wide smile.
“Brother Xu.”
At the sound of that address, Han Biao and the others remembered the rumors circulating over the past few days. Their expressions became even stranger and more twisted.
By the time Ji Yang had escaped the training ground and settled into the office on the fourth floor of Building Four, it was already twelve-thirty.
He was holding a cotton swab and poking at his own leg as he lamented, “That was terrifying. For a moment, I thought they were going to beat up a disabled person.”
“I didn’t see any sign that you were scared.” Nie Xu glanced at what he was doing but showed no intention of helping.
“Do you expect me to wear my fear on my face?”
Ji Yang stopped moving the swab and looked around the room before muttering, “This is your territory, and it’s not even working hours. I haven’t paid anyone here to protect me, either. Acting all high and mighty would just be asking to get beaten up.”
According to the book, there should still be several months before he fell out with the Ji family. He wasn’t stupid enough to go out of his way to offend a major player before he had to.
Nie Xu made no comment. “I didn’t realize you were so good at bending with the wind.”
Ji Yang sighed. “When you’re living under someone else’s roof, you have to know your place.”
Although this office was supposedly used for handling daily affairs, it was obvious that it wasn’t used very often.
The room was spacious, but apart from a filing cabinet, a large desk, and a sofa, there was hardly anything else.
When Ji Yang had come upstairs, he had noticed a Hummer and several Jeeps parked downstairs.
The place’s style was worlds apart from the extravagant main villa, as though the two belonged to entirely separate worlds.
Then, without any warning, Ji Yang said, “Zhao Yuan came to see me this morning.”
Nie Xu wasn’t surprised. “And?”
“So, how about adding another title to your job? You could be my assistant.”
Ji Yang hadn’t gauged the pressure correctly and poked himself hard enough to hiss in pain. He lowered his head and blew on the wound. Once he was done, he looked up and adopted an earnest, persuasive expression.
“Zhao Yuan went so far as to approach me personally. Your movements are probably going to be heavily restricted from now on. If you’re tied to me twenty-four hours a day, it should help divert some of the attention being directed at you, shouldn’t it?”
Before Nie Xu could answer, Ji Yang hurriedly lowered his head and blew on his leg twice more.
Nie Xu seemed unable to stand his delicate, pampered behavior. He frowned.
“Is that what you wanted to tell me?”
“No.”
Ji Yang thought for a moment before revealing his real purpose for coming.
“I promised Peng Jiaying, the director of the Ji Group’s New Media Department, that I’d help him save the department. I can give you a hand and guarantee that this influential force in public opinion will always be on your side. In exchange, you let him operate under Jianyuan. What do you think?”
The moment he heard the name Jianyuan, Nie Xu smiled.
There wasn’t a trace of warmth in his eyes.
He leaned forward, bracing both hands on either side of Ji Yang, and slowly scrutinized every inch of his face.
“Young Master.” In an instant, he seemed to have slipped back into his role as a bodyguard, though his voice was icy. “You know a little too much. I’m beginning to seriously wonder whether you were pretending during the past two years, or whether there’s some secret about you now that I don’t know.”
Ji Yang cursed Zhao Yuan and his entire family tree in his heart.
He hadn’t intended to make things this complicated in the first place.
But Zhao Yuan just had to come looking for him.
For the past several years, Building Four had relied on a security company called Jianyuan to recruit security personnel, conduct intensive training, and regularly supply highly skilled security professionals.
No one knew that Jianyuan was privately owned by Nie Xu.
And security services were merely the most superficial part of his business empire.
Only after the Ji family collapsed did some of Fan Prefecture’s wealthy businessmen belatedly realize that Jianyuan’s operations had already spread throughout the country and overseas.
But at present, its true scale was only beginning to emerge.
The Ji family had wanted to cripple Nie Xu by targeting that shipment. Instead, they had suffered a spectacular defeat and ended up paving the way for someone else to benefit.
It was only natural that they were getting desperate.
Ji Yang was struggling to survive in the cracks between powerful people. All he could do was cling to Jianyuan, this towering tree that might offer him shelter.
They were so close now that Ji Yang could even smell the warmth of the afternoon sun lingering on Nie Xu.
Somehow, that made the pressure he exerted far more bearable than it had been on the first day Ji Yang transmigrated into the book.
With the cotton swab still raised in his hand, Ji Yang hurried to declare his loyalty.
“You can suspect me all you like, but you can’t question where my loyalties lie, right?”
“How far would those loyalties take you?”
Nie Xu took the cotton swab from his hand. His gaze shifted slightly downward.
“Would you sit in a wheelchair and get yourself covered in blood in a place full of bodyguards? And in the process, ruin Jianyuan’s reputation?”
“Heaven is my witness.” Ji Yang raised a hand. “I genuinely didn’t plan anything like that.”
Nie Xu gave him a glance, then stood up before crouching down.
Ji Yang instinctively wrapped his arms around his injured leg and shrank backward.
“What are you doing?”
“You asked me to be your bodyguard and assistant, didn’t you?”
Nie Xu lowered himself into a subordinate’s position, as though he had no intention of rejecting the proposal.
Or perhaps he had plans of his own.
But seeing him crouched in front of him made Ji Yang’s scalp tingle.
“I can do it myself, I can do it myself!” Ji Yang reached for the cotton swab.
Nie Xu raised his hand and moved it out of reach. He glanced at Ji Yang.
“I told you to disinfect the wound, not draw circles around it. At this rate, are you planning to finish applying the medicine next year?”
One minute later, Ji Yang leaned his head back against the sofa.
He bit down on his own arm, his voice hoarse.
“Brother Xu, if you want revenge on me, you can just say so.”
It hurts like hell!