Of all the people Ji Yang had met so far, Lu Li was the most unruly and unpredictable.
He had a face that looked somewhat sinister, yet he loved to smile.
One look at that smile was enough to tell that it didn’t mean he was actually in a good mood. It was simply the expression he was accustomed to showing others. One second, he could courteously invite Ji Yang into the car; the next, he could kick one of his subordinates so hard at the airport that the man was left sprawled on the ground, unable to get back up, simply because he hadn’t done his job properly.
Then he would deliberately turn around and ask Ji Yang, “I didn’t scare you, did I, Fourth Young Master?”
Ji Yang sat back in the VIP lounge, casually glancing at the man on the floor clutching his stomach before looking back at Lu Li’s face. He shook his head. “Not really.”
“How surprising.” Lu Li laughed with obvious delight. “Everyone’s been saying Fourth Young Master has been full of surprises lately. Seeing you in person really is better than hearing about you. They weren’t exaggerating.”
He sat down beside Ji Yang as if they were the best of friends, brazenly studying his face before suddenly lowering his voice.
“Has Nie Xu been feeding you some kind of love potion?”
Ji Yang turned to meet his gaze and raised an eyebrow. “How did you know?”
Lu Li paused, pressing the tip of his tongue against the inside of his cheek.
He spoke as casually as if they were chatting about the weather. “Nie Xu and I have known each other for years. We were among the people selected together back in Shallow Bay.”
Shallow Bay. The old man, Ji Yansong, had mentioned it briefly during the previous interrogation, too.
Even now, the Ji family’s collateral branches seemed somewhat apprehensive whenever the place came up.
Ji Yang hadn’t expected Lu Li to have entered the Ji family back then as well.
“Oh.” Ji Yang gave him a perfunctory response. “You’re not about to tell me that you’ve wanted to surpass him ever since, are you? That you couldn’t stand being stuck in second place forever, so you’ve been going against him at every turn?”
Lu Li shook his head. “No. He was the one who betrayed our principles first.”
Ji Yang’s expression was indescribable.
And what exactly are your principles? Helping the Ji family grow bigger and stronger?
Lu Li had seemed so unwilling to talk to him earlier. Why was he acting so strangely now?
From the moment Lu Li said that he and Nie Xu had known each other for a long time, Ji Yang had already been able to piece together the general outline of what was going on.
Haicheng was like an iceberg, with only its smallest upper portion exposed. Under the sunlight, it looked clean and beautiful. But judging from what he had seen so far, part of the power controlling the things hidden beneath the surface lay in Nie Xu’s hands, while another part belonged to Lu Li.
Or rather, it had fallen into Lu Li’s hands through Ji Yansong’s deliberate support.
The key issue that would eventually bring these two men into direct conflict was, unsurprisingly, Ji Chengyi.
After all, later in the novel, the Ji family would be gone altogether. According to the spoilers, Nie Xu would lock Ji Chengyi in a basement, while Lu Li would do absolutely anything to get him back—even murder and robbery.
Just thinking about that deranged plot and those lunatics was enough to exhaust Ji Yang.
He shifted farther away and said, “I don’t care which one of you betrayed the other.”
“He’s your assistant now, Fourth Young Master.” Lu Li’s smile widened. “Among those of us who were selected back then, no one was harder on himself than Nie Xu. He was absolutely number one. You don’t really think he willingly spent two years working as your bodyguard, do you?”
Lu Li really knew how to bring up the one thing Ji Yang least wanted to hear.
He had managed to temporarily gloss over that dark history by claiming he couldn’t remember it, but what had happened had still happened. The way he had ordered Nie Xu around without a second thought, the way he had used a whip to leave the man covered in injuries—all of it was real.
Ji Yang asked, “What exactly are you trying to say?”
“Nothing at all.” Lu Li raised both hands to indicate his innocence.
Then he smiled and continued, “I’m just curious. You seem willing to say anything these days. Where exactly does Fourth Young Master get his confidence?”
In the end, Lu Li was still trying to find out why Ji Yang had said what he had at the seminar. He was also testing whether Nie Xu had been behind it all.
“My confidence comes from myself.” Ji Yang put on a fake smile and answered honestly.
He waved his phone at Lu Li. “Want to give it a try? I could make you a trending topic tonight. You’re actually pretty good-looking. You could make as much money debuting as an entertainer as you do from all that hard work beating people up. Want to think about it?”
When Lu Li realized he wasn’t going to get anything out of him, he finally dropped his smile.
“I’ll pass.”
He rose from his seat.
Then, without warning, he kicked the man on the floor again.
Hearing the man’s muffled groan, Ji Yang immediately called the airport medical center’s emergency line.
“Terminal 3, waiting room E08. Male patient, vomiting symptoms, conscious, possible internal bleeding. Get here quickly.”
In an instant, everyone in the lounge turned to look at Ji Yang.
The man on the floor reached out with difficulty.
“F-Fourth…”
“Don’t bother with the ‘Fourth,’” Ji Yang said, utterly exasperated.
The man’s face had turned red from the effort.
Lu Li asked, “Fourth Young Master, what are you doing?”
“I was born under the red flag and raised in the spring breeze. I simply can’t stand seeing people act as if the law doesn’t exist.” Ji Yang wore a smile almost as pleasant as Lu Li’s. “Besides, Lu Li, this is Huizhou, not Fanzhou.”
If they had been at a public boarding gate, Ji Yang wouldn’t have called an ambulance. He would have called a psychiatric hospital instead.
Soon, several people in white coats rushed into the waiting room. They even brought a stretcher, making the whole scene rather dramatic.
But the moment they entered and saw what was happening, they froze.
Ji Yang urged them on. “Hurry up. I’m the most important person here. These people won’t do anything to you.”
It took Lu Li a couple of seconds to react before he gestured for the medical staff to approach.
Only after the injured man had been taken away did Lu Li speak again.
“Fourth Young Master is right. This is Huizhou, after all. I hope you’re still in such high spirits when you return to the Ji family.”
Ji Yang turned away. “You really don’t need to worry about that.”
They took a red-eye flight in the middle of the night. By the time Ji Yang returned to the Ji family home, it was two in the morning.
He was taken directly to Ji Yansong’s study in the main building.
In the Ji family, Ji Yansong’s study was strictly forbidden territory. No one in the family dared to enter it lightly.
As it turned out, when Lu Li brought him upstairs that day, Ji Yang saw Ji Chengyi standing outside the door.
He seemed to have been waiting there specifically for them.
When Lu Li saw him, he asked, “Third Young Master, what are you doing here?”
Lu Li seemed to be the same as ever.
And yet, something was different.
It wasn’t really a question about Ji Chengyi’s presence here. It was more as if Lu Li was paying attention to Ji Chengyi himself. A fleeting look of cherishing and careful regard crossed his eyes, something that absolutely shouldn’t have appeared in a person like Lu Li.
“Big Brother is working overtime at the company, so Grandpa called me over.” Ji Chengyi wasn’t particularly warm toward Lu Li, but neither was he distant. He glanced past him at Ji Yang and said directly, “Grandpa said you’re to go straight in as soon as you get back.”
Ji Yang glanced at the two of them, then walked past them and pushed open the door.
Just as his hand touched the doorknob, he heard Ji Chengyi speak behind him.
“Why did you admit it?”
“What?” Ji Yang turned around.
Ji Chengyi seemed to be studying him. “You know perfectly well what you should have said to benefit the Ji family. Why did you admit to falsifying the data and put both yourself and the entire Ji family in the line of fire?”
Ji Yang’s lips twisted into a smile. “Because I felt like it. Is that reason good enough?”
The corner of Ji Chengyi’s eye twitched involuntarily.
Ji Yang pressed down on the handle and walked straight inside.
When he gave Ji Yansong and all the Ji family members gathered in the study—the core senior executives of Haicheng—the same answer he had given Ji Chengyi, and stated that he would make no clarifications or false statements about the matter online, he was greeted by an inkstone hurled straight at him.
An inkstone was heavy and hard. Ji Yang dodged, and it only narrowly missed his forehead before crashing down behind him, hitting the floor with a dull thud.
A burning, throbbing pain spread across his temple. He was probably bleeding.
Worse still, ink had splashed everywhere, leaving a long streak across the side of his face.
Someone spoke. It was an elderly man from one of the Ji family’s collateral branches whom he had met before.
“Ji Yang, listen to your grandfather. He won’t hurt you.”
“Exactly.” Once one person spoke, another chimed in. “This matter isn’t that complicated. The Ji family needs your influence online right now. As a descendant of the Ji family, it’s your duty to follow the family’s arrangements.”
“Damaging the family’s reputation is no small matter. You need to think carefully.”
From the moment Lu Li appeared to the moment Ji Yang walked into this study, it felt as though he had been facing the gaping maw of some abyss, reeking of decay.
The unfamiliar, aged faces before him.
Every word that came out of their mouths.
The way they scrutinized him after calculating his worth was utterly blatant. They weren’t treating him like a younger member of the family. It was more like they were appraising a commodity.
The original Ji Yang had already been discarded before he transmigrated into this world.
Now, in their eyes, he seemed to have regained at least a little value to the Ji Corporation.
So they resorted to threats and inducements, appealing to his emotions and trying to reason with him.
Ji Yang wiped his face with the back of his hand. Looking at the blood and ink mixed together on his skin, he smiled.
“I’ve already lost a leg, and I still have the fine traditional virtue of honesty. Yet, judging by everyone’s reaction, you’d think I’d committed some unforgivable crime.”
His unyielding attitude finally provoked everyone’s anger.
“Old Master, this matter could turn out to be serious or minor. The impact on the Lanhai Bay project is one thing, but the group’s finances—”
“I think we don’t need to worry too much in the short term, with Zhonglin handling things. The absolute priority right now is to prevent him from causing any more trouble.”
“Changshou still hasn’t learned how to raise his children. You’ll have to take charge of this, Old Master.”
Ji Yansong sat behind his imposing pearwood desk.
His eyes, narrowed into inverted triangles, radiated a chill as he stared intently at Ji Yang.
He spoke slowly. “Since you refuse to listen to your elders’ advice, then you can suffer a little and reflect on your actions.”
And just like that, Ji Yang’s phone was confiscated, and he was thrown into a warehouse.
Yes, a warehouse.
The very same warehouse where the original Ji Yang had whipped Nie Xu.
Ji Yang recognized it because of the two exhaust fans behind him and to the side. They were exactly the same as the ones in the video from back then.
The warehouse stood far away from the main building, behind the servants’ quarters in the Ji family estate. It had originally been used to store miscellaneous items. Ji Yang must have used it before, but now it was almost completely empty.
Lu Li threw Ji Yang inside that evening.
At this time of year, the weather was hot and dry during the day, but the nights were rather chilly.
The warehouse was locked from the outside.
As he locked the door, Lu Li said, “The old man said no one is to open the door for you over the next few days, no matter who comes to plead on your behalf. So don’t waste your energy trying. You’ll be let out when you learn to lower your head. Fourth Young Master, I specifically chose this place and got the old man’s approval. Quite meaningful, don’t you think?”
Ji Yang dragged over the only chair in the warehouse and sat down.
He had worn his prosthetic leg all day.
His leg hurt.
Looking around, he seemed rather curious. “Do you simply want to watch a rich young master get punished by his family and break down in tears? Or do you have some strange fetish? Coming back to the scene of the young master’s crime to savor the glorious moment when your archenemy was brutally beaten?”
Lu Li seemed to lean against the door outside for a while.
He sounded quite interested. “I heard about it. I wasn’t in Fanzhou those few days, so it’s a shame I missed it.”
Ji Yang sighed. “Even if you’d been there, you’d still have missed out.”
“Why?” Lu Li asked.
Ji Yang gazed into empty space, recalling the video.
Then he spoke slowly. “Because… it was sexy.”
Silence fell outside.
Ji Yang continued, “Those defined back muscles were sexy.”
“Bleeding was sexy.”
“And the way he kept quiet and said nothing—unlike you, who’d rather stand outside all night feeding mosquitoes than listen to someone talk about another man being sexy—that was the sexiest of all.”
It took Lu Li several seconds to react. When he finally spoke, he sounded as though he were gritting his teeth.
“If Nie Xu hadn’t been left in Huizhou to manage relations with Shengji and Hengyuan, I’d really like him to hear you say that with his own ears. I wonder if he’d want to strangle you for fantasizing about him like this, you young master.”
Ji Yang thought: No, he wouldn’t. The man’s far too busy right now.
Whether he was even still in Huizhou was another question entirely.
Wind swept in through the gaps all around him.
In the dead of night, the Ji family estate had become a cage that could devour people whole.
Lu Li was still waiting for a reaction from him.
Ji Yang gazed at the moon hanging in the small window above the warehouse door. He pressed a finger to the injury on his temple, which could barely qualify as a workplace injury, and hissed softly.
Then, with a completely clear conscience, he said, “Oh. Well, watching him strangle me would definitely be sexy too.”