Chapter 6: The Small-Time Star and His Short-Tempered Sugar Daddy (Part VI)
On the way, Cheng Nuo didn’t say a word.
Only when they arrived at his home did he invite Xiao Ji to sit. He opened a bottle of whiskey, poured it into a refined hand-cut glass, and placed it in front of Xiao Ji.
“Did it go smoothly?”
Xiao Ji looked at the glass of wine but didn’t move. “Not smoothly.”
Cheng Nuo stared at Xiao Ji. “Fang Yinnian looks carefree, but deep down he’s a very conservative person. If he didn’t fancy you, he absolutely wouldn’t touch you.”
“You climbed into his bed once, and the next day he invited you to his office for a detailed discussion, yet you say it didn’t go smoothly? Do you think I’m easy to fool?”
Xiao Ji leaned back against the chair, speaking casually:
“You’ve been fake brothers with Fang Yinnian for so many years. Do you think he is easy to fool?”
Cheng Nuo frowned. “Status makes a difference. No matter how close brothers are, they aren’t as intimate as a pillow partner. He won’t bare his heart to me, but he might to you. As long as you’re willing to put more effort into him, you can get both what you want and what I want.”
Xiao Ji remained silent, staring intently out the window at two sparrows acting lovey-dovey.
“Xiao Ji, using me to climb up to Fang Yinnian and then turning around to regret it—I advise you not to do that.”
“Do you think everything is fine just because you got into Fang Yinnian’s bed? Let me tell you, with one word, I can make you get the hell away from Fang Yinnian. Do you believe me?”
Cheng Nuo’s plastic brotherhood with Fang Yinnian had lasted for many years. Looking at the current situation, Xiao Ji’s status in Fang Yinnian’s heart was obviously less important than Cheng Nuo’s.
Cheng Nuo wasn’t entirely bluffing.
Xiao Ji looked like he was deep in thought, but he was actually zoning out.
After a long while, he finally spoke: “I don’t have that ability. You’d better switch people early. If someone else has the skill, let them replace me.”
After finishing, he stood up. Without any polite farewells, he left Cheng Nuo’s house directly.
Once outside, the first thing he did was take out his phone, press pause on the recording, and save the backup file.
037 frowned:
[Showing your hand to him now has no benefit. Your relationship with Fang Yinnian isn’t stable yet. The world doesn’t lack good-looking people; Fang Yinnian has no feelings for you. If he can keep you, he can keep someone else. If Cheng Nuo really swaps someone in to cause trouble, your mission will have a lot more problems.]
Xiao Ji got off the elevator. While lighting a cigarette, he said to 037:
[If a relationship isn’t solid, you can work to make it solid. But once trust collapses, even a broken mirror rejoined will have cracks.]
Xiao Ji didn’t know much about this world’s Fang Yinnian, but he had known the Heavenly Realm’s Yin Nian for a long time.
Yin Nian was petty.
Xiao Ji using Cheng Nuo as a springboard to approach him, then immediately clearing the relationship, was just an expedient measure and not his true heart. Even if Cheng Nuo sent someone else to interfere, it would be at most a nuisance. Fang Yinnian would be angry if he found out, but wouldn’t take it too much to heart.
But if Xiao Ji approached Fang Yinnian with the shared intent of harming him alongside Cheng Nuo, he would hold a grudge against Xiao Ji forever—let alone getting Fang Yinnian’s true heart.
037 had an epiphany, though not a complete one: [Then didn’t you record it? Send it directly to Fang Yinnian and tell him to watch out for Cheng Nuo?]
Xiao Ji: [Does your family use good steel on the back of the blade?]
Now was not the time for this recording to be heard by Fang Yinnian.
Cheng Nuo hadn’t made a move yet, and the words in the recording didn’t explicitly state what Cheng Nuo wanted. Even if Xiao Ji sent it to Fang Yinnian now, Fang Yinnian would only confront Cheng Nuo.
As long as Cheng Nuo denied it to the death and made up some other plausible excuse, Fang Yinnian might not disbelieve him.
Only when Cheng Nuo revealed his fox tail, and after Fang Yinnian had already become suspicious—only then would this recording serve two crucial functions.
The final straw that breaks the camel’s back for Cheng Nuo.
And the life-saving straw that convinces Fang Yinnian that Xiao Ji and Cheng Nuo are not birds of a feather.
037’s brain spun rapidly. It took half a day to digest Xiao Ji’s analysis, but then its scalp went numb.
It had initially thought Xiao Ji was just a robotic block of ice who only followed orders.
Now it seemed that in the Three Realms, perhaps only 037 itself was truly innocent.
None of the hosts it managed were easy to deal with.
037 was afraid that saying more would make it appear exceptionally stupid. It wanted to ask Xiao Ji how he planned to make the relationship with Fang Yinnian more solid, but after opening its mouth, it closed it again.
It thought to itself, forget it, smart people always have their own rhythm.
Xiao Ji indeed had his own rhythm.
Ever since he said he wanted to make the relationship with Fang Yinnian more solid, he laid around at home doing nothing for a week.
Well, not completely nothing.
Because the books he bought online had arrived.
Xiao Ji’s lifestyle habits were disciplined yet hard to understand.
He opened his eyes promptly at 5:27 AM every morning. He spent three minutes on the coffee table waking up. At 5:30, he got up, spent twenty minutes washing and organizing, another twenty minutes making breakfast, and twenty minutes eating it.
He spent half an hour cleaning the already spotless floors and furniture, then went for a morning run.
After exercising, he read books all morning. After lunch, he slept through the afternoon in darkness. Then, he searched for films on major websites to take study notes.
When night fell, he began to go out and wander everywhere. Fully armed, he went from vegetable markets to amusement parks, from business KTVs to hair salons in market alleys, from major factories to senior activity centers—he walked through them all.
On the night of the seventh day, he was crouching on the roof of a suburban crematorium, observing a man who had just sent off his cremated wife only to get into his lover’s car outside and make out passionately.
037 finally couldn’t hold back:
[I can understand you observing human warmth and coldness, but I’m just saying, do you have to observe at night? In the middle of the night, there are plenty of things that aren’t human.]
Xiao Ji couldn’t quite understand: [In human law, is this considered a criminal act?]
037 thought for a moment: [It’s not bigamy, but it’s immoral. It goes against human ethics; it won’t be praised, only spat upon.]
Xiao Ji understood. He immediately placed an order for a copy of the Criminal Code, planning to study it properly later.
Just after submitting the order, he received a call from Fang Yinnian:
“Did you receive the contract?”
Xiao Ji knew Fang Yinnian was talking about the sugar baby contract. He hummed, “I received it a week ago.”
Fang Yinnian was unhappy the next second: “You received it a week ago, yet you haven’t sent me a single message for seven whole days.”
Hearing this, Xiao Ji responded, “Clause 17: The employee shall not disturb the employer privately without permission. Forms of disturbance include but are not limited to unannounced visits, phone calls, text messages, and leaving comments under social media posts.”
“F*ck.”
Fang Yinnian couldn’t help but curse.
Aside from the key monetary figures, he hadn’t read the contract in detail.
Since the contract was sent out, he had been waiting for Xiao Ji to actively report to him. The result? For seven whole days, Xiao Ji was as quiet as the dead.
He had finally found time today to trouble Xiao Ji, only to discover that the party at fault was himself.
The culprit was Xiao Lin.
He put away the retort he was about to make and said impatiently:
“Get to my side before midnight.”
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