Chapter 149: Stealing Fragrance (4)
Xiao Ji came out of the house, walked to the main gate, opened it, and exchanged looks with the three men standing outside.
“Are you Xiao Ji?” the leading man asked.
Xiao Ji nodded and didn’t speak.
The man then pulled a leather wallet from his robes and handed it to Xiao Ji:
“The item was found. Take a look.”
Xiao Ji took the wallet. Brown cattle leather, palm-sized, with two press studs, no pattern, with three knife marks on the bottom left of the front.
It was indeed the one he had given the pickpocket.
He opened the wallet again to look inside. Father Xiao’s photo was still there, but his one yuan, seven miao, and three fen were gone.
But Xiao Ji didn’t say anything, only saying to the three:
“It’s mine. Thank you for your hard work.”
After confirming the item and the person were correct, the leading man gave a hand signal to the two behind him.
One person behind him then came forward holding a wooden box, handing the box to Xiao Ji:
“Eldest Young Master Pei said that he didn’t handle what he promised beautifully, which hinders his reputation. He asks you to refrain from spreading the word. This is hush money.”
An obviously clumsy excuse.
A small matter like this—let alone hindering his reputation—even if it were published as a headline in the newspapers, it wouldn’t cause a single ripple in all of Huating.
Xiao Ji looked at the one-foot-square box and didn’t take it. He said distantly:
“I am already incredibly grateful that Young Master Pei helped me find my item. There’s no need for hush money; I won’t speak recklessly.”
The three men exchanged looks upon hearing this. Afterward, the leading man suddenly raised his gun, pointing it at Xiao Ji’s chest:
“Take it.”
Xiao Ji remained motionless, without showing the slightest sign of being startled.
His dark eyes stared at the gun barrel for a long while before he reached out and pushed the wooden box back:
“I won’t. Go ahead and shoot.”
The man had a standoff with Xiao Ji for a moment. After a long while, he lowered his gun, took two silver dollars from his pocket, tossed them into the Xiao family courtyard, turned with his two companions, and left.
Xiao Ji closed the door, looked back at the two silver dollars on the ground, didn’t bend down to pick them up, and went straight back into the house.
Seeing this, Xiao Ran immediately opened the door and came out, squatting on the ground to pick up the two silver dollars and tucking them into her pocket.
“Hey, Xiao Ji.”
Xiao Ji turned to look at her.
Xiao Ran asked, “Do you have connections with those soldiers?”
Xiao Ji’s expression was indifferent. “I don’t.”
Xiao Ran didn’t believe it at all. “I saw everything! They gave you that wooden box and mentioned Young Master Pei!”
“Xiao Ji, have you f*cking gone mad?! That’s Young Master Pei! There isn’t a second Young Master Pei in all of Huating! Even if that box didn’t have gold bars, it must have had silver coins. Why didn’t you take it? What are you pretending to be aloof for?”
Xiao Ji looked at Xiao Ran:
“When I say I don’t, I don’t. Are other people’s things so easy to take? If I had taken it and there were other costs involved, would you be the one to bear them?”
If it were the past, facing Xiao Ran’s interrogation, Xiao Ji would have inevitably said, “Whether I take it or not is none of your f*cking business.”
But after traveling the human world for many years, Xiao Ji had already seen through many things.
Xiao Ran’s hostile attitude toward him didn’t come from nowhere.
Thinking from another angle, they were siblings from the same mother. The elder Xiao couple had exhausted all their efforts to send the original owner abroad to study.
After Father Xiao died, Mother Xiao even sold the family’s old house to fill the original owner’s expenses abroad, leading Xiao Ran to this cramped alley to survive.
Xiao Ran had started coughing blood a year ago. Forget about seeing a doctor or taking medicine; she hadn’t even had many full meals. She lived day to day; to put it bluntly, she was waiting for death in her despair.
The wooden box Xiao Ji refused was her life-saving straw in her eyes.
Naturally, she was full of resentment toward Xiao Ji.
Xiao Ji looked at Xiao Ran’s face, which was so thin it was sunken, and the anger and unwillingness in her eyes that were almost about to drip out. Although his tone was still cold, the words he spoke made Xiao Ran burst into tears.
He said, “I’ll find a way to treat your illness. Don’t be angry.”
Separated by a wall, the three men in military uniforms looked at Pei Yinnian standing by the wall, not even daring to breathe loudly.
Pei Yinnian turned and left without a word.
The man who had been the leader finally couldn’t help asking him:
“Master, why are you suddenly so interested in a man?”
Only he knew that the wooden box was filled with gold bars.
That was something a poor family like Xiao Ji’s wouldn’t be able to earn in a lifetime.
Pei Yinnian couldn’t say why either.
Insisting on meeting Xiao Ji initially was because the person in his dream overlapped significantly with Xiao Ji.
And after seeing Xiao Ji, the person in his dream last night predictably had more detailed contours, especially that mole under the eye.
The feeling Xiao Ji gave Pei Yinnian was too strange.
His desire to solve the mystery was one thing.
More importantly, that brief encounter with Xiao Ji last night always made him feel something was stirring in his heart.
Pei Yinnian thought for a moment and suddenly stopped. “Lin Shu.”
The man who had just asked the question responded:
“What is it, Master? Please speak.”
Pei Yinnian asked, “In which school is Pei Xinyun?”
Lin Shu was not only Pei Yinnian’s deputy but also his childhood friend and brother who had gone through life and death with him for many years.
Lin Shu knew the affairs of the Pei Residence even better than Pei Yinnian himself.
“The Girls’ High School. The Madam asked about it a few days ago, wanting to transfer Miss Xinyun to National First Middle School, saying she needed to ask your opinion, but you were never free.”
Hearing this, Pei Yinnian said only one word: “Transfer.”
Lin Shu was startled. “Do you not need to consider it further?”
Pei Yinnian said decisively: “Have her transfer tomorrow.”
Lin Shu was shocked. “Tomorrow is a public holiday; the school has no classes.”
Pei Yinnian had always been unreasonable: “Then call their principal. Have the principal work overtime to handle the procedures for Pei Xinyun.”
According to the original timeline, the start date the original Xiao Ji had agreed on with National First Middle School was still a week away.
But because of Pei Yinnian’s interference, the next afternoon Xiao Ji received a letter from the school, asking him to start work the following day.
National First Middle School was different from other schools in Huating.
Most of the students here had deep family backgrounds and were not easy to restrain.
On his first day of work, Xiao Ji experienced this more clearly in a certain sense.
After finishing the procedures, he arrived at the teaching building, at the entrance of the class he had been assigned.
The classroom was silent, seemingly without any abnormality.
But over the half-open classroom door, there was currently a basin of cold water mixed with ink.
It was just a common prank students used for teachers.
It could also be considered an “induction ceremony” the students had prepared for Xiao Ji, the new teacher.
Xiao Ji turned and left. He picked up a handful of small pebbles from the sports field outside and returned to the class entrance.
Through the door crack, he tossed a pebble into the class. It coincidentally hit the forehead of a male student sitting in the first row.
The male student gave a “yo,” stood up, and looked around:
“Who? Who did it?”
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