episode 12
He Xun rested his right hand on the cold windowsill, staring intently and coldly down below.
The cold, solemn moonlight in the night sky poured down a large expanse of silver light without obstruction. As his gaze moved downwards, he was able to clearly see a middle-aged, greasy man, seemingly driven by bestiality, pinning a young boy, as delicate as a lotus flower emerging from the water, against a hidden corner of the wall.
This direction is the back of the villa, naturally isolating it from the noise, making it as quiet as a different world from the charity gala on the other side.
The lush branches rustled in the wind, and Ding Xiabing groaned in pain as the other party shoved her mercilessly, her thin shoulder blades trembling.
Mo Wenjin pinned Ding Xiabing against the wall with one hand, while his other hand impatiently went to undo his belt.
Ding Xiabing gripped the wall plaster with her hands, bit her pale lips tightly, twisted her slender neck, turned her head away, and closed her eyes.
His dark eyelashes trembled slightly, like a butterfly helplessly trapped in a bottle.
Upon noticing Ding Xiabing's resistance, Mo Wenjin's expression changed drastically.
—Smack!
He raised his hand and slapped Ding Xiabing across the face.
"You bitch! Don't think you can get away with anything just because I haven't had time to deal with you these past few days! You all, including that brat Mo Shilin! And you too! Who do you think you are! This is how you treat your elders! And you dare to give me attitude!"
With a ferocious expression, Mo Wenjin slapped Ding Xiabing a few more times, venting all the anger he had suffered from his nephew, who was far more capable than him, on the person in front of him.
This is a perfect illustration of the "kicking the cat" effect.
Ding Xiabing was knocked to the side by the blow, her swollen face covered with finger marks showing suppressed humiliation. After a long while, she slowly turned her head back, tears welling up in her eyes, and weakly squeezed out an apology.
As he uttered the last word with difficulty, two lines of clear tears welled up in his eyes, which had been trying to maintain composure.
Mo Wenjin then let out a cold sneer, as if to vent his anger, and patted Ding Xiabing's face with a humiliating tone: "Good girl, kneel down, you know what to do."
Ding Xiabing trembled, her lips pressed tightly together, and slowly knelt down under Mo Wenjin's fervent gaze.
......
Almost the instant He Xun recognized the two of them, he dashed back to his room with lightning speed to grab his camera.
There are uncontrollable factors in the world of novels. With the original protagonist in the story, Mo Shilin certainly won't focus too much attention on him.
With that thought in mind, he had already made his way to the monitoring room. Under the guise of chatting with the guards, he secretly cut off all the surveillance cameras around the wall and then flew up to the rooftop overlooking the entire villa, almost like a parkour runner.
He found a good spot, raised his camera, and skillfully pressed the shutter, taking more than twenty photos in a row.
After taking the photos, he quickly checked them to make sure that Karen Mok's face was clearly visible in every picture before putting the camera into the storage box he had brought along to avoid attracting attention.
The whole process took less than five minutes.
Mo Wenjin would never have imagined that his actions that revealed his true nature that very night, right inside his nephew's villa, would be completely and clearly filmed...
Just as Ding Xiabing's hands were about to touch Mo Wenjin's belt, He Xun on the rooftop deftly grabbed a dart he had just brought up from the storage box and threw it with a whoosh, hitting Mo Wenjin squarely in the left shoulder.
"ah!!"
Mo Wenjin immediately cried out in alarm, and his lower body went limp at an incredible speed visible to the naked eye.
He Xun may look thin, but he actually has a lot of wrist strength. The dart that pierced Mo Wenjin's shoulder was probably a few millimeters deeper than the injection the nurse gave him.
Tsk.
How could it not hurt?
He Xun heard the pig-like screams he had hoped for, curled his lips into a smile, concealed his accomplishment, and carried the junk box downstairs.
Mo Wenjin stared intently, his face contorted in shock, and he, who was already prone to fainting at the sight of blood, nearly fainted.
A sharp silver dart was embedded in his shoulder, and bright red blood quickly soaked the black fabric of his suit. Cold sweat and unknown fear shot up his spine and into his brain. He no longer cared about his appearance and roared at the silent surroundings, "Damn it!! Who is it?! Shot someone in the back! You dare to do it but not admit it!"
Ding Xiabing, who was still kneeling on the ground, was taken aback when he saw this, but he breathed a sigh of relief. He hesitated for a moment, then pulled his coat up and stood up, quietly curling up in the corner and watching Mo Wenjin's impotent rage.
Just then, Mo Shilin, who was taking a stroll in the back garden to sober up, strolled over there and bumped right into Mo Wenjin, who was baring his teeth.
Mo Wenjin almost burst into tears the moment he saw his nephew. His face was deathly pale as he scrambled over, shouting, "Shilin! There's been an assassin in your villa! Someone threw darts at me!"
It's strange, really, that the Mo family, which is praised by all sectors as a family of scholars, could produce such a descendant.
Mo Shilin, hands in his pockets, glanced at the blood-stained silver dart in his hand, raised an eyebrow, and said indifferently, "Oh, which family did you make a grudge against? Let's go to the hospital first, and then have someone check the surveillance footage."
"What?!"
Mo Wenjin was clearly dissatisfied with this sloppy handling of the situation. He had suffered such serious injuries, and all they were going to do was check the surveillance footage?!
What if he gets stabbed to death?
Shouldn't they immediately search the villa and thoroughly investigate this matter?!
But Mo Shilin didn't give him a chance to speak. He patted his shoulder in a seemingly calm manner and gave a reasonable explanation, whether out of kindness or malice: "Second Uncle, there are quite a few people who don't like you tonight, right? Making a big fuss won't do you any good. Let me investigate privately first."
What else could Mo Wenjin say? He could only swallow his pent-up frustration.
Although he didn't want to admit it, he really had no say in front of his nephew, Mo Shilin. Even the establishment of Hetai was thanks to Mo Shilin. How could he dare to say anything more? He could only grit his teeth in anger and limp away.
After the two figures disappeared from sight, Mo Shilin, with a Marlboro Black Ice cigarette dangling from his lips, leisurely made his way to the monitoring room.
He might not care in front of Mo Wenjin, but privately he couldn't just let this blatant incident on his turf go unpunished.
The maid, who was dozing off with her arms propped up, was jolted awake by the sound of the door being pushed open and a lighter being lit. She almost scrambled to her feet before the person entered.
However, he was a step too late, and Mo Shilin saw him get up.
The servant was panicked and frightened, cold sweat poured down her face, her face was burning, and she stood as straight as a Qing Dynasty zombie that had just been unearthed.
Mo Shilin didn't take it to heart.
He held a cigarette between his fingers, looked around, and finally fixed his gaze on the decorative dartboard on the wall.
—At first glance, one of them is missing.
Moving your gaze further down, you'll find a flower-shaped gold gemstone brooch lying quietly against the wall.
This is the style that all the servants were instructed to wear tonight.
"Check the surveillance footage from the last hour." Mo Shilin bent down, picked up the brooch, held it in his hand, and crunched the cigarette butt's menthol capsule with a snap, speaking lightly.
The maid's heart skipped a beat.
He had noticed the security cameras were inexplicably broken when he wasn't dozing off. He initially planned to call someone to fix them, but then he thought that the villa's servants would be busy tonight, and probably no one would be checking the footage for no reason. After all, nothing had happened in the past year or two, so it was unlikely that something would happen tonight by sheer coincidence...
In short, a combination of unfortunate circumstances led to his failure to address the malfunctioning surveillance system in a timely manner.
Now--
There was no way to avoid it, so he had no choice but to bite the bullet and tell the truth, his heart pounding: "Young Master Mo, I... I don't know what happened, but the surveillance camera is malfunctioning. There's a missing segment of footage, and we can't watch anything within the last hour."
Upon hearing this, Mo Shilin turned his gaze to the servant, scrutinized her for a moment, and then said in a cold tone, "I understand."
"Don't worry, I'll find someone to fix it right away." The maid forced a smile and continued, "Let's see if we can get the blacked-out section back."
Mo Shilin looked noncommittal, lowered his eyes to examine the brooch in his hand for a moment, and walked out without saying a word.
Once he was out of sight, the servant breathed a sigh of relief, slapped his forehead a few times, and, not daring to slack off any longer, quickly called someone to come and fix it.
......
Mo Shilin, lost in thought, came to the back garden with the brooch in his hand. From afar, he saw He Xun carrying a box and walking slowly forward like a snail.
He narrowed his eyes slightly, his expression unreadable, and called out to the other person, "Haven't you finished your work yet?"
"No, Aunt Mu told me to tidy up this box of odds and ends." He Xun paused for a moment, then quickly walked over.
He emerged from the shadows beneath the tree, his slender figure resembling a white red-crowned crane transformed into a human.
This time, Mo Shilin didn't look at his face. He stared at his upper body for a few seconds with an ambiguous expression before exhaling a smoke ring and saying in a declarative tone, "Your brooch is missing."
He Xun paused for a moment, put down the box, and showed a perfectly timed look of surprise: "Thank you, but this isn't mine. I'm wearing mine on my body." As he spoke, he pointed to his left chest.
The gold gemstones set in the exquisitely patterned brooch indeed shone brightly under the moonlight.
Mo Shilin stepped closer, his scrutinizing gaze brushing against his shirt and moving to his face. He casually weighed the brooch in his hand and said, "Aren't you going to ask where you found it?"
He Xun smiled, his face showing not a trace of guilt as the culprit: "You couldn't have picked it up outside the villa, could you?"
"My second uncle had a little trouble just now, he was yelling quite loudly, I hope he didn't scare you?" Mo Shilin said, holding a cigarette between his fingers, as he reached out and gently stroked the gemstone on He Xun's body.
"I heard it, but I couldn't quite make it out. I thought it was a dog or some other animal barking." He Xun didn't flinch, but frowned, blinked, and looked quite innocent. "By the way, I didn't hear anything when I went to the monitoring room to put something away. What's wrong? What happened?"
"It's nothing serious. My second uncle was hit by a dart and is bleeding." Mo Shilin raised his eyes, a hint of a smile appearing in his cold eyes. "I was just about to check the surveillance footage to see who did it, but wouldn't you know it, the cameras are broken. We can't see anything from the last hour."
"I see." He Xun nodded thoughtfully, because they were so close that strands of hair from his forehead brushed against the other person's chin and lips. "That is indeed a coincidence."
Mo Shilin's heart skipped a beat. It seemed that only now did he realize that the faint fragrance on He Xun's body was making him feel restless. His Adam's apple bobbed slightly, and he tugged at the brooch on He Xun's body rather rudely. He changed the subject and said in a low voice, "Luckily, it wasn't you who was thrown a dart. If we can't find the surveillance footage, we won't be able to get revenge for you."
He Xun was pulled and stumbled, almost crashing into Mo Shilin's arms.
He pressed his tongue against his cheek in annoyance, but when he looked up again, he bit his lower lip and gently pushed the man's shoulder with a half-hearted push, a complete reversal of their earlier encounter in the corridor: "I think you can. Even if we can't find the surveillance footage, you'll definitely find a way to get revenge for me."
"You trust me so much."
“You’re my boss. If I don’t trust you, who else can I trust? I can’t trust strangers, can I?”
After saying that, it took a long time before Mo Shilin smiled and finally took pity on him, letting him go. He took the initiative to distance himself and handed him the unwanted brooch: "Take this back and see who was so careless."
"good."
Mo Shilin didn't say anything more, turned around and left. Besides, it was almost time for the banquet, and he still had to go back to give his thank-you speech.
The man's tall figure quickly disappeared around the corner of the villa, but He Xun's face instantly darkened.
He straightened his shirt with a cold expression, and when he inadvertently touched the brooch he had just borrowed from someone else, he became even more annoyed.
This guy is really something, couldn't he have been a little gentler? He tore the fabric behind the brooch, if I took it off he probably would have been exposed right there.
He Xun breathed a sigh of relief, looked around to make sure there were no tails following him, and then carried the box back to his room, pondering as he walked.
He could certainly hear the hidden meaning in Mo Shilin's words.
Given the other party's intelligence, they should have listed him as the prime suspect immediately. The exchange just now was Mo Shilin's dangerous sizing and probing.
He could guess that since the other party had handed him the brooch, which was important evidence, without hesitation, they were obviously planning something covert.
So what?
Anyway, Mo Shilin has no evidence, so letting him suspect something won't hurt him.
Thanks to his transmigration into the book as an unnamed male servant, even if Mo Shilin were to investigate him in private now, he wouldn't find anything.
He Xun took out his camera and, under the cold moonlight by the window, looked down at the photos he had just taken, a hint of sarcasm flashing in his dark eyes.
Turning a blind eye to certain things deserves punishment.
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