The cold cement floor sent a chill through his thin trousers, but Qin Nanxi couldn't feel it; all his senses were consumed by extreme fear.
The face before him wore a warm, spring-like smile, but its eyes held a deep, unyielding icy chill that sent shivers down his spine.
Qin Xiao slowly squatted down, looking at his cousin who was slumped on the ground with a leisurely posture, the playful smile on his lips seemed to deepen a bit.
"I was wondering why I felt a chill on the back of my neck earlier. I thought it was because of this awful weather."
He stretched out his long, slender fingers and gently flicked the collar of Qin Nanxi's cheap suit, which was covered in dust from her fear.
"So it turns out you were hiding here drawing circles and cursing me."
Qin Nanxi's face turned deathly pale, her lips trembled violently, her teeth chattered, and she couldn't utter a complete sentence for a long time.
He shook his head frantically, trying to force a smile that was even uglier than crying.
"No...no, cousin! You...you must have misheard!"
"I... I wouldn't dare to curse you!"
He frantically waved his hands, his eyes darting around, looking like a mouse whose tail had been stepped on by a hunter, utterly disheveled.
"Just now... just now I was talking to myself! Yes! Absolutely talking to myself! I meant... to crush those gold-digging women who only care about money and not people!"
Qin Xiao raised an eyebrow, his smile undiminished, but his eyes grew colder, carrying a sharp, all-seeing gaze.
"Oh? Trampling on gold diggers?"
"That must have cost a lot of real money."
He slowly stood up, looking down at Qin Nanxi with a hint of amusement in his voice.
"I heard that you've recently racked up a lot of gambling debts, and you're almost unable to pay off the compounded interest?"
"Do you want me, your cousin, to put in a good word with those loan sharks for you?"
Qin Nanxi's face instantly turned extremely ugly, as if someone had ripped off the last piece of his cloak in public. Shame and even deeper fear intertwined, almost overwhelming him.
He struggled, using both hands and feet to get up from the cold ground, and forced himself to calmly dust himself off.
"Cousin, who are you listening to?! I... I've already reformed! I've given up gambling a long time ago!"
He spoke defiantly, but his heart was bleeding profusely.
If it weren't for his inability to quit that damn gambling addiction, how could he have been caught red-handed by that damned security guard Ye Chen, and even poisoned and forced to do such a despicable thing as betraying his family and selling out his cousin!
Qin Nanxi took a deep breath, forcibly suppressing the turmoil of panic and resentment in her heart, and put on that nauseatingly obsequious smile again.
"Cousin, let's not talk about those unhappy things."
He cautiously approached Qin Xiao, deliberately lowering his voice and speaking in a mysterious tone.
"I've recently discovered a fantastic project!"
"If our Qin family can seize this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, let alone reach new heights, it's not impossible for us to soar to the top and become one of the top super families in the capital!"
As he spoke, he tremblingly pulled out his latest model phone, whose screen was cracked into a spiderweb pattern. His fingers, trembling with excitement and nervousness, almost wouldn't obey his commands, and he opened a beautifully designed webpage.
The webpage was filled with dazzling descriptions of a certain "revolutionary new energy battery," with a bewildering array of technical parameters, impressive patent certificate images, and enticing market prospect analyses.
Qin Nanxi pointed at the flashy screen, describing the vague and unrealistic blueprint with great enthusiasm.
"Cousin, look! This technology is at least ten years ahead of the rest of the world! As long as our Qin family can be the first to start production, I guarantee you, conservatively speaking, the annual profit margin can reach forty percent! Or even higher!"
His eyes gleamed with undisguised greed, as if he could already see mountains of money beckoning to him.
Qin Xiao looked at the rough yet deadly-tempting website proposal, remaining outwardly calm but inwardly sneering.
In his mind, he asked Yun Yiyi, "Yiyi, this must be the huge pit that Ye Chen carefully prepared for 'me' in Chapter 32, right?"
[Ding! That's right! This is the host!]
Yun Yiyi's voice carried a hint of elation, as if she were trying to claim credit.
This shell company! All their paperwork and so-called patent certificates are forged to look exactly like the real thing, just waiting for you to fall right into their trap!
Qin Xiao quickly browsed the seemingly professional data and technical parameters on the webpage, a hint of undisguised disdain flashing deep in his eyes.
He said to Yun Yiyi, "Even without your half-baked system reminder, this nonsense about a pie falling from the sky and hitting me precisely won't fool me."
"Graphene-based lithium-sulfur batteries? Energy density more than five times that of existing top-tier lithium batteries? Cycle life of over 10,000 cycles? And production costs only half that of existing batteries?"
"He dares to use theoretical data, which even top laboratories haven't fully grasped yet, as a pie-in-the-sky fundraising pie?"
"And this so-called electrolyte formula is clearly a misrepresentation; its stability does not even meet the most basic commercial safety standards."
"Not to mention this so-called 'core patent,' a simple search in the global patent database will tell you that it is completely fictitious and pure fabrication."
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