Zhou Yan raised an eyebrow before slowly sitting back down, his posture languid and nonchalant, still ignoring Evan's anger.
He rested his chin on his hand and leaned against the armrest, looking nonchalant: "Calm down, Brother Yi, don't get angry."
Evan pointed angrily at his nose: "You...you little brat! Sit up straight, you think you're all grown up now? Daring to talk back to me!"
Seeing this, Cha Meiling immediately stood up to comfort Evan, and hurriedly handed him some tea: "Uncle Evan, you can't be angry, you have high blood pressure!"
Evan took a deep breath, drank some water, and tried to make his tone sound calm: "Annie, could you go out for a bit? I need to talk to Yan alone."
Cha Meiling looked at Zhou Yan, her eyes reddening, as if she wanted to say something, but in the end she swallowed it back.
Suppressing her displeasure, she smiled tactfully and said, "Okay, you two chat."
Before leaving, she glanced at Zhou Yan with concern and whispered, "Yan, don't talk back to Uncle Evan. He's only doing this for your own good..."
After saying that, she left the room and gently closed the door behind her.
With a click, the door lock shut, leaving only Evan and Zhou Yan in the room, and the atmosphere instantly turned icy.
Evan's face was grim, his voice filled with barely suppressed anger—
"Tell me, what are you thinking? Why won't you marry Annie? Are you still eyeing that seventh young lady of the Ning family? Don't think I don't know you've been hanging around her lately. She already has a child, and you're still messing around with a suspect?! You may have no shame, but I do!!"
Zhou Yan leaned back lazily in his chair, took out a pack of cigarettes from his pocket, lit one with a "snap".
"Brother, what you're saying is so meaningless. Approaching suspects is just part of the job. What's wrong with Miss Ning Qi? She's young, beautiful, and comes from a prominent family. She's much more valuable than Cha Meiling."
He slowly exhaled a smoke ring: "Whether it's investigating a case or for money, Ning Yuan is far more valuable than Cha Meiling, don't you think?"
Evan's face grew increasingly grim: "Zhou Yan! Stop acting so cocky!"
He pointed at Zhou Yan's nose and cursed, "You fall in love with every girl you see? Do you think you're collecting stamps? Back in England, who was it that saw you and Annie all lovey-dovey and thought you were finally reliable before letting you return to Hong Kong to carry out your mission? Now look at you, fickle and greedy, crossing the river and burning the bridge!"
Amidst the swirling smoke, Zhou Yan's eyes turned cold and mocking.
“Uncle Evan, the way you're saying that makes it sound like I've wronged Cha Meiling so much. If you hadn't thought Cha Meiling had a close relationship with the Ning family and that she was ‘useful,’ would you have agreed to my engagement to her?”
Zhou Yan shrugged and said coldly, "Besides, no matter how good Annie is, she's just a fling. Once she gets tired of her, she'll be bored. She's Ning Bingyu's discarded wife. Now, besides Chen Jingsong, what else does she have behind her? To put it bluntly, she's just a pretty face, worthless. Do you think I'd take her on? What makes her worthy?"
Evan's face turned ashen from the utterly despicable words: "You...you...you really are..."
He raised his head, looked directly at Evan, and continued coldly—
"The Ning family has many children in this generation. Ning Yuan, the seventh young lady, seems to be a marginal figure in the Ning family and not favored, but what is the reality?"
The man's narrowed phoenix eyes appeared even more profound and sinister: "She receives just as much attention as Ning Man'an! Moreover, she is the only person that the elders of the Ning family cannot control."
"Madam Ning has always felt indebted to her youngest daughter. Who do you think will ultimately get her 10% stake? Compared to cheap goods like Annie, Ning Qi is far more valuable, isn't she?"
Evan rubbed his temples, feeling utterly overwhelmed.
After all that, I forgot that this guy is an unruly and extremely selfish and cold-hearted young man when it comes to women.
When you see the rumors that Hollywood actresses were willing to retire for him, you should know that this guy isn't someone who can settle down with one woman for life just because he's had his fun.
His tone was serious and annoyed: "Ayan, you'd better know what you're doing. The Ning family is not to be trifled with, and according to you, Miss Ning Qi is no pushover either. If you play with fire and get burned, don't blame me for not warning you!"
Zhou Yan leaned back lazily on the sofa: "But what should I do? I not only want to play with fire, but I want to play with fire to the extreme."
He rested his chin on his hand, his smile cold and malicious: "Brother, have you forgotten that I also have this face, and this body is exactly the same as my brother's?"
Evan said angrily, "So what? Didn't you already take Annie to the Ning family's Repulse Bay villa? I thought you had figured out that you wanted to announce to the world that you wanted to be with Annie, so I simply arranged for you and Annie to get married. She used to be the Ning family's adopted daughter, so you're practically a Ning family son-in-law, which will also help with the mission!"
Zhou Yan flicked his cigarette ash and said casually, "Ning Yuan is the real Ning family heiress, while Annie is a down-and-out. What kind of goddaughter is she? She's just a fake. She can only help so much. The day I agreed to go to the Ning family's villa in Shallow Bay to pick up Annie, I was planning to see what Annie was up to. But when I met Miss Ning Qi, she wasn't as indifferent as she had seemed before."
Evan angrily threw a pen at him: "Nonsense! What woman could remain unmoved by seeing a face exactly like her deceased husband parading around with another woman?"
"Especially since you've said those ambiguous things to her time and time again! Like that 'my brother's dead, so I'll inherit everything from my sister-in-law'—that's utter nonsense! In Chinese terms, it's like wanting what you don't have while eyeing what you don't. Don't you think you deserve a beating?!"
Evan sat down, rubbed his throbbing temples, and sighed: "Ning Qi has close ties with Gui Lao Si. We know very well what position Gui Lao Si holds in the Hong Kong government's underground triads."
“The group of people around Ning Qi may look like bodyguards, but they are all ruthless characters who have seen blood. Any woman who can associate with these people must be a ruthless character. I’m really afraid that you won’t complete your mission, but you’ll die because of messing around with women, and I’ll have to collect your corpse!”
Zhou Yan crossed his long legs and exhaled a thin stream of smoke, his tone flippant and indifferent: "Brother Yi, since I dared to provoke you, I naturally have the ability to escape unscathed."
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
