Chapter 34 "Perfect, I've long wanted to stop being..."
“Young Master Ying,” Xi Bojian stubbed out his cigarette, the dim light reminiscent of a venomous python coiled deep in a dense forest, its tongue flicking menacingly.
"Get in the car, let's talk." He raised his chin and got into a silver-black car that had been parked in the parking lot for who knows how long.
Ying Shixue lowered her eyelashes, her figure slender and upright, and followed him into the car.
The vehicle slowly drove out of the parking lot. The city of Fan was already lit up with lights, and the endless lights stretched out like a long dragon, silently winding around this giant city.
Finally, they stopped at a glass high-rise building. A waiter respectfully led them to the top floor. The dishes had already been set out according to the time. The waiter promptly pulled out chairs and arranged everything before quietly leaving. The heavy door to the private room was slammed shut again.
Xi Bojian seemed completely unfazed by the fact that his plans had been ruined by a betrayal. Instead, with great gentlemanly manners, he cleaned the bones off the silverfish in a small dish and placed it in front of him: "Try it."
Ying Shixue's expression was indifferent, and she didn't glance at the dish at all throughout the entire process.
“Alright,” Xi Bojian withdrew his hand with some regret and shrugged, “Then perhaps I should ask you, why did you expose Shen Shaocui prematurely, causing our plan to fail at the last minute?”
“Shin So-choi has been with SK for too long. He tampered with the chip code. Even if I don’t expose it at the press conference, SK’s inspection department will eventually intercept it. If they really investigate, they will also trace it back to you.”
"Oh?" Xi Bojian raised an eyebrow slowly as he listened. "Aren't you afraid that he'll expose you in the same way?"
Ying Shixue gently shook her head, her tone casual yet firm and undeniable: "He has no evidence."
Xi Bojian stared at him, the smile slowly fading from his face, revealing his inherent gloom.
Ying Shixue's expression remained unchanged: "One month from now, I will be transferred to SK Haizhou branch as CEO."
"President Xi, you won't regret this choice, which is a brief and minor setback, but also an opportunity to truly begin getting closer to SK's core."
Ying Shixue slightly raised his chin, his expression and body language flawless. However, as Xi Bojian looked at him, a very, very strange expression gradually appeared on his face. After a moment, he finally smiled slightly, his tone leisurely as if dissipating into the boundless night: "Xiao Qi, you really have forgotten everything."
"What's wrong with you?" Ying Shixue gave him one last cold look, got up and left. Her bodyguards in black tried to stop her, but Xi Bojian raised his hand to signal them to stop. He propped one cheek up with his hand and watched Ying Shixue's departing figure.
-
"You are...?" Before he could finish speaking, the boy in the white T-shirt was grabbed by the neck and pinned behind a tree.
"Shut up." The boy in front of me had dirt on his face that he hadn't had time to wipe off, and he was wearing an ill-fitting white lab coat. His face was so thin that he was almost unrecognizable, except for his strikingly bright black eyes.
At that moment, she fiercely pinned him against the tree: "Who are you? What are you doing here?"
The tension on her neck didn't ease; in fact, it seemed to be tightening even more. Li Jian felt like she couldn't breathe. The boy in front of her was clearly extremely tense. Perhaps he wasn't even aware of his own action; all his muscles were taut with alertness.
"I...I didn't," Li Jian said, raising his hands and managing to squeeze out a few syllables from under the pressure on his neck, "malice..."
Suddenly feeling a release in his throat, Li Jian fell to the ground, coughing and his vision blurred.
His mother abandoned him alone in the Xi family and ran away with a huge sum of hush money. The Xi family members, who were arrogant and servile towards him, made things difficult for him at every turn. He couldn't stand it anymore, so he stole the money and ran away.
Halfway there, his money was stolen and he got lost. Hungry and tired, he struggled on and somehow ended up in this wilderness. Then, suddenly, this person who appeared out of nowhere grabbed him by the neck.
The person in front of him seemed to be confirming the credibility of his words, and after a moment, finally looked away wearily: "This is not a place for you, get out of here."
Why? Li Jian got up from the ground. He hadn't noticed before, but now he realized that the little boy was probably younger than him. He wasn't wearing shoes, and his bare calves and forearms were covered with scratches from branches and grass. He didn't know how long he had been stumbling along, but he was almost completely exhausted.
Before he could think further, a series of chaotic sounds suddenly came from afar.
The boy's expression changed instantly. It was hard to imagine that so many complex expressions could appear on a person's face at the same time. He looked around and finally pulled him down into the tree hole, covering the entrance with weeds.
The boy covered his mouth tightly. Although he remained calm throughout the entire process from noticing the noise to hiding in the tree hole, Li Jian could still clearly feel through his weak, thin arms that the other person's body was actually trembling slightly.
Are you scared...? He tilted his head, his peripheral vision catching a glimpse of a string of black numbers on the man's left shoulder: 00857
—
By the time we finally left the restaurant and returned to the Bauhinia Villa, it was nearly 10 p.m.
From the outside, the lights in the living room and study were indeed still on.
Ying Shixue stood downstairs for a while. The night was cool, and after standing there for a long time, it became increasingly unbearable.
He moved his slightly numb legs and walked up the stairs to his room.
However, he stopped moving as soon as he opened the door.
The bedroom lights were off, and Song Mingli sat comfortably on the edge of his bed, casually flipping through a book he had taken from the bookshelf.
The incandescent light shone obliquely into the corridor, making the man's face appear even more profound in the interplay of light and shadow. His brow bones were high and his nose was straight, creating a hazy shadow on his face. When he saw him enter, he lifted his eyelids slightly, revealing more of the whites of his eyes.
Those were eyes that seemed to emanate a beast-like aura in the darkness, radiating a chilling, eerie light.
Ying Shixue stood still at the doorway. A kind of innate, keen intuition for danger made all his alert organs scream for a moment, but reason told him that he could not turn around at this moment.
To an outsider, that pause would be completely unnoticed; it seemed as if he had been standing firmly at the door the whole time. Finally, after a moment, Song Mingli got up and walked towards him.
Ying Shixue turned slightly to the side and reached out to turn on the light.
Before my fingers could even touch the light switch, a large hand reached out and grabbed them, holding them in its palm.
After reaching adulthood, Song Mingli was over 1.9 meters tall, with broad shoulders, long legs, large and powerful hands, and long, slender fingers. It would be quite a sight to behold if he were working on documents with a pen during the day.
At this moment, he easily grasped Ying Shixue's hand, separated his five fingers, and forced each of his fingers to accept his own, and then continued to step forward.
Ying Shixue lowered his eyelashes and retreated little by little until he felt a chill on his right calf and shoulder at the same time—that meant he had retreated to the wall, or rather, he had been undeniably pushed to the wall by Song Mingli.
“Tell me,” Song Mingli said, toying with his fingers, “what did you and Xi Bojian talk about that night?”
This tells us that he met with Xi Bojian that night.
Ying Shixue turned her head away, her voice indifferent: "Some work-related matters."
Even in the dim light, he could vaguely see that Song Mingli raised an eyebrow: "What did he promise you?"
He asked this question, though he didn't really seem to be hoping for a reply from Ying Shixue. He continued to slowly play with his jade-like fingers, his tone casual yet revealing an undeniable coldness: "Whatever he promised, whatever he can give you, I can give you double, ten times over."
Song Mingli raised his other free hand and gently tucked the stray hairs on his forehead behind his ear. Finally, he slowly stroked his smooth, jade-like cheek, following the contour of his ear: "Don't go looking for him anymore, okay?"
Ying Shixue's eyelashes trembled. From Song Mingli's angle, one could see his skin, which appeared even whiter and glowing softly in the dark environment. His lips were thin, but he had a beautiful philtrum in the center.
He waited patiently and quietly for Ying Shixue's answer. A few seconds later, Ying Shixue shook her head slightly but very noticeably, and gently but firmly pressed her hand against his chest, preventing him from going any further.
The other person looked up at him, the surroundings were dim, and his face looked as if it had been washed, with a white tinge, and his eyes were like the most precious black gems: "Brother, I am an adult now."
He seemed to be stating some unavoidable fact: "My father promised me that a month later, I would be transferred to the position of CEO of SK Haizhou branch."
For a moment, Ying Shixue could almost feel the muscles in the person in front of him tense up. Song Mingli suddenly pressed his shoulder against the wall: "You're going to Haizhou?!"
“Yes,” Ying Shixue looked directly at him, “at least for the next year…”
"I won't allow it!" Song Mingli interrupted him before he could finish, his voice urgent and filled with barely concealed anger: "Deda's business school is no worse than Haida's. If you want to achieve something, I can transfer you directly to the main campus. Why do you want to go to such a far away place?"
Ying Shixue's brows and eyes seemed to be sculpted from ice and snow: "I can't live under your wings forever."
"Why not? I've raised you like a precious treasure since you were little, not so you could run off to work day and night for this lousy company!"
"What did Xi Bojian say to you? Or did someone say something unsubstantiated? Tell me."
Ying Shixue closed her eyes, seemingly unable to bear it any longer, and suddenly pushed him away, shouting, "Song Mingli!"
Caught off guard, Song Mingli was indeed pushed back a step, and after regaining his footing, he looked at him.
Ying Shixue's clothes were already a little disheveled from the struggle, and her eyes were sharp and piercing: "We are all sons of the Song family. You are not the only one with the right to inherit, but I am too."
These words were like a thunderclap, suddenly illuminating the hideous truth that had been hidden beneath the facade of warmth. The once powerful and aristocratic families, from their impoverished beginnings to their gradual rise to power, had been plagued by bloody and brutal power struggles with each successive generation. Brothers became enemies, sisters turned against each other. When Song Mingli was five years old, Song Qi ascended to the throne, and after that, he never saw any of his relatives within two generations again.
These words were like a resounding slap across his face; Song Mingli could even hear the loud crack in the air—*slap*.
Ying Shixue sneered, as if that wasn't enough: "Don't you understand? In matters like this, I've never treated you like a brother."
“You’ve never treated me like a brother…” Song Mingli lowered his head and read the sentence aloud. After a while, he suddenly looked up, a cruel tenderness showing between his brows. This was clearly inconsistent with his handsome appearance, yet it reminded people of a young girl looking at her lover with lingering resentment.
The next second, Song Mingli grabbed his chin and leaned in, kissing him hard on the lips with a fierce intensity:
"Perfect timing, I've long since stopped wanting to be your older brother."
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