“This way, please.”
President Song led Qi Yuan into the depths of the corridor, then he pushed open the door to the last private room.
“Brother Xiong, Anzhi, take a look what a fine day it is today, we have a distinguished guest visiting.”
Wu Xiong and Kong Anzhi put down their wine glasses. The two of them got up to greet the guest, but their expressions froze for a moment when they saw who it was.
“What a rare visitor indeed.”
“I’ve long heard of your great deeds, and today I finally get to meet you.”
“Still, they didn’t say anything specific. Why did Qi Yuan come to see them?”
Big talkers, little doers.
Qi Yuan nodded calmly in greeting, “Sorry to disturb you two.”
“No, not at all.”
The two of them smiled brightly, but their eyes drifted toward President Song.
“Old Song, what’s going on?”
Song Jing shook his head and said, “Come, let’s sit and chat.”
“We wouldn’t dare accept such an honor.”
The three men were well informed. Things went smoother than imagined, and Qi Yuan didn’t want to waste time or interfere with their business.
Keep a line open for future relationships.
He had just sat down when a glass of wine was placed in front of him. Qi Yuan quickly waved it away, “No need, I’ll only take a few minutes of your time to say what I came here for, then I’ll be on my way.”
They came from the same family, but Qi Yuan’s emotional intelligence was still a bit higher than the rest of his family. He knew how to make small talk, but he reacted poorly in the moment, otherwise he wouldn’t have just parroted his teacher’s words.
Moreover, he had always believed in a simple truth: Proper socializing benefits you, excessive socializing harms you.
He could make others more comfortable, but why make himself exhausted?
Finding a balance where both sides could save face and move on.
That's good enough.
These three reacted quickly as well. To become local overlords, they knew how to match their words to each personality.
Since the Golden Eyes wanted to be brief, they wouldn't insist on being annoying hosts. All three put on listening faces.
Wu Xiong, as representative, said "Please go ahead."
“Thank you. Let me ask, were the Hibiscus Noodles your own research product, or did someone else sell it to you?”
Qi Yuan cut straight to the core without beating around the bush.
“This...”
The three men's faces didn’t look good. The beauty salon was just investigated by the Patrol Team, and now Qi Yuan showed up at their door. Anyone could guess the connection.
They respected the strong, but that didn’t mean they’d smile after being slapped.
No matter if it was true or not, Wu Xiong immediately denied it and brushed it aside.
“You jest. Hibiscus Noodles are mutated plants, they have no relation to human bones.”
“Yes, we’ve sold a lot of Hibiscus Noodles with no problems at all.”
“And we’ve never fed any corpses.”
President Song and Kong Anzhi chimed in to add details.
After speaking, they were certain Hibiscus Noodles couldn't be implicated.
This was a big deal, so the alertness of the Patrol Team and Golden Eyes was understandable. Since it wasn't a deliberate targeting of them, the three let go of their earlier displeasure for now.
Qi Yuan remained silent, quietly listening to their thoughts and piecing together useful information from the fragments.
The atmosphere chilled again. Wu Xiong and the others grew somewhat uneasy.
Unlike earlier when they had taken the initiative to demonstrate their power, this time they were passive.
A few awkward glances were exchanged in the silence.
Under the tense atmosphere, they also started reflecting whether they had overlooked any suspicious points, or if there was anything off about the Hibiscus Noodles.
So they discovered in horror that there were indeed many questionable things.
Fan Gu, the supplier, had said the delicate flowers needed professional care. They needed to provide Fan Gu with customer lists for home visits and maintenance.
Additionally, Fan Gu mentioned that to protect trade secrets, they would need to provide transportation channels for him. Thinking carefully, these channels included hospitals, funeral homes, and routes in and out of the city.
They had coveted Fan Gu's trade secrets before, but failed in their attempts to steal them several times. His strength was considerable.
Now in retrospect, with such great power, why didn't he cooperate with officials?
Instead he approached them specifically.
For certain reasons, mass production of the plants was not possible. But what were those reasons?
And so on. The three felt chills down their necks.
They had been living well as local emperors in Qipan City. Raising monsters brought them no benefits, only harm.
Getting involved in something this big meant they couldn't even keep their Esper identities.
Dragon Country had zero tolerance for raising monsters.
They could investigate this matter later, but for now they absolutely could not admit to anything.
However, Qi Yuan leisurely spoke words that made their hearts tighten.
“The intel I received said that you provided them a route including hospitals, funeral parlors, and exits from the city. And you say there's no problem with this?”
It was intel he just received, so Qi Yuan used it directly.
These people still wanted to conceal information and sever ties, unlike him pretending to be arrogant. They really saw themselves as ancestors.
Qi Yuan found his own mentality wasn't as good as he thought.
The three were crafty and still didn’t plan to cooperate even after he pointed out the problem. They just wanted to shift blame.
Initially he had only come to gather some information without risk, and now he was certain something was wrong.
Qi Yuan didn't want to beat around the bush with them. He said it straight: “Report it now. If there really is a problem, you can redeem yourselves. But if you delay and cause serious losses, I will report you to the Patrol Team.”
After speaking, Qi Yuan realized he was getting carried away and not being rigorous enough, so he added, “Of course, it would be best if there is no problem.”
Having obtained the information, he had shot his mouth off. What was he waiting for if not a quick escape to seek the authorities’ protection?
After he left, Song Jing and Kong Anzhi looked to their big brother, waiting for his decision.
Wu Xiong was silent for a long time. He picked up the wine bottle on the table and chugged half of it, then smashed the bottle down.
“Find Guo Bureau!”
“Brother Xiong, should we really do this?”
“Yes, the Patrol Team must be even more anxious than us. We can still negotiate if we drag our feet.”
Wu Xiong raised his hand to stop their words: “The Eldest Young Master Qi already found out about our transportation route with Fan Gu. Do you still want to cling to false hopes and cut off your own retreat?”
President Song and the other opened their mouths to speak, but were interrupted by Wu Xiong again.
He pointed at the table, breaking down his concerns for them to understand.
“Young Master Qi came today to remind us to cooperate properly, redeem ourselves, and they’ll let us off easy afterwards. Losing face is a small matter, think carefully, if something really happens, even if we run away, can we defend against the Qi family taking revenge?”
m back to his original world. In the end, he realized he had overthought things. [Hey, why is Shen Manni, the female lead, acting strange? Shouldn't she be fawning over the male lead at this point?] [Zhou Qiaoqiao, are you sick? Weren't you supposed to break off your engagement today?] [Damn it! An Youyi, please do your job as an undercover agent and sell my information to the protagonist, you idiot!] ... At this moment, Xu Mo himself didn't know that these female leads had already heard his inner thoughts. Then they decided not to play by the rules. Xu Mo: Please respect my profession as the big villain!
ave】 Shen Qingling was a man with peerless looks, a cunning mind, and the ability to play both the aloof noble and the innocent sweetheart—a master of seduction who could outplay any player. But after an untimely death, he found himself bound to a system and transmigrated into the tragic "true young master" of a melodramatic novel. In the original story, his childhood sweetheart treated him as a backup plan, his fiancée swore to break off their engagement for the sake of the "fake young master," and his own sister saw him as the family's disgrace. He was nothing more than a rat everyone wanted to stomp on. System 077: "Your mission is to change the original fate and conquer the goddesses." Shen Qingling: "Thanks for the invite. If seduction had tiers, I’d be max level." His childhood sweetheart knelt, begging for forgiveness: "Qingling, I was wrong. Please give me another chance." His ex-fiancée refused to marry anyone else: "Shen Qingling, I was blind before. In this life, I’ll marry no one but you." A yandere CEO went mad for love: "Shen Qingling, you can only like me. I’ll stop at nothing to make you mine!" His green-tea sister clung to him daily: "Brother, look at me, won’t you? I’m more obedient than them—I love you the most~" At first, they scorned and trampled on him. Later, they burned themselves like moths to a flame, all for his sake. His looks were his weapon, his sweet words the bait—heroines obsessed over him, villains turned to madness for him. Shen Qingling became a true male siren, igniting battlefield after battlefield of women fighting for his affection. Years later, when System 077—now one of the elites—was asked how to become as outstanding as it, it lazily exhaled a smoke ring and replied: "Just know how to cheer ‘666’ at the right time."
d intelligence to keep the plot moving, and sometimes even the protagonists are forced into absurdly dumb decisions. Why does the A-list celebrity heroine in urban romance novels ditch the top-tier movie star and become a lovestruck fool for a pockmarked male lead? Why do the leads in historical tragedy novels keep dancing between love and death, only for the blind healer to end up suffering the most? And Gu Wei never expected that after finally landing a villain role to stir up trouble, she’d pick the wrong gender! No choice now—she’ll just have to crush the protagonists as a girl!
e school belle recognized by the whole school, a genius girl from the kendo club. She also has a hidden identity, the youngest legendary demon hunter. Chen Shuo just transmigrated and found himself turned into a weak, helpless little vampire. He was caught by Su Xiyen and taken home at the very beginning. Since then, Chen Shuo's life creed only had two items. "First, classmate Su Xiyen is always right." "Second, if classmate Su Xiyen is wrong, please refer back to item one." Many years later, Chen Shuo, who had turned back into a human, led a pair of twins to appear in front of all the vampires to share the secret of how he turned back into a human. "It's simple, I tricked a female demon hunter into becoming my wife!"
