Xiao Ran revealed a faint smile and then said, "I went out for a drink."
Ye Chen opened the rear car door and got in. "With who?"
"Who else could I drink with? By myself, of course."
Looking straight ahead, Xiao Ran asked, "Where to? The hotel where the Dai family is staying?"
"Yeah."
Ye Chen gave a sound of agreement, then turned his gaze out the window.
He had a special kind of affection for Xiao Ran, not to mention that Meng Wanyue's betrayal this time had nothing to do with her.
He did feel that yelling at Xiao Ran earlier was unbecoming of him.
But for Ye Chen to apologize to Xiao Ran was even more impossible.
In no time at all, the two pulled up in front of the hotel's main entrance.
Ye Chen and Xiao Ran got out of the car together and headed upstairs.
"Dragon King, what if they refuse to hand it over?"
Xiao Ran looked at Ye Chen as they walked.
"Then we kill them. Zhong Qianqian has already taken control of all the cameras in the entire hotel. When we make our move tonight, I'll have her hack into the surrounding surveillance as well. As long as we don't cause mass casualties, the Cleaners won't interfere."
Ye Chen's expression was calm. "Families like this usually won't shed a tear until they see the coffin."
Taking the elevator to the floor just below the top, Ye Chen and Xiao Ran approached the guards.
"Are you still going to stop me this time?"
Ye Chen looked at the men expressionlessly.
The guards here turned pale and quickly stepped aside to clear the way.
The two of them took the stairs up to the top floor. The lock on the door here had already been repaired.
But with just a light touch of Ye Chen's hand, the lock cylinder was completely destroyed.
Pushing the door open, they found the massive living room completely empty.
Seeing this, Ye Chen frowned slightly.
Xiao Ran also noticed the situation inside. She immediately ran in and checked the surrounding rooms.
Opening the doors one by one, she found not a single soul.
"Dragon King, there's no one here."
Xiao Ran said as she walked out.
The first person who came to her mind was Xu Mu. But with Ye Chen's men surrounding the place, how could he have whisked this entire family away?
"That Zhong Qianqian! She can never get anything right and always ruins everything! I haven't even settled the score with her over the drug incident, and now she's causing me trouble again!"
Ye Chen's face was incredibly gloomy. Did she really think she held the same transcendent position in his heart as Xiao Ran did?
"Dragon King, I'll notify Zhong Qianqian immediately and check the nearby surveillance with her."
Xiao Ran said, taking out her phone.
"Tell her to come over while she checks. I gave her explicit orders to keep an eye on this place twenty-four hours a day, and I even specially dispatched a few people to assist her."
Ye Chen sat on the sofa, clenching his fists tightly.
Xiao Ran nodded in agreement and immediately notified Zhong Qianqian.
The two waited there for about twenty minutes before Zhong Qianqian rushed over in a panic, carrying her laptop.
"Dragon King."
Zhong Qianqian's legs were trembling. "This time it has nothing to do with me. There is absolutely no footage of them leaving on the cameras."
As she spoke, she quickly opened her laptop and played the surveillance video.
"Look, yesterday evening, Dai Xuan was still at the door, welcoming this man."
Zhong Qianqian said, pointing at the screen.
"Who is this? Have you investigated him?"
Ye Chen asked with a frown.
He thought it looked like Xu Mu, but upon closer inspection, the height was wrong. This person was clearly shorter.
Under normal circumstances, a person could use tools to make themselves taller, but they couldn't make themselves shorter.
On the surveillance footage, this person stood straight and wasn't slouching.
However, Xiao Ran, standing next to him, had a feeling that this person was Xu Mu.
Coupled with his cultivation technique that could alter his physique, it was highly likely him.
"I investigated. He came out of the underground parking garage, but there are many cars coming and going in there, so I couldn't trace his identity."
Zhong Qianqian explained.
"Keep playing."
Ye Chen said coldly.
"Yes."
Zhong Qianqian started playing the video at several times the normal speed. They found that after that, the Dai family never came out.
There were only a few security guards who occasionally knocked on the door to move furniture in and deliver food.
After that, they all left.
They didn't carry any furniture out either, so there was no possibility of people hiding inside furniture.
Later, the camera footage grew quiet with no one entering or exiting, right up until the present moment when Ye Chen and Xiao Ran came in.
"Could they have escaped through the window?"
Xiao Ran asked with a frown.
"No, look at this camera. It's located on a building a kilometer away and perfectly captures the back of this hotel."
Zhong Qianqian opened another video. "From yesterday until now, let alone a person, not even a bird flew out of there."
"Then what happened to them? A whole family like this, could they just grow wings and fly away? Zhong Qianqian, you must give me an explanation."
Ye Chen's expression was icy. "I haven't even settled the score with you over the last drug incident! Now you've created another mess for me. Are you going to pay the massive compensation owed for those drugs?"
"Dragon King! You can't falsely accuse me! The timestamp on this is crystal clear, without a single second of interruption. I don't know how they left, but I have strictly carried out the surveillance task you gave me. It's not my fault!"
Zhong Qianqian's face showed grief and indignation.
Because she was terrified of messing up the task, she hadn't even used the few people Ye Chen assigned to her. Instead, she stayed up all night consecutively, staring at the surveillance feeds herself.
In the end, Ye Chen was still blaming her. She felt it was unjust.
"Insolent! Zhong Qianqian, who gave you the nerve to speak to me like that?"
Ye Chen slapped Zhong Qianqian across the face so hard that her black-framed glasses went flying.
"If you ask me, you're also one of Xu Mu's people, aren't you? With your skills, fabricating a video would be a piece of cake."
Ye Chen glared coldly at Zhong Qianqian. "Let me tell you, you'd better pray I don't catch any evidence."
Zhong Qianqian covered her face, tears streaming uncontrollably from her eyes.
"Qianqian, even if they escaped, they should still be nearby. Go back and carefully check all the street surveillance in the surrounding area."
Xiao Ran walked up to Zhong Qianqian and said softly.
Biting her lip, Zhong Qianqian hugged her laptop and ran downstairs without looking back.
...
Meanwhile, Xu Mu was sitting in his car nearby, sensing the surroundings of the hotel.
The twenty-four hours Dai Xuan had mentioned was up today, so he had come early, knowing exactly what would transpire here.
He didn't expect to happen upon a wounded woman.
He loved saving people like this the most.
Truth be told, a master hacker like her was incredibly useful.
A short while later, Zhong Qianqian came out of the hotel's main entrance, wiping away her tears.
Just as she was about to hail a taxi, Xu Mu's car pulled up in front of her.
"Zhong Qianqian, need a ride?"
Xu Mu rolled down the window a third of the way.
Seeing it was Xu Mu, Zhong Qianqian instinctively wanted to run away, but she stopped after taking just one step.
She opened the rear door and sat in the back seat.
Xu Mu drove away from the area, glancing at Zhong Qianqian through the rearview mirror. "Why are you crying? Who bullied you?"
"I... I just cried because I was moved by a movie."
"So moved that you slapped yourself across the face, huh?"
Xu Mu asked with a smile.
Hearing this, Zhong Qianqian immediately took out her phone and used the screen as a mirror. Sure enough, she saw a bright red handprint on her face.
"Don't cry. If you're sad, I can lend you a hug."
Xu Mu started off with a cheesy pickup line.
ive and Ruthless] Before his transmigration, Ye Xuan was playing a game called "Severing Emotions to Attain the Dao." The game's core wasn't about leveling up by fighting monsters, but about conquering various "bad women" with wicked personalities and cold, fickle natures. There was only one method to conquer them: stay unwaveringly by their side, then die at a critical moment, driving them to madness after losing the protagonist. The higher their level of regret, the higher the player's score. To dominate the server, Ye Xuan conquered all the bad women. In the early stages, he showered them with boundless tenderness, only to choose to sacrifice himself for them later, making them weep bitterly and drown in regret. Among them were: Xia Lengyue, the unfaithful immortal wife who chased after powerful men and discarded her husband like trash. Ye Qingcheng, the Demonic Venerable of the Joyous Union Sect, who appeared pure and innocent but was, in reality, promiscuous. Wu Lingxiao, the Empress of the Great Xia Dynasty, who lusted after men and loved maintaining a harem. Bai Qiangu of the Endless Demonic Sect: a bloodthirsty mass murderer. However, when the protagonist transmigrated into the game world, he made a horrifying discovery. Eight hundred years had already passed. The bad women he had conquered had now each become deities and revered ancestors. Faced with the endless stream of toxic women coming for him, Ye Xuan could only rely on his god-tier acting skills to carve a path of survival through this world of treacherous women.
young master of the Shen family—a figure of immense power and wealth beyond measure—and awakened the "Destined Ultimate Villain System"! His starting scenario? Running into his icy fiancée who shows up with a mountain-descending divine doctor to break off their engagement. The divine doctor arrogantly taunts: "What does your Shen family have besides a bit of stinking money? You're not even worthy of tying Qingxue's shoelaces!" Shen Fei just smiled. He completely defied the usual script: "Fine, I agree to break off the engagement. Also, notify the finance department to withdraw all investments from the Su family." Minutes later, with its capital chain severed, the Su Group teetered on the brink of bankruptcy! The once aloof and proud ice queen CEO was thrown into utter panic. That very night, she went to Shen Fei's villa, casting aside all dignity to beg and plead desperately... From then on, in this world teeming with Sons of Destiny, Shen Fei embarked on a path of extreme dimensional suppression! A mountain-descending divine doctor? Peerless medical skills? Shen Fei: "Reporting you for practicing medicine without a license! I'll gladly take your ancient medicinal cauldron and twin sister assassins." The Crooked-Smiling Dragon King? Commanding a hundred thousand soldiers with a single order? Shen Fei: "Illegal assembly and suspected treason! Let a fleet of attack helicopters sanitize the area and teach you what the state apparatus really means!" A reborn tycoon? Knows all the golden opportunities of the next decade? Shen Fei: "A trillion in capital to reverse and pump the stock market, making you blow your margin and jump on the very first day of your rebirth!" What Chosen Ones? What bearers of Heavenly Fortune? In Shen Fei's eyes, they're all just chives (i.e., suckers/marks) waiting to be harvested! Shen Fei: "Sorry, but as the Destined Ultimate Villain, I don't play by the rules of honor. I only play the game of dimensional suppression."
close your eyes and open them again, only to find yourself transmigrated into the role of a villainous male supporting character. Readers familiar with urban wish-fulfillment novels know that it is only through the relentless antics of the villainous male supporting character that the plot between the male and female leads can progress. As the villainous male supporting character, Long Aotian not only has to bully the female lead, harass the second female lead, and flirt with the third female lead, but he also has to go all out to antagonize the male lead. In the end, when his body is discovered, he is still clutching half a moldy fried dough stick in his hand. Fully aware of the plot, Long Aotian is determined to change his fate, starting with the female lead! In the beginning, the female lead lacks confidence: "Big brother, I hope I didn't scare you?" In the middle, the female lead treads carefully: "Brother Long, please don't hit me, okay?" Later on, the female lead becomes coquettishly clingy: "Aotian, it's time to pay the 'public grain' tonight." Long Aotian's legs go weak, and he feels like crying: "I taught you to be thick-skinned, not shameless!"
ap a wealthy young lady? Or else I'll be eliminated by the system? Ye Feng, who awakened the Kidnapper System, originally wanted to live a peaceful life but never imagined he would become a kidnapper of young women. However, after some time, he discovered that all the girls the system ordered him to kidnap were far from ordinary. "Big brother Ye Feng~ You've kidnapped my heart, and now you're not allowed to leave me ever again~" "Ye Feng~ You kidnapped me back then, now it's my turn to capture you♡" "Little Feng, you're mine! You can only be mine!" "Ye Feng, none of them deserve you. Only I love you the most♡" ... This is madness, they've all gone mad! Wait, what? Why are all the girls I kidnapped yanderes?!
