Chapter 68

Chapter 68

"Mr. Yan, regarding the land on Lanxi Road from the last charity auction, the Bai family head won the bid at 300 million. Here are the land documents."

The assistant placed the file on the desk.

Xie Yunshen had nearly forgotten all about that.

Yan Shiqi took a glance. "Who was the original owner of this land?"

"It was originally a steel mill. More than ten years ago, the owner gambled, incurred debts, and fled the country. The factory was abandoned. A few years ago, a fire gutted it, and it was later sold in a court-ordered auction."

"What was the owner's name?"

The assistant replied, "His last name was Lin. Since he was the ninth child in his family, most locals called him by his nickname, Pi Jiu."

Yan Shiqi looked surprised. "Pi Jiu..."

Xie Yunshen also looked at Yan Shiqi. "Is that the same Pi Jiu we know?"

Yan Shiqi picked up the file, his brow furrowed. "It's him. Why would Top Star Group use this piece of land to draw my attention?"

"What's the deeper connection between Pi Jiu and Shang Guanhong with Top Star Group?"

"But, Mr. Yan, last time when Shang Guanhong led you onto that truck, didn't you say you had already investigated Pi Jiu's affairs?"

Yan Shiqi: "No, I was bluffing him. In reality, I have no evidence at all. I just wanted him to be afraid of me."

Xie Yunshen: "..." So he planned to run a bluff from the very start?

Yan Shiqi looked at the assistant. "Are there any surviving relatives of Pi Jiu?"

"He has an elderly mother still living at home, said to be over eighty years old."

Yan Shiqi fell silent.

He lowered his head and put his head in his hand.

Xie Yunshen saw him wrestling with his thoughts. "Mr. Yan, maybe you should take a break?"

Yan Shiqi looked up at him. "Perhaps we should go have a look there."

"Where?"

"That piece of land."

Yi Wuyi was tied up with something else today, so only Xie Yunshen accompanied Yan Shiqi to the land near Linzhuang Cemetery.

Yan Shiqi first went to offer incense at his mother's grave. The land was less than two hundred meters away.

Yan Shiqi decided to walk instead of driving.

The two of them walked along a small path leading to the abandoned factory nearby.

This path seemed to have once been a bustling market street, but now it was desolate. The shopfronts were rusty and creaked in the wind.

You wouldn't think a bustling city like A had forgotten corners like this.

In this open area, the wind cut sharply into their faces. Unlike in the car or the office with heating, out here, they had to rely on their clothes to keep warm.

Xie Yunshen noticed Yan Shiqi was only wearing a suit. The tip of his nose was red, and the hair on the left side of his forehead was a bit messed up by the wind.

Suddenly, Xie Yunshen stepped around from behind him to walk backward in front of him, on his left side. He spread his suit jacket wide open to both sides.

Yan Shiqi looked at him. "What are you doing?"

"Mr. Yan, if I block the wind like this, it won't blow on you, right?"

Yan Shiqi paused, taken aback, then said, "I'm not cold."

"You're not cold? Your nose is red from the cold." Xie Yunshen was deeply skeptical. So even a big shot could be stubborn.

Yan Shiqi said, "What about you? Aren't you cold?"

Under his jacket, Xie Yunshen only had on a regular shirt. At least Yan Shiqi was wearing a vest underneath his.

"No, I'm really not cold. Taking cold showers every day, I'm used to it."

Yan Shiqi looked him over as they walked. "You look a lot like a bat."

Xie Yunshen continued walking backward and laughed. "No, I'd say I'm more like an eagle."

"Is that so? Like an eagle." Yan Shiqi walked, gazing into his eyes, which looked especially bright in the frozen world.

"Watch out for the telephone pole," he reminded him.

Xie Yunshen was too busy looking at him. By the time he was reminded, it was too late. His back bumped into the pole, and he stumbled forward, crashing right into Yan Shiqi. The open sides of his jacket wrapped around the big shot, pulling him into an embrace.

Xie Yunshen quickly stepped back and reached out to feel Yan Shiqi's forehead. "Mr. Yan, are you okay?"

For a moment, his cheek had collided with Yan Shiqi's forehead.

Yan Shiqi looked up at him, taking a moment before saying, "A forehead is such a hard place. The one who should be hurt is your face."

Xie Yunshen smiled. "That's fine. My face is pretty durable too."

They were very close. When he smiled, his breath turned into mist, dissipating around Yan Shiqi's sharply defined brows.

For the two hundred meters, Xie Yunshen shielded him from the wind like this until they reached the abandoned steel mill.

And Yan Shiqi kept watching him.

He didn't understand why he always had that kind of energy and vitality.

And how he always so easily made his troubled mood vanish without a trace.

Soon they arrived at the desolate plot.

The once-large factory was now just ruins and broken walls. The surrounding area was overgrown with waist-high weeds, with no clear path inside.

Xie Yunshen said, "Mr. Yan, are we still going in? There might be snakes."

Yan Shiqi said, "Let's go take a look."

Xie Yunshen had no choice but to lead the way. However, after only about the length of a large trailer truck, they reached the factory entrance.

The iron gate at the entrance was practically scrap metal. Xie Yunshen gave it a gentle push, and with a loud crash, it toppled over.

The scene inside was somewhat eerie, filled with the dark, hideous marks left behind by the fire.

Xie Yunshen turned his head to look at Yan Shiqi. "...Are we still going in?"

Yan Shiqi stepped into the factory. The sheet metal overhead was already run-down, and puddles of stagnant water were scattered across the ground.

Xie Yunshen watched as the verdant, overgrown plants encroached upon Yan Shiqi's high-end suit, with fine bits of fluff and sharp burrs clinging to his clothes and sleeves.

He watched as Yan Shiqi's custom-made leather shoes stepped into the foul, murky water, stirring up swarms of tiny mosquitoes.

Xie Yunshen took off his jacket and swished it through the air around Yan Shiqi, shooing the mosquitoes away.

"Mr. Yan, watch out. There are a lot of mosquitoes and insects here."

Truthfully, he couldn't figure out what Mr. Yan hoped to find here that he was looking for.

Yan Shiqi walked over to an abandoned old-fashioned furnace. Surprisingly, it hadn't been sold off. Xie Yunshen noticed the furnace was welded to an iron plate on the ground.

"There's something inside." Yan Shiqi reached out, made to reach into the furnace.

Xie Yunshen was startled. How could someone of his status do such dirty work? He hurriedly stopped him. "Let me handle this kind of work, okay?"

He used his phone's flashlight, reached inside, and actually managed to fish out something strange from the pitch-black interior wall.

He blew off the dust. It was a jade pendant.

"There are characters on it. Why would something like this be inside a furnace?"

Yan Shiqi took the pendant. "Pi Jiu probably hid it here temporarily before he fled. He knew this furnace couldn't be taken away, and no one would think to search inside one. He probably thought he could come back for it later."

"Then why didn't he just take it with him?"

Yan Shiqi looked at the character "Mo" on the pendant, his expression grave. He narrowed his eyes. "This was likely his final ace in the hole. After all, you shouldn't put all your eggs in one basket."

Xie Yunshen used his clothes to swat away the mosquitoes around them.

Though he didn't fully understand, he didn't ask further. "Mr. Yan, let's get out of here quickly."

His hands had already been bitten several times by mosquitoes.

The two retraced the path they had trampled on their way in.

The sky darkened quickly. The overgrown weeds made the path hard to see. Xie Yunshen, walking ahead, suddenly reached out his hand. "Mr. Yan, can I hold your hand?"

Yan Shiqi extended his hand and grasped his. Xie Yunshen immediately clasped the back of his hand, sighing in admiration. "As expected of a big shot. Even your hands are so warm. Your qi and blood must be very strong."

"..."

Yan Shiqi suddenly said, "A Shen."

"Hmm?"

"Has anyone ever confessed their feelings to you?"

"Why ask that all of a sudden?"

"Your focus and priorities are a bit different from most people's."

"Lao Wu has said the same about me. Confessions... I remember quite a few, but who they were, what they looked like... I've long forgotten."

Yan Shiqi fell silent.

Xie Yunshen led him through the tall grass.

He suddenly realized that Mr. Yan had been asking some strange questions lately.

He asked how old he was, if anyone had ever confessed to him... These weren't questions Mr. Yan, who had lived with the original host in the Yan family estate, should be asking.

Before, Mr. Yan even clearly knew the original host couldn't swim.

Was Mr. Yan suspecting him? After all, what Shi Xin said last time, and all his own unusual behavior, were highly suspicious.

If he confessed, how would Mr. Yan see him? Perhaps he'd think he was an outsider who had seized another's body and was enjoying a life that wasn't his own?

No, Mr. Yan wasn't that kind of person. He was intelligent and patient, always seeing the essence of things, not easily swayed by emotion, and he had always been reluctant to be harsh with him.

It was rare for Xie Yunshen to ponder so much, yet he couldn't reach a clear conclusion.

The driver had already brought the car to wait for them on the nearby main road.

Both their shoes were muddy, leaving prints on the car's floor mats.

Xie Yunshen lowered his head, carefully picking off the burrs and tiny thorns clinging to Yan Shiqi's clothes.

"These cocklebur thorns are really hard to remove once they stick to clothes or hair."

Yan Shiqi looked down at his focused expression, taking a deep breath in the cold air seeping through the car window.

"Actually, this isn't just a weed. It's a type of medicinal herb," Xie Yunshen continued on his own.

"You know about these things too?"

Xie Yunshen said casually, "Of course. Back in training camp, my wilderness survival class always got an A."

"Wilderness survival class?" Yan Shiqi repeated, his tone laden with meaning.

Xie Yunshen's hand stilled. *Seems I've slipped up.*

"Actually, it's just a figure of speech. Because I watch a lot of wilderness survival shows."

Xie Yunshen opened the car window, letting the seed fluff and thorns in his hand fly out.

Yan Shiqi looked at him. "Don't bother picking them off. We'll just change clothes when we get back."

"But I'm not used to seeing you like this, surrounded by thorns. It doesn't look comfortable at all."

Xie Yunshen's words flowed smoothly and naturally, as if stating an ordinary little fact.

His words were like water, softening Yan Shiqi's usually sharp and stern gaze. He asked, "Why do you say that?"

"It's about aesthetics, I suppose. When Mr. Yan sits there, dignified and proper, it gives off a very different feeling. If you're surrounded by thorns, doesn't it make the onlooker uncomfortable?"

Yan Shiqi gazed at him, as if seeing an extraordinary soul through the face before him.

Xie Yunshen looked up, plucked a small cluster of thorns from Yan Shiqi's hair, and suddenly pricked the back of his own hand with it.

Yan Shiqi snapped back to reality and looked at him, seemingly surprised that anyone would dare be so blatant with him.

Xie Yunshen smiled. "It hurts, right? If we don't remove it, it might prick your neck when you take your clothes off later."

Yan Shiqi's gaze gradually shifted to the lights outside the window. "You're right. I should take the initiative to remove the thorns, lest they prick my neck."

Xie Yunshen: "..."

Wait, what are you thinking of now?

Why does it sound like something major is about to happen?

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Author's Note: