Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Li Yili grabbed Xia Yinxi’s arm, awkwardly laughing: “I’ll take him to get the car fixed, hahahaha!”

“Come on, let’s go!” Li Yili pushed the pitiful little electric scooter and called out to Xia Yinxi.

“What about Mr. Ji’s father…”

“Forget that, let’s bolt!”

“…Is this really okay?”

The two bantered back and forth as they walked away. Ji Yunzhuo had someone clean up the ashes. A servant trotted over, hesitated, and asked, “Young master, should I sweep it all away?”

“Sweep it.”

Ji Yunzhuo didn’t look at the pile of ashes again, but instead glanced at Xia Yinxi, who was already far off, before turning his gaze away after a moment.

He really was good-looking.

Xia Yinxi’s face was still clearly imprinted in his mind. His phone rang, snapping him out of it. Ji Yunzhuo answered the call annoyed, and the old man’s voice came on the line: “Did you bring your father’s ashes back?”

“Clang!” The servant dumped the last dustpan full of ashes into the trash can. Ji Yunzhuo replied flatly, “Mm.”

“You little brat! I told you to bring the ashes home right after the cremation, but you took off without a word and left your father at the crematorium for seven days!”

Ji Yunzhuo walked toward the villa, phone in hand: “Work’s been busy.”

“Too busy to spare twenty minutes?!”

“Nope.”

There was a pause on the other end, like the old man was too mad to talk. After a long moment, he switched topics: “Did you find that girl I told you to look for?”

“No.”

“Did you even look?!”

Ji Yunzhuo brushed it off: “Yeah.”

A few months back, Grandpa Ji almost fell in the water and was saved by a young girl, who ended up falling in the river herself saving him. Grandpa got so spooked he ended up in the hospital, and when he remembered the incident, he immediately told Ji Yunzhuo to find her and thank her right.

It was the right thing to thank her, and Ji Yunzhuo wouldn’t refuse to help. But Grandpa kept bugging him to spend more time with her, going on about how she was a good kid—pretty and strong.

Ji Yunzhuo’s parents had a business marriage. After they had him, they went their separate ways. His father got hit with a romantic obsession, ditched the company and ran off with someone, wandered the world for sixteen years and only came back as a corpse.

Thanks to his parents’ history, Ji Yunzhuo had no interest in marriage—he was even kind of against it. But Grandpa Ji worried that when he was gone, Ji Yunzhuo would end up alone, so he kept pushing him to find a partner. Fed up, Ji Yunzhuo simply stopped going home.

He’d been dodging Grandpa for over a month when the old man, while the butler wasn’t watching, fell into the water.

Grandpa was in poor health, and Ji Yunzhuo didn’t want to upset him. He said “fine, fine, I’ll find her and meet her,” but really, he just had his assistant thank her, transfer money for hospital bills, medical costs, and emotional damages, and never brought it up again.

But his assistant said the girl’s parents turned down all the transfers, saying they got that Grandpa’s health was bad so he couldn’t show up, and they never reached out again.

Turns out, Grandpa was still hung up on it.

Ji Yunzhuo pulled out his phone and called his assistant, telling him to ask Grandpa’s rescuer if she had a boyfriend.

The assistant seemed shocked, hesitating for the first time as he asked, “Mr. Ji, isn’t that… kind of rude?”

Besides, he only had the parents’ number—asking that would get him yelled at!

“Just ask.”

“…Okay, Mr. Ji.”

-

The two guys who’d dodged a scolding chatted for a bit and hit it off, exchanging contact info and feeling like they were long-lost buddies. Li Yili loaded the electric scooter into the Maybach’s trunk and opened the passenger door for Xia Yinxi.

“You’re way too nice!” Xia Yinxi felt flattered, got in, and buckled his seatbelt. “By the way, who named you?”

Li Yili started the car and said casually, “My mom, why?”

“Has your mom ever heard a song?”

“What song?”

Xia Yinxi hummed softly: “Li li li li li li li~ li li li li li~ and the little yellow oriole that can sing~”

Li Yili froze for a moment, then burst out laughing: “Haha, my mom definitely hasn’t heard that!”

“You’re too

funny. Hey, is your job just delivering food? Why don’t you come be my secretary?” Li Yili was eager. “We can take on my brother together.”

Xia Yinxi’s ears perked up with interest: “Take on? Is it some family feud?”

“I can’t out-argue him, and I think you could help me.”

“…”

So that’s what he meant.

Xia Yinxi declined: “I think delivering food is fine.”

Li Yili was skeptical: “Really? But this one delivery took you three whole hours. The only reason my brother didn’t say anything is because you were delivering to my uncle.”

Xia Yinxi: “…”

He was just a directionally challenged person who trusted his navigation completely—what was his fault? The map app had betrayed his trust!

Xia Yinxi changed the subject: “Your family has interesting naming. You’re called Li Li Li, and your brother is called Ji Shao Shao.”

For a moment, he wasn’t sure which name was more embarrassing.

Li Yili paused at this, looking at him with a complicated expression: “My brother’s name is Ji, Yun, Zhuo.”

He enunciated the name slowly and clearly, then said with lingering fear: “I was afraid you’d get slapped into the wall by him just now. Who told you his name was Ji Shao Shao?”

“?”

“!”

“…The delivery order.”

Xia Yinxi covered his face, hoping he would never see Ji Yunzhuo again in this lifetime.

Too awkward.

"Don't ever see my brother again. He holds a grudge forever."

Li Yili parked the car, opened the trunk, and lifted out the small electric scooter. A staff member immediately came out to take it, hesitantly eyeing the Maybach a few times.

Drives a car like that but rides a 1,500-yuan scooter?

The scooter had only been bought a day ago. The shop owner checked it and found no major issues, and swapped the trunk for free, no questions asked.

Xia Yinxi hopped on the scooter, satisfied. "Not bad, it's as good as new."

Li Yili, clearly relieved he'd done what Ji Yunzhuo asked, said, "Are you going back to work?"

"Yeah, I'm going back." Xia Yinxi waved at him. "Thanks for the ride. Tell your brother I'm sorry."

No new orders came in for a while. Xia Yinxi rode the scooter around like a tourist, enjoying the scenery, until he parked under a big locust tree to escape the sun. Suddenly, it hit him: "I forgot to hit 'confirm delivery' again!"

System: "..."

Just then, his phone rang. Meng Shuxue's urgent voice came through: "Xiaoxi? Where did you go?"

"Mom?" Xia Yinxi forced out the word awkwardly, instinctively squeezing the scooter's brake. "I'm outside, just taking a stroll."

"You scared me half to death." Meng Shuxue was almost in tears. "Why didn't you tell me you were going out?"

Xia Yinxi apologized meekly: "Sorry, I'll head back now."

"No, no, I'm not yelling at you or trying to get you home." Meng Shuxue quickly said. "It's just that you just got better, and your dad and I are really worried. It's hot outside, don't stay out too long."

"Got it."

After hanging up, Xia Yinxi sighed and cursed the original owner out, fuming: "He doesn't know how good he has it!!"

Where else can you find a mom this awesome? If he doesn't want her, I'll take her!

The system chimed in: "For real, for real!"

Xia Yinxi closed the delivery app and biked home.

He had taken two orders today, making 2,997 yuan—3,000 from delivering Ji Yunzhuo's urn, and losing 3 yuan on the first late delivery.

Xia Yinxi got lucky; no one else had grabbed that order, so the crematorium staff haggled for a higher fee with Ji Yunzhuo's assistant, and he was the first to snag it.

The system marveled: "Money's great."

Xia Yinxi, riding the scooter through the streets, totally lost, muttered offhand: "I wanna steal his fortune."

System: "...What are you doing? Aren't you going home?"

"Home's this way, right? Why can't I find my way out?!"

"..."

Xia Yinxi had zero sense of direction and could only navigate by street-side landmarks. If a shop he used as a landmark ever closed, he'd probably never find his way home.

Having just been thrown into this world a few days ago, he didn't know anything, which made it worse. The useless system couldn't even load a map, so Xia Yinxi went by memory and kept heading the wrong way.

As he rode, a rich floral smell drifted from somewhere. The scooter slowly entered a narrow lane, revealing a wall covered in pink-and-green roses, the fragrance even stronger.

"Wow—" Xia Yinxi took a deep breath, the smell of flowers and grass lingering in his nose, making the blazing heat feel less brutal.

The system also gasped: "Whoa—"

"What a beautiful view." Xia Yinxi slowed down, feeling better from the flower smell.

"So beautiful." The system repeated, then asked, "Did we pass this flower wall on the way here?"

Xia Yinxi: "..."

"Ah!!!!!"

When will this endless wandering stop?!

Let me go home!!

As the guy and the system bickered in his head, muffled voices came from the end of the alley. Xia Yinxi held his breath and heard a guy ask: "When are you divorcing your husband?"

Xia Yinxi: "?"

System: "You've walked in on another cheating scene..."

In typical novel plots, knowing too much gets you killed. Xia Yinxi fought the urge to gossip, gunned the throttle, and sped off.

As the sun was setting, Xia Yinxi finally found his way home. Seeing the familiar villa gate, he almost cried from relief.

System: "Finally."

Xia Yinxi: "When will you download a map? What good are you!"

System: "QAQ"

"You're back." Xia Yucheng was reading the paper in the living room. Seeing Xia Yinxi's slightly red face, he frowned. "Did you get sunburned? Old Zhou, get the doctor!"

"No need, no need!" Xia Yinxi stopped the butler, Uncle Zhou. "I'll just wash my face, I'll be fine. Uncle Zhou, don't bother."

His skin was fair, so a little sun exposure made it red, but it looked worse than it was and would fade on its own.

Xia Yucheng was still uneasy, putting down the paper: "Are you sure you're okay?"

"Really, I'm fine." Xia Yinxi felt both amused and touched. The original body's parents really spoiled him.

Ungrateful brat!

Back in the massive bedroom, Xia Yinxi pushed open the bathroom door and was stunned. The bathroom was a whole other world—huge, with a bathtub big enough to raise a shark.

A servant knocked on the door and asked: "Young master, should I fill the bathtub?"

Xia Yinxi raised his voice: "No need, I'll just take a quick shower."

Filling that bathtub would probably take from the dawn of time.

Damn rich kid, so extra.

The system rustled through pages in Xia Yinxi's mind: "Strange, why don't you have a mission? If you don't have one, what am I doing here?"

After a few days together, Xia Yinxi had grown tolerant of this unreliable system and comforted it: "Look on the bright side, isn't this just slacking off at work?"

System: "Oh yeah, hehe."

"Were you just flipping through a book? Why isn't it the sound of a keyboard anymore?"

"I just found the sound effects menu! I can even switch it to bird chirps!"

"Then just stick with the page-turning sound."

At dinner, Meng Shuxue came home with a weird look on her face. Xia Yinxi picked up a piece of fish for her and asked softly, "Mom, are you in a bad mood?"

"No, I'm not." Meng Shuxue smiled. "It's just that the assistant of the old man you saved recently has been acting strangely. He asked me if you were planning to get a boyfriend."

She ate the fish and added, "How weird—who asks someone if their son is looking for a boyfriend?"

Xia Yucheng frowned again. "That assistant said the old man wanted to pay Xiaoxi compensation for mental distress and medical expenses. I had them turn it down. Why would he suddenly ask something like that?"

Meng Shuxue speculated, "Could it be they've got a grandson in a coma at home waiting for a lucky marriage to wake him up?"

"..."

Xia Yucheng paused, opened his mouth, then said nothing.

If he said anything, he'd get hit again, so he kept his mouth shut.

Xia Yinxi said it for him: "Mom, can you please uninstall that short drama app?"