“Xu brat? Xu brat?!”
“…Huh? Elder Cen, I’m listening.”
“I’m heading back to A City immediately. Keep that person here, don’t let them leave.”
“What do you want to do?”
“Ahem! There are fewer and fewer people in this line of work. I have to meet them.” Maybe even have a little sparring session.
Xu Yao: “Alright, I’ll wait for you to return.”
…
Under the same night sky, in a top-floor suite of a five-star hotel in A City—
“Useless! You’re all a bunch of useless trash!” The sound of objects being thrown accompanied a woman’s furious scolding, smashing straight toward the bodyguards lined up in front of her.
A dozen large men stood silently, heads bowed, enduring the reprimand.
Lou Mingxin snapped, “You can’t even handle such a simple task! What’s the point of keeping you around? Just to waste food?!”
“…”
“A whole group of you, against two people, and you still ended up injured and in the hospital?! You set fire to a slum area, alarmed the fire department and the police—why don’t you just announce to the world that it was you?!”
“…”
“I told you to intercept and kill them immediately! Do you even understand what ‘immediately’ means? You should have acted the moment they left the auction house! But what did you do? You let them escape into the slums, caused all this chaos, and now tell me—who’s actually giving the orders here?!”
“…”
“Get out! All of you, get out!”
Seeing their blank faces only fueled her rage further.
The dozen bodyguards exited in single file—
“What the h*ll?!”
“She wanted to kill them and steal the goods right outside the auction house, making it obvious as h*ll. We waited until they got farther away before taking action—what’s wrong with that?”
“There are surveillance cameras everywhere outside the auction house. If the police got involved, who do you think she’d throw under the bus?”
At the mention of “scapegoat,” everyone fell silent.
Someone muttered, “I wonder how Ah Wei’s doing in there… if he’s been beaten up yet…”
“Alright, pull yourselves together. She’s still our employer; don’t make it too ugly.”
Only then did the group stop grumbling, though the resentment lingered.
Inside the room—
The secretary cautiously handed over a glass of water. “Please don’t be angry. Have some water.”
Lou Mingxin took it, sipped, and placed it on the table. Her chest still heaved with anger, clearly not calmed yet.
“What’s the point of this?” The secretary stood behind her, carefully massaging her shoulders while speaking in a soothing voice. “Getting so worked up over a bunch of incompetent fools isn’t worth it.”
Lou Mingxin suppressed her frustration, but the wrinkles on her forehead remained. Age had taken its toll; she didn’t recover as quickly as she used to.
“No Red Jade, no Yuan Qinghua—what am I supposed to use to get into Jufeng’s circle? I don’t dare compete with the authorities for the Yuan Qinghua, but Yufeng Group? What are they to me? Should I be afraid of them?”
The secretary didn’t dare reply. Cold sweat soaked his back, but his hands continued their careful massage.
“They stole it, fine—but in broad daylight? How bold do they have to be?! The key was to take the Red Jade back! And those fools couldn’t even manage that, letting them escape!”
The secretary’s eyes darted around. “Should we send more people—”
“Send more my *ss! The goods are long gone.”
“How? It’s only been a day. Even if they’re selling it, it wouldn’t happen so fast.”
“Heh, selling? Why bother? They just handed it directly to Xu Yao. He already wanted that piece of Red Jade —someone delivering it to his doorstep? No way he’d pass that up.”
“This guy is really… cunning!” The secretary gritted his teeth.
But also d*mn smart.
He knew he couldn’t keep it, so he quickly passed it off. Not only did he get rid of the hot potato, but he also ensured his own safety.
As for giving it to Xu Yao—that was the truly brilliant move.
In all of A City, Xu Yao was the one person Lou Mingxin couldn’t touch, nor afford to offend.
“So now we…”
Lou Mingxin took a deep breath. “Get ready. We’re heading back to the capital tomorrow.”
“I thought it was the day after?”
“Plans have changed. Jufeng won’t budge without seeing something solid. Without Xu Yao’s backing, Chairman Xu won’t even agree to meet me. What’s the point of staying? To watch these idiots stuff their faces?”
Uh!
The secretary’s face froze awkwardly. “Then… I’ll go ahead and book the flight?”
“Mm. You can leave now.”
The secretary exited the room.
Lou Mingxin rubbed her temples. The pain was pulsing and relentless.
She couldn’t stop thinking about that man who came out of nowhere, snatched the red jade right from under her, and ruined her entire plan…
A flash of murderous intent passed through her dark eyes, but she quickly forced it down.
Now that Xu Yao had won the red chalcedony, out of principle, he would probably want to protect the seller. More importantly, no one knew whether the two of them had made some kind of private deal.
If she acted rashly, she might end up offending the entire Xu family.
If it were somewhere else, Lou Mingxin might not have cared so much—but this was A City, Jufeng’s territory. Caution was key.
Thinking it through, she could only grit her teeth and temporarily let it go.
Her head throbbed even more. She got up and went into the bathroom to take a hot bath and relax a little.
But just then, several dark figures silently slipped in from the room next door…
Twenty minutes later, Lou Mingxin stepped out of the bathroom wrapped in a towel. She had just sat down on the bed and was about to call the front desk to arrange a massage therapist for a spa treatment, when—
In the next second, darkness suddenly enveloped her. Something was thrown over her head.
“Hel—” She had barely spoken one word when her mouth was stuffed, and she could only make muffled, garbled noises.
Then, a flurry of punches rained down on her—on her body, her head, especially her face…
Lou Mingxin tried to fight back, but she was effectively blinded, no help came no matter how she tried to cry out. The moment she sat up, she was kicked down again, and the blows came fast and mercilessly, not giving her a moment to breathe.
No one knew how long the one-sided beatdown lasted. Eventually, the shadows slipped away just as silently as they came, vanishing without a trace.
In the large suite, all that remained was the faint and eerie sound: “Mmm—mmm—mmm—”
Unfortunately, it was too quiet for anyone to notice.
If someone had walked in just then, they would’ve seen the once proud and fierce woman, cold and ruthless to the extreme, now squirming inside a sack like a helpless worm.
Wretched. Humiliating.
She finally struggled free from the sack and yanked the thing out of her mouth—only to realize something was very wrong with the smell. She focused her eyes, and the next second nearly passed out.
It was… someone’s stinky sock.
That’s what had been shoved in her mouth just now—and now she was still holding it in her hand!
“AHHHHH—!” She couldn’t take it anymore and let out a shrill scream.
Out in the other room, the secretary who’d been busy booking the flight finally realized something was off. He rushed in, “President Lou, are you—”
He only took two steps in before catching sight of the figure by the bed. He froze on the spot, eyes wide in disbelief like he’d been struck by lightning.
Th-This… this bruised, swollen pig-headed person—who the h*ll was that?
“What are you standing there for?! Come help me up!”
Only then did the secretary snap out of it and scramble forward in a panic. “P-President Lou… how did this happen?”
“F-Find… f-find out who did this to me— I ab-absolutely won’t let them get away with it!!”
