Chapter 6

It was the first time Bu Chen had ever seen Jiang Yihao fly into such a rage, so he got up lazily.

"What's the matter? It's just a brooch."

Jiang Yihao ordered all the servants to search the house, and the atmosphere immediately grew tense. People crawled on their hands and knees, scouring every inch of the room inside and out, glancing up at the young master's expression from time to time.

Bu Chen watched for a while, then flopped back onto the bed. "With so many people and hands around yesterday, it's probably gone for good."

"Give it to me."

Jiang Yihao, who had been lying under the bed, slowly rose and extended his palm. His piercing gaze nearly bored through his friend's eyes.

"What?" Bu Chen didn't understand.

"The keys to my house." Jiang Yihao gritted his teeth, his eyes burning with fury.

Bu Chen thought he'd misheard and laughed. "You want to take back my keys?"

The servants nearby immediately stopped what they were doing and pricked up their ears. The young master was actually going to reclaim Bu Chen's keys over a brooch!

Everyone knew the two young masters were as close as could be. In the past, Bu Chen had done far worse things to the house, and the young master had never batted an eye. Today, he was actually threatening to kick Bu Chen out over a brooch.

For a moment, the servants were filled with trepidation, and they became even more careful with their movements, afraid of running afoul of the young master.

Bu Chen was used to his childhood friend's explosive temper, so he kept his feet propped up and his smile intact. "You, Jiang Yihao, can buy an entire industry chain in a minute. Why are you taking your bad temper out on me?"

Jiang Yihao stepped closer, his eyes darkening. "Give me the list from last night."

"What do you need the list for?"

"Stop the nonsense. Give me the list from last night." Jiang Yihao's patience was wearing thin.

Bu Chen saw that he was serious and lowered his voice. "Don't be an idiot. Who'd want your brooch? Are you going to search house by house?"

"If you don't find it, don't blame me for not honoring our brotherhood." Jiang Yihao grabbed Bu Chen's collar with a sharp motion, his knuckles turning white.

The atmosphere in the room instantly became tense, so quiet you could hear a pin drop. Jiang Yihao and Bu Chen glared at each other, neither willing to back down, while the servants' gazes darted nervously between the two young masters.

Bu Chen tilted his head, his amber eyes shining like stars through the messy hair falling across his forehead.

He suddenly burst into a grin at Jiang Yihao. "Whose brooch is it that you treasure it so much?"

"Go on, tell me. Which young lady? What's her name? Have I met her?"

Jiang Yihao's sallow face instantly flushed a little red. He said fiercely, "Don't talk nonsense. It's just... just a brooch! Either find it or get out."

The servants who had barely dared to breathe now let out a collective sigh of relief and exchanged gossipy glances.

Recently, the young master had been staying in his room every night, staring at the brooch, and had even ordered a custom-made luxury jewelry box that no one was allowed to touch.

Everyone had been quietly guessing whose brooch it was, but no one could say for sure.

Bu Chen, with deliberate slowness, tried to calm his friend whose neck was red with anger. "Since it's not important, if it's lost, it's lost."

"It was left to her by her grandmother. I need to return it!" Jiang Yihao said in a rough voice.

Bu Chen quickly caught a hint of something more than friendship and dragged out his words: "Oh, her grandmother's—"

"..."

The sparks in Jiang Yihao's eyes nearly burned Bu Chen to ashes.

"No spine," Bu Chen sneered. "What era is this, still playing at love tokens..."

The servants suppressed their laughter. Compared to the young master, Bu Chen indeed had far more spine.

Unlike the young master, who kept his distance from women, Bu Chen changed his female companions more often than he changed his clothes. Around him were beauties ranging from high-born ladies to internet celebrities and stars, spread across the globe. Gossip media had even put out special features on his many conquests.

Leaving aside his philandering nature, Bu Chen was undeniably handsome, of true top-notch aristocratic lineage, and generous with people. His wild, uninhibited charm attracted a parade of beautiful women who threw themselves at him, each hoping to tame him. Unfortunately, Bu Chen only ever dated someone for a few months, and to this day, no one had ever made him settle down.

Bu Chen rested his head on his arm and crossed his other foot. "Let's hang out together sometime. I'm really curious who's made you this lovesick."

"What stage have you reached with her?"

"How did you meet? Why have you never mentioned her?"

As a seasoned player, Bu Chen had long since passed the stage of yearning over a girl's token, but that didn't stop him from wanting to watch his friend make a fool of himself.

Jiang Yihao was annoyed by the constant questions, so he yanked Bu Chen off the bed and shoved him out of the room. "Go on, get out. It's none of your business here."

"Oho, he's serious." Bu Chen clung to the doorframe, grinning as he looked back. "If you have questions, just come to me. I'm a ready-made teacher standing right in front of you—"

"Get lost now! I'll settle the score with you later."

Later, the servants turned the entire house upside down and finally found the jewelry box in the doghouse, gnawed with tooth marks. The dragonfly inside was also worse for wear, with a few diamonds missing.

Jiang Yihao gave the culprit, his golden retriever, a hard spanking and locked it in confinement for a day. The German Shepherd and the Bernese Mountain Dog were also punished with half a day of confinement for negligence, and he personally drove to deliver the brooch to the old master of a family of imperial jewelry repair artisans.

The master examined it and said the damage wasn't serious, but to restore it exactly would take at least a week.

Jiang Yihao nodded and agreed, then drove home with a hollow feeling in his chest.

Night fell.

Outside the huge floor-to-ceiling windows, the neon lights of the skyscrapers glittered brilliantly, and the streams of traffic merged like shimmering rivers of stars.

Jiang Yihao had regular training every evening, but today, during strength training, he just couldn't get into the zone, so he walked over to the window and stared blankly outside.

The three dogs, released from their confinement, sidled over with their tails between their legs. Jiang Yihao stroked their fluffy heads and murmured to himself, "Can it really be restored exactly? She won't notice anything, right?"

The golden retriever let out an "awoo" and gave Jiang Yihao's hand a big lick with its pink tongue.

"Sycophant." Jiang Yihao pushed it away with a look of disdain.

Ruan Ning hadn't been doing well either since their parting in the lounge.

Although the system had declared her first task complete, she still felt uneasy.

Ruan Ning had spent quite a bit of effort to finally figure out why Zeng Shuya had suddenly disappeared that day.

It turned out that before Zeng Shuya even enrolled, she had joined the on-campus work-study alliance and had spare keys to all the public lounges, so no lounge could hold her.

That day, after Zeng Shuya escaped from the secret room, she had intended to find Ruan Ning and ask what was going on, but on the way, she was called away by a teacher from the work-study alliance, who said there was good news for her.

The teacher, seeing that Zeng Shuya came from a poor background but was diligent and eager to improve, had long taken a liking to this strong, optimistic girl. Coincidentally, a relative of the teacher was a supervisor at a large national chain cleaning company that needed part-time help at the moment, and the teacher immediately thought of Zeng Shuya.

The part-time job the teacher recommended was, of course, the cleaning job from the original story.

The new job paid double the hourly wage of the school jobs, and the workload wasn't much heavier. Going a few times a week would cover the month's food expenses, which for a poor new college student was absolutely fantastic news. So Zeng Shuya happily forgot all about the little black room incident.

Ruan Ning was stunned. Off-script events had actually aligned perfectly with the original story here, and she, stumbling all over the place like slipping on banana peels, had managed to fool the system.

Having escaped death by the skin of her teeth, Ruan Ning dropped to her knees and pressed her hands together in prayer to the heavens.

"Thank you, heavens, for letting me off the hook. Thank you, thank you!"

"Please bless my next task to go smoothly too, and don't let any more surprises happen."

Ruan Ning was genuinely afraid. She only wanted to complete the tasks obediently and get rid of the system as soon as possible. Any deviation from the plot terrified her and kept her up at night.

Like the check Jiang Yihao had left behind.

Since they had parted in the lounge, Ruan Ning hadn't had a single good night's sleep. She carried the two million with her everywhere, hoping to run into Jiang Yihao on campus and return it to him immediately.

She waited for days, but no one from the Jiang family came looking for her, and Jiang Yihao himself was nowhere to be seen, his whereabouts completely unknown.

A few days ago, during a video call with her family, her parents had asked why she looked so pale and whether she was sick.

Ruan Ning thought to herself, with a two-million-yuan ticking time bomb in my pocket, how could I not look pale?

Meanwhile, the original female lead's side was moving full steam ahead according to the original plot.

Zeng Shuya successfully got into the cleaning company and, just as in the original, her Mary Sue aura was working overtime. She was hardworking and capable, and with her prestigious university background, she quickly won the favor of both her supervisor and colleagues. By her calculations, in a few days she would go to the RQ training base and officially meet the male lead.

Ruan Ning was anxious as an ant on a hot pan.

In the original story, after Jiang Yihao met the female lead, he fell in love at first sight and never allowed any other woman near him from then on.

In other words, if she didn't return the money before the male and female leads met, she'd never be able to return it.

Ruan Ning broke out in a cold sweat.

The only place she might encounter Jiang Yihao was the RQ training base, but how could a century-old elite club be freely accessible to a nobody like her?

RQ was home to big names, with even the lowest-paid players worth tens of millions. They had special channels to protect the players from outside intrusion in every way.

All she knew was that Jiang Yihao played football there. Other than that, she knew nothing. At most, she could wander the grounds as a visitor, but to get deep inside and find someone was impossible.

Despite her heavy course load, Ruan Ning squeezed in time to search over the next few days, but predictably, she came up empty-handed.

Time passed, and before she knew it, it was the day the male and female leads were meant to meet. Ruan Ning only had one day left. She gritted her teeth and asked for the morning off, then headed to the RQ training base at dawn for one last attempt.

The RQ training base was located in a resort area in the northern part of nearby town, scenic and sprawling like a golf resort. The only problem was its remote location. Every time Ruan Ning came from school, she had to take a bus to the train station, a half-hour train ride back toward the city, then over an hour on the metro, switching between three modes of transport, a grueling two-plus hours just to get there.

This was the earliest Ruan Ning had ever arrived at the training base. She trudged all the way to the main gate and was surprised to find it tightly shut, with all visitors turned away.

RQ had a global reach, and almost every day, fans and social groups from around the world came to visit. So the base was never closed except on holidays, with someone on duty 24/7.

Some fans who had traveled from afar still wanted to get in, but a few security guards, with stern expressions, refused entry to everyone.

Ruan Ning was baffled. Wasn't RQ open around the clock? Why would they close on the one day that mattered most? Whatever it took, she was getting in today, and no one was stopping her!

She persisted and walked along the vast perimeter wall for a long while, until she finally found a dog hole in a barren patch of land. She glanced left and right, then wriggled through it with a sigh.

Once inside, she found herself surrounded by open, empty lawns. It was just past eight in the morning, and most employees hadn't started work yet. Without stopping to catch her breath, Ruan Ning huffed and puffed her way toward the training center building.

The base was huge and empty, with endless stretches of grass and football pitches. After running for about ten minutes, Ruan Ning finally reached the entrance of the main building. She bent over and coughed harshly. A morning workout like that was far too much for someone who barely moved.

She had been here a few times before. The club's offices, training rooms, cafeteria, and player dormitories were all in the main building, and Ruan Ning knew the internal layout fairly well. At eight in the morning, with employees not yet at work, it should have been quiet, but Ruan Ning could hear a commotion inside, and the atmosphere felt strange.

She gripped her backpack straps and stepped cautiously inside. The moment she entered the lobby, she nearly dropped her jaw. She doubled back and quickly hid in a safe corner.

She couldn't believe what she was seeing:

A crowd of people wearing orange vests held up banners reading "Pay us our hard-earned money" and "RQ, heartless shop," standing in the lobby demanding their wages. At the front, a short, stout man held a loudspeaker and shouted, "RQ is going bankrupt; pay us our hard-earned money!"

The club's few staff and security guards were trying to maintain order, but they were outnumbered and helpless.

Ruan Ning was too shocked to snap out of it.

The world-famous RQ club was actually defaulting on workers' wages?

If she hadn't seen it with her own eyes, she never would have believed that a globally renowned, wealthy club would owe its workers back pay.

The protesters had brought many garbage bags with them, piling them up in the lobby. The stench was overwhelming, and some bags had ripped, spilling rancid, filthy liquid across the floor. Even from a distance, Ruan Ning could smell it, and the staff on site were too disgusted to get close.

Ruan Ning lamented her bad luck. She had only wanted to find Jiang Yihao to return the money, and she'd stumbled into a club scandal.

Why was it that every time she encountered Jiang Yihao, nothing good ever happened? When would she finally be truly free? Ruan Ning felt deeply aggrieved.

Pinching their noses, the staff tried to talk the fat man down, saying that once the manager showed up, they'd get an answer. The fat man wasn't having it. "No! If you don't pay, we're not leaving. Let the world see how the mighty RQ owes its workers wages!"

Ruan Ning murmured in agreement. As far as she knew, RQ paid its stars three to four hundred million annually; defaulting on wages was truly unconscionable.

When she saw the protesters pushing and cursing at the staff, spittle flying in their faces, Ruan Ning couldn't bear it. After all, those staff were just low-level workers themselves; there was no need to make things hard for them.

The lobby was in chaos like a marketplace, with an unbearable stench that wouldn't go away, and as everyone shouted over one another, shoving and cursing in the heat of the moment, the scene was on the verge of erupting at any second.

Ruan Ning cried out inwardly, "Is there anyone who can come and bring order?"

Amid the clamor, a thunderous, commanding voice suddenly rang out: "What's all this noise at this hour?!"

The entire hall fell silent.

The protesters all froze, unconsciously parting to make way. Jiang Yihao appeared at the end of the path, his expression contemptuous as he sauntered to the front, shielding the staff behind him.

Ruan Ning's eyes lit up, and tears nearly fell.

It was Jiang Yihao!

He had finally appeared!

Jiang Yihao was wearing a navy hoodie, his tall, handsome, perfectly athletic frame radiating an overbearing aura as he stood against the crowd, sharp and domineering. His voice was still familiar—fierce and impatient.