After five bigwigs in Beijing's elite circle fell into their trap, I fled.

Chapter 6 Li Yubai goes to the appointment in the middle of the night

Assistant Yang was lost in his memories: "A girl covered in blood shamelessly told the BOSS that she wanted to be his sugar daddy! Do you remember the BOSS's expression at the time? Like... well, like a concubine about to be favored by the emperor, his heart was filled with excitement!"

Assistant Gao glanced around nervously: "Be careful, the BOSS might overhear you saying that..."

"Don't worry, the soundproofing in this hotel is pretty good." Assistant Yang, caught up in his gossip, completely forgot his own identity. "It's a pity we got kicked out, so we don't know what happened next. But after that, the boss started cooking and researching all sorts of ways to please girls. Those eyes of his..."

"What happened to your eyes?"

“I don’t know how to describe it.” Assistant Yang thought for a moment, “It was like, suddenly I was lost in thought, and my eyes were like—well, like they contained an entire brilliant starry sky…”

Assistant Gao exclaimed, "Now that you mention it, I'm also curious about what will happen between the BOSS and that girl..."

"What are you curious about?" A clear, sharp voice rang out as Li Yubai emerged from the suite, giving his two subordinates a cold glance.

Assistant Yang and Assistant Gao stood up straight and bowed their heads. "It's nothing. Boss, shall we depart now?"

"No rush." ​​Li Yubai glanced at his personal phone, his tone softening slightly. "Wait."

Assistant Yang probed: "There's another group downstairs..."

"not see."

Li Yubai stood by the floor-to-ceiling window in the corridor, looking down at the lights of Jiangcheng that were beginning to rise and fall. Night was falling, and it was rush hour. What he saw was a constant flow of cars and the neon lights that were gradually coming on.

Inside the floor-to-ceiling windows, the stunningly handsome man gazed at the city from afar, seemingly more alluring than the myriad night scenes outside.

Assistant Yang and Assistant Gao glanced at it once and then looked away, not daring to disturb it in the slightest.

Xinghua Lane.

Room 082 (rental house).

Jiang Shu explored every function on the smartphone, especially spending a lot of time on various part-time job promotion videos. She stretched, feeling somewhat unsatisfied, then opened her canvas backpack, rummaged around for a while, and pulled out a bunch of crumpled pieces of paper.

Each slip of paper had a phone number written on it.

She first found the phone number of the only landline in the village and tried dialing it...

Quanwen Town, Xinghua Village.

The village's only telephone rang thirteen times in one hour—all from Jiang Shu.

"Bao..." Li Erniang answered the phone, "What's wrong? It's been less than five minutes since you hung up the last call, and you're already missing the uncles and aunts in our village?"

"I forgot to tell you, the moonlight is beautiful tonight," Jiang Shu said, making conversation. "Also, I've learned how to use the short video function on my phone!"

"Wow, my baby is so amazing!"

"Mobile phones are really fun. I'll buy one for each of you once we have cell phone signal in the village!"

"My baby is so filial! Uncles and aunts love you so much!"

"Okay. I'll hang up now."

Li Erniang said goodbye gently to the person on the other end of the phone. As soon as the call ended, Grandpa Tang, whose card game had been interrupted, began to complain:
"Is Shubao possessed? Thirteen phone calls came in all at once..."

"You're the one who's possessed!" Li Erniang glared at him. "It's the first time she's had a cell phone, and besides, Shubao is still a child. There's bound to be some novelty about it."

Grandpa Tang sighed, "If only I had bought her a cell phone a few years ago."

"Even if I bought it, I wouldn't dare give it to them." Jiang Liuyun was carefully painting her nails beside her, her delicate hands adorned with bright red nail polish. Her once gray hair had long since transformed into flowing black curls that could be used in commercials. "In the village, it can't be used."

An eerie silence fell over the scene.

Li Erniang broke the ice first: "Speaking of which, our Shubao is really capable. She performed so well on the first day. Her classmates like her, her teachers like her, and they even gave her a cell phone—by the way, write down her cell phone number later, you never know when you might need it."

In Xinghua Lane.

Jiang Shu's initial excitement hadn't faded. After thinking for a moment, she pulled out a crumpled piece of paper and handed it to her newly acquainted deskmate, Qin Dou...

Jiangcheng, Qin family.

Qin Dou hesitated before answering the call from the unknown number: "Who is this?"

"I am Jiang Shu." Jiang Shu's voice carried a hint of arrogance.

Qin Dou: "...What's up?"

"It's nothing," Jiang Shu said in a somewhat aloof tone. "I just wanted to let you know. This is my phone number."

Before Qin Dou could reply, the phone slammed shut. Qin Dou: "..."

Speechless, Qin Dou put down the phone, looked around, and asked the housekeeper, "Where are my grandpa and dad? I haven't seen them since they came back from school."

"He's gone to the Jiangcheng International Hotel." The butler handed him a glass of milk. "He's going to meet an important person."

"What important person could possibly warrant my dad and grandpa's presence?"

"I don't know—but of the four major families in Jiangcheng, apart from our Qin family, the other three families also went. They said that important figures from the capital came."

Qin Dou responded with an "oh," and then, thinking of Jiang Shu who had just called, asked curiously, "Butler, have you ever heard of Quanwen Town?"

"A key poverty alleviation town?" The butler pondered for a moment. "Our Qin family patriarch participated in this poverty alleviation project and donated tens of millions."

Qin Dou asked curiously, "Just how poor are they?"

"I don't know much either. I heard that it was a geomantically auspicious place many years ago, but about eighteen or nineteen years ago, it suddenly lost its spiritual energy. Nothing could be grown there anymore, and even the mountain range it belonged to seemed to have had its vitality drained away, with large areas withered and decayed. Of the tens of millions we donated, a large portion was used for afforestation."

Qin Dou gave a soft "oh".

The butler asked with concern, "Young Master, why are you asking about Quanwen Town?"

“A new transfer student has arrived, from there.” Qin Dou thought for a moment, “With that arrogant personality, he doesn’t seem like a pitiful kid from a poverty-stricken area at all…”

Xinghua Lane.

Jiang Shu pulled out a few more slips of paper with phone numbers written on them. This time, instead of dialing, she started experimenting with the text messaging function...

Then, with clumsy movements, he sent a text message to one of the numbers:
"Rental room at No. 082 Xinghua Lane. Li Yubai, come here!"

After sending the text message, Jiang Shu finally decided to put her phone aside for the time being. She took out a large sewing kit and a soft fur from her canvas bag and began to sew and mend.

Half an hour later, several extended luxury cars appeared in Xinghua Lane in an orderly fashion.

Li Yubai sat in the car, glanced at the address on his phone again, then picked up a brocade box, got out of the car, and whispered the instructions:
"You all stay here, I'll go alone."

Assistants and bodyguards were respectfully dispersed around the perimeter, shifting from the light of day to the shadows, ready for action.

The tall, dignified figure walked along the dim streetlights until he saw the address 082 nestled between two apricot trees, at which point his deep-set eyes gradually brightened.

The lights were still on inside the wooden houses.

Li Yubai stood under the blooming apricot tree, a sliver of light shining through the old wooden door with its large gaps, and hesitated for a moment.

Several more minutes passed before Jiang Shu's voice came from inside the door: "Why aren't you coming in?"

The wooden door opened, and Jiang Shu, wearing large glasses and fleece-lined pajamas, peeked out with a faint smile in her eyes.

But the laughter quickly turned into astonishment.

Jiang Shu sized up the man at the door. Beneath his black trench coat was a crimson casual suit embroidered with traditional Chinese patterns she couldn't understand. The lighting was dim, and apricot blossoms were falling gently. The man's already exquisitely handsome features seemed to be heavily filtered, making him even more dazzling than usual. Even his hands and slightly exposed collarbone looked like top-tier works of art, shimmering with a jade-like luster.

A captivating bone structure and a dazzlingly beautiful skin.

"I thought you were very beautiful the last time I saw you." Jiang Shu stared at you for a full minute before snapping out of her daze. "I didn't expect you could be even more beautiful."

Li Yubai laughed, his voice even more alluring than the night: "I'm glad you don't mind, Master Jiang."

"It's cold outside, let's go inside and talk." Jiang Shu turned to the side and nodded towards the house.

Li Yubai didn't stand on ceremony, bowing slightly as he entered the room. The simple room was immediately apparent; a pile of animal fur, its contents unknown, lay scattered on the slightly disheveled bed, covered in dense stitches. On the bedside table lay a math test paper, its messy corrections ending in a large X.

"Did you bring the things?" Jiang Shu asked.

Li Yubai handed over the brocade box, his gaze subtly sweeping over the pile of furs on the bed, his heart skipping a beat!
Jiang Shu opened the brocade box, inside which was a dog skin neatly folded.

"What breed is this?" Jiang Shu asked curiously. "It looks a bit big."

Li Yubai: "...Border Collie. — Not genuine leather, but the highest-end bio-fiber product."

“This size… I’ll need at least a month of patching and mending.” Jiang Shu paused for a moment. “It’ll cost extra.”

"Hmm." Li Yubai pointed to the bed without changing his expression, his tone probing, "Besides me, do you have... anyone else?"

Jiang Shu nodded: "There are five in total so far—you are the second one to deliver the items. A few more people are on their way and should arrive in the next few days."

Li Yubai's expression was particularly complicated: "Five...all men?"

(End of this chapter)