Perhaps afraid that his beloved car really would be sold, Duan Yan called less than two days later to say he’d found the information Song Liang wanted.
First, Xiao Yi had indeed lost a coat. But what the Xiao family—including Xiao Ji—was looking for wasn’t the coat itself. It was what had been inside it: a brooch fashioned from icy imperial-green jadeite, worth three and a half billion—the Emperor’s Tear.
Outsiders jokingly called the Emperor’s Tear the emblem of each successive head of the Xiao family. Given its value and special significance, it was supposed to serve as the token of the marriage alliance between the Xiao and Qiao families at the cruise banquet in Yalong Bay. Xiao Yi, the current head of the family, would present it to the Qiao heiress and announce Xiao Ji as the Xiao Group’s future successor. Instead, it had been stolen before its owner could attend the banquet. Xiao Yi himself had also been attacked and hospitalized with serious injuries.
There had reportedly been eight robbers. Seven were arrested at the scene; the eighth remained at large, and the Emperor’s Tear was still missing. The day after the incident, the local police station in Yalong Bay transferred the case to the Linhai Municipal Public Security Bureau, which soon assembled a dedicated task force.
The first half matched what Song Liang had found online over the past two days. The second half made him pause, because he remembered there being only seven robbers that night.
In other words, he was number eight.
His expression turned peculiar.
【So I’m actually a wanted criminal now?】
【Are you surprised?】
Of course Song Liang wasn’t surprised. He was simply taken aback that the police had classified him as an accomplice of the red-haired man’s gang.
Suddenly intrigued, he asked Duan Yan, “What’s happened to those robbers?”
“They’re still locked up. Robbery and intentional assault, with the chairman of Xiao Group himself as the victim. What else would they do—let them go?” Duan Yan couldn’t help adding, “Apparently, they’re incredibly tight-lipped. No matter how they’re questioned, they won’t reveal their accomplice’s whereabouts. They keep insisting there were only seven of them. You’ve got to admire their nerve.”
【…】
Even if they were robbers, the system felt this was a rotten thing to do to them.
Song Liang had no such qualms. He eagerly pressed on. “The police haven’t found any leads?”
“No. It’s bizarre. Every robber swears there were only seven of them. Traffic footage of their vehicle on the expressway shows seven people too, but somehow there’s an extra one once they reach the dock. The Xiao family says there were eight, yet not a single camera around Yalong Bay caught the eighth man. It’s like something out of a ghost story.”
“…”
3085 had nothing to say. The robbers said seven because there had only been seven of them. The Xiao family said eight because there really had been eight people there. And the expressway cameras hadn’t caught the eighth man because its host hadn’t come by the expressway at all—he’d climbed out of the sea!
Nobody involved had told a lie, yet their accounts had combined into one enormous falsehood. And the person responsible—its host—had become an eighth man whose very existence no one could establish!
No wonder Xiao Wenyu and Xiao Ji hadn’t come looking for trouble. They had their hands full already.
The misunderstanding defied everything the system thought it knew. For a moment, it couldn’t decide whether its host was lucky or unlucky.
Song Liang had evidently worked it out too, but he asked another question.
“What did Xiao Yi say?”
“Apparently, a young man who was soaking wet pinned him against a wall, stripped off his coat, and disappeared. Now everyone’s saying Xiao Yi encountered a ghost.”
Duan Yan’s tone grew strange.
“The creepier part is that there were puddles all over the scene. But once the trail reached a spot under a streetlight, it just vanished.”
That was because he’d gotten into the car there, Song Liang thought.
3085 offered a gloomy reminder. 【You only got lucky this time. That’s why no one’s found a hole in your story. You won’t always be lucky】
“There is a loose end,” Song Liang said casually. “The rideshare driver.”
【!!!】
Damn it. It had completely forgotten the rideshare driver it had commandeered!
Since the system had hacked the platform to force a car over, there was no booking record and no fare would be paid. That had prevented a digital trail of its host’s movements, but if the driver contacted the platform to complain about the missing payment, they’d discover that the trip had never existed!
And if the police tracked down that driver, his description of the passenger and the place he’d dropped him off that night would let them narrow the search to the area around Jianglin University. That would be trouble!
【Maybe you should lie low somewhere else for a while?】
“Where?”
3085 had no answer. The original owner’s unpleasant personality, obsessive pursuit of Xiao Ji, and status as an unacknowledged illegitimate son had made him unpopular at school and widely scorned in Linhai’s so-called rich-heir circles. He certainly didn’t have friends who would give him somewhere to hide. All he had were parasites like Duan Yan, who only wanted his money.
【What about going back to the Song family?】
Chapter 11: I’m Wanted Now? (2/2)
“Are you sure?”
3085 fell silent. In “The Superstar’s Secret Husband Is a Hundred-Billion CEO,” the original owner wasn’t merely cannon fodder with a hopeless crush. He really was universally despised. It wasn’t just Xiao Ji and Linhai’s rich-heir circles—even the Song family looked down on him, every last one of them.
Mrs. Song and her biological son went without saying. As the lawful wife, she considered an illegitimate child like him a stain on the family and detested him. Even his own father routinely berated and beat this supposedly worthless son, on top of subjecting him to all kinds of emotional abuse.
In the original plot, his father had only begun to value him after he became Xiao Ji’s fiancé. Even Mrs. Song and his older half-brother, Song Xinglang, had started invoking their family ties. That had fulfilled an emotional need in him. Unwilling to lose that false sense of acceptance, he’d resorted to every possible scheme, even targeting the main bottom.
Later, when Xiao Ji lost everything and was driven out of the Xiao family, the original owner had turned to the main villain, Xiao Yi, to preserve the Song family’s prosperity. That had ultimately made him a target of Xiao Ji’s revenge. The moment the Songs heard about it, they’d severed all ties with him. Even when he finally managed to escape home and beg for help, they’d bound his battered body without hesitation and handed him straight back to Xiao Yi. In the end, he’d lost all hope and died under Xiao Yi’s torment.
If the Song family learned that Song Liang had offended the three most powerful members of the Xiao family, they would probably tie him up and deliver him to the Xiaos overnight. They might even move faster than the Linhai police.
Host and system still hadn’t come up with a plan when Duan Yan, who had been silent on the other end of the line, suddenly spoke.
“Who exactly are you talking to?”
“No one. Where did you get all this information?” Song Liang asked.
Duan Yan cleared his throat.
“Don’t underestimate the male-host business. I work at one of Linhai’s top private clubs. Our clients are either rich or powerful. You even have to prove your assets before they’ll let you apply for membership—it’s stricter than a Las Vegas casino. One stroll around the place is enough to overhear all kinds of wealthy-family secrets. And we exchange information with our colleagues too.”
“The things I just told you? Your average rich heir couldn’t even find them out. Believe me?”
Of course Song Liang believed him, so he asked, “How’s that male-host application you said you’d help me with coming along?”
Duan Yan choked. He’d almost forgotten about that.
“…You’re serious?”
It was a fair question. Song Liang was, after all, a bona fide rich heir. Illegitimate or not, he was officially registered as the Song family’s second young master. Surely being short of money wouldn’t make him lower himself to working as a host.
“Of course,” Song Liang replied.
Duan Yan had nothing to say. He’d known Song Liang for three years and watched him chase Xiao Ji for all three. Breakfast deliveries, rain or shine. Gifts for every holiday. Nearly a million yuan spent on Xiao Ji, and not even a kind look in return. Now he wanted to buy the man a car—even if it meant becoming a host.
Then there was Duan Yan himself, supposedly his friend. Three years of effort had only netted him five hundred thousand, and now he’d been beaten up and had his car confiscated.
Feeling rather sorry for himself, he couldn’t help saying, “Fuck, if only you were this devoted to me. It’s not like I couldn’t be persuaded to date a man.”
“Not happening,” Song Liang said without a second thought.
Duan Yan bristled. “Why?”
Song Liang said, “Ugly.”
Duan Yan: “…”
“I’m conventionally handsome, thank you! My clients come to me for this face!” His confidence faded as he spoke, so he added, “Xiao Ji’s just too good-looking. I’ve never seen anyone more handsome than him.”
“I have.”
On the other end of the line, Song Liang idly thought: What was so handsome about Xiao Ji? There was someone better-looking in the Xiao family, with eyes like gemstones.
All glittery and sparkling.
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