Chapter 64: Sneaking Away

After finishing breakfast, Gu Xianwang hesitated for a long while. The bandages on her body made it inconvenient to get them wet, but she was about to meet a stranger, and he was a junior whom her master regarded as an old friend, so she couldn’t skimp on propriety. After much deliberation, she still laboriously used her old method and asked Nanny Chen to help her simply wash her long hair using an enamel basin.

She changed into a pure white V-neck long dress and simply put on two rows of diamond-drop earrings. As she looked at herself in the mirror, her face was still pale. There weren’t many cosmetics in the old house, so she simply outlined her eyebrows and applied some powder, then chose the Armani 415 to blend on her cheeks. Finally, her complexion looked much better—at least several times better than it had been in the sinkhole.

If I could see him again… This thought suddenly popped into her mind. With this makeup on now, she should look better, right?

Nanny Chen was gratified to see how much importance she placed on this. Nowadays, her greatest wish alongside Old Master Shang’s was to find a good family for Gu Xianwang. She had heard that this Young President Ye was very promising, about the same age as Wang’er, had studied abroad, and after returning to the country, he had run his own company with great success. Moreover, ever since his grandfather’s generation, they had all gone clean, with no lingering troubles—he was undoubtedly a fine match.

At 9:58, the doorbell rang. Gu Xianwang had already taken her seat in the hall ahead of time under Nanny Chen’s repeated instructions.

Moments later, Nanny Chen enthusiastically led in a man. He was about the same height as Long Li, dressed in a retro warm-gray plaid three-piece suit with a red-and-white striped shirt underneath. Though his stature wasn’t particularly tall, his proportions were excellent. He had a baby face that gave him an extremely youthful look. Taking him in from head to toe, the whole person exuded a strange harmony.

Fresh and mature combined, bright and ascetic coexisted.

When he smiled, Gu Xianwang inexplicably thought of a dog breed called the Samoyed.

“Hello, Miss Gu. I’m Ye Zhen, Ye Chan’s older brother.” He extended his hand.

Gu Xianwang stood up and shook it lightly. “Hello, Mr. Ye. I’ve heard Ye Chan mention you before. Nice to meet you.”

After exchanging stiff opening pleasantries, the two nodded to each other and sat down facing one another. Nanny Chen saw that the man was polite in his manners—he unbuttoned his jacket upon sitting, maintained proper posture, and thanked her when she offered tea. Her first impression of him was already maxed out.

Gu Xianwang silently picked up the three-talent bowl and took a sip of tea. From the corner of her eye, she observed Nanny Chen’s expression and took advantage of the moment to say, “Nanny Chen, why don’t you go rest for a bit? It’s a good opportunity since we’re just getting to know each other—we’d like to chat alone.”

Oh, a private chat—perfect, Nanny Chen thought delightedly, her eyes squinting in pleasure. She quickly nodded. “Just call me if you need anything.”

After they both watched her leave, the hall fell quiet, and the conversation truly began.

Ye Zhen smiled faintly. “I apologize for this unannounced visit, Miss Gu. Actually, I’m here on behalf of my sister to check on you specifically.”

“You’re too polite, Boss Ye. I missed the post-performance dinner because of personal matters and haven’t apologized to you yet—it should be me saying sorry first. How is Ye Chan doing now?”

“She’s full of life as always. My sister was spoiled at home from a young age and never developed a proper sense of caution in her life—she’s a silly girl. If it weren’t for you protecting her all the way, with her personality, she probably wouldn’t have survived past the third episode.”

As he started complaining about Ye Chan, the tense awkwardness between them quickly eased. Gu Xianwang smiled and said, “After leaving Guizhou, I fell ill, and Senior Brother is still recuperating in the hospital. I didn’t expect Ye Chan to be the healthiest one among us. Master said he was able to find us in time largely thanks to you. I wonder what method you used to locate us?”

“Well,” Ye Zhen lightly rubbed his nose, “that’s a long story.”

Gu Xianwang looked at him intently, her meaning clear: Even if it’s long, that’s fine—I have time to listen to you tell it slowly.

He chuckled and lowered his voice. “The reason I came alone this time is because after leaving Guizhou, Old Master Shang’s attitude was very clear. He doesn’t want you involved in this mess anymore, and naturally, he doesn’t want Ye Chan to have too much contact with you either.”

At this point, he checked his watch. “Old Master Shang went out today, right?”

Gu Xianwang nodded and asked, “Do you know what he’s handling?”

Ye Zhen replied, “Of course. Today, the Changchun Society in North China is holding a flower fair at the Central Plains Restaurant, and the highlight item is something quite interesting. Old Master Shang specially returned to Tianjin, most likely for this matter.”

The sheer amount of information in that single sentence left Gu Xianwang momentarily stunned. Changchun Society, the restaurant, and the flower fair—she had never heard of any of them. From the sound of it, this flower fair seemed like an auction. Could Master have taken a fancy to some novel item?

Whether intentionally or not, he added, “For something like this, even the treasure-appraisal families from Minnan have sent people.”

Gu Xianwang’s brows furrowed abruptly. “Minnan?”

Ye Zhen nodded. “Yes, the Treasure-Appraisal Yang Family. Have you heard of them before?”

Yang Family… Gu Xianwang paused, subconsciously stroking the meridians behind her ear. She had more than just heard of them.

“Sort of.” Gu Xianwang thought for a moment before asking, “Do you know what time this Flower Fair starts?”

Ye Zhen smiled knowingly, cupping his hands in a mysterious whisper. “I knew you’d want to go. We can head out now—Ye Chan is already hunkered down in the car waiting for you.”

Gu Xianwang lit up with surprise. “Ye Chan is here too?”

“Yeah. We’ll just tell Nanny Chen that I want to take you out for lunch. She won’t stand in our way.”

Gu Xianwang gave this promising Young President Ye an admiring once-over, thinking it a clever ploy.

~~~

Sure enough, the moment Nanny Chen heard it was a “date,” she approved it on the spot, cutting her usual nagging in half. She only reminded Gu Xianwang to be back before four that afternoon, lest she anger her Master again.

Ye Zhen’s car was parked in the courtyard—a matte black BMW M5 sporting a Beijing license plate. The windows were tinted dark, hiding whatever was inside.

Right in front of Nanny Chen, Ye Zhen stayed cool as a cucumber, ever the gentleman as he helped Gu Xianwang into the passenger seat. It wasn’t until they’d driven out of the courtyard under Nanny Chen’s watchful gaze that Ye Chan burst up from the back seat floor mat with a dramatic gasp.

“Holy crap, I was dying back there! Were you yakking away with all that fancy talk inside? You couldn’t even crack a window for me, you rotten brother!”

Ye Zhen snorted a laugh. “And so what? What if someone walked by and spotted you through the gap? I’m the one taking the risk here, defying Old Master Shang on your behalf—watch your tone!”

“Hmph.” Ye Chan ignored him, draping herself over the back of the passenger seat with a sheepish grin. “Sister Gu, how are you feeling?”

Gu Xianwang had planned to cut ties with these folks after emerging from the Sinkhole, but seeing Ye Chan again now felt unexpectedly warm and familiar. She gave a wry smile. “I’m fine, all thanks to your brother. Otherwise, I might not have made it out the door today.”

As she spoke, it hit her that while Ye Chan’s body was unharmed, the problem with her God Eye remained unsolved. She turned to ask, “The Gu in your eyes…” Their gazes met, and Gu Xianwang saw no sign of the Double Pupils—Ye Chan’s eyes looked perfectly normal. “Is it better now? How did you fix it?”

“This…” Ye Chan squeezed her eyes shut, as if channeling some inner force from the shadows. When she opened them again, the Snake Eye gleamed back. “It’s not fixed, but… I don’t know, it seems like I can control when it shows up.”

Gu Xianwang’s brow creased faintly. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught Ye Zhen’s profile; he was still bantering lightly with Ye Chan, but a shadow of worry lingered there. “I brought back some Gu Poison from the Sinkhole. We could try it.”

Ye Zhen shook his head. “Old Master Shang already gave us a dose back in Guizhou, but it didn’t do a thing for her Gu.”

He’d already given it to them? That only reinforced how her Master had gotten his hands on the Snake Spirit Pearl right away. Could the thing really have been a fake?

“What did the hospital tests say?”

Ye Chan shrugged. “Nada. The doc even complimented my build afterward—said it’s better than most kids my age.”

Gu Xianwang nodded thoughtfully. “Good to hear.”

But would it really be okay? True, only the elite among the Yelang Villagers qualified for the God Eye, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that the Altar held some deeper story they hadn’t unraveled—one that was critically important.

She rubbed her temples. Speculation wouldn’t help; better tackle the problems at hand. “By the way, Boss Ye, if we’ve got time, could we swing by a phone shop first? I need to grab a SIM card.”

“Call me Old Ye—friends do, keeps things casual.” He swung the wheel around. “The Flower Fair kicks off at one-thirty. Plenty of time.”

Free from Nanny Chen’s oversight, Gu Xianwang spoke more candidly. “Alright, Old Ye. So now can you tell me how you tracked us down?”

Ye Chan jumped in. “I got this! Let me explain—you focus on driving.”

Gu Xianwang eyed her in the rearview mirror. Ye Chan scratched her nose, weighing her words before plunging in. “Aiya, this whole mess… sigh, I only just found out. It’s so damn unlucky and weird. Sister Gu, get this: that tour group we joined? It was put together by the travel agency my dummy big bro owns.”

“Hm?” Gu Xianwang whipped her head around in astonishment.

“Sigh, it’s not like I’m bragging about being poor or anything,” Ye Chan said. “I always knew our family was doing pretty well, which is why I could afford to pick such a dead-end major with no job prospects. But I never really bothered to look into what they actually did for a living. Someone like Old Ye, always running around outside—I figured he was just managing some little outdoor gear shop. It wasn’t until I came back this time that I found out he’d started a full-on outdoor adventure company and a travel agency specializing in off-the-beaten-path routes.”

Ye Chan kept chattering on. “And then there’s our Old Master at home. He always looks so kind and gentle, like your typical retired old man. At most, I thought he’d made a bit of savings back when he went into business young and was now just puttering around in a suburban yard, growing veggies for his retirement. Boy, was I wrong. I only heard yesterday that when Old Master Ye was young, he was a real heavyweight—a Big Brother in his day.”

“…Big Brother was a type of phone,” Ye Zhen said.

“Get lost—you’re not talking to me.” Ye Chan shot him a glare. “You two teamed up to keep me in the dark!”

“I’m telling you, this is emotional abuse from the family!”

Ye Zhen raised one hand in surrender.

Gu Xianwang had been listening up to this point and noticed they hadn’t mentioned anything about their fathers. Could their family situation be similar to hers? But given their current relationship, it wasn’t appropriate for her to pry into such personal matters just yet. From what Ye Chan had said, it all made sense on the surface. Both Master and Boss Ye had clawed their way up in the underworld since before the founding of the nation. It was hard to go completely clean when your hands were that dirty, and naturally, they didn’t want the younger generation getting dragged into the muck.

Seeing the conversation veering off track, she reeled it back in. “Since this route was developed by the Ye family, we should be able to pull up info on Sara and the others now, right?”

“We checked,” Ye Zhen said. “All the documents are fake—from the passports to the personal details. Even the names are probably bogus. The route itself was unanimously approved in one of our internal creative brainstorming sessions. The Tour Guide was poached from another travel agency a few months back. I just can’t figure out how they got targeted.”

Speaking of the Tour Guide, Gu Xianwang felt a pang of regret. “Did the Tour Guide… ever make it out?”

Ye Zhen shook his head. “We’ve handed all the follow-up to the professionals. As of today, there’s still no word on him. The company already paid the first round of compensation to his family.”

Which meant they pretty much assumed he was dead.

Ye Chan let out a long sigh. “If I’d known it would end like this, I wouldn’t have secretly cursed him out for scamming me.”

“Scamming you?” Gu Xianwang asked, puzzled. “When?”

Ye Chan pouted. “Back at the Gu Witch’s place, remember? That night, I stepped out to wash my face. When I came back, I ran into Little Hei. We chatted for a bit. I mentioned I hadn’t eaten properly in days and wished for some dessert. He said it was perfect timing—Granny had just tried to give him a little sweet treat, but he doesn’t like sweets, so he passed.”

“Then he pointed it out to me. It was dark out, and the thing was on a plate. I figured it was meant for us anyway—who eats it doesn’t matter—so I just had it.”

Gu Xianwang’s heart skipped a beat. She immediately recalled the Tour Guide’s behavior that morning. When he’d seen the Black Jar and altar in the storage room, he hadn’t acted like someone who’d been there the night before. “Why didn’t you tell me about this at the time?”

“I was too scared, okay?” Ye Chan said. “The whole group had vanished in a flash, and I couldn’t see straight. I actually wanted to call Little Hei over right then, but somehow I got sidetracked.”

Gu Xianwang’s brows furrowed tightly. Was this just a coincidence?

If it wasn’t… then when Senior Brother had been filming that video from the crevice, had the Tour Guide deliberately flipped out too?