8
That was an impressive move. Jiang Mian’s gaze involuntarily drifted to Mr. Qi’s hand as he picked up his chopsticks again. Pale, slender, with distinct knuckles—like a work of art.
Seeing that their target had an ally, the thugs stopped focusing on Jiang Mian and turned on Mr. Qi instead. “A blind man dares to stick his neck out?” their leader sneered.
“Wait,” Jiang Mian interjected. She smoothed down her slightly rumpled clothes. Her calm, commanding presence made the leader hesitate and indeed, he paused.
Jiang Mian said, “How much did the person who sent you to corner me offer?”
The leader’s expression flickered. Jiang Mian pretended not to notice. When he didn’t answer, she continued, “Whatever it is, I’ll pay triple. Tell me who sent you.”
The leader remained unmoved, but the others—including the one who had bowed so grandly and since gotten back up—couldn’t hide their eager expressions.
Triple the price!
“Brother Qiang,” one of them tugged at the leader’s sleeve. “Triple.”
Jiang Mian pulled a checkbook from her handbag—the original Jiang Mian always carried blank checks. The habit had been so deeply ingrained that Jiang Mian had unconsciously inherited it.
She tore out a check and held it between her fingers. “This is fifty thousand. Talk, and it’s yours.”
The leader still hesitated. The one who had taken the knee rubbed his painfully swollen leg. He could feel it already puffing up. Going to the hospital would cost money. And fifty thousand was fifty thousand!
Without a second thought, he blurted out, “I don’t know her name. It was a woman. She called us, said you were here, and told us to come after you.”
“Then what?” Jiang Mian asked, genuinely intrigued.
Seeing that his subordinate had already spilled the beans, the leader stopped hesitating. He picked up the story, his eyes darting greedily toward the check in Jiang Mian’s hand. “Her orders were to rough you up—not too badly and call her when we were halfway through.”
Jiang Mian pulled out a chair and sat back down. “Go ahead, make the call.”
The thugs looked confused.
Were they supposed to keep beating her?
Jiang Mian paused.
“I meant, call the person who hired you.”
Brother Qiang took out his phone, ready to dial, then stopped. “The check is real, right?”
Jiang Mian shot him a glance. Brother Qiang felt inexplicably sheepish. He made the call, let it ring once, and hung up, explaining, “She said that’s the signal.”
Jiang Mian nodded. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Mr. Qi had already sat back down, calmly picking at his food with his chopsticks, completely detached from the situation.
In less than half a minute, someone walked in through the restaurant entrance. Sure enough, it was Lin Feifei.
Sensing something was wrong, Lin Feifei froze for two seconds, then turned to run.
Jiang Mian tapped the table with her knuckle. “What are you standing around for? Go grab her.”
She even paid attention to her wording.
The thugs instinctively ran out—then stopped after a couple of steps, feeling that they were being a little too obedient. But the check hadn’t been handed over yet…
In that brief window, Jiang Mian raised her voice to the startled diners around her. “Everyone, I’m really sorry for the fright. Tonight’s meals are on me.”
The onlookers, who had probably pieced together a full drama in their heads, saw that no further violence was likely and settled back down to eat.
The restaurant manager had been on the verge of calling the police. Jiang Mian said to him, “Just a little disagreement between friends. No need to involve the police. As you can see, nothing really happened—just a chipped cup. Whatever it costs, add it to my bill. Let’s all keep the peace and make money, right?”
The manager didn’t want the situation to escalate either. If the police came, it would surely hurt business. So, he took the out and acted as if nothing had happened—though he did station a few male servers at a distance.
A few minutes later, Lin Feifei was dragged inside by the thugs.
“Let go of me! I’m calling the police!” she shouted loudly. But the closer she got to Jiang Mian, the more fear eclipsed her panic.
She had never been afraid of Jiang Mian before.
“Call the police? Go ahead.” Jiang Mian gestured for the thugs to release Lin Feifei. “I’ll wait.”
Lin Feifei faltered. Clutching her bag, she looked left and right, her eyes reddening. “Mianmian, what are you doing? Why did you have these people drag me in here?”
Brother Qiang didn’t appreciate that. He took out his phone and dialed. Lin Feifei’s phone rang. Her face went deathly pale, panic flashing in her eyes. She instinctively shoved at Brother Qiang. “How—how do you have my number? Mianmian, I don’t know him at all. Don’t believe what they say. They’re lying about me.”
Brother Qiang slapped Lin Feifei across the face. “You’re the one who called us to beat up this woman. Don’t try to deny it.”
Caught off guard, Lin Feifei was stunned by the slap. Her face immediately swelled. She stumbled, wobbling toward Mr. Qi. “Big brother, save me.”
Jiang Mian’s skin crawled with goosebumps.
Mr. Qi stood up and precisely relocated to the seat next to Jiang Mian. Lin Feifei collapsed onto the chair instead, her head hitting it with a dull thud.
Brother Qiang looked at Jiang Mian. “We did everything you said. Give us the money.”
Jiang Mian cheerfully reached for the check—but didn’t succeed. A finger pressed down on her wrist, the pressure stopping her cold.
Jiang Mian: “?”
Mr. Qi said coolly, “You shouldn’t be the one paying this.”
Jiang Mian immediately understood. She tucked the check back into her bag. Brother Qiang sneered. “Trying to stiff us?”
“Ask her for it.” Jiang Mian propped her chin on her hand and nodded toward Lin Feifei. “She’ll pay.”
Brother Qiang was skeptical. He grabbed Lin Feifei and yanked her up. “You owe us ten thousand. Plus the fifty thousand she was going to pay—that’s sixty thousand total. Hand it over!”
Lin Feifei was still trying to figure out how to get out of her current predicament. That afternoon after school, Jiang Mian’s words had scared her at first. But she quickly realized that Jiang Mian no longer trusted her. She needed to find a way to win back that trust.
So, she decided to reuse the old tactic that had once made Jiang Mian accept her: hire a few thugs to corner Jiang Mian, then swoop in to save her. But this time, still seething with anger, she decided to let them rough Jiang Mian up a bit first—then she would appear.
She had been secretly tailing Jiang Mian the whole time, which was how she knew her whereabouts. She just hadn’t expected Jiang Mian to not only see through her scheme but also turn the thugs she’d hired against her.
“This is extortion!” Lin Feifei shrieked, realizing Jiang Mian no longer trusted her at all and dropping the pretense. “She’s the one paying you—go ask her for the money! You want me to pay? In your dreams!”
Jiang Mian looked at her and smiled. “Let me remind you of something. They have proof that you hired them to beat me up. I can call the police, hand over the evidence, and throw in a little money to grease the wheels. How many years do you think you’ll get? Three? Five?”
The word “prison” crashed down on Lin Feifei like a mountain. She stared blankly at Jiang Mian. After a long moment, she muttered, “Jiang Mian, you’ve changed. You’ve become so terrifying.”
Jiang Mian: “…”
She rubbed the goosebumps on her arms. “It’s not that I’ve changed. It’s that I used to be an idiot—a fool who was nothing but your personal ATM.”
“Oh, and one more thing.” Jiang Mian smiled faintly. “I wasn’t going to pursue this, but I already gave you a chance. I told you not to come after me again. You just had to ignore me. So, listen carefully: all the money you’ve bled from me over the years—I won’t bother calculating exactly how much. Let’s call it a million. You have one week to get it ready.”
A million yuan meant nothing to the original Jiang Mian—no different from one yuan. But spending it on someone like this made Jiang Mian’s skin crawl. She’d take it back and donate it instead. At least then she’d get some gratitude.
“I’m sorry, Mianmian, I’m so sorry. I was wrong.” Lin Feifei finally understood that Jiang Mian was no longer someone she could easily fool. Where was she supposed to find a million yuan? But going to prison was even worse!
She didn’t know where things had gone wrong, but she knew now that if she didn’t beg for mercy, she was finished.
“I was blinded. I shouldn’t have let other people egg me on to hurt you. It was—it was Guan Xin! She’s the one who made me do it!” In the end, she still tried to stir up trouble between Jiang Mian and Guan Xin.
“I’ll pay them. I’ll pay right now.” Frantically, she pulled out her phone and transferred sixty thousand yuan to Brother Qiang on the spot.
Brother Qiang pocketed the money. Sensing that Jiang Mian was not someone to mess with, he apologized to her. “Sorry about this. We take money, we do the job. We weren’t trying to target you on purpose—this woman hired us. You said you’d pay triple, so here’s the extra twenty thousand back.”
He happened to be carrying quite a bit of cash. He pulled out twenty thousand yuan, placed it on the table, then signaled to his crew and left.
“Mianmian, please forgive me.” Lin Feifei was genuinely crying this time. Her face was swollen with red finger marks from Brother Qiang’s slap, her hair disheveled—she looked utterly pitiful.
Anyone watching might have thought Jiang Mian had done something to her.
Jiang Mian recalled how the original Jiang Mian had actually quite liked Lin Feifei. She looked down at Lin Feifei, who was crying like a rain-soaked pear blossom, her gaze distant. After a long moment, she finally said, “This is the last time.”
Overjoyed, Lin Feifei knew Jiang Mian had let her off. Grabbing her bag, she stumbled away.
She had already lost enough face. She needed to find somewhere to clean herself up. At the same time, she understood: she could never cross Jiang Mian again.
…
Jiang Mian turned to Mr. Qi. He had already finished eating at a leisurely pace and was now slowly sipping a bowl of soup.
“Thanks for earlier,” Jiang Mian said.
“It’s nothing.”
Jiang Mian didn’t say anything more. She hadn’t finished eating yet. She picked up her chopsticks and continued. When they were done, she honored her word and paid for all the diners’ meals.
Back at the apartment complex, as soon as the elevator doors opened, she heard a deep, aged voice: “…His eyes are injured, it’s inconvenient for him to go out. Where could he have gone? I told you to stay by his side every minute. Now he’s missing. What good are you?”
“Old Master, I…” Faced with the furious old man, Luo Jiale was at a loss for words. He wanted to stay glued to his boss’s side, but the boss wouldn’t let him.
The sound of footsteps made Old Master Qi pause. He turned around, Mr. Qi approached and calmly said, “Father.”
“Yanshu, where have you been so late?” Seeing his son unharmed, Old Master Qi let out a long sigh of relief and quickly stepped forward. “What happened to your hand? Who hurt you?”
“I—” Jiang Mian started to speak, but the elevator doors opened again. Han Xu stepped out. Taking in the scene, he froze for two seconds, then immediately pulled Jiang Mian into his arms protectively. “Who are you people?”
Old Master Qi studied Han Xu’s face for a moment. “Han Xu?”
Han Xu: “Qi Guili?”
Old Master Qi’s gaze shifted to Jiang Mian in Han Xu’s arms. He assumed she was someone Han Xu kept on the side. And this woman had just been with his son, who couldn’t see… His brow furrowed deeply, and the look he gave Jiang Mian grew distinctly displeased.
“What’s with that look?” Han Xu naturally noticed Old Master Qi’s expression. He let out a cold laugh. “Don’t think I won’t curse you just because you’re old. Your Qi family means nothing to me.”
“How dare you!” Old Master Qi stamped his cane on the ground. “Even your father never spoke to me like that.”
Han Xu pointed at the floor. “Sorry to say, my father’s already down there.”
“I heard that son of yours who became a monk has returned to lay life.” Han Xu looked at Qi Yanshu. “This is him? Tsk.”
His tone was utterly dismissive.
Old Master Qi: “…”
Jiang Mian: “…”
Now she understood. The original Jiang Mian’s explosive temper must have been inherited from this billionaire tyrant father of hers.
But there was a lot of information here. So, Mr. Qi had been a monk who returned to lay life—no wonder he always gave off a slightly unusual feeling.
And this Qi family, it should be the Qi family from the book.
The original novel had quite a few plotlines involving the Qi family. The Qis were an old-money aristocratic family with over a hundred years of history. Their wealth was on par with the Han family’s. But more importantly, the male lead, Gu Qiwen, was a descendant of the Qi family.
That plot point only emerged later in the book. When Gu Qiwen’s mother was young, she had been with the eldest son of the Qi family. But they were forced apart because their social status didn’t match. However, by then, Gu Qiwen’s mother was already pregnant. She gave birth to Gu Qiwen and raised him alone, never telling him the truth.
It wasn’t until later, when she was gravely ill and on her deathbed, that she finally revealed the identity of Gu Qiwen’s biological father. Even after learning he was a Qi descendant, Gu Qiwen never intended to return to the Qi family.
That only changed when he was forced into marriage with Jiang Mian. Left with no other choice, he turned to the Qi family. With their alliance, after Han Xu passed away, they rapidly devoured the Han Corporation, leaving the original Jiang Mian with nothing.
Jiang Mian looked at Qi Yanshu beside her. This man didn’t seem to have appeared in the book—or if he had, she had missed it. She began rifling through her memory of the novel’s plot.
She found it. In the book, Qi Yanshu was mentioned in only one passage.
Qi Guili, the head of the Qi family, had a youngest son—born when he was fifty years old, a treasured child he doted on like a precious gem. The boy had been frail since childhood, and following a master’s advice, he had to live in a Taoist temple to survive.
So, he was sent to a Taoist temple to cultivate while keeping his hair, but unfortunately, he still died there at the age of thirty.
Jiang Mian: “…”
So, Qi Yanshu was the male lead’s uncle?!
But according to the original novel, Qi Yanshu should have died by now. Not only was he alive, but he had also returned to lay life. The plot had already diverged from the book.
Jiang Mian wasn’t sure what to make of it. She thought about it briefly, then let it go. It didn’t concern her anyway.
As long as her four fathers were safe and well, none of the future disasters would happen.
Han Xu snorted coldly at Old Master Qi. The Han and Qi families had never gotten along—each looked down on the other. Han Xu couldn’t be bothered to engage with them any further. He put his arm around Jiang Mian and led her into the apartment.
Old Master Qi noticed his son glance toward the apartment across the hall. Knowing he was “looking” at Jiang Mian, his expression darkened. “Yanshu, let’s go inside first. Tell me what happened to your hand.”
“Your eyes are in no condition for you to be wandering around. Who knows if the people who ‘help’ you have ulterior motives?” Old Master Qi said. “Take that girl just now, for example—hugging and clinging to Han Xu right in front of everyone. What kind of decent girl does that? She’s probably just some woman Han Xu keeps here. Young and refusing to learn better. Don’t let yourself be fooled.”
Old Master Qi started to say more, but Qi Yanshu suddenly turned to him and said, “That was unpleasant to hear.”
Old Master Qi: “…”
Qi Yanshu walked toward the apartment, his demeanor turning noticeably colder. “Don’t come over so casually in the future.”
Old Master Qi’s lips moved, but no words came out.
“Mianmian, Daddy will buy you a new place somewhere else. How about you move?” That was the first thing Han Xu said after stepping inside.
Jiang Mian had been mulling over the original novel’s plot in her head. At his words, she said, “Huh? Why?”
“Because the people across the hall are the Qis. There’s not a single decent person in the Qi family. I don’t feel safe with you living here alone.” Han Xu snorted. “Did you see how fierce that old man looked? He’s rotten to the core. How good could his son be? And with that cloth over his eyes—who’s he trying to impress with that fake depth? Clearly no good.”
Jiang Mian felt she should say something on Qi Yanshu’s behalf, after all, he had helped her at the restaurant. “…That young Mr. Qi has a cloth over his eyes because he’s injured.”
“I don’t care if he’s really injured or not. Anyone surnamed Qi—” Han Xu suddenly sensed something off. “Mianmian, how do you know his eyes are injured?”
Seeing his reaction, Jiang Mian realized that if she admitted to having interacted with Qi Yanshu, her billionaire tyrant father would probably blow his top. So, she chose her words carefully. “A normal person wouldn’t just put a cloth over their eyes for no reason. And yesterday, when he was moving in, I happened to run into him. There was blood on the cloth.”
She told a tiny lie.
Han Xu grunted and steered the conversation back. “Whatever the reason, let’s move, okay? Daddy will buy you a big villa.”
“I think this place is fine.” Just based on the fact that one night of meditation here had been more effective than an entire week in the hospital, she couldn’t move.
She tried a different angle to persuade her billionaire tyrant father. “Dad, if I move, wouldn’t that mean we’re afraid of the Qis? If anyone should move, it should be them, right?”
Han Xu thought it over and decided his daughter had a point. But he was still uneasy. He carefully suggested, “How about Daddy sends a female bodyguard to protect you up close?”
In the past, her four fathers had worried about their precious daughter living alone. Besides hiring a housekeeper to take care of her daily needs, they also wanted to send a female bodyguard. But the original Jiang Mian had thrown a fit, so they had dropped the idea.
Jiang Mian: “…”
Dad, what exactly are you so worried about?!
**