5 – Young Master, Please Don’t Be Like This
Xie Rongyu smiled, refined and noble as jade. “That’s not how you read a contract.”
“Hm?” Li Ziyin’s eyes widened slightly, completely caught off guard.
Xie Rongyu poured her a glass of water. “Aren’t you afraid of getting cheated?”
Li Ziyin looked blank. “Huh?”
“The state certainly won’t cheat you, but with other people, it’s better to be careful.”
With that, Xie Rongyu set down his suit jacket and headed to the kitchen.
Li Ziyin stood there dumbfounded.
So the young master was purely career-minded, and just wanted to teach her how to read contracts?
With a complicated expression, Li Ziyin followed him to the kitchen.
She saw Xie Rongyu wearing an apron over his white shirt, chopping vegetables with lightning speed.
Hearing her, he glanced back. “Any dietary restrictions?”
Li Ziyin stared at the potato shreds, each one perfectly uniform in thickness, and shook her head blankly.
So Xie Rongyu turned back to his chopping, his knife work skilled—the mark of someone clearly experienced.
Li Ziyin watched, mesmerized, and only after a while remembered what she’d come to say.
“Xie Rongyu—I’ll just call you that, then.”
“You have a brilliant future ahead of you. You really don’t need to personally ‘protect’ me.”
“Since I’ve made my choice, I won’t run away when it matters.”
Otherwise, after the Quick Transmigration Mission ended, she would have chosen to stay in one of those worlds rather than return to the modern era.
While she was speaking, Xie Rongyu had stopped and turned to look at her.
As if he hadn’t expected her to call it out so directly, he raised an eyebrow slightly.
But he didn’t seem embarrassed at all, his gaze as gentle as ever.
“You misunderstand, Miss Li. Coming to your side was my own choice.”
Li Ziyin raised an eyebrow.
Wasn’t he career-minded?
If he came to her side of his own accord, what career would he have left?
The golden light of late afternoon fell across Xie Rongyu’s features—he truly was a gentleman like jade—as he met Li Ziyin’s gaze without blinking.
“Who says achieving great things requires staying at the center of power?”
“Protecting you well is itself a contribution to the nation—one that will affect countless generations to come.”
Very good.
That goal fit the career-minded persona perfectly.
Seeing Li Ziyin’s expression soften, Xie Rongyu added:
“Besides, you saved my grandfather.”
His eyes were sincere, the light in them visible to the very bottom.
Li Ziyin, acting on some strange impulse, blurted, “So you’re here to offer yourself to me in marriage?”
This time it was Xie Rongyu who looked at her with a complicated expression.
Li Ziyin had spoken without thinking, and as soon as she realized it, her ears began to burn.
But she never expected Xie Rongyu to actually answer.
“You could put it that way.”
“…”
Young master, don’t be like this.
Xie Rongyu’s cooking skills were unexpectedly excellent—four dishes and a soup for the two of them.
Perfect in color, aroma, and taste.
Li Ziyin buried her head in her meal.
After eating, she voluntarily cleared the dishes and loaded them into the dishwasher.
Xie Rongyu didn’t stop her, just sighed. When Li Ziyin finished cleaning up, she looked at him and sighed too.
“I really don’t need to be repaid.”
Xie Rongyu smiled and said nothing.
Li Ziyin knew then that his mind was made up.
She couldn’t say anything more, so she ordered herself a bubble tea as a treat.
But with two people there, she couldn’t exactly hog it all to herself.
So she ordered one for Xie Rongyu as well.
When he received it, he paused for a moment, then said, “Thank you.”
…
Ever since Li Ziyin woke up in the hospital and extorted ten million each from Li Zihan and her fish, the Li family had been desperate to drag her out, make her cough up the money, and eat her alive!
But by the time they learned of it, Li Ziyin had already blocked them—and everyone connected to them.
The Li family couldn’t find her at all.
Today, the head of the Huo family ran into her on the street—and was actually beaten into a concussion by her!
The Huo family came knocking, and Father Li was so furious he nearly had a heart attack!
Unfilial daughter! Little beast!
Two years ago, when she was hit and became a vegetable, they never should have sent her to the hospital!
If they’d just let her die, they wouldn’t be in this mess now!
With an older sister as sensible as Li Zihan, why couldn’t she learn anything good?!
Father Li saw the Huo family off with a fawning smile, but the moment he stepped back inside, he smashed the teacup on the table to pieces!
“Let’s see how long she can survive out there! That twenty million—as long as she dares to touch it, we can catch her!”
Mother Li said through gritted teeth as she stroked Father Li’s chest to calm him down.
Back when she was pregnant with twins, the Li family had been overjoyed.
Everyone had hoped she was carrying a boy and a girl—dragon-phoenix twins.
But after Li Zihan was born, the second baby turned out to be another girl.
Old Master Li’s face had darkened on the spot.
The entourage of attendants Mother Li enjoyed during her pregnancy vanished the moment she gave birth to Li Ziyin.
That was why Mother Li hated Li Ziyin with a passion.
If it weren’t for her costing her a son, would she have lost Old Master Li’s favor?
And to make matters worse, Li Ziyin was nowhere near as accomplished as Li Zihan—stirring up trouble all day long, skinny as a monkey, an embarrassment whenever she went out.
In Mother Li’s eyes, Li Ziyin couldn’t compare to a single strand of Li Zihan’s hair.
She never realized that from childhood, she’d been biased even in feeding them—Li Ziyin was malnourished, and on top of that, she’d helped Li Zihan dump a basin of dirty water over her.
No wonder she was an embarrassment in everyone else’s eyes.
Standing nearby, Li Zihan’s eyes were rimmed red, like a pearl shedding tears.
“How could Little Sister be so heartless? Doesn’t she know that after staying away so long, Mom and Dad would worry about her?”
“And the Huo family isn’t someone we can afford to offend. She… Brother Huo Yu is still lying in a hospital bed right now.”
The bit of anger that had just subsided in Father Li shot up three zhang higher at her words.
He raised his hand and called the butler over.
“Go, report to the police station! Tell them the Li family lost ten million, and Li Ziyin stole it!”
The butler acknowledged the order and turned to go handle it personally.
But before he could leave the living room, two straight-backed plainclothes officers and two policemen were ushered in by a servant.
“Who is Li Liqing? The Li Corporation is suspected of tax evasion. Please come with us.”
“Cooperate with the investigation.”
Before dinner, Xie Rongyu handed Li Ziyin a household registration booklet.
“The state has taken charge and transferred your household registration out. I hope that was your wish as well.”
Li Ziyin had been thinking about exactly this—she just hadn’t expected the state to move faster than she did.
She took it, in an excellent mood.
“Of course! Did that family say anything?”
She had set up Li Zihan—knowing how that family operated, they’d surely want to peel a layer of skin off her.
Xie Rongyu had just come out of the study, still wearing a pair of gold-rimmed glasses he hadn’t yet removed.
He looked refined and aristocratic.
His thin lips curved slightly, his manner calm and effortless.
“No one dared.”
So this is what it means to have a big tree to lean on for shade?
Li Ziyin felt great.
But the moment she took the registration booklet, a schedule was handed over as well.
“Tomorrow I’m taking you for a physical exam. The rest is your training plan.”
The physical exam was fine.
But on the training plan—from seven in the morning to eight at night, physical training in the morning, humanities and geography in the afternoon, fine, whatever.
Why did she also have to study chemistry and physics?
And what on earth was this “antique appraisal”?
Plus painting, music, and design?
Had the higher-ups been brainwashed by transmigration novels?!
Li Ziyin’s smile froze.
Li Ziyin’s pupils quaked.