Chapter 207: Chess (II)

“…Why?”

The question seemed so simple.

Yan Jin didn’t have an answer.

His thoughts were all over the place. When he heard the words “Summer Springs Third Clinic” from Chu Ge, he knew he was in trouble.

It wasn’t just regular trouble; it was the deep, deep kind of trouble.

He couldn’t escape from the walls closing in around him. [TLN: The idiom here references the folksongs of the Chu Kingdom of the Warring States Period. It’s a pun because “songs of Chu” is p.r.o.nounced “Chu Ge”.]

Those words were like a key. They seemed harmless, but they signalled the end of the world like the opening of Pandora’s Box.

Yan Jin hadn’t thought about the Summer Springs Third Clinic for so long that those words felt foreign to him. He had never expected to hear them from Chu Ge.

“It wasn’t enough to fake her death, so you even locked her up in an asylum? What could make you do this to your own mother?”

“I don’t know what you heard, but… perhaps there’s been a misunderstanding…”

Yan Jin stopped and didn’t continue.

A single lie needed ten thousand lies to cover it up. A single truth revealed ten thousand other ugly truths.

Perhaps there’s been a misunderstanding?

There wasn’t much misunderstanding.

The remaining truths were hopelessly entangled and wouldn’t be unraveled for another hundred years.

“Sorry, these are internal Yan Family matters.” Each word was so cold and robotic that even Yan Jin himself felt scared.

He imagined a sigh from the other side.

But, there wasn’t. Not a sound came through the phone.

They sank into silence again.

Yan Jin suddenly recalled his first-ever meeting with Chu Ge at Du Yirou’s funeral.

He had immediately recognized Chu Ge, the “friend” he had to make.

Chu Ge had happened to look at him at the time, so he’d returned a pale but warm smile.

It had been such a preposterous funeral.

Their friends.h.i.+p had continued for twenty years. No matter their disagreements, Yan Jin had never believed a gap would form between them from those small issues.

But, he had never been more certain or regretful that today he would lose this long-time friend.

Yan Jin had thought that Chu Ge would pursue the topic, but after a long silence, Chu Ge instead asked something different.

“Do you have any plans for Nan Chan?”

Yan Jin didn’t mind the abrupt change in topic. Instead, he felt a little relieved and calmer now that they were no longer talking about Du Yirou and the Summer Springs Third Clinic.

He felt like a tourist who had been spared by a predicted storm that never came after forgetting to bring an umbrella.

“We’ll see. Once her condition stabilizes, she should go overseas for therapy and rehab. As for the abduction, Fishy said that it’s fine, so I won’t pursue an investigation…”

The last two words were muttered under his breath in disdain.

“How could we let the Yan Family control the life of the Nan Family’s successor?”

The metaphorical thunder crackled.

After the thunder, the long-awaited rain began to pour. The stormy sea rushed towards the sleepy coastline, leaving only debris in its wake.

“Don’t worry, it looks like the successors.h.i.+p… won’t be pa.s.sing to her anyways.”

Yan Jin heard a sharp intake of breath at his words.

As Yan Jin’s long-time friend who’d been pushed around in their scuffles, Chu Ge understood very well the truthfulness of the rumors about the ice cold chairman’s blunt nature and poisonous tongue.

But, this was the first time he’d sensed such evil intent behind Yan Jin’s nasty tone.

After a brief period of disbelief, Chu Ge felt a searing anger in his heart.

You’re the one in the wrong here!

“Don’t expect that you’ll have the advantage if we take Nan Chan’s mental state to court.”

“I don’t agree. She would definitely have to pay for her own actions.”

“That might be true, but not everything will go according to your plans. This time, I won’t lose.”

……

“Finished with the call?” Xiao Yu asked through a half-chewed palmier in his mouth.

Yan Jin grunted in acknowledgement but didn’t look at him. Instead, he directly walked back to his seat.

Xiao Yu was a little confused by Yan Jin’s actions but didn’t think about it too much. He sycophantically strutted over with the bag and asked, “Jing Mo just left some palmiers for us. Do you want one?”

As he got closer, Xiao Yu finally sensed something wrong with Yan Jin’s mood.

On the surface, there didn’t seem to be anything wrong, but Xiao Yu could feel a depressed negativity from Yan Jin, just like that of a child throwing a tantrum.

Xiao Yu perversely thought it was cute.

If he were a hamster, he would have considered exposing his stomach to Yan Jin to cheer him up.

“What happened?” Unfortunately, he wasn’t a hamster right now, so he could only ask this ordinary question.

“Not much. The finance department reported a few issues.”

Another person might have doubted Yan Jin’s nonsense, but Xiao Yu was easier to fool. Xiao Yu immediately started to panic and asked, “How did it happen? Is it bad? Can it be resolved?”

This could be considered one of Xiao Yu’s personality faults. He always panicked whenever he encountered anything unexpected outside of his expertise.

In plain terms, even though Xiao Yu’s own position was very high, he still completely relied on Yan Jin for anything not related to the design department at work. Not only did he treat Yan Jin’s words as truth, he treated Yan Jin himself as a deity, the only deity in the entire industry. If Yan Jin called for something, a hundred people would comply.

Others at SI had taken advantage of this shortcoming, which had become the reason that Xiao Yu was fired. After Xiao Yu joined YL, there hadn’t been any major issues because of Yan Jin’s painstaking care. But, Xiao Yu was still often deceived by Yan Jin himself.

Like now.

“It’s a little troublesome and might damage our reputation. But, there’s no need to worry; I can resolve it.” As Yan Jin continued with his lie, he ma.s.saged Xiao Yu’s head to comfort him.

Through this, Yan Jin’s mood improved somewhat.

Xiao Yu had no idea his objective had been achieved and was still worrying over the “finance department issues”. He leaned into Yan Jin’s embrace with a palmier in mouth while agonizing over it.

“Want some?” Xiao Yu’s voice was m.u.f.fled by the palmier.

“Sure.” Yan Jin leaned in and used his mouth to directly take the piece from Xiao Yu’s mouth.

“There’s so many in the bag, but you don’t want those ones. You’re so lazy!” Xiao Yu muttered while getting another piece for himself.

“Right, weren’t you talking on the phone to Chu Ge earlier? Did he say why he hasn’t come online recently? Is he still playing Toxic?”

“Mhmm, he’s making preparations to erase everything and restart from scratch again.”

“WTF is he doing? It’s just a game. He’ll lose all the in-game items he paid money for. He can rebuy them, but that’s so wasteful…”

Xiao Yu thought Yan Jin had been referring to the game. In truth, this was a normal interpretation. Anyone not in the know would think the same given the same context. Only the high-ranked members of the “inner circle” would know better.

Since Xiao Yu was not such a high-ranked member, he didn’t think of anything besides the game.

As a result, Xiao Yu received a ma.s.sive shock a week later when he saw the official news from NN.

It wasn’t only him. Anyone who knew even a little bit about them had the same reaction.

On November 16th, the Nan Family formally announced that Young Master Nan Qi, who had been missing for ten years, had returned to the family. In addition, he would be first in line for succession of the family and was NN’s new CEO, effective tomorrow.

Originally, YL and the Nan Family had had no relations.h.i.+p at all. They were both in the design industry, but one specialized in jewelry and the other in clothing. They had occasionally collaborated for mutual benefit, but that was it.

But, not long ago, the Nan Family had acquired SI. SI had become NN’s subsidiary and jewelry brand, so NN and YL had instantly become compet.i.tors. At least to YL’s public relations and human resources departments, the Nan Family was a ma.s.sive threat that had to be monitored.

And now, everyone in the upper-cla.s.s was stunned by this earth-shaking news. They couldn’t help but be surprised by how casually this was announced on their official blog, as if this was just a regular lost son who had been found.

But, YL employees didn’t have time to recover from the news.

Chu Ge, or more accurately now, Nan Qi, forcefully changed SI’s entire leaders.h.i.+p structure on his first day. On his first week, starting from the day of the Nan Family’s announcement, SI released their monthly sales figures. It was less than ten percent lower than that of the high-flying YL.

Ten years ago, he had shocked various industries with his genius. After a ten-year disappearance, he revealed his cold fierce fangs that hadn’t dulled one bit in this time.

YL wasn’t the only one shocked. All of City S’s upper cla.s.s were as well.

Yan Jin alone already caused them enough headache. Now there was another?

The first son of the Nan Family had returned?

The one that had severed all relations with the family and the one that the Nan Family had been determined not to talk about for ten years had returned?

That was Nan Qi.

The Nan Family had groomed him for eighteen years to become their strongest chess piece.

……

It was already too late when Xiao Yu figured out that Yan Jin and Chu Ge probably had had a fight.

Chairman Yan was stuck in a childish mentality of refusing to be the first one to initiate reconciliation. The bitter struggle between YL and SI only grew fiercer, and Yan Jin’s condition was clearly worsening day by day.

“Hey, I mean, that is…” Xiao Yu finally couldn’t bear it any longer.