Chapter 208: Chess (III)

“If this is about Nan Qi, save your breath.” Yan Jin didn’t even look up from his doc.u.ments.

Xiao Yu calmly said, “No, this is about Chu—”

“—Even more reason to save your breath then.”

Xiao Yu blinked silently in dismay. His expression of helplessness was pitiful.

It was no use competing against Yan Jin’s cold unfeeling att.i.tude.

Yan Jin set the doc.u.ments aside and called his secretary through their internal phone lines. He asked his secretary to come up and collect some doc.u.ments from him before hanging up. The entire process was so natural and smooth that there wasn’t any opportunity for an outsider to interrupt.

But, Xiao Yu wasn’t an outsider. Strictly speaking, he was Yan Jin’s… husband.

“I shouldn’t have to say anything. You guys have been friends for so long; can’t you just talk to him?” Xiao Yu pleaded shamelessly, doing his best to convince Yan Jin.

But, Yan Jin ignored him and focused only on his doc.u.ments, as if his doc.u.ments were his true love.

Xiao Yu impatiently waited for a response for a long time and watched Yan Jin flip through his doc.u.ments back and forth. Just when Yan Jin set the doc.u.ments down and seemed to be about to say something—

Knock knock.

The secretary had come.

Xiao Yu stared irritatedly at Yan Jin while he discussed things with Secretary Fang. In the end, Yan Jin even got up and left with her.

Hey, is it appropriate to leave with another woman in front of your boyfriend?

Xiao Yu wasn’t even in the mood to mock Yan Jin anymore. He powerlessly leaned his head against the table and sighed deeply.

When are they going to stop ignoring each other and pretending like nothing happened…?

Truth be told, he hadn’t expected Yan Jin and Chu Ge to fight.

Xiao Yu hadn’t thought too deeply about Chu Ge returning to become the successor of the Nan Family that was worth over a hundred billion yuan. First, Xiao Yu didn’t understand the business side of things. Secondly, Xiao Yu didn’t know about Chu Ge leaving the Nan Family ten years ago. To him, Chu Ge was like a secret BOSS. Showing his true colors at any time was quite normal. And, wasn’t it quite normal for a young master to grow up in the slums before reclaiming his successors.h.i.+p of a hundred-billion-yuan family?

A lot had happened in the last month. SI’s sales continued to skyrocket. The day before City S’s annual designer awards, SI released an astonis.h.i.+ng series of products. They submitted this to the team category, choosing to avoid submitting anything against Xiao Yu’s “Riptide” in the individual category. The reception to SI’s work was quite favorable. Throughout all of this, Xiao Yu didn’t sense anything wrong.

Xiao Yu oftentimes felt lonely at the top and welcomed the additional compet.i.tion NN brought. Furthermore, because of Xiao Yu’s lack of business sense, he naively thought that they’d be able to collaborate and mutually progress with NN because of Chu Ge.

Two days ago, SI had formally declared war on YL. On their official blog were the words, “This time, I won’t lose.”

To outsiders, this was SI’s declaration to return to their throne. They wanted to win the top spot and glory back from YL.

But, Xiao Yu was reminded of the time Chu Ge had played Toxic against Yan Jin. At the time, Chu Ge had wanted to use his experience advantage in Toxic to defeat Yan Jin but had instead been completely destroyed. He’d angrily left behind the words, “Next time, I definitely won’t lose” before going offline.

History repeated itself.

No matter that the place, situation, or ident.i.ties had completely changed, Xiao Yu could still distinctly sense that those words carried the same childish but clear intent as before.

n.o.body could have imagined that this large scale power struggle was simply the escalation of a schoolyard scuffle between two kids.

During this time, Yan Jin was completely out of sorts. He spent longer and longer in the office with lower and lower efficiency. Xiao Yu couldn’t tell what Yan Jin was thinking, constantly picking up his phone to do nothing with it. Whenever Xiao Yu asked, Yan Jin would always give some random excuse.

Now, here they were. Xiao Yu felt really stupid for taking so long to discover the cause of the issues.

After Xiao Yu had figured it out, he’d gone to find Nan Wei. As expected, Chu Ge’s, or Nan Qi’s situation… wasn’t too good.

On one hand, Nan Qi worked day and night to increase the Nan Family’s profits by several times in under a month. On the other hand, Nan Qi raged against the leaders of the Nan Family, oftentimes violently displaying his refusal to cooperate. Using his medical license, Nan Qi injected sedatives into his arranged wife, bound her hands and legs, threw her out of the office, and called a mental asylum to pick her up. The news had almost exploded into a scandal. It really was unclear whether he wanted the Nan Family to succeed or topple.

n.o.body could be happy in such a situation. Jing Mo, Shao Yue, and Nan Wei were equally vexed after their attempts to get Yan Jin or Chu Ge to talk. Ultimately, their attempts at mediation were all for naught, and in the end they could only laugh bitterly at their failed efforts.

This continued for another half a month till the end of the year. One day, Xiao Yu could bear it no longer. He suddenly stood up and flung his laptop aside, storming out of the office.

Yan Jin didn’t stop him.

The only sound from the office for a long time was a sigh.

……

After changing ident.i.ties, Chu Ge’s phone whitelist was much shorter. [TLN: as opposed to a blacklist where certain numbers are blocked, phone whitelisting is when only numbers on that list can call you. All other numbers are blocked.]

Well, he wasn’t Chu Ge anymore. He was Nan Qi, the most distinguished successor of the Nan Family in the last hundred years.

Nan Qi sat in Nan Chan’s old office observing the multicolored night lights of City S through the enormous French windows.

As the days grew colder, night fell earlier.

The day’s work was not yet done, or more correctly, was nowhere near done. It would probably take him until the sky became light again to finish it.

Nan Qi didn’t mind pulling all-nighters. Even if he didn’t, he wouldn’t be able to fall asleep.

It was interesting that his insomnia wasn’t as bad as before, possibly because his heavy work sapped him of all his energy and spirit.

When his phone rang, Nan Qi didn’t even look at the number before answering.

His old friends could no longer call this number. Even if they changed numbers, it wouldn’t work because his phone was set to a whitelist system.

As he thought this, his entire body shook when he heard the voice.

“Chu Ge! Chu Ge, can you hear me? I want to see you!”

Nan Qi looked at the caller ID and saw it was the “President”.

Which president? The president of City S’s First Private Hospital!

Nan Qi hesitated before putting him on speakerphone.

There were a bunch of random sounds from the phone before it settled back to silence.

“Little Chu…” The voice sounded old and disinclined.

“Hi President. What’s the matter?” Nan Qi wasn’t enthusiastic. He’d already quit for almost a year and hadn’t expected to receive a call from the president.

“Little Chu, people really are becoming more evil. Do you remember that large accident when you saved the patient?”

“I, I remember…”

Wasn’t it just Xiao Yu? I even heard his voice earlier.

“Yes, it’s that b.a.s.t.a.r.d!” the president indignantly said. “The little ingrate is accusing you of operating on him without family consent! He’s suing you for medical malpractice!”

Nan Qi supported his forehead with his palm.

Well, perhaps it was his fault. His mistake had been overlooking Xiao Yu’s hidden ident.i.ty and rescuing him.

Karma was no joke. His follies would always come back to bite him.

“The little s.h.i.+t is refusing to leave the hospital! We’ve explained to him so many times but he won’t listen! He wants to see you directly! We’ve restrained him and are ready to send him to a mental asylum. It’s up to you if you want to come and explain the misunderstanding. We don’t mind if others smear us; the hospital will definitely support you. Actually, it doesn’t matter if you don’t come. I’ll kick this dog out!”

“Wait, don’t touch him! But, it’s not too convenient for me to come right now…”

“Ahh I’ve toiled for sixty years to save lives and cure illnesses, and now this guy is biting back at his benefactor. The heavens are heartless, the heavens are really heartless! I swear to bring justice to this, no matter the cost on this old bag of bones! Justice must prevail!”

“… I’ll come.”

Sour from the undoubtedly one-sided fight between his old president and old friend, Nan Qi rushed out of NN into the restless night lights.

……

Nan Qi crazily rushed over in his car towards First Private Hospital. He ran three red lights, risking a stack of traffic tickets and his driver’s license. [TLN: Traffic violations are almost entirely automated by intersection cameras in major cities in China.]

Unfortunately, despite his best efforts to save time, he couldn’t stop the tragedy that had already happened.

When he saw Xiao Yu slumped against the wall, Nan Qi’s heart missed a beat.

He knew something had happened.

Would doctors really not retaliate against someone trying to smear them and cause trouble?

If anyone wanted to try, they could receive a free lesson from City S’s First Private Hospital.

“What are you doing?!”

Nan Qi strode forward and pulled aside Xiao Yu’s inexperienced hands that had been trying to apply ointment to his head injuries. Without listening to Xiao Yu’s response, Nan Qi applied the ointment, taped the bandages on, and even fixed Xiao Yu’s hair.

Xiao Yu was shocked silly. “Chu, Chu Ge?”

“Look at yourself! Yan Jin’s going to kill me when you get back…” He’d subconsciously responded according to his old ident.i.ty. To cover up his embarra.s.sment, he added, “I go by Nan Qi now.”

Then, when he noticed the surrounding nurses, Chu Ge’s anger flared. “What are you all looking at? Have all the patients been checked on? You’re all being paid five figures monthly just to be spectators? And, you’ve all just been watching without helping, watching the injured fix himself up?! Do none of you care about the hospital’s reputation anymore?!”

“Heyheyhey, Chu Ge, calm down…” Xiao Yu quickly tried to placate him. “I came here to cause trouble, so don’t go after them.”