The air in the private room seemed to freeze solid.
Zong Wen's icy face betrayed nothing. He simply released his grip without the slightest hesitation.
The absolute force controlling Chi Xingran's wrist vanished. He stumbled back three steps before barely regaining his balance.
Looking down, he saw his washed-out cuff hanging crookedly. His wrist burned as if it had just been caught in iron pincers.
Before he could catch his breath, the private-room door burst open with a bang.
“Mr. Zong!”
Eight hulking bodyguards in matching black suits charged in like wolves, sealing off the luxurious room in seconds.
Leading them, Special Assistant Zhou hurried to the head of the table, cold sweat on his forehead. With utmost deference, he offered an opened packet of medical-grade disinfectant wipes. “We arrived too late. Please punish us!”
Zong Wen didn't even spare him a glance.
He took a wipe in his long, pale fingers and irritably scrubbed the wrist Chi Xingran had grabbed.
Once. Twice. Three times.
There was something almost pathological about the compulsion in his movements. Only when his cool, pale skin had flushed pink did he throw the wipe into the bin.
Chi Xingran turned to stone.
Mr... Mr. Zong?
In the entire capital, who else would these elite bodyguards call Mr. Zong? Who else had this sort of obsessive young-master temperament?
Chi Xingran's gaze landed on the limited-edition all-black Patek Philippe on Zong Wen's wrist. His eyelids twitched violently.
This wasn't an NPC from a murder-mystery game parlor. Nor was he a fellow wage slave with whom Chi Xingran could commiserate.
This was the living King of Hell who ruled the capital's elite: Zong Wen, the true master of the Zong financial empire!
He had blundered straight into Hell's own temple. Not only had he kicked its door down, he had stood before the King of Hell himself and smugly taken the man under his protection like some little sidekick!
He had even taken it upon himself to verbally strip the man's blind date bare!
His phone vibrated wildly in his hoodie pocket. Nearly a million people were watching the livestream, and thousands upon thousands of comments urged him to make funeral arrangements.
He was finished. Completely screwed.
Forget earning today's five-hundred-yuan errand fee. At this rate, his corpse would be staying here as a footstool!
“Ahem... Um...”
The savage survival instincts forged by twenty years of scraping by on the streets seized control. Chi Xingran unfocused his eyes, raised both arms straight in front of him, and mumbled, “Spirits of heaven, spirits of earth... Who am I? Where am I? Why am I sleepwalking again...?”
With stiff, mechanical steps, he inched along the wall toward the door.
If he could just get out, he would take the cheapest seat on an old green train straight back to his hometown and sell things on the street!
But he hadn't even managed three steps.
“Stop him.”
The man's voice was very low, yet carried an absolute authority that chilled the blood.
Two bodyguards, each over six foot three, stepped sideways and blocked the doorway completely.
Chi Xingran's sleepwalking act froze mid-motion. With a strained laugh, he slowly lowered his arms.
Zong Wen rose at an unhurried pace. Nearly six foot three himself, he cast a cold, oppressive shadow that swallowed Chi Xingran whole.
Special Assistant Zhou deftly stepped forward and brought up his tablet.
“Mr. Chi, correct? Now that the misunderstanding has been cleared up, let's settle the bill.”
“Item one: Mr. Zong's fully bespoke Savile Row suit. The fabric alone cost six hundred and eighty thousand yuan. The external pulling force has broken the gold threads in the material. Given Mr. Zong's severe aversion to contamination, the suit is now unusable. Full compensation is required.”
“Item two: your kick damaged the lock and snapped the hinges of the restaurant's custom-carved golden nanmu door. Repairs and compensation for loss of use total one hundred and twenty thousand yuan.”
“Item three: the reproduction Kangxi-style blue-and-white porcelain tea set you accidentally broke upon entering. Value: two hundred thousand yuan.”
Zhou adjusted his gold-rimmed glasses. “That brings the total to exactly one million yuan. Will you be paying by card, WeChat, or transfer to our corporate account?”
One million?!
The words struck like a bolt from a clear sky, blasting straight through the top of Chi Xingran's skull.
If he emptied his pockets, he had two hundred yuan and fifty cents. His bank balance permanently hovered in the double digits.
He couldn't scrape together a fraction of that astronomical sum even if he sold his kidneys by the pound!
“Hang on... Sir, could we be reasonable here?!” Sweat covered his forehead as he spoke at the speed of a comedy double act. “Those hinges were rusty already! I barely touched the door and it fell over by itself! And that tea set—Miss Fake Innocent Lin kicked it over with her heels when she ran off! Why's it all on me?”
Expressionless, Zhou pointed to the concealed high-definition camera overhead. “Mr. Chi, we have a complete three-hundred-and-sixty-degree overhead view with no blind spots. The footage shows that the air pressure from your kick knocked the tea set down. The metal-fatigue fracture in the door hinge occurred precisely where your shoe struck. Would you like to watch the slow-motion replay?”
Chi Xingran's mouth twitched hard.
These capitalists were even billing him for the air displaced by his kick?!
“And the suit...” He pointed at the creases in Zong Wen's jacket, making one last desperate attempt. “I'll take it home and hand-wash it! I'll use the most expensive detergent and iron it smoother than when it was new. How's that? If that's not enough, I'll do your laundry free for a year!”
“Mr. Zong doesn't wear clothes washed by other people,” Zhou interrupted calmly. “Our legal department has already assembled enough material to put you away for ten years.”
Ten years?!
Chi Xingran's knees weakened. He nearly dropped to them before the living King of Hell.
Ten years sewing in prison?
By the time he got out, the world would have fossilized!
No. He couldn't just sit around waiting to die!
His mind raced, frantically searching for an escape.
Why was Zong Wen here?
A blind date!
That Lin Rourou had kept mentioning Zong Zeyu. Clearly, the hypocrites inside the Zong family had set a honey trap for him!
If Chi Xingran hadn't blundered through the door and exposed Lin Rourou so thoroughly, Zong Wen would definitely have been disgusted today!
He wasn't a troublemaker. He was a hero who'd rescued the sovereign!
Chi Xingran snapped his head up. Miraculously, his spine straightened. “Mr. Zong! That's not how you should be calculating this!”
His voice rang out. “I really don't have any money. You can take my life, but there's no money to take! However—I have skills!”
The corner of Zhou's eye twitched hard. The bodyguards exchanged looks.
This streamer had to be the first person on the entire internet to stand before the capital's living King of Hell and declare so righteously that he could take his life!
“Skills?” Zong Wen looked down at him, one eyebrow lifting. “You mean opening locks by kicking doors down?”
“Of course not!” Chi Xingran edged half a step closer and pointed toward the door through which Lin Rourou had fled, launching into a rapid sales pitch. “That Lin woman was wearing fake couture, carrying a knockoff bag, and crying fake tears! If I hadn't spotted her act and torn it apart on the spot, who knows what Zong Zeyu and his cronies would've been saying about you afterward?”
He thumped his chest and vowed, “I've been working wholesale markets and street stalls since I was a kid. They call me the Human Fraud Detector, the Fake-Innocence Terminator! Rich families are deep water, full of hypocrites. Manipulators and corporate spies are everywhere!”
“If you send me off to sew in prison, you lose a million yuan. But if you keep me here to work off the debt, I'll handle every trap Zong Zeyu's gang sets for you, every scheme, every fake socialite they send! I'll strip every last one of them bare!”
The room fell quiet enough to hear a pin drop.
Something almost imperceptible flashed in Zong Wen's abyss-black eyes.
Zong Zeyu had been making frequent moves on the board lately. Today's blind date was indeed one of his carefully arranged pieces, intended to use public pressure to force Zong Wen's hand.
The scheme had been concealed so well that even Zong Wen's covert security detail had failed to uncover Lin Rourou's background.
Yet this little streamer in a bargain-stall hoodie, radiating untamed street energy, had demolished the entire setup in under three minutes. He had even shouted the mastermind Zong Zeyu's name on the spot.
This blade was wild and difficult to tame, even dirty enough to make it uncomfortable to hold... but it would be remarkably useful against the sanctimonious hypocrites at the Zong family estate.
More importantly... Zong Wen frowned slightly.
When the young man leaned closer, the faint scent on him, like freshly peeled citrus, somehow failed to trigger Zong Wen's usual physical nausea and revulsion.
Zong Wen said nothing more.
Reading the situation perfectly, Zhou handed over a document half a centimeter thick. Its cover read: Exclusive Livestreaming Debt Repayment Agreement.
“Sign it.” Zong Wen pushed the document and red ink pad toward him, his tone cold and final. “Those skills you just described belong exclusively to the Zong Group from today onward.”