This piece was extraordinarily substantial, and could even be called a legendary jade. Mu Yue admired it for a while and took two sets of photos, but then she felt no particular attachment to it. She promptly signed a contract with Shi Yu and sold it.
Mu Yue’s decisiveness and straightforwardness put Shi Yu in an excellent mood. She had come to this place on a sudden whim, feeling that she might encounter something unexpected. As it turned out, she had indeed stumbled upon something good the moment she arrived.
Could this mysterious Miss Mu be her lucky star?
Of course, setting aside all that metaphysical nonsense, Shi Yu knew very well that Mu Yue had probably agreed to the transaction so readily because of her. For that, Shi Yu was genuinely grateful.
After acquiring such an enormous and extraordinarily rare top-grade rough stone, Shi Yu would naturally have a greater say within the group, and the authority in her hands would become even more secure. Thus, Shi Yu privately decided that she would give Mu Yue a set of jewelry made from this royal purple jade. The set would be worth at least a hundred million yuan.
Mu Yue accepted it without hesitation. It was what she deserved. The stone had sold for a billion yuan right after being cut open, while finished pieces that actually entered the market would only increase in value several times over.
She wasn’t lacking in jade. The various kinds of jadeite she had obtained through her sign-in draws were already plentiful, not to mention the pieces she occasionally bought herself—and she had just purchased a whole pile at the market. Aside from the largest one she had sold to Shi Yu, she had also profited from several smaller pieces. Even if she wore a different one every day, she could go an entire month without repeating a piece.
To put it in a slightly obnoxious way, it made little difference whether she had them or not. Still, the fact that the female lead was giving her a private gift made it meaningful in its own way. In the original story, Shi Yu had come here on a desperate gamble because she was facing a crisis. The male lead and the stone’s appearance solved her problem, but the male lead himself was an even greater problem.
He had been extremely conspicuous at the stone-gambling market, attracting plenty of attention. Those people had wanted to target him and, by extension, had dragged Shi Yu—who was trying to do business there—into a great deal of trouble. What was more, when he negotiated with Shi Yu, he made all sorts of shameless demands.
In the original story, these were described with the lofty excuse that the male lead was merely playing a little joke on the female lead. After all, the female lead had always disliked him and been prejudiced against him, so he took the opportunity to make things difficult for her. On the one hand, he wanted to see the vulnerable side of this cold, domineering female CEO; on the other, he wanted to vent a little, since he had genuinely saved Shi Le’s life. There had been absolutely no ulterior motives, contrary to what Shi Yu claimed.
But of course, the male lead was such a considerate lover. After flirting with the beautiful woman and getting her dragged into danger, he immediately began reflecting on his actions. He kept sincerely apologizing to Shi Yu and, at crucial moments, even shielded her from harm several times.
That was how Shi Yu fell for him.
Mu Yue finished the tea in her cup and smiled as she accepted Shi Yu’s invitation to dinner that evening. Looking at the female lead’s calm, confident smile, she thought that no matter how beautifully the original story described it, wasn’t the truth simply that this scumbag couldn’t stand a woman being better than him and could only resort to low and vulgar tricks?
Shi Yu came from a good family, was educated, talented, capable, independent, and strong-willed. She was exactly the kind of woman those loser men fantasized about becoming. But they knew perfectly well that a woman like her could never possibly be interested in them. That was why the plotline in which such a goddess bowed her head to the male lead was especially thrilling to them.
This was probably the greatest appeal of Shi Yu’s role as the first wife in a stallion novel.
But now, Shi Yu could continue to maintain her pride. She would not have to bow her head to some unknown man, much less endure a bizarre passage describing her fair neck and alluring figure.
Mu Yue had spent most of the day wandering around the jade market. After arranging a time to meet Shi Yu for dinner, she returned to the hotel to rest for a while.
As for Shi Yu, Mu Yue generously bought a surveillance prop. It wasn’t expensive anyway, and she had earned another huge wave of points by snatching the male lead’s stone. The stone represented not only the male lead’s fortune, but also his connection with the first wife. By taking it away, she had directly harvested 1,800 points.
Mu Yue guessed that this scumbag was probably in a difficult situation at the moment, so the money must have been extremely important to him. That was likely why she had received so many points.
Harem novel male leads really were easy to profit from! Mu Yue sighed as she dragged her finger across the long string of digits in her account—her balance looked almost like a phone number.
But the jade-market plot took place a year and a half earlier than in the original timeline. Shi Yu had still come, and the stone the male lead had taken a fancy to had still been cut open. Shi Yu still hadn’t seen the video of the male lead fighting with those people. The power of the plot was still incredibly strong. To be safe, she had to install this surveillance device.
Mu Yue even suspected that when Shi Yu was about to see the video, her phone and computer would somehow go missing.
The moment she had that thought, Mu Yue saw that Shi Yu’s phone had actually been snatched in broad daylight.
Mu Yue: “…”
Mu Yue laughed in exasperation.
Fine, fine. So that was how they wanted to play it? It seemed the plot force of this stallion novel still refused to give up.
There was no need to rush. This wasn’t the only trap she had laid. Hadn’t Spade already enjoyed watching the video several times? Wang Jian had missed out on a ten-billion-yuan windfall today, so his attention could only return to the Tang family and that antique transaction. If he wanted to interfere, he would inevitably need Spade’s help. When the time came, it would be perfectly reasonable for Spade to make a few demands.
Mu Yue’s mood improved, and she began choosing her outfit for the evening. She was already looking forward to seeing what the male lead would choose when the time came.
She was also curious about something else. She had stolen both the male lead’s fortune and his connection with the female lead today. How many points of his aura were left now?
Nothing unexpected happened during dinner. Mu Yue and Shi Yu were both excellent hosts and guests, and the evening ended pleasantly.
Meanwhile, the male lead’s second Misfortune Talisman had been activated by Mu Yue. He was currently being reprimanded and disciplined by the Tang family patriarch. After leaving, he was set up and toyed with by other members of the Tang family who disliked him. In front of the Tang family patriarch and his youngest granddaughter, he made a fool of himself yet again.
The second piece of good news was that Shi Yu would be leaving the next day and would not be staying here any longer. The stone was too important, and the longer they waited, the more complications might arise. Naturally, the sooner she returned, the better.
Mu Yue, on the other hand, said that she still planned to stay and have some fun. She hadn’t finished admiring the flowers, and the show wasn’t over yet.
Shi Yu had originally planned to leave an assistant behind to serve Mu Yue throughout her stay, with all of Mu Yue’s expenses covered by her. Mu Yue politely declined. She wasn’t short of money, and they would have plenty of time to keep in touch and develop their friendship in the future. Shi Yu, in particular, would need to be extremely careful on her journey home.
Shi Yu did not insist. Mu Yue still had several years left at A University, so there was no need to rush things. It seemed she had simply been too excited.
The next morning, Shi Yu began making preparations early. Mu Yue had also woken up long before dawn and was preparing for battle. She had a feeling that Shi Yu might not be able to leave so easily.
Scenes rapidly flashed through her mind: the stone being stolen, the male lead accidentally finding it again, and the two of them meeting and becoming acquainted.
With that thought in mind, Mu Yue quickly got up and washed up, while pulling up the surveillance feeds for both the male lead and the female lead. The male lead had woken up too, unexpectedly roused by a huge commotion from the next door where someone was catching their spouse cheating. From the look on his face, he was already planning to head out.
Mu Yue narrowed her eyes slightly, then activated two more items — she had marked a total of eleven negative status items on the male lead within the item range the day before.
One was diarrhea, and the other was bad luck.
The male lead had just lost his precious opportunity the previous day, and Mu Yue gambled that his luck was at an all-time low. The two negative effects stacked together showed immediate results.
The moment the male lead's hand touched the doorknob, his face suddenly paled drastically, and he dashed into the bathroom at top speed.
Mu Yue didn't idle around either. She pulled up the feed for Shi Yu and tried to contact her at the same time. However, on the screen, Shi Yu's phone only rang for a split second before going completely silent. Right in front of her, a child was about to get hit by a passing person; Shi Yu instinctively yanked the child back, and in that instant, her bag was snatched.
Mu Yue's expression remained calm. Without any hesitation, she immediately headed to Shi Yu's hotel.
Luckily, the two hotels were not far from each other, and Mu Yue arrived in no time. Before she even had a chance to get out of her car, Shi Yu and her group had already gotten into their vehicle and were heading for the airport. Mu Yue didn't get angry at all. To her own surprise, she was completely, unshakably calm.
The cars were all under her control. At her signal, her vehicle didn't stop at all, and tailed Shi Yu's car as it drove on. And before her, there was already another group of people trailing Shi Yu.
It didn't take long before Shi Yu noticed that someone seemed to be following her. Having been robbed twice in two days, she had already realized that she was targeted by some local people. The only thing they could possibly be after was that sky-high priced jadeite.
This kind of situation was within Shi Yu's expectations, but what she never saw coming was that the people she had brought with her had been bribed.
The car was driving further and further off the main road, clearly not heading for the airport.
Mu Yue kept steadily trailing behind them. Even if she lost sight of them, she wouldn't panic — the male lead wasn't the only one with special perks, she had them too. The surveillance item given by the system wouldn't stop working no matter what the roads were like.
A tiny little flicker of excitement even crept up on her. She had learned so many skills, but had never gotten to use them for real. What's more, there were several weapons she had drawn from gacha stored in her space. The number of bodyguards she had wasn't large, but all of them were high-tier cards, and she even had Carter, the all-around expert, on her side.
Switching back to the male lead's side, the protagonist's halo and the plot were still stubbornly pushing forward. Having suffered through the diarrhea the day before, he had learned his lesson and kept medicine on hand now.
Right after he took the medicine and walked out of the bathroom, the adulterer from the earlier cheating-catching scene pointed him out, claiming he was the real man having the affair. Without giving him any chance to explain, the male lead was dragged away. The surrounding onlookers had no idea what was true, and no one stepped in to stop it. He was stuffed into a car just like that, driven out of the urban area. The direction the car was heading wasn't exactly the same as Shi Yu's, but if it kept going that way, the two parties would most likely run into each other sooner or later.
Everything happened for a reason. This place was no longer just simple text from a novel. This whole cheating-catching abduction scene had its own underlying motives. Judging from the male lead's current situation, Mu Yue quickly came up with three possible explanations: first, the Tang family was up to their old tricks again, trying to humiliate the male lead; second, someone the male lead had offended in the past had spotted him and decided to take revenge; third, Spade had started their hunting operation.
No matter which possibility it was, under the push of the plot force, the male lead would very likely end up somewhere near the female lead. He would rely on his protagonist's halo to get out of danger, save the female lead in the process, and even help her deal with all her troubles.
That way, the two of them would have a brand new connection between each other.
"Hah," Mu Yue let out a soft laugh. Today, she was dead set on seeing for real who could move faster — her, or this stubborn plot.
Shi Yu had just been injected with a shot of medicine. It wasn't anything toxic, just a sedative to knock her out. The people who attacked her were none other than the ones she had brought with her. Most likely, they had been arranged by someone from her own family. Mu Yue didn't even bother to confirm exactly who was behind it — Shi Yu would figure that out and handle it herself later.
Right now, she only needed to do two things: first, call the police, and second, stay close to Shi Yu, so she could save her before the male lead even had the chance to step in.
