Wang Jian’s mind was filled with curses. As he watched the car drive farther and farther off course, panic and urgency rose within him. He kept racking his brains, trying to figure out who could be setting him up, but after going through everyone he could think of, he still had no answer. Now, he was starting to regret things.
Ever since he had gained those eyes, he had probably been far too high-profile. If someone he had offended back then was looking for trouble... Wang Jian broke out in a cold sweat.
Lost in his thoughts, he happened to catch sight of a car some distance away.
Its window was swiftly rolled down, revealing a beautiful but somewhat pale face. Wang Jian’s heart lurched. Just as he was about to take another look, the window was immediately shut tight again.
No one needed to tell him that the woman in that car was in trouble. Most likely, like him, she had been kidnapped.
Wang Jian had an incredibly strong intuition: he had to save this woman. As long as he rescued her, all the bad luck that had plagued him these past few months would finally leave him!
Shi Yu was not fully conscious, but she understood her situation. The moment she regained a little awareness, she tried to call for help. Unfortunately, her body was far too weak, and the people in the car were hardly going to let her do as she pleased. Once the window was rolled back up, her hands were restrained, leaving her unable to resist.
When the people in the car saw that she had passed out again, they breathed a sigh of relief.
Mu Yue, meanwhile, took a more direct approach. After calculating where the two routes would eventually intersect and narrowing down the areas nearby where the two groups were most likely to hide, she gave up on chasing them from behind. Instead, she accelerated and got ahead of them.
The cars on both sides were worried about speeding and attracting traffic police, which would only create unnecessary complications, so they were not driving very fast. Overtaking them would not actually have been difficult, but plot armor had been getting in the way. The moment Mu Yue stopped trying to pursue them, she effortlessly passed them.
Mu Yue glanced at the two cars and smiled faintly. By the time they finally left the city limits, she had already arrived.
It was an undeveloped suburban area, dominated by a vast stretch of dense woodland. A village had once stood here, but it had long since been abandoned. The surrounding land was overgrown with weeds, and the roads were in terrible condition. It was an ideal place to hide people or things; anyone entering unprepared would need quite some time to find their way out.
Mu Yue did not rashly enter. She would wait to see which direction Shi Yu and the others took, then simply follow their tracks. As for whether the male lead lived or died, that was none of her concern.
However, Wang Jian’s group arrived first. Before getting out of the car, he had been drugged as well—but unlike Shi Yu, he had been given an aphrodisiac.
The drug had not taken effect yet, so Wang Jian could still move freely for the time being. His hands were merely bound, and his eyes and mouth covered to prevent him from calling for help.
Mu Yue was still in her car, watching the systems’ live feed. She nearly choked on her drink. As expected of a stallion novel—this drug again. The plot was easy enough to predict: the male lead would rescue the female lead while struggling under the effects of the drug, and even if they did not actually have sex, there would definitely be some intimate contact.
Whenever this man encountered a heroine with status and connections—someone he could not easily get his hands on—he always pulled this same disgusting stunt.
This time, however, Mu Yue was in a rather good mood. Reasoning backward, whoever had kidnapped the male lead and drugged him in the middle of nowhere at a time like this was certainly not one of the female leads’ doing. Besides, he hadn’t had any women around him lately. The closest one, Miss Tang, had only offended him yesterday.
The deal with the Tang family hinged heavily on Wang Jian. No matter how badly the Tang family wanted to cause trouble for the male lead, they wouldn’t make a move at a time like this. If anything went wrong, the consequences would be far more serious than a little squabble.
Playing this kind of twisted game… after eliminating all the possibilities, the most likely culprit was Spade.
Very good, very good. She hadn’t given the male lead any choice at all. No wonder she was the potential stock Mu Yue had taken a liking to!
The group had brought the male lead into one of the houses in the abandoned village. After saying a few deliberately vague things, they left him to guess who was targeting him. Most of them then left, leaving two men behind to keep watch. It wasn’t long before the two guards began arguing over how to divide the spoils, and the quarrel escalated into a fight.
The male lead seized the opportunity, charged out, and fled from the village into the depths of the woods.
Just then, Shi Yu’s people arrived as well. They had also planned to lock Shi Yu in one of the abandoned houses, pretending that they intended to extort another sum of money from her, when in reality they simply wanted to make her suffer.
The Jade was in the vehicle. They had already succeeded.
Shi Yu had originally made preparations for both possibilities, but unfortunately, someone close to her had betrayed her. Those targeting her were all members of her own family. They knew exactly what Shi Yu was capable of, so they had no intention of killing her. They still needed her to return to the group and make money for them.
But before the group could decide how to torment Shi Yu, Mu Yue got out of the car.
“I told you, didn’t I? Miss Shi, you really need to be more careful.”
The journey there had taken some time, and the rough roads had slowed them down. By then, Shi Yu had already regained consciousness, though her body was still weak. At the sound of that voice, her eyes suddenly lit up.
It was Mu Yue!
“Who’s there?”
The group jolted in alarm and immediately grew wary. Then, from behind the two-meter-tall grass, a young woman dressed in luxurious casualwear stepped out.
She was beautiful and very young. But before any of the men in the group could leer at her or look down on her, she calmly pulled out a gun. With unhurried movements, she loaded it, flicked off the safety, and aimed it at them with a faint smile.
“Let her go.”
At that very moment, the clouds above the forest parted, bathing the scene in the light of spring.
Watching Mu Yue—a girl much younger than herself—Shi Yu felt her heart take a hard hit.
This little sister was seriously cool!
“Hah! She’s definitely bluffing!”
The group surrounding Shi Yu visibly panicked. They didn’t have any firearms, but they were quick-witted enough. In an instant, they pulled Shi Yu in front of them. One of them pressed a knife to her throat.
Unfortunately, before he could deliver the line he had been preparing, a red laser dot suddenly appeared between his eyebrows.
Two more armed bodyguards also appeared beside Mu Yue. Their weapons were far more intimidating than Mu Yue’s pistol—high-powered firearms capable of mowing down an entire crowd in a single burst.
The kidnappers were practically scared witless. Every one of them turned deathly pale.
While the standoff continued on one side, Wang Jian was still running for his life on the other.
By then, the drug had already begun to take effect. He could still hear the kidnappers behind him, and he was frantic with fear. Fortunately, he finally saw someone ahead—a neatly dressed young man. Wang Jian hurriedly called out for help. The young man heard him, and his expression shifted to surprise as he asked, “What happened to you? Do you need help?”
Wang Jian, however, froze.
He had seen Spade before and knew exactly what the young man looked like. Now that Spade had changed from women’s clothing into men’s clothes and had inexplicably appeared here, Wang Jian’s mind felt as though it had been struck by lightning. In an instant, he understood everything.
Spade fixed his eyes on him, as if gazing at prey that had already stepped into a trap. Pretending not to recognize Wang Jian, he quietly waited for his reaction.
Wang Jian wished he could kill Spade on the spot, but after countless thoughts flashed through his mind, all he could do was grit his teeth and stiffly explain that he had been kidnapped, asking for help. Spade’s eyes curved with a smile, and he enthusiastically declared that of course he could help.
At this particular point in time, Spade was simply too important to him. Without Spade, it would be extremely difficult for Wang Jian to interfere with the Tang family’s transaction. And if he openly refused to help, there was a good chance Spade would retaliate against him as well.
Thus, by the time Mu Yue had taken control of the scene and successfully rescued Shi Yu, and the police had arrived and everyone had gotten into the vehicles to leave, the harem-seeking male protagonist was busy having sex with his male underling.
The scene was obscured by mosaic censoring, and points had already been credited. Mu Yue almost laughed out loud, but considering Shi Yu’s state of mind, she managed not to show how delighted she was.
The kidnappers kept insisting from inside the vehicle that Mu Yue and the others had been carrying guns. But Mu Yue had already purchased a spatial storage ability and had prepared for precisely this kind of situation. As soon as the police arrived, she immediately replaced the real guns with replicas. There was no way the genuine weapons could be found or recovered during a search.
Some of the kidnappers wailed and cursed nonstop, never imagining that they would ultimately be tricked by a mere young girl. Others, however, seemed relieved to have survived and could not stop trembling whenever they looked at Mu Yue’s vehicle. If the guns were fake, then at most they had simply been fools. But if they were real, that would have been truly terrifying.
Shi Yu did not investigate the matter either. Whether the guns were real or fake, Mu Yue had saved her. Although she had calmed down by now, Shi Yu still could not suppress her anger and lingering fear. The loss of her possessions was secondary. What mattered most was the betrayal—and the harm she might have suffered.
In the past, she had refrained from striking too hard out of consideration for the family. But this time, once she returned, she would certainly repay those uncles of hers properly for all their “care”!
After returning to the city, Mu Yue assisted with the investigation before going back to the hotel. Meanwhile, Wang Jian was still in that dense forest.
He was searching for Shi Yu.
Unfortunately, this time he had not been forced into anything. Even though he had been drugged beforehand, his mind remained clear when he faced Spade, and he had still possessed free will. With the protagonist’s aura weakened, he did not even realize that he had already missed the female lead. And yet he still dreamed of relying on luck to stumble upon some priceless opportunity. What a joke.
Even as the sky grew dark, Wang Jian still refused to give up. Yet both his body and his heart were gradually growing cold.
He had a nagging feeling that he had missed something extremely important.
Mu Yue counted up her points, watching with great satisfaction as Spade gently and considerately stroked the male lead’s back and urged him to go home.
The points she earned this time were substantial. The first batch came from the male lead getting involved with his underling. Since the root cause of that incident was the video Mu Yue’s little systems had sent to Spade, the points were credited to her as well—no fewer than 2,500.
It was clear that the male lead had truly fallen apart.
The other batch came from rescuing Shi Yu before the male lead could reach her. This could be considered a genuine debt of gratitude for saving her life. Mu Yue had arrived early enough to spare Shi Yu a great deal of suffering. Shi Yu was a clear-minded person who understood exactly how significant that favor was, so her gratitude toward Mu Yue was sincere.
Mu Yue had bet five points that, under the same circumstances, Shi Yu would feel far more grateful to her than to the male lead.
That bastard might not have been able to save her as cleanly as Mu Yue had even if he had arrived in time. Besides, he had shown up already poisoned. If Shi Yu had really gone with him, she would have had to endure him taking advantage of her—and then force herself to accept the so-called debt of gratitude for saving her life.
Mu Yue was very pleased with what she had gained. Even more pleasing was the fact that the Tang family’s deal had yet to begin. She could still squeeze another hefty profit out of it!
She wondered how much of the male lead’s protagonist aura would be left by then.
