After leaving the Qian family mansion, Bian Yiqiu used the pocket square as a handkerchief to wipe his hands, then tossed it straight into the trash can.

As usual, Zuo Cheng drove, with He Xu sitting in the back with him.

The car hadn’t gone far when Bian Yiqiu’s phone beeped, and on the screen, a message from Ruan Chengjie appeared, telling him he would arrive at Z City Airport in two hours.

Bian Yiqiu glanced at the time. To get to the airport from the eastern bay, he had to cross the entire city, and now should be just the right time to go.

So he said, “You two can take a taxi back from the toll station later, leave the car to me.”

He Xu: “…”

Zuo Cheng: “…”

He Xu asked, “What are you going to do?”

Zuo Cheng replied, “It’s not safe for you to go alone.”

Bian Yiqiu smugly responded, “I’m going on a date. It wouldn’t be fine if I brought you two along.”

He Xu asked, “Who are you dating? Ke…”

“Cough, cough, cough.” Zuo Cheng in the front quickly cleared his throat a few times. He Xu immediately corrected himself, “Ke… Ke, but it’s hard to get a taxi at the toll station.”

Zuo Cheng sighed in relief. Noticing from the rearview mirror that Bian Yiqiu was squinting his eyes and staring at him, he quickly grinned in the mirror, flashing a big white tooth. “The air’s been so dry lately, my throat’s been bothering me.”

Bian Yiqiu reminded him, “There’s throat lozenges in the glove compartment.”

“Oh, oh.” Zuo Cheng steered with one hand, opened the glove compartment with the other, and pulled out a throat lozenge, popping one into his mouth. “Boss, do you want one?”

“I’m perfectly fine with my throat,” Bian Yiqiu said, though he couldn’t shake the feeling that these two guys were hiding something from him.

He Xu asked with a teasing grin, “Boss, which little lover are you going on a date with that you have to drive yourself over? Wouldn’t it be easier to just have them brought to the club, cleaned up, and thrown into bed?”

Bian Yiqiu rolled his eyes. “That’s not called a date. That’s called a hookup.”

He Xu, shocked, retorted, “Aren’t dates supposed to be about hookups?” His worldview was on the verge of crumbling.

“……” Bian Yiqiu was momentarily at a loss for how to respond. For someone like Ruan Chengjie, it really wasn’t suitable to meet and immediately get physical, but what was the real reason he was rushing to the airport to pick him up if it wasn’t for a hookup? Was it just to compete with Ke Mingxuan? Or did he genuinely think Ruan Chengjie held a different place in his heart compared to his other lovers?

With Bian Yiqiu’s emotional intelligence, he couldn’t figure out something so complicated. And when faced with things he couldn’t figure out right away, his usual approach was simply to not think about it at all.

So, he couldn’t be bothered to reason with these two little brats. At the toll booth, he promptly kicked them both out of the car, stepped on the gas, and sped off on the highway heading toward the airport.

“Damn, he really left us here?” He Xu choked on a mouthful of exhaust fumes, staring at Bian Yiqiu’s flashy Maybach as it drove off into the distance. He was momentarily in disbelief.

Zuo Cheng moved to the side of the road and stood there. “He won’t get into any trouble, will he?”

“Everyone in the underworld is over at the Qian family mansion today. Who has time to bother with him?” He Xu, still dressed in his formal evening suit, casually draped his arm around Zuo Cheng’s neck. “Let’s treat today like a day off. Come on, big brother’s taking you out for some fun.”

“Where are we going to have fun?”

“Where do you want to go?”

“No matter where we go…” Zuo Cheng looked at him with utmost seriousness. “First, we need to find a car.”

As soon as Zuo Cheng finished speaking, a biting cold wind rushed toward them, swirling and teasing. If you could add the sound of a two-stringed fiddle, the scene would be complete—so damned desolate.

As for the location of the Qian family mansion, although it appeared to be nestled in the perfect feng shui spot, with mountains at its back and the sea in front, offering breathtaking views, in reality, it was just an undeveloped hill that the local government hadn’t gotten around to developing. It was said that Old Qian had bought it many years ago, initially planning to build a resort. But due to its isolation and lack of foot traffic, the resort plan never materialized. Instead, he had a sizable luxury mansion built, along with a whole team of servants and bodyguards—giving off a rather “king of the mountain” vibe.

This place is still seven or eight kilometers away from the Ocean World scenic area, with no village ahead or shop behind. The two of them had been waiting at the toll station for quite a while, and there were hardly any cars around—let alone taxis, even private vehicles were few and far between. Plus, with two big men standing there in the middle of the night, even if a driver saw someone waving, they wouldn’t want to stop. Who knows if it’s a setup for a robbery?

“That bastard Bian Yiqiu is really not human!”

The sudden cold front that hit right after New Year’s had caused the temperature in Z City to drop sharply. It was especially cold at night, and in the suburbs, the temperature was even lower than in the city center. He Xu was only wearing a suit and was shivering from the cold.

“You should’ve listened to me and called someone to pick us up,” Zuo Cheng shot him a glance and pulled out his phone to make a call.

He Xu shivered and groaned, “It’ll take at least an hour and a half to get here from the city!”

“That’s still better than freezing our butts off out here all night.”

“I didn’t know this godforsaken place would have no cars passing by!”

Zuo Cheng ignored him. After the call connected, he briefly told his subordinate their location, then turned to look at him. “Cold, huh?”

He Xu hurriedly nodded, his eyes gleaming behind his glasses as he wondered if Zuo Cheng, the bodyguard, had suddenly developed a conscience and was planning to take off his jacket and drape it over him, like a scene from a melodramatic TV show where the male lead acts like a gentleman.

However, Zuo Cheng had never watched those TV dramas, and he was always the straightforward type. He looked at He Xu seriously and said three words: “I’m not cold,” before turning around to find a sheltered spot and lighting a cigarette.

“Heh, if you ever manages to marry someone, I’ll write my name backwards!” He Xu muttered.

Zuo Cheng looked completely innocent. “I never planned on getting married.”

He Xu thought to himself, what kind of karmic debt did I incur in my past life to end up serving someone like Bian Yiqiu, a man who values sex over friends? And now I have to deal with this clueless, dim-witted brother?

Just as the lawyer was lamenting his unlucky fate, it seemed the heavens finally took pity on him. A royal blue Land Rover rolled slowly past the toll booth. Perhaps it was because He Xu, bundled in his custom-tailored suit yet hunched against the cold, looked especially miserable. Before he could even process what was happening, the car came to a stop right in front of him, as if it had sensed his discomfort and halted of its own accord.

He Xu was so moved that he nearly burst into tears. Without even clearly seeing the person inside the car, he grabbed the door handle and refused to let go. “Hey, buddy, could you do me a favor and give us a lift? You can tell by looking at me that I’m not a bad guy, right? I’m just out here on business, but my boss took the car, and now we’ve been standing in this cold for ages. Whatever it costs, just let me know…”

The person inside the car asked, “Where are you headed?”

“The Celebrity Club.”

“The Celebrity Club?” The man repeated the name of the place.

“Yes, that’s right, the one near Central Third Road,” He Xu said, shouting over his shoulder, “Zuo Cheng, get over here!”

“Zuo Cheng?” The man leaned slightly forward to look behind He Xu. The dim lighting made it hard to see Zuo Cheng’s face, but the man seemed to frown and asked He Xu, “Is your boss Bian Yiqiu?”

“Huh?” He Xu felt a jolt in his heart when he heard Bian Yiqiu’s name. He quickly turned around twice, wondering whether this guy was a friend or an enemy.

Zuo Cheng tossed the half-smoked cigarette onto the ground and stamped it out before walking over. As soon as he saw the man’s face, he immediately recognized him, “Young Master Ke?”

“Eh?” He Xu immediately leaned in to get a better look inside the car. Sure enough, the face did look a bit familiar. “Holy shit, wasn’t boss running off to a date with you?”

Ke Mingxuan tapped the steering wheel, a little surprised, and muttered, “Date?”

“Uh, never mind, I didn’t say anything…” He Xu wasn’t entirely sure how deep the relationship between this Young Master Ke and their boss really went, but judging from the surveillance footage that day, it seemed that Ke Mingxuan held a far greater interest in Bian Yiqiu than the other way around. Realizing he had misspoken, He Xu subtly shifted his feet and “casually” positioned himself behind Zuo Cheng.

Ke Mingxuan noticed every subtle shift in He Xu’s behavior, his eyes observing with quiet intensity. He looked at Zuo Cheng without a change in expression and asked, “He’s going on a date, and you didn’t follow him?”

Zuo Cheng hesitated, mumbling, “He didn’t want me to follow…”

“He didn’t want you to follow, and you just didn’t? What kind of bodyguard are you?” Ke Mingxuan’s anger flared up unexpectedly. After shouting, he suddenly realized, too late, that he had no right to be angry at Zuo Cheng.

Ke Mingxuan already knew the kind of person Bian Yiqiu was. Every time they met at the small villa, he never let Zuo Cheng follow him, all because of his overwhelming pride—he absolutely wouldn’t let anyone know he was the one being fucked.

Wait, suddenly an unsettling thought struck Ke Mingxuan. A surge of unexplained anger shot up from his chest, spreading rapidly to his head. Even Zuo Cheng and He Xu, still recovering from the earlier outburst, could clearly feel the immense heat emanating from the car.

Ke Mingxuan asked stiffly, “Who is he meeting?”

The two shook their heads, genuinely unsure.

“Alright, then. You two can keep standing here freezing. Bye.” Ke Mingxuan said, ready to drive off.

He Xu quickly grabbed the car door, pleading, “Wait, wait, wait, Young Master Ke, look at this desolate place—it’s the middle of the night, and there’s not a single car in sight. If we stay out here any longer, we’ll freeze solid. Considering your relationship with our boss, you can’t just leave us to freeze!”

Ke Mingxuan sneered, “What relationship do I have with your boss?”

“An affair? A lover? A fling? Whatever it is, it’s definitely wrong for our boss to sneak off and meet someone else behind your back. You can drag him back and deal with him however you like, we won’t say a word. After all, Bian Yiqiu needs a good lesson… Anyway, open the door and let us in, how about that?”

Zuo Cheng was utterly stunned by He Xu, who had no hesitation in throwing their boss under the bus. He had seen shamelessness before, but this was on another level. Did this guy even have any dignity left?

Ke Mingxuan didn’t back down. “Who is he meeting?”

“I really don’t know,” He Xu replied, then turned to look at Zuo Cheng. “Do you know? If you do, tell Young Master Ke.”

Zuo Cheng, feeling uncomfortable, thought to himself, I really don’t want to be involved with this guy.

Ke Mingxuan also looked at Zuo Cheng, his tone sharp: “As his bodyguard, always by his side, if even you don’t know, that’s a serious dereliction of duty.”

“I truly don’t know, Young Master Ke. Last time when our boss went off-roading with you, he didn’t let me follow either,” Zuo Cheng explained, making it clear—when the boss didn’t want him around, as a bodyguard, he couldn’t force his presence.

“I at least made sure you knew he went out with me. If anything happens to him, I’ll take responsibility! But you don’t even know where he is now. A few days ago, he was being followed, and now he’s alone—what if someone shoots at him from the shadows? Who are you going to take revenge on?”

Ke Mingxuan’s tone held an anxiety he hadn’t even realized, and he wasn’t sure whether it stemmed from genuine concern for Bian Yiqiu’s safety or from the fact that he went on a date without taking Zuo Cheng along.

Zuo Cheng, aware of how poorly he had been doing his job recently, felt a sharp pang of guilt and unease from being yelled at by Ke Mingxuan. His already present worries and unease escalated, and he couldn’t shake the feeling that something was going to happen to the boss today.

“I’m not sure who he’s meeting, but he just got onto the airport expressway.”

“The airport?”

“I overheard him on the phone last night. It seems like President Ruan is coming back today…”

“Ruan Chengjie? He said he’s coming back today?” Ke Mingxuan was taken aback by the unexpected information. With a furious curse, he immediately turned the car around and sped onto the expressway, heading straight for the airport.

As the car suddenly accelerated, He Xu, still clutching the door, was almost sent flying under the wheels. He stumbled a few steps forward, barely managing to steady himself, and yelled after the car as it sped away.

“What the hell is going on?! Young Master Ke, at least take us with you!”

Zuo Cheng, however, remained much calmer: “Stop yelling. I already called someone to pick us up.”

“We still have to freeze out here for at least another hour!”

“By the time someone gets here from the city, I’ll probably be frozen through and through.”

“What’s wrong with these people? Would it kill them to let us sit inside for a bit?”

“By the way, who’s this President Ruan? Why didn’t you tell us Boss Bian has switched people again?”

Zuo Cheng, increasingly annoyed by his constant complaining, couldn’t take it anymore and snapped, “Can you just shut up?”

He Xu, with his nose reddening and eyes brimming with fake tears (actually from the wind), dramatically pointed at Zuo Cheng with a delicate gesture, feigning sorrow, “You yelled at me… you actually yelled at me! I don’t want to live anymore…”

If it were possible, Zuo Cheng genuinely wanted to pack up this shameless, unapologetic person and toss him into the sea to feed the fish.