Chapter 7: The Hedonistic Second Young Master × The Dominant Female CEO (Part 7)

Mother Gu had notified Father Gu in advance, so he canceled his social engagements and returned home early. The dinner ended with everyone appearing to enjoy themselves.

During the meal, Gu Jie repeatedly glanced at Gu Yin and Nan Ming. Several times, he asked leading questions about whether Nan Ming really understood Gu Yin, what she thought of him, and so on.

Nan Ming was puzzled by Gu Jie’s intentions, but she simply chalked it up to his concern for his younger brother.

After dinner, Gu Jie called Gu Yin into the study.

“Xiao Yin, how far have you and Miss Nan progressed in your relationship?”

“She’s my girlfriend. Isn’t that obvious enough?” Gu Yin responded, confused. Since arriving in this world, this conveniently assigned older brother had barely appeared, and he’d never expressed any opinion about the marriage alliance either.

“Girlfriend?” Gu Jie let out a sarcastic laugh and threw a stack of photos at Gu Yin. “Do you even like women?”

Gu Yin was startled. He frowned, bent down to pick up the photos, and flipped through them one by one. Letting out a long sigh of relief, he thought, Good thing the original host didn’t do anything too outrageous.

“Do these photos prove anything? That I like men?” he asked.

The photos merely showed the original host with several different men, arms slung around each other’s shoulders. While some of the gestures looked a little questionable, there wasn’t enough to make any firm conclusions.

“I’m your brother—don’t you think I’d know what you’re like? Do you know how many photos like this I’ve received lately? Gu Yin, I don’t care how wildly you want to live, but don’t go ruining a decent girl’s life.”

Gu Jie was thoroughly disappointed in his younger brother.

“Ruin her? Was the marriage alliance my idea? Didn’t I resist it? And did any of you listen?”

Gu Yin was speechless. The marriage had been arranged by them. Gu Jie himself stood to benefit the most—what did it have to do with him?

Outside the door, Nan Ming paused, her grip tightening around the fruit tray in her hands.

“I’ll talk to Father about this. You and Nan Ming need to break things off. Don’t let your mistakes affect the relationship between our two families.”

“That’s not happening,” Gu Yin said coldly. “I like her. When I didn’t know her and didn’t want the marriage, you all wouldn’t let me back out. Now that we’re actually together, you suddenly want to stop me?”

“Sigh…” Gu Jie let out a deep sigh. “This is partly my fault. Back then, the Gu Group was tight on funds and needed financing from the Nan family. That’s why Father agreed to their condition that you marry in. Now, if you really don’t want this, I’ll find a way to make it up to the Nan family.”

“But I do want this.” Gu Yin looked Gu Jie straight in the eye. “I like her. There’s nothing more to discuss.”

Outside the door, a smile tugged at the corners of Nan Ming’s lips. She didn’t enter, simply returned to the living room with the tray. Mother Gu, noticing the untouched fruit, asked curiously, “Why didn’t you bring it in?”

It had been Mother Gu who sent Nan Ming to deliver the tray. She felt her eldest son had no sense of romance and was always interrupting the young couple, so she wanted Nan Ming to call Gu Yin instead.

“Big Brother must have had something important to discuss with Ah Yin. I thought I’d better not interrupt them.”

Nan Ming casually gave an excuse and then started chatting with Mother Gu and her sister-in-law about something else.

“I hope your feelings are more than just words,” Gu Jie said as he looked deeply at Gu Yin. He couldn’t shake the feeling that his younger brother had changed. If he could truly treat Nan Ming well, then maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad thing after all.

“That’s not something you need to worry about, Big Brother.” Gu Yin stared down at the photos in his hands. Looks like there’s yet another mess to clean up.

The next day, Gu Yin contacted the original host’s old group of good-for-nothing friends and quickly found out who had been distributing the photos. To his surprise, it turned out to be the very man who had later seduced the original host into coming out. But at this stage, they shouldn’t have had any contact yet.

“Yin-ge, did that guy piss you off? Want us to teach him a lesson?” asked Hu Kai, one of the original host’s buddies. They were all second-generation rich kids—idle and irresponsible, but not malicious, and with plenty of resources.

“Take a look.” Gu Yin handed the photos over to Hu Kai. There was nothing too scandalous in them, and being so open about it would only make everyone less suspicious.

“Aren’t these just photos from when we were hanging out? I don’t recognize those guys, though. Yin-ge, did you make new friends behind our backs?” Hu Kai teased.

“Yeah, Yin-ge, what’s the big deal with these photos?” the others chimed in, equally confused.

“This guy sold the photos to my brother, claiming I’m gay and you guys are all my little lovers,” Gu Yin said with a sneer, visibly annoyed.

“What the hell? Is that guy insane? I can’t let this slide. We’ve got such pure, brotherly friendship and he twists it like this? Besides, there’s nothing bad in these photos!”

“This one,” Gu Yin pointed to a photo, “he said I was deliberately touching your hand. This one, said I grabbed Little Fatty’s butt. And this one…”

“What nonsense is this?” Everyone was fuming. “Yin-ge, just say the word—how do you want us to deal with him?”

“Little Fatty, you’ve got wide connections—look into his background. Kai, you track his usual routes.”

Gu Yin assigned tasks to each of them. These spoiled heirs were perfect for this kind of thing—after all, mischief and gossip were their specialties.

“Got it, Yin-ge.”

They quickly dug up the info.

“Yin-ge, I found him. He doesn’t seem to have any grudge against your family, but there’s some bad blood with your fiancée’s side.”

Ever since they knew Gu Yin was dating Nan Ming, these guys had started calling her “sister-in-law.”

Gu Yin had suspected as much—after all, in the original storyline, this man had lured the original host into stealing secrets from the Nan Corporation.

“He’s Jiang Shijie, the youngest son of the Jiang family—the same Jiang family that got bankrupted by Old Master Nan five years ago.”

Little Fatty paused, watching Gu Yin’s reaction. Seeing no response, he continued.

“Jiang Shijie had been studying abroad and didn’t know much about the company. He believes the Nan family purposely destroyed them, and he’s been holding a grudge ever since. He originally planned to change his identity and secretly marry into the Nan family to get revenge. But you beat him to it, so he leaked these photos, hoping the Nan family would back out. Didn’t expect your brother to intercept them first.”

Gu Yin let out a cold laugh. He had sensed something was off before. These subtle gestures in the photos—who would assume homosexuality from that, unless they were inclined to think that way themselves?

With this explanation, the original plot suddenly made more sense. Jiang Shijie had initially planned to sabotage the original host’s engagement to Nan Ming, but after discovering the host’s sexuality, he changed tactics and decided to use him to take revenge on the Nan family.

Now, he was acting recklessly because he sensed Gu Yin was no longer the same as before—his original plan was falling apart.

“Kai, did you find a good place to deal with him?”

“Yin-ge, don’t you trust my work?” Hu Kai grinned. “South City Alley. That guy’s been staying there recently. I checked—there’s a stretch of road where barely anyone passes by.”

Hu Kai glanced at his watch. “He usually goes out for dinner around 5 p.m. We’ve got half an hour.”

“Let’s go.”

Gu Yin and his group drove to South City Alley and intercepted Jiang Shijie right as he was about to head out for dinner.

“Young Master Jiang, you really are something else in person,” Gu Yin said as he looked at the man, now scruffy and unkempt—completely different from the sunny, clean-cut guy in the original host’s memories.

“What do you want?” Jiang Shijie looked at them warily.

“You really don’t know what this is about?” Gu Yin said coldly.