The Jing family was still as respected in Ruby City. The current head, Jing Zexi"s nephew was the city mayor and his reputation was just as good, if not better than Jing Zexi"s brother who used to be the family head.It was probably due to being skilled in manipulating their images in people"s minds that five years ago, when the illegitimate son of Jing Zexi disappeared out of nowhere, no news about it came out. They must have also suppressed the reports about Jing Na and her brother "mistaking" Jiang Li for that person.
Apart from wanting to ensure the embarra.s.sing scenes featuring the Jing members were not known to the ma.s.ses, they didn"t want Jing Mo to be called one of their own anymore. Additionally, as a mere local rich household of a remote city, they didn"t feel like they have the qualifications to question somebody related to a global personality. They knew their place. Even in their own nation, their sway on the ma.s.ses was limited in their city.
Of course, this was only the thinking of those higherups and wise ones. In a family, one should not forget that there would be always a mix of stupid and smart people.
Five years ago, the slightly immature Jing Yuhan told his father, "Dad, I really hate it. Can you believe that? He dared to shame us in front of many people." Shaking his head, he furiously added. "What Jiang Li or Jiang Liuxuan? He"s obviously second uncle"s illegitimate son! That scourge embarra.s.sed me and Na"er in Senator Fang"s party!"
The father replied to him in a chastising tone, "What do you want then? Even if you are confident that Jiang Li is Jing Mo, so what? Are you going to kill yourself proving that meaningless stuff? Don"t forget, even Senator Fang and Mr. Zuckerberg formally announced that he is now a Zuckerberg! Yuhan, don"t ever tell me you still don"t get the situation!"
Jing Yuhan maintained silence for some time, calming his raging emotions and pondering over his father"s statements. When a certain thought crossed his mind, his lips formed into an evil smirk and enthusiastically replied.
"I understand now, Dad. Since we can"t say he"s Jing Mo, we can just use this to our advantage. Aren"t we aware of his secrets? He should be scared that he will be ratted out or revealed as a fake! Now, even if we can"t make him admit it to the world, we can just blackmail him to connect us to the Zuckerbergs in exchange for us not releasing his secret to the media!"
The wiser older man widened his eyes in anger and then whacked the stupid young man on his head. "Rascal! Where has your brain gone to?"
"Ouch, Dad. What"s that for?!"
Like a kid wronged, the young man scowled and distanced himself from the other man who then roared at him in a lecturing tone accompanied by the occasional poundings of a fist on the wooden table"s surface.
"Do you think somebody like Facebrink"s CEO will miss Jing Mo"s real ident.i.ty? He, who is in control of the biggest social networking site in the world and has countless super hackers and investigators at his disposal? Use your brain! Obviously, there"s no way he is that easy to fool!"
Although intimidated by the scary expressions and stares he was getting from his middle-aged father, Jing Yuhan kept grumbling, making faces, and gesturing his balled fists in the air which made the father shook his head in dismay. While lamenting and asking himself why his son turned out to be a huge idiot, he waved his hand and said to dismiss the matter,, "Alright. This is just an issue not worth debating about anymore. Let"s stop making a fuss over it!"
"But it"s really Jing Mo."
"d.a.m.n, this stupid kid. Na"er is smart. I"m also smart, so is my wife. How did our family produce this fool?"
With a sharp glare, the head of the second branch remarked sternly, "He already died while escaping from that internet addiction rehabilitation school! We don"t want him to come back! A dead only comes back as a ghost to haunt the living. Understand?"
Five years later, the man"s words would show that there was truth in them. The "haunting" he was referring to was perhaps taking place now.
It was in the middle of the night and the huge mansion was as quiet and peaceful like any other house. The people in the place were sleeping, apart from some couples still in the middle of deepening their bonds with each other.
A figure in all black, from cap to shoes walked into the mansion. He was not liking the feeling he was getting from his own body and the surge of memories.
In a bad mood which had begun getting into his nerves since he got off the taxi, he hypnotized the guards in duty at the gate to directly forget everything they saw tonight. The method he used was the normal one which used many conditioning words and gestures since he could no longer do black magic.
To be honest, what he did there was not as violent or overboard with his methods in the previous worlds. Noting in his mind the real Jing Mo"s wish, he thought that it was not only not lying anymore, helping people in need, and donating a large sum to orphanages and charities - he had to be an amba.s.sador of honesty and transparency.
As a filial child, shouldn"t he start with the family who "raised" him for sixteen years?
In his opinion, it was not good that they could live so carefreely even after doing all those sh*tty things to "him" for years. They should announce their evil deeds to the world... using their own mouths. Eyes gleaming ominously, Jiang Li resolved to get justice for the dead Jing Mo.
...
When tomorrow came, Huaxia citizens discovered that every channel and social media in the country was broadcasting the same type of information.
It was once again about the infamous school from five years ago. But the videos and confessions circulating online and on news were about the most reputable family in the Jing city.
The members of the high society knew of those stories, well, a part or summary of the stories pa.s.sed through words of mouths, but they only felt that those that used to be a source of entertainment for them were no laughing matter when they witnessed for themselves to what extent the wrongdoings of the Jings against the illegitimate boy was.
Beasts. This was the real laughable matter. Every three years, the whole Ruby city was actually electing such a family of beasts as government officials.
Ye Xinya was woken up early by one of the maids on that day because her grandfather wanted to eat breakfast with her. She complied. They dined in the living room where a wall-sized TV was. Grandfather Ye had a habit of watching the news every morning so when they were in the middle of eating, they switched the TV on to a channel broadcasting news report at this time of the day.
"d.a.m.n, dogs! I had some dealings with those Jing people of Ruby City before and I didn"t know they are this kind of people, capable of doing those, those unspeakable things!!!" With a piece of bacon on his fork, the old man whose eyes were glued to the screen exclaimed in both anger and shock. "That kid is minor! Child abuse! Oh my blood pressure! There"s even a clip and evidence that they started doing these since he"s smaller than you when you are 7 years old, Xinya!"
Listening to her grandfather, the girl who was then about to swallow a sliced piece of a mango froze in shock. She unknowingly held her breath before moving her eyes slowly on the two lines of small texts under the video.
Jing Mo. The child in the video clip playing at the side had his face mosaiced but he was called Jing Mo by the announcer. Ruby City too was mentioned.
These were not leaving her any leeway to deny who was there.
"Bring me my phone!" Ye Xinya shouted at one of the maids.
The latter was shocked by the ferocity in her voice so in a minute, the phone she requested had been brought to her from her room on the second floor to the living room which was located downstairs.
Ye Cheng, the old man, heard his granddaughter"s yelling but he did not pay it much attention. He was too engrossed in the information flowing out of the announcer"s mouth.
"Tch. Wow. Quite the evil family. And careless too. All big families have this kind of secrets and dirt going on internally, but they all know how to control the information from leaking outside. How could they let these many materials slipped out of their notice? No. In the first place, why go this far to a mere child?"
Ye Xinya that time was trembling badly as her fingers scrolled through her phone. Looking at the pictures there, she couldn"t help but exclaim in a shaky voice. "T-This is so ridiculous...!"
"Yeah." Grandfather Ye sighed.
His old heart was toughened by his years in the business world and aristocratic world, but it was hard not to get affected by what he saw.
The kid certainly had a very harsh childhood. There were video clips of him getting beaten regularly by his father. His cousins made him do so many embarra.s.sing things. He was, most of the time, starved and even thrown into a sewer and a sea of earthworms.
Since he saw that Ye Xinya didn"t dare look ahead, the grandfather who didn"t know Jing Mo was Jiang Li enumerated everything flas.h.i.+ng on the screen.
Badly trembling and on the brink of an emotional outburst, the girl stood up and ran to her room and grabbed her keys. She ignored her grandfather who was calling out her name and even her mother who dropped by for her only to see her starting her car and driving away.
On her way to her fiance"s penthouse, she had to stop by a gasoline station to have her gas tank refilled, accidentally grazing the b.u.mper of Han Su"s car when she was leaving the premise.
The male lead saw her due to the rolled-down window of her car and wanted her to apologize. However, her mind was too preoccupied by the desire to see Jiang Li. How could she notice him? Wasn"t he nothing but a stranger to her?
"Hey! How are you going to compensate me for the damage, Miss Ye!"
Naturally, to that irritating question uttered by Han Su, Ye Xinya replied with silence, her mind wandering to a place far away from there. "He is not answering his phone. d.a.m.n!"
Red-eyed from worries, the villainess did not wait for the angrily marching male lead to approach her vehicle. She stepped on the accelerator and had the male lead eat the dust left by her car"s wheels.
"Jiang Li!!!"
The whole penthouse was engulfed by that loud and high-pitched shout the moment the automatic door allowed her entrance. She took a deep breath upon being greeted by a silent living room. He was nowhere in sight and thus, her feet dragged her into his bedroom.
The place was only bought yesterday but before she went to meet the client, the man first showed him around. This was how she knew every nook and cranny of his penthouse. Referencing his habits when they were still abroad, she knew that guy could only be in his room at this hour even if he was also an early-riser.
Chest heaving, she stopped in front of the door leading to his bedroom. What kind of scene would greet her once she opened this door? Was he okay? Or lost in thoughts because the secrets and scars he never told anyone, not even her, were suddenly exposed to the world?
Feeling nervous in her heart, she pushed the door open to know the answer.
"Jing... Jiang Li..." She was used to calling him by his real name whenever they were together by themselves but now it was hard to say those two words.
The man was actually half-naked while lying on his stomach in his bed. His phone was on his right ear when he turned to the direction of the door. Surprise crossed Jiang Li"s face because she looked odd. By odd, it was her wearing only short walking shorts, sleeveless blouse, and bunny flip flops.
An appearance-conscious woman like her went out of the Ye mansion looking like that?
Ye Xinya was unaware of the thoughts running in his head. Upon seeing that he seemed okay, she only felt at a loss for a couple of moments before sniffing and sobbing silently.
Jiang Li furrowed his brows then spoke on his phone, "Hey, I"ll just call back later. I have an urgent matter to deal with here. Bye."
Ye Xinya didn"t dare look at his figure directly for some time. It was not her feeling conscious of the exposed muscles and skin of the man. She just couldn"t help but remember those videos and photos.
Jiang Li took advantage of the time she was not speaking and looking at him to swiftly grab a s.h.i.+rt in the closet and wear it. "What"s the matter? It looks like you drove here in a hurry."
He didn"t notice when she arrived behind him. The next thing he knew was that she suddenly wrapped her arms around his waist from behind.
"I... saw everything. Those things. I know... it"s you who released them."
"Do you want to know why I did that?" He spoke wryly, feeling that the back of the new s.h.i.+rt he put on was getting soaked in her tears.
"No..."
Behind him, Ye Xinya shook her head, refusing to release her hold of him even when he repeatedly said she was hugging him too tightly.
An explanation was not what she wanted right now. What was an explanation good for anyway? When everything had already been done and was causing a small typhoon outside?
She only wanted to cry for his sake.
She knew he was capable and strong. And that it was he who most probably hacked or bought the materials from different sources. Yet it would have taken so much courage to release those for the ma.s.ses" perusing.
Indeed she initially wanted to ask him why, to tell him a secret and dark part was not something that should be shared with the world, but to only those he trusted. He should not do self-harm if he wanted to avenge himself. There were many ways.
"If you only ask, I can be the one to take revenge against them for you." She also wanted to tell him.
"For once, I don"t know i-if you"re testing my heart... or s-simply being stupid." In the end, she only managed to say these. Her mind was a mess due to the pain in her chest.
Meanwhile, Jiang Li felt like he was wronged because when he turned around to face her, instead of bringing him in her arms, she began raining punches on his chest. When he tried to capture her fists, her red-r.i.m.m.i.n.g eyes stared daggers at him.
He awkwardly laughed, "I"ll never be emotionally or mentally affected because from the beginning, I"m not Jing Mo. But maybe I"ve really been too stupid."