Chapter 74 - Housefly
When Song Xiao blearily opened his eyes, he found himself already back in the villa. His body had been cleaned up, but he ached all over, and was too lazy to move.
The room was completely empty; there wasn’t a single person around, and Yu Tang had disappeared to who knew where.
Song Xiao slowly sat up, frowning slightly. Because of His Majesty the emperor’s rough behaviour in the car, a certain part of his body was still aching dully, though it was still alright; compared with his last life, when he experienced a whole night of pain and was then unable to get out of bed for three days straight, this was nothing.
The handphone by his side suddenly rang. Song Xiao looked at the number; it was the private detective he had hired, so he picked up the call.
Yu Tang was next door looking at some information. When he heard the ringtone from his room, he wanted to go and help Song Xiao answer it. By the time he reached the bedroom door, the phone had already stopped ringing, and he paused in his steps.
“Shaoye, why aren’t you going in?” Butler Susan had brought up a cup of warm milk, and she felt a little curious when she saw Yu Tang standing at the door.
Yu Tang took the milk and lifted his chin to indicate that Susan could leave, before he quickly entered the room.
On the bed, Song Xiao was frowning slightly as he listened to the phone, and he didn’t have much of a reaction when he saw Yu Tang walk in. Yu Tang snorted and placed the milk by the bed while he sat on the bed and gathered Song Xiao, who was holding the handphone, into his embrace.
Song Xiao didn’t resist either. Twisting his body, he found a comfortable position and leaned against Yu Tang.
Yu Tang held his breath and looked at the person in his embrace, who resembled a cat that had just woken up. Song Xiao rubbed lazily against him as he looked for a position to slowly settle in, and Yu Tang released a long and slow breath.
“You’re saying that she entered Mori Arts School?” Song Xiao pursed his lips. “Did anyone make contact with her?”
The detective had reported that Bai Qing didn’t go to Halun University’s dorms, but instead went to Mori Arts School next door. This school was just a community college, and light years apart from Halun University.
“She made a call, but spoke in Mandarin. I couldn’t understand it.” The detective was an American and couldn’t understand Mandarin. “But I did record it. Once you pay the balance, I’ll send the recording to your inbox.”
Song Xiao curled his lip and hung up. Americans sure were careful with money; they wouldn’t forget any money that was due them.
A gla.s.s of warm milk was lifted to his lips, so Song Xiao took a sip. Raising his head, he looked at the emperor who had suddenly appeared. He had been dealing with the phone call just now, so hadn’t paid attention to what Yu Tang was doing.
Yu Tang bowed his head, and when he saw that the empress’s mouth was moist with milk, he couldn’t help leaning in closer to lick the milk stains around his lips.
“Wu…” Song Xiao pulled his head back, then remembered that he was meant to be angry. He wanted to push himself up into a sitting position, but with a burst of pain, his waist went limp and he fell back.
“Hurts?” Yu Tang put down the milk gla.s.s somewhat nervously and hugged Song Xiao and ma.s.saged his waist.
“This isn’t much. Your Majesty doesn’t have to worry.” Song Xiao picked up the laptop on the side and wired the money to the detective’s company before sending the other party a notification to check that it had gone through.
“Zhen doesn’t like when you do that.” Yu Tang could hear the meaning in Song Xiao’s words, which implied that compared with those nights in bed in their last life, this wasn’t serious at all. His heart instantly ached as he buried his face in Song Xiao’s shoulder. “Seeing another girl approach you, even though I’m aware it’s an act, I’m still not happy.”
These days, seeing the way people boldly expressed their thoughts and intentions, Yu Tang tried to learn from them and say what he was thinking.
Song Xiao was stunned, and turned his head to look at the emperor. After carefully thinking about it, in both the past and present lives, His Majesty the emperor had never acted ambiguously with anyone to put on an act, not even over a meal. Although it was because of his status, which gave him leeway to act unruly, Song Xiao had to admit that Yu Tang was better in this aspect than he himself was.
Sighing, Song Xiao turned his head and pressed a kiss to the emperor’s lowered eyelids. “It was my fault today. I won’t see her again in the future.”
Yu Tang, who had lowered his head to think of a way to coax his empress, suddenly received a light kiss. His head immediately began to emit bubbles as he laughed in a low voice and rolled around on the bed while hugging Song Xiao. “You admitted your guilt yourself. Say, how should zhen punish you?”
Song Xiao side-eyed him but couldn’t help laughing as well. “Then punish this servant by forbidding him to attend in bed for three days ba.”
“Nonsense, that would be punishing zhen!”
While they were messing around, the recording had already been sent over from the other side. Song Xiao struggled free of Yu Tang’s hold and clicked open the mail.
“Little aunt, he doesn’t seem to like me.” The recording pen was a little far away, so the sound was rather faint, and there was still the noise from the road. The detective had probably adjusted it, however, and it was still clear that it was Bai Qing’s voice.
“It’s too dangerous, I won’t… Oh, then fine ba, you promise me when I return to the country… Don’t forget… Naturally, it would be good if I succeed. If I don’t, it’s up to you…”
Bai Qing’s voice broke up, but they could roughly hear that the other party was Bai Qing’s relative. The thing she had to do was probably to approach Song Xiao; as for why, it wasn’t mentioned.
Yu Tang had someone investigate this Bai Qing right away, and forbade Song Xiao from interacting with her anymore. Conversely, Song Xiao felt that this matter had to be thoroughly dealt with, and that they should follow the vine to find the person behind the scenes so as to avoid resolving this just for another issue to appear.
“How are your finance studies coming along?” Before going to sleep that night, Yu Tang suddenly asked the question. He knew that Song Xiao was studying management while learning more about finance on his own at the same time.
“Wu, it’s okay, I’m just learning some superficial things,” Song Xiao sleepily replied. The bookkeeping methods in modern society were much more complicated than in Great Yu, so it was slower when he learned on his own.
“I received a portion of Dayu Capital recently. In a few days, come with me to New York.” Yu Tang pulled Song Xiao into his embrace and rubbed his chin against the top of his head.
“What for? I’m not the a.s.sistant minister of the Ministry of Revenue anymore.” Song Xiao was tickled by the action and shook his head.
“But you signed the contract.” Yu Tang hmphed and said, “It was written in the contract.”
Song Xiao ignored him and closed his eyes to sleep.
The next day, Yu Tang dragged him to New York.
The general headquarters for Dayu Capital was on Financial Street. Yu Tang had interned here previously, and had actually now been promoted. Everyone in the company was very curious as they had never heard of an intern student being able to get a promotion.
“You don’t know ba, he’s the Yu family’s imperial grandson.” The company veterans told the clueless newcomers.
“The imperial prince also interned before, but he wasn’t promoted.” Some people were dissatisfied. They were the elites of Financial Street, having all graduated from famous schools. Some had worked hard in other companies for many years before they could rise and enter this place. They were biased towards aristocratic children to begin with, and seeing how high-profile Yu Tang was, they couldn’t help grumbling.
“What are you talking about?” fourth uncle, Yu Chuan, walked over and asked amiably when he saw the office workers gathered and whispering together.
“Chairman.” When the employees saw him, they felt awkward; they couldn’t leave, but they couldn’t stay either.
Yu Chuan raised his eyebrows. Naturally, he knew what they were talking about. This nephew of his really was very outstanding, but he was young, after all. If he promoted him at this time, it would definitely be hard for the ma.s.ses to be convinced.
As a good uncle, Yu Chuan should say a few words at this time, like “Our family’s Xiao Tang is just here to intern, he won’t affect your promotions”. However, he didn’t say a word, and simply smiled before he returned to his office.
As a result, when Yu Tang brought Song Xiao to the company, the atmosphere was strange. Even though some sensible people smiled in welcome, many more had strange gazes and jealous eyes.
Yu Tang ignored them and directly brought Song Xiao to his office.
That was right, Yu Tang now had his own office as well. But it was very simple: it was just a small room with many cubicles outside as well as a small conference table.
“Tang, who’s this?” At the meeting table, a group of youths in work clothes were discussing some matter. Seeing Yu Tang pull Song Xiao along, they asked the question curiously.
“This is my friend. He’s a math genius, and came here to help,” Yu Tang said expressionlessly.
“Oh, that’s great!” A blonde boy cheered.
Yu Tang brought a puzzled Song Xiao into the office, and pa.s.sed him a pile of materials to read.
So it turned out that Yu Chuan’s proposal to the family head that Yu Tang be promoted was to give him the whole of a particular project; even the ten members of the project team were tossed over to Yu Tang. This team was a group well-known to be useless in the company, while the project was an extremely tricky one. Yu Tang had more work than he could deal with, so he grabbed his wife and brought him over.
“Their math isn’t so good. They do things much slower here,” Yu Tang said.
Left with no choice, Song Xiao could only sit down and help him read the account books and a.n.a.lyse the numbers. Yu Tang went out to organise the project team members. In His Majesty the emperor’s opinion, there weren’t any useless people, just people who hadn’t been used properly. Even this group of wastes, if used in the right place, could become powerful generals.
When the sun set, the people in the company began to get off work one by one. Seeing that the group of wastes were still filled with enthusiasm, they couldn’t help ridiculing them.
“Oh, Kyle, hurry back to your mom’s bosom. We still have to work overtime ne.” The blond made a face at the person who was making fun of him.
Song Xiao looked at the data until his head spun. At that moment, his phone suddenly rang; it was Bai Qing’s number on the screen.
“Song Xiao, I was tricked into going to a bar. I don’t have money to pay, can you come over and help me out? I’ll pay you back tomorrow,” Bai Qing said cutely and pitifully.
Song Xiao stood up and looked at the heavy traffic outside. He smiled coldly and turned his head to look at Yu Tang, who gave him a ‘kacha’ gesture.
“En, okay, give me half an hour.”
Little Theater
‘Conspiracy Song Will Have A Great Celebration’
Bai Qing: Hurry up and come over, I can’t hold out alone
Xiaoxiao: Wait another two minutes, let me settle the matter of the fish pond
Fish Chuan: I say, you got me, bringing over a wife to cheat
Fish Lin: At the side of the mountains and seas, there’s a small fish scale
After this is just the author talking about her writing this during work
Baobao Notes
In case the little theater above confused you, it’s just a summary of what happened, and little yu lin being absolutely thrown to the side as background.