DASFAM_CH 07

Those words ignited the flames of conflict without question.

In all his years, Chen Shaoxuan had never once been called 'trash' to his face. His composure crumbled on the spot, "Bai Xu, don't you dare push your luck!"

"You really think I won't hit you?"

Before the last word had even faded, he swung a fist straight at him.

Bai Xu had already anticipated that he would lash out in humiliated rage. He sidestepped nimbly, and the rush of air from the swing was enough to show just how much fury was packed behind it.

Seeing the first strike miss, Chen Shaoxuan immediately spun and swung again.

—Thud!

The next second, his fist was caught forcefully in someone's hand.

Chen Yufei, who had been ready and waiting, surged forward. With nothing but his bare palm, he blocked Chen Shaoxuan's blow— then with ease, he twisted the other man's arm back and shoved him away with brute force.

"Ah!"

Chen Shaoxuan had no time to react before he lost his footing and stumbled forward in an ungainly sprawl.

"Young Master Chen, watch out!"

"Whoa—"

The assistant manager and the friends nearby rushed to catch him, but not only did they fail to catch him— they ended up tumbling over themselves in the process.

The whole group collapsed into a heap, a thoroughly ridiculous sight.

And Chen Yufei, who had caused all of this, kept a straight face throughout, not letting out so much as a single syllable.

Bai Xu was thoroughly satisfied. He raised an eyebrow in praise, "Your skills are quite something. No wonder Shang Yanxiao kept you around to protect him."

Chen Yufei replied, "It's the Third Young Master who thought highly of me and was willing to give me the opportunity."

He had witnessed everything from behind just now, and naturally understood that it was Chen Shaoxuan's group who had first spoken without restraint, bullied others by leveraging their status, and even stooped so low as to raise their fists.

Chen Yufei sized up the numbers on the other side and murmured, "Young Master Bai, watch yourself. Leave anything that comes up over here to me."

Bai Xu asked, "You'll be alright?"

Chen Yufei said quietly, "I'll be fine."

"......"

Bai Xu's gaze flickered briefly. He stepped back decisively and took out his phone again.

In the real world, if it came to blows between two sides, he'd be willing to step in himself— but he had only crossed into this novel not long ago, and the original owner's slight frame hadn't been properly trained up yet.

He was still thinking clearly: since taking on multiple opponents alone held little chance of winning, it was better to leave it to someone with more confidence in the outcome.

After all, bringing a bodyguard along when going out was precisely for moments like this.

In the brief exchange, Chen Shaoxuan had already picked himself up off the floor.

He yanked his clothes roughly back into place, his face flushed red with fury, "Where the hell did you come from? Who do you think you are! If I don't beat you both half to death today, my name isn't Chen!"

The assistant manager, afraid of getting caught in the crossfire, hurried to intervene, "Young Master Chen, please calm down."

Chen Shaoxuan, burning with rage, pushed him indiscriminately, "F*ck you!"

The assistant manager, completely unprepared, fell backward— and the moment he hit the ground, a sharp crack rang out from his right arm.

All at once, searing pain tore through him, "Ahh—"

The sales associates in the store stared in stunned silence, hesitating and not daring to step forward.

Chen Shaoxuan paid no mind to the assistant manager's fate and gestured with his eyes for his two friends to join in.

But these two were nothing more than idle playboys who spent their days eating and waiting for life to pass them by— no match at all for Chen Yufei, a former soldier who had trained in earnest.

In under a minute, some were on the ground, others were crying out in pain, and Chen Shaoxuan—being the central figure—had become Chen Yufei's primary focus.

His arms were seized and wrenched behind his back, his knees on the floor, weak as if every bone had left his body, completely unable to fight back.

Chen Yufei had pressed down on some pressure point on his wrist, and the pain shot straight up through him, "Stop, stop, stop– ow, come on— it hurts, it hurts, it hurts—!"

Bai Xu strolled back over and came to a stop in front of Chen Shaoxuan, "You can't take it already? The ways you used to bully 'me' back then were far crueler than this."

Using power to bully the weak, using numbers to overwhelm the few— they were birds of a feather*!

*一丘之貉: it's can also interpreted as jackals of the same tribe (idiom), which means they are all just as bad as each other.

And the suffering the original host had endured was something the current Chen Shaoxuan could not begin to compare to.

Pinned down and unable to get up, Chen Shaoxuan lifted his head in agony, "Alright, alright, I- I give up, okay? Tell your bodyguard to let go!"

Surrendering just like that— spineless through and through, every bit of the arrogance from moments ago completely gone.

Four or five years apart, and the cowering Chen Shaoxuan had truly not seen it coming—

Bai Xu had shed his former meek personality entirely. Firing back with a sharp tongue was one thing, but going out with a bodyguard in tow?

Bai Xu shot Chen Yufei a glance. Chen Yufei understood. Before releasing him, he applied one last precise flick of force.

"Ah!"

Chen Shaoxuan let out a sharp cry of pain, then collapsed to the floor gasping.

Bai Xu didn't so much as blink. He turned and walked out, with Chen Yufei following close behind.

It wasn't until they were more than ten meters from the store entrance that Chen Yufei couldn't help asking, "Young Master Bai, don't you want them to apologize or something?"

"An apology?"

Bai Xu had lost any desire to shop. He walked into a nearby brand store at random, "An apology from people like them wouldn't be sincere, and it wouldn't do me any good anyway."

He quickly pointed out a few items that caught his eye. Since they were already here, he at least had to bring a few things back to change into for the time being.

Chen Yufei, a former soldier who had worked under Shang Yanxiao for a good many years, was accustomed to a hard-nosed style where scores were always settled. He found himself still feeling unsatisfied.

"So, so we're just leaving it at that?"

"......"

Leaving it at that?

How could that be?

Bai Xu paid with his card swiftly and cleanly, then turned it back on him, "Did you forget what I asked you to do in that message just now? Did you get it?"

Chen Yufei blanked for two seconds, then it dawned on him.

From the moment Chen Shaoxuan walked through the store entrance, Chen Yufei—sitting in the rest area—had sensed something was off. But before he could step forward, Bai Xu, who had only added him as a contact just before leaving, had already sent him a message:

"Stay put. Record on your phone."

Six simple characters, and Chen Yufei had done exactly that.

Bai Xu turned and walked out of the store, "You got everything that happened in the store just now?"

Chen Yufei took the shopping bag from the sales associate and followed, "Yes, got it all."

Bai Xu raised an eyebrow slightly, with a meaningful air, "Then that's all we need."

He had no use for an apology that Chen Shaoxuan didn't mean, nor did he think a single apology could cover what they had done to the original host—and he had even less right to forgive those rotten people on the original host's behalf.

Bai Xu had already kept a card up his sleeve. If he recalled correctly, Jinbai Real Estate was destined to go bankrupt in the novel too, swallowed up by the male lead's conglomerate in the end.

Wasn't Chen Shaoxuan so fond of bullying people by leveraging his family's power? Looking down on others from behind his family name?

In that case, Bai Xu didn't mind sending Jinbai Real Estate and the Chen family a special gift—one that would help speed up their bankruptcy.

...

The car pulled back into the villa's underground garage, and Bai Xu and Chen Yufei took the elevator directly up to the second floor.

Xiao Deng, who was standing guard at the door of the master bedroom, spotted the two of them and called out cheerfully, "Young Master Bai, Brother Fei, you're back so soon?"

"Mm."

Bai Xu replied calmly, then homed in on what he wanted to know, "Where's Xie Qi? Is he home?"

At that, Xiao Deng gave the door a knock, "Assistant Xie is still inside keeping watch. The Old Master came by a little while ago and left not long ago."

Bai Xu nodded, "I'll head in. I need to see him about something."

With that, he pushed open the master bedroom door himself.

Chen Yufei handed the shopping bags to Xiao Deng and gestured, "Take these to Young Master Bai's room. Go take your break, I'll take over."

"Alright."

...

Xie Qi, who had been working inside the master bedroom, heard the movement and immediately set down his tablet and stood up, "Young Master Bai, you're back?"

Bai Xu came to a stop in front of him, though his gaze didn't overlook Shang Yanxiao lying on the bed in the inner room, "Mm. How is he doing?"

Xie Qi pushed up his glasses, his voice steady, "The Third Young Master is the same as always. But why are you back so soon, did you manage to get everything you needed?"

As he spoke, he glanced toward Chen Yufei at the door.

Bai Xu was straightforward about it, "We ran into something unexpected. That's why I'd like to ask you to help me take care of a matter."

"Something unexpected?"

Xie Qi's expression sharpened, his tone taking on a note of seriousness, "What happened?"

Chen Yufei, facing his old partner, was more forthcoming than usual. He took the initiative to give a broad account of what had happened in the boutique, and sent Xie Qi the video he had recorded.

Bai Xu followed up, "Whether it's local media forums or national social platforms, I need someone to help me stir up some public attention. As for what topic should be allowed to gain traction, I think you know what I mean."

Even if it meant paying for it, the controversy surrounding this incident had to be pushed out into the open.

"I understand what you're after, but—" a flicker of hesitation crossed Xie Qi's brow, "Young Master Bai, do you want to take on Jinbai Real Estate all by yourself? Isn't that a bit too..."

Bai Xu turned it back on him, "You think I'm being delusional?"

A mild, unhurried remark— carrying with it the quiet authority of someone not to be underestimated.

Xie Qi was taken aback, and had the strange impression that he was somehow handing off work to 'another Shang Yanxiao'.

He gathered his thoughts and tried to lay out the situation, "While Jinbai Real Estate has been on a downward slide these past couple of years, it's still an established corporate group."

As the saying goes, even a starving camel is bigger than a horse. Jinbai certainly had its own dedicated PR and operations teams.

While what Chen Shaoxuan had said was highly offensive and likely to provoke a backlash from consumers, as long as Jinbai was willing to spend money on PR, this public opinion battle wouldn't be so easy to win.

An individual going up against a corporation, the odds were never in one's favour.

Bai Xu understood Xie Qi's concerns. The corner of his mouth curved, and his naturally fair features became disarming with that smile, "I know. Trying to bring them down on public opinion alone would be quite difficult."

But it would be enough to erode Jinbai Group's positive image in the eyes of consumers. Stirring up public discourse was only the first step Bai Xu had in mind, he naturally had more moves to follow.

Bai Xu paused, and didn't bother concealing it, "I don't have much of a network at the moment, which is why I was hoping to take the easy route and ask for your help. But if helping me is inconvenient for you given your role as Shang Yanxiao's assistant, I can pay someone else to do it."

Xie Qi exchanged a glance with Chen Yufei beside him, thought it over briefly, and said, "No, a small networking matter like this is no problem."

"Thank you."

Bai Xu's thanks came clean and prompt.

He looked back toward Shang Yanxiao on the bed and remembered something else, "Right. I should probably find time to pay the Old Master a visit. Is he free?"

After all, he had come in under the name of a 'marriage alliance'. Visiting the elders was the least he could do, to avoid being spoken of as lacking in manners behind his back.

Xie Qi answered, "When the Old Master came by this afternoon, he specifically mentioned it; there's a family dinner this Saturday. You just need to show up."

The Shang family, vast as their enterprise was, had certain customs of their own— for instance, a family dinner at the end of every month, which all family members residing in the capital were required to attend without exception.

"......"

A family dinner on Saturday?

The timing worked out just right.

"Alright, noted."

A glimmer of light passed through Bai Xu's eyes. He didn't refuse. He tapped his phone screen, "Then I'll leave that matter in your hands."

Xie Qi nodded, "Mm."

—Thud.

The bedroom door clicked softly shut.

Chen Yufei locked it with practiced ease and took up his post on the inside of the door, his gaze fixed steadily on the inner room.

Xie Qi poured a glass of warm water and turned to hand it to Shang Yanxiao, who had sat up, "Third Young Master, would you like some?"

Shang Yanxiao felt the numbness and weakness in his legs from lying still for so long. He furrowed his brow slightly. His height, just under one hundred and ninety centimetres, radiated an undeniable air of pressure, "No."

Since he was maintaining the long-term pretense of being 'unconscious' and bedridden, even the state of his lips had to look the part.

Xie Qi set down the glass and gave his glasses a light push, "Third Young Master, what do you make of what Young Master Bai just did?"

Shang Yanxiao's slow, measured footsteps came to a stop. He answered in a level tone, "Since he wants your help, just do as he asks."

Jinbai Group had always built its name on its signature chain of shopping districts. It had expanded at a rapid pace a few years ago, but as large-scale commercial districts across the country became increasingly saturated on a regional level, it had been on a downward slide for the past two or three years.

The Shang Group had interests across many industries, though those touching on shopping district ventures numbered only one or two.

Half a year ago, the Old Master had raised the idea of expanding into the shopping district sector. For the Shang family, Jinbai Group could either be a partner or a competitor— entirely a matter for the chairman to decide on a whim.

And for Shang Yanxiao, whose instinct ran toward war rather than cooperation, acquisition beat partnership every time.

Xie Qi thought back over his interactions with Bai Xu over the past two days and spoke plainly, "Third Young Master, I keep feeling like Young Master Bai isn't as simple as he seems. And I can't quite tell what he ultimately intends to do with Jinbai Group."

Shang Yanxiao's gaze flickered, a trace of imperceptible curiosity surfacing within it, "There's no rush. Let's watch a little longer."

He too wanted to know, just what exactly was this Bai Xu brewing beneath the surface.

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