After Transmigrating as the Northeast CEO's Pampered Little Husband - Chapter 8

The garden within the residential estate wasn’t large. Despite the name “Yingshui Gardens” literally Reflecting Water Gardens there wasn’t a single water feature or decorative fountain in the entire complex. Gu Jiaoyang took a stroll around the grounds but didn’t spot anyone he knew. He had forgotten just how fast the pace of life was in Changjing for ordinary people.

During the day, everyone was at work, fighting tooth and nail to earn a living; they simply didn’t have the time to idle about in the gardens. As for the elderly, they were either in run-down old neighbourhoods or had been sent away to nursing homes and high-end retirement residences. This ordinary estate was populated almost exclusively by white-collar workers.

Gu Jiaoyang stood by the edge of a flowerbed, eyeing the neatly trimmed shrubbery maintained by the property management. Just as he was about to pluck a leaf to fiddle with, the sudden ringing of his mobile phone in his pocket interrupted him.

“You are the light, you are the night, You are the only thing that I want to touch~”

It was an English song. Gu Jiaoyang checked his phone and saw an unknown number on the display.

“Hello? Who is this?”

“Is this Gu Jiaoyang?”

“Yes, it is. May I ask who’s calling?” Gu Jiaoyang stood by the roadside, clutching his phone. The voice on the other end belonged to a middle-aged man, but it carried a sleazy undertone that immediately flagged him as a wrong’un.

Prepared for a scammer or something of the sort, Gu Jiaoyang mentally rehearsed some of the sharp comebacks he’d learned from the internet.

“Heh, if you want to save your face, transfer 500,000 to me. I’ve got your nude photos in my hand. Just a reminder: the night of June 3rd!” Once the caller confirmed it was Gu Jiaoyang, he suddenly relaxed. His tone was dripping with unconcealed malice and thick greed.

Gu Jiaoyang raised an eyebrow in surprise, casually kicking his foot against the steps.

June 3rd… wasn’t that the night the original host, Gu Mian, was knocked unconscious and then dragged into the plot to be… well, you know?

So, the person on the other end of the phone was the murderer. This man had taken advantage of the dark, windy night to end Gu Mian’s life with a single strike of a club.

“My… nude photos?” Gu Jiaoyang blinked, moving the phone slightly away from his mouth. A brilliant smile began to spread across his face, yet the voice he projected was timid, trembling with fear and anxiety.

“That’s right! Your nudes! After I knocked you out, I stripped you bare and tossed you onto that Dai bloke’s bed. We fed you drugs and took photos. What? Don’t remember? Do you need Uncle to help jog your memory?” Hearing the deliberate fear in Gu Jiaoyang’s voice, the man’s smugness and malice deepened. He seemed convinced that Gu Jiaoyang would cough up the 500,000 without a fight.

“Don’t say anymore! …Shut up!” The wider Gu Jiaoyang smiled, the more carelessly he kicked the stone steps, yet his words sounded increasingly terrified.

He sounded exactly like a little white rabbit shivering under the threat of a big bad wolf.

“So, if you know what’s good for you, hand over the 500,000. Otherwise… you wouldn’t want your school forum and that surname Dai’s phone to be plastered with your indecent photos, would you!”

“But… but I don’t have that much money! Can’t you make it a bit cheaper? I really don’t have that much. I’m just a student; my parents don’t love me, my classmates don’t like me, I don’t have that kind of cash!”

“I don’t give a toss if you have it or not! 500,000! Or I’ll make you regret it!!!”

The man on the other end, irritated by Gu Jiaoyang’s pleading poverty, refused to listen to any excuses and bit down hard on the 500,000 figure.

Gu Jiaoyang stopped kicking the steps. He tapped the toe of his shoe against the ground, switched the phone from his right hand to his left, and spoke pitifully.

Then… how about this? Let’s arrange a meeting place. I’ll bring all the cash I have left, plus all my valuables. My watches, electronic goods… you can take them and resell them. See if that makes up 500,000.

Don’t you dare think about calling the police!

Uncle, I wouldn’t dare! You have my photos! I really don’t have that much cash! And you said they’re indecent photos how could I dare ask my parents for money for that?

I have lots of mobile phones, electronics, and trainers, watches and the like. Please, Uncle, can we just convert them to cash? You’d make a fair bit selling them second-hand!

Gu Jiaoyang started to fake cry. There wasn’t a single tear in his eyes, but the sounds coming from his throat were the perfect imitation of a sobbing, terrified boy, complete with hitches in his breath and sniffles.

The man on the phone seemed to buy Gu Jiaoyang’s act. He muttered something to someone next to him, debating it in low tones. Eventually, he reluctantly agreed, warning him again not to call the police or tell anyone. He said they would decide the meeting location and then hurriedly hung up.

Once the call ended, Gu Jiaoyang whistled cheerfully, shoved the phone into his trouser pocket, and headed back to the underground car park.

Want to earn this Young Master’s money? You’d better check if you have a long enough life to spend it.

Trying to scam and blackmail me? If I don’t thrash you until you call me Daddy, my surname isn’t Gu!

Gu Jiaoyang returned to the car park with an aggressive stride, slammed the car door shut, and rode all the way back to the Dai residence.

When he returned in the evening, Dai Gucan had already gone out. The kitchen auntie had prepared dinner. Gu Jiaoyang ate alone in the dining room on the ground floor, then returned to his room to sleep and absorb the Lunar True Qi.

Dai Gucan didn’t return until the middle of the night. Gu Jiaoyang opened one eye and used his spiritual energy to sweep over Dai Gucan downstairs. Confirming that the man hadn’t brought any vengeful spirits back with him in the dead of night, he cast a minor cleaning spell and went back to sleep.

The next day, Dai Gucan left early again. When Gu Jiaoyang woke up, it was already past 10 AM. Dai Gucan must have given specific instructions not to wake him, as the nutritious soup in the kitchen had been kept simmering on a low heat, ready for him to eat the moment he rose.

Just as Gu Jiaoyang expected, the number that had called him yesterday sent a text message in the afternoon. They arranged to meet at a coffee shop in the most bustling part of the city centre.

Lots of people meant it was easy to run away. The chaos would confuse any observers, making it easy to erase their tracks. Even with plenty of CCTV, it would be impossible to track them completely.

Knowing their mindset, Gu Jiaoyang replied with a simple “Okay”. He then asked the assistant to borrow a driver to take him to the meeting place.

Before heading there, he visited a supermarket. He bought some snacks packaged in boxy shapes that looked suspiciously like electronic goods boxes and stuffed them into a massive carrier bag. From the outside, you really couldn’t tell the difference.

“When is this kid coming? It’s been over five minutes!” Beanpole shifted uncomfortably on the chair, which was cushioned with a floral-patterned cloth, squirming as if there were needles under his backside.

The environment in the café was too quiet. The people around them were either sipping coffee, typing away on expensive laptops, or posing pretentiously with books for photos. The two thugs, in their flashy, mismatched outfits, stuck out like sore thumbs.

“What’s the rush? The kid will definitely come. You know what the traffic in Changjing is like. Stop flapping about! Sit still and stop embarrassing us!” Scabby sat bolt upright, stiff as a board, looking like a primary school student waiting for inspection. He rigidly stirred the coffee in front of him with a small spoon. He had torn open every single sachet of sugar and creamer provided and dumped them all in. The coffee had turned an indescribable colour, and the pretty latte art had been stirred into oblivion.

Scabby checked his phone repeatedly. His frequent glances at the time proved that he wasn’t quite as patient as he claimed.

It was actually a stroke of luck that they had contacted him at all. The two brothers had been fretting about how to reach Gu Mian when they happened to pass by Changjing No. 3 High School. Scabby had a brainwave. When they sent the photo to their boss, they had captured Gu Jiaoyang’s chest badge, which displayed his name and class.

So, Scabby pretended he had found a very valuable item belonging to the student. He ran to the school gate and asked if he could check the entry and exit logs to find the “owner’s” phone number so he could return the valuable item.

And that idiot of a gatekeeper actually bought it. He casually handed over the registration clipboard for the two brothers to inspect.

Usually, students who were late or leaving early for leave had to sign the register, writing down their time, name, and contact details. Scabby had just wanted to try his luck, but he actually found it. Gu Mian had several records of taking leave, so his mobile number was written down multiple times. It was easy to find.

Having secured the number, Scabby muttered a curse about the “stupid gatekeeper,” then happily used a burner SIM to call Gu Mian.

According to the logs, Gu Mian usually left in the afternoon, so they were confident he would pick up if they called then.

It had to be said, for two thugs, they were quite sharp when it came to petty schemes.

They had discussed the price and decided to open the lion’s mouth wide, demanding 500,000 exactly double the remaining half of the payment their boss hadn’t sent yet.

Once the boss paid the balance, they’d have a cool million. Enough to live it up for quite a while.

“He’s here, he’s here!” Beanpole patted Scabby’s shoulder, nodding towards a noticeably young boy entering the café.

The boy was indeed Gu Jiaoyang. Carrying a huge bag of ‘boxed goods’, he spotted the two men immediately; they were utterly out of sync with the café’s style.

His eyesight was excellent. At a glance, he could read the faces of the two men.

Although his cultivation path didn’t specialise in physiognomy, he had been exposed to it enough to know the basics. One look at their faces told him everything. These two had clearly done plenty of wicked deeds. The death aura of a short life hovered over their foreheads, swirling as thick as heavy bangs. It had been a long time since he’d seen faces that indicated “no wife, no sons, line extinguished.”

The slightly fatter one had a tiny bit of wealth luck, but that meagre fortune wouldn’t last until the end of his life. And that speck of golden light was pathetic compared to what he had seen on Dai Gucan.

Speaking of which, he actually couldn’t read Dai Gucan’s face. He could only see some peripheral fortunes; the past and future usually readable by physiognomy were obscured by a layer of fog.

People like that were usually destined for either great calamity or great fortune, hidden and protected by the heavens themselves to prevent fellow cultivators from messing with them.

“Hello?” Gu Jiaoyang walked up to the two men, clutching his bag, and spoke timidly.

“Sit,” Scabby said. He glanced greedily at the large bag Gu Jiaoyang was carrying, making no effort to hide his avarice. Yet, he tried to act high-class by fiddling with his coffee spoon and taking a small sip from the cup, just like in the adverts.

“…!”

Having dumped every condiment in indiscriminately including the pepper meant for the snacks Scabby’s coffee tasted absolutely foul. It would be a miracle if it was drinkable.

Scabby suppressed the urge to spit it out, widening his eyes to stare at the student sitting opposite them.

“I brought 300,000 in cash value, plus these things. If you sell them, it’ll definitely come to more than 500,000.” Gu Jiaoyang placed both hands on his knees and lowered his head, looking utterly bullying-prone.

The two men opposite him took the bait instantly, showing immense delight.

“Where’s the money?”

“It’s in my WeChat. Give me your payment QR code, and I’ll scan it over to you.”

“Right, come on then.”

Scabby and Beanpole, their brains filled only with thoughts of money, didn’t even stop to consider that WeChat required real-name authentication. They frantically unlocked their phones.

“Wait. I want to see the photos you took of me first, is that okay? After I pay, you’ll delete them, right?” Gu Jiaoyang bit his fingernail, asking submissively with downcast eyes.

“What? No looking. Give me the money first, then I’ll delete them for you!”

Scabby wasn’t about to agree when the money was just seconds away. Besides, they didn’t have any nude photos. All they had was a picture of the boy knocked unconscious, which would only serve as evidence of assault.

Gu Jiaoyang had deliberately offered to pay first to shift their focus entirely to the money. They were indeed obsessed with the cash, to the point of forgetting the risks of a digital transfer.

More importantly, Gu Jiaoyang had caught the flash of guilt in Scabby and Beanpole’s eyes when he asked to see the photos. Scabby hid it quickly, but Beanpole clearly lacked the cultivation; he froze for a moment before pushing the guilt down into his eyes.

As a cultivator, his senses were extremely acute. By amplifying his sensitivity to capture the invisible spiritual energy in nature, he could precisely catch every minute emotion from the people sitting this close to him.

They are lying.

Realising this, Gu Jiaoyang mentally cracked his knuckles.

If you really had photos, I’d at most give you a beating. But trying to scam me with lies? Now, it won’t be as simple as just a beating!

Gu Jiaoyang spat internally. His thumb habitually pressed against his knuckles, and with a slight force, a crisp cracking sound of bone popped out.

“What was that noise?” Beanpole pricked up his ears.

“Nothing. So, I need to transfer the money to you first, right?” Gu Jiaoyang raised his eyes timidly to look at Scabby, but in reality, he was quietly activating the Soul Hooking Technique.

Soul Hooking, as the name implied, used one’s divine soul to ensnare another’s divine soul as a method of attack. It could drag the opponent’s soul out of their body to be struck or tormented.

The prerequisite was ensuring one’s own body was safe while the soul was projected, and that the opponent’s soul was weaker than one’s own.

“Look at me. I’ll pay you.”

Gu Jiaoyang suddenly smiled. Although the curve of his lips wasn’t large, the smile exuded a hint of addictive intoxication.

“Huh? O… Okay.”

Scabby and Beanpole reflexively looked into Gu Jiaoyang’s eyes. Instantly, their attention was seized by transparent snakes swimming within those black pupils. As the transparent serpents began to writhe, the pupils of both men gradually began to dilate and glaze over.

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