This is the 3rd chapter for today. Enjoy!
Chapter 15 An unpredictable and exciting future.
“Don’t eat, don’t eat! I need to take a picture first and report to my wife.”
Secretary Sun stopped Assistant Chi from cutting into his steak and quickly raised his phone, snapping a flurry of photos of the dining table.
Chi Ke let out a quiet sigh.
Love… what a difficult thing to understand.
“Don’t sigh,” Secretary Sun grinned, happily tapping away on his phone. “You just don’t have a wife yet. Once you do, you’ll understand how wonderful this is.”
Just as he finished speaking, Chi Ke’s phone buzzed.
[The Great Ji Gatsby: Surprise inspection!]
[The Great Ji Gatsby: What did you have for dinner? Did you eat anything too cold?]
[The Great Ji Gatsby: Did you drink the stomach-soothing tea and sleep-aid tea I gave you?]
Seeing that Chi Ke raised an eyebrow.
Someone had been doing these surprise checks persistently for a whole month now.
At first, he ignored them. But fearing his doctor would accuse him of being uncooperative with treatment, he eventually started replying occasionally.
Later, he noticed that Ji Qian’s ‘inspections’ weren’t too frequent—only about once a week, just within his tolerance level. Since it wasn’t too disruptive, he cooperated.
Besides, even if he didn’t respond, Ji Qian wouldn’t press the issue. At most, he’d just remind him once or twice.
It wasn’t intrusive—actually, it was surprisingly considerate.
“Who is it? Who is it?” Secretary Sun was dying of curiosity. “It’s the weekend, and your personal phone is blowing up?”
“Business,” Chi Ke flipped his phone face-down on the table.
“Ohhh, so secretive? You’re hiding something.” Secretary Sun waggled his eyebrows playfully before switching topics. “By the way, how’s the new place? You own a house already—why rent another one?”
“Change of environment.” Assistant Chi pushed the cut steak toward him. “It’s great. Thanks for helping me find the listing, really appreciate it.”
“No need to be so formal, we’re colleagues, it was no trouble at all.” Secretary Sun swallowed a piece of steak, looking moved. “God, it’s been ages since someone cut my steak for me… Wait a sec, let me take this call—it’s the boss, probably something urgent again.”
Cursing under his breath, he answered immediately.
“Hello, President Leng! Yes, yes, it’s me… Alright, I’ll bring it over right away!”
Right now, Leng Yunting was on a date with Xu Lemian on the top floor of the mall, while Secretary Sun and Assistant Chi had sneaked off to grab a meal. They were eating with their hearts in their throats.
A single word from above, and the corporate minions had to scramble back to work.
“Ugh, I need to run upstairs to deliver something.” Secretary Sun magically pulled a tie out of his bag. “That ancestor spilled shrimp juice all over President Leng’s tie.”
Among Leng Yunting’s employees, Xu Lemian was jokingly referred to as ‘the ancestor’ in private— with a subtle edge of sarcasm.
As background characters in the original novel’s villain group, it seemed none of them particularly liked the protagonist.
“Alright.”
Assistant Chi gave a noncommittal response and set down his fork.
After Secretary Sun left, Assistant Chi remembered the unread messages on his phone. Finally, he picked it up at an unhurried pace and replied to Ji Qian with a perfunctory response.
[k: Hm.]
Everyone knew what “Hm” meant.
It meant: I can’t be bothered to reply.
Assistant Chi knew this was a bit rude, but he figured that whether it was friendship or love, it was better to be upfront and let people give up early rather than deceive them with false kindness.
That way, there would be no misunderstandings or wasted feelings.
But Ji Qian was more persistent than 99.9% of people. Even after being cold-shouldered for so long, he still kept expressing his concern without hesitation.
[The Great Ji Gatsby: Have you been really busy these days? Going to the office every day?]
[k: Yeah, very busy.]
But he didn’t need to go to the office.
In two days, he would be heading to Yanping County.
“I’m back.” Secretary Sun sat down, panting. “You barely touched your food. Why are you eating so slow?”
“Mm.” Assistant Chi, who had deliberately waited for him to return so they could eat together, didn’t explain further. “You done?”
“Yeah, President Leng just gave me a few more instructions about your work handover.” Secretary Sun sighed gloomily. “Assistant Chi, you’re going on a business trip in two days—are you still coming to work tomorrow?” The expectation in his voice was practically overflowing.
Recently, Leng Yunting’s grand confession plan had been in full swing, the deadline looming closer. The entire company, Xingmian Entertainment, was drowning in work.
And as the main person in charge of this plan, Assistant Chi’s current status in the company was nearly on par with the CEO.
As long as he was here, everyone felt a sense of security—
Look, even the most overworked and exhausted Assistant Chi is still alive. What fear did they have?
Chi Ke raised his wine glass. “I’ll be there. Tomorrow, I’ll do the final site check for the confession event. The rest is up to you guys.”
His phone buzzed again.
[The Great Ji Gatsby: No matter how busy you are, don’t drown your sorrows in alcohol. Your last gastroscopy results weren’t great.]
Tch.
He wasn’t allowed to drink because of his heart condition in his last life. Now, in this life, with a healthy heart, he had somehow managed to gain another self-appointed doctor keeping tabs on him.
Annoyed, he took a sip before reluctantly setting down the glass.
[K: K]
…
On the day of his business trip, Secretary Sun gave him a ride to the airport.
Yanping was too remote—there was no airport there. He had to fly to a nearby city and then take a train.
Watching Assistant Chi disappear through security, Secretary Sun nearly teared up.
Before, if the sky collapsed, Assistant Chi would hold it up. Now that he was gone, if the boss threw a fit, wouldn’t he be the one getting crushed?!
“Thank god,” he muttered under his breath, “thank god there’s still Ji—”
“Secretary Sun? What a coincidence.”
Ji Qian suddenly appeared beside him, dragging a suitcase.
Secretary Sun fell silent.
After a long pause, he solemnly recited, “Spoken words manifest… Money, money, money!”
Ji Qian tilted his head. “Getting into mysticism now? Did your boss dock your pay again?”
“I just lost last month’s perfect attendance bonus… but that’s not the point.” Secretary Sun’s smile was laced with misery. “Dr. Ji, why… why are you here?”
Ji Qian gestured at his suitcase. “I thought the fact that I’m standing in the departure hall with luggage made my purpose pretty obvious.”
Secretary Sun: “You’re taking a flight?”
Ji Qian: “No, running a cross-city marathon.”
Secretary Sun choked. Realizing he’d asked a dumb question, he quickly changed his question. “Where are you headed?”
“To save lives.” Ji Qian felt his answer was particularly cool, so he decided to fully commit to the act—coolly putting on his sunglasses and striding away with his back to Secretary Sun.
“Hey—” Secretary Sun called out.
Ji Qian stopped, tilting his head at an almost theatrically mysterious angle.
“First,” he said coolly, “I’m not ‘hey.’”
Secretary Sun: “…”
Secretary Sun: “You’re walking the wrong way—that’s the elevator to the arrival floor.”
Ji Qian froze.
Then, without missing a beat, he scoffed and continued walking straight ahead. “When the time is right, I’ll naturally turn back.”
Secretary Sun’s expression became weird.
…Alright, whatever makes you happy.
…
The moment Ji Qian turned the corner, he sprinted as if his life depended on it.
Damn it, all that pretending had nearly made him miss his flight!
He really didn’t wish to hear his name being announced all over the airport speakers. Even as a platinum member, delaying a flight because of his own stupidity wasn’t the kind of prestige he wanted.
Clutching his luggage, Ji Qian dashed through the security and finally had a chance to fish out his constantly vibrating phone from his pocket.
“This better be important!” he snapped, rummaging through his bag for his boarding pass while awkwardly holding the phone between his shoulder and ear, eyes darting around in search of his gate.
He’d forgotten that while S City in the book was modeled after Shanghai, it wasn’t actually Shanghai—the airport’s layout was slightly different, and he almost ran in the wrong direction.
“Missed your flight?” Leng Baiyao snickered, unsurprised. “I knew the moment you left, you were going to miss it.”
“Tsk, shut up, you pessimist. I’m making it.” Ji Qian was resolute.
“Wanna bet?”
“What’s the wager?”
“If you miss it, you owe me five million.”
“Are you broke or just crazy?” Ji Qian finally spotted his gate.
Boarding was closing in less than five minutes. The economy class line was empty, with only one tall, striking young man handing over his ticket.
Something about him looked oddly familiar.
But by the time Ji Qian reached the gate, the guy had already disappeared inside.
It wasn’t often that he came across someone with that kind of presence. What a pity.
Smiling, he handed over his boarding pass, nodded in thanks to the flight attendant, and couldn’t resist gloating to his friend over the phone, “Sorry, I made it. If you need money, go scam Young Master Li instead. He’s loaded these days, much wealthier than me.”
“Tch.” Leng Baiyao clicked his tongue in disappointment. “His family’s in a mess right now. I don’t have the heart to ask.”
Ji Qian: “The Ji family is always in a mess, but that never stopped you from asking me.”
“Our relationship is different.”
“We have no relationship.”
“No relationship?” Leng Baiyao had clearly been waiting for that phrase, immediately switching to a sarcastic tone. “If we have no relationship, then why did you dump the hospital on me while you go fool around? Where exactly are you headed? What’s so urgent that you even postponed the Yueshi [mfn]some company’s name[/mfn] ad collaboration?”
“Not telling you.” Ji Qian hadn’t informed anyone—not even Assistant Chi—that he was headed to Yanping County.
The reasons were too complicated to explain. Rather than risk being mistaken for a lunatic, he simply kept it to himself.
“Anyway, I’ll be sure to personally thank you next week when I’m back. Ah, the plane is taking off now—hanging up!”
“Wait.”
“What?”
“Nothing major,” Leng Baiyao suddenly chuckled. “I just happened to stop by your office and found a discarded draft document on your desk.”
Ji Qian frowned, “And?”
“I swear I just glanced at it casually,” Leng Baiyao said with a hint of amusement. “But guess what? Right on the first page, there’s a name—handwritten, and from the looks of it, by you.”
Ji Qian: “?”
“Chi Ke.”
Leng Baiyao rolled the name on his tongue, smirking. “Isn’t that my dear little brother’s assistant? What were you doing writing his name down?”
Ji Qian: “…”
Damn.
This plane suddenly felt suffocatingly hot.
He reached up to adjust the air vent above his seat, aiming the cool breeze directly at his face.
“Pfft, it’s nothing. Just random doodling during a boring meeting. It means nothing. Absolutely nothing. Why do you have such an unhealthy curiosity? Asking pointless questions. Ha, it’s just a name! I wrote it down because it looked nice. That’s all! No deeper meaning. Stop overthinking it. Hanging up now!”
Leng Baiyao listened to the dial tone, took a deep breath, but still ended up muttering:
“He’s sick.”
…
After getting off the plane, Chi Ke took a photo first.
[K: President Leng, I’ve landed.]
Then, he leaned against the railing at the exit and massaged his lower back for a while.
Normally, when traveling for work, Leng Yunting would reimburse him for a business class ticket. But considering he had just been forced to put a ‘cyber-green hat’ [mfn]regarding that incident on the forum, people thinking that Chi Ke was pursuing Xu Lemian[/mfn] on his boss, it was a miracle he wasn’t made to run a marathon to Yanping instead.
Even though this reincarnated body was much healthier than his previous one, it seemed the sheer number of ailments he had accumulated were so much that this world’s mechanics hadn’t managed to fully auto-repair them.
His last medical exam showed that the major illnesses were gone, but he was left with a whole long list of minor yet persistent issues—one of which was a herniated disc. Ji Qian had given him a pile of medicated plasters for it.
After massaging his back for a while with no relief, Chi Ke had no choice but to dig into his bag, pull out a pain-relief patch, and stick it on. The soothing warmth spread through his lower back, finally loosening the stiffness in his spine.
By the time he went to collect his luggage, the baggage carousel was nearly empty.
He didn’t linger. Rushing to catch the next train, he finally arrived at his actual destination two hours later. Another photo, then he hailed a taxi to the hotel.
[K: President Leng, I’ve arrived on-site.]
[K: No slacking, no delays. Business trips also count towards my perfect attendance record.]
In a small town like this, there were no private cars or executive shuttles—just metered taxis. As soon as Chi Ke got in, he was worried about getting overcharged. When they finally arrived, he glanced at the meter and—
Damn. Four kilometers, one hundred and fifty bucks.
But he was unfamiliar with the place, and the driver, sporting a full-sleeve tattoo, didn’t look like someone to argue with. Best to let it go—better to lose money than to lose life.
Besides, the company was covering his travel expenses. Not like it was his money.
“Receipt, please,” Chi Ke said smoothly, paying up and stepping out of the car.
Without the tinted, old, tea-colored car windows shielding him, the glaring sun momentarily stung his eyes.
Raising an eyebrow, he quickly stepped into the hotel. Before heading in, he turned to glance at the town of Yanping behind him, facing the wind head-on.
This small city, bordering the vast northwest, had skies bluer and winds colder than any metropolis.
The swirling dust in the air gave it a mysterious aura—like something straight out of a story.
In both his past and present lives, this was the first time he had set foot on this land, a place always labelled as barren and desolate.
His scarf loosened in the wind, revealing the distant sand dunes behind rows of low, flat-roofed houses.
For a brief second, he took a breath unlike any he had ever taken before.
No wonder so many people longed for that one journey into the wilderness.
Because everyone needs to feel, at least once, the undeniable truth of being alive.
This vast wilderness held the proof of one’s existence.
And at the same time, it was recording the footprints of another.
The road to uncovering the original owner’s life would be long.
But Chi Ke’s life had never been put on pause.
It had always been in motion.
So, the moments ahead weren’t part of some predetermined plot.
They belonged to him—unpredictable, and worth looking forward to.
