Chapter 29 – One Billion

Editor: Xinghe

Proofreader: IDK UME WHERE ARE YOUUUUUU?!?!?

Translator: YuQiChen/ChuRen

The news that Xie Ling crushed the legs of the reporters that were surrounding him immediately made headlines on Weibo’s hot search along with multiple forums and major news outlets. The people in charge of the news outlets were shocked to receive the pictures provided by the reporters. When they learnt of what had happened, they only had one sentence in their minds:

How unruly and lawless!

Immediately afterward, they worked as fast as they could to condemn Xie Ling as a worthless person, believing that such an artist, who didn’t regard human life as something important, would definitely be blacklisted sooner or later. People like him were not qualified to appear in front of the public, so how could they still be considered as an entertainer?

Wouldn’t he be a role model for outlaws instead?

Then that would be too laughable!

Xie Ling’s fans, those that had already stopped stanning him and those that still stanned him, were all stunned when they saw the topic that was at the top of the hot search and was marked in red. This… What on earth did this mean? Just because he was blocked by people, Xie Ling ran over someone with his car? Is he insane? To say in a more serious manner, wasn’t this intentional murder? Does he not want to have a future anymore?

Ah, no… Ever since he had instigated the Gu family to slander Xie Qing, he had no future to speak of.

But…

At most, an ordinary person would just withdraw from the entertainment circle while another option would involve a lawsuit that will last for a few years.

[I don’t really know what to say. I can only say that Xie Ling’s actions are constantly refreshing my outlook on life.]

[I feel the same as the poster above. He is really insane.]

[When I became a fan of Xie Ling, I had always thought that he was an elegant nobleman. I’ve always thought that the person I liked was too good. But look at what happened now? I feel really stupid now.]

[Poster sister above, don’t feel stupid. It’s just that Xie Ling was too good at this. Since he dared to trip someone in front of so many others, maybe Xie Qing’s disappearance back then had something to do with him.]

[F*ck… the previous poster’s words make me feel more and more horrified the more I think about it.]

[Ah, are there still any CP fans of Yu Kaize and Xie Ling right now? I used to dislike these CP fans when I was a fan of Xie Ling. But now, I think the two of them should be together. Till death do they part! Garbage and garbage should be put in the trash together instead of disgusting others with their stench!]

[Um, I’d like to ask those artists who had pursued Xie Ling before. How are you feeling right now?]

[Hahaha all of them have become turtle grandsons¹tbf this is what I inferred from the sentence given in the raws. Calling someone a turtle is derogatory. Can mean that they are as slow as a turtle. Or it can also mean that they’re saying the person is currently hiding their head like a turtle.!]

[I’m dying of laughter. Did you see the leaked chat of Xie Ling’s fan group? There was a person who had been cursing out Xie Ling. It turned out to be the sub-account of a certain little fresh meat. I almost laughed myself to death hahaha. Back then, he had cried with a runny nose and tears streaming down his face saying that he really liked Xie Ling. hahaha.]

The discussions and ridicule about Xie Ling went on the internet. Xie Qing spectated the whole thing for two hours on his phone, feeling a rare feeling of delight.

Truthfully, he overestimated how much Xie Ling could endure. He really never expected his mental strength to be so low. Maybe he really did lose his mind as he was simply unable to accept the sudden fall from grace. So his anger completely eroded his reason, making him do something irreversible.

Just that, it was a pity for that reporter’s leg which had been crushed.

Xie Qing clicked his tongue and was about to put his phone down when he suddenly received a strange text message.

There was only one sentence contained inside the message he received, which was: ‘I am Xie Cheng. Can we talk?’

Xie Qing raised his eyebrows.

After a while, he finally replied: ‘Time and place?’

Xie Cheng seemed to be a bit anxious while waiting for his reply. As soon as he received Xie Qing’s response, he immediately sent a time and location to him. Xie Qing took a look at it and found that the time he was given for the meet up was set in half an hour. The location was a small coffee shop that was not far from his rental house.

Xie Qing smiled and arrived at the appointment location in time.

When Xie Qing arrived at the coffee shop, he found that Xie Cheng was already there. The tall man had sat by the window. When he noticed Xie Qing’s arrival, he immediately nodded at him. As soon as Xie Qing sat down, Xie Cheng immediately got to the point.

“Xie Ling’s matter has affected the company greatly.” Xie Cheng’s voice held no emotion as he talked to the man sitting in front of him. But only he himself knew in his heart that he had ingrained the memory of meeting that certain young man the last time he came to see Xie Qing.

Xie Cheng had originally thought that he didn’t need to be afraid of anyone because of his status, however this time he was still a bit hesitant when looking for Xie Qing.

“If it has affected your company, why don’t you go find the culprit instead of coming here to tell me, an irrelevant person?” Xie Qing slowly took a sip of the lemonade that he didn’t pay for, his tone and demeanour being perfectly calm.

Xie Cheng almost laughed out loud when he heard the words ‘irrelevant person’ coming out of his mouth.

How did Xie Qing have the nerve to say such words?

Didn’t Xie Ling get to this point because of the plans he made behind the scenes?

Xie Cheng’s eyebrows scrunched up as he said, “I came to find you because I have something to tell you. I hope you’ll let this matter go from here on. I’ll arrange for a lawyer to solve Xie Ling’s matter with the reporter. I don’t want any other negative news related to him to appear again. Can you understand what I mean, Xie Qing?”

“I understand.”

Xie Cheng was worried about the Xie family’s stocks. After all, Xie Ling’s surname was still Xie. He firmly believed that Xie Qing wouldn’t give up until he had Xie Ling’s life in his hands. He also knew that Xie Ling’s current irreversible situation wasn’t yet enough for Xie Qing.

So he had hoped that Xie Qing would stop doing things that might make things difficult for the Xie family.

But the main point was—

What did his²Xie Cheng Xie family have anything to do with him³Xie Qing?

The transparent glass of the lemonade covered the smile on Xie Qing’s face as he raised his eyes to look at Xie Cheng. Seeing Xie Cheng’s face of surprise, he knew that Xie Cheng didn’t expect him to be so easy to talk to. Sure enough, the next second, Xie Cheng couldn’t help but ask him, “Are you serious? You’re not joking with me are you?”

Xie Qing laughed as he put down his glass of lemonade and asked him, “So, shouldn’t you hand me some benefits?”

‘Sure enough.’

Xie Cheng thought to himself. Xie Qing wouldn’t agree to his request so easily.

But it was undeniable that Xie Qing, who had a condition for him, was much more reassuring than if Xie Qing just agreed to him casually.

Xie Cheng breathed a sigh of relief as he felt the tension in his body dissipate. It seemed that he was back in business as his movements were carried out with great confidence. He asked Xie Qing, “What benefits do you want? As long as it is not too much, I can agree to it.”

“Is asking you to hand over the Xie family to me too much?”

Xie Cheng’s face turned dark at this.

Couldn’t he think of the response himself?

Before he could reply to Xie Qing’s request, Xie Qing smiled at him and said that he was just joking. His tone was calm but then he opened his mouth once more and said, “One billion.”

“Are you insane?!” Xie Cheng, who had just calmed down, completely collapsed once more.

How dare Xie Qing ask for one billion?!

“Is that a lot of money? I think one billion in exchange for your Xie family’s reputation and stocks isn’t a loss at all.” Xie Qing smiled. “Of course, there are other conditions to this. You’ll have to keep a close eye on Xie Ling. I won’t do anything to him, but that is if he behaves himself well. Otherwise, who knows if your Xie family’s stock will fall once more. Don’t you think this is reasonable, Xie-dashao⁴master?”

Xie Cheng said nothing and stared at him with a straight face.

Xie Qing continued on, “I could toss Xie Ling to death. But since you want me to stop, you should also give me a satisfactory response.”

Xie Cheng took a few deep breaths. A full quarter of an hour passed before he could muster out a response.

“I understand. I hope you’ll stay true to your words.”

Xie Qing pushed his cup of lemonade away and stood up. The smile on his face still remained in place. “I could say the same for you.”

He walked out of the cafe and his thin back soon disappeared from Xie Cheng’s sight. Xie Cheng had always been looking in that direction, recalling the person who sat in front of him, his expression didn’t look very nice.

He really underestimated Xie Qing.

Asking for one billion in one mouthful. His ambition really isn’t small.

…

As soon as Xie Qing stepped through the door of his rental home, he received a call from Wen Xu. Wen Xu had been busy for the past two days and hadn’t paid attention to the public opinion at all. It was only after the matter was over that he finally had the free time to call Xie Qing. He had also seen the posts on Weibo, so he wanted to ask about that matter as well.

Xie Qing said a few words to him in order to change the subject.

Wen Xu’s tone was full of surprise but he then said, “I’ve already made an agreement with Elder Zhou. The hemostatic grass can be considered as a traditional Chinese medicine. It just so happens that the resource team for traditional Chinese medicine has been conducting new research. Elder Zhou had given them a heads up.”

“Sounds great.”

Wen Xu hummed and continued on, “I have already planted the other seeds you gave me. We’ll just have to wait and see if they can be grown like the hemostatic plant.”

He talked about the plants with Xie Qing a few more times before they hung up the phone.

Xie Qing leaned on the sofa and began to think about what to do with the one billion that he received from Xie Cheng. He had transmigrated through different worlds and knew a thing or two about various matters, good enough to be considered to be proficient in them. Although he didn’t play the role of the protagonist in those small worlds, Xie Qing was still able to use his brain and was quite smart enough to learn as he looked on.

The system, 034, often teased him, saying that he was qualified to take on the role of the protagonist.

Xie Qing had transmigrated into a CP-free⁵CP here means couple. Not child p. world called《The Gold Medal Investor》where the Male Protagonist was an absolute genius in making money. In that small world, he compiled countless assets. That was probably the richest he had ever been in his entire life.

But there was a saying, once you’ve made a certain amount of money, you’ll start to feel bored once you see money.

Only the Male Protagonist of that world was still obsessed with making money.

Remembering such memories made Xie Qing lower his head and smile.

…

Two days passed and it was finally time to record the next episode of 《Quickly eat, it brings happiness》. But this episode was completely different from the previous one. After all, Xie Ling, one of the MCs of 《Quickly eat, it brings happiness》had terminated his contract with the crew and left.

When Xie Qing and Zhao Jing arrived at the recording set, they could hear the director, He Jing, cursing out loud. “Aiya. I’ve lost money! I’ve lost a lot of money! Had I known that Xie Ling was such a scrooge, I would have delayed his contract termination and procrastinated it until this point which will be enough for us to charge him a considerable amount of liquidated damages!”

Hearing such words, Zhao Jing almost laughed out loud.

A smile slowly appeared on Xie Qing’s lips.

When He Jing noticed the two of them show up, he guessed that they might have heard his words and immediately laughed. “There you two are. Come, come. Apply your makeup quickly. Let’s work as hard as usual!”

Zhao Jing walked up to He Jing while asking him a question in a casual manner, “Who is the other MC for today? Your program team has been keeping it a secret for quite some time now. Are you still not going to reveal it to us even at this point?”

He Jing smiled awkwardly when he heard these words, “Well, the two of you might not know him even if I told you.”

Zhao Jing, “Why is it so?”

He Jing started with some nonsensical words, “Actor Zhao, you remember the name of our show right? 《Quickly eat, it brings happiness》! So after a bit of discussion between me and the other members, we thought that we could make some appropriate changes to the program. Anyways, considering that we are missing one MC and we didn’t plan on finding any other artists in the circle to fill it, we directly found an amateur instead.”

Amateurs might have a multitude of their own stories to tell.

He Jing thought that his idea was a good one. “But guess what. Just after this idea took place, someone actually took the initiative to call me.”

As he said these words, He Jing could hardly suppress the smile that was forming on his face.

He waved his hand at Xie Qing and Zhao Jing, motioning them to lean in closer to listen to what he was going to say. “Although the person coming this time is an amateur, he seems to have a powerful background. The most important thing is that he is very good-looking and has a nice sounding name. His name is Qi Huaiyu. What do you think? Doesn’t it sound nice?”

Zhao Jing, “…”

Xie Qing, “…”

About a minute later, He Jing just heard Xie Qing ask him with a smile that was unlike a real smile, “Director He, could you tell us how much money you received from Qi Huaiyu?”

He Jing, “… How did you know I received money for this?”

The smile on Xie Qing’s face didn’t change as he continued, “What do you think? The only thing that Qi-dashao doesn’t lack is money. Investing money in exchange for an opportunity to appear in front of the camera shouldn’t be a loss no matter how you look at it.”

As soon as Xie Qing finished speaking, his eyes met with the youth who came out of the lounge nearby. The smile at the corners of his lips deepened and he parted his lips to mouth something.

Qi Huaiyu could clearly see him mouth the words:

Little liar.

Qi Huaiyu looked at Xie Qing from a distance with a carefree smile on his thin lips. There was only Xie Qing in his dark eyes. His chest warmed up and he lowered his head to cover up the surging emotions in his eyes. When he raised his head once more, he looked like a harmless and beautiful young man.

He walked up to Xie Qing in long strides, his narrow peach blossom eyes curved slightly as he called out, “Ge.”

He Jing looked at Qi Huaiyu and then at Xie Qing with a conspicuous question mark on his head.

That’s not right, Qi-shao, why did you call Xie Qing ‘ge’? Isn’t his surname Xie?

As if noticing He Jing’s doubts, Qi Huaiyu turned his head to smile at him, “A nickname.”

He Jing, “…”

Zhao Jing, “…”

Xie Qing, “…”

This was so damn awkward.

Zhao Jing glanced at Xie Qing and Qi Huaiyu lightly. The corners of his mouth twitched when he thought about how he had been chatting with Qi Huaiyu for quite some time in Xie Qing’s house and was tricked by Qi Huaiyu into revealing a lot of information about Xie Qing. At first, he had thought that Qi Huaiyu was a young man who was interested in Xie Qing’s past life. But when he saw him again today—

This was clearly a wolf cub showing his wolf tail.

Full of bad intentions!

He Jing originally thought that his program team was so good to the point that it was able to attract the attention of Qi-dashao. He had mentioned before that he had been missing a person who had once cooked for him, so he wanted to participate in the program. He Jing believed this matter to be true, that was, until this moment. A nickname was enough to make him understand—

There was no need to think about it anymore. Clearly, this young master was here for Xie Qing. It wouldn’t make a difference if He Jing and the program team was there or not.

He Jing let out a deep sigh and thought about it. Well, it didn’t matter who he came for. As long as he was able to give him enough money, that’s fine.

In the next few moments, Qi Huaiyu stayed by Xie Qing’s side almost all the time, which caught Yanyan and Yu Shu’s attention, their faces showing that they had some hidden thoughts in their heads. Everyone felt that there was something going on between them but no one could explain it clearly. Only when they were alone with Xie Qing, such as when they bump into him in the bathroom, they would tease Xie Qing and say, “Xie-ge, did all of your peach blossoms⁶love interests come to the show?”

From time to time, Yanyan’s eyes would wander around Xie Qing and Qi Huaiyu’s bodies, her eyes shining with a strange light.

This CP is not bad!

Sure enough, if Xie Ling was replaced, the whole world would be a better place. There would also be a CP for her to knock on⁷meaning she could enjoy watching a pair of couples while knocking open some melon seeds as a snack!

Probably because everyone was in a good mood today, the recording went smoothly. When it was time to draw lots, the guest cooks and the MCs were all waiting for the lottery to be drawn, but then they noticed He Jing laughing at them. “Let’s change up the gameplay today. Why don’t you guys decide on the groups yourselves.”

Yanyan and Yu Shu looked at each other while Zhao Jing smiled at Gu Sanshun.

Qi Huaiyu directly moved a chair and sat next to Xie Qing, blinking innocently at him. “Ge, will you make something for me to eat? I want to eat osmanthus cakes.”

Xie Qing glanced at him but didn’t respond.

But the current grouping was two-by-two and additionally, the osmanthus cake that Qi Huaiyu requested happened to be something Xie Qing was good at making. When he was still in Chaoyun Sect, there was a row of osmanthus trees planted in front of his hut. Every September, there would be a sweet scent of osmanthus in the air. When the wind blew, countless small yellow flowers would fall onto the grass. Xie Qing’s young apprentice occasionally enjoyed laying under the shade of the trees and before leaving the area, he would pack up all the osmanthus flowers on the ground and take them away.

He would often ask Xie Qing to make him some osmanthus cakes.

The first time Xie Qing made them, he had added too much sugar and it was far too sweet. Xie Qing had asked him if it was delicious. The child told lies about how delicious they were with his eyes wide open. So Xie Qing confidently invited all of the other peak masters to sit down and taste the osmanthus cakes that he had made.

On that day, the water consumption within the Chaoyun Sect increased dramatically.

Thinking about those things now, it really felt like it was a whole world away.

Xie Qing twirled an osmanthus flower he got from a bowl and asked Qi Huaiyu a question nonchalantly, as if he didn’t have any other intentions. “What else do you want to eat besides osmanthus cakes? Yanyan and Gu-ge are cooking meals. I can make a few more different snacks.”

Qi Huaiyu answered him obediently, “Caramel pudding and white fungus soup.”

Hearing these, Xie Qing glanced at him in a thoughtful manner, asking him, “Just these two?”

Qi Huaiyu nodded.

He Jing felt a strange feeling as he glanced at the two people who were talking with each other. These two good-looking young men who were tall and had long legs stood next to each other and made the scene around them look picturesque, as if it was from a painted scroll.

However, if He Jing remembered correctly, when he had been talking with Qi Huaiyu earlier, he had clearly heard Qi Huaiyu saying that—

He wanted Xie Qing to make him some osmanthus cakes and rose cakes.

He had said that it was the best snack he had ever tasted and that the person who was the most important to him made them for him.

Why did he suddenly give up on the rose cakes? 

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• 1
  tbf this is what I inferred from the sentence given in the raws. Calling someone a turtle is derogatory. Can mean that they are as slow as a turtle. Or it can also mean that they’re saying the person is currently hiding their head like a turtle.
• 2
  Xie Cheng
• 3
  Xie Qing
• 4
  master
• 5
  CP here means couple. Not child p.
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  love interests
• 7
  meaning she could enjoy watching a pair of couples while knocking open some melon seeds as a snack