What If You Weren't Kidnapped?

After hearing Xuan Hao's explanation, Dugu Yan slammed the fork in her hand heavily onto the table.

Her chest heaved violently, and her originally bewitching, beautiful face had flushed red with anger and humiliation.

Though she wanted to curse Xuan Hao for talking nonsense and sowing discord.

Reason told her... every word that bastard said might be true!

Over the years, she had more or less experienced the fickleness of the Imperial Family. Prince Xue Xing was usually polite to her grandfather, but that calculating look in his eyes could not be hidden.

Now that Xuan Hao had laid it all bare, Dugu Yan felt a chill shoot from the soles of her feet straight to her Skull Top.

So... this was the game played by so-called "important figures"?

And her grandfather, who possessed the strength of a Titled Douluo, was merely a relatively useful chess piece in the eyes of those who toyed with power?

"What? Not convinced?"

Seeing her look as though she wanted to kill someone yet could do nothing about it, Xuan Hao shook his head and said earnestly:

"With the brains you two grandparents and granddaughter have, trying to survive in Heaven Dou City, where everyone has eight hundred schemes up their sleeve, you'll get sold someday and still help count the money."

"If you can't play the game, stay out of this messy nonsense."

"You're only lucky you ran into such a kind-hearted good person as me. If it had been someone more black-hearted... be careful, or one day you'll be played to death without even knowing how you died."

Dugu Yan's chest rose and fell sharply. She was clearly furious, but she knew even better that Xuan Hao was right.

In this game, she was both a hostage and a bargaining chip.

"Then do you have a way..."

Dugu Yan bit her lip. "To keep my grandfather from being used?"

"A way?" Xuan Hao raised a brow and looked at her like she was an idiot. "Big Sister, have you gotten something wrong? I'm the kidnapper, and you're the hostage. You want me to help you?"

"Besides, why should I help?"

Xuan Hao leaned back in his chair. "Don't forget, your grandfather was the one who came looking for trouble with me first. The fact that I didn't do anything to him was already out of consideration for... ahem, for the fact that I'm a good person."

"Besides, if things keep following the current script, not only can I get away unscathed, I can also make the Imperial Family and the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Sect owe me a favor. Why would I go out of my way to mess that up?"

"You!" Dugu Yan choked with anger, but she could not refute him. Taking a deep breath, she tried to regain some initiative.

"You've gone through all this trouble just for some vague favor? Aren't you afraid of completely offending my grandfather? Can you withstand the retaliation of a Titled Douluo?"

"I told you, I was forced to fight back." Xuan Hao spread his hands, looking utterly innocent. "I'm a simple person. If no one offends me, I won't offend them. Now you people have bullied me, so I'm only bullying you back a tiny little bit."

"Cut the crap!"

Dugu Yan abruptly stood up, bracing both hands on the table as she leaned forward. "Tell me, what will it take for you to help? I don't want my grandfather to be used as a weapon, and I don't want him owing those people favors!"

"Help requires compensation." Xuan Hao sized her up from head to toe. "A deal is all about an equivalent exchange. What do you think you have that can compare to favors from the Heaven Dou Imperial Family and the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Sect?"

"Could it be... you want to sell yourself?"

"You!" Dugu Yan's face instantly flushed red. Overcome with shame and fury, she laughed in anger. "Fine! Even if I dared to sell myself, would you dare take me?!"

"I wouldn't."

Xuan Hao answered instantly, shaking his head with obvious disgust. "A Jade Phosphorous Serpent Soul Master is covered in poison. I'm afraid one bite would make me drop dead on the spot."

"You!!" Dugu Yan felt as if her lungs were about to explode.

"Then what exactly do you want?!"

"That's what I should be asking you." Xuan Hao retorted. "What can you give me? If I make an outrageous demand and you can't afford it, wouldn't that be awkward for both of us?"

Dugu Yan took a deep breath and forced herself to calm down.

"Would my grandfather's favor be enough?"

"If I can make my grandfather owe you a favor, would that bargaining chip be enough?"

"Oh?" Xuan Hao lifted a brow. "Can you make decisions for your grandfather?"

"I can!" Dugu Yan said resolutely. "I'm his only family, and he dotes on me the most. As long as I agree to it, he'll never go back on it!"

"And..."

Dugu Yan stared directly into Xuan Hao's eyes and said word by word:

"You should know very well. Favors from the Imperial Family and the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Sect sound nice, but they're really just for show. When the crucial moment comes, or when core interests are involved, those people who play politics have ten thousand excuses to evade responsibility."

"But my grandfather is different."

"His temper may be strange, but he's a Titled Douluo, and he's also a man whose word is worth a thousand gold! If he says he owes you a favor, then he truly owes you one! Even if you ask him to rob homes, plunder houses, murder, or set fires, so long as it doesn't violate his principles, he'll do it!"

"Isn't the solid promise of a Titled Douluo worth more than the hollow favors of those two factions?"

Xuan Hao rubbed his chin, and a trace of approval flashed through his eyes.

This girl might have a fiery temper, but her mind was still clear when it mattered.

Indeed.

A favor from the Imperial Family and the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Sect would at most serve as a protective talisman or let him trade for some resources.

But Dugu Bo's favor... that could truly be used to hire muscle, or even to conduct certain "special deals."

"Deal."

Xuan Hao snapped his fingers, and the smile on his face instantly became radiant. "Since Miss Dugu is so sincere, I'll give you a hand."

"What are you going to do?" Dugu Yan asked eagerly.

"Very simple." Xuan Hao pointed out the window. "The Imperial Family and the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Sect have made such a huge show of force on the premise that you were kidnapped by me. They came to rescue you, so your grandfather would owe them a favor."

"But..."

The corners of Xuan Hao's lips curved upward. "What if you weren't kidnapped at all?"

Dugu Yan froze. "What do you mean?"

"What if you came with me willingly?" Xuan Hao spread his hands. "What if your grandfather rushes in later and sees the two of us sitting here as we are now, eating, drinking, and chatting happily? Then you tell him that we became friends after a fight, and that you came here specifically to... hmm, discuss the mysteries of Dragon Spirits with me."

"Then this so-called kidnapping never happened."

"If there was no kidnapping, then the Imperial Guards surrounding this place is an overreaction, and the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Sect's mediation is meddling where it doesn't belong."

"Not only would your grandfather not need to owe them favors, he could even turn around and question them: 'My granddaughter is having a meal with a friend. Why did you make such a huge fuss? What if you scared the child?'"

Dugu Yan listened with her mouth agape.

This... would work?

How had she not thought of such a simple way to break the deadlock?

But immediately afterward, as she looked at Xuan Hao's smiling face, she suddenly felt a chill run down her spine, and an extremely strange feeling welled up inside her.

"Wait..."

Dugu Yan stared at Xuan Hao. "You untied me from the very beginning, invited me to eat... and even analyzed all those pros and cons for me just now..."

"Don't tell me..."

Dugu Yan swallowed. "This was all part of your plan from the start, wasn't it?"

"You're teachable." Xuan Hao nodded approvingly. "Looks like the Jade Phosphorous Serpent Venom hasn't completely poisoned your brain. You still have a little intelligence."

Dugu Yan's vision went dark, and she nearly fainted from anger.

Eight hundred schemes in Heaven Dou City?

Your dirty little schemes probably outnumbered everyone in the entire city combined!

So this bastard had been plotting against her from the very beginning!

First, he kidnapped her to create a crisis. Then he analyzed the pros and cons so she could see the Imperial Family's true face. Finally, he guided her into proposing a deal herself...

Each step linked seamlessly to the next, drawing her and her grandfather, even the Imperial Family and the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Sect, into his calculations!

"You... what exactly are you after?"

Dugu Yan looked at Xuan Hao in near collapse. "Since you plotted against me, why tell me so plainly?"

"If you kept quiet and let me think you helped me out of kindness, wouldn't that be better?"

"What am I after?" Xuan Hao leaned back in his chair, turning the teacup in his hand.

"Schemes are schemes in the end. They cannot stand in the open or face the light. They're like rats in a gutter, able only to eke out an existence in darkness. Once they see the sunlight, every filthy thing is exposed."

"I'm not a good person, nor do I have any so-called restraint or bottom line. If necessary, to survive, to protect the people I care about, no matter how shameless or despicable the method, I can use it, and I won't hold back."

"Kidnapping you, threatening your grandfather, plotting against the Imperial Family... I've done all of it. I don't regret it, and I don't feel ashamed."

"But I won't treat such things as something to rely on, much less take pride in them."

"I can be a bad person, but I don't want to be the kind of rat that can only live in a gutter and doesn't even dare see the sun."

"By laying it all out, by telling you this is a deal, by telling you I'm plotting against you, that is my honesty, and it is also my confidence."

"I'm after a clear conscience."

Dugu Yan looked at the boy before her, and her expression became exceptionally complicated.

He was clearly only eight or nine years old. He had clearly been manipulating people's hearts and laying out schemes just moments ago. Yet at this moment, he carried a clarity and openness that could not be ignored.

Those contradictory qualities had somehow fused together strangely.