What if there's a kissing scene?

That evening, Jiang Xueming spent a long time explaining things to Xiao Qi, wanting to clarify everything that had happened on their journey to his sister.

Jiang Bailu listened, half understanding, her body language incredibly expressive, her left hand and right hand doing a slow motion dance.

His sister's expression was utterly bewildered.

"So, you're saying I have a strange illness, and I need to go to a city over ten thousand meters underground to find medicine? And then you, big brother, negotiated with a cat and took a train with a gorilla?"

"It wasn't a gorilla," Jiang Xueming corrected. "That person's name is Bu Liuxing."

"Oh, oh, oh! When you talk about him, you sound like you're at the zoo, full of animalistic adjectives," Jiang Bailu slapped her head. "So, you went to an alien's territory with this A Xing brother. You pointed at an alien widow and took pictures. And this A Xing brother slept with the widow."

Xiao Qi's smile stretched so wide it looked like it might split her face. "This sister-in-law is quite interesting."

"It seems so," Jiang Xueming said, covering his forehead. "That's about right."

"What happened next! You came back with the medicine," Jiang Bailu pointed at Xiao Qi. "With this sister, and a lot of money!"

Xiao Qi: "Correct."

Jiang Xueming: "That's the gist of it."

"And then you told me that our current situation is special and dangerous," Bailu clarified like a pedantic scholar. "Like those bad guys in the underground station might attack us."

Xiao Qi cheered. "She finally gets it."

Jiang Xueming and Xiao Qi high-fived. "Yes, she understands."

"But," Bailu shrugged indifferently, her expression still lost, "this is all too ridiculous. The first half sounds just like the fairy tales I read as a child."

She pointed at Jiang Xueming. "If you weren't my actual brother, I'd suspect I was part of a Truman Show production."

She then pointed at Xiao Qi. "If my illness hadn't been cured, and if you two hadn't suddenly produced so much money, I'd have a hard time believing anything you're saying."

Xiao Qi whispered to Xue Ming. "Did you teach her to be so calculating?"

Xue Ming looked gratified. "Thinking things through is always a good thing."

"I get it now, awesome, bro!" Jiang Bailu figured it all out and jumped up from her small stool, looking incredibly energetic. "You've really become capable. I'm going to tell my classmates about this; one of us will end up in a psychiatric ward."

After her illness was cured, Bailu no longer looked weak and listless. She was full of vitality.

"There are bad guys who want to harm us, but I'm not scared!" She struck a fighting pose like Ultraman fighting monsters. "Brother! Bravery can defeat evil! Where are we going to punish evil and eliminate wickedness now?!"

Xiao Qi whispered to Xue Ming. "These lines?"

Xue Ming: "Is it cheesy enough?"

Xiao Qi: "More than enough. Where did she learn that?"

Xue Ming: "She picked it up on her own."

Xiao Qi: "So, everything's clear now. What's next?"

Jiang Xueming: "We're taking her back with us. I originally wanted her to continue school, but now that you've told me about the whole Armadillo Hunters situation, I'm worried."

Xiao Qi's eyes were unfocused, and her speech was slurred. "It's not that serious, really. If you want to talk about those guys, they have some principles. When you're in the underworld, you don't involve family."

"Just now, in your mind," Jiang Xueming leaned closer to Xiao Qi, his gaze intensely aggressive, "weren't you thinking that if Bailu stayed here, it would be a vacation trip for just the two of us?"

"No," Xiao Qi vehemently denied.

"Why are you looking at this from the Armadillo Hunters' perspective? This attitude of yours makes me very uneasy. If I were a hunter, and I had to deal with a new face like Jiang Xueming at the station. Someone who's alone with no support, an undocumented person—and with a helpless sister. If such a person fell into my sights..."

Jiang Xueming's eyes turned terrifying as he fully embraced the role.

"It's like this: during work hours, in a fifty-story office building, the water suddenly shuts off, and it happens to be my turn to grab the first stall in the public restroom. Prey like that, I would never easily hand over."

Xiao Qi was dumbfounded.

"What a strange analogy."

July 7th.

They boarded their flight home.

Xiao Qi had handled the real-name registration and boarding procedures for the siblings.

To be honest, Xiao Qi didn't understand Mr. Xue Ming's actions.

"If you were so worried about your and your sister's safety, you should have immediately taken her back to the station to live."

"No," Jiang Xueming interrupted. "This debt of flesh and blood must be settled."

Xiao Qi was confused. "Why?"

"According to my mother, she gave birth to Bailu at the age of fifty-six," Jiang Xueming explained. "My father is almost eighty this year, and my mother is seventy-four."

"They're both very long-lived," Xiao Qi exclaimed, then felt something was off. "Wait, you're not much older than Bailu. Could it be..."

Jiang Xueming's expression was cool, his tone unchanged. "Are you perhaps guessing that there's a possibility Bailu was kidnapped?"

Xiao Qi nodded. That was indeed what she had been thinking.

A high-risk pregnancy at fifty-six, especially in a place with less-than-ideal medical conditions, would mean that either the child or the mother would likely not survive.

And she was also wondering if Jiang Xueming might also have been an adopted child of this family.

After all, Mr. Xue Ming had mentioned before that this family treated Bailu like merchandise to be exchanged for betrothal gifts, which sounded very much like buying a baby girl, raising her, and then selling her for money.

They didn't even give their son a good look, sending Xue Ming to the battery factory at seventeen.

What kind of place is a battery factory?

Lead-mercury pollution plus radiation from electrical equipment. A work environment where ordinary people would have to retire after thirty years. Giving birth to a deformed child would be considered lucky; not being sterilized would be like smoke from your ancestors' graves.

Is that how you treat your own son? Is that the genuine affection of a couple having a child late in life? They never intended for Xue Ming to continue the family line, did they?

It sounds more like they sent their son to a place introduced by an acquaintance to earn money to subsidize the family, essentially a free laborer.

"I don't want to complicate things," Jiang Xueming admitted frankly. "I can clearly account for where Bailu and I were born, where we grew up, and who raised us—it's not difficult."

"Oh, oh, oh, I understand," Xiao Qi said with a smile. "That makes me feel so reassured."

"This debt of flesh and blood, the current price is eighty-eight thousand in betrothal gifts, plus my sister's and my compulsory education tuition and living expenses," Xue Ming calculated. "No matter how you calculate it, it won't exceed three hundred thousand, even with inflation."

"It only cost that much to raise the two of you? That cheap?" Xiao Qi clicked her tongue in surprise.

Xue Ming nodded, listing them like treasures. "My memory is very good. From our birth until four years ago, they spent a total of over thirty-five thousand yuan on Bailu and me.

Both parents were illiterate, so there was no investment in education.

They cooked for six years, but basically skipped breakfast. The lunch and dinner meals were even worse than the school cafeteria."

Xiao Qi suddenly felt this man was unexpectedly cold. "You've calculated all of this, every single item?"

"Yes, when I go home, I intend to settle this account," Xue Ming's expression didn't change at all, as if discussing a business deal. "Do you think... I'm a bit heartless?"

"No, no, no," Xiao Qi mumbled. "I just think... if you tear down the facade completely, it might get very unpleasant."

"Let me say it again, I hate complicating simple matters," Jiang Xueming glanced out the window as the plane began to taxi. "Do you think there are any lingering, unclear emotional ties between us siblings and our parents?"

Xiao Qi was suddenly stunned.

She looked at Jiang Xueming—just stared blankly, as if all the mysteries in her heart were being solved at that moment.

Why was this guy so strange, so cautious, like a lone wolf living in the modern urban jungle of steel and concrete.

All these questions seemed to have found their answers.

"I want to handle this cleanly and neatly," Jiang Xueming clenched the ledger and pen in his hand. "I don't want to leave any loose ends. I don't know if they are my biological parents; it's not important to me. That's the police's job, not mine. I don't want to see photos of Bailu and me on a utility pole like criminals. I don't know how to explain to Bailu if we've committed some crime."

"I don't want the Public Security Bureau calling me every other day after I return, turning my work and life into a mess because of those calls."

"I don't want them to become more cunning and ruthless, learning to surf the internet in their twilight years, crying, acting hysterically to a sea of netizens and reporters, looking for their unfilial children who 'loved them dearly' but 'ran away from home' many years ago. I never want to speculate on people's intentions with pure malice."

"Brother Seven, you also said that the passengers of the underground world are most afraid of being found by hunters. So my urgent task now is to deal with this debt. It's like a bomb without a timer. When it explodes, the hunters will search for my name on Baidu and find me."

Xiao Qi nodded solemnly. "You're right, it's indeed tricky."

Jiang Xueming continued, "I'm certain that if my parents saw my bank balance now, they'd name an outrageous price. Those online sob stories would get hundreds of millions of clicks. Those Armadillo Hunters would be arguing intensely on Weibo on the first day, reading it on Toutiao the next morning, checking WeChat official accounts at noon, and still seeing my name on Zhihu while going to the bathroom before bed."

"Then none of us will be able to escape. So, for this matter, I've predicted several sets of talking points. How about you rehearse one with me first?"

Xiao Qi became interested. "Tell me more."

"Suppose you are a factory girl I found from another remote village," Jiang Xueming described.

Xiao Qi immediately started acting, taking out her phone, her tone becoming abstract. "Today I'll show my sisters my man! Oh my!"

Brother Seven changed the subject and said to Jiang Xueming, "Then you can put on some filters, flirt with the camera, and show off your looks. How about it? I've already thought of this short video script. Is it cheesy enough?"

"Stop, stop. It's too much," Xue Ming continued. "Let's go on—neither you nor I have much money, but your family still has parents to take care of. You take out a loan against your house for us to sell fake shoes as a business, and end up owing millions. You finally come home, and your sister is caught while packing and shipping in the warehouse, now singing sad songs in prison. I'll forge a few fake text messages, all demanding payment, to show the old folks at home. They'll definitely tell me to get out immediately and disown me."

Before he finished speaking, Jiang Bailu in the adjacent seat started singing.

"Iron gate~ iron window~ iron chains!~ Leaning on the iron window, I gaze outside~"

Xue Ming gave his sister a thumbs-up and then said to Xiao Qi, "After all this fuss, we've got some cash, which we'll use to honor the in-laws and provide for their old age—they take the money, tell us to scram immediately, and the matter is settled. They probably won't even call again, acting as if they never had a son. They'll have their retirement secured, we can live our lives in peace, and everyone will be happy."

Xiao Qi pouted, dissatisfied. "My backstory sounds too damn tragic."

"How about we go to an arts school in another city mid-way and find an actress to play opposite me? You can just play a debt collector on the side?" Jiang Xueming suggested.

The plane left the ground and soared into the sky.

"That won't do. If I play the debt collector, you won't be able to come back, you'll have already paid with your body. And besides—"

Xiao Qi was very clever.

"—what if there's a kissing scene?"