Ji Hanxing had just sat down beside Old Master Ji.
"With that head of yours taking a hit, I was afraid you'd collapse if you stood much longer."
Old Master Ji's sudden remark stunned Ji Hanxing. He looked at the old man in surprise. His grandfather actually knew he had been hit.
"Hmph!" Old Master Ji snorted and put down his newspaper. "What, did you think you could keep it from me?"
Ji Hanxing looked sheepish. "Grandpa, you know?"
Old Master Ji's gaze sharpened, his tone unfriendly. "If I hadn't found out myself, were you planning to keep hiding it from me forever?"
For a moment, Ji Hanxing did not know how to answer.
"You unfilial brat, something this serious happened, and you didn't even tell your grandfather. If anything happened to you, what would I do..."
As Old Master Ji spoke, he pulled out a handkerchief, covered his face, and sobbed.
Ji Hanxing panicked at the sight and instinctively stood up, at a loss for what to do. "Grandpa, I really am fine. Next time, I'll definitely tell you next time."
"Really?"
"Really! Really!"
Ji Hanxing nodded hastily. Looking at the elderly man sobbing behind his handkerchief, his heart gave a sudden tremor. This man had lost his wife in middle age, seen his son leave in his later years, and raised his grandson alone. If he found out...
"Grandpa, I promise..."
"Hahahaha, good!" Old Master Ji suddenly burst out laughing. He removed the handkerchief, revealing a face full of smiles, without a trace of tears.
Old Master Ji even lifted his chin smugly at Butler Wang beside him. "This brat has a guilty conscience. Sure enough, he fell for it. Did you record everything he just said?"
Butler Wang smiled too. "I recorded it all." Butler Wang even waved the phone at Ji Hanxing.
Only then did Ji Hanxing catch on. He was dumbstruck. Old Master Ji had been setting him up!
Still, seeing that the old man was in the mood to joke around actually made Ji Hanxing breathe a sigh of relief, and the burden on his heart eased considerably.
Old Master Ji raised a hand and pointed at Ji Hanxing from across the space between them. "You hid it from your grandfather. Feeling guilty, aren't you?"
"Usually, you've got eight hundred tricks up your sleeve. Fooling you isn't easy."
His words sounded like a complaint, but Ji Hanxing could tell from his tone that Old Master Ji was very pleased to have a grandson like him.
Ji Hanxing felt even guiltier. The original owner had eight hundred tricks up his sleeve. What about him? Perhaps he had eight hundred too, but every one of them was hollow.
He felt somewhat ill at ease and nervous. Old Master Ji knew he had been hit in the head at Grand Prosperity. Who had told him? Did he know anything else? For instance, that he had been drugged, and had even... with Yan Jinyue...
Old Master Ji's eagle eyes soon caught this oddness, and he knitted his brows.
"Hanxing, are you feeling unwell?"
A trace of worry flashed in the old man's eyes. Director Xu had repeatedly assured him that Ji Hanxing had fully recovered, with no lingering effects.
"No." Ji Hanxing picked up the tea Butler Wang had just brought him and asked as though joking, "Was it Assistant Xue who told you about what happened to me?"
Ji Hanxing had said this deliberately. He trusted that Xue Hui would not tell the old man. He had said it to draw out the answer, silently apologizing to Xue Hui.
Old Master Ji gave Ji Hanxing an annoyed look and began defending Xue Hui. "Little Xue works for you, running around taking care of everything. There's hard work and credit to spare, yet you go straight to suspecting Little Xue!"
"Don't falsely accuse Little Xue. Director Xu told me. He called me the day you were taken to the hospital."
Ji Hanxing's hand paused. Then he took a small sip of tea and offered a seemingly casual compliment. "Experience really does count. Nothing escapes your discerning eyes."
"What happened at Grand Prosperity this time was also because I was careless."
He only mentioned that something had happened to him at Grand Prosperity. As for what had happened, he did not bring up a single thing, waiting for the old man to speak first.
Smack!
Old Master Ji suddenly slammed the table and swore, "Bullshit!"
"This was clearly the Grand Prosperity Hotel's fault! Someone was minding his own business in their hotel and got hit. Isn't that their responsibility? Do they offer any guarantee of safety at all?"
"Has Grand Prosperity contacted you?"
Seeing that the old man only mentioned him being hit, Ji Hanxing knew that he probably did not know about the other things.
"They have. I was just thinking about my dinner with Jiang Yuzhuo tonight."
Ji Hanxing shifted the subject to his dinner with Jiang Yuzhuo that evening.
"That boy from the Jiang Family?" Old Master Ji pondered the name for a moment. "Is the Grand Prosperity Hotel under him now?"
Ji Hanxing said, "Yes."
A flicker of surprise crossed Old Master Ji's eyes, and he tapped the table lightly. "That boy is no simple character. He actually managed to get Grand Prosperity out of the eldest Jiang son's hands."
Old Master Ji had seen what Jiang Yujing, the Jiang Family's eldest young master, was capable of. He was a very capable young man who had been with Jiang for ten years and was now the Jiang Group's general manager.
Many people in City A believed it was a foregone conclusion that the Jiang Family would ultimately fall into Jiang Yujing's hands. They had not expected Jiang Yuzhuo, who was ten years younger than Jiang Yujing, to actually get Grand Prosperity.
Ji Hanxing hesitated for a moment. "Jiang Yuzhuo is on good terms with Yan Jinyue from the Yan Family. They're senior and junior schoolmates."
"That boy from the Yan Family?" Old Master Ji lifted his eyelids, a glint flashing through his somewhat clouded eyes. "It seems he had a hand in this too."
But Old Master Ji soon shook his head. "Still, that boy from the Yan Family was certainly not the deciding factor in this."
Ji Hanxing blinked and unconsciously leaned toward the old man. From the information he had received, both the original owner's memories and Xue Hui's words had conveyed that Yan Jinyue had helped Jiang Yuzhuo secure Grand Prosperity this time.
Yet now, Old Master Ji was saying otherwise.
Old Master Ji smiled, his gaze holding the clarity of someone who saw through everything. "The key lies with Jiang Huai."
Jiang Huai was the chairman of the Jiang Group, and Jiang Yujing and Jiang Yuzhuo's father.
"He keeps Jiang in his own grip and doesn't trust his eldest son. The eldest Jiang boy has been with Jiang for ten years. If Jiang Huai were willing, would his younger son ever have gotten a turn at Grand Prosperity?"
"After the way he treated his first wife back then, even forcing her to leave the marriage with nothing, how could he possibly trust Jiang Yujing?"
"As for the woman he married afterward, she aggressively forced her way into the wife's position back then. She's no easy customer either."
"Jiang Huai doesn't trust either of his two sons."
Recalling the affairs in Jiang Huai's family, Old Master Ji put away the mockery in his eyes and looked at Ji Hanxing. "When you meet that Jiang boy later, I trust you know what to do."
Ji Hanxing: ...
His silence was deafening.
What the hell did he know!
[Ding!]
The system's voice suddenly rang out, and Ji Hanxing's heart lurched. Oh no, the King of Sleaze System was here to stir up trouble again.