Chapter 39

Xie Jinxing only ate one piece of steak, and he’d snatched that piece straight from Gu An’an’s plate. After finishing, he went upstairs to the private room.
Once he was gone, Gu An’an went and got herself another steak.
The steaks here were freshly made by the on-site chef, and his skills were excellent. If she weren’t worried about indigestion from eating too much this late, Gu An’an felt she could’ve easily gone for a third.
Still, those misleading things Xie Jinxing said earlier, yeah, that was definitely him using her as a shield.
There was no way someone as sharp as him couldn’t see what kind of thoughts those people had.
He was one of those people whose every aspect, appearance, status, ability, had been the benchmark others could never reach. He’d attended countless high-society events, and as the capital’s most coveted “Tang Monk’s Meat,” many socialites dreamed of stunning everyone at a party, catching his eye, and becoming the bride of the century.
So coming here? There was no way he wasn’t prepared for this kind of attention.
Well, fine. If she was just the human shield, so be it. 100,000 yuan a month, guess that made it worth it.
Events like this, ones with hidden agendas, usually wrapped up quickly. The idle guests mingled, socialized, danced a bit, and by then it was about time to call it a night.
The main figures went upstairs for a private round-table meeting, leaving the ground floor for the ladies to network and gossip.
Gu An’an finished eating and, with nothing else to do, picked a seat where she could see the upstairs door and pulled out her phone to play a game.
The secretarial team had followed the boss upstairs, Assistant Li among them.
Lily and Secretary Yang were still eating nearby. They’d been running around after Xie Jinxing all day, and since the boss hadn’t eaten much, neither had they. Now that they finally had a break, while Secretary Wang was still socializing, they seized the chance to fill up.
Nan Cheng, being at the far southwest edge of Huaguo, had one distinct trait, huge day-night temperature differences. By mid-November, a thin jacket and T-shirt were enough for daytime, sometimes even too much under the sun. But at night, the temperature dropped by over ten degrees, and it was straight to puffer-jacket weather.
The hotel’s heating was on, but not too warm. Gu An’an’s dress, chosen purely for its aesthetics, did nothing to stop the cold draft creeping down her back.
She felt that if she kept wearing this for a few more hours, she’d definitely end up with early-onset osteoporosis.
Her scalp tingled, goosebumps rising in waves.
She’d barely finished one round of her game before she started getting restless, glancing around to flag a waiter for a blanket. But as soon as she looked up, the mayor’s daughter, the one who’d stormed off earlier, was back, flanked by her entourage.
Apparently, she’d been scolded by her parents, because her attitude was much more polite now.
There was even a faint smile on her lips.
The girls around her were dressed slightly less extravagantly, clearly her followers, used to letting her take center stage. Together, they really looked like a group of anime-style “villainess heiresses”, the kind that always picked fights with the heroine in those old island-country shojo manga.
Gu An’an never thought she’d one day experience what it felt like to be the pure-hearted “white flower” surrounded by mean girls.
Honestly? It was kind of novel.
The girls were all carrying Chanel handbags, their dresses top-tier designer. Smiling gracefully, the mayor’s daughter said, “Sorry, I mistook you for some influencer earlier. My attitude was rude, please don’t take it personally.”
Gu An’an blinked, instantly on guard.
The “girls fighting over a man” plotline was so outdated it made her skin crawl, but this scene really felt like one. Not that she believed in Xie Jinxing’s irresistible charm, per se, she just believed in the charm of money.
And when the biggest gem on the crown was money itself, it didn’t matter if Xie Jinxing looked like a random background character, there’d still be plenty of people curious about his “preferences.”
“You’re the Xie family’s old family friend’s granddaughter, right?” Miss Liu, the mayor’s daughter, hadn’t been sure at first. But as her eyes swept over Gu An’an’s dress, she froze.
Earlier, she hadn’t noticed, but now she did. It was that butterfly gown, CQA’s one-of-a-kind handmade global exclusive. The purchase price was in the seven figures, and even the rental fee was in the high sixes. A dress like that wasn’t something just anyone could afford.
Her smile grew even sweeter. “I saw you really enjoying the food earlier. You must like Nan Cheng’s cuisine, right? We could be friends! Let’s exchange contacts, I can show you around tomorrow or the day after. I know all the best spots.”
Her tone was light and sugary, almost innocent, like a completely different person from the arrogant girl who’d surrounded Gu An’an earlier.
“Mr. Xie’s always so busy, you must get bored being alone, right?” she said, voice soft and playful. “I grew up here, you know. No one knows the good places better than I do. I can take you out!”
Then she tapped on Gu An’an’s table, feigning casual curiosity. “By the way, what kind of girls does your uncle like?”
She sighed dramatically, “I heard he’s twenty-eight, five years older than me! But that’s okay. My mom says I’m a little immature, so someone older would take good care of me. Does he plan to get married soon?”
Gu An’an: “Well, she wasn’t wrong about you being self-centered.”
“Why aren’t you saying anything?” Miss Liu frowned slightly when Gu An’an stayed silent.
Gu An’an, however, wasn’t even paying attention anymore, her eyes had locked onto the second-floor hallway.
Was that Su Ruan, dressed as a waitress?
How the hell did she even get here? Did she unlock teleportation in real life?!
“Excuse me,” Gu An’an interrupted with a polite but rushed smile. “I’m Mr. Xie’s personal assistant. I came along to take care of him, so I don’t really have time to hang out.”
She stood up swiftly and slipped past them, heading straight upstairs. “Sorry, I’ve got something urgent. Excuse me, excuse me.”
Miss Liu’s face darkened at being dismissed so quickly, but she wasn’t stupid. Gu An’an wasn’t like her sycophantic friends, she was the capital’s high-class elite. Just one of her dresses was worth years of their allowances. And besides, she was Xie Jinxing’s niece. If Miss Liu really wanted to marry into that family, she’d have to stay on Gu An’an’s good side.
Meanwhile, Gu An’an practically flew up to the second floor.
Miss Liu and her friends stared in shock.
“…Is she an Olympic hurdler?”
“Oh my god, she was right here, and then, gone! Did you even see her move?”
“No, I looked down for a second, and when I looked up, she was just, ” one girl pointed from the still-warm sofa to the gilded balcony above, “, there!”
“Legendary!!”
Gu An’an didn’t care about their commentary. She zeroed in on Su Ruan, who was just about to deliver wine to the private room.
Su Ruan had changed into a woman’s suit, but her height still betrayed her. The heels didn’t help much. Her white, delicate frame made the sharp professional outfit look more like a cheap imitation, her head looked too big, her body too small.
“What are you doing?” Gu An’an asked, gripping her wrist before she could move. She felt like a security guard outside some mafia boss’s door, swift, efficient, unyielding.
If someone handed her sunglasses right now, she could’ve walked straight into The Matrix.
Su Ruan was furious. Every single time, every single time, this bitch Gu An’an ruined everything!
Was she cursed or what?!
Maybe Gu An’an secretly liked Xie Jinxing too, why else would she always show up to ruin her plans?!
The instant their skin touched, Su Ruan’s mind erupted, memories flashing and exploding like oil bubbling over a hot pan.
She lowered her head, avoiding eye contact, gritting her teeth through the waves of nausea and fury as she mentally screamed at the system. Why did she have to keep tolerating this cockroach of a woman?! Wasn’t there any way to stop her?!
This time, instead of the usual “karma for killing her in past lives” response, the system said something different.
[There is a way, but you’ll need to trade something for it.]
Trade something?
Su Ruan wasn’t an idiot, just desperate. She remembered clearly: this time, she had latched onto her mother’s life force to resurrect. She couldn’t steal more of it to buy favorability in the system store.
But since the system mentioned a trade, it meant she did have something valuable.
[What do I trade?]
[Anything the host already possesses that isn’t system-made: health, luck, eyesight, sense of smell, emotional perception, speech ability, or intelligence. Each has a different value. Luck is the most valuable. If you’re willing to give it up, the system can apply an equivalent debuff to your target.]
It sounded tempting. But Su Ruan hesitated.
Trading other people’s lives or years of lifespan had been easy, she’d never had to feel the cost. But this was different.
She’d seen firsthand how losing one’s health turned a person ugly and hollow, like a dried corpse in a museum. She would never let that happen to herself. If it did, she’d rather die.
And as for luck, hers wasn’t great to begin with. Give it up, and she’d be completely doomed. She’d already lived through a cursed life once, one where she couldn’t even step outside without getting hit by a car. She refused to repeat that nightmare.
As for eyesight, smell, speech, or intelligence, no way. Blind? Stupid? Tongue-tied? She couldn’t accept any of it.
No matter how she weighed it, she couldn’t bear the cost of any trade.
So Su Ruan turned and ran.
Gu An’an just stared blankly as the girl bolted like she’d seen a ghost, scrubbing at her wrist where Gu An’an had touched her, as if she’d been contaminated.
And then she tripped, dropped her tray, and,
Clang!
The metal crashed against the floor, bottles shattering, wine spilling everywhere.
The noise immediately drew attention from the private room.
People came to the door, ready to scold whoever caused the mess, only to see it was Xie Jinxing’s “girlfriend.” Their tone instantly softened.
“Oh my, be careful! Don’t crouch down, you’ll cut yourself. Let the staff handle it. Here, step aside.”
They even smiled warmly and asked if she was frightened.
Gu An’an just shook her head.
Staff rushed over, cleaned up the mess, and promised to replace the drinks right away.
Standing there, Gu An’an hesitated, wondering if she should message Xie Jinxing to explain.
Even though her imagination ran wild, half convinced Su Ruan had some kind of cheat system, deep down, she could only rationalize it one way: Su Ruan must still have memories from her past life.
Just like her own knowledge of the “story.”
After all, the moment of transmigration could really make someone question reality. But once you’d lived in this world long enough and built real connections with the people around you, you couldn’t help but start believing in its authenticity. Something like a cheat system, an “external plug-in”, felt too much like a video game. She leaned toward the option where there was no game.
Yet Su Ruan’s three perfectly timed identity switches, all of which placed her right next to Xie Jinxing, felt exactly like a player changing stages to romance the final boss.
Surely this wasn’t some massive online game, right?
What then, was she, Gu An’an, just an NPC with a scripted awakening?
Because her stats definitely didn’t look like those of a player.
Ugh. Thinking about it that way made her feel kind of low-tier.
Her thoughts spun in chaotic loops, and time slipped by faster than she realized.
The more she thought about it, the worse she felt. What if my guess is actually true? That’d be terrifying.
“What’s wrong?” Lost in thought, Gu An’an jumped when someone tapped her shoulder. “Why that expression?”
She turned around, it was Lily, there to tell her it was almost time to head back to the hotel.
Gu An’an’s face had gone pale, her usual bright liveliness gone. Whatever she was thinking about clearly had her spooked. Lily frowned, her sharp gaze sweeping the banquet hall. At this hour, many guests had already left, though some lingered downstairs, hoping to chat up the big shots once they came down from their meeting upstairs.
Of course, the Liu mother and daughter were still there, it was their event, after all. But from the look of things, no one had dared to mess with Gu An’an.
“It’s nothing, just… a little cold.” Gu An’an tugged on Lily’s sleeve. “Sister Lily, when’s my uncle coming down?”
“About ten more minutes.”
“Oh.”
Inside the private room, the meeting had technically ended, but a few people still lingered, chatting with Xie Jinxing.
They had all assumed that for the Xie Corporation to take on the entire Nan Cheng development project, they’d need to collaborate with other prominent families in Beijing. After all, this was an entire city, not some small, single project. Even a company as wealthy as Xie’s couldn’t possibly shoulder the entire public infrastructure alone. It was a semi-charitable project, and no one wanted to pour their entire family fortune into something so exhausting and unprofitable.
But after a few rounds of discussion, they realized, oh, they really were doing it alone. The Xie Corporation was taking on the whole thing. No joint venture, no shared cost, no partnership.
Well… the Xie family was rich. Rich enough to do whatever they pleased.
The absurd depth of the Xie family’s financial strength left everyone in the room a bit shaken.
A few started scheming, hoping that during the Xie family’s time in Nan Cheng, they might take interest in other projects too. If Xie Corporation had the bandwidth, perhaps they’d cooperate with local companies and bring some of that prosperity their way.
But Xie Jinxing had already been talking for hours, and it was getting late. His assistant Li quickly stepped forward, smiling as he politely intercepted the people still trying to make conversation.
The rest could be handled by the secretarial team.
Xie Jinxing exchanged a brief, low-voiced farewell with Mayor Liu, then turned and left without looking back.
When he stepped out, he saw Gu An’an leaning dazedly against the door. Whatever she was thinking had her face scrunched up like a wrinkled melon. She was wrapped from head to toe in a long, absurd-looking coat that resembled either a mop stitched together or a fake polar bear. From a distance, she looked like a puffed-up snow creature contemplating life.
With her back turned, you could hardly recognize her.
Her hair was a little messy from the draft by the door, catching the light like melting sugar under a lamp.
Realizing what he was thinking, Xie Jinxing pressed his lips together.
He suddenly remembered the old man scolding him, calling him a wolf in sheep’s clothing, a beast without shame. Xie Jinxing slowly refastened the button he’d undone at his abdomen and walked forward. Wolf or tiger, fine. But shamelessly old? That was pushing it.
He was only eight years older.
Wait, no, not even. Gu An’an was born in February; he was a late-year baby. The difference was exactly seven years, one month, and twenty-three days.
Gu An’an, meanwhile, was plotting how to test Su Ruan, to see if she really did have a system or cheat power.
Then suddenly, someone tugged on her coat.
The person had approached so silently that she nearly jumped out of her skin. Every hair on her body stood up as if she’d been electrocuted. She spun around, ready to curse out whoever dared scare her,
Only to see Xie Jinxing. “Uncle, the meeting’s over?”
“Mm.”
“Are we heading back now?” She noticed people starting to leave.
“Yeah. It’s late.” He strode ahead, not bothering to offer his arm this time like a gentleman.
“Let’s go.”
“Oh, okay.”
The car was already waiting outside. The driver had stepped out, holding the door open.
As Xie Jinxing got in, he casually tossed back, “It’s freezing at night. What were you doing standing at the door, letting the wind blow at you? Catch a cold and wipe your snot on me again? If you actually do that, I’ll toss you out and make you run behind the car all the way back.”
The words were light and offhand, but they hit like a thunderclap.
Gu An’an: “!!!”
Her eyes widened in horror, her entire composure crumbling. “Uncle, what are you even talking about! I never wiped my snot on you!”
Afraid someone else might’ve heard and believed it, she rushed after him, shouting indignantly, “Xie Jinxing! Just because you pay my salary doesn’t mean you can slander me however you want! Ever heard of defamation? I’ll sue you for personal attack, just watch!”
Xie Jinxing let out a short laugh.
Completely merciless, he said, “That day in the greenhouse, when Lu Xingyu was standing in front of you, didn’t you secretly wipe your snot on his sleeve?”
Gu An’an froze mid-step, stunned.
“What the hell!” Her face flushed bright red, caught between shame and disbelief. Without thinking, she blurted out, “You saw that?! No way!”
Her move had been so stealthy even Lu Xingyu himself hadn’t noticed, how did he see it?
Was he some kind of human surveillance drone?!
“I only did that because he pinned me against the wall first!” she protested hotly. “That was payback! And besides, I caught that cold because of him! He deserved it!”
Xie Jinxing didn’t press the issue. He just chuckled softly and got into the car.
Truth be told, Lu Xingyu had gone too far that day.
The poor girl had been sick, eyes red, barely able to stay upright, and he’d dragged her out without even realizing she was about to cry from embarrassment. Her nose was running, her pockets were empty, and that idiot still had the nerve to lecture her about “true love” and “broken promises.”
If it had been Xie Jinxing in her place, he would’ve made that melodramatic fool crawl away in fear.
“What are you standing there for? Get in,” he said, frowning. Then, eyeing her outfit, he asked with mild amusement, “And what on earth are you wearing?”
Gu An’an, clicking along in her heels, looked down at herself. The thick white coat practically glowed in the dark. “This?”
“Yeah.”
“Oh, this coat? One of the hotel staff lent it to me.”
The hotel’s heating was decent, but as the night went on, the temperature kept dropping. One good gust of wind could kill a person on the spot.
The long white puffer coat reached all the way to her feet, unflattering but warm. The fluffy fabric was soft and cozy. “She bought it online for two hundred yuan, said it was a winter lifesaver. But she’s shorter than me, so when she tried it on, it dragged on the floor. I was cold, so she gave it to me.”
Gu An’an had transferred her two hundred yuan, but the girl had refunded fifty back, claiming the coat was too ugly to charge full price.
“It’s brand new, tags just off, only one hundred fifty yuan! Isn’t that cheap?”
“Oh, I see…”
Xie Jinxing nodded and gestured for the driver to start the car.
Crossing his legs, he spoke evenly as he flipped through a paper contract. “Just make sure you don’t wear that if you ever visit Canada or Russia in winter.”
“Huh? Why not?” Gu An’an blinked. “It’s perfect for snowy places like that! Covers everything, keeps the wind and snow out, and there’s even a full hood! It’s so warm!”
Without looking up, Xie Jinxing turned a page, then glanced at her and said flatly, “Because if you walk through the snow wearing that, someone might shoot you.”
Gu An’an: “…”
Was this man secretly a dark comedian or what?!