Chapter 41: Do First, Ask Later

Su Yi Mo watched as anger surfaced onto Ran Feng Ge’s features, “For the coming nine months, you aren’t allowed to accept any other job offers. I will increase your salary by three hundred thousand. You only need to do your job well.”

Ran Feng Ge couldn’t release his anger. The stuffy feeling was heavy on his chest, and it was very uncomfortable. All he wanted to do now was yell at Su Yi Mo, but with the vision of all that money, Ran Feng Ge could only hesitate.

Three hundred thousand…

Su Yi Mo didn’t know who Ran Feng Ge was supposed to stand-in for based on An Chen’s previous call. He also didn’t know that Ran Feng Ge only wanted to take this job for one reason, and that was so he could help rescue Jing Qiu Han’s younger sister.

All Su Yi Mo knew was that if he prevented Ran Feng Ge from taking on this job, then… he and Lan Kuang wouldn’t need to have any dealings at all.

But what Su Yi Mo forgot to take into account was that, Ran Feng Ge being Jing Qiu Han’s body double would only increase the possibility of his exposure to Lan Kuang.

Ran Feng Ge sighed deeply as he thought about the circumstances now. Why would he choose to forgo three hundred thousand AND put himself in such a dangerous situation?

That just what’s-her-name-Jing-Qiu-Lan, who cares if she lived or died? As long as he did his job well playing the role of Jing Qiu Han, he didn’t need to worry about anything else!

“Have you considered things properly now? This deal is very lucrative for you.” Su Yi Mo said, deliberately making his tone as cold as he could.

“Are you being serious?” Ran Feng Ge asked suspiciously.

Su Yi Mo eyed the suspicious look in the other man’s eyes and immediately made a call to Ah Jiu: “Ah Jiu, transfer an additional three hundred thousand into Ran Feng Ge’s bank account. Yes, do it right away!”

Ran Feng Ge felt his eyes go wide like saucers, looking at Su Yi Mo incredulously.

Su Yi Mo and Ran Feng Ge silently stared at each other.

After a minute, Ah Jiu called back to inform Su Yi Mo that the transfer had been done.

Su Yi Mo tilted his head towards a laptop on the table and asked: “Do you want to check?”

Ran Feng Ge had originally wanted to refuse, but seeing as how arrogant Su Yi Mo looked at the moment, he couldn’t help but feel very annoyed. He refused to believe that Su Yi Mo would just give him an additional three hundred thousand for no reason!

In accordance with the contract the two of them signed before, if Ran Feng Ge were to accept another job while he was still working for Su Yi Mo, even if Su Yi Mo wanted to dismiss him and make Ran Feng Ge pay for the breach of contract, it still would have been legal. So why would he increase his pay instead?

Ran Feng Ge didn’t bother thinking it through. In fact, Su Yi Mo didn’t know what else he could do to keep Ran Feng Ge to himself. All he could think of was using this simple and idiotic, but effective method.

That was because he knew how much Ran Feng Ge loved money. Regardless of whether Ran Feng Ge’s love for money was real or not, Su Yi Mo believed this was the only way he could keep Ran Feng Ge by his side temporarily.

Ran Feng Ge pushed past Su Yi Mo and keyed in his bank account login details, one number at a time. He didn’t forget to look up at the imposing man before him suspiciously to see if Su Yi Mo had a card up his sleeves. However, all he saw was the infallible iceberg.

As soon as he noticed that his bank account had indeed increased by an extra three hundred thousand, Ran Feng Ge couldn’t help the surprise in his voice as he asked: “You were serious?”

“Do you still doubting my sincerity?” Su Yi Mo asked with a hint of annoyance, “You aren’t allowed to accept any other commissions!”

Ran Feng Ge pouted slightly as he nibbled on his lower lip: “What if the other job pays better?”

“Don’t tell me you are willing to forsake your reputation for money?” Su Yi Mo questioned angrily.

Ran Feng Ge replied sulkily: “Who cares about reputation when you have money…”

“I seriously don’t know how you got your gold standard reputation as a body double!” Su Yi Mo roared, “If the other party is offering more than me, tell me by how much higher it is and I will compensate the excess!”

Ran Feng Ge rubbed his chin before glancing up at the man: “Why are you treating me so well?”

Having been hit right on the mark, Su Yi Mo froze, not knowing how else he could answer the question: “I just want you to play the role of Jing Qiu Han perfectly…”

“That’s something other body doubles can do too!” Ran Feng Ge said as he sat down on a chair after checking his account. He has always been someone who was very restless; he could not just sit still and not do anything. Therefore, while he was speaking, he started to swivel the chair he was sitting on in circles, a look of mischief on his face: “Oh, that’s right! My friends, who were pulled into this mess because of you, they are just as good as me! And what’s more, their asking price isn’t as high as mine.”

Su Yi Mo watched as Ran Feng Ge swivelled this way and that in front of him, a feeling of helplessness rising up from within. How is it that a grown man doing something like this was… so cute?

And yet, so infuriating at the same time!

Ran Feng Ge was turning round and round happily when the lever to adjust the height of the chair situated at the back accidentally hit the table leg, forcing the chair to fall straight down to its lowest setting. The sudden change in height scared Ran Feng Ge to the point where a shout nearly escaped his lips as his eyes flew wide open. Blinking slowly, Ran Feng Ge turned and looked at the lever, then at the chair—the look on his face was one that was absolutely endearing.

Su Yi Mo had never seen such an expression on the real Jing Qiu Han before.

Reaching out, Su Yi Mo placed both hands on either side of the chair’s arm rest, trapping Ran Feng Ge in between them. With a slight shift of his body, Su Yi Mo leaned down closer into Ran Feng Ge’s personal space and whispered: “Didn’t you say you didn’t want them to be dragged into this mess? So being the benevolent person that you are, you’ll just have to work harder to prevent that from happening.”

The sudden intrusion of Su Yi Mo into Ran Feng Ge’s personal space made Ran Feng Ge lean as far back on the chair as possible to escape, only to be halted by the backrest.

Coughing gently, Ran Feng Ge attempted to look relaxed as he said: “You don’t have to come so close, we can always work things out slowly.”

Su Yi Mo caught a glimpse of his reddening ears and couldn’t stop himself from teasing the man before him. Leaning forward even more, Su Yi Mo brought his face right up to Ran Feng Ge’s ear and spoke in a deep, sultry voice: “But… aren’t we lovers? Being this close is considered normal, right? Isn’t that also what you said this morning?”

Ran Feng Ge froze. There was no way he could force out a “Yeah, that’s right” without looking like a tomato, nor could he just turn the tables on Su Yi Mo by hugging him. Logically speaking, all he needed to do was just that, because they were indeed “lovers”—but Ran Feng Ge couldn’t bring himself to do it.

God damn his heart—can it not beat any faster!

Unintentionally or not, Su Yi Mo’s lips brushed against Ran Feng Ge’s ear lobe gently: “Then, about my proposal earlier…”

“I agree! I agree! I will not take on any other jobs!” Ran Feng Ge hurriedly replied.

“And what if you go against your words?” Su Yi Mo asked as he breathed onto Ran Feng Ge’s jaw, refusing to relent even the tiniest bit.

Ran Feng Ge could not focus on anything at the moment. He had been one step away from swearing on his mother’s classmate’s neighbour’s cat when Su Yi Mo continued: “If you go back on your words, then I will make our little lovers’ act real and let you have a taste of how it feels to be under me. How about that?”

The heart that Ran Feng Ge had a hard time controlling sped up once again as he placed both hands on Su Yi Mo’s chest to push him away, quickly feigning a calm disposition: “Who knows who will be under who at this point!” After saying that, Ran Feng Ge quickly stood and grabbed his cell phone from the table before reaching for the SIM card inside the garbage bin. Turning towards the door, Ran Feng Ge did not forget to throw out his threat: “The next time you toss another thing of mine into the bin, I will personally throw you off this building!”

Before Su Yi Mo could look up, Ran Feng Ge had already disappeared.

Su Yi Mo was about to leave as well when he caught sight of the laptop in the corner of his eyes…

Did that rascal forget to log out of his bank account?

Su Yi Mo pulled a chair over and sat down, moving the cursor a little bit, and sure enough, Ran Feng Ge’s bank account details were still displayed.

Scanning through the information on the account, Su Yi Mo was a little surprised. He originally thought that Ran Feng Ge would have a lot of money to his name, but looking at these financial records proved otherwise.

Although the money in there was more than enough to live a comfortable life, Su Yi Mo was curious about where the money Ran Feng Ge had earned as a body double was spent all these years.

Clicking onto his transaction page, Su Yi Mo found out that every now and then, there was a regular transfer of funds to a certain bank account, and each time was for a sizable amount. All the other transactions here and there held no interest to Su Yi Mo, only this particular one did.

Typing in a series of numbers and alphabets into a new browser tab, it took no time at all for Su Yi Mo to find out the owner of that particular bank account.

However, it wasn’t what he had expected.

First, it wasn’t a person.

It was actually a nursing home.

Second, looking at the name, Su Yi Mo couldn’t help the sudden change in his expression.

This nursing home… This nursing home…

Su Yi Mo felt his fingers unconsciously tighten into a fist, a look of pain overwhelming his features.

He no longer cared about what he could find in Ran Feng Ge’s bank account and quickly logged off the system, slamming the laptop close. Standing up, Su Yi Mo stood next to the floor length window and placed a cigarette in between his lips, but didn’t make an attempt to light it. All he could do at that moment was dazedly look at the hundreds of cars streaming down the road.

After what felt like an eternity, all Su Yi Mo could say were two words.

And those two words were —

Little liar…

That’s right. That nursing home was the one where Ran Feng Ge’s mother was currently housed.

The reason why Su Yi Mo would suddenly think of this was because he knew for a fact that this was the same name of the nursing home that housed the little liar’s mother, and so naturally, he thought of his little liar…

That year, after witnessing his little liar’s demise in the exploding car, Su Yi Mo had been riddled with guilt and immense sadness, the likes of which Master Su hadn’t expected. Therefore, in a last ditch effort to try and protect his son, the entire Su Family decided to leave everything and move to A City, far away from that place filled with painful memories.

Seven years later, because of a collision between the Lan Family’s Chasing Hawk and the Su Family’s Falcon organizations, the Su Family, which had been defeated very badly, had almost nothing to their names. And yet, Su Yi Mo still did not forget to remind his father to watch over his little liar’s grandfather and mother.

It was also that same year when little liar’s grandfather passed away.

Su Yi Mo had been standing outside the ward then, watching as the frail, old man reached out his arms as though he was trying to grasp on to something.

Su Yi Mo couldn’t stop the tears pouring out from his eyes, because he knew who the old man was trying to hold on to; he must be thinking of the little liar. Why was it that their little liar hadn’t come to visit him in so long? He must be missing him dearly…

Unfortunately, little liar was never coming back…

Su Yi Mo couldn’t take it anymore and rushed in quickly. He held on to the hand of the old man and cried out in sobs: “Grandpa… I’m sorry… Grandpa… I’m so sorry…”

I’m so sorry… I lost your beloved grandson…

I am so sorry. I’m so sorry…

The old man’s eyesight was almost gone, and so he was unable to tell whether the little boy, currently latched onto his arm bawling his heart out, was indeed his grandson or not. But he could feel the pressure on his arm and the little voice crying out, “grandpa”.

A smile formed on his lips: My beloved grandson, my baby grandson is finally back!

That year, because all he could think of when he looked at Ran Feng Ge was the destruction of his family, he could only direct looks of loathing and hatred towards him. Due to this, Ran Feng Ge had disappeared. But in fact, as a grandfather, he felt guilty for a long time. Because, no matter what happened, Ran Feng Ge was an innocent party caught in the tragedy.

He couldn’t be sure if Ran Feng Ge ran away from home, nor did he know where he had been all this time. All he knew was that for the past seven years, whenever there was a special occasion, he would receive a lot of health supplements and medication; each and every one of them bearing the title For Grandpa. With each passing year, the handwriting became stronger and tougher, and yet, there was still no sight or sound of his beloved grandson.

He felt that his grandson must be blaming him, so he never thought that he would have the chance to see him again before he died. He definitely didn’t think he was also going to get an apology from him…

When in reality, the person who needed to apologize most was him…

The smile on the old man’s face remained, even as the body grew cold and stiff.

Su Yi Mo cried for a very long time then. No less than the time when his little liar died.

————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————–
Translator: Jypoonie
Proofreaders: Charlotte Grey, Lyrick