095 The King in the Shadows (He’s Jade Disc 2+)

If a boy wants to be liked by girls, the first thing he must understand is respect.

As for the union of man and woman, whether both sides are willing or not, before anything happens, one should think carefully about whether one can give that girl a beautiful future.

During adolescence, boys will naturally experience sexual impulses. It is a perfectly normal bodily reaction.

When hormones rise to a certain level, such instincts are nothing strange. But in matters of sex, a boy ought to remain cautious.

If a boy has to deceive another person’s feelings in order to get what he wants in bed, then he is a disgusting man.

In other words, even if that man truly loves you and is willing to take responsibility for your future, he is still too young, and the uncertainties ahead are far too many. No one knows what will happen tomorrow. So if he truly likes that girl, he will not treat sex so casually.

He will do everything in his power to protect her, keeping her safe and cherished. Only when the flower has fully ripened, and the feelings between the two have been washed by time, by quietness or by storm, with restlessness stripped away and what remains settled into the depths, can it endure and grow ever firmer.

Only a man who is capable of bearing the consequences of all his actions may truly be called a man.

And all of this rests upon a solid financial foundation.

Men are generally driven by desire. Only those with a fastidious aversion to both body and spirit can look down on the flowers that throw themselves into their arms. Of course, there is another possibility: that the man is so exquisitely handsome that rather than him spending money on those women, it is those women who are spending themselves on him.

Of course, Zhou Meng was already at an age where such impulses had awakened.

As for him, although it was easy enough to find girls, it was just as the second point above said. When he went looking for them, it was less that he was taking them to bed than that they were throwing themselves at him.

So all along, he had relied on his own right hand.

And after meeting Xie Xitong, he became even more certain of it.

A proud girl like Tongtong would never use secondhand goods that someone else had already used. Besides, he liked her, and he looked down on every other woman.

A trace of tenderness flashed through his eyes, and Zhou Meng gave a roguish smile. "Tongtong, look at my shoulder. It’s all your tears, miss. Go on, sniff it. Still salty. You’ve really wronged me."

Xie Xitong smacked him lightly and, hugging her books, lowered her head and walked toward the school gate.

Hands in his pockets, Zhou Meng followed behind her at a leisurely distance, teasing the girl ahead of him from time to time.

Xie Xitong kept cursing him, yet in her heart the scene from the novel she had just read could not help surfacing. The boy had followed behind her all along, one silent, the other chattering like a gossiping duck.

At that moment, Xie Xitong felt her heart a little in disarray. She clearly disliked this boy, yet after reading Liu Yan’s novel, she felt that he was not quite the same as she had imagined.

Thinking of this, she spun around in a huff and said sourly, "Hey, why do you keep following me?"

Seeing Xie Xitong all bluster and no bite, Zhou Meng found it amusing. Rubbing his stomach, he spread his hands and laughed. "No choice. I’m hungry, and I lent my wallet to someone else, so I’ve got no money on me. I can only follow you. I’m hoping Miss Tongtong will take pity on me and buy Brother Zhou a bowl of fried noodles."

Xie Xitong shot him a glare. Zhou Meng added, "I just finished a game of ball. I’m starving."

"I didn’t bring any money," Xie Xitong said, turning away and throwing over her shoulder, "My home is pretty close from here. Let’s see if my brother is home. He can make some for you."

Zhou Meng scratched his head with a smile, then hurried after her in a few quick steps. "What happened just now? Why were you hiding under the tree, secretly shedding pearls by yourself? So precious, it makes my heart ache just looking at you."

"Shameless," she snapped. "Get lost."

"And this is how you thank me?"

The boy shook his head, his eyes fixed on Xie Xitong with an expression that seemed earnest and yet not quite earnest at all.

Xie Xitong did not understand, and there was a little fear in her heart. She also did not want to understand. She muttered irritably, "Such nonsense. Hurry up. I’m hungry too."

The two of them laughed and bickered all the way back to the neighborhood.

At that very moment, far away in B City, Xu Yichen held a glass of deep red wine in his hand and watched the men and women in the middle of the dance hall twisting themselves in frenzy. His eyes were full of calm indifference.

Sun Mingfan had an alluring woman wrapped around him as he flung himself into the sofa. The woman immediately coiled herself around him. Sun Mingfan slipped his hand into the low neckline she was wearing and teased, "What is it? Does Young Master Xu really look down on these women? I can see a few of them are pretty good, and they’ve been throwing you flirtatious looks. Look at the long-haired one on the right. Tsk, her figure is great, and her face is quite innocent too. Isn’t that exactly your type?"

At this, the woman sitting on Sun Mingfan’s lap was displeased. Rubbing her proud breasts against his chest, she swayed her waist and hips and said in a sweet, clingy voice, "Am I not pretty enough? How can Young Master Sun still be looking at other women?"

Sun Mingfan gave her a hard squeeze, drawing a soft gasp from the woman, then stuffed a thick wad of banknotes into her chest and waved her away.

The woman was overjoyed. She had not expected to do nothing and still receive such a large sum of money today. With a reluctant glance at Xu Yichen, who was watching the dance floor with detached coldness, she finally swayed off, hips rolling.

After she left, Sun Mingfan plopped down beside Xu Yichen, grabbed a bottle of beer from the table, and took a long swig. "I say, what’s wrong with you? Ever since that despicable Li smashed your head open, you haven’t wanted a woman for ages. Don’t tell me you got knocked stupid!"

"What nonsense are you spouting?" Xu Yichen cursed.

No matter the age, a man’s ability in that respect could not be questioned.

Unless he could be like Li Ao, who once, during Taiwan’s election campaign, openly declared that he was too old to bed women anymore and would have to content himself with politics.

That line truly was a man’s declaration. It had courage beyond the ordinary.

"So what the hell is wrong with you?" Sun Mingfan said. "I finally came back to see you, and this is how you treat your brother when we come out to have some fun?"

Imitating him, Sun Mingfan leaned over the railing as well, looking down at the men and women in the dance floor below, who were completely giving themselves over to lust and frenzy amid the deafening music. While drinking, he tossed Xu Yichen obscene jokes.

"Look at that woman. Her face isn’t much, but damn, that body is really something."

As he was speaking, a louche man leaned over from the side and said to Xu Yichen with a teasing smile, "Well now, isn’t this Young Master Xu, the one who was locked up in confinement? What, you’ve been let out?"

Xu Yichen cast him a cold glance. His features were so seductive that he was even more striking than the woman in that man’s arms. The sight made Li Shaoren’s lower abdomen heat up, and it stood right up.

He kneaded the woman’s backside fiercely, thinking to himself: This brat really has grown more and more handsome. Just looking at him makes one itch all over. But I’ve never tasted the pleasures of a man before. Once I have, and if there’s a chance later, I’ll make sure that little pretty thing submits beneath my crotch and pleases me properly.

The mere thought of Xu Yichen’s icy, noble beauty begging beneath him made Li Shaoren’s manhood even harder. He gave Xu Yichen one reluctant look, then wrapped an arm around the woman and left with a gang of underlings.

"What the hell are you saying?" Sun Mingfan was about to rush over, but Xu Yichen spread his arms and stopped him.

A charming smile lingered at the corners of his mouth, but his eyes were all ice, his dark pupils flashing with a bloodthirsty light.

To think that man had dared set his sights on him. He had originally intended to spare the fellow’s dog life, but now it seemed the man truly did not want to live.

He had already died once. What did he have left to fear?

Seeing Xu Yichen wrapped in that dark, frigid aura, Sun Mingfan shivered. It was truly... spine-chilling.

Ever since Xu Yichen had been hurt in the head by that despicable Li, he seemed like a completely different person. At times, even Sun Mingfan could not tell what he was thinking.

To put it in a single sentence, he was simply a man who could call the wind and summon the rain at will.

His methods of destroying people were endless. He was a true king lurking in the shadows.

Even the so-called crown prince of B City’s official circles probably could not compare with him. It was as though he had turned on cheats in a game.

Of course, his ability to endure was also astonishing to Sun Mingfan. If Xu Yichen had not held him back, he would already have rushed over to start a fight. They were all men from the military district; nobody was above anybody else.

"Come with me," Xu Yichen said indifferently, hands in his pockets. He crossed the corridor and took the elevator.

He pressed the button for the third basement level and stopped in front of the surveillance room.

The dozen or so fully equipped security guards stationed at the door saw Xu Yichen arrive and immediately saluted in unison. "Greetings, Young Master Xu."

Xu Yichen did not respond. He walked in by himself, leaving Sun Mingfan outside, gaping in stunned silence.

Th-this... isn’t this the Dark Night Poppy, second only to Heaven and Earth in the capital? When did it become his?

And the kind you can just walk into whenever you want? Has an alien invaded Earth?

Of all the industries in the world, which one makes money the fastest?

Not stocks, not real estate investment, not anything like that. The quickest, most legitimate way to make money can be summed up in three words: sex, gambling, and drugs.

After making a killing in the stock market, Xu Yichen diversified the funds into investments and, drawing on his experience from his previous life, took control of B City’s second-largest club, second only to Heaven and Earth.

He had wanted to take over Heaven and Earth as well, but unfortunately the person behind it was not someone their Xu family could currently afford to touch.

Money could come quickly, but that tangled web of political power was not something that could be settled in just a few months. Those hundred-year-old marriage alliances were not something a little scheme could unravel.

Even though in this world there are no eternal enemies, only eternal interests.

Sun Mingfan followed him in. The surveillance room was enormous, with every corner of the club visible in perfect clarity, and in the private room where Li Shaoren was located, they were already in the midst of a real, full-throttle performance.

The scene was obscene beyond measure.

But Xu Yichen and Sun Mingfan had long since grown used to it. In truth, the places that most deserved to be raided and cracked down on were precisely these high-end establishments.

Because everyone who came and went there was either rich or powerful, who would dare rush in and conduct a raid? The pimp one hauled out might very well turn out to be one’s own superior.

Sun Mingfan casually glanced around and recognized many familiar faces from television: bureau chiefs, standing committee members. And what were they doing?

They were on an incognito tour of inspection, engaging in the deepest possible grassroots exchange with these women struggling to survive.