Chapter 41: You look down on me too

Originally, everything had been proceeding in an orderly fashion according to plan.

That was until Ji Jinxuan spotted Xu Lin in the audience, someone who should not have been there. He saw the expression on Xu Lin’s face… It was only for a moment, but it was seared into his memory. Perhaps he would never forget the look of utter despair in Xu Lin’s eyes at that moment. Burned by that gaze, which felt almost tangible in its weight, Ji Jinxuan’s heart trembled, and he nearly panicked as he averted his eyes.

In his peripheral vision stood Ji Wang, who was currently speaking with Chen Yu’s father. He had not noticed Xu Lin.

Xu Lin’s arrival did not seem to be at Ji Wang’s instigation. If Ji Wang had known, he would not be reacting the way he was—he would have been delighted to witness Ji Jinxuan lose his composure. So it was not Ji Wang. Then how had Xu Lin gotten here? Wasn’t he supposed to be waiting at home? How did he know about this place? Who had brought him? Who had he been in contact with?

Question after question arose, followed by a flood of worry and panic. Xu Lin had seen everything. He knew everything now. What was he supposed to do? What should he do now?

His thoughts tangled like a ball of yarn he could not unravel. He instinctively looked back toward where Xu Lin had been standing. The spot was empty. Xu Lin was gone. He had left.

He had disappeared—and yet Ji Jinxuan did not feel relieved. Instead, he grew even more unsettled. Given Xu Lin’s temperament, Ji Jinxuan had briefly expected him to charge up and confront him face to face. But that scenario never played out. He had simply left, quietly.

Ji Jinxuan’s mind was in turmoil, and a strange, ominous feeling arose—that this situation might be beyond repair.

After the ceremony ended, the lights came back on, and Chen Yu and he made their rounds among the guests, toasting one by one. After a few drinks, she took advantage of a moment when no one was paying them attention, leaned close to Ji Jinxuan, and whispered, “Is it done yet? We’re almost at the end.”

Ji Jinxuan held his wine glass, lost in thought, looking preoccupied, and completely ignored her.

Chen Yu gave him an impatient shove.”Are you even listening to me? Those people you mentioned, where are they—”

Before she could finish, a commotion suddenly arose at the entrance.

Several Alphas in uniform entered and immediately drew the attention of everyone present. Those with sharp eyes recognized the uniforms and murmured, “Those are people from the Regulatory Bureau. Why are they here?”

The group of Alphas looked around, then walked straight up to Ji Wang. The man at the front flashed his credentials at Ji Wang and said, “Mr. Ji Wang, you are suspected of conducting illegal human experimentation in violation of regulations. Please come with us to cooperate with our investigation.”

At these words, the entire hall erupted in murmurs.

Among the guests were many from the Academy of Military Sciences and the military district—most of them had dealt with Ji Wang before. Some were his colleagues, others even his students. They immediately stepped forward to defend him, “There must be some mistake, right?”

“Chief Ji has contributed so much to Danshi. How could he possibly do something like this?”

Ji Wang, however, remained quite calm. He looked at the Alphas before him, then shifted his gaze to Ji Jinxuan.

He laughed and said, “Of course I can cooperate with your investigation. But if I leave with you in front of all these people, and rumors start spreading—that would be an insult to my reputation. How do you plan to take responsibility for that?”

Someone chimed in to support him. “Exactly. There’s no evidence—”

The Alpha cut him off, “Following a verified report, we have obtained a series of records including your illegal research logs, unapproved research plans, as well as the victim’s medical records, gland damage reports, and experimental footage.”

Ji Wang’s expression shifted slightly. His fingers gripping the wine glass were so tense that the color had drained from his fingertips.

“A verified report?”

“Who?” The crowd whispered among themselves.

At that moment, Zong Xi entered from outside, leaned against the doorframe, and nodded at Ji Jinxuan from a distance.

Ji Jinxuan set down his glass. The next second, the lights in the venue went out, and on the large screen behind them, a series of video clips began to play.

The timestamp in the upper right corner showed that the footage was from over a decade ago.

The video showed an airtight isolation room with glass walls on all sides. A child around ten years old was strapped to a hospital bed, with dozens of tubes connected to various instruments beside the bed. He alternated between fits of frenzy and moments of stillness, and for most of the footage, his screams filled the room. The people outside the glass looked on with indifference, calmly recording his condition.

Periodically, personnel in protective suits would enter and inject unknown substances into his gland. Then the boy, who had briefly calmed down, would fall into another fit of madness.

The videos were all roughly similar, but the timestamps kept changing. Day after day, this continued for nearly a year.

In the final clip, the boy was finally released from the bed and wheeled away out of the camera’s range.

In several of the videos, the experimenter who had been injecting the boy removed his mask—and it was unmistakably Ji Wang’s face.

And the child in the footage, repeatedly tortured and forced into a susceptible state, was a young Ji Jinxuan.

Who had filed the report against Ji Wang? It went without saying.

The surroundings fell into a deathly silence.

Anyone could tell this was infighting within the Ji family. Many eyes darted back and forth between Ji Wang and Ji Jinxuan.

The bride’s relatives had just witnessed quite a show. Chen Yu’s parents’ faces shifted through various shades of unease and embarrassment. Their carefully chosen alliance partner had pulled such a stunt on the day of the engagement—clearly, this was intentional sabotage, a complete disregard for them. To be slighted by a young upstart was humiliating, but they could not lash out on the spot. They could only remain silent, their faces dark with suppressed anger.

Among the Academy crowd, there were also many bystanders shaken by what they had just witnessed. In the eyes of outsiders, Ji Wang had always been a man of strict self-discipline and lawful conduct. He had devoted almost his entire life to scientific research. No one would have ever imagined he could do something like this. For a moment, it was as if they had watched a deity fall from its heavenly pedestal.

Human experimentation was not uncommon and was not inherently illegal. But even a layperson knew that the most important principle of experimentation was that the subject must be fully informed of the risks and participate voluntarily. Clearly, Ji Jinxuan did not meet this condition. And yet Ji Wang had gone ahead anyway.

Under normal protocol, if a subject experienced discomfort during an experiment, the experiment had to be stopped immediately and the subject treated without delay. Ji Wang had not done that. He had allowed the subject to struggle in agony, stripped of all dignity.

On this charge alone, Ji Wang could be convicted. Human experimentation that violated human rights—especially when the subject was a mere ten-year-old child, regardless of whether he was S-grade or physically resilient—had caused irreversible bodily harm. This had already crossed the legal底线 of Dan City.

Ji Wang was taken away, and Ji Jinxuan, as one of the parties involved, followed as well.

The two walked one behind the other.

Ji Wang said, “What good does destroying the Ji family do for you?”

“Destroying you is enough.”

Ji Wang sneered, “I won’t be short of someone to drag down with me.”

Ji Jinxuan understood his threat and replied, “You’ll have to get the chance first.”

At this, Ji Wang’s gaze suddenly cut past Ji Jinxuan’s shoulder and landed on Zong Xi in the distance, who was on the phone.

He understood now.

“Heh. I really underestimated you. All that trouble, just for that Beta. You can protect him for a while, but I don’t believe you can protect him forever.”

Ji Jinxuan glanced at him coldly and said flatly, “Do you think you’ll ever get out again?”

Ji Wang stared back coldly.

“Do you still think you’re the only Chief Ji at the Academy?”

Ji Jinxuan stopped walking, slowly bent down, and looked down at him. “Do you still think you’re the same prized figure everyone worshipped on a pedestal? You’re nothing but a bag of old bones now. Kw-02 has failed. You have no value left. Who would bother to save a has-been like you?”

Ji Wang’s eyes reflected Ji Jinxuan’s figure. Suddenly, he lunged at Ji Jinxuan like a lion finally provoked—but the lion was old, its fangs no longer sharp, its claws no longer fierce. He was quickly restrained by the quick-handed Alphas from the Regulatory Bureau.

His crisp clothes were wrinkled, his neatly combed hair fell in loose strands. He was pinned to the ground, dirt smeared on his cheeks, boiling with rage.

Ji Jinxuan could not even be bothered to bend his knees. He looked down at him from on high. “From now on, everything you have will be inherited by me. Enjoy the rest of your life. Grandfather.”

The two were taken to the Regulatory Bureau. Ji Jinxuan gave his testimony through the night and was released in the early morning. The evidence he had provided had already sealed Ji Wang’s guilt—the verdict was all but certain. There was no chance for Ji Wang to turn things around.

It had taken Ji Jinxuan nearly a year to obtain these materials and evidence. Ji Wang had hidden them well, and finding them had been no small feat. The reason Ji Wang had acted so recklessly was that he relied on his rare expertise and his possession of Kw-02. No matter what he did, certain people in the capital would protect him out of self-interest.

But today, Ji Jinxuan had made the matter public. It was easy enough to silence one ordinary person, but how could he silence every single guest present today? Each one of them was prominent and well-connected. Weighing the pros and cons, abandoning Ji Wang was inevitable.

An aging lion, confronted by wave after wave of younger lions rising up—how long could it defend its territory? With Kw-02 replaced, Ji Wang would naturally be replaced as well.

Now, Ji Jinxuan was the one with greater value. Between the two, everyone knew which choice would be made.

When Ji Jinxuan came out, Zong Xi’s car was already waiting outside.

The sky was nearly bright.

As soon as he got in the car, Ji Jinxuan said, “Let’s go back.”

The car pulled away. As he drove, Zong Xi handed him a cigarette. “All done?”

“Pretty much.”

Ji Jinxuan lit the cigarette, took a few puffs, and asked, “How’s District Thirteen?”

“All cleaned up.”

The reason he had chosen to execute the plan on the day of the engagement was twofold: first, to make Ji Wang lose everything he valued most in front of all the people who knew him; and second, to eliminate the surveillance team in District Thirteen that had been watching Xu Lin’s teacher.

Ji Wang might have had some way of contacting that group. To ensure nothing went wrong, on the day of the engagement, they could use guest privacy as a pretext to legitimately set up signal jammers inside the venue, cutting off Ji Wang’s communication with the outside world without arousing his suspicion.

The engagement ceremony itself would last about half an hour, during which the lights would be dimmed. Zong Xi would leave at that time—thirty minutes was enough for him to clear out all the trash. Meanwhile, during the ceremony, Ji Wang would remain within Ji Jinxuan’s sight at all times, ensuring he could not pull any tricks.

By the time Ji Wang sensed something was wrong, everything would already be over.

This plan would simultaneously deal with Ji Wang, eliminate the people in District Thirteen, and cause the Chen family to voluntarily withdraw from the marriage alliance due to the Ji family’s scandal. For Ji Jinxuan, this was a perfectly advantageous plan.

And things had indeed turned out as he had predicted.

Ji Jinxuan had calculated everything.

But he had not calculated Xu Lin’s sudden appearance.

---

Xu Lin listened quietly as Ji Jinxuan explained.

“My grandfather and I have some personal grievances. I wouldn’t even call us close. A large part of why I went through with this engagement banquet today was to settle everything with him once and for all.”

Ji Jinxuan said that his grandfather had threatened him using the safety of Xu Lin’s teacher and friends as leverage, which was why he had to go through with the engagement—he had no choice. When he came to the part about Pu Sha, Ji Jinxuan paused. He concealed the “history” between Ji Hongyun and Pu Sha, and the fact that Pu Sha had already died once in Danshi years ago. There were some things Xu Lin did not need to know.

Ji Jinxuan did not want to tell Xu Lin too much about the grievances between him and Ji Wang—those were matters entirely unrelated to Xu Lin. For reasons of a certain subtle pride, he did not want Xu Lin to know that he had once been a powerless victim, at someone else’s mercy. In just a few words, it was hard to fully explain a plan he had spent years orchestrating. He could only give Xu Lin a rough outline of the engagement’s causes and consequences.

When Xu Lin had left the banquet, everything had still been normal. He did not know what had happened afterward, but he could infer the gist from Ji Jinxuan’s description.

Because Ji Wang had threatened him with the lives of others, combined with the existing “grievances” between him and his grandfather, Ji Jinxuan had used his own engagement banquet as a chessboard to settle old scores and new grudges in one sweeping move.

He had won decisively; Ji Wang had suffered a crushing defeat.

As he put it, it was a good outcome.

Xu Lin kept his head lowered, his bangs covering his eyes, his expression unreadable.

“Don’t misunderstand me. This wedding was only a temporary measure. It doesn’t count.” His voice was soft. “It was all fake.”

Ji Jinxuan said, “Now that it’s all over, it’s done with.”

He crouched in front of Xu Lin, tentatively reaching for his hand:

“I didn’t want to get engaged to anyone else. I don’t have feelings for anyone else. I was planning to explain everything to you slowly after it was all over. But I never expected you to show up there out of nowhere. It happened so suddenly, and given the situation, I couldn’t explain it to you then either.

“So,” Ji Jinxuan asked, “how did you get there? Did someone bring you?”

He thought that by confessing everything, Xu Lin would no longer be angry.

But to his surprise, at these words, Xu Lin violently shoved away Ji Jinxuan’s hand without warning.

Ji Jinxuan was stunned.

Xu Lin did not look appeased at all—if anything, his anger had flared even higher.

He did not answer Ji Jinxuan’s question. Instead, he asked, word by word: “Threatening you with my teacher’s and friends’ lives?”

His chest heaved violently as he glared at Ji Jinxuan.

“Something this important and you didn’t tell me a single word?”

Ji Jinxuan had not expected this reaction and froze.

“Fine. You had your reasons. Marriage is just a game to you. I’ll set that aside for now.”

Xu Lin was seething with rage. “But when my teacher was in danger, how could you not tell me anything?

“You let me stay here in this house, content and oblivious, playing the fool, while they were left in harm’s way? They are the most important people to me, you bastard!”

Xu Lin stormed back to the bedroom. Ji Jinxuan followed and saw him pulling out a suitcase, shoving clothes into it.

“What are you doing?” Ji Jinxuan grabbed him.

Xu Lin shook him off and shouted, “I’m going home!”

Ji Jinxuan said, “They’re safe now. I’ve already taken care of it.”

“Oh, have you? Should I thank you then?” Xu Lin laughed bitterly. “Thank you for telling me nothing. Thank you for your self-righteousness. Thank your grandfather for threatening my teacher’s life. Thank you for that old house you gave me. Thank you for that wedding no one knew about?”

Ji Jinxuan froze, as if he had not expected Xu Lin to know about the old church.

Xu Lin had no energy left to argue with him. He steadied his ragged breathing, rubbed his face, and said, “I need some time to think. I think you do too. Let’s separate for a while.

“I need to go back. I need to see my teacher and the others with my own eyes before I can feel at ease.”

“You…” Ji Jinxuan seemed at a loss. He grabbed Xu Lin’s hand, kicked the suitcase aside, and said, “Wait a moment.”

He frowned, clearly confused. “I told you—they’re safe now. If you’re worried, I can have someone take photos of them for you…”

Xu Lin could not take it anymore. He shouted over him, “I said I want to go back and see them with my own eyes! Are you deaf?!”

This was the first time Ji Jinxuan had ever seen Xu Lin like this. In front of Ji Jinxuan, he had always been docile, gentle, full of affection, obedient in every way. He had never been so prickly, so impossible to soothe or appease.

Ji Jinxuan did not know what to do.

He could only keep explaining, “If you’re angry because I didn’t tell you, I apologize. But back then, knowing wouldn’t have done you any good. There was nothing you could do. Even if you had gone back, the situation in District Thirteen wouldn’t have changed. You, your teacher, your friends—you were all still ants that anyone could crush at will.”

As soon as the words left his mouth, Xu Lin’s breath caught. He looked at Ji Jinxuan in disbelief.

“…Ants that anyone could crush at will.” He repeated Ji Jinxuan’s words, stepping backward, step by step, until his back hit the wall. Only then did he stop.

He stared at Ji Jinxuan with a terrible expression.

That look made Ji Jinxuan uneasy.

“Little ants with no value, whose lives can be decided on a whim. We can only endure it. Even resisting would be met with ridicule for overestimating ourselves. In your eyes, is that what everyone in District Thirteen is?… Am I also just a little ant? Completely useless? If I go back, I can’t change anything, I can only wait to die with them. Am I a waste?”

“In your heart, is that who I am, Ji Jinxuan?”

He remembered, when he first met Ji Jinxuan, the man had rescued an Omega service worker in distress at a hotel. By the river, he had picked up Xu Lin’s paper dragonfly and returned it to him.

He had thought Ji Jinxuan was different from the people of Danshi.

He had thought Ji Jinxuan was a good person. A very, very good person.

He had thought Ji Jinxuan was an exception.

But now he said…

Xu Lin murmured, “So you do look down on my hometown after all.

“You look down on me too.”