Chapter 1048: Perplexed and Smitten (108)
Translator: Atlas Studios Editor: Atlas Studios
“Are you Xiao Chenyang’s brother?”
“Yes. May I go in and have a chat with you?” he asked with a smile.
“Come in.”
Fang Erlan did not let her guard down completely and left the door slightly ajar.
Xihou Jiaping scoffed in his head and thought to himself, Would the door even matter if I really wanted to harm her?
“Would you like to have some water?”
“No, thank you. Please have a seat.”
Fang Erlan sat down and stared at the man opposite her, feeling a little awkward and confused about his purpose for visiting.
“I haven’t contacted Chenyang in a long time, and I can’t seem to reach him now. My parents are worried sick about him too. Do you know where he had gone?”
Shaking her head, Fang Erlan answered, “No.”
Although she was answering his questions, she was still keeping her guard up against him and remaining vigilant. She also thought to herself, If what he said was real, is Xiao Chenyang really a nutcase? Why doesn’t he inform his parents of his whereabouts?
“Ms. Fang, may I ask if you’re Chenyang’s girlfriend?”
Fang Erlan immediately denied, “No, no, how could I possibly be his girlfriend? We don’t know each other well at all. He’s… merely my bodyguard.”
“Where did you hire him from, then, Ms. Fang?”
Fang Erlan tucked her hair behind her ear and answered calmly, “The entertainment studio hired him for me. He went through an interview to land himself the job. My boss assigned him to me for a probationary period, and I accepted him as my bodyguard after finding him to be great at it.”
“Now that he’s missing, don’t you plan to fire him?”
Fang Erlan considered her answers carefully before saying them out loud, for fear that she would bring about unnecessary trouble. In fact, she was right to be so cautious.
“He’s applied for a long-term leave. I actually didn’t want to hire him anymore because he applied for leave shortly after getting started on the job. However, I didn’t insist any further after he offered to work for free.”
After a moment of silence, Xihou Jiaping asked, “Did he mention why he was willing to be your bodyguard for free?”
Fang Erlan was quick to react and could make up convincing excuses on the spot. She was merely afraid of coming off as a miser if he really turned out to be Xiao Chenyang’s brother.
“He said that he has something important to do and was merely staying over at my place temporarily because of the convenience. There are two rooms in my apartment, he stays in that one,” Fang Erlan explained, pointing at the other room.
“Didn’t he mention when he would be back?” Xihou Jiaping probed.
Shaking her head, Fang Erlan answered, “He didn’t.”
Seeing that she really seemed to be clueless, Xihou Jiaping stood up and said, “Sorry to have imposed on you tonight, Ms. Fang. This is my mobile number. Please call me when he gets back.”
Fang Erlan hesitated and did not take his name card. “Um… he may be my bodyguard, but I don’t wish to get involved in his personal life, so I’m afraid I can’t do that.”
Xihou Jiaping took his name card back and said, “Alright, then, but there’s something I need you to cooperate with me on. I hope you’ll empathize with how I feel as his family member. Please don’t tell him… about me coming here to look for you. I’m afraid that he would hide himself in a place that’s unreachable to us again.”
Fang Erlan agreed with a nod, “Okay.”
Xihou Jiaping wiped the smile off his face and turned around to leave.
Fang Erlan closed the door with her trembling hands.
She felt extremely guilty for lying.
She immediately called An Xiaoning. “Hello, Sis.”
“What’s wrong?”
“You know Xiao Chenyang, don’t you?”
“Yes.” Sensing that there was something unusual about her tone, An Xiaoning asked, “Did something happen to him?”
“No, no, I just wanted to ask you if he’s on bad terms with his parents and brother?”
“His parents and brother?”
“Yeah, his biological parents and brother.”
“He doesn’t have any parents or a brother.”
Gripping her mobile phone tightly, Fang Erlan asked, “Are you serious? Sis, does he really not have any family members?”
“He really doesn’t.”
“Did he just hide them from you?”
An Xiaoning asked, “Erlan, why would you ask such a question?”
“I don’t know if I should be telling you this.”
“Don’t you trust me? Just tell me whatever’s on your mind. Stop hemming and hawing.”
“Well, a really handsome man came by just now, claiming to be Xiao Chenyang’s brother.”
The first person that came to An Xiaoning’s mind was Xihou Jiaping. She frantically asked, “What did he say to you?”
“He came to ask about Xiao Chenyang’s whereabouts, claiming that he and his parents could not contact Xiao Chenyang. He asked me if I knew where he had gone, but I said that I had no idea.”
“Apart from that, did he ask any other questions?”
“He did ask a few other questions, like whether or not I’m Xiao Chenyang’s girlfriend, where I had hired him, and some other stuff.”
“Erlan, are there surveillance cameras in the living room?”
“Yes.”
“Okay, send me the footages from the surveillance cameras. Wait for me at home, I’ll be there in a bit.”
“Alright, I’ll wait for you.”
An Xiaoning ended the call and hurriedly headed to the bathroom to freshen up before proceeding to the wine cellar, barefaced. She put on her mask while walking along the secret passageway and left Wei Ni Estate.
She then hailed a taxi to Qingyuan Estate.
When she arrived at the estate, she removed her human skin mask and put on a surgical mask before striding toward Block C.
“Sis, you’re here.”
“Yes, where are the footages?”
“Here. This is that man,” said Fang Erlan, handing the laptop to An Xiaoning.
An Xiaoning scanned the man’s face to confirm that her guess was correct. She immediately placed the laptop onto the table.
She looked at Fang Erlan and said, “Erlan, tell me everything that he said to you from the moment he entered the house. Don’t leave anything out, alright?”
Seeing how stern she was, Fang Erlan nodded earnestly and told her exactly what Xihou Jiaping had said.
After hearing her words, An Xiaoning looked at her in admiration and grabbed her hand. “Erlan, you did the right thing. Did you know? You managed to get yourself out of danger by answering him in the way that you did.”
Fang Erlan asked, “Sis, is he really Xiao Chenyang’s brother?”
“No. Not only is he not Xiao Chenyang’s brother, he also has a feud with him. Think about it, had you made any slip-ups or said anything wrong earlier, he’ll have discovered that you’re Xiao Chenyang’s Achilles’ heel. That would be extremely disadvantageous to you and Xiao Chenyang.”
“It may be disadvantageous to me, but not to him. I’m not that important to him.”
“That’s just what you think, actually…” An Xiaoning could not quite figure out how she should break it to her. She continued, “Actually, you don’t know Xiao Chenyang that well, Erlan. Although I don’t know him very well yet, I still know more about him than you do. Wealthy and powerful people like Xiao Chenyang wouldn’t be so passionate about a random woman for no reason all of a sudden. You may not think that you’re important to him, but you are his weakness and his kryptonite. You have the ability to make him surrender to his enemy when his enemy threatens him by putting your life on the line.”