Chapter 45: She Definitely Didn’t Borrow My Life

“This was my oversight.”

After learning the full details of what had happened, Yu Wangxiao’s voice deepened slightly.

In recent years, he had spent too little time living in the old residence. Unless it was New Year or a holiday, he usually would not return.

After Yu Chaoyuan was declared brain-dead, Yu Wangxiao’s way of handling him had been simple: throw the crippled Yu Chaoyuan back here and let him face his wife, with whom he could not communicate; his violent and extreme son; and the butlers, security guards, and caregivers who would no longer obey his orders.

Even the three meals a day provided by the chef were not things he had any say or choice in. Even Yu Lin and Du Ning lived more freely than him.

This was endless torment, day and night, a silent punishment for someone who had once held great power. As long as Yu Chaoyuan showed the slightest dissatisfaction, behaved abnormally, or tried to move elsewhere, it would be recorded and reported, and corresponding measures would be taken. It was like a gentle, disguised house arrest.

Yu Chaoyuan could only choose to endure it, because he had no money anymore, and Yu Wangxiao would not let him have any opportunity to continue earning money. Even while living in his own house, he could only quietly lower his head, get through the days one by one, and play Yu Lin’s silent father.

Yu Wangxiao in his early twenties would have stepped on his head and burned his butt with cigarette ends. But the current Yu Wangxiao believed maintaining stability was very important, because there were still tens of thousands of employees relying on Yu Corporation for food.

Ensuring that another scandal about family infighting or the CEO going to prison would not easily break out again—under this premise, this was the most worry-free revenge Yu Wangxiao could carry out.

It was only that he no longer liked returning to the old residence to live. Or rather, he had never liked his childhood shrouded in gloom.

“So this was my oversight. I should have come back more often,” Yu Wangxiao emphasized again.

“You can’t say it like that. This floorboard compartment is older than you. Even Old Master Yu and Yu Chaoyuan back then didn’t discover it, so how would you know?” Lin Jiangye hugged him. “The people in charge of construction have probably long since retired. As long as Du Ning kept deliberately hiding it, no one would discover she had done these inexplicable things.”

The air in the compartment was extremely poor, and it was very easy for situations like Lin Jingyao’s oxygen deprivation to occur. So they did not stay long and went straight to the study on the third floor.

Yu Wangxiao personally collected the yellow papers and called people over to photograph and preserve every scene inside the floorboard compartment, not missing a single detail.

The caregiver was controlled by the security staff who rushed over. After a simple check, they discovered that her injuries were actually more serious than Lin Jingyao’s. Her hands, legs, and clavicle had fractures of varying degrees. She could not even stand, her breath as thin as a thread, but she still kept chanting that the Bodhisattva Holding a Child would bless her, and that Madam would protect her safety… Her mental state was extremely worrying.

The impact from Lin Jiangye’s kick against the door had been very strong. He had deliberately held back, but it still seemed to be at an intensity ordinary humans could not bear.

Originally, Lin Jingyao very much wanted to stay, but he did not dare disobey Yu Wangxiao. He could only obediently be bundled together with the caregiver and sent to Renshen Hospital to treat the ribs broken by CPR.

It was thanks to Director Li being one of their own that he could silently accept this ambulance full of chaos and handle the aftermath cleanly.

Of course, in what had once been the calmest third-floor study, the composition of people was also unprecedentedly chaotic.

Du Ning’s hands were tied, and she sat on the wooden floor near the study door. Yu Lin, with a complicated expression, sat on the sofa farthest from her, diagonally opposite.

Lin Jiangye pulled out the comfortable large chair from behind the desk and placed it in the center of the room, letting Yu Wangxiao sit between them and temporarily separate the two.

As for himself, he simply sat directly on Yu Wangxiao’s lap. The custom office chair was very soft and spacious. Lin Jiangye placed his legs over the armrests, leaned his back against Yu Wangxiao’s arm, and there was more than enough space.

Although Lin Jiangye was not good at verbal comfort, this natural and unselfconscious action instantly soothed Yu Wangxiao’s mood very well. Add in an arm around his neck and a hug with a little strength, and the effect was immediate.

As for Yu Lin’s mood being forced to witness this scene, that was completely outside Lin Jiangye’s scope of consideration.

“That’s how things are. You really did have an older brother.” Lin Jiangye looked at the old medical records Director Li had just sent and said to Yu Lin, “In order to revive him, Du Ning treated every capable man in the Yu family as a life-borrowing tool, including you.”

“Mm.” Yu Lin leaned against the sofa, head tilted back, not looking at her. His gaze froze on the ceiling as he answered lowly.

His private talk with Yu Wangxiao seemed to have been rather effective. After some misunderstandings were resolved, his whole person was clearly much quieter. He no longer had that violent feeling of blaming heaven and earth while never blaming himself.

Perhaps he had been deeply shaken after learning the truth, or perhaps he had faced memories he had not wanted to recall. In any case, Yu Lin being able to sit down calmly and communicate normally at this moment was already considerable progress.

Lin Jiangye held Yu Wangxiao’s phone, adjusted himself into a comfortable position, and continued nestling in his arms while scrolling through photos of the medical records. “The child was born thirty years ago. They conceived him while they were in university. They raised him until he was around two years old, then he suddenly died of a high fever in North City. Hey, Yu Wangxiao, you were only born half a year after he died. No wonder this matter could be hidden so tightly.”

“But my mom wasn’t crazy at that time. Before I was ten, she behaved normally,” Yu Lin suddenly interrupted in a low voice. “She used to be very normal. She just didn’t like my dad… Thinking about it now, maybe she didn’t like me much either.”

In other words, Du Ning had merely performed the role of a gentle mother, maintaining the harmonious and stable appearance of the family. In reality, her physical and emotional attention toward Yu Lin had been extremely lacking.

She was looking at Yu Ling through Yu Lin, so naturally, she would never see what Yu Lin was experiencing.

“Twenty or thirty years ago, Du Ning definitely had not yet developed a serious mental illness. Her mentality had gone badly wrong. And your father… you understand. It was also impossible for him to pay attention to his wife’s psychological state.”

With a completely unqualified pedophile father, plus Du Ning’s special circumstances, one could imagine where Yu Lin’s extremely abnormal view of love had come from.

Lin Jiangye felt somewhat emotional and continued, “But I can confirm that before Du Ning was diagnosed with mental illness, she had already held many birth-character life-borrowing rituals. I’m afraid that every year, she would secretly go into the compartment to make offerings and perform rituals, adding new birth characters. Even if it didn’t work, she still persisted like that for ten or twenty years…”

“Until the year the meteors descended, when she truly went mad.” Yu Wangxiao lowered his eyes and picked up the thread, then looked at Lin Jiangye with a slightly more serious expression. “The possibility that the ritual took effect isn’t zero, but she definitely didn’t borrow my life.”

The deep implication of this sentence made Lin Jiangye feel wonderfully satisfied inside.

Of course Du Ning could not borrow it, because Yu Wangxiao’s life was in his hands.

The soul he enjoyed belonged only to him. Anything he could consume would become part of his life essence. Even if Lin Jiangye had once blown himself into fragments, he still held all ownership.

This was authority, and also fact. The powerful connection between them would gradually strengthen as Lin Jiangye’s power recovered. When that cypress branch bloomed and bore fruit, he might even be able to sense it at any moment.

If someone tried to curse Yu Wangxiao, with Lin Jiangye’s current good condition, that curse definitely would not be able to land directly on Yu Wangxiao. Perhaps instead, it would make Lin Jiangye suddenly sneeze and feel inexplicably confused.

Especially reassuring. Especially good.

At this moment, Yu Lin shook his head, seeming somewhat bitter as he laughed lightly and said faintly, “Who can’t see that your life is the hardest? No one has a better life than you. Only I’m unlucky. Oh right, that illegitimate brat Gu Jiu’an is unlucky too. His whole family died nice and neatly.”

What a mood ruiner.

Lin Jiangye frowned and looked at him. “Can you watch your language? If you can’t, I’ll hit you.”

“Okay, okay.” Yu Lin very smoothly raised both hands in surrender, his mood as though suddenly improved a little. “Ancestor, I was wrong. Don’t be angry. I promise to speak politely from now on.”

“Don’t call me that either. We’re not close.”

Yu Lin curved his lips. “Okay. I’ll listen to you. But I still have some questions. Lin Jiangye, are you really a deity? This life-borrowing ritual you mentioned—does it really work? You’re not joking?”

“Guess why the caregiver ended up with comminuted fractures all over her body. Do you want your bones broken again too?”

“…Okay, okay. You say what you want.”

Lin Jiangye was too lazy to explain much. He turned to continue discussing serious matters with Yu Wangxiao. “I personally checked Du Ning’s skull. Right now, I can basically confirm that Yu Lin’s older brother has resurrected inside Du Ning’s body. This is very strange, because logically speaking, if two souls in one body appeared in an ordinary person, death would be certain. Even if they didn’t die, one of them would quickly devour the other. There are no other possibilities.”

“So she used other methods, or received help from someone else.” Yu Wangxiao met his eyes, their thoughts clear without words.

One suspect had already died, but one remained. Moreover, his relationship with the Yu family, at least on the surface, was quite close.

Yu Wangxiao spoke again. “Yu Lin, why did Lin Jingyao come looking for you today?”

“He wanted to learn about Jiangye. Recently, he’s been pestering me with questions and insisting I say more. That was also why he wanted to go to the island with me.” Yu Lin lightly shrugged and explained casually. “Who knows if he was really jealous, or if he had other thoughts… As for today, he knew there were gifts at home that I hadn’t managed to send out before. Watches, pendants, things like that, and a few clothes and sunglasses too, so he wanted to come get them.”

“Gifts for whom?” Yu Wangxiao suddenly caught the detail sharply and asked more.

Yu Lin narrowed his eyes, his gaze falling back on Lin Jiangye. He answered frankly, “For Jiangye, of course. When I bought them, I had planned to take him out to sea for fun. Later, we broke up, and I never sent them.”

Lin Jiangye froze. That familiar chill ran up his spine again, and he tentatively said weakly, “It shouldn’t be like that, right? Lin Jingyao can buy whatever he wants. Why would he want gifts meant for me? Just those things…”

“That’s something we have to ask you, Jiangye.”

The two men stared at him at the same time, even narrowing their eyes in exactly the same way. They were worthy of being blood-related Yu family members. Even Du Ning, who was sitting by the door, blankly tilted her head along with them, her gaze shifting to his face.

Lin Jiangye inexplicably felt a burst of guilt. He opened his mouth and tried to explain, but truly did not know what he should explain.

Because he had actually only met Lin Jingyao twice! Once at the Lin family, and the other time today. Aside from knowing that this fake young master had somewhat eerie love-brain tendencies, Lin Jiangye knew absolutely nothing about him and had no interaction with him.

“To be honest, I’m very sensitive to men’s little thoughts. Whether Jingyao likes me or not, I know perfectly clearly.”

Yu Lin folded his arms and broke the silence. His tone was still loose and unruly, but it revealed some complicated emotions that could not be hidden. “Right now, he doesn’t like me, but he treats me the same as always because he needs to use me to get what he wants… Jingyao is best at doing that. I don’t mind other things. But he just had to want to become my love rival. Ha. How ironic.”

“So that’s how it is.” Yu Wangxiao slowly curved his lips and unhurriedly tightened his arm around Lin Jiangye’s waist, speaking softly beside his ear. “So there are actually so many people who like Tuantuan.”

Lin Jiangye was currently in a dazed state. His whole body was directly held in Yu Wangxiao’s arms, his back pressed against Yu Wangxiao’s lightly rising and falling chest. Suddenly, a bit of damp, hot itchiness spread over the side of his neck.

Yu Wangxiao had just kissed his neck. No one had seen it, like a dragonfly skimming water.

That subtle, electric sensation flowed along his spine, impossible to ignore. The feeling of guilt receded like a tide.

Lin Jiangye instinctively took a deep breath, then immediately controlled his expression. Afterward, he could not help turning his head and taking the initiative to move closer, pressing cheek to cheek as he whispered on the spot.

A whisper with an extremely serious and proper attitude, which even grew louder the more he spoke.

“Yu Wangxiao, you kissed me until I felt good.”

Yu Wangxiao: “…”

“How about another kiss? You’re actually pretty sexy when you’re angry. And you really smell too fragrant. I’m kind of…”

“Don’t say it.” Yu Wangxiao expressionlessly gripped the back of his neck and slammed on the brakes.

“Humans are so amazing, to have invented such a great behavior as kissing. You already kissed me, so why can’t I say it? I really am kind of…”

“Don’t say it.”

“But I…”

“Don’t say it.”

With his back against Yu Wangxiao’s inexplicably tense chest muscles, Lin Jiangye discovered an odd restless heat surging in his heart. He was also very thirsty.

But only after being immersed in muttering and pestering Yu Wangxiao back and forth for a long while did Lin Jiangye suddenly realize that there were more than just the two of them in this study right now.

Yu Lin had already worked very hard to suppress his anger, because he had no standing to be angry. Even if he shamelessly wanted to be a third party, he had not succeeded.

His expression gradually darkened, and his gloomy gaze was almost tangible as he stared straight at the two of them, saying faintly, “Can you wait until I die before doing this in this place? I wrote homework in this study for five years when I was little. Would it be useful if I knelt down and begged you right now?”