983 Perplexed and Smitten 43

Seeing that she had already found out, Long Tianze decided not to hide any further and said, "It's the reward I've given him."

"What reward?"

"A reward for coming up with a solution for me," said Long Tianze, pouring some shower gel onto the loofah and scrubbing himself with it.

Mei Yangyang immediately figured out what happened. "So what Shixin said about you hanging yourself is false?"

Long Tianze paused in his actions and pointed at himself. "Suicide? Who? Me? Is this a joke? Why would I take my own life?"

"Okay."

"God damn it, Jin Qingyan! Well, it's all your fault for throwing a tantrum. Otherwise, he wouldn't have stood to gain from this. I gave him 300 thousand dollars," said Long Tianze.

"You money-squandering rascal! Forget it, let's just take it that we gave it to Sis," Mei Yangyang chastised, feeling the pinch.

"What is 300 thousand dollars to us? Do you know how much cheaper Qingyan sold this mansion to us for compared to the market price? It's peanuts," said Long Tianze.

"Fortunately, you gave it to Mr. Jin. I'll break your legs if it were someone else instead."

"Are you a fool? You believe him just because he said that I had attempted suicide? Are you going to believe him too if he said that I was eating poop?"

"His description was too vivid and real. I would've rushed there with my camera if he said that you were eating poop."

He pushed all the foam on his body downward and gathered them at his crotch. Seeing his antics, Mei Yangyang turned around to leave and hissed, "How childish."

—

The sky had already turned bright by five o'clock in the morning.

An Xiaoning got out of bed to get dressed. She and Fan Shixin brought a set of clothes each as well as some necessary items before boarding the ship and embarking on their journey.

Although the ship was traveling at a much faster speed this time compared to the previous time they went to V Nation, it was still exceptionally slow compared to an airplane.

However, the only way to get to V Nation was by sea or by multiple transit flights. There was no direct flight to that place at all.

Hence, they decided to save the hassle and just board a ship there.

An Xiaoning leaned against the window and read some books to kill time while Fan Shixin sat opposite her, a table in between them.

"Young Madam."

"Yes?"

"Young Sir has already got them to keep tabs on He Yi. We'll receive an update if he sets off."

"He's there for the treasure map. His purpose is different from ours. I don't think he'll actually marry Wen Lele. He's no fool; marrying her means that he would have to split his assets into half and share it with her. I reckon he only proposed to her to coax her into following him on his journey to V Nation," An Xiaoning conjectured.

"And then promise to marry her once they return back from V Nation?" he completed her sentence.

"That could be the case. After all, we're not him and we can't guess what he's thinking, exactly." An Xiaoning rested her chin in her hand and kept her eyes fixed on her book. After reading a few pages, she picked the book up all of a sudden and flung it out of the window and into the sea.

Extremely puzzled, Fan Shixin asked, "Young Madam, why did you throw the book out?"

An Xiaoning picked up her teacup and took a few sips of green tea before saying, "The synopsis and summary of the book seemed pretty interesting. However, after reading the content, I realized how immoral the author is. Do you know what was written in that romance novel?"

"I don't know."

"It depicts a romantic relationship between a man and his niece. They're not biologically related, though. It's just a false case of incest. It's always the case in cliche romance novels. If not that, it would be a romance between a father and his daughter. Although it's clarified later in the story that they're not biologically related, the bulk of the readers of these novels are all youths and adolescents. This is only going to instill the wrong values within them and mislead them into thinking that it's alright to have such incestuous relationships."

"I heard that it's a trend for the male protagonist to rape the female protagonist in novels nowadays. The female protagonist even tends to fall in love with the rapist."

"That wouldn't be the case if the rapist is a hideous middle-aged man." An Xiaoning chuckled and continued, "Its okay for novel authors to come up with absurd and far-fetched storylines, but forgoing morals is unacceptable. Novels are inspired by real life stories, and in fact, everyone's life is just like a novel. Everything will end when the ending comes."

....

After sailing across the sea for half a day, they received an update from A City, saying that He Yi and Wen Lele had gone to the airport with another unknown person and that they're about to board a flight to G Nation.

G Nation and V Nation were neighboring countries. Thus, it would seem that they were planning to take a connecting flight from there.

An Xiaoning instructed the bodyguards to think of a solution to delay their flight and stop them from proceeding to their journey.

In that case, An Xiaoning would arrive before them even though they were going by air.

An Xiaoning was afraid that it would be the same ancient graveyard they were both headed to.

Even if it wasn't the same one, it would still be better to stop them, lest she bumped into them in V Nation. It was always good to minimize the possible troubles.

An Xiaoning took a nap in the afternoon, which caused her to feel extremely awake at night. Fan Shixin had always had a routined life and would go to bed on time. Hence, he was not too exhausted at night since he had gotten some quality sleep the night before.

As they gradually approached V City, they felt the temperatures start to rise.

They lay on the chair while the breeze caressed their faces, allowing them to feel much cooler.

"It looks like it's about to rain."

"Yeah, a thunderstorm is predicted to happen at about nine o'clock later," said Fan Shixin, who just checked the weather forecast.

"Tell the captain of the ship to stop at the next nearest harbor. We'll decide whether or not to continue based on the weather later."

"Alright." Fan Shixin stood up and immediately proceeded to relay the instructions.

An Xiaoning placed her arms behind her head and stared at the pitch-dark sky above, the salty odor of the seawater reaching her nose. The sounds of the warm breeze rang in her ears, and she felt very much at peace.

However, her happiness was always short-lived. A short while later, it began drizzling again.

An Xiaoning folded the two chairs and returned inside the cabin.

As soon as she sat in front of the window, it began raining cats and dogs.

The ship was initially nearing the harbor but came to a halt due to the unfavorable weather conditions.

It would definitely cause a delay in their journey, especially since the rain did not seem to be stopping anytime soon.

"Shixin, do you have any coins in your pocket?"

"I do have a few," said Fan Shixin, who reached into his pocket to retrieve four coins.

An Xiaoning grabbed three of them and tossed them onto the table for six times in a row.

Fan Shixin initially thought that she was just doing it for fun. Seeing the grave expression on her face, he asked, "Young Madam, why are you upset?"

"I tossed up a divination for our trip. It's not going to be smooth-sailing. Let's disembark from the ship here and tell the captain to return once the rain gets lighter. We'll take another route," said An Xiaoning, handing him the three coins.

"Do we take the plane instead?"

"No, we'll take someone else's ship. Let's grab our belongings and put on our raincoats before disembarking," said An Xiaoning, who stood up.

"Okay." Despite being a decisive person, Fan Shixin obeyed her instructions entirely.

Strangely, the rain began to dissipate once they got off the ship after giving the captain some instructions.