Bai Liu’s hand hadn’t even touched Han Sha’s face before I grabbed it.
It wasn’t that I’d figured out the situation—it was just that last time I got into the police station for fighting, Bai Liu bailed me out. This time if she went in instead, I couldn’t guarantee I’d be able to get her out too.
Facing Bai Liu’s fierce glare, I said helplessly: “Big sister, hitting people means detention, and besides, this is my employee. If anyone’s going to hit him, it should be me… My strength was trained from kneading dumpling wrappers.”
Han Laosan.
I heard those three words clearly. Even thinking with my pinky toe, I knew it was a nickname, and my heart immediately went half cold.
After all, following prime-time TV drama conventions, when a domineering CEO like my sister suddenly strikes someone, the person is at minimum her scumbag ex-boyfriend, or at worst, my dad’s illegitimate son living outside. In short, within just a few seconds, a series of deadly speculations rolled through my mind—none of them good.
Shit, was I going to have to call Han Sha big brother… If my dad could produce a forty-year-old son, would he even still be human?
Fortunately, just as I was starting to consider whether Han Sha and I looked alike, my sister calmed down and sneered: “The blood on you isn’t your own, is it? A man like you isn’t the type to let yourself bleed this much… No need for hospital checks to put my brother at ease then.”
Han Sha didn’t speak, just resumed his usual calm, expressionless demeanor: “If Miss Bai doesn’t mind, you can speak to me like this.”
“Get inside and talk to me, or the next person you’ll see is my lawyer.”
Bai Liu pulled her hand away from mine and looked at me: “You come in too. I’ll give you a chance later—you can decide whether you want to beat him up.”
We returned to Huangliang Yimeng. Song Nanshi, who was cleaning up the mess, was stunned to see Bai Liu, then nervously brought her a chair directly, with the demeanor of serving an honored guest: “You, you, you… please sit!”
Bai Liu was amused and laughed, sitting down while giving me a meaningful look: “Never thought there’d be a day I’d benefit from a pretty girl because of you, kid.”
I rolled my eyes: “Just get to the point. I don’t even have a business to run now—I’m really in a terrible mood.”
“I saw. The daytime haunting at your place is spreading everywhere now. I’m already looking for media friends to help, but it’ll probably be hard to suppress.”
Bai Liu crossed her arms and looked coldly at Han Sha: “Han Laosan, you achieved your goal, didn’t you? From the moment you applied for the job, weren’t you trying to sabotage my brother’s business?”
My heart dropped—this accusation was much more serious than me having to call Han Sha big brother: “Sister, make this clear so I can beat him up properly later.”
Bai Liu curved her lips in a smile that didn’t reach her eyes: “This isn’t your first time being deceived, kid, so this time I did some basic background checks on your employees. Yang Zi, do you know that this Taoist priest in your shop has quite a background? ‘Han Laosan’ is a respectful title given by people he’s scammed. Ten years ago he actually did business with our Bai family—though not with me directly, and it wasn’t good business either.”
“…”
The more I listened, the colder my heart became.
Having been scammed so many times, though I was basically blind when it came to scams, my biggest improvement was that when I stood at the bottom of a pit looking up at the sky, I had accurate intuition about how I fell in.
With just Bai Liu’s opening, I could guess what came next, because…
Han Sha had indeed revealed details about my family before, including many things I’d never leaked a word about to anyone.
Why did he know Mom was no longer here?
Why did he know I had a bad relationship with my dad?
Why did he know about the sins my dad had committed before?
If it wasn’t that my bones could talk, then wasn’t there a simpler possibility—
He knew my dad.
Han Sha not only knew my dad, he came specifically for me.
Gradually, this sentence was mixed in my brain like cake batter, then reorganized into another sentence—
Bai Yang, are you an idiot?
Only an idiot would be fooled by such elementary scams.
The air in No. 29 tensed and solidified at this moment. Looking at the expressionless Han Sha, thinking about how I’d recently made cake for his daughter, I felt my ears buzzing: “Sister… I think my luck might not be suitable for business. Wouldn’t it be better to just stay home and be a good rich second generation?”
Bai Liu frowned at me: “Don’t think about coming back to compete with me for business.”
I didn’t want to speak anymore. I closed my eyes and rubbed my temples. After a while, I felt something placed in my hand. Opening my eyes, I found Song Nanshi had thoughtfully handed me two pieces of chocolate, saying timidly: “Boss, from a customer’s table—the packaging isn’t even opened.”
“…Thanks.”
I stuck the peachwood sword in my mouth, thinking that what really needed exorcism now was my brain. If not for my damn brain being sick, how could I reach the point of trusting anyone?
If Han Sha came specifically to sabotage my business, then No. 29 being haunted for so many days wasn’t strange.
After all, once you scare away the boss, how can the business continue?
Thinking of this, I viciously bit through the peachwood sword. Looking again, Song Nanshi still had confusion written all over her face.
At this point, probably only this girl didn’t know what my family did. I said helplessly: “Don’t worry, Xiao Song. Even if this shop closes, I’ll still pay your first month’s salary. If you can’t find work afterward, I’ll try to introduce you to something… Though not completely matching, our family has many connections with the restaurant industry.”
“Come find me directly.”
Bai Liu interjected perfectly: “Though this kid’s shop will definitely still open, if you don’t want to work with him anymore, come be my assistant directly… You’ve probably heard of Bai Family Hot Sauce—this executive president still needs a pretty secretary.”
“Bai Family Hot Sauce?” Song Nanshi’s eyes widened. “Not that…”
She instinctively looked toward the kitchen. Obviously, in most people’s minds, there wouldn’t be a second Bai Family Hot Sauce.
And there couldn’t be a more awkward way to reveal being a rich second generation.
“Yes, that one.”
I said dejectedly what I least liked people knowing in my life: “My family makes hot sauce—that competitor that rivals Lao Gan Ma, the one you eat with rice every day… Speaking of which, I can’t believe it myself—one bite of my own family’s hot sauce sends me to the hospital.”
“Don’t talk like there’s a quality problem with the hot sauce. That’s Mom’s recipe… You know better than anyone what that represents.”
Bai Liu interrupted me rudely, then said to Han Sha: “Indeed, when my father started the hot sauce business, his methods weren’t very honorable, but that’s not a reason for you to trouble my brother. After all, my brother isn’t doing Bai family business now—I’m the one doing business. You should have come to me.”
Bai Liu’s voice became increasingly unfriendly. In my impression, when she spoke in this tone, the subtext was “you’re already dead.”
Having opened eight shops and still needing my older sister to back me up like this—my eyes began tearing up uncontrollably again: “Sister, what exactly happened back then? In novels, people who hide their identities to seek revenge on descendants always have blood feuds.”
From what I knew of my dad, in terms of character, he really wasn’t much good.
He stole Mom’s recipe and didn’t come home, and when she got cancer he was busy drinking and talking business with others outside. On Mom’s last birthday, there wasn’t even a cake… Since childhood, Bai Liu and I agreed we’d never forgive him.
But even so, I didn’t think my dad was the type to have the guts to commit crimes.
I took a deep breath: “If he’s done anything illegal, I should have brought justice by eliminating my own kin long ago. How could I let someone seek revenge on me?”
“Calm down first, Yang Zi. Things haven’t reached an irreversible point.”
Probably hearing that I was on the edge of collapse, Bai Liu sighed and looked at Han Sha: “Since it’s all been investigated anyway, I’ll give you a chance. How about telling him yourself? Confession might not guarantee leniency, but resistance… I’ll make you die very ugly.”
For a moment, the room fell silent. I anxiously chewed on the peachwood sword, considering whether I should punch him or directly headbutt him after hearing everything. Before I could even decide, a familiar laughter rang out without warning.
It was that woman laughing again.
I sucked in a cold breath, but saw Han Sha pull out a thin recording pen from his pocket. With a light press, the pen began laughing shrilly like a woman again.
“You…”
Though I’d expected it, actually seeing the triumphant smile on Han Sha’s face, I still felt hot blood rushing to my brain: “You fucking… did all this just to scare away my customers?”
Han Sha exhaled deeply, then pulled out a deflated bag from his body. Though it had a large hole, you could still see its inner wall was stained blood red.
Han Sha blew into it, and the bag floated lightly to the ground as he began laughing lowly.
“Boss, you were really too easy to fool… I never imagined Bai Yiming’s son would be this stupid. No wonder you failed at investments so many times before. You’re really nothing like your dad at taking advantage of people—he didn’t do business like you before.”
Han Sha’s laugh was cold. Combined with all the blood, I estimated that if there were young customers in the shop now, they’d think he had “fallen into the demonic path.”
“Calm down,” Bai Liu reminded me softly at this moment. “You wanted to hear the truth yourself—even if you explode on the spot, you need to hear it all.”
I thought to myself, you domineering CEO who came up ready to slap someone still have the nerve to tell me this. Suppressing my anger, I said: “Continue. What else did you do?”
“What else I did—if you still can’t figure it out now, you’re just stupid.”
Han Sha smiled as he pulled out another cigarette and lit it.
“You can only blame this shop for really having a bad foundation. Boss, what I told you was true—this place isn’t suitable for business.”
I said viciously: “When did you start lying to me? The first time we met?”
Han Sha lazily exhaled smoke: “Yeah, this bleeding trick isn’t my first time using it either. Do you remember the nosebleed I had on the first day? That wasn’t my blood either. When I yanked the door handle in front of you, I was really worried you’d be as sharp as your dad, but in this regard you’re really nothing like someone with the surname Bai.”
Since we were settling all accounts, I could only force myself to recall from our first meeting.
He used my family affairs to make me trust him, then the house was continuously haunted—Song Nanshi saw eyes, Xiao He was possessed, hair in the bathroom, and the ghost shadows I saw…
Could all of these… could they all have been Han Sha’s doing?
The more I thought about it, the more my scalp tingled as I glared at Han Sha: “You didn’t drug us, did you?”
“Drug you?” Han Sha was stunned, then burst out laughing.
“You think I alone couldn’t pull off all these strange events, right? After all, without someone to play both parts, this show would be hard to continue.”
Han Sha narrowed his eyes, but his gaze slowly turned to Song Nanshi beside me.
He hadn’t spoken yet, but my heart was already half cold.
Right—at least today’s performance needed two people to pull off.
I looked at Song Nanshi in shock. Bai Liu immediately realized what Han Sha was implying and frowned, grabbing me: “Yang Zi, don’t fall for his trick. I investigated everyone in your shop—the others have no problems.”
However, Song Nanshi in front of me was already somewhat panicked, avoiding my gaze…
Indeed, who could a person who can’t lie ultimately deceive?
The clown was me all along.
“The injury on your arm… is it real?”
I heard myself speaking in a completely emotionless voice.