Chapter 239 – Report to the CEO: Madam Has Run Away Again – Goodbye, Ling Xue (02)
On the other side, Gu Yan hung up the phone and resumed the meeting, but for some reason, the words “I am” from the other end of the call kept echoing in his mind.
Irritated, he loosened his tie slightly. No one in the meeting room dared to make a sound. This project was indeed difficult, and the CEO seemed rather agitated. They feared he might take it out on them.
The team members presented their proposal nervously, but Gu Yan didn’t register a single word.
The more he thought about it, the more annoyed he became. With a wave of his hand, he interrupted, “That’s enough for today. Revise it and bring it back again. Meeting dismissed.”
Gu Yan stood up and left the conference room, leaving a group of confused and nervous people behind.
…
Inside the villa.
Watching the young man cry, Assistant Jin felt helpless. But this was the task the boss had assigned him. If he didn’t complete it, he’d lose his job. He still had a mortgage and a car loan to repay. The salary at Gu Corporation was very generous, and he didn’t want to lose it.
After hesitating for a long time, he still handed the agreement to Bai Tang.
“Sign it.”
Tears fell onto the document, soaking and blurring the words.
When Bai Tang saw the final line—[Sever all ties, no further contact. Any entanglement will result in legal consequences.]—his emotions completely collapsed.
His silent tears turned into sobbing cries, making Assistant Jin’s heart ache just watching him.
Xiao A had never seen Bai Tang like this. At a loss, he tried imitating Qiu’er to comfort him.
“Host, don’t cry. If you’re sad, I’ll teach the male lead a lesson.”
Although he didn’t have Qiu’er’s little straw doll for curses, he did have misfortune charms. While he couldn’t stick them directly on the male lead—because the male lead’s luck was too strong—he could use them on people close to him. That way, those around him would suffer, and the male lead wouldn’t have an easy time either.
Assistant Jin’s phone rang. The caller ID showed it was the CEO.
He felt annoyed—rush, rush, rush. Can’t even give the guy time to pack?
That’s what he thought, but he still had to answer the boss’s call.
He pressed the answer button, and a low male voice came through, “Assistant Jin, is everything taken care of?”
Assistant Jin glanced at Bai Tang, who was signing the document. His tone turned cold.
“President, it’s been taken care of. Mr. Bai is moving out immediately.”
With that, he hung up the phone without waiting for Gu Yan to respond.
Staring at the now black screen of his phone, Gu Yan grew even more irritable.
There had been crying earlier—who was crying?
The faint sobbing that had come through the phone lingered in his ears, as if someone had hammered his chest, sending waves of pain through him.
Gu Yan grabbed his jacket and strode out of the office.
“President, this afternoon you have—”
The secretary had just started speaking when she saw Gu Yan emerge from his office—but before she could finish her sentence, he was already gone.
Gu Yan slammed the accelerator, and the car sped down the road like a bullet.
Bai Tang finished signing the documents and handed them back to Assistant Jin.
Assistant Jin accepted them—the papers were already more than half-soaked with tears.
“Y-You should pack your things. I’ll call a car for you,” Assistant Jin said.
He couldn’t leave yet; the potential buyers were coming soon to view the property. The villa was halfway up the mountain—if someone walked down, it’d be dark by the time they reached the bottom.
With Xiao A’s comfort, Bai Tang barely managed to stop crying. He bowed to Assistant Jin.
“Thank you. Sorry for the trouble.”
He took nothing with him—not even the check Gu Yan had given as compensation. Looking utterly lost, Bai Tang was helped into a car by Assistant Jin.
At the junction between the bustling city and the suburban outskirts, he passed right by Gu Yan’s car—without either of them noticing.
There wasn’t much traffic outside the city. Gu Yan floored the gas pedal, speeding all the way up the mountain.
He stopped outside the villa and saw that the company car assigned to Assistant Jin was still parked there. That eased his anxiety—just a little.
Inside the villa, Assistant Jin was doubling as a real estate agent, showing the place to potential buyers.
“President? What are you doing here?” Assistant Jin asked in surprise.
Gu Yan saw that the visitors were a foreign couple. His heart sank.
“Where is he?”
Assistant Jin was stunned for a few seconds before realizing who Gu Yan was asking about.
Was he really that eager to kick Bai Tang out? Did he think Bai Tang might not leave, so he came all the way here to chase him out personally?
Assistant Jin silently complained in his heart.
“Mr. Bai has already left,” he said, handing Gu Yan the signed documents.
Gu Yan ran his fingers over the slightly wrinkled paper, damp with tears.
A sharp pain pierced his chest—he could feel it clearly.
He had just lost the most precious thing in his life.
“We like this house very much,” the foreign couple said in awkward Mandarin.
Gu Yan’s eyes reddened, and he suddenly looked like a wild beast on the verge of breaking down.
“Not for sale.”
Holding back his emotions, he turned and drove back down the mountain.
He couldn’t have gone far. He could still find him—he had to.
What Gu Yan didn’t know was that his ever-thorough assistant, wanting to spare him future worries—and to spare Bai Tang the hardship of walking down the mountain—had already called a car for him.
And on the very road Gu Yan had taken, they had unknowingly passed each other.
Gu Yan drove up and down the winding roads between the mountaintop and the foot of the hill, circling again and again—but there wasn’t a single person in sight.
He brought the car to a stop and looked at the mountain road beside him, which had no guardrails.
Could he have… fallen off?
He shook his head. No, impossible. Jin Assistant arranged the ride—it would be better to ask him directly.
Gu Yan called Assistant Jin again. When Jin saw the CEO’s number pop up, he felt a wave of irritation, but still answered the call with professional courtesy.
“Where did he go?” Gu Yan asked.
“I called a car to take Mr. Bai to the city center. As for where he went afterward, I had no authority to ask,” Assistant Jin replied.
Bai Tang was a free man—it wasn’t anyone else’s business where he chose to go.
Irrelevant outsider Gu Yan gripped his phone tightly.
“Find out for me. I want to know where he went.”
Assistant Jin rolled his eyes as he held the phone.
You’re the one who kicked him out, and now you want to track him down?
Tsk. Rich people… I’ll never understand them.
Meanwhile, the car Assistant Jin had called for Bai Tang was just an ordinary taxi.
The taxi driver, seeing that Bai Tang was alone and had come from a wealthy neighborhood, immediately developed some unsavory thoughts.
Noticing that Bai Tang kept his head down and wasn’t paying attention to the road, the driver veered off course, heading to a more remote area instead of the city center.
He stopped the car and ordered Bai Tang to get out.
“Hand over everything valuable you’ve got!”
The attempted robbery jolted Bai Tang out of his grief.
“I don’t have any money,” he said.
In truth, Bai Tang was quite wealthy. After passing through several worlds, the storage pouch he carried had accumulated treasures to the point where “rich enough to rival a nation” wouldn’t be an exaggeration.
But he had no intention of using any of it now.
The driver clearly didn’t believe him. From head to toe, the youth was dressed in designer brands. Plus, he’d come from that luxury villa halfway up the mountain—how could he possibly have no money?
“Not going to hand it over? If I find something on you myself, you’ll regret it.”
The driver, relying on his large build, immediately grabbed Bai Tang—who had tried to run—and began searching him, trying to find something of value.
They were in the middle of nowhere, far from the city and any crowds. Even if Bai Tang screamed at the top of his lungs, no one would hear.
That was one of the reasons the driver had dared to pull off this robbery in the first place.
Bai Tang’s body was weak; physically, he stood no chance against the much larger man.
Soon, the driver had rummaged through all of Bai Tang’s pockets—just as Bai Tang had said, there wasn’t a single cent on him.
The driver was furious. He had taken such a big risk to rob someone, and ended up with nothing to show for it—not even a hair. Enraged, he raised his hand to hit Bai Tang.
Bai Tang was shoved to the gravel road and finally lost his temper. A few vines quietly emerged from beneath the stones and wrapped around the driver’s ankles—then yanked hard.
The driver fell flat on his face, eating dirt. His open mouth slammed into a sharp rock, knocking out one of his front teeth.
He stared at the bloody tooth in his hand, clutching his now wind-whistling mouth. Humiliated and furious, he lunged toward Bai Tang to hit him.
Sha Yao had passed her interview at Gu Corporation that day, and she was set to start work tomorrow. She was in a great mood.
Her first assignment was a project involving suburban land in Jinshui District. Wanting to do a thorough job, she came ahead of time to scout the area—only to stumble upon a robbery. The frail young man clearly stood no chance against the older man.
A righteous heroine always stands up for justice when she sees it.
Sha Yao was no exception—but she didn’t charge in recklessly. That would just get herself hurt and fail to help anyone.
Hiding behind some nearby trees, she watched as the middle-aged man raised his fist to strike the young man again. She quickly pulled out her phone and searched for a police siren sound effect.
The driver heard the rising wail of sirens and panicked.
He didn’t dare stay. If he got caught by the police, he was finished.
He bolted back into his car and sped away down another road.
Xiao A took the opportunity to slap a misfortune charm onto the driver’s back—then added two more. And they weren’t just ordinary ones—they were super-charged.
A regular misfortune charm would bring bad luck for a year; these three would bring thirty years of misfortune. From now on, that driver could forget about living a good life.
Even if he wanted to die, bad luck would keep him from succeeding.
It would be a life of suffering.
Once Sha Yao was sure the driver had left for good, she stepped out from behind the trees and helped Bai Tang up.
“Are you okay?”
As the female lead, Sha Yao naturally had striking looks.
Bai Tang froze when he saw her face. Then, with a trembling voice, he said, “…Ling Xue?”
Sha Yao was startled.
“You… know me?”
Her name had been Ling Xue in the past, but after her mother remarried, a fortune teller said the name “Ling Xue” clashed with her new stepfather’s fate. That was why her name had been changed.
Ling Xue was the female lead Bai Tang met in his very first world—the one who often stood up to the male lead on his behalf. Now, after being wronged by the male lead, seeing a familiar face shattered the emotional defenses Bai Tang had worked so hard to rebuild.
He clung to Sha Yao and broke down, sobbing loudly.
“Wuuu… Ling Xue…”
Sha Yao held the young man in return. She didn’t remember knowing him, but for some reason, he felt incredibly familiar to her—so much so that she couldn’t help wanting to protect him, to keep him from getting hurt.
It was as if Bai Tang had finally found someone to rely on, and he poured out all the grief and frustration he had bottled up inside.
His cries echoed across the quiet countryside. Sha Yao silently embraced him, gently patting his back to comfort him.
“There, there… it’s okay now. Let’s go home,” she said, her heart aching at the sound of his weeping. She pulled out a tissue and wiped the tears from his face.
“Go home…”
Bai Tang chewed on those words. He thought of how his “husband” had abandoned him.
“I don’t have a home anymore.”
Sha Yao looked at his tear-reddened eyes, and her heart throbbed with pain.
Even though they had just met, she made a bold decision.
“Come to my place.”
She lived alone—her mother and stepfather were in another city. Even if he was a scammer, the worst he could do was trick her alone. But deep down, she didn’t believe he was.
“Ling Xue~”
“Ling Xue was my old name. I go by Sha Yao now. But… you can still call me Ling Xue if you want. As long as it makes you happy.”
Sha Yao reached up and gently brushed through the young man’s hair, shaking off bits of gravel and dust.
Then she stood, dusted off her bag, and extended a hand to Bai Tang.
“Let’s go home.”
Author’s Note:
Sha Yao is the reincarnation of Ling Xue. That’s right—your white moonlight is back!