Chapter 159: The Stalker

Since Ye Qian had already come out, there was no longer any danger. Long Fei put the mop back in its place and strolled slowly out of the room. Ye Qian was already sitting on the sofa, nursing a fit of anger.

After playing around like that, Long Fei didn't dare to push his luck any further; otherwise, if he really managed to provoke this little demon queen, his life would certainly become miserable. Therefore, he took the initiative to sit down beside Ye Qian, leaned his face close to hers, stared right at her, and chuckled. "What's wrong? Are you really holding a grudge against me?"

"I am holding a grudge." Ye Qian's saliva almost sprayed onto Long Fei's face, scaring him into hastily pulling his head back.

"Tsk, Ye Qian, you really are an ungrateful wretch. I spent the entire afternoon keeping you company yesterday and spent so much money, yet now you still say you're holding a grudge against me. Had I known, I wouldn't have accompanied you at all." Long Fei pouted.

"You wouldn't dare. That was merely fulfilling your obligations as my boyfriend. Tell me, which man doesn't accompany his girlfriend shopping? You should be counting your lucky stars that a great beauty like me let you keep her company, humph." Ye Qian's anger subsided quite a bit.

Long Fei cried out, "I'm starving. Let's go, time for breakfast."

Pushing Long Fei's hand away abruptly, Ye Qian scolded, "You still know how to eat breakfast? Look at the time, it's almost eleven. Just bear with it for a bit longer, we can have lunch together shortly."

"No way! I usually eat according to the lunar calendar; why is it changing to a different schedule today? My stomach is going to stage a protest and rebel!" Long Fei wailed aloud while putting on an expression of extreme hunger. In truth, he wasn't all that hungry—and reasonably so, considering all the various snacks he had eaten while accompanying Ye Qian at the Wangfujing snack street yesterday afternoon. While he hadn't eaten a lot of any single item, the sheer variety had filled his stomach to the brim, making it impossible to digest it all so quickly.

"Serves you right. Who told you not to get out of bed so late? And how dare you turn off your phone? You've gone too far." Ye Qian looked as if she was about to get angry all over again.

Long Fei quickly appeased her. "All right, all right. I promise I won't turn off my phone next time, okay? Just think about it—we walked around all afternoon yesterday, and my legs were aching like crazy; all I wanted to do was sleep. Then you made me accompany you to look at the night scenery. Do you really take me for an iron man? Though I genuinely admire you; are your legs custom-modified or something?"

"Modified your head! Fine, I'll let you off the hook this time. If you ever dare to turn off your phone again, humph, just you wait. I have plenty of ways to deal with you." Ye Qian shook her small fist in front of Long Fei's face, thinking to herself that she couldn't really be blamed. She wanted to act like a proper lady, but everyone kept telling her to return to her true self—well, this was her actual nature. But she had to admit, dropping the ladylike act felt remarkably liberating, carefree, and unrestrained.

"Fine, fine, fine. I surrender to you. Let's go; the time is about right anyway. Let's go get some food first. Aren't you supposed to go to your fiancé's house tomorrow night to wish his elder a long life? Shouldn't you take the afternoon to go buy some gifts?" As soon as the words left his mouth, Long Fei knew he had messed up.

Sure enough, Ye Qian instantly glared at him, a look that practically shouted "defiant against a thousand pointing fingers." "What did you say? Whose house did you say I was going to for a birthday celebration?"

Knowing when to yield, Long Fei immediately chimed in, "To Bai Yaowu's house! No, I mean, to that pretty boy's, to that ungrateful wretch's, to that bastard's house, right?"

He chuckled, sucking up to her. *Pretty boy, you can't blame me for this. If I don't hurl a few insults at you, my own days won't be easy either.*

"That's more like it. Seeing as you know how to talk, I'll forgive you this time. Let's go." Ye Qian stood up, looking rather pleased; she simply loved hearing words like that.

*Ami豆腐 (Amitabha).*

While silently chanting Buddhist mantras in his heart, Long Fei trailed behind Ye Qian. The little girl's backside was still as pert as ever. He wondered if it had gotten that way from all the poison she'd absorbed last time, heh heh.

After lunch, Ye Qian announced that she wanted to take a stroll through the Summer Palace. Long Fei hadn't wanted to go out in such hot weather, but considering the picturesque scenery inside the Summer Palace—with its mountains, water, and trees—it shouldn't be overly hot, so he readily agreed.

As the two of them stepped out of the elevator, a couple of well-dressed young men were chatting with the front desk receptionist.

"Hey, help me check which room Long Fei is staying in," said a flashy-looking man with natural rat-like eyes, staring lecherously at the receptionist's swelling chest while grinning broadly.

The man's surname was Yan, and his name was Yan Hao. He was considered a member of the Yan family, and Yan Qing was his cousin. Relying on his status as the cousin of a young master, this fellow was extremely arrogant and overbearing in the capital city of Yanjing. Apart from figures like Yang Batian whom he dared not provoke, he demanded a bit of respect from ordinary princeling members, such as Qu Kun, another princeling member who was his diehard buddy and lackey, standing right beside him.

The receptionist recognized Yan Hao and wouldn't dare offend him. Although she knew full well she shouldn't disclose guest information and was disgusted by Yan Hao's leering gaze, she still smiled brightly and pointed toward the retreating figures of Long Fei and Ye Qian. "Young Master Yan, aren't those the people you're looking for?"

With an "ah," Yan Hao turned his head, glanced at Long Fei and Ye Qian, and chuckled lewdly. "That's Long Fei?"

"Hey, Hao-ge, that chick with him looks pretty good," Qu Kun fawned.

"You motherfucker have a death wish? Do you know who that is? That's Ye Wentian's daughter, a member of the Ye family." Yan Hao still retained some sense, knowing which people could not be offended. Having just heard the conversation between Yan Qing and the old patriarch at home, he had acted on his own accord to come and size up Long Fei.

"Hey, sister, elder brother here is busy today, but I'll treat you to dinner another day, and then, heh heh—" After casting one more lecherous look at the receptionist's chest across the counter, Yan Hao hurriedly gave chase after Long Fei and Ye Qian.

The receptionist lingered behind, chuckling softly, "Take care, Young Master Yan."

"Hey, Hao-ge, the Ye family hasn't been what it was twenty years ago for a long time now. We don't need to be afraid of them, do we? I refuse to believe Ye Wentian can actually do anything to someone from the Yan family." Although Qu Kun was a bit taller than Yan Hao, he followed behind him like a dog, seemingly unable to shake his interest in Ye Qian.

"Are you a pig? Don't you know she's Yaowu's fiancée? Even if the Ye family wouldn't dare, do you think Yaowu would let you off?" Turning around and giving Qu Kun a look full of disdain, Yan Hao continued, "Ah-Kun, use your brain when you do things. Is your brain that of a pig, or did it get flooded with water? Don't just want to mount every pretty girl you see; you have to find out first whether she's tied to anyone important, understand?"

Qu Kun felt zero respect for Yan Hao in his heart, but plastered a smiling face onto his exterior and nodded repeatedly. "Understood, understood."

"Good. Let's drive and follow behind them to see where they're going. I'll have some guys cause a little trouble for them later. Don't think we princelings are easy to mess with—we need to give them a taste of our power right off the bat. I don't get why Qing-ge didn't teach him a lesson." Seeing Long Fei and Ye Qian hail a taxi, Yan Hao rushed over to his BMW and slowly trailed behind them.

In the taxi, Long Fei and Ye Qian resumed their bickering. Ye Qian suggested visiting the Old Summer Palace along the way so she could engrave the humiliation of history firmly in her mind, but Long Fei flatly refused, arguing that history was already humiliation and remembering it served no purpose. Instead, he joked, they'd be better off waiting for a chance when they felt suicidal, strapping themselves with explosives, and paying a visit to the White House in Washington—that would actually be practical.

His remarks drove the driver to step in as a peacemaker, though the driver shook his head continuously. He rarely encountered a bickering pair of enemies-turned-lovers like Long Fei and Ye Qian, who seemed destined to be a couple yet argued without a single moment of rest.

Eventually, Long Fei and Ye Qian reached a compromise through mutual concessions: after checking out the Summer Palace, they would head toward the Old Summer Palace, but while Long Fei took a walk in the nearby Tsinghua Garden, Ye Qian would visit the Old Summer Palace on her own, and they would reunite afterward.

Five minutes into the drive, Long Fei suddenly furrowed his brow. Ye Qian, who had been secretly watching his expression, blinked and asked curiously, "Hey, what's wrong with you now?"

Instead of answering, Long Fei directly pulled out his phone, called Gouzi, and instructed them to drive over immediately.

"Hey, what on earth is the meaning of this?" Ye Qian's tone rose slightly, causing the driver to shake his head again. He truly rarely saw anyone quite like Long Fei and Ye Qian.

Long Fei finally smiled, his gaze carrying a playful glint. "We're just bringing in some backup for gaming. Besides, if we go out sightseeing by ourselves and run into bad guys, what then? Having them around to protect us makes it much safer."

"Lunatic," Ye Qian rolled her eyes at him. Did Long Fei actually need protection? Bad guys? He was the biggest, worst bad guy in the entire world!

At that moment, the driver finally spoke up.

He turned his head, flashed a smile at Long Fei first, and said, "Young man, you're worrying too much. Our city of Yanjing just hosted the Olympic Games; public security is fantastic. You probably couldn't find a city with better security anywhere in China. Besides, those are tourist attractions—how could you possibly run into bad guys?"

Long Fei chuckled. "Is that so? Someone stole my wallet while we were shopping in Wangfujing yesterday."

This was purely a fabrication.

The driver was stunned. "No way? Did something like that really happen?"

"Of course. Fortunately, I managed to catch the thief later," Long Fei continued bluffing.

"That's good, that's good. But I bet that thief definitely wasn't from Yanjing; our Yanjing locals have very high standards of conduct." The middle-aged driver was still earnestly arguing with Long Fei, causing Ye Qian beside him to nearly burst out laughing.

Long Fei glared at Ye Qian. "Not at all. When I finally asked him, he said he was from Yanjing."

"Then he must have been slandering us. It was definitely some out-of-towner lying," the driver retorted, looking slightly displeased.

Long Fei refused to let the matter drop and kept spinning his yarn. "How could he not be from Yanjing? I hauled him off to the police station, checked his ID, and he was a genuine, bonafide local Beijinger through and through."

Winking at Ye Qian, Long Fei wore a hint of a smile.

The driver seemed utterly speechless. After a long pause, he muttered, "Those black sheep... truly a single rat dropping ruins a whole pot of porridge. People like that are extremely rare in Yanjing."

Long Fei decided to stop provoking the driver, but the driver's expression remained grim until he dropped them off at the entrance of the Summer Palace. His face never recovered, looking as if Long Fei owed him a blood debt, which left Long Fei feeling somewhat depressed.

*Damn it, it was just a joke. Was it really that serious?*

It seemed the people of Yanjing took their city's image quite seriously indeed. Still, which city didn't have pickpockets? Even if he hadn't personally encountered one, that didn't mean Yanjing was completely devoid of them. Treating the place like some pure, untainted land was ridiculous—even if the soil had once been pure, the moment humans were added, it ceased to be clean.

"Tsk, look at that. You really ticked him off," Ye Qian remarked with a smile as she watched the driver pull away without looking back.

Long Fei scoffed, "He's just a nutcase."

"I think you're the nutcase," Ye Qian scolded him, then urged, "Hurry up and buy the tickets!"

"Why is it always me paying?" Long Fei grumbled, but nonetheless trotted over to the ticket booth.

The tickets were genuinely not cheap—thirty yuan apiece. Just think: if you spent thirty yuan on steamed buns, you could get sixty of them, which would make a massive bag. To pay thirty yuan just to stare at mountains and water for a few moments before they vanished felt like a rip-off to Long Fei. He figured no matter how pretty this place was, it wasn't as gorgeous as the remote mountains where he used to live, which at least had wild monkeys. Did this place have monkeys?

For once, Long Fei was acting rather stingy—not just a little stingy, either. He seemed to have forgotten the many times he had thrown money around like water, such as shelling out half a million for Meng Ling last time, only to delete her text message later and lose track of her entirely.

To be fair, the Summer Palace was quite entertaining with plenty of sights to see. Aside from the Seventeen-Arch Bridge, there was Longevity Hill, the Long Corridor, various palaces and pavilions. Walking the entire loop took quite a while and almost left Long Fei dizzy.

Yet by the end of it, Long Fei decided the thirty yuan had been well worth the value, and the trip wasn't wasted—even though visiting many of the attractions inside required separate additional fees. He didn't bother calculating his total spending; he figured each person had easily spent several hundred yuan. Still, they had enjoyed themselves reasonably well, and since he wasn't short on cash to begin with, as long as the fun was genuine, he didn't care about a little spending.

Ye Qian seemed well-prepared, having brought her own digital camera along. Throughout the journey, Long Fei served as her temporary photographer. Whenever Ye Qian paused and stood anywhere without even posing, she became a breathtaking scenery in her own right, instantly drawing countless overt and covert gazes from passing tourists. Long Fei felt quite sullen, experiencing that particular sensation of having his woman looked at by other men.

In this regard, Long Fei was somewhat possessive. If she truly were his woman, he would rather keep her hidden away in a golden house than let her expose herself to the public eye day in and day out. What's that? You say having others admire her generates a sense of pride? Get real, brother. If you let your wife stand out on the street and let countless men stare and ogle with naked, lustful gazes, do you still feel a sense of achievement? If so, you're a pervert!

Of course, Long Fei also took plenty of photos with Ye Qian. However, whenever Ye Qian asked a male passerby to take their picture, Long Fei firmly refused, stating that photos weren't necessary and thanking them. But when Ye Qian asked a female passerby to take a picture, Long Fei would immediately smile brightly, wrap his arm around Ye Qian, and strike various intimate poses. Since he couldn't drag Ye Qian away right then and there, he might as well infuriate those passing men who harbored impure intentions toward her.

Yet Ye Qian seemed entirely oblivious to Long Fei's train of thought. She remained cheerful and bubbly the whole way, repeatedly falling into the same habit whenever it came time for photos. Naturally, Long Fei steadfastly maintained his policy and strategy: female photographers, OK; male photographers, NO.

After completing the full loop, though they hadn't lingered overly long at any single spot, a significant amount of time had passed. Growing hungry, the two of them found a fast-food joint inside the park gates and ordered two boxed meals. You have to hand it to tourist spots—the boxed meal actually tasted exceptionally good. Or perhaps Long Fei simply thought it tasted good, though he failed to notice Ye Qian frowning the entire time. That girl possessed a natural-born aristocratic constitution and couldn't stomach such fare. Long Fei, on the other hand, had a life of hardship and had endured far too many trials; back in Africa, he had eaten virtually anything short of human flesh. So while he might fuss over food being unpalatable at home, once he was out in the world and his stomach started growling, anything could fill him up.

Across the street from the entrance of the Summer Palace, a BMW had been parked for a long time. Yan Hao and Qu Kun had been squatting by the roadside for ages without catching sight of Long Fei. Just as they were growing anxious, they spotted Long Fei and Ye Qian emerging from the entrance. Though the pair didn't leave immediately and instead sat down to eat not far from the gates, they were close enough for Yan Hao and Qu Kun to see them crystal clear.

"Hao-ge, what should we do?" Qu Kun thought Yan Hao was truly a fool. Having squatted in this spot for so long without figuring out how to approach and cause trouble for Long Fei, he kept his thoughts to himself because he wasn't an idiot—at least, he considered himself far sharper than this second-generation ancestor before him.

"What should we do? Find them, obviously! Do you expect the two of us to waltz up there ourselves? Are you an idiot?" Yan Hao gave Qu Kun his usual harsh glare while pulling his cell phone out from his jacket.

Just as he dialed the number and uttered a single "hello," Yan Hao abruptly realized two strange men had appeared beside him. Crouching next to him was a towering young man over two meters tall, flashing a simple, honest grin that made him look remarkably meek. Meanwhile, the man crouching beside Qu Kun was much shorter and dressed somewhat ambiguously, making it hard to tell at a glance whether he was male or female.

"What do you want?" Yan Hao barely managed to ask before Tieniu's hand clamped onto the back of his neck. Instantly, a wave of agonizing pain radiated from his cervical spine, turning his entire body to jelly. Yet Tieniu's technique was rather ingenious, making it look as though old friends were merely greeting each other. At the exact same moment, Gouzi subdued Qu Kun using the exact same method.

"Be a good boy and keep quiet. Let's head over to the car together; I have some questions for you. Remember, don't scream, or I guarantee your necks will be snapped right on the spot. You should realize that much." Gouzi flashed a grin, though his smile lacked any of Tieniu's simple-minded warmth, carrying an air of absolute malice and cunning instead.

Having never been threatened like this since childhood, let alone faced with a life-or-death trial, finding themselves at the mercy of strangers instantly left Yan Hao and Qu Kun completely disoriented. Yet both of them could genuinely feel the thick, suffocating aura of death enveloping them. Clearly, Gouzi's words had convinced them, instilling a deep, primal fear within their hearts.

"Okay, we won't make a sound. Ease up a bit—any harder and my neck really will snap." In front of Qu Kun, Yan Hao forced a show of composure, his rat-like eyes widened in terror. Having a slender frame already weakened by excessive debauchery, he truly looked like a dying chick gripped in Tieniu's fist.