Chapter 8 Easily Exposing the Truth
"Whose IQ are you calling low?"
Stung by Ye Huan’s insult to her intelligence, Li Meiya instantly blew her fuse, transforming into a screaming termagant.
To be looked down upon by a mere butcher for having a low intelligence was the ultimate humiliation.
"Don't get upset, don't get upset!"
Lin Canglan hurriedly comforted Li Meiya, saying:
"He's just cornered because we've seen right through him. It's a dog leaping over a wall out of desperation, flying into a rage from shame. Now all he can do is hurl insults to make himself feel better."
He wore the expression of someone who had completely figured out Ye Huan’s hidden motives, showing not a trace of anger at being called an idiot.
"So that's how it is!"
Comprehension dawned on Li Meiya. Her towering rage slowly subsided, and she sneered:
"Ye Huan, don't waste your breath. Even if you emptied out all eight hundred of your deceitful little tricks, you won't escape a beating today!"
Her words served as a subtle prompt to Jin Feiyu that he could give the order for his thugs to deal with Ye Huan!
Jin Feiyu had long since been unable to suppress his urge to take action. Sensing that Ye Huan was far from ordinary, he knew that even if Ye Huan was merely guessing, he could not let him keep talking. Otherwise, Lin Tai and Lin Xi really might start having doubts.
Just as he was about to give the command, however, Lin Tai let out a stern rebuke:
"Ye Huan, stop spouting nonsense! As everyone knows, Feiyu is fond of Xixi; he would never send anyone to kidnap her. You're framing him like this—where is your proof? Without evidence, you are acting with malicious intent, trying to drive a wedge between Feiyu and Xixi."
Ye Huan almost laughed out loud. *Lin Tai really is a crafty old fox,* he thought. On the surface, he was scolding him for framing Jin Feiyu, but in reality, he was forcing him to produce evidence.
"Ye Huan, I never took you for this kind of person. I know Jin Shao's character very well, yet you actually framed him. I'll give you a chance to produce evidence. If you can't bring any out, this afternoon I'm going with you to the Civil Affairs Bureau to process our divorce."
Lin Xi was even more ruthless. She had spotted Jin Feiyu's eager impatience to make a move.
So, she put on an act of praising Jin Feiyu's character, scolded Ye Huan for framing him, and openly questioned Ye Huan's integrity.
Then, she used the threat of divorce to force Ye Huan to produce evidence that Jin Feiyu had sent people to kidnap her, thereby baiting her mother and father into demanding the same proof from him. That way, Jin Feiyu would be forced to listen to Ye Huan's evidence before he could strike!
Sure enough!
Lin Canglan and Li Meiya fell right into the trap!
"That's right! You accused Jin Shao of sending people to kidnap Xixi—where is your proof? If you can't produce it, then you're deliberately framing and slandering Jin Shao, trying to alienate the Lin family from him!" Li Meiya clamored.
"Jin Shao, please let Ye Huan finish speaking before you do anything. If he can't produce the evidence, you won't even need to lift a finger—I'll smash his mouth to pieces with my own hands," Lin Canglan told Jin Feiyu.
He put on the stance of someone standing firmly on Jin Feiyu's side, utterly convinced that Ye Huan had no proof whatsoever.
Ye Huan cast another surprised look at Lin Xi. *This girl is truly formidable,* he thought. She just dug a casual pit, and straight into it Lin Canglan and Li Meiya tumbled!
"Alright, brat, spit it out! If you can't come up with any evidence, I'll make sure you don't live to see today's sunset!"
Pressed hard by Lin Tai, Lin Xi, Lin Canglan, and Li Meiya, Jin Feiyu didn't dare to order a beating right away. If he cut Ye Huan off now, it would only arouse the Lin family's suspicions!
Even so, he remained utterly confident that Ye Huan could not possibly have any evidence.
"I imagine it happened something like this!"
Ye Huan fished out a pack of cigarettes, pulled one out, flicked a lighter, took a drag, and said:
"Jin Feiyu dispatched twelve blade-wielding thugs in four cars to tail Lin Xi to the airport, instructing them to find an opportunity to snatch her.
"And so, on the way back from the airport, those four cars surrounded Lin Xi's vehicle and forced her to pull over. I reckon that at that exact moment, one of those twelve thugs made a call or sent a text to Jin Feiyu, reporting that the kidnapping was about to succeed.
"I'm sure Jin Feiyu must have been thrilled at that moment, probably even imagining all sorts of ways he was going to toy with Lin Xi..."
Hearing this, Lin Xi viciously pinched the inside of Ye Huan's arm.
Ye Huan gasped in pain, but carried on regardless:
"However, Jin Feiyu waited and waited, but neither the twelve thugs nor Lin Xi ever showed up. So he tried calling or texting the twelve thugs, but couldn't get through to any of them.
"Realizing something was wrong, Jin Feiyu immediately checked the tracker he'd secretly had his men install on Lin Xi's car a while back, only to discover that her vehicle was parked in the lot of Shangyang Restaurant.
"That made Jin Feiyu suspect that Lin Xi hadn't been kidnapped after all, and that the twelve thugs had fallen into the hands of her bodyguards.
"To prevent the twelve thugs from confessing who was behind the kidnapping plot, Jin Feiyu rushed over to Shangyang Restaurant with his men at breakneck speed, only to find Lin Xi's car without a trace of her bodyguards' vehicles.
"To confirm whether the twelve thugs had indeed been captured by Lin Xi's bodyguards, Jin Feiyu questioned a waiter and then used 'running into them by coincidence' as an excuse to barge into this private dining room."
Ye Huan stubbed out his cigarette butt and continued:
"The very first person he looked at when he stepped through that door was Lin Xi. At that instant, Jin Feiyu's pupils sharply constricted, which proved he was utterly shocked. He finally confirmed that the kidnapping by the twelve thugs had failed, and that they had definitely fallen into the hands of Lin Xi's bodyguards..."
Hearing this, although Jin Feiyu kept his exterior calm, a tempest of shock was raging within him.
Everything Ye Huan had just said matched the reality down to the smallest detail!
"Worried that the twelve thugs might confess under the coercive interrogation of Lin Xi's bodyguards..."
With a deadpan expression, Ye Huan locked his eyes onto Jin Feiyu's face and gaze, pressing on:
"Before coming here, Jin Feiyu had already made thorough preparations. He and his subordinates had agreed on a signal: 'dropping a cup means go.' Once it was confirmed that the twelve thugs had been caught by Lin Xi and had named him as the mastermind, he would drop his cup, and his men waiting outside the private room would swarm in.
"By then, Jin Feiyu would use some despicable tactics to force Lin Xi into ordering her bodyguards to release the twelve thugs, just in case they had already confessed. I'm guessing he planned to use the lives of Elder Lin, Lin Canglan, and Li Meiya to coerce Lin Xi into sleeping with him, and then take photos or videos so that even if the thugs did talk, Lin Xi wouldn't dare hand the evidence over to the police."
When Jin Feiyu heard this, he finally lost all ability to manage his expression. He stared at Ye Huan in absolute shock.
He simply couldn't fathom how Ye Huan knew all of this. Was Ye Huan some kind of parasite living inside his stomach?
Lin Tai and Lin Xi noted Jin Feiyu's expression. While realizing that Jin Feiyu was indeed the culprit, they were equally astonished that Ye Huan had managed to deduce the true mastermind behind the kidnapping purely through logical reasoning.
Yet at that moment, a puzzle lingered in Lin Xi's mind: back then, Ye Huan had only beaten up the twelve thugs—why couldn't Jin Feiyu get in touch with them afterward?
Ah!
She remembered!
She had called the police! After she and Ye Huan left, the police had arrived and arrested all twelve thugs!
What Lin Xi didn't know was that right after she and Ye Huan left, those twelve thugs had wept, wailed, and begged Hongluan to take them away, and had confessed everything right there in the car!
"Are you finished?" Li Meiya asked.
"Finished!" Ye Huan nodded.
"That was a wonderfully crafted story, but it's nothing more than your own speculation and guesswork. It can't be used as evidence at all!" Li Meiya declared.
"That's right! What proof do you have that any of this is true?" Lin Canglan demanded.
Chapter 9 The Underworld King's Intent to Kill
Ye Huan, Lin Tai, and Lin Xi were utterly dumbfounded. *Could these two blockheads really not see Jin Feiyu's expression and eyes?*
At this stage, no further proof was needed—Jin Feiyu was unquestionably the mastermind behind the kidnapping.
"Brat, you're the best storyteller I've ever seen in my life. You made it up so well I almost believed it myself!"
After recovering from his shock, Jin Feiyu suddenly burst into laughter, sneering:
"Too bad for you, no matter how good your fictional story is, it's useless without evidence."
The expressions of Lin Tai and Lin Xi grew grave. They suddenly realized that Ye Huan *did* need to produce tangible proof.
Without evidence, they couldn't use the law to punish Jin Feiyu. Given Jin Feiyu's personality, he would undoubtedly launch a frantic retaliation against Ye Huan and continue plotting to kidnap Lin Xi.
"Is there any evidence?" Lin Tai asked anxiously.
"Do you have it?" Lin Xi looked at Ye Huan with hopeful eyes.
As soon as those words left her mouth, Jin Feiyu's heart completely settled. Those twelve thugs definitely hadn't confessed; otherwise, Lin Xi wouldn't be asking Ye Huan for evidence!
"Getting evidence is too easy!"
Ye Huan reached behind him and gave Lin Xi's backside a light pat to signal her to relax.
Lin Xi's delicate body shuddered. She almost couldn't stop herself from leaping up and kicking Ye Huan to death. This cheap, scumbag of a bastard—what time and place did he think this was, and he was still trying to take advantage of her?!
Even so, she managed to hold back, urging him:
"If you have evidence, hurry up and bring it out!"
Ye Huan nodded, turned his gaze to Jin Feiyu, and said:
"Jin Feiyu, I imagine the text messages and call logs between you and those twelve thugs are still on your phone, aren't they?"
Jin Feiyu's face drained of color. He had completely forgotten to destroy such crucial evidence.
The moment Lin Tai and Lin Xi saw Jin Feiyu's reaction, they deduced instantly that the text messages and call logs between him and the thugs were indeed right there on his phone.
As long as they got their hands on Jin Feiyu's phone, they would have ironclad proof of his crimes!
Lin Xi looked at Ye Huan, thinking to herself that this cheap scumbag was actually quite capable. He was going to send Jin Feiyu straight to prison just like that!
Lin Tai looked at Ye Huan with a gratified expression. Although he still hadn't managed to test whether Ye Huan was the person he suspected, this single feat alone was enough to prove that his judgment hadn't failed him—this kid was exceptionally brilliant!
As for Lin Canglan and Li Meiya, their minds went completely blank!
Stupid as they were, seeing the dramatic change in Jin Feiyu's expression was enough to wake them up!
For a moment, the two of them mentally cursed their own idiocy for blindly defending the mastermind behind their daughter's kidnapping. They were utter fools, hopelessly thick-headed!
Even this butcher Ye Huan—instead of properly butchering pigs, he was actually this well-versed in detective work. What an unbusinesslike sideline to have!
"Jin Feiyu, what do you have to say for yourself now?"
Lin Tai slammed his hand onto the table, stood up, and roared indignantly.
*Crack!*
Jin Feiyu suddenly pulled out his phone, hurled it fiercely to the floor, and wailed with exaggerated distress:
"Oh dear, my hand slipped! Alas, my poor phone—cost me over ten thousand bucks. Who knows if it can even be repaired after taking a beating like that?"
As he spoke, he ground his right heel viciously into the already shattered fragments of the phone.
Ye Huan frowned. He hadn't expected Jin Feiyu to pull such a stunt. This was too shameless!
"You..."
Lin Tai, Lin Xi, Lin Canglan, and Li Meiya were incandescent with rage. None of them had anticipated that Jin Feiyu would act so brazenly, smashing his own phone to pieces.
Even though they now knew for certain that Jin Feiyu was the mastermind behind the kidnapping, there was nothing they could do to him anymore—because the evidence was gone.
And by now, Jin Feiyu had stripped away his hypocritical facade, revealing his ferocious true nature. From here on out, he would likely retaliate against Ye Huan and kidnap Lin Xi right out in the open!
"Is there any other evidence?" Lin Xi looked at Ye Huan and asked.
Lin Tai, Lin Canglan, and Li Meiya also turned hopeful gazes toward him!
"Brat, do you still have proof?"
Emboldened and feeling completely untouchable, Jin Feiyu tilted his head and sneered at Ye Huan.
"I do!"
Ye Huan let out a cold, chilling laugh.
"Lin Xi's car has a dashcam installed. We can check the footage to see who secretly planted that tracker. Once we catch that person, we can interrogate them to find out who the mastermind was."
At these words, while Lin Tai, Lin Xi, Lin Canglan, and Li Meiya were swept with a wave of wild elation, they cursed themselves inwardly for being so foolish as to overlook something so obvious.
"Ye Huan, go get the dashcam's memory card right now!" Lin Xi handed her car keys over to him.
"It's useless!"
Before Ye Huan could step outside, Jin Feiyu chuckled and said:
"That tracker was installed two months ago. Given the storage capacity of your dashcam, the footage from back when it was installed would have been overwritten ages ago!"
Lin Xi: "..."
Lin Tai: "..."
Lin Canglan: "..."
Li Meiya: "..."
In an instant, the hearts of all four plunged into a freezing abyss!
A completely expressionless mask settled over Ye Huan's face. Although he no longer had physical proof on hand to pin the kidnapping on Jin Feiyu, he trusted that Hongluan had already extracted a full confession straight from the mouths of the twelve thugs.
Of course, whether there was evidence or not didn't really matter anymore, because Ye Huan had already formed the intent to kill Jin Feiyu. He just couldn't do it right here—it would frighten the Lin family!
"Hahahaha, hahahaha..."
Jin Feiyu burst into wild, uninhibited laughter. He laughed with unbridled arrogance, laughing so hard that he squatted down clutching his stomach, tears streaming from his eyes!
After laughing for a good long while, Jin Feiyu finally straightened up, swept his gaze over Ye Huan and the Lin family, and gloated smugly:
"That's right! I'm the one who sent people to kidnap Lin Xi. What are you going to do about it? Going to report me? Call the cops? You don't have any evidence..."
Lin Tai, Lin Xi, Lin Canglan, and Li Meiya turned green with rage!
Right at that moment, a police officer pushed open the door, locked eyes with Jin Feiyu instantly, and said with a blank expression:
"Jin Feiyu, you are suspected of dozens of unlawful acts, including kidnapping and conspiracy to murder. Come back with us right now to undergo investigation."
Jin Feiyu's laughter cut off abruptly, his smug expression freezing solid on his face.
Karma slapped him in the face much too fast!
Ye Huan chuckled, glancing at the swarming crowd of police officers stationed outside the door. *Hongluan's operational efficiency really is top-notch,* he thought.
Lin Xi and Lin Tai smiled as well. Judging by what the officer had just said, Jin Feiyu would probably never see the light of day outside a prison cell again—he might even be handed the death penalty.
Lin Canglan and Li Meiya, far from smiling, found their hearts gripped by panic. With Jin Feiyu getting arrested right here, would the Jin family take out their wrath on the Lin family?
"Aren't you going to thank me?!"
Seeing the police drag Jin Feiyu and his underlings away, Lin Xi looked triumphantly at Ye Huan.
"Why should I thank you?" Ye Huan asked, feigning confusion.
"If I hadn't called the police, the cops wouldn't have arrested those twelve blade-wielding thugs who tried to kidnap me. Without that, they wouldn't have beaten a confession and evidence out of them, and the police wouldn't have rushed over here in time to arrest Jin Feiyu. If the police hadn't arrived in time, you definitely would have gotten the beating of a lifetime from Jin Feiyu and his men! Don't you think you owe me a thank-you?"
Lin Xi laid out her airtight logic, then waited for Ye Huan to express his gratitude.
Ye Huan genuinely wanted to tell her that if he hadn't come to Pengcheng, Hongluan wouldn't have personally led a team to tail him, and those twelve knife-wielding thugs wouldn't have been rounded up in the first place.
Even though Lin Xi had called the police at the time, by the time the squad cars actually rolled up, those twelve thugs would have long since vanished.
And even if the police had arrived in time to nab them, they wouldn't have managed to squeeze a single confession out of them.
Naturally, none of these words could be spoken aloud to Lin Xi!
"Thank you!"
Ye Huan offered the words purely to humor her and keep her happy.
"Just a verbal thank-you?"
Lin Xi looked thoroughly dissatisfied.
Suddenly, Ye Huan cupped Lin Xi's delicate face in both hands and planted a fierce, heavy kiss right on her lips, asking:
"How's that?"
Chapter 10 The Underworld King's Pampered Consort
The kiss caught Lin Xi completely off guard, leaving her frozen like a wooden chicken on the spot. When she finally snapped back to reality, rage exploded within her. She grabbed Ye Huan and unleashed a flurry of wild, flailing punches combined with the Nine-Yin White Bone Claw:
"Ah! You stinking pervert, I'll beat you to death..."
Being forcefully kissed by the person she hated and despised the most was something Lin Xi simply could not endure.
"Hey, hey, hey! You're messing up my hair."
"I'm going to rip every last strand of your dog fur out!"
"Stop tearing my clothes..."
"I'll tear them all I want..."
Watching Ye Huan and Lin Xi bicker and flirt with such uninhibited abandon right in front of him, Lin Tai wore a gratified smile.
Lin Canglan and Li Meiya, however, were furious. For this butcher to kiss Lin Xi and wrestle with her right before their eyes was clearly a deliberate attempt to infuriate them.
"Alright, alright, that's enough!" Lin Tai called a halt with a smile.
Only then did Lin Xi stop scratching Ye Huan, looking like she still hadn't quite had her fill.
By that time, Ye Huan's hair had been tussled into a bird's nest, and his shirt had several gaping tears ripped into it.
"Since dinner has reached this point, there's no real meaning in continuing to eat. Let's just wrap it up here!"
Lin Tai motioned for Ye Huan and Lin Xi to sit back down, then looked at Ye Huan and said:
"Since you and Xixi have already registered your marriage, the wedding needs to be put on the agenda. My thought is that you should notify your parents so our two families can arrange a meeting to discuss the wedding details."
Before Ye Huan could reply, Lin Xi panted lightly as she interrupted:
"Grandpa, Ye Huan is an orphan. He has neither father nor mother."
When they were processing their marriage at the Civil Affairs Bureau, she had already checked his ID and household register.
"So that's how it is!"
Lin Tai nodded, and asked:
"In that case, shall I take charge of organizing your entire wedding from start to finish?"
"That works!" Ye Huan nodded.
Lin Xi, Lin Canglan, and Li Meiya all panicked.
Given the Lin family's and Lin Xi's reputation in the business world, once Ye Huan and Lin Xi held a wedding, it would send shockwaves through the national corporate sphere and the media. The commotion would be far too massive.
Besides, Lin Xi didn't actually want to marry Ye Huan; she was merely using their marriage agreement as a tool to exact revenge on him, intending to divorce him the moment she finished paying him back.
Meanwhile, Lin Canglan and Li Meiya were solely plotting how to tear Ye Huan and Lin Xi apart.
If they held a grand wedding only for Ye Huan and Lin Xi to divorce shortly afterward, it would deal a devastating blow to the reputations of Lin Xi, the Lin family, and Lin's Group.
"Grandpa, I think we should put the wedding on hold for now," Lin Xi proposed. "I plan to spend some time cultivating our relationship with Ye Huan first, and then we can hold the wedding later."
Lin Canglan and Li Meiya chimed in hastily, "Xixi makes a lot of sense!"
"What is your take on this?" Lin Tai asked Ye Huan.
"Then let's do as Lin Xi says!" Ye Huan replied.
"Very well, then!"
Lin Tai didn't press the matter further. He said:
"I've already prepared a bridal home for you and Xixi. Although it's fully renovated, we haven't bought the furniture yet. Until the bridal home is ready for you to move in, I think you should make do and stay at Xixi's place first. After all, you and Xixi have already registered your marriage, so there's nothing inappropriate about living together."
To this, Lin Xi, Lin Canglan, and Li Meiya raised no objections—after all, they all wanted a front-row seat to torment Ye Huan.
Of course, there was no way Lin Xi would ever agree to share a bed with Ye Huan, and Lin Canglan and Li Meiya would never allow it either.
"You might not know this, Grandpa, but I'm actually from Pengcheng myself. I have my own place here. Until the wedding, I'd rather continue living in my own home."
Ye Huan decisively rejected Lin Tai's proposal.
Lin Tai gave Ye Huan a deep, probing look, mistakenly assuming that Ye Huan's reluctance to live at Lin Xi's place stemmed from a fear of being harassed by Lin Canglan and Li Meiya. Thus, he offered an alternative:
"Then how about Xixi moves in with you instead? Look at how old I am—I'm in a rush to hold a great-grandchild. The two of you need to put some effort into it. Ideally, you can get pregnant and have a shotgun wedding."
Lin Xi blushed fiercely. "Grandpa, what are you even saying?"
"Hahahaha..."