The system felt that its host really had some nerve.

Especially when discovering that the gambler was actually drunk, throwing himself at the host drunkenly and incoherently, reeking of sour alcohol and filthy bacteria. He grabbed the host’s collar and shouted something in a hoarse, unpleasant voice:

“Lin Chen! …You little bastard, I finally caught you!”

“Where’s the one thousand yuan you promised to send me every month? Five years without sending money, did you think I was dead?! Five years, one thousand a month, plus interest, you still owe me a hundred and twenty thousand! Hurry up, I want it now, give me the money quickly!”

“I know that kid Ruyan’s situation very well too. Now he follows the boss every day, eating and drinking well. While I’m gnawing on cold steamed buns, he’s dressed up like a decent person! …If you can’t come up with this money, then I’ll go find your beloved brother!”

…Amidst such bullshit words.

The host could actually calmly pretend to be troubled by familial affection, struggling and pained as he reluctantly ceded his super-good project worth one hundred thousand yuan to the other party.

But thinking about it, it made sense.

For a host with the ability to twist smart big bosses around his little finger, dealing with such a guy whose brain was muddled and filled only with alcohol, gambling, and money was naturally a piece of cake!

Hearing the system’s praise, Lin Chen sneered: “Compared to the bosses? Dealing with this kind of person is much more troublesome than the bosses!”

He coldly scrubbed the collar of the clothes he had just changed out of more than ten times.

And washed his hands with hand sanitizer at least seven or eight times.

Then he sniffed his left hand, sniffed his right hand, and only then reluctantly stopped and returned to the bed very dissatisfied.

Lin Chen said: “Originally, I only planned to let him be an outsourcer, taking the order for me to test the waters. Now it seems that being his father is really nothing worth doing.”

The system asked the host curiously: “Then what do you plan to do now?”

The host hummed softly twice, not answering its question.

The agreed date arrived quickly.

Before the appointed time, Lin Chen sent a message to the superior at the Xiyalama Hotel, saying that his father had peeked at his text messages and insisted on taking this order in his place.

In the text message, he lavishly praised the original body’s father as a brave, fearless person who would do anything to make money.

Patting his chest and expressing regret, he spent a lot of effort to finally get the other party to reluctantly agree to the substitution.

The room Lin Chen rented continued to play its role.

Starting from 21:30, the window facing the alley quietly opened a crack.

Night vision binoculars extended from it, recording continuously; at the same time, various conversations from the bug hidden behind the trash can in the alley were transmitted to the phone.

Complete, word for word.

Seeing that the main show was about to begin, Lin Chen immediately sent a video invitation to He Wenyan.

He Wenyan had long received news from Lin Chen asking him to free up time at 10 PM tonight, but Lin Chen didn’t tell him what for.

He Wenyan thought it was just a trivial matter regarding business cooperation, so he didn’t specifically change his plans. Therefore, when the video call came, He Wenyan was sitting in the empty conference room of the company late at night, with Lin Ruyan working overtime beside him holding a laptop.

The video connected, and He Wenyan greeted Lin Chen with a smile: “Boss Lin, long time no see. You busy man finally remembered me.”

Lin Ruyan immediately pushed his laptop aside, sat upright, and greeted Lin Chen seriously and politely: “Mr. Lin, good evening.”

Lin Chen nodded gently in return to greet Lin Ruyan.

Then he said to He Wenyan: “Boss He, I’m going to talk to you about some private matters next, not involving work.”

He Wenyan was somewhat surprised.

Private matters? He Wenyan thought for a moment, quickly understood Lin Chen’s meaning, and turned his head to tell Lin Ruyan to go back to his office to work.

Lin Ruyan left with his laptop, slightly disappointed.

After clearing the room, Lin Chen didn’t beat around the bush and directly relayed the recording video and audio monitoring to He Wenyan.

It was already 22:00.

The original body’s father met with the contact person of the Xiyalama superior.

After a period of security testing, the other party quickly told the original body’s father the mission objective: “As long as there is a way to kill him, we can provide you with whatever tools you need… The target’s name is He Wenyan, he is…”

He Wenyan listened seriously for a long time.

Hearing this, he instantly flew into a rage. Without needing Lin Chen to explain further, he sneered: “The You family.”

He Wenyan immediately said: “Thanks. Where are they now? I’ll handle it!”

Lin Chen asked calmly: “Do you want to go directly now? Aren’t you afraid of alerting the enemy and cutting off the clues?”

He Wenyan said: “You’re not surprised I mentioned the You family’s name. Do you have evidence that can trace all the way back to them?”

Lin Chen smiled: “No evidence. But I can tell you how they contacted down layer by layer—of course, don’t ask me how I know. This is my private intelligence source, inconvenient to reveal.”

He Wenyan put his palms together, very sincere: “Then I ask Boss Lin to be merciful and sell me the intelligence.”

Saying this, he had already stood up.

Opening his palms, his jacket drew an arc in the air and landed on his shoulders. He plugged in his earphones and strode out of the conference room.

He Wenyan sneered: “If I let this matter pass the night, I definitely won’t sleep well! Don’t worry, before I left the He family, I had seen plenty of such methods. I’ll handle the rest. After it’s resolved, whenever Boss Lin has time, I’ll treat you to a big meal!”

Lin Chen didn’t intend to handle it personally anyway.

Helping to this point was firstly for the system’s sake, secondly for his friendship with He Wenyan, and thirdly for the dividends from He Wenyan’s company.

So he simply organized the intelligence on hand and sent the conclusion to He Wenyan.

The entire upstream and downstream contact chain was crystal clear under the system’s camera peeking. As long as evidence wasn’t required, the system’s intelligence capability was the strongest.

He Wenyan was very fast.

After a while, the bodyguards he brought (from the Li family) quickly arrived at the room Lin Chen rented and took over all the surveillance and monitoring tools.

Seeing everything developing so smoothly, the system was extremely happy: “Oh my god, Host, if this matter can really be settled tonight, then, then the biggest plot collapse point in the original work will be completely fixed!”

Lin Chen found a coffee shop nearby, opened a private room, and observed the development of the event through the system’s real-time broadcast in his mind.

He Wenyan was indeed a world boxing champion.

On this dark and windy night, he directly ditched the bodyguard team, wandering alone on the street, blatantly seducing the “urban killer” there.

The original body’s father probably really needed money to a certain extent. Just after coming out of the alley and receiving a tattered eighteenth-hand car, seeing He Wenyan, he got excited and stepped on the gas to rush up.

This was great; the person took action, and all kinds of evidence were available.

Lin Chen watched coldly as the original body’s father was easily twisted out of the car by He Wenyan. Meanwhile, the bodyguards tracking the contact person received the news and instantly pinned the contact person down.

…As expected of the person who would overturn the entire Imperial Capital once he took action in the original work.

Just clean and neat!

Lin Chen watched in amazement.

Adding up two lifetimes, he had seen all kinds of civilized methods, but he had never seen such violent means.

The system happily turned into a small ball of light in his brain, rolling left and right, up and down, cheering joyfully: “Host! Success! The original protagonist succeeded! Sure enough, without you, the strongest ‘Protagonist Bane’, around, everything else is easy for the protagonist!”

Lin Chen: “I remember you said before that the ultimate goal you input into the task system had nothing to do with this plot point. So after passing this plot point, can you get any rewards?”

The system was extremely happy: “Energy! Energy! I can get lots of energy! Hehe, Host, the system has now received a super large energy reward from the main system—Host, wait, the system will give you a great magic of instant body recovery right now!!”

Lin Chen: “?”

Remembering something, Lin Chen immediately stopped it: “Wait! Don’t move!”

But he shouted a step too late.

When his voice fell, the system had already quickly completed a round of healing miracles.

AC9999 also said confidently and happily: “Host, you don’t need to worry. With the lesson from last time, the system will definitely not… will… will…”

Sizzling electric current sounds replaced the remaining voice.

Then, the system sound stopped abruptly.

Lin Chen was numb, his hand holding the coffee stopping in mid-air: “…”

He shouted unwillingly: “AC9999?”

The mechanical voice without AI aura sounded again after a year: “Respected Host, hello. What help do you need?”

Lin Chen sighed mournfully: “How long does your AI module need to sleep? When the AI module sleeps, can you continue to broadcast the storyline series for me?”

Mechanical voice: “Okay, checking for you, please wait… Query successful. AI module current status: Dormant. Reason for dormancy: Energy output exceeded system limit within a short time. Remaining dormancy time: 359 hours 57 minutes 11 seconds.”

Mechanical voice: “Respected Host, AC9999 failed to find the corresponding answer to the question ‘Can you continue to broadcast the storyline series for me?’ in the question bank. You can try calling the ‘Help’ menu to submit the question to the main system.”

Lin Chen: “…”

Lin Chen numb lv2: “Even the dormancy recovery time is exactly the same?”

Lin Chen sighed deeply and simply gave up communicating with the 0-IQ system.

He finished his coffee calmly, put his hands in his pockets and got up, paid, went downstairs, and prepared to take a taxi to leave.

Just then, the mechanical voice in his head suddenly spoke again.

“Beep beep… Automatically conducting storyline detection… Beep beep… Storyline advancement progress: 100%. Mission objective completion progress: 2/2…”

“Conducting host status detection… Host status 100% healthy, can submit task smoothly. Task is being submitted, please wait…”

“Task submission completed. Thank you, Host, for your hard struggle over the past five years. System AC9999 sends you sincere thanks on behalf of Green River Group! Next, the system will automatically open the plane return channel for you. Channel opening, 3, 2, 1…”

Lin Chen: “??”

Lin Chen’s expression changed drastically: “Wait—”

…

Cheng Huanzhen sat upright in the reception room of the old mansion.

Expressionless and fearless, he looked straight into Old Master Cheng’s eyes.

They had been sitting like this for two days.

Apart from eating and sleeping, they were almost confronting each other like this.

Old Master Cheng covered his forehead, his face so ugly it was almost twisted.

His voice was almost squeezed out of his throat: “…Little bastard, say what you said yesterday again if you dare?!”

Cheng Huanzhen then said expressionlessly again: “Okay, Grandfather. I said, I have fallen in love with a man and decided to form a family with him. If you agree, then I will balance family and work. If you disagree, then I will learn from Second Uncle’s approach and leave the Cheng family.”

Cheng Huanzhen paused: “You said you needed to calm down. Now you have calmed down for a day. Has the calming ended?”