Yang Qingyin was nestled completely in Luo Ziling’s arms, then said softly, "The fact that you barged into that situation today and realized someone was tailing you, I actually think it’s a great thing. It probably saved you all from a pile of trouble. No matter whether it’s Wu Dongfang or someone else who wants to set you up, after what happened last night, they won’t be able to keep investigating you in the short term, unless they already have some crucial dirt on you. But judging from what happened today, that shouldn’t be the case, otherwise they wouldn’t have taken the risk to follow you."
Just then, Luo Ziling’s phone rang. A call was coming in.
Luo Ziling shuddered, then sprang up from the bed.
He fished out his phone and glanced at it; it was Lin Lan calling.
He hesitated for a moment, then answered.
"The hotel surveillance from tonight where you stayed has already been pulled up, and your room records have been checked," Lin Lan said in a calm voice. "I’ve gone through today’s footage too, and didn’t find anything useful. Phoenix’s face didn’t show up front-on in the cameras, but there are quite a few clear shots of you."
"Looks like I’m still too green!" Luo Ziling said, a bit dejected. "From now on, wherever I go I need to pay attention and not let my face show up under the cameras. When a guy is handsome, it’s easy for people to remember what he looks like and that brings unnecessary trouble!"
Even at a time like this Luo Ziling still had the mood to crack jokes. Yang Qingyin, lying beside him, was taken aback, and Lin Lan on the other end of the line was surprised too.
"Cut the crap!" Lin Lan interrupted him impatiently. "Think it through yourself and figure out what you need to do to avoid trouble! You should understand how serious this is; I don’t need to spell it out for you, do I?"
"Got it." Luo Ziling nodded. "I’ll take countermeasures. And I’ll have to trouble you to keep an eye on some things too."
"Understood." Lin Lan didn’t say anything more and hung up directly.
"Looks like you definitely won’t be sleeping soundly tonight." Yang Qingyin walked over to Luo Ziling, gently leaning against his shoulder. "I’m going to sleep first then."
"How can you sleep without doing your homework?" Luo Ziling pulled Yang Qingyin into his arms and kissed her, not the least bit polite.
Yang Qingyin hadn’t expected Luo Ziling to be so domineering. Before she could react, he was already taking advantage.
In the end she didn’t struggle. She wrapped her arms tightly around Luo Ziling and responded passionately.
Luo Ziling seemed to have been provoked; he was a bit rough in his movements, and before Yang Qingyin was fully ready, he charged straight in.
In just a short while, Yang Qingyin was tossed around by him until she was completely routed, armor thrown aside.
After everything ended, Luo Ziling went into the bathroom to take a shower.
What he hadn’t expected was that by the time he came out, Yang Qingyin, exhausted from his torment, had already drifted off into a drowsy sleep.
Luo Ziling lay down beside Yang Qingyin, snuggling up to her. But he didn’t fall asleep right away; he lay there thinking for a long time before finally dozing off.
The next morning, Luo Ziling woke up at six.
Yang Qingyin was still sound asleep. Luo Ziling didn’t disturb her.
After getting up and washing, Luo Ziling left the room and went down to the study, where he called Ling Mingrui.
He dialed Ling Mingrui’s home line; Xie Enhua picked up.
Getting a call from Luo Ziling so early in the morning, Xie Enhua was quite surprised.
Once he heard that Luo Ziling needed to speak to Ling Mingrui, he immediately went to fetch Ling Mingrui, who was in the middle of washing up.
Luo Ziling calling first thing in the morning also caught Ling Mingrui off guard.
After he listened to what Luo Ziling said, Ling Mingrui fell silent.
Luo Ziling wasn’t in a hurry; he just held the phone and waited.
"I’m aware of this," after a moment, Ling Mingrui’s voice finally came through the receiver. "You all need to be careful and don’t let them get hold of any handle on you."
"Thanks for the reminder, Grandpa." After expressing his thanks, Luo Ziling hung up.
Figuring that Ling Ruonan must be awake by now, Luo Ziling called her.
The phone had barely rung once when Ling Ruonan picked up.
"Ling’er? What happened?" Ling Ruonan’s sense of crisis was still very sharp. Luo Ziling calling her this early made her instantly aware that something fairly serious must have happened; otherwise he wouldn’t be calling at this hour.
Luo Ziling briefly recounted what had happened the previous night.
Ling Ruonan was shocked when she heard it.
She didn’t voice her own stance right away; instead, she asked what Luo Ziling planned to do next.
Luo Ziling described the scene of meeting those people afterwards, then said a bit sheepishly, "Mom, I don’t know if handling it that way was right or not. Also, I was careless last night. I thought going to treat Phoenix would definitely not cause any trouble, but I didn’t expect..."
Ling Ruonan didn’t answer immediately; she fell into deep thought.
After a moment, she finally said softly, "It’s certain they want to investigate us. The lucky part is, they’d just started digging into us when we caught wind of it. There’s one thing you need to remember: if they decide to charge you with something, it doesn’t necessarily mean you really did anything wrong or committed a crime. It might just be that someone wants to bring us down. Fortunately, over this past year we’ve been through so much that we’re almost used to situations like this. So don’t let it weigh too heavily on you. Catching on to their moves this early is actually a good thing for us."
"Mom, that’s what I was thinking too." Luo Ziling chuckled. "Them investigating me shows they don’t actually have anything solid on us yet, otherwise they wouldn’t use this kind of roundabout method to investigate. Oh, right!"
Luo Ziling suddenly thought of something; his tone shifted and he lowered his voice. "Mom, could it be that Wu Dongfang, or someone under him, deliberately did this so we’d notice they were moving, to warn us that the discipline inspection people are trying to target us, and make us more alert and better prepared?"
"That possibility can’t be ruled out." Ling Ruonan agreed with his analysis. "It really could be something like that. Either way, we need to find a way to get to the bottom of this, figure out exactly who’s aiming at us, and whether what happened tonight was someone sending a warning, or just them being careless."
"Mom, I’ve already got Wuyue and the others looking into it, and Lin Lan will help as well." Luo Ziling then told Ling Ruonan about calling Ling Mingrui earlier that morning.
"Since you’ve already told your grandpa, then let him get involved too." Ling Ruonan let out a faint sigh. "Once he knows about this and steps in, the nature of the matter is no longer the same."
"It could be a bad thing, but it might also turn out to be a good thing." Luo Ziling sighed as well. "Anyway, we’ve been calculated against over and over again; one more time doesn’t really make a difference. I’ll have someone thoroughly investigate Wu Dongfang’s situation and see what kind of person he really is."
"Don’t rush." Ling Ruonan didn’t agree with his plan. "His position is special. You absolutely can’t let him sense anything, no matter what attitude he has toward us."
"Mom, I trust Wang Zhenjun’s methods."
Ling Ruonan was silent for quite a while before finally saying, "We’ll talk when I get back."