Chapter 42

Xiao Fen leaned back against the chairback, scratched his hair, and spread his palm open. There were two or three strands of hair inside. He held his hand out in front of him. “Want to go get a DNA test?”

“I didn’t mean that kind. Are you mentally sp—”

“Oh right, I forgot. In this world, I have no family left. Who would I even get to test the DNA?” Xiao Fen puffed out his cheeks and blew the hairs at him, sneering. “Don’t you have anything to say to me?”

Lu Jin was stunned for a moment.

A few seconds later, he offered a dry consolation. “Birth, old age, sickness, and death—it’s all part of life. Don’t be too sad.”

The death of family really could change a person’s temperament.

He lifted his hand from the contract. “I’ll keep participating in the second episode of the show.”

Xue Cong probably still hadn’t figured it out even now. When he badmouthed Xiao Fen on camera, the one who ultimately benefited was Lu Jin.

A livestream that hardly anyone watched had let Lu Jin rise from the dead.

“No matter what grudges or resentments we had before, I hope we can work together in the upcoming episodes.”

“Did Ou Yu talk to you?” The attitude shift was so sudden.

“It’s just bad blood between us. Why would Ou Yu come find me?”

“He was even planning to treat you to a meal for my sake…”

“What?” Lu Jin got agitated. “Don’t sign it yet.”

Xiao Fen had already signed.

“Xiao Fen, you’re such a jinx to me!”

“It’s just a meal. Even if I’ve signed, I can still pull some strings and make your little wish come true.” Xiao Fen stood up with a look of regret. “Since Boss Lu says so, looks like you don’t need me after all.”

“You can really help me set up a meeting with Ou Yu?”

“Not for sure.”

“If it’s not for sure, why are you talking big?”

“I’ll reach out to him. Whether he shows up is his call. What, you think I can tie him up and drag him to dinner?” Xiao Fen leaned down, grinning at him. “My relationship with him is pretty good right now. You sure you don’t want to give it a shot?”

Lu Jin hesitated, thought it over, and said, “Fine. Set up the dinner for me.”

Xiao Fen held out his hand to him.

“What?”

“Don’t people usually offer some benefit when asking for a favor?” Xiao Fen said. “Not much. Fifty thousand.”

Lu Jin scoffed. “That’s all the vision you have?”

With that, his fingers tapped lightly on his phone screen a few times. Less than ten seconds later, Xiao Fen’s phone chimed with the notification of funds received.

“Set it up. Right now.”

Xiao Fen pulled out his phone and directly put it on speaker. The call rang a few times before a mechanical female voice came through.

“Sorry, the number you have dialed is out of service…”

Xiao Fen hung up and pocketed the phone. “Bad luck. No answer.”

Ou Yu was in some remote mountain area these past couple days, reshooting scenes from his previous movie. No way he was getting a signal.

“You’re leaving just like that?”

“What, should I stick around for dinner with you? Can you even eat with this face of mine staring at you?”

“My fifty thousand just bought me a failed call?”

“What else? For a measly fifty thousand, what more did you expect?”

Lu Jin grabbed the cushion behind him and chucked it at Xiao Fen.

Xiao Fen caught it steadily and lobbed it right back at his face.

By the time Lu Jin surged up from the sofa with murderous intent, the guy was long gone.

He kneaded the cushion left and right with both hands, wishing it were that guy’s face.

“For the second episode, I’ll see how you die.”

————

Xiao Fen had no friends in this world, no family either—just a lone bachelor. Even holing up in the company apartment playing games got old after a while. He was genuinely bored out of his mind.

So when Song Hui suggested he go on a trip for a few days—since there was still time before the second episode aired—why not relax properly?

Xiao Fen thought it was a good idea. He’d been here nearly half a month and hadn’t even left City A.

On a whim, he had Song Hui plan a route and book his flight.

The next day, he dragged his suitcase along, backpack on, and boarded the plane.

“What are you doing here?” He glanced at the seat number on his ticket.

Sure enough, right next to Fang Si Ting.

A flight attendant politely and gently reminded him from behind to make way. Only then did he sit down in his seat.

Fang Si Ting wore a high-end custom black suit, legs crossed, a book resting on his thigh.

His hair was combed to the side at an angle, neatly parted, with a fringe hanging over his forehead. Beneath it, a pair of low-prescription gold-rimmed glasses perched on his straight, defined nose bridge.

As he turned his head slightly, light glinted off the lenses, the play of shadows accentuating the aloof, elite aura of his cold, profound eyes.

“Is this plane yours?” Fang Si Ting’s thin lips parted, his low, magnetic voice carrying an impersonal chill.

“Your face looks kinda rough. Don’t tell me seeing me reminds you of the good old days when I played you. Sore loser.” He elbowed the guy next to him. “Gotta be that petty?”

Fang Si Ting pulled his arm back toward his body. Just as he was about to speak, a head poked out from the seat in front.

“What a coincidence. You’re on this flight too.” Tang Shen said.

Xiao Fen: “???”

Another head popped up from the seat directly in front of him, wearing thin silver-framed glasses, with long, smooth hair cascading down to her waist—gentle and intellectual.

“How’d you make that human skin mask? Can you teach me?” Peng Xiaoxiao said.

Xiao Fen: “!!!”

“Is your pursuit team doing some team-building?”

“Yep. Since we all met on the show, might as well hang out together.”

“What about the others?”

“Bai Zhu rushed off to some classified operation right after filming the first episode. Couldn’t make it.” Peng Xiaoxiao said.

“Didn’t he retire?”

“Who knows.”

Tang Shen said, “As for Xu An, he’s at the Red Hat World Network Technology Competition.”

“I thought he was already the champion.”

“He’s there as a judge.”

A sixteen-year-old judge.

“If only I had his skills. Why else would I bust my ass on this crap show?” Xiao Fen said. “If I bribe him with some popsicles and lollipops, think he’d help me out with stuff?”

He’d targeted the wrong person in the first episode.

“He’s got a weird personality. Only the boss can boss him around. Back when we asked him to check some things, it was all on the boss’s account.” Peng Xiaoxiao said. “Now that we’re closer, he cracks jokes with us sometimes.”

Xiao Fen’s eyes lit up as he looked at Fang Si Ting.

He’d probably pissed the guy off bad before.

Hoped Inspector Fang wasn’t petty.

Peng Xiaoxiao said, “You still haven’t answered my question from earlier.”

“I’ll send you the tutorial later.” Xiao Fen said. “Add Ou Yu’s god-tier makeup skills, and even Inspector Fang couldn’t tell.”

Fang Si Ting seethed with cold air beside them.

“If you disguised yourself as someone from my team, I’d spot it for sure.” Tang Shen said. “Too bad you picked someone from the action team. How’s a big lug like Bai Zhu supposed to notice a switch?”

“They were coming to grab me at the time, so I went for someone with a similar build. Your team doesn’t deploy much manpower.” Xiao Fen said. “Plus, you guys barely knew each other.”

Peng Xiaoxiao said, “We’re all transfers from different places and departments for the show. We haven’t been together long enough to be tight.”

“The Lu Family sure has pull.” Xiao Fen said flatly.

No surprise—it was the family of the domineering CEO protagonist. The whole world revolved around him.

“It’s not the Lu Family’s pull. It’s because he called in the boss.” She laughed.

“What do you mean?”

“The Lu Family CEO’s wife dotes on her son. She specially went to the boss’s mother to plead for him to join the show. The boss thought the show’s purpose was solid, so he filed a report with his superiors, let him handpick the team, and brought us all over.”

He hadn’t known that from reading the original book.

“So we’re all here on the boss’s account.” Tang Shen said.

“Joining a show to chase our fave—it’s not too much, right?” Peng Xiaoxiao looked at Fang Si Ting.

Tang Shen gave him a worshipful look too.

Xiao Fen was a bit surprised.

He hadn’t expected that in a show where everyone from guests to staff was half-assing it, only Fang Si Ting took it seriously.

In the original book, he’d stayed low-key and dutiful, cracking cases and catching killers, only to end up with a ruined reputation.

“Who’d have thought your criminal team was such a joke,” Tang Shen said. “Nationwide open casting, and they scraped together a bunch of misfits. If not for you, we wouldn’t even bother with the second episode.”

“Yeah, so boring.” Peng Xiaoxiao said. “But the livestream got me thirty thousand new followers and connections with big shots in psychology. Otherwise, I wouldn’t bother for a million per episode.”

“If Inspector Fang quits, we’re out too.” Tang Shen sighed.

The three chatted away merrily, while Fang Si Ting sat alone by the window, head down in his book, in his own world.

Suddenly, a messy head poked over.

“I hate pretentious types like you the most. Spreading a book open on a plane to look all pseudo-intellectual, but you haven’t turned a page.” Xiao Fen shook his head.

“How did you…” Fang Si Ting started, then realized it was a loaded question.

With Xiao Fen’s observation skills, how could he not notice the page hadn’t been turned since earlier?

Fang Si Ting irritably exhaled, shifted in his seat, and caught a glimpse from the corner of his eye—Xiao Fen’s shirt collar was askew.

The black satin shirt was a size too big, hanging crookedly off his shoulders, loose inside and clearly unable to wrap his thin, slender frame. His straight collarbone had slipped out.

At the dip at the end of the collarbone, near his snowy, rounded shoulder, sat a small black mole.

Xiao Fen craned his neck to peek at the book. With the movement, the collar slid back and forth, the mole flickering in and out of view.

His thumb on the page unconsciously rubbed back and forth. His sharp gaze unknowingly deepened.

Xiao Fen looked up, a blank look in his fox-like eyes. His pomegranate-red lips pursed as he blew a gentle puff of air at the face above.

“Are you spacing out?”

That was rare.

He shook his head, but then the other’s hand gripped his shoulder.

The touch of warm, dry fingertips made him instinctively shrink back, skin tensing instantly.

A bit rough.

The fingers just tugged the collar back into place, covering his collarbone.

Xiao Fen turned his head to look. His chin brushed from the index finger to the back of the hand, faintly catching the scent of gunpowder and ink from old books on the palm.

Before he could examine it closely, Fang Si Ting let go, closed the book on his lap, pulled an eye mask from his bag, reclined his seat, and shut his eyes to rest.

“Inspector Fang.”

“Mr. Black Cat.”

“Shut up.” His exposed Adam’s apple bobbed as he tilted his head back, his magnetic voice laced with icy metallic chill.

“I’m not close to you.”

Zero service to the people.

He’d report him someday!

————

The plane landed after six hours. Xiao Fen had eaten the whole flight, stretched contentedly with a yawn, and followed the crowd off.

Out of the airport and into a waiting taxi. Following Song Hui’s planned route, their first stop was the nearest Tengcha Town.

A niche internet-famous mountain town. Last year, a self-media video put this overlooked spot from thousands of years of obscurity on the map for a bit.

But so much time had passed, the hype was gone. When Xiao Fen got out at the town entrance, there were hardly any tourists left.

He remembered the video had been about some local festival happening in a few days.

He snapped a photo of the town entrance and posted it to his Weibo, which had just gone up with an anti-gambling video. He browsed the web for two minutes, and a red notification popped up.

Review failed.

Xiao Fen tsked and registered a new account. It glitched again during identity verification.

He was about to call the Publicity Department director “Beauty Blender” when a surprised voice came from behind.

“Xiao Fen, what a coincidence. Your first stop is here too?”

Xiao Fen turned. It was the pursuit team folks.

Just then, his phone vibrated.

A message appeared on the screen.

“Welcome to the second episode of No Escape.”