Chapter 1.9

A/n: Oh my gosh, I hate the beginning of this chapter so much, but it's also super important to the development of the plot. I sincerely(definitely) apologize for subjecting you to this torture.

Remember the guy that kept on pushing Ling Xia to reveal the information and was really rude from last chapter? Yeah, that guy. His name was Pan Qiu and he was tasked with watching Ling Xia. Well, the word his boss used was 'protect', but everybody knew what that really meant.

Pan Qiu had to keep an eye on Ling Xia and see where he was getting his information from, so they would be able to stop wasting resources on protecting him as soon as possible.

It was cruel, ruthless even, but some people just had to be sacrificed for the greater good. At least, that was the way Pan Qiu thought about it.

But he couldn't get anything of value if Ling Xia stayed at home the entire rest of the week! Pan Qiu heard the excuse Ling Xia had given his parents: "I'm still a bit shaken up from what happened. I don't think I can function normally in school, maybe I should take a few days off."

The parents quickly agreed, but Pan Qiu was left standing there incredulously. 'Shaken up? You didn't seem very shaken up thirty minutes ago. Please just do something, so this farce can just end!'

And that was how Pan Qiu got stuck guarding the perimeter of Ling Xia's house while Ling Xia lazily spent his days reading and sleeping. Oh, Pan Qiu did escort Ling Xia to the ice rink once or twice, but nothing happened there. Ling Xia didn't even talk to anybody.

Speaking of getting information from Ling Xia, Pan Qiu hoped Ling Xia didn't find out Pan Qiu's true motives.

Meanwhile, Ling Xia sat in his bed, refusing to leave the house to prevent Pan Qiu from getting any vital information. The boy acted nothing like how he behaved during the negotiation.

The gang obviously wanted to use the good cop bad cop strategy on him, but it didn't work, so they decided to use Pan Qiu as his protector to make Ling Xia lower his guard. Such an arrogant person could never be taken seriously after all. Did the gang really expect him to believe that this wasn't some kind of ploy?

The other reason Ling Xia didn't go to school the past few days was to make Mu Ninghua think he was dead. Even in the original world, Chu Yan never vocalized the fact that he killed Li Ming, he just refused to speak of it, which Mu Ninghua took as guilt for killing him. The same thing would happen in the lifetime Ling Xia interfered in.

The notion that Ling Xia was dead would take root in Mu Ninghua's mind after a few days. After which, Mu Ninghua might reveal the reason she wanted him killed.

Speaking of getting killed, since the gang obviously didn't intend to protect him with all their heart, Ling Xia needed to find a way to preserve himself with his own power. Since this world was centered around businesses, why not create his own company? Or better yet, provide enough ideas to a company so that they will find him valuable enough to protect him by themselves?

Ling Xia opened his laptop excitedly and went to a venture capital firm's website. Yi Hua was a venture capital firm that allowed people to propose their ideas by giving a summary on the company's website, then linking a more in-depth explanation for any interested people. They then reviewed the proposals that got more attention than others.

Ling Xia quickly created a page for himself and entered a pseudonym as his name. He included his contact information and scrolled down to the summary section. Excited to get security he knew would last, he placed his fingers lightly on the keyboard, but his excitement quickly deflated when he realized that he never came up with an idea to propose in the first place.

He racked his brains for an idea, and one came to him quite easily. A big problem people faced in the biotech industry was the regeneration of neurons in the central nervous system. The reason being, the cells have to regenerate in the exact place and position the old ones died in. Otherwise, the circuit of neurons won't be connected all the way through. Coming from the interstellar era, though, Ling Xia already knew the solution.

He speedily wrote down his summary, then got to making a page for the details of the proposal. He finished it quickly and clicked the submit button. Even though he knew it was a long shot, he hoped that the idea would get some attention in a couple of days. For now, though, he could only be patient.

He spent the rest of the weekend at the ice rink, trying to calm his restless soul. He didn't know why, but he felt very rushed these past few days, as if something big was going to happen soon.

Ling Xia usually trusted his gut, but this feeling seemed to be baseless. Mu Ninghua couldn't come up with another plot to kill him when she didn't even know he was alive. There seemed to be nothing wrong, but the feeling persisted through all the common sense Ling Xia threw at it.

Before he knew it, Monday arrived, and Ling Xia went to school. Li Ming's parents bought him a new bicycle because the old one was stolen from the spot Ling Xia left it in, although, considering that it was his own fault, Ling Xia insisted on using his own money to pitch in.

He rode it to school and walked into the school. Nobody looked at him weirdly, and he didn't cross paths with anybody he or Li Ming knew.

News of his misfortunate accident hadn't seemed to have spread this far, or even at all. The information appeared to have been suppressed.

Ling Xia brushed off his questions, and travelled through the school to the correct room for the first third years' council meeting. But before he pushed the door open, he heard a certain somebody's voice vaguely. He put his ear to the door, straining his ears to catch what Mu Ninghua was saying.

Inside the room, Mu Ninghua broke the news to Ji Shengge and Ling Yu. "I can't believe that I'm the one that has to tell you guys this, but… I'll be the one joining you today because Li Ming, unfortunately, is not with—"

Ling Xia burst through the door before Mu Ninghua could finish the sentence. Everybody looked at him, wondering why he made such a flamboyant entrance, and Ling Xia awkwardly scratched his nose in embarrassment. But how could he let Mu Ninghua complete the sentence? Then Ji Shengge would definitely connect the dots and figure out that Mu Ninghua was his source of information.

"Hello." He added a little wave to mask his embarrassment, but it only served to make it worse.

Mu Ninghua regained her senses and hastily produced an excuse for her words. "Li Ming? Why are you here? Chu Yan told me you quit the student council."

So that was her cover-up. But on the outside, he just frowned. "I don't remember telling him that."

"Really? I'll ask Chu Yan about that later." She exited the room after that, leaving the rest of the people in awkward silence, some not understanding what was going on, and some confused at why Mu Ninghua left so suddenly.

Ling Xia turned to the other two people in the room. "Should we begin?" Ling Yu hesitantly nodded as if he was still processing what just happened, and Ji Shengge just raised an eyebrow and sat down.

Ling Xia followed their actions, setting down his bag next to his chair.

The three talked for the rest of the homeroom period about club budgets and the one trip all the third year students got to take for the year. Ling Xia noticed halfway through that Ling Yu was staring at him again. Yep, he was definitely from the real world. Why else would he gape at Ling Xia as if he was supposed to be dead?

Ji Shengge also acted upright and serious during the entire session, which he was anything but just a few days ago. At the end, everybody said bye to each other and left to their own class.

Overall, Ling Xia felt that it was a good investment of time. He learned something about Mu Ninghua's main motive for everything she did. She wanted to raise her favorability with every capture target. It was the only plausible explanation, considering that she instantly replaced herself with Ling Xia in the student council when he "died".

Mu Ninguha had no contact with Ji Shengge, which Ling Xia now assumed was the fifth capture target, because they were in different classes, and he was the type to only act when he was interested. The easiest way to be in contact with him would be to join the student council.

Except… Mu Ninghua placed fourth overall last year in the rankings, not in the top three which did not guarantee her a spot in the council.

To Mu Ninghua, Li Ming was the only unimportant person in the student council because the other two were capture targets, so Mu Ninghua had him killed to get a spot in the student council. Ling Xia didn't really understand why Mu Ninghua couldn't just convince Li Ming to not join the student council, but it didn't matter now.

All that mattered was that Ling Xia already had Ji Shengge and Ling Yu on his side, and their favorability of Mu Ninghua had dropped as well. Ling Xia was now the one with the power. Though, not for long if he failed to get some protection soon.