Chapter 2652: The Gao Family People
Waiting in the restaurant private room were six middle-aged men, one of whom was Baobao's boss. As soon as she arrived, he introduced her to the men at the table. After a somewhat lengthy "handshake and get to know each other" session, the boss told Baobao about the new job he had arranged for her and made her thank the big shots present for giving her a meal ticket.
Baobao smiled sweetly, clinking glasses with each of them in turn. Both sides had prepared antidote potions and drank with all their might. When the final round came, Baobao's boss had someone bring in a bottle of spiked liquor, forced a few more cups down her, and then had someone escort her to her room.
The faces of those several bosses had turned pale from drinking, and they had to take several shots of antidote potion in a row. One potbellied man said, "Your people can really hold their liquor. If we hadn't used some tricks, we wouldn't have gotten her drunk. Is that little bit of drug enough?"
Baobao's boss said with a grin, "There's a precedent for this. Even if she's not drunk, she'll know how to behave. But Baobao is my cash cow, so take it easy."
The potbellied man smiled and walked out of the private room, went downstairs, and entered a room he had booked in advance. Then he lay down on the bed and fell into a deep sleep.
Baobao, who had supposedly "gotten drunk," sat nearby trimming her toenails. She stuffed all the clippings into the potbellied man's mouth and then slapped him across the face in disgust.
Not long after, Baobao's boss opened the door and came in. As if accustomed to it, he walked over to the bed, checked the potbellied man's breathing, then dug the nail clippings out of his mouth, took off his clothes, and covered him with a blanket.
"You need to consider my feelings every time I have to dig out those nail clippings." The boss sat down across from Baobao, lit a cigarette, and took a drag. "You're disgusted, but what about me?"
Baobao let out a cold laugh. "Who told you to find such disgusting people?"
"I'd love to find you some decent-looking ones, but would you dare?" the boss said. "These people don't have any powerful players around them. Otherwise, your little tricks would have been exposed long ago. If a player tried to force you, I wouldn't be able to help."
"Then I'd just escape into the game." Baobao asked him for a cigarette, crossed her legs, and leaned back. Unlike her bright and lively demeanor on stage, she now had a somewhat weary beauty.
The boss stared at her for a long time. "Marry me, and you'll never have to look at these people's faces again."
"Do you think you're any better?" Baobao said. "The men and women under you—except for me—how many of them don't sleep with clients?"
"I've treated you well." The boss smiled. "One is willing to strike, the other willing to endure. Zone 039 is constantly at war. Everyone's struggling to make a living."
"I heard the Isle Country has gotten much better lately." Baobao looked out the window.
The boss's face darkened. "All your family is dead. Who do you even know in the Isle Country anymore?"
"There's no family for me here either." Baobao turned back and deliberately blew smoke in his face. "If I married Wang Yao, you'd have a connection with the officials."
"The Wang family is something I can't afford to provoke." The boss suppressed his anger. "But if Wang Yao really wanted to marry you, he wouldn't have dragged his feet this long. If he pays the right price, I'll send you off in style!"
"Do I need you to send me off if I want to leave?" Baobao mocked him. "You're not even a player. When will you ever become a player..."
"Knock, knock, knock!" The knocking startled both of them. Before they could respond, the entire door flew backward into the room. A player strode in, glanced at the person on the bed, then looked at Baobao. "There's no such thing as a free lunch."
The boss suddenly stood up to block Baobao, instinctively whispering to her, "Hide in the game. Come back in a few years!"
Baobao didn't move. She stared at the player in front of her.
That player was also waiting. Only when he confirmed she wasn't leaving did he smile and say, "That's the wise choice. If you had left, not only would he and his family die, but your friends, your classmates—even your adoptive parents would be dug up and their bones ground to dust."
"Isn't there some misunderstanding here? Why don't we have an open and honest talk? If the deal doesn't go through..." Before the boss could finish, Baobao interrupted him. She walked around him and stepped forward, asking the person opposite, "Did Wang Yao send you?"
Under the boss's shocked and uncertain gaze, that player said, "This is Young Master Yao's last chance for you. Otherwise, by tomorrow, everyone will know how you trade your body for money. And those who have been wronged won't let you or your boss off easy."
Baobao let out a long sigh, showed impatience, turned around, and kicked her boss to the ground. "How annoying! Everyone uses this coward to threaten me. If they want to kill him, let them. In a couple of years, I'll come back and avenge him. Wang Yao is stronger than me, but his family has plenty of people. I can always pick off one or two."
She then looked at her boss. "When the time comes, I'll bury you next to his grave and make them serve you as slaves."
The boss couldn't muster any joy. He gritted his teeth and said, "Minister Wang and I were schoolmates. I visited him before the new year..."
That player pulled up an obituary. "Fresh out. Minister Wang died of a sudden illness half an hour ago."
The boss's teeth began to chatter because an icy flying blade was pressed against his neck.
Baobao's expression shifted. After a long moment, she walked over, brushed aside the flying blade, and crouched in front of her boss. "At least you helped my adoptive parents. I've worked for you for a few years to repay that debt. This time, I've saved your life again. From now on, we're strangers. Go find another cash cow."
"Where are you going? What does Wang Yao want to do to you?" the boss asked urgently.
"He wants me to bear his child." Baobao stood up and said helplessly, "I really don't know why such terrible genes need to be passed on. I heard his father and several of his brothers are decent people..."
As she spoke, her voice had already reached the doorway. Wang Yao was actually in the hotel, just one floor away.
The room was dark. The player who had led the way nodded to the person sitting in the shadows, then withdrew and closed the door.
Baobao walked over to him. "It's not like we've never met before. Why the pretentious act?"
"I want to become a descendant of the Gao family." In the darkness, "Wang Yao" spoke.
"Then go ahead. Doesn't your father take you everywhere? If you kneel down and beg him, he might just agree." Baobao found a seat and sat down, speaking with undisguised sarcasm.
"That kind of thing can't be begged for. In his eyes, I don't even have a ticket to enter." "Wang Yao" leaned forward slightly. "But you're different. You're a true descendant of the Gao family."
"Things have come to this. You have no better choice." He continued, "Your identity, my bloodline—the child we produce will be a true descendant of the Gao family!"
Seeing that Baobao was unmoved, he raised his hand, and the boss, who should have been downstairs, crashed to the floor. "Wang Yao" stepped on his head and said with extreme malice, "How long can you hold out? This person is the only one left in the world who has any connection to you. Without him, from now on, you'll be nothing but a drifting weed in a chaotic world. Like your birth parents and adoptive parents, you'll die somewhere, and no one will care."
The anger in Baobao's eyes swelled to its peak, and then she burst into loud laughter. Wiping away her tears, she mocked Wang Yao, "The Gao family has been extinct for over four hundred years. And you still think you can produce a child of the Gao family? Let me tell you, my birth parents and adoptive parents were just children adopted by the Gao family's descendants. And the people who adopted them were also adopted by the previous generation of Gao family members. The reason your father, Wang Ping, didn't choose you as his heir is because you're not qualified!"
"You probably don't even know this. Your father, Wang Ping, has nothing to do with the Gao family. On the other hand, your eldest and second brothers' mother was a child adopted by the Gao family. But their maternal family chose your father, an outsider, to inherit the Gao family. Likewise, your eldest and second brothers probably weren't chosen either. I heard your fourth brother has been away for years, like an invisible man. And his mother has nothing to do with the Gao family at all!"
"So that's how it is." After hearing this speech, which seemed deliberately intended to provoke anger, "Wang Yao" appeared very calm. "It seems you really know a lot about the Gao family."
Baobao suddenly snapped back to reality. "You're not Wang Yao! Who are you?!"
The room's lights came on. A man she had never seen before sat in a chair in the corner. The boss at his feet had also disappeared, leaving only the real Wang Yao lying on the ground.
Baobao tried to run, but even though she held her ticket in her hand, she found she couldn't use it. She stared in disbelief at the person opposite her. Then, a second later, she made up her mind and bit down hard on the poison hidden in her fingernail!