Who wants to be a male model after being reborn? I want to be a male god.

Chapter 423 Reasonable Conjectures, Bold Hypotheses

"What should we do about Flash City? Meituan and Ele.me are besieging us, and Li Qingyun is putting pressure on us at the Education Department," Xu Wen continued to ask.

Gu Hong suddenly smiled, a smile tinged with approval: "You have a better business sense than I thought, still thinking about the company even in this situation."

"Hong Jing will continue to assist you with the funding issues of Flash City. The encirclement and suppression by Meituan and Ele.me is not a threat. The key is to stabilize the university market. As for Li Qingyun..."

He chuckled softly, appearing confident and composed: "He'll soon be overwhelmed with his own problems."

Xu Wen understood Gu Hong's implication.

The pressure from the investigation team will prevent Li Qingyun from focusing on suppressing Shancheng for the time being.

This is precisely Flash City's chance to catch its breath.

“I need time. Flash City will soon gain a foothold in all major cities,” Xu Wen promised.

Gu Hong nodded.

Xu Wen did not refuse as he had in the past.

At this moment, Flash City is not only his career, but also an important bargaining chip for protecting Gu Xingruo in the future.

He needs it to become powerful enough to fight any threat.

"There's one more thing. Does Xia Ning know about her father?" Xu Wen suddenly asked.

I wonder what Xia Ning will think after she finds out that her father went down this path because of her.

Her mental state was already not very good.

Xu Wen doesn't know the exact extent of the recovery yet.

What if she breaks down again because of this?

Gu Hong's expression became complicated.

"I'm not sure, but Xia Hai is very protective of her and shouldn't let her get involved in this."

He asked proactively, "Are you worried about her?"

Xu Wen shook his head: "Just confirming. She's been helping out in Flash City lately, and I don't want her to accidentally..."

"Become a pawn? Don't worry, although Xia Hai is in a bad situation, he hasn't reached the point of using his daughter as a bargaining chip." Gu Hong finished his sentence for him.

As the conversation drew to a close, Xu Wen glanced at his watch; it was already 11 p.m.

He got up to say goodbye, but Gu Hong called him back.

"Xu Wen, no matter what happens, remember your promise." This once arrogant man looked unusually tired at this moment.

This is completely different from the Gu Hong he remembered.

Xu Wen knew he was referring to the promise to protect Gu Xingruo.

He nodded, said nothing more, and turned to leave the office.

As Xu Wen stepped out of the Hongjing Building, the night breeze brushed against his face, bringing a touch of coolness.

He looked up at the night sky.

Was Gu Xingruo also gazing at the same starry sky as him at this moment?
My phone vibrated again; this time it was a work report from Lan Qiusheng in Nanjing.

Xu Wen quickly glanced through the list and gave a few instructions.

Flash City's expansion cannot stop; this is his top priority now.

After getting into the car, Xu Wen did not start the engine immediately. Instead, he took out Gu Xingruo's photo from his pocket and examined it carefully by the light of the street lamp.

In the photo, she stands in the snow in a foreign country, her smile forced yet still beautiful.

Xu Wen gently stroked the photograph, as if he could touch her face.

"Wait for me," he said softly, carefully putting the photo back in his pocket and starting the car.

Although it was already very late, Xu Wen still chose to go find Yang Yiyao.

He feels he can't sleep well if he doesn't resolve certain issues today.

He called Yang Yiyao and then drove to Black Cat Tarot.

When Xu Wen parked the car at the entrance, the rain had already stopped.

The glow of the streetlights shone on the wet ground, reflecting the dark night sky.

After turning off the engine, he didn't get out of the car immediately, but stared at the steering wheel for a while.

The conversation in Gu Hong's office was still echoing in his mind.

The information about the USB drive, the Lin family, and Gu Xingruo made his temples throb.

The amount of information that night was so overwhelming that he couldn't process it all at once.

My phone vibrated; it was a message from Yang Yiyao: "Have you arrived yet? I'm in the divination room."

Xu Wen took a deep breath and pushed open the car door.

A slightly cool night breeze, carrying the scent of damp earth after the rain, wafted towards us.

This cleared his muddled thoughts somewhat.

My mind is no longer a complete mess.

He looked up at the sign for Black Cat Tarot.

The silhouette of that lazy black cat looked particularly mysterious in the night.

It didn't seem like anything during the day, but when I saw the sign again at night, it had a strange feel to it.

As I pushed open the door, the familiar sound of the wind chimes still tinkled.

Soft jazz music played in the shop, and the air was filled with the distinctive woody aroma of coffee and tarot cards.

As soon as Xu Wen entered the door, the two little black cats eagerly surrounded him.

He was a little annoyed and didn't touch them right away.

The two kittens seemed to sense his mood; instead of rubbing against his legs, they quietly followed behind him.

Xu Wen had seen this statement before.

It might be true that small animals can sense human emotions.

He strode into the divination room.

Yang Yiyao sat in her usual spot, with several tarot cards spread out in front of her.

Hearing footsteps, she looked up, her eyes gleaming yellow in the dim light.

She was wearing her black witch outfit, and she looked beautiful and mysterious.

“You look terrible,” she said in a high-pitched voice, using the accent of a dubbed film.

Xu Wen found that she imitated it quite well, just like the foreign movies she watched when she was a child.

Yang Yiyao lay lazily on the table, her fingers unconsciously flipping over an upside-down "Tower" card.

Xu Wen gave a slight twitch at the corner of his mouth in response.

Normally, he would join in the joke.

Or perhaps you could make a sarcastic or critical remark about Yang Yiyao.

But he really wasn't in the mood today.

Xu Wen took off his coat and hung it on the coat rack, then walked to the sofa chair opposite Yang Yiyao and sat down.

The sofa was still so soft that he almost sank into it, and a wave of exhaustion washed over him.

Every time he sits on this, he feels drowsy.

"How's the investigation going with Chengyi Hotel?" he asked bluntly.

Yang Yiyao's expression turned serious.

She gathered the tarot cards and neatly arranged them to the side: "I went back and checked the surveillance footage according to the date you mentioned, but all the footage from that day had been deleted, and I couldn't find the person you mentioned at all."

Xu Wen's brows furrowed even more.

This outcome was both unexpected and reasonable. If the other party could forge Li Qingyun's name to send the USB drive, deleting the surveillance footage would be a piece of cake for them.

"Interesting. Chengyi Hotel has a very strict security system. To be able to delete surveillance footage without leaving a trace, you must be either a skilled hacker or..." Xu Wen sneered.

Because of Gu Xingruo's presence, Chengyi Hotel has security far exceeding that of other hotels.

This was a gift from Gu Hong to his daughter.

“He’s an insider, and with considerable authority,” Yang Yiyao replied, her eyes narrowing slightly.

Xu Wen nodded; he had guessed that too.

He made this guess the moment he heard Yang Yiyao say that the surveillance footage had been deleted.

He got up and walked to the safe in the corner of the room.

It contains all sorts of secrets of his.

Xu Wen didn't know why he chose to put the safe in Black Cat Tarot; he simply felt it was safer there.

He could feel Yang Yiyao's gaze on his back as he entered the password, but she wisely refrained from approaching.

The safe made a slight "click" sound, and the door opened.

Besides some important documents and that book, there was only a silver USB drive lying there quietly.

Xu Wen took out the USB drive and weighed it in his hand.

This tiny metal object, weighing only a few grams, may hold a secret powerful enough to overturn the business world of Linjiang.

He walked back to the sofa and plugged the USB drive into his laptop.

The screen lit up, and Xu Wen quickly entered the password.

Seeing this, Yang Yiyao tactfully stood up and said, "I'll go make you a cup of coffee."

"Wait, drinking coffee so late at night, how am I supposed to get some sleep?" Xu Wen called out to her.

After refusing, he continued, "You don't need to avoid me."

Yang Yiyao was visibly taken aback, her fingers gripping her clothes, and she looked somewhat nervous: "Are you sure?"

She didn't know what secrets it held, but she knew it must be terrifying.

"I need your opinion." Xu Wen's voice was calm, but Yang Yiyao could sense the fatigue and pressure hidden within it.

She hesitated for a moment, then sat back down on the sofa, but deliberately kept her distance from the computer screen as a sign of respect.

Xu Wen opened the USB drive, which contained more than a dozen neatly arranged folders, each named by date.

He randomly clicked on one, which contained several photos and a PDF document.

The photo shows Gu Hong talking with several strangers in a restaurant, while the PDF is a record of fund flows, showing a huge sum of money transferred from a subsidiary of Hongjing Industry to an overseas account.

"These things..." Yang Yiyao started to say, but then shut her mouth, realizing she shouldn't be looking at them.

Xu Wen unexpectedly turned the computer towards her: "Take a look, and then tell me your thoughts."

Yang Yiyao's eyes widened; she hadn't expected Xu Wen to offer her access to these confidential documents.

Her gaze searched Xu Wen's face, trying to find the motive behind the decision, but Xu Wen's expression was calm to the point of indifference.

"Are you sure?" she asked again.

“I just came back from Gu Hong’s place.”

Xu Wen did not answer directly, but began to recount the content of his conversation with Gu Hong.

He spent less than ten minutes explaining the main points.

The more Yang Yiyao listened, the more terrified she felt; she had a feeling that she had learned something incredible.

wrong!

She found out something incredible!
Although she found it terrifying, she felt no fear whatsoever; in fact, she was somewhat excited.

“He said that Li Qingyun never gave me the USB drive, and most of the contents of the USB drive were real, but the key parts may have been tampered with,” Xu Wen explained.

As Yang Yiyao listened, she quickly browsed the documents on the screen.

As Xu Wen continued his narration, her brows furrowed more and more deeply.

“What’s even stranger is that Gu Hong knew that the evidence of his crimes was in the hands of others, but he wasn’t flustered at all. He even received a similar USB drive, but the evidence pointing to Li Qingyun was more convincing,” Xu Wen continued.

Yang Yiyao suddenly looked up: "This is absolutely unreasonable! If I were Gu Hong, and I knew that someone had evidence of my crimes, my first reaction would definitely not be like this!"

“Destroy the evidence or find the mastermind, but Gu Hong did neither. He just told me to stay put,” Xu Wen added.

A sly glint flashed in Yang Yiyao's eyes: "Unless..."

“Unless what?” Xu Wen asked quickly.

“Unless all of this was within his expectations, Xu Wen, what if Gu Hong gave you the USB drive under Li Qingyun’s name?” Yang Yiyao’s voice lowered, as if she herself was startled by this thought.

This idea is too radical and lacks any rationality.

But she had a strong premonition.

This is the truth!
The room suddenly fell silent, with only Little White and Little Little White occasionally meowing.

Xu Wen stared at Yang Yiyao, and this bold hypothesis was like a lightning bolt that cleaved through his chaotic thoughts.

"And the motive?" he asked, his voice unusually calm.

Yang Yiyao licked her lips, pondering: "Testing your loyalty? Or guiding the direction of your investigation? If Gu Hong knows someone is investigating him, he might want to preemptively strike and control the flow of information."

Xu Wen twirled her hair around her fingers and stared blankly at the dim yellow light above her head.

Yang Yiyao's hypothesis, though bold, is not impossible.

Gu Hong is a shrewd and calculating man, and he is fully capable of orchestrating such a scheme.

Just like when we were at the Chengyi Hotel.

"But why me? If he wants to test my loyalty, he can just ask directly. If he wants to guide the investigation, there are more professional people to do it," Xu Wen continued to press.

Yang Yiyao's eyes became complicated: "Because of your relationship with Gu Xingruo, you are the only person who has both business dealings with Gu Hong and emotional entanglements with his daughter. Your position is very special."

Xu Wen fell silent.

Yang Yiyao's words touched on a problem he had been avoiding.

Did his relationship with Gu Xingruo affect his judgment?
Was his suspicion of Gu Hong mixed with personal feelings?

“There’s another point of suspicion: the surveillance footage from Chengyi Hotel was deleted too cleanly. If it was done by an outsider, there would be some traces left, but if it was done by Gu Hong’s people,” Yang Yiyao continued to analyze.

“That hotel originally belonged to him, and the people who were arranged there were all his people,” Xu Wen said.

The two looked at each other and saw shock in each other's eyes.

This seemingly crazy assumption is becoming more and more reasonable.

Yang Yiyao suddenly stood up and paced back and forth in the room: "Assuming the USB drive really was given to you by Gu Hong, why would he do it? Was it just to test you? Or did he have a deeper purpose?"

Xu Wen closed his eyes and rested his head against the back of the sofa.

He was exhausted; the continuous high-intensity work and mental stress had dulled his mind.

But Yang Yiyao's analysis was like a bucket of cold water, instantly sobering him up.

"Gu Hong mentioned the Lin family, saying that they had waited for more than ten years and finally found an opportunity to take revenge. If the USB drive was given to me by him, it might be to warn me about the Lin family?" Xu Wen said slowly.

Yang Yiyao stopped in her tracks: "This doesn't make sense. If he wanted to remind you, he would have just told you directly. Why go through all this trouble?"

Xu Wen opened his eyes, and every clue converged into a river in his mind.

“Unless he can’t tell me directly, or he has some other, more specific purpose, he needs me to do something with the USB drive, and only I can do it,” he analyzed.

This idea silenced both of them.

Because they simply couldn't imagine what Gu Hong needed him to do.

Or perhaps they were wrong from the start.

(End of this chapter)