Chapter 49: Suspected Sister-in-law

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Chapter 49: Suspected Sister-in-law

Zheng Yuhu’s words caused Mu Yanxiao to frown slightly, and he had a faint sense of foreboding. He handed the document to Mu Two, who opened it with a solemn expression. A few minutes later, Mu Two’s expression changed slightly.

Lin You held his head high as he watched Mu Two lean in to whisper a few words to Mu Yanxiao. Mu Yanxiao’s aura changed immediately, and his deep, piercing eyes shot straight toward Zheng Yuhu.

“You made a move against Yanming. Do you realize the consequences?” Although there was no explicit agreement between Mu Yanxiao and Zheng Yuhu regarding not harming each other’s family, it was an unspoken rule understood by both sides. Mu Two had just informed him that Zheng Yuhu had done something to Mu Yanming in City B, leaving the latter in a precarious, no-win situation.

Zheng Yuhu’s expression darkened slightly at Mu Yanxiao’s words, yet he soon smiled as though completely at ease. “Did we ever make a pact? We were always opponents destined to fight to the death. Is there anything off-limits?”

Mu Yanxiao remained silent for a long moment before suddenly laughing. “Since you put it that way, there is no need for hesitation. We’ll each rely on our own abilities. Life and death are up to fate, and wealth and honor are in the hands of Heaven. Don’t blame me for showing no mercy later on. After all, you were the ones who struck first.”

Inside the restaurant, Zhang Ya and Chen Yuhe were somewhat baffled by the exchange between Mu Yanxiao and Zheng Yuhu, yet that didn’t stop them from understanding who currently had the upper hand. Zhang Ya scoffed, “You actually have the nerve to talk to us about personal ties? You stole jewelry from your eldest aunt’s family as well as my own belongings, and you still want to talk about sentiment? What a joke. There hasn’t been any goodwill left between us for a long time! Just answer me this: are you going to return the business assets you took from us or not? If you don’t, don’t blame us for getting nasty!”

Mu Yanxiao sneered and stood up. “Even if I were to return what rightfully belongs to me, I don’t believe for a second that you lot would suddenly be kind enough to stop coming after me. So, let’s not bother with that! Giving a vicious dog a piece of meat won’t make it stop biting you. The best solution is to kill it outright.”

With that, Mu Yanxiao turned and walked away, leaving the four people with nothing but a cold, stern view of his retreating back.

Zheng Yuhu hadn’t expected that even using Mu Yanming as leverage would fail to make Mu Yanxiao back down. Instead, it had only made him abandon his final reservations. Judging by his demeanor as he left, Zheng Yuhu feared they were going to have serious trouble on their hands.

“Tch. I refuse to believe you’ve never used your full strength, that you’ve been holding back all this time and showing mercy! If you really had that kind of ability, how did you end up blind and unable to see anything at all?!” Zheng Yuhu spat out coldly, his face twisted in a ferocious scowl.

……

Upon leaving the Wirth Hotel, Mu Yanxiao instructed Mu One to drive straight to the airport. He needed to fly to City B as quickly as possible. According to the documents Zheng Yuhu had just presented, Yanming was in a precarious situation. It was not due to any health issues, but because of the situation he was facing. A single wrong move could cost the City B subsidiary hundreds of millions in profits, and those losses could continue to grow until the situation spiraled completely out of control.

Mu Yanxiao was less concerned about what would happen to the company than about the consequences if Mu Yanming made the wrong choice. Even though Mu Yanming was a second-generation heir, he was still a second-generation heir with a conscience and self-respect. A mistake of this magnitude would likely leave him completely unable to recover for the next five years. If his mental resilience happened to be weak, he might well lose the confidence to take part in company affairs ever again. This would be a devastating blow not only to the Mu Family but to Mu Yanming himself.

“Meow.”

“Don’t worry. Honestly, even though that younger brother of yours is a bit of an idiot, a little slow on the uptake, and kind of stupid, he at least knows what’s important and what’s not. He can listen to other people’s advice, so he should be fine.” Lin You curled up in his blind owner’s arms and patted his tense arm with a tiny paw to offer some comfort.

Mu Yanxiao felt soothed by his pet’s gesture. The tense expression he had worn ever since leaving the hotel finally began to relax. After rubbing Linlin’s soft fur a few times, Mu Yanxiao started to think that perhaps his troublesome younger brother wouldn’t be quite as troublesome as he’d imagined.

“I might be very busy once we get to City B and may not be able to look after you all the time. I’ll have Yanming stay with you instead. He’ll accompany you wherever you want to go, whatever you want to do, and whatever you want to play. So you need to stay safe. Don’t go off and do something reckless just for the hell of it, got it?”

Upon hearing this, Lin You immediately flew into a huff. He swiped a claw at his blind master. “You’re the one who’s courting death! You do it every single day! If it weren’t for this lord here, who knows how many times you would’ve slammed into a wall? If you’d hit one a little harder, you’d have been killed already, you know?!”

Mu Yanxiao’s mouth twitched and he rolled his eyes slightly, deciding it wasn’t worth arguing with this little goofball. Actually, he really wanted to give him a dismissive “hehe,” but he was afraid of making his little pet lose his temper, so he let it go.

Once the group arrived at the airport, Mu One and Mu Two checked the flight schedule and discovered a flight to City B departing in just half an hour. This meant they wouldn’t need to return to their compound to fetch the helicopter.

During that half-hour, Mu Yanxiao called his younger brother. Although Mu Yanming tried his best to sound cheerful and insisted that everything was going smoothly, Mu Yanxiao knew this troublesome brother of his far too well. From the very first sentence, he could tell that Mu Yanming’s mood was off, confirming that something really had happened in City B.

“Haha, Brother, take care of yourself over there! After all, the Mu Family is counting on you! Even though I’ve been thrust into this role in a crisis, I’ll be thanking the heavens as long as nothing goes disastrously wrong!”

Mu Yanxiao raised an eyebrow and was about to speak when suddenly a chubby little paw reached out, pressed against the phone, and a furious voice immediately came roaring through. “Take care of your damn self! You little menace, you’d better stay put and wait for me! Just wait until I get there and beat the crap out of you! Don’t think that just because your brother is easygoing, I will be too. Don’t you know that coddling a kid just spoils them? Good kids are beaten into shape!”

Mu Yanming heard a few meows over the phone, but what really caught his attention was the male voice accompanying them. He was certain he had never heard that voice before, yet why did that particularly familiar, annoyingly cheeky tone feel so familiar? It felt as though the speaker knew him extremely well. That had to be an illusion.

Someone who could stand beside his brother and berate him with such confidence hadn’t even been born yet! After all, although his brother was always finding ways to thrash him, verbally torment him, and frighten him, he was the most protective person imaginable when it came to his own family. If anyone else dared to treat him the way his brother did, that person would have to be either his future sister-in-law or his grandfather!

So, what was going on with this guy? Mu Yanming was momentarily too stunned to react. Before he could even ask who the person was, the call was abruptly disconnected.

Left staring at his phone, the youngest Mu sibling’s imagination ran wild with all sorts of scenarios. Suddenly, a look of horror crossed his face, and he shouted, “Oh my god! Don’t tell me that guy is actually my future sister-in-law?! When did Brother stop liking women and start going for men instead?! No wonder he hasn’t gotten married or had kids yet. So the real reason all along was that he had the wrong gender preference!”

“Hiss… But come to think of it, that man seems to get along pretty well with that ferocious little lynx, judging by his voice? Tsk tsk, this really is a miracle.”

Mu Yanming couldn’t help but chuckle as he mused on this. Standing beside him, Mu Nine wore an expression of utter exasperation and said, “Second Young Master, isn’t the real issue that the Boss will be here in half an hour? We made four decisions earlier, and two of them were wrong. How do you think the Boss is going to deal with us when he gets here?”

Mu Yanming was instantly rendered speechless. The smile that had been playing on his lips froze abruptly. Finally, looking as though he might cry, he said, “Little Nine! Can’t you tell me something good for a change? Do you think I haven’t had a miserable enough time these past few days?!”

Mu Nine rolled his eyes, showing absolutely no deference. “Second Young Master, believe me, however miserable you’ve been these past few days, I’ve had it ten times worse.”

Mu Yanming gritted his teeth at Mu Nine, who remained unfazed. “I reckon that because of this blunder, I won’t be getting a paycheck for the next twenty years. I’ll probably have to scrape by alongside Little Ten. Out of all the Mu Numbers, I’m probably going to be the most miserable one.”

Hearing this, Mu Yanming finally found an opening to retort. He declared with great solemnity, “You’re mistaken. The one who has it the worst isn’t you. It’s Mu Seven, who’s already dead without even leaving a whole corpse behind.” He patted Mu Nine on the shoulder. “Alright, alright. You’d better focus on figuring out how we’re going to face Brother. At the very least, we have to make sure we’re still alive and kicking after we see him. As for everything else, we’ll cross that bridge when we get there!”

A pall of gloom instantly descended upon the office. Mu Yanming and Mu Nine dug out all the documents and went through them again, making one final, desperate struggle.

The Mu Family’s business operations in City B had recently run into some obstacles, and the staff had begun to sense something unusual. It was as if, at some point without anyone realizing it, even when they worked extremely hard, something always felt wrong. When the monthly performance figures came out at the end of the month, that feeling only grew stronger.

What on earth was going on? Was the company facing a crisis?!

Just as the employees were whispering among themselves, speculating about what had caused the current deadlock, a staff member suddenly shared a photo. It was a picture of the Mu Family CEO—the “Big Boss,” hailed as a miracle of the business world—whom they all recognized instantly. In the photo, he wore a solemn expression, with Mu One and Mu Two, who looked equally stern, following behind him. No matter how you looked at it, the picture was incredibly cool and imposing. From every angle, the Boss looked like a true big shot.

Yet there was one slight flaw—or rather, one particularly jarring detail. The Big Boss was cradling a cat in his arms. While the cat looked incredibly adorable, his front paws were resting on the Boss’s shoulder, his head held high and his ears perked up, making it look as though the most imposing big shot in the picture wasn’t Boss Mu at all, but the cat.

[Boss Mu has suddenly appeared in City B!! We’re finally going to break out of this deadlock where we couldn’t figure out the reason for the stagnation no matter how hard we tried!!]

[But wait, is that cat the legendary boss mascot from City A? Why does it look so damn badass?!]

The employees in City B went about their work while harboring this question and waiting for further developments. Meanwhile, in the top-floor office of the Mu Family’s City B headquarters, the usually arrogant and insufferable second-generation heir of the Mu Family was currently hunched over like a plague-stricken chicken with bird flu, head hanging and neck drawn in, waiting for his brother seated across the desk to lecture him.

As Mu Yanxiao listened to Mu Two summarize the data on all their business operations and major decisions in City B, his expression grew increasingly grim. When Mu Two finished explaining the final decision, Mu Yanxiao slammed his hand onto the table. The thunderous sound startled Mu Yanming so badly that he nearly fell out of his chair, his legs trembling.

“Do you still intend to tell me that everything here is going well? I’ll give you ten minutes. Tell me, as concisely as possible, exactly what made you make such a stupid decision.”

“Meow~”

“Actually, if you can’t put it into words~ I can explain it for you~ When all is said and done~ it all comes down to your IQ being so painfully worrying~ Heh heh heh!”

Mu Yanming’s eyes widened in shock as he stared at the talking cat. Unable to hold himself up any longer, he plopped onto the floor.

Holy shit… The thing that just spoke… is that a cat spirit?!

Lin You, the suspected cat spirit, looked at Second Young Master Mu’s reaction with utter disdain and turned his head away. Cat spirit your ass! You’re just an idiot with a painfully low IQ!

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