YA Ch93: Brilliant Plan

“Big brother? Oh no, big brother, I really can’t accept this,” Lu Yu exclaimed dramatically, rushing over to help Hong Wuyang up. “What are you doing?”

Young Master Hong was so embarrassed that his neck turned red, glancing around without knowing where to look. Awkwardly, he handed over the money. “I was just passing by and overheard you two arguing about dowry. So, I thought I’d contribute a little.”

“Big brother, you’re so righteous!” Lu Yu gave him a hearty slap on the shoulder, accepting the money without hesitation and stuffing it into his pocket.

In front of others, Ming Yan couldn’t show any anger, so he calmly asked Hong Wuyang, “We’re having a meeting at Hongxiao Capital tomorrow. Can I come along?”

Having just heard part of Ming Yan’s scolding, Hong Wuyang didn’t dare say “no” and replied without thinking, “Of course.”

Ming Yan nodded in thanks, shot Lu Yu a glare, and left without another word.

Feeling guilty, Lu Yu rubbed his nose and grabbed the big brother and Lao Yang, who were both trying to sneak away. He wrapped an arm around each of their necks and gritted through his teeth, “You two were eavesdropping, huh?”

Ming Yan, who had just reached the elevator, heard Lao Yang’s scream from behind.

“Oww, why aren’t you hitting him?”

“He’s the esteemed top fan! He just tipped me, so he’s safe from getting hit.”

The implication was clear: if you want to avoid a beating, pay up.

Lao Yang, resigned to his fate, said, “Go ahead and hit me then.” Paying wasn’t an option!

In the afternoon live stream, Ming Yan kept a cold face the whole time, not speaking to Lu Yu and simply focusing on his work—fixing the scene bugs caused by Hua Wenyuan’s wandering.

As Hua Wenyuan’s modifications became more complete, his autonomy was gradually increasing, and he occasionally wandered off the set path to other places. However, the simulation’s scene construction was limited. Some auto-generated scenes were nonsensical, while some hand-drawn parts were poorly made. Ming Yan had to follow Hua Wenyuan to fix potential glitches, while Lu Yu was responsible for correcting Hua Wenyuan’s direction.

If the two didn’t communicate, it caused coordination errors.

Lu Yu sidled up to Ming Yan and tugged on his sleeve. “Talk to me, will you?”

With that tug, Ming Yan’s repairing of the sycamore tree turned it into a crooked one. He pulled his sleeve back and added a few patches of moss to the bend in the crooked tree.

Frustrated, Lu Yu circled him. “If you don’t talk to me, I’ll send Hua Wenyuan into the mountains to hunt! Today he’ll hunt the nine-colored deer, the qilin tiger, the phoenix bird, and the golden-furred rat!”

These were all mythical creatures, none of which existed in the Shooting the Heavenly Wolf art asset library, and each was more complex than the last. Drawing them in a short amount of time would be impossible unless Ming Yan suddenly grew extra arms like a monster.

The audience quickly caught on that the two were at odds, but no one sympathized with Lu Yu; they all just laughed.

[Hahaha, Han Di Ba Yu pissed off his wife.]

[This is the first time I’ve seen someone try to apologize by threatening to increase their partner’s workload.]

[How the hell does an idiot like this even have a wife?]

Ming Yan took a deep breath and drew a big, fat pig. The fat pig was already in the asset library, so it didn’t need extra capabilities from Lu Yu. Once it appeared, it started running around, squealing and charging straight at Lu Yu.

Lu Yu jumped and dodged, chased all over the courtyard by the pig. Suddenly, he climbed up the crooked tree, raised his hand, and shouted, “Jian, come!”

A black seven-stringed zither disguised as a keyboard appeared under his hand. Before the pig could turn and chase after Ming Yan, Lu Yu quickly typed:

【The large pig chasing Hua Shengmi couldn’t stop in time as Hua Shengmi nimbly dodged, slamming into the tree and knocking itself out.】

After hitting ‘enter,’ the pig seemed to go mad, rushing full speed towards the crooked tree without stopping. With a loud “thud,” it slammed into the tree trunk and collapsed, unconscious.

Hua Wenyuan heard the commotion and came over to investigate. “Second Uncle, what happened?” After asking, his gaze shifted from Lu Yu, perched in the tree, to the unconscious pig on the ground.

Lu Yu calmly jumped down from the tree. “Nothing; the pig ran into the tree.”

Puzzled, Hua Wenyuan lifted the pig by its ear to examine it. “Why is there a pig in the Shen family manor?”

This pig looked like one raised by humans, as it had a rancid smell of kitchen slop. But this was the Shen family’s front courtyard, a place for receiving guests, a good hundred feet away from the kitchen.

“Your aunt brought it here,” Lu Yu said mysteriously, hands behind his back. “It’s a metaphor. Your aunt wants to teach me a lesson.”

Hua Wenyuan, utterly confused, asked, “What lesson?”

Clearing his throat, Lu Yu said solemnly, “When a pig hits a tree, it knows to turn. When snot reaches its mouth, it knows to wipe. And when your wife is mad and ignores you, you should explain the situation properly!”¹“When a pig hits a tree, it knows to turn; when snot falls into the mouth, you know to wipe it” comes from the comedy skit Unlocking the Door.

Ming Yan couldn’t help but laugh at these words, but quickly stopped when Lu Yu winked at him.

[Okay, now I understand why Han Di Ba Yu, this jerk has a wife.]

[With a smooth talker like him, even the coldest beauty would be amused and quickly won over.]

Afterward, they continued with the plot. Hua Wenyuan sent Xie Zhongyun to lead troops to take over the iron mine in the neighboring county, ordering him to rescue the people forced into labor there.

A scholar from the Chen family tried to flatter him. “The general is so kind-hearted. Those miners suffer terrible casualties every year. Seizing the mine earlier could have saved many lives.”

Already a decorated war hero, Xie Zhongyun bluntly replied, “Even after taking the mine, we’ll still need people to dig. The general just wants the iron ore to forge weapons.”

Scholar Chen: “…”

Hua Wenyuan, exasperated, kicked his foolish cousin. “Hurry up and go! If you’re late, I’ll make you dig too!”

Lu Yu had been sitting on the side, bored and cracking sunflower seeds, but suddenly he got an idea when he heard those words.

That night, when they got home, he nervously pulled Ming Yan aside and said, “I’m not doing this just for the Ming family. Honestly, it’s more for Chenyu. The AI assistant depends on the AI brain to exist; it can’t just rely on marketing that’s so hit-or-miss. If we acquire the AI manufacturing company and bind it together, we’ll have a long-term stable customer base.”

Ming Yan let the warm chest behind him press against his back and sighed softly. It was unclear whether he accepted this explanation, but he pinched Lu Yu’s cheek and said, “Let me be clear. If their demands are too excessive tomorrow, I’ll reject them on the spot.”

“Of course, it’s up to you,” Lu Yu snuggled into Ming Yan’s neck. “Not mad anymore, right? Come on, let’s go to bed.”

However, just as Lu Yu was hugging and snuggling, Ming Yan pushed him away, saying seriously, “We’re meeting guests tomorrow. You need to stay in good shape, so tonight we’re sleeping separately.”

With that, he mercilessly shut the bedroom door in Lu Yu’s face.

The boss balloon flew around Lu Yu, who stood there in a daze, and said gleefully, “That’s what you get for not behaving last night. Your credit has gone bankrupt!”

Lu Yu raised a hand and flicked the second balloon on the forehead. After whining outside the door for a while to no avail, he pitifully went to sleep by himself.

He was used to having a warm, fragrant body in his arms, so the big, empty, cold bed was hard to sleep in. On top of that…

“Bang!”

“Smack!”

“Clang, clang, clang!”

The two balloon kids—one whipped the other with a tail, the other slapped back—were fighting furiously at the head of Lu Yu’s bed.

“Can’t you two calm down for a bit?” Lu Yu called to the two little ones, “Come here, I have two tasks for you. Complete them well, and I’ll give each of you fifty cents.”

He sent the two cyber sons to monitor whether their dad had fallen asleep. Shen Baishui, being Ming Yan’s AI, had data synchronization with his internal settings, so as long as they were within a certain range, they could monitor his sleep.

Thus, the boss balloon squatted by Ming Yan’s bedroom door, while the mermaid balloon stayed by Lu Yu’s bed to relay information.

Is he asleep? Not yet.

Is he asleep now? Light sleep.

Has light sleep ended? He’s in deep sleep now.

Lu Yu tiptoed over, quietly opened the door, and slipped inside. The room smelled faintly of sleep-inducing aromatherapy. Whether it was a placebo effect or not, he felt that this room was warmer than the one he had just left.

Carefully climbing into bed, he slipped under the blanket and pulled the sleeping figure into his arms.

Ming Yan was sleeping deeply and didn’t wake up, instead unconsciously snuggling closer in Lu Yu’s arms, finding a comfortable position to lean into.

Lu Yu tucked the blanket in snugly around him and, satisfied, drifted off to sleep.

The next morning, Ming Yan woke up to find himself in Lu Yu’s arms, taking a while to process what had happened.

Lu Yu kissed the bewildered beauty on the cheek. “What’s wrong? Don’t recognize me?”

Ming Yan shook his head, pursed his lips without saying a word, and surprisingly didn’t scold Lu Yu for sneaking into the bed in the middle of the night.

The president ball floated over, crossing his arms and saying, “He used to have insomnia and would wake up at the slightest sound.”

Ming Yan’s ears turned red, and he waved away the noisy President Ball.

“Hehehe…” Lu Yu immediately understood the meaning behind this and grinned like a fool. “Looks like I make Yan-ge feel safe.”

When he had first insisted on sleeping here, Ming Yan did say he was a light sleeper. For someone with such light sleep to be dragged around in his sleep without waking up, it was clear that Ming Yan no longer had any biological defenses against him.

Lu Yu was delighted and hugged the person in his arms, showering him with kisses.

Ming Yan, unable to take the disturbance, struggled out of bed, tossing the nightshirt that had fallen on the carpet onto Lu Yu’s head. “Put on some clothes.” This guy didn’t wear pajamas and would casually throw his clothes on the floor.

Lu Yu chuckled as he took the shirt off his head, watching Ming Yan retreat in embarrassment, finding it utterly adorable.

That day, they had notified the audience in advance that the morning live stream would be canceled. After breakfast, they drove straight to Hongxiao Capital.

The building of Hongxiao Capital was very low-key, nestled among the many buildings on Financial Street without standing out. It only occupied a third of the building, with the other two-thirds rented out, wasting not an inch of space. Compared to the flamboyant offices of Qingqu Capital down the road, it looked almost as if it were hiding from creditors.

Zheng Wuqiong had just arrived as well. As soon as he got out of the car, he headed straight for them, enthusiastically greeting Ming Yan, and then grabbing Lu Yu’s hand. “President Lu, you really have a miraculous foresight”

Lu Yu was confused and didn’t respond hastily.

In business settings, Ming Yan naturally switched into social mode, smiling as he asked, “What brilliant mind are you talking about, Mr. Zheng?”

Mr. Zheng shook Lu Yu’s hand up and down, turning to Ming Yan. “Last Thursday, I was worrying about the permit issue, and President Lu told me, ‘Two days left.’ Then on Friday, he said, ‘One day left.’ Guess what happened on Saturday? The Lu family got kicked out of the AI Data Alliance.”

Lu Yu: “???”

Ming Yan glanced at Lu Yu, whose expression had slightly twitched, and smiled faintly. “Is that so?”

Footnotes:

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  “When a pig hits a tree, it knows to turn; when snot falls into the mouth, you know to wipe it” comes from the comedy skit Unlocking the Door.