The Malicious Member is Back! - Chapter 150
The conversation I had with Gao Yan in the vocal room wasn’t actually that long.
“To think you have this kind of information, Chunyong hyung. Don’t tell me you have ties with public security? That’d be a bit inconvenient! Of course, I assure you—my family’s business is entirely legitimate. I just personally dislike public security.”
“What the hell are you even talking about?”
If Gao Yan hadn’t been spouting nonsense with that serious face of his, it probably would have been even shorter.
Anyway.
The moment I finally spilled the truth about Liu Wei’s engagement, Gao Yan didn’t seem particularly surprised.
It was expected for upper-class Chinese heirs or whatever.
…Meanwhile, even now—seven years later—it still feels completely unreal to me.
What kind of family-arranged engagement still exists in this day and age?
“Now I see why you hesitated, Chunyong hyung. But an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. Liu Wei’s side was way worse, spreading fake rumors first—so this is totally fair.”
“Yeah. I didn’t want to do it, but… He crossed the line first. It’d be laughable if I was the only one playing fair now.”
“Think positively, Chunyong hyung! That woman should get out of a terrible engagement like this as soon as possible. Liu Wei would be a disaster as a husband. The divorce alimony would be a mess.”
“Yeah, yeah. Either way… If I just go around saying he has a fiancée without any proof, no one’s going to believe me. We need solid evidence. And don’t even THINK about mentioning a livestream, Gao Yan.”
“What?! But wouldn’t a livestream of me revealing the truth be perfect?”
“Man, I said don’t even bring it up.”
“Then how am I supposed to help, huh? Tell me what to do!”
“…I know her name. And I know she’s pretty active on Outgram and other social media.”
With Liu Wei, Li Mingshen, and Gao Yan in the contest, Targeting Star had OTT service streaming even in Greater China.
Whether it was because of that or not, Gao Yan’s past 15-million-follower influencer credentials were still going strong.
His Outgram account had started popping up in people’s recommended feeds, and not just in South Korea.
The Outgram mission had ended with the mid-ranking announcement, but the accounts were still active for self-promotion.
Finding someone on SNS without any leads was usually worse than finding a needle in a desert.
But with this?
There was a real chance.
I still remembered why Liu Wei was so desperate to break the engagement… his fiancée’s SNS addiction and her constant marriage pressure.
Guess drinking had its uses after all.
“Understood. I’ll write a post that’ll grab attention in Greater China, and we’ll find her from there!”
“Right. Just don’t copy what I said word for word. Narrow the target down as much as possible…”
“Pfft. Easy. This world thrives on challenges, Chunyong hyung! If I ask them to tag their names, they’ll gladly do it.”
Even though I knew it wasn’t going to be that easy, Gao Yan was completely confident. And the result was this.
“I’ve narrowed it down to about 15 candidates.”
Gao Yan muttered quietly, leaning in. I nodded, eyes scanning the list of names on his phone.
“All of them match the name you mentioned, hyung. Not only that—some of them come from high-ranking families, and a few even have past interactions with Liu Wei in their posts! As expected of Gao Yan. Honestly, I’d have been a great detective too.”
“Yeah. Your brother probably did most of the work, though. Having a good family is a blessing.”
“Of course! I love my family. They love me, too.”
Gao Yan thumped his chest, then spoke again, this time with serious determination.
“Now, we’ll monitor their posts, find the right moment, and dig up Liu Wei’s connections. This is an amazing and brilliant plan. I’m excited!”
“Yeah. In the meantime… I’ll keep looking for other ways. Either way, this is huge. Thanks, Gao Yan.”
“Please. To the Star of Hong Kong, the Detective Star Gao Yan, this is nothing!”
Brimming with confidence, Gao Yan snickered and slipped out of the emergency stairwell first, insisting that we’d attract too much attention if we left together.
“…….”
I watched him disappear for a moment, then pulled out my phone and rechecked the messages from X.
— X: Alright, I loaded up your 8th-place reward for you, so check it out. Got it??
— X: Your stats are pre~~tty much all recovered, so that’s one less thing to worry about. Phew.
— X: If your skills had been a mess on top of all the sabotage, you’d have been gone already.
— X: But still, things are finally falling into place, huh?
— X: I can’t do much to help with that particular issue, but…[Fortune Cookie]
— X: It’s a skill that predicts your luck for the day, but it’s not just some superstition—it’s all based on probability and big data. Trust in my company’s analytics!
— X: If you pull off this next performance well, I’ll see if I can unlock it for you! Your success is the fastest way to boost my bonus : – D
“Luck, huh….”
I tucked my phone away, lingering on that one word from X’s message.
Back then, I’d never been lucky.
If I had, that incident wouldn’t have happened in the first place.
Maybe that’s why I’d started acting more cautiously. A hesitant personality that didn’t suit my scary-looking face.
No matter how careful I was, things still happened, because I had no luck.
“But Gao Yan. You actually don’t have to help me.”
“Chunyong hyung, you say all that, and now you’re trying to get serious again?”
“I’m not trying to set the mood, dumbass. Listen seriously. This isn’t something that benefits you. It’s just a hassle—it won’t even help your ranking.”
Right now, Gao Yan is 16th place.
People could say, “It’s not over till it’s over,” but he knew, and so did the rest of us— the reality was that he had no chance.
Sure, I knew Gao Yan would make a name for himself as an Outgram influencer someday… but right now, he had no clear future ahead.
I couldn’t just expect him to put me first.
But Gao Yan thought differently.
“Chunyong hyung. You probably don’t know this, but there’s a book written by Lao Tzu. It’s called Tao Te Ching.”
“Why the hell are you bringing that up? Of course, I know it. We all learned about it in middle school. You little brat, I told you to take this seriously!”
“Oh? You don’t look like you’d be that knowledgeable, Chunyong hyung. Anyway, there’s a passage in it that goes like this: “If someone does you harm, wait. Soon, you will see their corpse floating down the river.””
“…….”
“What I’m trying to say is this, Chunyong hyung. That corpse? Someone had to dirty their hands to put it there. Liu Wei threatened my family. That doesn’t change.”
“…….”
“And you are one of the good people I met in Korea. If I can help, and that help actually fixes something, why the hell would I refuse? They say the enemy of my enemy is my friend— but we were already friends in the first place!”
Bees
*Sobs* I love Gao Yan. I’m sentimentally attached to him.