Moderate rain and strong winds made the view outside depressing but it was rather peaceful inside the private villa. The soundproofing wasn’t as good compared to his other properties especially at Dragon Palace Home #10 but it was enough to reduce the noise level from the outside. The light storm outside was reduced to a soft pitter-patter of rain and almost inaudible whooshing of wind when heard from the inside.
Jin Liwei filtered out these mundane sounds. All he cared about right now was the beautiful piano melody that his wife had been composing since this morning. It wasn’t a song but a movement intended for a full-length sonata. The piece was a spur-of-the-moment inspiration just like many of her other musical works.
His wife had a lot of unreleased musical pieces that she composed in her personal collection—both half-finished and completed. She would work on her music everyday even if it was just a simple action of jotting down ideas on a random piece of paper for a few minutes.
The music that she had commercially released so far were only a tiny fraction of what was in her collection. Even her producer JJ and musical mentors Maestro Ludovico De Luca and Enrique Valdez had no idea of the true extent of the total number of her compositions.
Only Jin Liwei knew because she told him and personally showed him. About half of her total collection were stored electronically and guarded like a hellhound by Ketchup while the other half were recorded the old-fashioned way—on paper. These were also stored in storage vaults inside a hidden chamber in her music studio at home.
At the moment, his wife was so engrossed in her work that she wasn’t aware of his presence anymore. The private villa had no professional acoustic treatments whatsoever so they were in a makeshift piano room. It was basically just a spare room where the staff placed a grand piano and an acoustic guitar as per his instructions before he and his wife arrived for their honeymoon. His wife lived and breathed music so he wanted to make sure that she always had access to at least a piano and a guitar wherever she stayed.
If not for his reminders to take frequent breaks, she would work continuously without stopping. Although he felt bad interrupting her flow when she was in the zone, it was imperative that she took breaks to eat and rest.
Jin Liwei glanced at his wristwatch. It was mid-afternoon now. She had about half an hour before it was time for her daily nap. Then he felt a vibration in his pocket. He fished out his phone and then quietly left the room to take the call. [This novel is a contracted work with W e b n o v e l. c o m (remove spaces). If you’re not reading this chapter on W e b n o v e l, it has been stolen. It’s very discouraging to see thieves profiting from my hard work. Please support the original author, ArriaCross. Thank you! Also follow me on Instagram @arriacross]
It was his private investigator who was now working exclusively for him when he upgraded his security team after taking inspiration from his brother-in-law’s impressively organized Shadow Winds.
“Sir, I already gathered sufficient evidence to cause trouble to the families of the madams who slandered your fiancée and the viscountess at the exclusive restaurant a few days ago.”
Jin Liwei narrowed his eyes and became serious. He remembered Wei Lan calling a few days ago to complain to him about how some high society “old and ugly witches” had bullied her and said terrible things about his wife. He had no doubt that her version of the event was full of exaggerations, but for the most part, it matched what Ketchup’s waiter comrade shared on the Black Stars’ forum.
Since Ketchup told him that the exclusive restaurant’s video surveillance system had been tampered with, they couldn’t depend on that anymore. Therefore, he immediately called his private investigator to find out more details. His brother-in-law Nikolai also sent someone, a female member of Shadow Winds, to join his private investigator.
At first, his P.I. wasn’t happy with the arrangement and felt insulted that Jin Liwei sent someone else to join the investigation. The P.I. thought that Jin Liwei didn’t trust his skills. But after only one day of working together, the P.I. completely changed his mind and wanted to hire the woman to work for him. The P.I. kept on raving about how amazing the woman’s skills were.
Jin Liwei felt curious but wasn’t the least bit surprised. After all, his brother-in-law was the former heir of the most infamous criminal family in the world. It was only expected that Nikolai knew how to gather skilled people to work for him. Although Nikolai wasn’t a genius of Evelina’s level, he was still an extraordinary man. No doubt about it.
The only issue that Jin Liwei could see was that his brother-in-law was too filled with thoughts of revenge. His enormous grudge would often cloud his judgment, making Nikolai too reckless in Jin Liwei’s opinion.
His wife cared and worried about her older brother a lot but was too respectful of his privacy. Jin Liwei had no such qualms about invading his brother-in-law’s privacy and often extracted information about Shadow Winds’ latest activities from his AI son, Bacon. This was the only way he could ensure that his brother-in-law wasn’t marching to his own death again.
Jin Liwei couldn’t allow anything bad to happen to his brother-in-law. First of all, his wife would be devastated. And second, the remnant of his true fifth brother, Lu Zihao, still resided in his body. Nikolai and Lu Zihao’s body were too important to both Jin Liwei and his wife.
Unlike his wife’s secret identity as the hacker Drakon and his brother-in-law’s small criminal group Shadow Winds, there was a limit to how Jin Liwei could operate. He couldn’t delve too deeply in anything illegal because he also had the duty of protecting Jin Corporation’s integrity. It was the company that Grandpa Lu and his own flesh and blood grandfather established after all.
He also planned on passing it down to one of his children in the future. Hopefully, at least one of his kids would feel interested in inheriting the leadership and the responsibilities of running Jin Corporation.
Therefore, he couldn’t allow anything to tarnish Jin Corporation’s reputation as the country’s number one company.
