Chapter 43 The Vicious Supporting Actress

The next day, having concealed the traces of his spirit possession, Zheng Fan returned to the Hanameki Firm wearing Cheng Fei’s body.

That’s right, the grey eyes, the tear-stains, and even the anomalies in the shadow could all be masked. However, these features felt like trademarks to him; if he didn’t display them, Zheng Fan would feel awkward and uncomfortable, which in turn would hinder his full performance when utilizing this body.

The Hanameki Firm was located very close by, just a few hundred meters down the same street from the Zero-One Firm.

This was their headquarters. The storefront looked quite large, occupying a two-story standalone building at a crossroads.

The color scheme was predominantly black, illuminated by white lights. Looking inside from the outside through the display windows, the storefront appeared spotless, entirely failing to give away the impression of an operating style that was disorganized and utterly ruffian-like.

At the same time, a rather awkward detail was that although Zheng Fan had completely usurped Cheng Fei’s body, he had failed to execute the final absorption step of a normal hallucination invasion into a human body. As a result, he had failed to acquire Cheng Fei’s memories.

Ordinarily, this would have posed a major hurdle for a skin-wearing infiltration, but a few swipes on Miss Lin Yilin’s phone completely resolved the issue for Zheng Fan.

Never underestimate Miss Lin Yilin’s intelligence network!

Every detail of Cheng Fei’s life, big and small, had been laid bare. Aside from a few minutiae, as long as Zheng Fan stuck to the principle of "say less, make fewer mistakes," there wouldn't be any major problems.

When all was said and done, although Cheng Fei had a minor reputation, he was still just a low-level boss at the bottom of the Hanameki Firm. If he followed the right boss, he might eventually have the chance to crawl up to the middle ranks; other than that, there was nothing special about him.

Originally, Cheng Fei was barely considered a subordinate of the Japanese-style handsome man Kiyono Koji, but because he provoked Lin Yilin without authorization, their relationship had grown distant.

However, another faction within Hanameki had intentions of taking him in.

The fact that he had dared to bring people over to harass Lin Yilin that night was instigated by that very faction.

Zheng Fan pushed the door open, and the familiar faces inside the office looked somewhat surprised at Cheng Fei’s appearance. Considering Cheng Fei’s hair color atrocious, Zheng Fan had dyed it directly to black with Lin Yilin’s help, and removed all the metal accessories from his body. Aside from his tattoos, Cheng Fei’s appearance suddenly looked much more serious and solemn.

It was almost as if he were a completely different person.

"Is Yuan-jie around?" He casually grabbed a lackey and asked.

As a result, the "lackey" immediately frowned: "Are we that close?"

Only then did Zheng Fan notice that this person had a few other subordinates trailing behind him; this guy was actually a minor boss similar to Cheng Fei.

Competition among the minor bosses of different factions under Hanameki was quite fierce, and this guy probably didn't have a very good relationship with Cheng Fei.

"Right, she is in. Thanks." Zheng Fan noticed the other's instinctive shift in gaze when questioned, offered a casual word of thanks, and prepared to walk right past.

Who knew the guy would instantly flare up: "Who the hell do you think you're looking down on!?"

With that, he directly blocked Zheng Fan’s path and lunged forward.

Thud!

In the next instant, the man felt as though he had slammed into a moving miniature mountain. All his momentum was instantly crushed, and he stumbled pathetically, landing hard on his bottom.

"Pardon me, coming through." Zheng Fan didn't even spare him a glance, stepping right over his body.

After he left, the people in the front hall were momentarily dumbfounded.

"Th-That was Cheng Fei? Didn't they say he got chewed out for messing up and reined in his arrogance?"

"Yuan-jie’s side hasn't been giving him much responsibility either. How dare he... But he really feels different from before."

Everyone began to buzz with discussion.

Zheng Fan entered the interior of the firm, scanned the hallway, and spotted Su Hongyuan’s studio.

He pushed the door open directly.

"No wonder Kiyono doesn't want you lot, you're truly a bunch of trash—who's there?"

The female voice lecturing inside abruptly cut off, frowning as she glared at the doorway: "Don't you know how to knock when entering my studio?"

Behind a single door lay another spacious room. Even the outer reception area was comparable in size to the entire Zero-One Firm, and walking all the way through, Zheng Fan truly felt the sheer disparity in scale between Hanameki and Zero-One.

Of course, that was merely scale.

Zheng Fan still felt that in terms of quality, his own side was far superior.

A heavily made-up woman with long, straight black hair sat before them. She wore a cropped short-sleeve top that accentuated her fiery figure, paired with denim hot pants and brown knee-high boots. A large expanse of bronze skin was exposed to the air, and her metal accessories were of a higher tier than Cheng Fei’s.

Although he had already seen her photo on Lin Yilin’s end, the impact of meeting her in person was still slightly greater.

Little did anyone know that prior to his transmigration, Zheng Fan was actually a very conservative person. Throughout his life journey—across middle school, high school, and university—he had only ever had a girlfriend in each stage, all of whom he broke up with right after graduation and never saw again. He was simply a virgin who still harbored anime-like fantasies about romance.

"Cheng Fei?! You still have the nerve to come back, and you didn't even knock?" Su Hongyuan immediately cursed, her eyes wide with rage.

Her temper was indeed as fiery as her appearance.

However, after a brief initial glance at her, Zheng Fan’s gaze primarily fell upon the lackey-like subordinates standing before Su Hongyuan’s desk, resembling students being reprimanded by their head teacher.

The expressions these lackeys wore as they looked at Cheng Fei were practically as if they had seen a ghost.

In their understanding, it was virtually impossible for Cheng Fei to have survived that situation.

Yet now Cheng Fei was back, and even his supposedly severed hand was completely fine.

"F-Fei-ge..." one of the lackeys stammered.

Zheng Fan smiled. This matched Lin Yilin’s intelligence completely.

These subordinates had all scattered in different directions that night and had only just received Su Hongyuan’s summons to return this morning; they hadn’t had time yet to report what happened that night.

Zheng Fan had timed his arrival perfectly.

"What's with you guys, looking at me like you've seen a ghost?" Zheng Fan ignored Su Hongyuan’s wrath, walked over to his subordinates, and patted them on the shoulders with the very arm that was supposed to have been severed.

These were Cheng Fei’s closer subordinates, and they quickly grasped what Zheng Fan meant, saying no more.

The intelligence provided by Lin Yilin contained a rather surprising detail: Cheng Fei treated his subordinates very well, never hesitating to hand out money and gifts, and his lackeys were utterly devoted to him.

He didn't need to test their loyalty too much.

"Cheng Fei! You've grown quite bold!" Su Hongyuan could no longer tolerate being ignored and provoked.

"Yuan-jie, you really ought to change that temper of yours. Here, take a look at this." With that, Cheng Fei handed over a few photographs.

Su Hongyuan originally had no intention of looking, merely wanting to continue chewing him out, but a single glance made her unable to tear her eyes away.

The photos showed Lin Yilin covered in blood, her teeth smashed to pieces. With that "lifelike vacant" stare, telling people she had been beaten to death was entirely convincing.

Su Hongyuan: ?

The lackeys: ???

Su Hongyuan looked at him suspiciously, then back at the subordinates: "Didn't you guys say it failed?"

"We ran away, so we didn't know what happened after..." The lackeys lowered their heads, muttering a few timid words.

Zheng Fan continued: "We really did run into trouble that night. That bitch had set things up inside the firm, and we walked right into her trap the moment we stepped in. So I played along, hiding inside the firm until that bitch showed up, and then I gave her a vicious retaliation."

If Lin Yilin were here, she would have spotted Zheng Fan trying to hold back his laughter instantly.

After all, when taking those batches of photos, Lin Yilin’s clumsy acting skills had been utterly hilarious.

As it turned out, the resulting effect was unexpectedly good.

The lackeys remained silent, despite their heads being full of question marks.

Su Hongyuan slammed her palm onto the desk, though she didn't look pleased: "I told you to smash things up, cause a ruckus, and drive her away! Dealing with her personally was something I would arrange myself! Who told you to act on your own authority!?"

Zheng Fan looked at Su Hongyuan, confirming the intelligence from his mind provided by Lin Yilin: Su Hongyuan had a crush on Kiyono Koji, and she was extremely displeased by Kiyono Koji’s actions of doting on Lin Yilin.

In other words, this piece of work was a textbook example of a vicious female supporting character. Smashing things up and the like were easy enough to gloss over, but if someone laid hands directly on Lin Yilin herself, it might provoke a rather intense reaction from Kiyono Koji.

That being said.

Recalling the expressionless way Lin Yilin had stated, "This woman is jealous of me"... Zheng Fan truly felt that holding back his laughter was exhausting work.