Free Web NovelChapter 228: Chapter 144: Exile or Duel
The Wen Si Scout and Rubin’s connections were incredibly effective. In less than two days, they had dug up everything there was to know about the agent getting close to Jasmine.
As it turned out, Anya’s intuition had been spot-on.
This so-called agent was named Marcus Weber.
He wasn’t well-known at all and had only a small shell company to his name. His main tactic was to exploit the information gap between industry insiders and rookies just starting out. He frequented low-level sports circles and nightclubs, using a carefully crafted persona to trick young players into signing away their image rights.
According to the intel from the Wen Si Scout, Marcus had booked a booth for tonight at a bar in Manhattan called The Abyss.
Coincidentally, Travis happened to know the bar’s booking manager.
After learning that Li Wei himself had asked for this favor, he volunteered to personally keep an eye on Marcus and Jasmine’s movements.
...
Late on a Friday night, a Cadillac Escalade pulled into a back alley in Manhattan’s Meatpacking District. Li Wei, Travis, and an utterly confused Craig stepped out of the vehicle.
"What are we doing in a place like this?" Craig asked, looking nervously at the flickering neon lights in the alley and two burly security guards with tattooed arms. "We’re not even 21. We can’t even get near the front door."
"My God, you don’t act like a Black guy at all, Craig," Travis said jokingly. "Sometimes I think you’re way too straight-laced. You secretly on more ’roids than me? Did they make your balls shrivel up and disappear?"
"Fuck you!" Craig shot back. "That’s racial prejudice and discrimination!"
Travis roared with laughter, then walked over and gave one of the guards a one-armed hug, murmuring a few words. The guard glanced at the three, who were obviously underage, but didn’t ask any questions before turning to pull open a steel door.
The three of them passed through a narrow, dark hallway, where they were immediately enveloped by a deafening heavy bass and the roar of the crowd.
When they reached the second floor, a middle-aged man in a suit and an earpiece strode over. His eyes lit up when he saw Li Wei.
"Mr. Li Wei, I’ve heard a lot about you," he said in a low voice after shaking Travis’s hand. "I’ve been keeping an eye on your targets myself. They’re getting pretty hot and heavy right now."
"Craig, do you know why we’re here?" Li Wei said, turning his head to Craig.
"No idea," Craig said, looking baffled. "Didn’t you say you were bringing me here to meet someone?"
"Whatever you see next," Li Wei said, "control yourself." freewebnøvel.coɱ
With that, he stepped aside, revealing a sight that sent a chill down Craig’s spine.
Under the dim, intimate lighting, Jasmine—the same Jasmine who had sworn to marry him, the same Jasmine who wouldn’t even let him touch her—was straddling the lap of a scruffy, thirty-something Black man.
The two were locked in a passionate kiss, completely oblivious to their surroundings. Jasmine’s hands were clasped tightly around the man’s neck, her posture aggressive and eager. One of the man’s hands was brazenly groping her waist, while the other had already slipped down the back of her jeans.
CRASH!
Craig’s mind went blank as he stumbled, accidentally knocking over an ice bucket on a nearby high-top table.
The sound of shattering glass, though muffled by the heavy bass, was enough to startle the couple lost in their passion.
Jasmine looked up in a panic, her messy dreadlocks splayed across her shoulders. As her eyes adjusted, she saw him through the dim light: Craig, standing in the shadows just outside their booth, his eyes bloodshot as he stared death at her. Behind him stood Li Wei and Travis. In an instant, all the color drained from her face.
"Gentlemen, this is a private booth," the man said, having also noticed them. He sounded displeased. "I’m going to have to ask you to lea—"
Before he could finish, Craig—usually such an honest, mild-mannered guy—rushed forward with bloodshot eyes. With all the force of a semi-pro D1 Alliance quarterback, he landed a solid punch on Marcus’s face, making him see stars as blood gushed from his nose.
Jasmine, at his side, was scared stiff. She had prided herself on being so careful, never imagining Craig would catch her in the act.
Seeing this, the nearby security guards instinctively moved to intervene, but the booking manager who had led the boys in immediately held up a hand to stop them.
「Half an hour later, inside a hastily cleared-out storage room.」
"Craig, let me explain... It’s not what you think!" Jasmine looked up, tears streaming down her face as she looked at Craig. "He forced me! He promised that if I met him today, he could negotiate an exclusive trading card licensing deal for you worth at least 300,000 USD! But he drugged my drink. I started feeling dizzy, and then he..."
"Fuck that! You’re full of shit, you fucking bitch! What the hell are you talking about!"
Before she could finish weaving her victim narrative, Marcus—leaning against a cardboard box on the other side of the room, holding an ice pack to his broken nose—shrieked like a cat whose tail had just been stomped on.
As a con man who operated in legal gray areas, he was keenly aware of the massive difference between a fraud conviction and one for date rape.
"I may be a con artist, but I’m no fucking rapist!" Marcus spat out a mouthful of bloody saliva and sneered at Craig. "Hey, you think she’s some pure Catholic saint? I hadn’t even suggested sleeping together and she was already taking her pants off faster than I could! And hey, don’t go getting your hopes up about her being a virgin. The way she handled herself in bed, it was obvious she’s been around the block. She sure as hell wasn’t a virgin! Whose bitch have you been taking care of all this time?"
Those words were like a hammer blow, shattering the last shred of hope in Craig’s mind.
His tall frame swayed. He stared intently at Jasmine, his voice so dry it sounded like sandpaper. "Is... is what he said true? Jasmine? Didn’t you say... we were supposed to save ourselves for each other until we were married?"
Jasmine, pale-faced, glanced at Craig.
"I’m sorry... Craig... I’m so sorry," she said, covering her face. The tears were gone now. She just kept her head down. "I... over the last few years of high school, when you were out of state for away games, or at training camps... I did... get drunk a few times... and hooked up with some guys."
"How many?" Craig’s voice held a tremor he could barely suppress. His eyes were bloodshot as he stared at her. "How many guys have you been with?"
"Just... just two or three," Jasmine stammered, her eyes darting away from his. "I swear, it was only because I was drunk. I never loved them. You’re the one I love."
"Ha! Two or three? Cut the crap," Marcus sneered from the side as if he’d just heard the joke of the century, still pressing the ice pack to his nose. "Stop pretending to be some fucking saint! That’s not the number you were bragging about in bed the other day! You told me you had at least five ’friends’ in the Brooklyn rap scene alone! Two or three? With those numbers, your starting lineup doesn’t even have enough players for a defensive squad!"
That remark was like a sharp knife, tearing away Jasmine’s final layer of pretense.
Craig shuddered, his mind racing. All the rumors and whispers from the past few years—things he had deliberately ignored—suddenly clicked together, forming a complete and horrifying picture.
Craig gritted his teeth. "No wonder. Sophomore year, the team’s defensive tackle, Drake, was always making crude jokes about you. Said he saw you getting high at some rapper’s party in Brooklyn. I thought he was full of shit and even fought him in the locker room over it! And last summer, someone said they saw you get into a Mustang with New Jersey plates. What did you tell me then? You said it was your distant cousin who was in New York on business!"
That’s how it is with some women: a lie doesn’t count as long as you don’t get caught. And once you do get caught, you find a way to deflect.
Seeing her lies completely exposed, with nothing left to hide, the panic on Jasmine’s face strangely vanished. It was replaced by an expression of righteous indignation.
"So what if I did!" Jasmine suddenly shot to her feet, even taking an aggressive step forward. She roared with self-righteous fury, "Craig, who do you think I did all this for? It was all for you!"
Now it wasn’t just Craig. Even Li Wei and Travis, who had been watching the drama unfold from the back, were left speechless, stunned by her logic, which defied all common sense.
"For me?" Craig let out a laugh of pure fury, pointing at his own nose. "You slept with other men behind my back... for me?"
"I did it for your future!" Jasmine argued, as if she were the one who had been wronged. "You have to maintain your androgen and testosterone levels! If I’d given myself to you, letting you get lost in the comforts of a woman’s arms, would you still have the drive to battle it out on the field? To avoid hurting your performance, I had to sacrifice myself and find other people to satisfy my needs! But you’ve always been the one I love. Why can’t you understand my good intentions?!"
Before Craig could even process this utterly absurd theory, Jasmine had already deftly switched tracks, seizing the offensive and turning her accusations back on him.
"Are you happy now? Forcing me into a corner like this in front of strangers, completely humiliating me!" Jasmine pointed an angry finger at Craig, her gaze turning sharp and accusatory. "Wait... how did you know I was here? You followed me? You put a tracking app on my phone, didn’t you?! Craig, you’ve been spying on me all this time? What happened to the basic trust between us? You’re suffocating me! You make me sick!"
Conditioned by years of submission and plagued by the self-doubt born from her constant put-downs, faced with Jasmine’s aggressive counter-accusations, the towering D1 University quarterback—a man whose shoulders were twice as broad as hers—actually flinched.
"I... I didn’t follow you, Jasmine, I just..."
Seeing that Craig was actually about to apologize, Li Wei prepared to step in.
Just then, a quest window popped up before his eyes:
[You have received a quest: The Weak-Willed Attendant]
[You have caught your Attendant’s wife in the scandalous act of adultery with a charlatan. Pass judgment upon them.]
[Path 1: Personal Intervention - Judgment and Exile]
[Publicly expose their disgraceful acts and permanently banish them from your territory.]
[Path 2: Attendant’s Action - Trial by Combat]
[Brand her face, then have your Attendant duel the charlatan and kill him on the spot.]
[Quest Reward: Free Attribute Point +0.1]
