Chapter 997: Little Scoundrel

After a few frustrating moments during which Lu Zihao almost blew his top, he finally managed to ward off Bacon's poisonously unsolicited advice-slash-criticism by promising the little rascal that he would take all the blame for stealing the files about Rose Young from Iris' secret virtual security vault.

At this point, he felt helpless from his AI nephew's verbal attacks. He was already prepared to promise the cunning Bacon almost anything just to shut the kid up from mentioning anything about his breakup with Long Jinjing. Fortunately, Bacon was satisfied by his promise to take all the blame and left him to return to Shadow Winds where the rascal could bully everyone in the hacker team instead.

Lu Zihao released a sigh of big relief after his sharp-tongued AI nephew finally left him alone. He continued driving aimlessly, trying to clear his mind of everything that was bothering him.

There were so many things that he needed to do, but Long Jinjing kept on popping up in his mind and distracting him. Sometimes, he could almost smell her delicate fragrance and feel her soft skin.

It was driving him crazy. She was driving him crazy, but he refused to crawl back to her door.

She already rejected his suggestion to extend their relationship. It would be a tarnish to his masculine pride to beg her to take him back.

"Fuck you!" He slammed his palm on the car horn when another vehicle cut in front of him from the next lane.

Although he knew that the other vehicle gave sufficient warning by signalling before changing lanes, he still felt the urge to crash his car and wreck the fucking shit for worsening his irritation. He was the one who was distracted while driving, his mind filled with memories of Long Jinjing.

"Damn you, Jinjing! Get out my head!"

He was about to press his foot on the accelerator and speed up over the limit to vent some of his frustrations when his phone rang. He answered it on hands-free mode through the dashboard monitor.

"It's me."

"I know," Lu Zihao replied in a flat tone. Then his eyes caught a golden-eyed black cat staring at him on the dashboard. Shit. The little rascal was back so soon and he damn well knew why.

Jin Liwei's audible sigh filled the car through the speaker. "I know that I should thank you for your swift retaliation against Rose Young, but now my wife is upset that our AI son broke into her secret files. Evelina says that those files are 100% unsuitable for children."

Bacon widened his golden eyes meaningfully while continuing to stare at Lu Zihao.

Fucking shit.

If someone told him before that he would one day be blackmailed by a little AI cat and would be helpless against it, eventually obeying what it wanted, he would definitely give a scornful laugh while beating up the crazy motherfucker for spouting nonsense.

But now?

There was definitely no scornful laughter. There was only a mocking one directed at himself.

Who told his sister to create not one but two AI cats and give them overly realistic personalities before declaring them as her own children? Lu Zihao had no choice but to accept Ketchup and Bacon as his niece and nephew respectively, even though the two would often make him want to vomit blood from their incredible verbal battle prowess.

One would wear you down until you surrendered through her nonstop chattering alone while the other one would obliterate you without mercy with his deadly accurate poisonous insults.

Who would have ever imagined that one day he, Nikolai Vetrov, would succumb to his AI nephew's blackmail and take all the blame for the little rascal?

"It's all my fault," Lu Zihao told Jin Liwei through gritted teeth. The unwillingness was obvious in his tone but he already promised the little rascal. If he failed to honour his promise, Lu Zihao had no doubt that Bacon would throw even more poisonous insults at him, and of course, extort more money from him.

Bacon widened his golden eyes even more and silently gestured for him to continue talking. The little scoundrel!

Lu Zihao glared at Bacon before continuing to explain the situation to his brother-in-law. In short, he took full responsibility for the "theft" and gave Jin Liwei assurance that Bacon only stole the files and handed them directly to him without taking a single look at the contents.

"I'm sure that Evelinka can confirm by checking Bacon's system logs that the kid really didn't take a single peek at the contents of the files."

"You heard Uncle Zihao, Father," Bacon finally interjected during the call. "It was Uncle Zihao who's the mastermind. Bacon is innocent."

Lu Zihao rolled his eyes while Jin Liwei sighed again.

"You're wrong, Bacon," Jin Liwei said. "You're not completely innocent. You're an accomplice."

Bacon's tail drooped. "Bacon is sorry, Father. I didn't mean to break Mother and Father's trust by stealing the secret files. I only wanted to avenge Mother and punish the hateful woman who tarnished her name in the media and tried to steal you away from our family."

"I know. I actually think that you did a great job to seek your Uncle Zihao's assistance and not just blindly seek revenge on your own."

Bacon's tail started rotating. "Then does this mean that Father won't ground Bacon?"

"I still have to ground you because you made your mom upset. You know that we have to avoid upsetting her right now as much as possible because she's pregnant."

The rotating tail immediately stopped and dropped again. "Bacon feels sorry."

"I know. Go to your mom right now and apologize to her. Explain everything. You can also call your Big Sister Ketchup if you need some support."

"Okay, Father. Bacon will go to Mother now."

"En. Go. I still need to talk to your Uncle Zihao about something."

"Alright. See you later at home, Father." With that, Bacon left.

"Your father and son relationship is really commendable! So commendable that it brings tears to my eyes." Lu Zihao's tone was filled with sarcasm, still feeling grumpy at being blackmailed by his own AI nephew.