Ning Sui felt that something about this morning was slightly off, though he couldn’t quite put his finger on what it was.
He carefully placed his comatose husband’s hand back beneath the blanket and tucked the quilt neatly around him. “I’m heading to school now,” he murmured softly. “I hope you have a beautiful dream today.”
Naturally, the man lying on the bed didn’t respond.
Phone in hand, Ning Sui turned toward the bathroom. He took only two steps before an uneasy feeling made him freeze. For some reason, the silence behind him felt strange.
He spun around abruptly, yet, there was no miracle waiting for him. The handsome man on the bed remained perfectly still, his expression calm and peaceful, his chest rising and falling faintly in the steady rhythm of sleep.
Everything looked as normal as ever, but Ning Sui’s intuition kept whispering that something wasn’t quite right.
He frowned, muttering inwardly, but forced himself to go into the bathroom to brush his teeth. After washing up and changing into his school uniform, he slung his backpack over his shoulder and prepared to leave. Still, before walking out, his gaze drifted once again toward the bed.
He hesitated, then walked back, leaning down close to the man’s face.
Reaching out, he gently placed his fingers on Ji Yucheng’s eyelids and, very cautiously, lifted one of them.
Ji Yucheng: “…”
Even the most beautiful man in the world couldn’t look attractive when someone was prying open his eyelid, and Young Master Ji was no exception. Ning Sui’s little test only revealed the whites of his eyes.
No reaction. No flicker of movement in those long lashes.
Ning Sui let out a tiny sigh. It seemed he really was overthinking things. How could a person who had been in a vegetative state suddenly regain consciousness?
He decided he must have just been dreaming too vividly last night, perhaps moving around in his sleep and imagining nonsense.
With that thought, Ning Sui finally left the bedroom.
When the door clicked shut, the room returned to stillness.
The “Vegetative” man lying beneath the quilt slowly moved his hand. His fingers twitched, flexing lightly as if to ease the stiffness that came from holding his little wife’s hand all night long.
The soreness spread up his wrist, yet along with the ache came a quiet warmth that made him want to laugh.
It was, after all, the very first time he had ever held his little wife’s hand.
A mechanical voice suddenly chimed in his mind.
“Power has reached eleven percent!”
The voice, belonging to System 009, sounded positively thrilled. Ten percent had been a critical threshold, and now, with the charge slightly higher, its functions were finally coming back online.
If one were to describe it vividly, it was like that kiss from the little wife had reconnected its broken circuit, allowing it to start recharging again. These past few days of steady energy accumulation had brought it almost back to life.
“So?” Ji Yucheng asked lazily.
In these two years of being a so-called vegetable, he had heard 009 boast countless times, though most of it amounted to nothing more than useless chatter.
009 puffed itself up proudly. “Didn’t I already tell you? My special abilities are information retrieval and remote manipulation!”
The system, which had been a pile of junk for so long, was clearly excited to prove itself again. “Here, Master, let me show you a little demonstration!”
Ji Yucheng gave a faint chuckle, cold and skeptical but the very next moment, a clear image appeared in his mind.
A sweeping staircase came into focus, its railings carved with crystal patterns, sunlight pouring through the floor to ceiling windows, scattering golden rays across the polished marble. The view jolted suddenly, the image shaking like a hand-held camera, and then turned toward a figure.
A young man was walking down the stairs, a schoolbag slung carelessly over his shoulder.
Ji Yucheng’s heart skipped a beat. He recognized that figure instantly. That was his little wife, the one who had just left the bedroom.
Two years ago, Ji Yucheng had seen Ning Sui only once. At the time, his impression of him was nothing more than “my younger brother’s lover” and “a pretty looking boy.”
Now, however, there was no doubt, this boy belonged entirely to him.
His gaze lingered greedily, as if claiming what was his, studying every detail of Ning Sui’s face.
It was exactly as he had imagined: soft black hair, long lashes lowered slightly, a nose that wasn’t as sharp as his own but had a gentle, upward curve that was almost endearing. His lips were full, his face small and cleanly shaped, cute yet faintly handsome.
His temperament hovered between youth and adulthood, tall and slender, but with eyes that still held a hint of innocence. The white down jacket he wore made him look soft and plush, like a warm rice cake just taken from the steamer.
His hand, holding the strap of his schoolbag, swung loosely at his side, so the bag thumped gently against his leg with every step.
Just from appearances, it was almost impossible to imagine that this same boy could be so possessive, so stubbornly devoted, so dangerously obsessive when it came to the man in that bed.
That sharp contrast only made him even more irresistibly charming.
Since his little wife had moved into the house, this was the first time Ji Yucheng had truly seen him this clearly.
And then, as Ning Sui crouched by the entryway to change his shoes, the hem of his jacket lifted slightly, revealing a slender strip of pale waist.
Ji Yucheng’s heart skipped violently.
He was just about to take a better look, when suddenly, with a sharp pop, the image vanished into darkness.
009’s voice sounded sheepish. “Sorry! Power’s a bit unstable!”
Ji Yucheng: “…”
By afternoon, Ning Sui arrived at the school with his friend Cao Nuo. Together, they walked into the administrative building and pushed open the door to the office.
Only two logistics teachers were on duty inside, both elderly and usually not very strict about attendance. Normally, no one was ever here at this hour. But today was Monday, and there was a departmental meeting scheduled, so at least one of them had shown up.
Sure enough, when the two of them pushed open the office door, a middle-aged man in his forties, wearing glasses, was sitting behind the desk, absorbed in his paperwork.
Ning Sui and Cao Nuo explained the reason for their visit, but the man frowned impatiently. “You lost a phone? Then just call the police. Why come here to bother us? Do you think the school’s surveillance footage can be casually accessed by students?”
“There’s no need to file a report,” Cao Nuo said carefully, his tone small and hesitant. “Sir, I really don’t want to make a big deal out of it. Besides, the phone’s already several years old. Its current value might not even meet the minimum requirement for a case to be registered.”
“It’s just a quick look at the surveillance footage,” Ning Sui added in a calm, steady voice. “We don’t need you to search for it, just let us look at ourselves. It shouldn’t be too much trouble.”
The man didn’t even bother to lift his head. His pen kept scratching across the paper as he muttered impatiently, “It’s not that I don’t want to help, but the school has strict regulations. Surveillance footage cannot be copied or taken out of this office.
If you want to check it, you have to do it here. But there’s only one computer in this room. What, you want to use mine? Look, just come back tomorrow and see if the next person on duty has the time to assist you.”
Which, of course, was just another way of saying he wasn’t going to help at all.
Strictly speaking, this man wasn’t even a teacher, just a member of the logistics staff. But even the smallest bit of authority was enough to intimidate students. Cao Nuo immediately shrank back, tugging on Ning Sui’s sleeve to pull him away.
“The last time I came,” he muttered once they were outside, “one of the student council assistants was here. He said the same thing, that I should come back the next day. Then the next day, he said to come again the day after. It’s been nearly a week now and they’re still giving me excuses.”
Cao Nuo let out a discouraged sigh. “Forget it. I’ll stop looking. The phone’s from my first year anyway, three years old by now. I’ll just try to find a part-time job this weekend and save up for another one.”
But Ning Sui didn’t move. A thoughtful expression crossed his face. Something about this whole thing didn’t add up. Checking security footage was a routine request, why were they being stonewalled so deliberately?
“Wait a moment,” he said quietly.
He took out his own phone, found Cao Nuo’s contact in his WeChat list, and deleted it.
A few minutes later, he sent a new friend request to that same account.
Inside dorm room 607, the very phone that had supposedly gone missing was lying on Xu Tianxing’s desk. The boy was in the middle of a game when a friend request notification popped up. Without thinking, he accepted it automatically.
Only after tapping did he realize something was wrong. His hand froze midair, eyes widening in panic, but by then it was already too late.
Ning Sui looked up from his phone, his voice quiet but sharp. “Normally, if someone steals a phone, they’ll turn it off immediately and try to sell it as fast as possible. But this person didn’t reset your phone to factory settings or attempt to sell it at all.”
He looked up at Cao Nuo, his tone firm. “That means whoever took it isn’t after the phone itself, they want the information inside.”
Cao Nuo blinked in confusion. “Information? But what information could I possibly have? There’s nothing on there, just photos of my grandmother before she passed away. That’s all.”
Ning Sui’s brows drew together slightly. He couldn’t make sense of it either. Cao Nuo was just an ordinary student, no background, no enemies, nothing that would make him a target.
Unless this had nothing to do with Cao Nuo at all.
Unless the real goal was him.
If that was the case, then this was no small matter, and Ning Sui intended to get to the bottom of it.
Inside the administrative office, the logistics worker sighed and said to the two student council assistants in the back room, “You could’ve just let them check. Why make things difficult for two students?”
He knew very well that S University was full of rich, well-connected young people, including those two. As a low-level staff member, he couldn’t afford to offend anyone who might have a powerful family behind them. One wrong move, and he could be reported straight to the dean by some donor’s parents.
One of the assistants waved him off impatiently. “Just leave it alone. They can’t be allowed to see the footage, that’s all.”
The man shook his head but said nothing more, returning to his paperwork.
Once the door to the inner office closed, one of the two assistants sneered. “That kid surnamed Cao is so annoying. It’s just a cheap old phone, why does he keep coming back for the footage? Buy another one already. Honestly, I don’t understand why Young Master Ning is even wasting his time with someone like that. It’s embarrassing.”
The other assistant frowned. “What if Ning Sui insists on helping him? Ji Zhilin is still his boyfriend…”
“Didn’t you hear? Ning Sui suddenly married someone else. They broke up ages ago. Ji Zhilin doesn’t care about him anymore.”
“I heard there’s still some family connection between them though,” the other said thoughtfully. “Otherwise, why would he also be surnamed Ning? Someone said he’s a relative of the main Ning family.”
“A poor relative, that’s all. He can’t compare to Young Master Ning.”
“Honestly, I can’t figure out who Ning Sui threw Ji Zhilin away for. He must be blind.”
The two continued gossiping for a while, convinced that the matter would end there.
Whatever Ning Sui tried, there was no way he could stir up real trouble.
They didn’t know why Ning Yuanming had ordered them to block Cao Nuo from checking the surveillance, but with the Nings’ wealth and influence, helping him could only bring benefits in the future.
What they never expected, however, was that just as they were finishing their smug conversation, the door opened again, and in came the department head himself, wiping cold sweat from his brow.
Behind him was a sharply dressed man in a dark suit, Assistant Zhou, from the Ji family, the same Ji family that had donated several entire buildings to the university.
At that exact moment, Ning Sui slipped his phone back into his pocket after finishing a brief call to the Ji household’s butler.
He stepped forward, opened the office door, and smiled pleasantly.
“So,” he said, voice calm and clear, “do you have time to help us review the surveillance footage now?”
✦ ✧ ✦
[Translator]
☕ A LITTLE SOMETHING FOR THE TRANSLATOR
(≧▽≦)ﾉ☕ coffee!
☕ BUY THEM A COFFEE →
✧ (づ｡•ㅅ•｡)づ ☕ ✧
✦ thank you for reading ✦
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ChaptersChapter 1 · The WeddingChapter 2 · New Target!Chapter 3 · Moved OnChapter 4 · Personal Information of Ji YuchengChapter 5 · Liked Ji Yucheng for 3 Years?!Chapter 6 · Love Rival?!Chapter 7 · Domineering PossessivenessChapter 8 · Obviously Very CuteChapter 9 Part 1 · Can’t be SeperatedChapter 9 Part 2 · Can’t be SeperatedChapter 10 · A blonde Guy…Chapter 11 · Dangerously Close to love?Chapter 12 · Confrontation with Ji ZhilinChapter 13 · Accidental DiscoveryChapter 14 · System 009 upgradedChapter 15 · Battery charging!Chapter 16 · Young Master was MiserableChapter 17 · Did Ning Sui treat you like this before?Chapter 18 · Was this what happened last night before you went to bed?Chapter 19 · He really got to the bottom of thisChapter 20 Part 1 · Don’t look at him, he was shocked too!Chapter 20 Part 2 · Don’t look at him, he was shocked too!Chapter 21 · Because I like it so muchChapter 22 Part 1 · Pull up your pantsChapter 22 Part 2 · Pull up your pantsChapter 23 · Why does it sound like he’s jealousChapter 24 Part 1 · I will protect himChapter 24 Part 2 · I will protect himChapter 25 · He’s quite gentleChapter 26 · Young Master Ji suddenly started to stutterChapter 27 · Ning Sui’s timeChapter 28 Part 1 · They ran away as soon as they were scaredChapter 28 Part 2 · They ran away as soon as they were scaredChapter 29 Part 1 · Are you looking for death?Chapter 29 Part 2 · Are you looking for death?Chapter 30 · Hurry up and say your last wordsChapter 31 · Ji Yucheng collapsed into his armsChapter 32 · Mr. Ji, I never expected you to be such a good person.Chapter 33 · He’s so well-behaved when He sleeps…Chapter 34 · His expression was incredibly varied in an instantChapter 35 · How could it be Ning Sui?Chapter 36 · Does the young wife only like people in a vegetative state?Chapter 37 · State-based controlChapter 38 · The young master was so happy he dropped his phoneChapter 39 · You were 37 minutes lateChapter 40 · I don’t plan to get a divorce.Chapter 41 · Otherwise, would it be your turn?Chapter 42 · Both perverted and cuteChapter 43 · If they sneak away again, I’ll hold them even tighterChapter 44 · I sprained my ankle tooChapter 45 · A cat jumping on a lion’s head to play with fire.Chapter 46 · Your young master has fainted!Chapter 47 · Sui Sui, come downChapter 48 · Are you going to lock me in there?Chapter 49 Part 1 · I love you, Ning SuiChapter 49 Part 2 · I love you, Ning SuiChapter 50 · Give the snowman a heartChapter 51 · Miss you.Chapter 52 · To hold in one’s mouthChapter 53 · You are in the cloudsChapter 54 · Ning Sui hugged him for the first timeChapter 55 · Can you sit on my lap?Chapter 56 · It’s either you or it’s not.Chapter 57 · From this moment on, I am your vegetableChapter 58 · Young Ji YuchengChapter 59 · They kiss tirelessly.Chapter 60 · RipplingChapter 61 · You want to compare this?!Chapter 62 · It’s 001!Chapter 63 · I like everything about it.Chapter 64 · It seems to have been filled up a little more.Chapter 65 · Wedding rings should be exchanged between the couple.Chapter 66 · Love-struckChapter 67 · Why can’t we even be apart for a day?Chapter 68 · PerfectChapter 69 · A lifelong contract was madeChapter 70 · Extra 1Chapter 71 · Extra 2Chapter 72 · Extra 3Chapter 73 · Extra 4Chapter 74 · Extra 5Chapter 75 · Extra 6Chapter 76 · Extra 7Chapter 77 · Extra 8Chapter 78 · Extra 9Chapter 79 · Extra 10Chapter 80 · Extra 11Chapter 81 · Extra 12Chapter 82 · Extra 13Chapter 83 · Extra 14