When Xu Shuyuan got home from the banquet, Ying Qiuman wasn’t there, and there was no message on his phone reporting where he’d gone. He was annoyed, but there was also a faint, sour ache in his chest.
He called him. The first several calls went unanswered. When it finally connected, he still didn’t dare speak harshly, only asking softly, “Manman, didn’t I tell you to let me know before you went out?”
Ying Qiuman sounded tired. After a few seconds’ pause, he answered slowly, “I’m at the hospital.”
After he’d gotten Ye Li out of the hotel, he’d realized something had been slipped into those people’s drinks, so he’d brought him to the hospital.
When Xu Shuyuan reached the ward, he found Ying Qiuman in nothing but a shirt, legs crossed, leaning into a small sofa in the corner of the room, looking as thin as a sheet of paper.
Ying Qiuman was staring coldly at Ye Li, who was eating on the hospital bed. When the latter heard the door and glanced toward Xu Shuyuan, the reproach in Ying Qiuman’s eyes came flying over too.
Pinned for a moment by that gaze, Xu Shuyuan felt the anger and resentment in his chest immediately retreat and vanish completely.
He quickly took off his coat and draped it over Ying Qiuman, pulling him into his arms, and asked softly, “What happened?”
Ye Li glanced up awkwardly at the sound. Seeing that Ying Qiuman’s expression hadn’t improved, he lowered his head again and went on drinking his porridge.
Ying Qiuman exhaled deeply, stood, put his clothes back on, and walked toward the door. Xu Shuyuan glanced at Ye Li and followed him out.
“Can you help me check something?” Ying Qiuman asked. The entertainment hall at the Lihe Hotel had been a chaotic mix of people. He had smashed a bottle and tried to threaten them into calling the police, but they hadn’t been afraid at all. It was only when a floor manager named Huihui suddenly came in and recognized him, vouching that he was the young master of Lihe, that they’d been able to leave safely.
The original body’s grandfather, Ying Kangcheng, wasn’t only the boss of an entertainment company, this hotel belonged to him as well.
Ying Qiuman instinctively recoiled from this man after all, the original body’s eighteen years of suffering had all started with him.
But Ying Qiuman found it strange. How could a floor manager like Huihui, working in an entertainment hall, recognize him?
Xu Shuyuan nodded as he listened, but Ying Qiuman kept glancing uneasily around. After hesitating for a long while, he finally said, “The people in Room 317 of the Lihe entertainment hall today… can you find out who they are?”
There was uncertainty in Ying Qiuman’s eyes. Xu Shuyuan sighed. “That’s the privacy of their hotel’s guests. You think I’m that omnipotent?”
He tried to lighten the mood with a small smile, but Ying Qiuman’s expression stayed dark, deeply troubled.
He didn’t actually have a way to do it, and he had no wish to extend his reach into a place like Lihe. But seeing Ying Qiuman like this, something in his heart suddenly went soft.
Ying Qiuman realized he’d been thinking too simply just as he’d assumed that as a beta, with a bit of self-defense skill, he could walk in alone and rescue Ye Li.
In the end he’d still had to rely on an identity he’d somehow acquired without knowing when, and that left him uncomfortable and uneasy.
He buried himself in Xu Shuyuan’s arms. The cold wind, outside and in, had turned him into a block of ice, and only by leaning into Xu Shuyuan’s embrace did he feel any warmth.
Ying Qiuman went back into the ward. Ye Li had finished his bowl of porridge, and the IV bottle was nearly empty. Ying Qiuman called the nurse to take out the needle and told Ye Li to lie down and rest.
“I want to go back to the dorm,” Ye Li said. He glanced at Ying Qiuman’s expression and added, “Jiang Ke’s still there too.”
Ying Qiuman paused. Angry as he was, as a friend he truly had no grounds to interfere too much. After hesitating a moment, he finally agreed. “I’ll take you back.”
On the way back with Ye Li, the three of them the driver included said nothing. Ying Qiuman and Ye Li sat on opposite sides of the back seat, both gazing out the window at the night scenery.
Ye Li had wanted to go back alone, but Ying Qiuman wasn’t easy about it. He held on to Xu Shuyuan, unable to find any nice way to put it. In the end his tone softened a little as he asked, “I’m worried about him. Can we go back tomorrow?”
Xu Shuyuan said nothing. He turned his head and kissed Ying Qiuman’s cheek. “Mm.”
After Xu Shuyuan left, Ying Qiuman and Ye Li walked toward the dormitory in silence.
“Why are you investigating them?” Ye Li knew Ying Qiuman had taken on some private investigator work. The last time he’d asked, he’d only reminded him not to cross any legal lines. He didn’t expect it would put him in danger this time.
Ye Li didn’t answer right away, probably hadn’t worked out how to explain. After they’d walked nearly halfway, he finally spoke. “The client didn’t say it would be this dangerous.”
Ying Qiuman read this as a signal not to ask further. As a friend, he knew when to stop. Still, he felt a little hurt three or four years of friendship, and Ye Li couldn’t even tell him this much?
If it had been Qiu Yuan, he probably would have been eager to drag Ying Qiuman into the investigation with him.
“Are you… from the Ying family at Huahai Entertainment?” Ye Li suddenly asked, with no clear lead-in.
In the original novel, Huahai Entertainment appears near the end. As the Lanxi crisis grows steadily worse, Huahai Entertainment extends a helping hand but the condition is that Lanxi must restructure and merge into Huahai, becoming a sci-tech creative team under the entertainment company.
Li Cong’s years of effort are handed over, and in the end it is Li Tian and Ye Li who together save Lanxi.
The plot in the book mainly revolves around the emotional thread between Ye Li and Li Tian, while the underlying worldbuilding is sketched very roughly. It was only after Ying Qiuman transmigrated that he learned the original body had ties to the Ying family.
Could it be that the original body’s eventual theft of confidential information which led to mutual losses for Lanxi and Xu Corporation had actually been ordered by Ying Kangcheng?
But the two of them had never even been in contact until now.
Ying Qiuman had never met this grandfather, and Ying Yelin had never once mentioned him.
“Yes, but not close. I rarely even go over to my mother’s side.”
He’d never met them in eighteen years. After his regression, he’d been taken to the Li family for a while, and later, from his repeat year through university, he’d always lived in dormitories. The room the Li family had temporarily prepared for him was lived in only that one summer, he never went back afterward.
So the fact that Huihui could recognize him left Ying Qiuman thoroughly confused. By rights, even Ying Kangcheng shouldn’t have recognized him.
The atmosphere between the two of them suddenly turned subtle. Ying Qiuman had a strong feeling that the grievances described in the original novel might be only the tip of the iceberg, and that the original body might still hold many undiscovered secrets.
He felt an inescapable sense of urgency and suffocation like walking a tightrope, a feeling that set his heart trembling. At the dormitory door, he unexpectedly said something to stop Ye Li: “Don’t take on this kind of dangerous job anymore.”
Ye Li looked into his eyes, his thoughts unreadable. He smiled faintly and nodded, and then, as Ying Qiuman opened the door, he heard Ye Li murmur from behind him, “Thanks.”
Liu Huaxin had gone home for the New Year holiday. Jiang Ke’s family wasn’t local, so he hadn’t gone back, and at that hour he was still downstairs playing games.
Seeing Ying Qiuman and Ye Li return, he asked, hair messy, “Why are you two back at this hour?”
Ying Qiuman had been working at Lihe and hadn’t stayed in the dorm for a week. Ye Li, too, had often been out at night lately. Seeing the two of them come back together now, Jiang Ke was rather surprised.
“I wasn’t feeling well, so I asked Xiao Man to go to the hospital with me. We only came back after finishing the IV drip,” Ye Li said offhandedly, settling in beside Jiang Ke to watch him play the game he never seemed to tire of.
Ying Qiuman played games too, but he wasn’t passionate about them. He’d been busy recently and hadn’t logged into his account in some time.
Jiang Ke chattered on a bit more, and Ying Qiuman only answered absently, not very engaged.
He took off his coat and hung it to the side. The bitter trace of perfume brushed past his nose, and his gaze went dull for a moment. It took him a while to remember to take out his phone and plug it in to charge.
The hospital’s disinfectant smell hadn’t managed to clear away the alcohol reek from the entertainment hall. The pheromones of those alphas were probably still lingering on him too. He had no idea what Xu Shuyuan would make of it once he smelled ithe might be very angry.
He couldn’t smell it himself, and Xu Shuyuan hadn’t said anything, but he still felt a little guilty, and went to shower with the clothes.
When he came out, Ye Li seemed to have relaxed a little, thanks to Jiang Ke’s company. The crease between his brows was gone, and he even reminded Ying Qiuman that someone had called him.
Ying Qiuman unlocked his phone and found two missed calls from an unknown number, along with two messages from the same number.
“Xiao Man, this is your grandfather.”
“Did I frighten you at the hotel today?”
Anyone reading this would think this “grandfather” was very kind. But the incident had already happened hours ago, and from a man Ying Qiuman had never once met in the past twenty-two years, this sudden concern looked suspicious.
Ying Qiuman replied, “Thank you, Grandpa. I’m fine now.”
No sooner had he sent it than the number called again.
“Hello, is this the young master?”
This wasn’t Ying Kangcheng’s voice. It sounded like a middle-aged manprobably his secretary or assistant.
“No,” Ying Qiuman said flatly. But this was reasonable enough, if a stranger called you “young master,” would you really own up to it?
The other man stayed polite. “Young Master Qiuman, I’m very sorry. Director Ying meant to call you himself, but you didn’t pick up just now, and he’s currently in an important meeting, so I could only return your call on his behalf.”
“Oh. Was there anything else?”
Ying Qiuman wasn’t incapable of sympathy for working people, but the man on the line was, after all, Ying Kangcheng’s assistant, possibly someone to be wary of so he had no choice but to keep his tone a bit cool.
“It’s good that you’re all right. This was a lapse on our part. The hotel will be more careful in future. You and your friends are welcome anytime, and all expenses will be charged to Director Ying.”
Ying Qiuman didn’t have a good impression of that place, but he neither refused nor agreed, only giving an indifferent “oh” before hanging up.
He checked the time of the earlier call. It had come exactly when his phone had just powered back on after charging.
Yet it had been only a little over ten minutes since he’d finished showering and come out. If there was a meeting to get to, why call him ten minutes ahead or less?
Either it was just a brief greeting, or…
Ying Qiuman frowned, a doubt slowly surfacing in his mind.
He didn’t linger on that screen for long. Instead he sent Xu Shuyuan a message: “I’ve reached the dorm.”
“Mm, get some rest.”
“What time are you coming back tomorrow? I’ll come pick you up.”
Xu Shuyuan had said the apartment was only half an hour from his school by subway, so there was no need to drive over. But after thinking something through, Ying Qiuman finally replied, “Mm.”
He even sent an emoji he’d “borrowed” from Qiu Yuana very cute cat face appearing rather abruptly in their not-so-intimate chat.
Xu Shuyuan stared at that cat emoji and found himself smiling without realizing it.
When he picked Ying Qiuman up the next day, the latter seemed a little clingy too.
“Manman, why are you being so proactive?”
After the elevator doors opened and Xu Shuyuan had just laid his hand on the door handle to scan his fingerprint, Ying Qiuman grabbed his other hand, pressing close to him in a way that was intimate yet a little stiff with shyness.
Looked at from the side, he stammered and couldn’t get the explanation out. Held in Xu Shuyuan’s arms, he simply stayed there quietly, leaning against him, teasing him whether he meant to or not.
Xu Shuyuan turned his head to face him as if to say something, but the instant he got out a single syllable, Ying Qiuman suddenly kissed him.
He wouldn’t speak, sealing Xu Shuyuan’s words off as well. Xu Shuyuan sensed something was off, but since it was such a rare bit of initiative from Ying Qiuman, he simply went along with it, deepening the kiss and thoroughly exploring him.
Ying Qiuman’s coat was taken off and tossed by the door as far as his sense of shame would let him go.
Only after being carried into the bedroom did he let go of Xu Shuyuan and ask, “What were you trying to say just now?”
Xu Shuyuan, who’d just had his “territory seized,” froze for a moment, staring at him in silence. The tenderness in his eyes suddenly turned crystal clear as he bent to whisper beside Ying Qiuman’s ear:
“Why didn’t you listen to me just now?”
Ying Qiuman’s breath caught. So he’d been found out.