Noisy.
Countless unbearable words were being spoken loudly right near his ear, accompanied by the sounds of a physical scuffle.
Ci Mei’s consciousness was hazy, his head dull and throbbing.
He seemed to be standing on a somewhat elevated spot, the area right in front of him washed out by the glare of a bright incandescent light.
Ci Mei blinked uncomfortably, vaguely making out a few figures brawling together. The curses in his ears and the rush of wind whipped up nearby made his sluggish consciousness realize he was right in the middle of a fight, prompting him to instinctively take a few steps back to get away.
Before he could retreat, however, his wrist was grabbed with immense force.
Ci Mei was tugged forward, and the pain at his wrist, combined with a strange, lingering desire to press closer, made him frown. He let out a faint, delicate whimper, his pretty, rounded eye rims flushing red as he uncomfortably tried to break free from the restraint.
The person holding Ci Mei seemed to freeze for a moment, the grip on his wrist loosening slightly, giving Ci Mei an opening.
The light was blinding, so Ci Mei could only make out a rough outline—the person had good looks. Before Ci Mei could look closer, the person was fiercely yanked away by someone else, vanishing into the chaotic crowd.
“You filthy mongrel! Don’t touch Ci Mei!”
“Aolai, who do you think you’re putting your hands on?”
“Where are you going? What we said isn’t true? Aren’t you just a loser who can only rely on his family? Drop the surname Vieser, and you’re nothing!”
As those words fell, before Ci Mei could react, someone violently shoved his shoulder. Stumbling, he tripped and plunged right into the pool behind him.
“Ci Mei!”
The chilling pool water instantly rushed in, assaulting Ci Mei’s nerves, piercing through his skin straight to his marrow.
The surging water forced its way into Ci Mei’s nose and mouth. Just when he thought this world was going to give him a disastrous start, someone grabbed his wrist.
That strange desire came rushing back.
Ci Mei instinctively gripped the person’s forearm tightly. The person was broad-shouldered and strong, pulling him against his waist with irresistible force and letting him half-lean against his embrace.
The prolonged suffocation made Ci Mei’s consciousness somewhat hazy, leaving him to follow his body’s primal instincts.
By the time they reached the shore, Ci Mei was clinging entirely to the person who had saved him.
The young boy’s clothes were soaked through to the skin, his gorgeous, alluring face pale. He listened docilely as a servant said something, his pink lips slightly pressed together while a few strands of light golden hair clung damply to his cheeks, water droplets pooling at the ends before finally falling drop by drop.
Ci Mei’s clear, amber-tinted dark blue eyes stared unblinkingly at the person who had pulled him out, bewildered yet direct, his porcelain-white, slender fingers still clutching the other’s equally drenched cuff, refusing to let go.
The man raised an eyebrow slightly, trying to retract his hand, only to find a firm, steady resistance pulling in the opposite direction.
The person standing beside Ci Mei watched for a moment before blurting out nonsense, glaring straight at the boy Ci Mei refused to let go of: “Pei Huai! What do you think you’re doing grabbing Ci Mei?”
Pei Huai: “”
Ci Mei: “?”
You’re really good at talking nonsense with your eyes open.
With that, the person made a move to step forward, and the group of richly dressed youths behind him also rolled up their sleeves to join in.
Ci Mei’s senses had fully returned by now. Taking a quiet, deep breath, he stepped forward, raised a hand to block the space between the two sides, and looked up at the group whose movements had abruptly halted: “He saved me. If he hadn’t grabbed me, I’d still be at the bottom of the pool.”
The group looked at each other, their expressions somewhat strange, and stopped shouting.
As for the Pei Huai mentioned by that youth, he lowered his gaze with a look of amused interest at the person shielding him. Retreating a tiny step behind Ci Mei in cooperation, he tilted his head slightly, looked past Ci Mei to glare at the group itching to beat him up, and evaluated them in an amused tone: “So fierce.”
The group on the opposite side: “”
They looked like a pack of arrogant villains asking to be beaten.
Ci Mei’s hands were trembling slightly.
Before his death, he had been a typical obedient student, and the character settings of the scripts he usually took on never involved this kind of scene.
He could only deduce from their fragmented words that his status here was quite high, but when facing them head-on, his heart still felt somewhat hollow.
Amidst the standoff, the system’s cheerful voice rang crisply in his mind: [Mission world loaded—Western Fantasy World.]
[You are the foolish and arrogant second son of Count Vieser. You are all show and no substance, your magic is low-level, and you are jealous of the protagonist shou adored by your fiancé, constantly bullying him, enslaving him, and mocking him.]
Having spent years in the romance genre playing devoted, self-sacrificing characters of absolute virtue and beauty, Ci Mei felt somewhat conflicted.
This was a Western fantasy magic world, and the youth who had just been cursed and shoved was the protagonist shou—Pei Huai, the offspring born to a married member of the royal family and an Eastern foreign woman.
The royal family could not tolerate this stain, but due to the royal father’s plea, they spared Pei Huai’s life, confining him and his mother to the main star and sending them off to the slums to fend for themselves.
That harsh environment forced the protagonist shou to mature much earlier than his peers. Because of his extremely high magical talent, the King, in urgent need of such geniuses, unwittingly recruited the protagonist shou into the Furlan Magic Academy and waived his hefty tuition fees.
From this point on, the main theme was face-slapping—flashy face-slapping, plus an extra billion points of melodramatic cliché.
And Ci Mei’s current identity played an indispensable role in those flashy face-slapping plots.
The main reason was that this body of Ci Mei’s suffered from skin hunger syndrome. It didn’t react much to other people, but ridiculously harbored an extreme craving for the touch of the protagonist gong—the original body’s fiancé.
Upon seeing that his fiancé of five years—whom he had debased himself to chase after like a loyal dog without ever getting a second glance—had his attention so easily captured by the protagonist shou, the original body’s jealousy was instantly ignited.
Coupled with the instigation of those around him, he became completely unable to suppress his vicious thoughts, provoking Pei Huai multiple times until the protagonist shou finally noticed, teamed up with the protagonist gong to overthrow the Vieser family, and threw the original body into a valley surrounded by fierce dragons that viewed mages as sworn enemies to fend for himself.
[Now, host, please begin wantonly and unreasonably bullying the protagonist shou. Invent your own reasons, but make sure they sound grounded and logical, dear.]
Ci Mei: “”
Picking a fight with someone who had literally just pulled him out of the water…
He pondered for a moment: “As long as I bully him, the mission is complete, right?”
[Yes.]
That meant just giving him a casual, perfunctory harassment would do…
Thinking this, Ci Mei looked at the weak and fragile youth hiding behind him, quickly slipping into character and putting on a ferocious expression: “Don’t you go playing the victim either!”
The youth’s expression was fierce, but his voice was trembling slightly like a bristling, bluffing little cat. It made Pei Huai unable to muster any anger; instead, he found such an arrogant little young master quite interesting.
With that thought, he took a tiny step back to put some distance between them, tilted his head slightly, and gazed steadily at the pretty person in front of him: “Young Master Vieser, you just said it yourself—I saved you.”
Hearing this, Ci Mei almost dropped his vicious male-supporting script. Pausing for a fraction of a second, he suddenly smiled: “…Right, I did say that.”
“I recall that in your Eastern lands, you like to use the term ‘Bodhisattva’ to praise those overflowing with benevolence, don’t you?”
As he spoke, Ci Mei suddenly stepped forward, abruptly closing the distance between them.
Seeing this, Pei Huai instinctively wanted to retreat, but someone abruptly tripped him from behind, making him lose his balance and tumble heavily onto the ground. Pressing his palms against the ground, he frowned and turned his head sideways to look. The onlookers were all watching him with mocking, gloating expressions.
As for the person who had tripped him, they sneered coldly, looking down at him with utter contempt before he even hit the ground: “What face do you have left to run away? Figures. Do you think that with your little tricks, you can rely on the Vieser family to get an academy quota, and then turn around and steal Young Master Vieser’s fiancé, letting him back you up?”
“Even their deep affection could be ruined by you—your methods are truly sickening.”
…That string of upside-down, black-is-white nonsense—if he wasn’t the victim here, he might have actually believed it.
Ci Mei’s pupils shrank when Pei Huai fell, and he instinctively wanted to reach out. Hearing those words, his hand pausing mid-motion to pull Pei Huai up, he cast a warning glare at the speaker.
The person was stunned by that single glance, not daring to make another sound, while the rest who wanted to echo him fell silent as well.
Pei Huai didn’t notice this. He curled his fingers against the ground, turned his head back, and raised his eyes with fatigue to see what else this Young Master Vieser wanted to do. Instead, he saw the person who should have been his greatest tormentor frowning at the mocking crowd, as if issuing a silent warning.
Pei Huai raised an eyebrow in subtle amusement.
Noticing Pei Huai’s gaze, Ci Mei withdrew his look and bent down. His cool, delicate fingers curved slightly, pressing against Pei Huai’s abdomen as a droplet of pool water pooled right between Ci Mei’s knuckles: “Stop flattering yourself. I just don’t like others mocking my dog, because it feels like they’re mocking me by extension.”
Ci Mei paused for a moment, his voice dropping lower: “Besides, those words actually imply that I’m less likable than you… You really are hateful.”
Pei Huai remained silent.
This posture allowed him to simply lower his gaze slightly to catch a clear view of the scenery beneath Ci Mei’s damp, nearly transparent shirt.
Half-hidden, seductive like a temptation.
Meanwhile, Ci Mei—who had been silently slapped with the label of a seducer—remained oblivious to Pei Huai’s increasingly dark gaze. His porcelain-white fingers pinched firmly onto Pei Huai’s jaw, forcing him to lift his head and meet his eyes directly.
His other hand drew a dagger from his waist, spun it between five fingers, and finally gripped it firmly in his palm.
The blade hovered inch by inch over Pei Huai’s features before finally stopping right at the center of his brow.
The youth possessed superior brow bones exuding a cold, fierce aura; his upturned phoenix eyes were aloof, their corners tinged with red, his complexion pale from the cold lake water. The hem of his thin white shirt dripped wetly, faintly outlining a powerful, fluid, and taut muscular line. When he tilted his head to look at Ci Mei, his prominent Adam’s apple was clear and seductive, while his ink-green pupils steadily reflected the pretty person before him.
Pei Huai’s back rested against the edge of the pool, while Ci Mei straddled his waist loosely. The dagger tip resting at Pei Huai’s brow pricked forward, a tiny drop of bright red instantly surfacing on the skin.
Immediately afterward, Pei Huai watched as the person straddling him narrowed his eyes in satisfaction like a bad cat whose prank had succeeded: “It doesn’t look out of place at all.”
Pei Huai gazed steadily at the young man. Water droplets still hung precariously on his vermillion, plump lips that seemed begging to be tasted, while a mischievous smile felt jarringly out of place on that soft, pretty face.
Pei Huai half-closed his eyes to study Ci Mei at such close range, a refreshing, crisp chill suddenly wafting past his nose.
He heard Ci Mei whisper softly: “Pei… Bodhisattva.”
The youth’s voice was low and soft, carrying the same usual tone, yet somehow Pei Huai inexplicably felt something was different.
…This sense of loss of control made him somewhat displeased.
Ci Mei was close by, and Pei Huai didn’t bother hiding his emotions, allowing Ci Mei to easily notice his displeasure. Ci Mei’s movements paused, a sudden surge of elation bubbling in his heart.
Pei Huai was unhappy, and he had caused it.
It seemed he still had a bit of a bully’s potential in him after all.
Since Pei Huai’s unhappiness equated to mission completion, Ci Mei didn’t linger. He moved his hand holding the dagger hilt backward, pressed his other cool palm flat against Pei Huai’s chest, gave a moderate push, and stood up to put some distance between them.
The attendant waiting nearby immediately draped a dry, warm coat over his shoulders.
Ci Mei glanced up at the person, offered a polite, slight smile, murmured a low “Thank you,” and turned to walk away.
The attendant froze for a moment, slowly raising a hand to touch his face. Seeing Ci Mei walking further and further away, he quickly hurried to catch up, turning back to glare at Pei Huai sitting on the ground before leaving.
Pei Huai ignored the person’s glare. Resting his elbows along the outer edge of the pool stones, he tilted his head back leisurely to watch Ci Mei’s retreating figure, a sudden thought dawning on him as he burst out laughing.
The Ci Mei who had fallen into the water seemed to harbor a very special… desire for him.