Giving You Allowance Money
Ying Zhu could understand the reaction. Honestly, if he were in Cen Xie’s shoes, seeing himself being fucked by his rival, he wouldn’t be able to stay calm either. So, he gave Cen Xie a moment to digest.
Cen Xie stared blankly at Ying Zhu. His shock temporarily overrode his curiosity. His mind was still filled with those images. Ying Zhu felt the silence had gone on too long.
“We’re both Omegas,” Ying Zhu said after a pause. “I can understand how you feel.”
Cen Xie thought to himself: Actually, it’s quite different. For instance, he currently couldn’t understand Ying Zhu’s feelings at all. How could the man be so calm after being fucked by him?
Ying Zhu frowned. “I know it’s hard to accept, but it happened. There’s no use obsessing over it.”
Cen Xie’s mouth twitched. “You accept it that easily? No obsession at all?”
Ying Zhu remained his cold, ruthless self. “Why obsess over the past? Or do you feel like you were the one who lost out?”
Ying Zhu wondered: Is Cen Xie obsessing because he was the one doing the ‘doing’? Or because he was doing it to another Omega? The thought annoyed him. If he were an Alpha, would Cen Xie have this reaction? Tch. What’s so great about being an Alpha anyway?
“You feel like you lost out?”
Cen Xie’s first instinct was that Ying Zhu was speaking out of anger. Images of the Warden’s legs wrapped around his waist flashed in his mind. He raised an eyebrow. “No. I don’t feel like I lost out.”
Ying Zhu watched him, a slight frown forming. Not only does he not feel like he lost out, he looks like he’s reminiscing. This dissolute Omega.
Cen Xie looked at him and suddenly asked, “Then how did it feel for you?”
Ying Zhu’s lip curled. “How did I feel?”
Cen Xie realized something. Since the memory was from his own perspective, when Ying Zhu read it, wasn’t it essentially like he was watching himself being fucked?
He lowered his voice, curiosity getting the better of him. “What does it feel like to… Fuck yourself?”
Ying Zhu remained expressionless. “It’s your memory. Your perspective. Everything I felt… was what you were feeling.”
Cen Xie remained curious, leaning in slightly. “No, no, I mean you…”
Ying Zhu knew exactly what he was about to ask. His expression turned ice-cold as he cut him off. “Instead of being curious about useless nonsense, you’d be better off thinking about why your memories are leaking out in the first place.”
Cen Xie fell silent. A heavy quiet filled the small car.
After a long while, he offered a guess: “Could it have been a one-night stand?”
This matched Ying Zhu’s initial thought, but he had already discarded that theory. He shook his head. “It wasn’t a one-night stand. In the memory, we know each other’s names.”
Cen Xie took a moment to savor—no, recall—the memory he just read. They hadn’t actually called out each other’s names in that specific clip. But hearing Ying Zhu say it, he couldn’t help but start imagining: what would it be like if Ying Zhu called his name with that hoarse, tearful voice from the memory?
Unaware of Cen Xie’s internal wanderings, Ying Zhu continued, “In a one-night stand, there’s no reason to give someone your real name.”
Cen Xie nodded, but then a sharp realization hit him. “Wait, wait. But I already knew who you were.”
By “knew,” he meant he was aware of Ying Zhu’s public identity and name.
Ying Zhu looked at him for a moment. “I knew you, too.”
S-class Omegas were rare; you could count them on one hand in all of Star County. He had certainly known of Cen Xie, though he hadn’t been sure if Cen Xie knew him back then.
However, even confirming they knew each other didn’t change his conclusion. “Even so, it couldn’t be a one-night stand, because…”
Ying Zhu paused, trailing off.
“Because what?” Cen Xie prompted.
Ying Zhu’s gaze was complex. Because in a one-night stand, people aren’t that stupid. He remembered the memory card where Cen Xie was clearly in pain but pretended everything was fine just to keep going.
He turned his gaze out the window. “Because if we were looking for a one-night stand, would we really consider each other? At the very least, if I were in my right mind, I would never choose to have a one-night stand with you.”
Cen Xie narrowed his eyes. He felt… slightly annoyed.
Ying Zhu’s lip curled. “That would be handing you leverage on a silver platter. Do you think I wouldn’t consider whether you’d use that memory to threaten me?”
At this, Cen Xie felt a pang of guilt, remembering the photos he’d taken of Ying Zhu in those suggestive clothes.
Ying Zhu clearly remembered the photos too, but he was less worried about them now. They were currently partners; Cen Xie was just as invested in finding out why his memories were being sold. They were grasshoppers tied to the same rope. At the very least, until this was solved, Cen Xie wouldn’t turn on him.
His primary concern was still the missing cards. He didn’t know how long “they” had been together, but so far he had only recovered four cards—barely ten minutes of footage. Who knew how much more was out there?
The Beta seller contacted him every few days, which suggested the man was buying restricted cards in small batches from someone else and then flipping them. This meant the source wasn’t just one person, or the seller would have bought the whole set at once.
The thought of how many people might have seen his face in those memories made Ying Zhu’s temper flare. He turned sharp-tongued: “Just how desperate for money were you back then?”
Cen Xie was taken back, his tone souring instantly. “What’s that supposed to mean? Do I look like someone who lacks money?”
Ying Zhu had investigated the Canaan Society’s business; he knew how thick the gambling profits were. But he pressed on: “You weren’t always this rich, were you? How broke were you to sell memories like that?”
Cen Xie frowned, offended. “You’re just certain I sold them?”
“The memory is from your perspective. It leaked from your head. You can’t wash your hands of that fact!”
“Am I an idiot?” Cen Xie countered. “If I were really that desperate for cash, wouldn’t it make more sense to sell them directly to you? Why would I go through the hassle of retail? Do I look like I have that much free time?”
“Maybe you figured if you came to me, I’d fucking shoot you!”
They began to argue, their voices rising until they were shouting over each other. Passersby outside the car stopped to stare through the glass.
Ying Zhu rolled up the windows with a stony face. “Let’s go somewhere else. Too many people here.”
With a cold expression, Cen Xie drove away from the crowd, heading toward a secluded spot by the river.
The Star River split the county in two, and the lights of the traffic on the bridge looked like a flowing galaxy. The night breeze drifted through the open window, cooling their heads. The urge to fight vanished, replaced by silence.
As the anger faded, Cen Xie’s rational side admitted that Ying Zhu’s fury wasn’t entirely unjustified. Ying Zhu’s face was the one exposed, and the data did originate from his hippocampus. In that regard, he was in the wrong.
After a while, he spoke first. “Knowing myself, even if I were so broke I had to pawn my own pants, I wouldn’t sell those memories.”
Ying Zhu’s voice was still chilly. “It seems you don’t know yourself as well as you think.”
Cen Xie chose to be patient this time. He didn’t argue but raised his hands in a mock gesture of surrender. “You’re right, though. The memories came from me. I can’t talk my way out of that. I’ll take full responsibility for this.”
Ying Zhu turned to look at him.
Cen Xie had dropped his usual cavalier attitude. His expression was dead serious. “No matter how much it costs or how much effort it takes, I will get every single one of those cards back.”
Ying Zhu watched him for a long moment, his tone softening slightly. “We’ll look for them together. It’ll be faster.”
Cen Xie hummed in agreement, then added after a silence, “But besides my memory leaking… don’t you think your situation is even weirder?”
Ying Zhu didn’t answer, staring out at the night scenery.
Yes. Cen Xie didn’t remember because the data in his artificial hippocampus was gone—whether stolen or sold, the data was physically extracted.
But why didn’t he remember? What could cause two people to lose the exact same period of time simultaneously without either of them noticing?
The situation was far more terrifying than it appeared. Because they couldn’t remember, they couldn’t even judge the severity of what they were missing.
Breaking the silence, Cen Xie said, “Let’s find a place to eat first.”
Ying Zhu checked the time; it was past 8:00 PM.
As Cen Xie pulled back onto the road, he asked, “Where to?”
They didn’t discuss it, but there was a tacit understanding: whoever’s “territory” they were in chose the place and picked up the tab.
Ying Zhu: “Golden Vienna.”
Cen Xie remembered the “high-end” service there—the crowdfunded begging—and couldn’t stomach it. He gestured to the roadside. “Let’s not be fancy. Any of these shops look fine to me.”
Ying Zhu looked at him for two seconds, then conceded. “Fine. Pick one that looks decent.”
Cen Xie eventually pulled up in front of a busy seafood stall. They got out and found a table. A brash, energetic landlady swept over like a whirlwind, slapping two slightly greasy menus onto the table. “What can I get for you two?” she asked with a wide grin.
Ying Zhu glanced at the menu and said to Cen Xie, “You order. I’m not picky.”
Cen Xie knew the man’s mysophobia was acting up and he didn’t want to touch the menu, so he didn’t hold back. He ordered oyster omelets, cold crab, goose blood with intestines, and a sour plum mud carp pot.
Ying Zhu leaned in and whispered a reminder: “Just enough to eat. Don’t over-order. I’m almost out of money.”
Cen Xie thought he was full of it. The guy was practically dripping with wealth. But it was enough food, so he told the landlady, “That’s it for now.”
“Coming right up!” She snatched the menus and barked the order to the kitchen.
Cen Xie turned to Ying Zhu. “If you’re out of money, why were you suggesting Golden Vienna? Isn’t that place way more expensive?”
Ying Zhu sighed. “Because my family owns that restaurant. I can just sign the bill.”
Cen Xie was baffled. “So… Do you have money or not?”
Ying Zhu was incredibly wealthy, but people that rich don’t carry all their cash in their pockets. His assets were managed by a family office, and he received a monthly “allowance.” He had set the amount himself—it wasn’t huge, but it was usually plenty since he didn’t have many expensive hobbies.
However, buying restricted memory cards was draining his cash fast. Between the cards, the disposal fees for his two wrecked cars, and the surgery bill he’d paid for Cen Xie, his liquid cash was low.
He didn’t want to ask the family office for more; they’d make a huge fuss, analyze his spending habits, and call a meeting just to discuss a limit increase. Too much trouble. He’d just wait a few days until his next disbursement.
Being who he was, Ying Zhu wasn’t going to explain all that to Cen Xie. He simply said, “I can afford one dinner. Just don’t go ordering extra on purpose.”
Cen Xie watched him, thinking. After a moment, he pulled out his wallet, took out a card, and tossed it to him.
Ying Zhu caught it instinctively. “What’s this for?”
“Since you’re broke,” Cen Xie said casually, “there’s about a hundred thousand on that card. Take it and spend it.”
Ying Zhu looked down at the card, then back up at Cen Xie, his expression unreadable.
“You’re… giving me allowance money?”
Cen Xie: “Too little? I’ll deposit some more tomorrow.”