It was an entirely ordinary Monday. A high-end café in the core of the CBD had been lavishly booked out by a wealthy patron, and once all the invitees had arrived, the host made a characteristically unhurried entrance.
Surveying the three men whose expressions could only be described as exceptionally wretched, Mo Yunniao took her seat at the head of the table with unruffled composure.
“In the interest of saving time, I decided to summon all three of you together. You don’t mind, do you?” Mo Yunniao’s tone was flat, yet the gaze she swept over them barely concealed a blazing surge of fury.
She had spent considerable effort thoroughly untangling the complex relationships between these three individuals and her younger brother.
One had orchestrated an excruciatingly cliché and tedious hero-save-the-damsel trope, while the other two had worked in tandem behind the scenes to dig up dirt on each other.
She truly never imagined that her younger brother would be subjected to such harrowing ordeals right under her nose.
Facing the older sister of the person they adored, the three men naturally didn’t dare utter a word of backtalk, though the glances they cast one another carried varying degrees of mutual disdain.
“Each of you can be considered an elite among men, so there is really no need to hang your entire lives on a single younger brother of mine.”
First turning her attention to Zuo Yan, Mo Yunniao stated flatly, “Naturally, the arrangement discussed by our families is void. I will cede three points on our corporate partnership dividends this year.”
Zuo Yan hadn’t expected to be the first one chopped down on the chopping block. Before he could even formulate a response, Mo Yunniao had already shifted her gaze to Shi Jingchi.
“I have also heard about you cutting ties with your family to dive into the entertainment industry. I have already dug up some compromising leverage on that illegitimate half-brother of yours. If you need it, I can pave the way to carry you straight to the top.”
Finally, Mo Yunniao fished several business cards out of her pocket and slid them across the table toward Zhou Xingyu. “In your line of work, personal connections are everything. Just call the number on this card and drop my name; I have already cleared the path.”
“None of you are ever to harass my younger brother again.”
That final sentence tolled like a solemn warning bell, crashing heavily against the chests of all three men.
With that, Mo Yunniao stood up. “Things being as they are, I will not trespass upon your company any longer.”
Seeing that Mo Yunniao was about to leave, Shi Jingchi cut off her departure.
“My feelings for him are genuine, so I don’t need any of these things you are offering. I only want him.”
In a miraculous alignment of positions, all three men arrived at the exact same conclusion and stared uniformly at Mo Yunniao.
Mo Yunniao scanned the circle once, then let out a regretful sigh. “I advise you all to put those thoughts to rest. Haven’t you realized yet? He suffers from a severe emotional processing disorder. Aside from his family, he is utterly incapable of investing genuine affection into anyone.”
Noticing the look of shock frozen across all three faces, Mo Yunniao patiently elaborated.
“He was pampered since childhood, which spoiled him into a willful temper. It wasn’t until later that I realized he is completely incapable of discerning the subtle nuances of emotional affection or aversion in others; whatever emotion is explicitly displayed is all he registers. Most importantly, his emotional fluctuations are erratic, sometimes exceptionally sluggish, other times overly sensitive.”
“Then why would he…” Zhou Xingyu couldn’t fathom it. Why had Mo Yunyu approached him, and why had he agreed to let him tag along?
Before walking into the café, Mo Yunniao had already pieced together the absurd farce that had played out around her younger brother. Although she knew this reckoning was bound to arrive eventually, she hadn’t anticipated that three separate suitors would show up at once.
“It was nothing more than acquiring a personal errand boy, a straightforward transaction of mutual benefit. So even if it involved physical intimacy, it made no difference to him whatsoever.”
The hardest blow landed squarely on Zuo Yan. In that single instant, every lingering doubt he had previously brushed aside snapped into place to form a complete picture.
No wonder Mo Yunyu remained completely unfazed even after surviving a kidnapping, and no wonder he showed no resentment when coerced into signing an engagement agreement under threat.
Through all this prolonged companionship, he had deluded himself into thinking he had breached the inner sanctum of the youth’s heart, never once suspecting that he had never truly been accepted at all.
Hearing Mo Yunniao’s words, the three men finally woke up to a brutal reality: they had all been branded with the failing mark of losers long before they even knew the game had started.
“My prior warning stands. Do not harass my younger brother ever again.”
Mo Yunniao swept out of the room with effortless grace, leaving the three men behind in a heavy, prolonged silence.
Yet what they didn’t know was that this wasn’t even the final blow. Even before Mo Yunniao stepped foot into the café, Mo Yunyu was already being escorted by a team of bodyguards toward an international flight with a confidential destination.
Time rewound to the previous night.
Utterly helpless against her carefree, thick-skinned younger brother, Mo Yunniao silently slid a pristine black credit card across the table.
“Why do you always manage to attract this many men, I swear. Sigh. It’s my fault for being too consumed by work lately to look after you properly. Take this card and go travel the world for a bit. Go have fun.”
Ruffling Mo Yunyu’s curls, which possessed the exact same wonderful texture as always, Mo Yunniao still couldn’t completely shake her lingering resentment over Zuo Yan bullying her brother.
She was famously protective of her own. As the old saying went, offer courtesy before resorting to force; once she safely exported her brother out of the country, she fully intended to circle back and settle accounts.
“But…” Mo Yunyu instinctively moved to refuse, only to be cut off.
“No buts.” Mo Yunniao shoved the card straight into her brother’s palm. “What is there to be reluctant about? Wouldn’t it be wonderful to get out and travel?”
Mo Yunyu silently hoisted the kitten up into the air with a look of hopeful expectation.
Well-acquainted with the youth’s stubborn temperament, Mo Yunniao pinched the bridge of her nose in weary defeat. “Fine, take the cat too.”
Thus, armed with a black card in one hand and a kitten cradled in the other, Mo Yunyu began daydreaming about his life of unbridled freedom, entirely oblivious to the scorched-earth campaign his dear sister was about to wage the moment he departed.
609 was jolted awake by a notification chiming that the mission had been successfully completed, leaving the system ready to prostrate itself in worship before Yunyu.
I honestly thought we were going to get dumped straight into a penalty world this time around, but the host actually pulled it off!
Surveying the nearly perfect ratings, 609 was left utterly speechless.
Lounging indolently on a beachside lounge chair with a pair of dark sunglasses shielding his eyes, Yunyu soaked in the perfect sea breeze, using the cover of his shades to unabashedly admire a foreign tourist’s washboard abs.
Withdraw from the show, get the older sister to break off a marriage alliance, exploit a business rivalry to leverage protection, and drop a small fortune to sanitize my private life, why wouldn’t the mission complete itself?
609 tipped its metaphorical hat in deep admiration. Though the path had been ruggedly erratic, the target objectives had indeed been ticked off with absolute surgical precision.
So, are we ready to jump to the next world now?
What is the maximum amount of time I can linger here? Yunyu drained the last of the coconut water beside him.
We are forced to detach the moment the original vessel’s predetermined time of death arrives. We have about fifty-odd years left.
Is that so? Yunyu rose to his feet and stretched languidly. Then let me enjoy myself for a while longer before we talk about it.
609 understood completely, given its own frequent habits of logging off to slack off.
Wishing the host a pleasant vacation then. Just call out whenever you are ready to depart.
Sensing 609 pop in briefly before vanishing offline once more, Yunyu smiled with amused resignation and strolled back toward the hotel.
He hadn’t taken more than a few steps, however, when a blonde, blue-eyed young man stepped into his path.
“Excuse me, are you Chinese?”
Having spent days surrounded by foreign languages, hearing clumsy and accented Mandarin felt unexpectedly endearing. Yunyu slid his sunglasses down, his expression softening considerably.
“You speak Mandarin?”
The young man knew Yunyu was attractive, but he hadn’t anticipated just how breathtaking he looked up close, causing a violent flush to creep up from his neck to his face in an instant.
“Yes. I have a Chinese tutor, I know a few phrases.”
Yunyu narrowed his eyes. The youth’s innocent and pure demeanor genuinely piqued his curiosity, but before he could reply, an arm snaked around his waist from behind and pulled him back against a solid chest.
“Apologies, he has an appointment today.”
With an expression of profound regret, Yunyu watched the pure foreign lad retreat, then turned his gaze up toward the man who had snared him.
“Didn’t I tell you to leave? Why are you still following me?”
Shi Jingchi wore an aggrieved expression, completely shedding his previous aura of frustration. Having finally swept away his domestic entanglements and secured Mo Yunniao’s special dispensation, he had broken all speed limits racing to catch up to Mo Yunyu.
History proved that investing in favorable impressions with family members yielded massive dividends when pursuing a spouse.
“It has been so long, haven’t you missed me even a little bit?” Shi Jingchi reached out to take Mo Yunyu’s hand.
Right now, he held the absolute tactical advantage: Zhou Xingyu was firmly chained down by a year-long group debut contract, not to mention Zuo Yan, who had been aggressively targeted by Mo Yunniao and didn’t dare retaliate.
With the other two major hazards temporarily neutralized, he naturally intended to monopolize the territory directly beside Mo Yunyu.
Frowning at Shi Jingchi’s theatrical display of grievance, Mo Yunyu yanked his hand back and marched toward the hotel.
True to form, Shi Jingchi trailed wherever Mo Yunyu walked, persisting faithfully for days on end despite being casually bossed around. He performed his duties with absolute willingness, all while constantly swatting away any stray suitors attempting to orbit Mo Yunyu.
Thus began a grand tour across Europe. By the time summer rolled around once more, the other two men caught up, forcefully inserting themselves back into Mo Yunyu’s travel entourage.
Mo Yunyu remained entirely unbothered; being doted on was hardly a hardship, and having extra hands to wait on him hand and foot was an absolute win.
Yet, caught squarely in the crossfire of three men waging a relentless turf war for his affections, Mo Yunyu soon found himself nursing a splitting headache. Not even a full week passed before he surreptitiously booked a flight back home, plotting to seek asylum with his dear sister.
Naturally, though he fancied himself terribly sneaky, the moment he arrived at the boarding gate, he discovered all three men already occupying the seats directly to his left, right, and front.
Whatever. Let them be.
Mo Yunyu chose to bury his face deep into Mo Mimi’s fur and indulge in some aggressive cat-huffing.
Life after returning to the country followed a largely similar rhythm, save for the fact that everyone was tied down by their respective enterprises, including Mo Yunyu, who had been conscripted by his sister to serve as vice president, executing his duties primarily as a decorative corporate mascot.
Feeling that freeloading without contributing was somewhat improper, Mo Yunyu roped Mo Mimi into creating a social media account, successfully debuting as a glorious pet lifestyle blogger.
Consequently, the internet gained a pristine aesthetic attraction: whenever the blogger posted updates featuring an outrageously adorable fluffy Devon Rex cat, three separate verified accounts carrying elite-tier fan club badges would materialize in the replies to bicker pettily with one another.
This served as a public testament that the quartet’s dynamic remained deadlocked in an unresolved standoff. Mo Yunyu willingly accepted their continuous showering of favors, but drew a hard line against taking things any further.
The three men lived in a state of perpetual nervous anxiety; Mo Yunyu possessed high public visibility, striking good looks, and a lavish spending habit, combined with the terrifying vulnerability of being easily swayed by acts of service.
Yet, working under Mo Yunniao’s tutelage rubbed off on him, inspiring a sudden work ethic that manifested in an extraordinarily diversified portfolio of side hustles.
He made cameo appearances in Zhou Xingyu’s music videos, jetted off to Europe with Shi Jingchi to attend fashion weeks, and most frequently of all, dropped by to supervise the collaborative business projects partnering with the Zuo Corporation.
Time flowed onward, and all things drifted steadily toward brighter horizons.
Gazing at the three men who still hovered attentively around him just as they always had, Yunyu finally sensed that familiar, welcoming warmth blooming across his left wrist once more, prompting an irrepressible smile to bloom on his face.
Seeming to perceive the shift, the three men turned their gazes toward him in unison.
Shedding his character settings completely for the very first time right before their eyes, Yunyu curved his eyes into bright crescents and spoke softly.
“See you in the next world.”
609, we can jump to the next world now.