Chu Lianxing looked at the person who had spoken, his expression fierce: “What are you talking about?”
Startled, the person stepped back a few steps before voicing what was on his mind: “I know you and Song Yushun were close, but he passed away five years ago. You can’t keep dwelling in past grief and refuse to face reality.”
Chu Lianxing immediately thought of Huang Chuyan’s mother. Rapidly brewing his emotions, he asked the person who had just spoken: “How did Song Yushun die?”
At the same time, he quietly sent a message to Song Yushun to confirm he was still alive.
A reply came back from the other end very quickly.
“The Song family went bankrupt, and Song Yushun was crashed to death abroad.”
Gu Jinyu walked in from outside, answering Chu Lianxing’s earlier question on behalf of that person.
Holding Su Zhili’s hand, he walked up to Chu Lianxing and extended a greeting to him: “Long time no see, Young Master Chu.”
Chu Lianxing glanced up at him, then looked away as if laying eyes on something filthy, directing Huo Ci behind him to push his wheelchair forward.
At just a glance, Chu Lianxing’s gaze deeply pierced Gu Jinyu’s sensitive inner heart.
Huo Ci, who had been acting like a little lamb in the car, was now staring unblinkingly at Su Zhili. Chu Lianxing turned to look at him, crashing straight into a pair of deeply affectionate eyes.
Chu Lianxing repeated his earlier demand once more; this time, he moved.
However, instead of pushing the wheelchair to take him away, he stood directly in front of Su Zhili and asked, “How have you been?”
Su Zhili had a baby face; at twenty-six years old, he looked no different than he had at sixteen. He tilted his head in puzzlement, seemingly trying his best to understand Huo Ci’s words.
With a successful career and a doting husband, how could he possibly not be doing well?
Unlike himself, whose company had gone bankrupt and whose father had committed suicide.
No, something felt wrong.
Hadn’t he thinned out as well? Right as he fell into a tangle of confusion.
“Slap, slap.”
Two loud slaps dragged Huo Ci back to reality. He looked in a daze at the person who had just hit him.
Chu Lianxing’s legs trembled weakly; the two slaps he delivered to Huo Ci had ruined his balance.
He adjusted the angle of his fall so that he collapsed backward into the wheelchair, hoping at least not to look too disheveled.
A pair of strong arms scooped him up, but Huo Ci did not place Chu Lianxing back into the wheelchair.
Instead, holding him in his arms, he sat directly in the main seat.
Chu Lianxing wanted to resist, but he sensed his body trembling slightly, as though fearing something.
For once, he didn’t make a fuss, obediently nestling into Huo Ci’s embrace.
In truth, he understood as well that Huo Ci had just been controlled by the plot once again.
What Huo Ci had told him wasn’t entirely accurate; simply marrying him had not allowed Huo Ci to break free from the plot’s control.
It was only that under the weakening of the plot’s control, they were able to alter the trajectory of the story.
Gu Jinyu was the direct beneficiary, and the plot’s power would strengthen whenever he was nearby.
The plot’s current influence was far inferior to what it used to be, and its grip only strengthened when approaching Gu Jinyu.
As for himself, he could weaken its presence.
As to why it was himself, it was easy to understand: he was the villain, and Gu Jinyu was the male protagonist, making them naturally opposing entities.
When he flourished, the plot weakened; when it weakened, he flourished.
Chu Lianxing opened his phone and initiated a video call with Song Yushun. The other end rang for a good while before connecting.
Ambient noise drifted from the opposite end, and soon, Song Yushun’s gender-ambiguous face appeared on the screen.
“Xingxing, please help me ask for leave from the class reunion. I’m so unlucky today as soon as I pulled out of the garage, my car got crashed into.
The person driving on the other side is mentally unstable too. My car is a limited edition, and I don’t even know where to find someone to pay for the damages.”
The volume on Chu Lianxing’s phone wasn’t low, and Song Yushun’s voice filled the entire private room.
Song Yushun’s voice was very recognizable; anyone who had heard it would never forget it.
The private room fell silent for a single second before erupting like a boiling pot of porridge, everyone discussing how Song Yushun was supposed to be dead yet his voice could still be heard.
Some even speculated whether he missed his friend so much that he had deliberately gone out to find a body double.
The moment this thought popped up, Chu Lianxing turned his phone screen toward the crowd.
Quite a few people drew sharp gasps. This, this he looked identical to Song Yushun, right down to the scar on his forehead, which was a match in every single detail.
How was Song Yushun driving a limited-edition car? Hadn’t the Song family gone bankrupt?
It was far too spine-chilling.
Ignoring the confusion of the people around him, Chu Lianxing stared fixedly at Gu Jinyu.
It was as if he were saying: I know your secret. So what if you’re the protagonist? So what about the plot? What can you possibly do to me?
Gu Jinyu felt as though the other party might know the truth of this world, though he immediately denied it in his heart: Impossible, no way, how could he possibly know? Nobody could possibly know.
The plot was veering off its original track, and Gu Jinyu merely assumed that because the story had ended, its grip had grown weaker.
If Chu Lianxing had any inkling of what was running through Gu Jinyu’s mind, he would definitely curse him as an idiot. Without the plot’s assistance, trash like him wouldn’t even know in which gutter he’d be rotting while harming society.
Huo Ci added insult to injury: “Have you forgotten why you had to go abroad?”
This single sentence snapped his classmates back to realization. The math class representative said to the friend beside him, “I feel like something’s not right. It’s as if this world is fake; I saw Song Yushun just the day before yesterday, so why would I think he was dead today?”
Chu Lianxing took in every single one of their reactions.
Once the seed of doubt was planted in their hearts, one day it would grow into a towering tree.
Gu Jinyu obviously heard his classmates’ discussion as well. Having been forced abroad by the Chu family back then, he stiffly twitched the corners of his mouth, trying his best to make his expression look natural: “I, I of course that was because Zhizhi liked the scenery abroad.”
“Is that so?”
With those words, Chu Lianxing patted Huo Ci’s shoulder, signaling him to take him away: “I’m not feeling well, so I’ll be leaving first. Put tonight’s tab on my bill.”
They departed so cleanly that they were entirely oblivious to the chaotic uproar that broke out in the private room the moment they left.
After all, anyone who had looked at Su Zhili’s WeChat Moments knew that he was overwhelmingly nostalgic for his motherland.
Inside the black Maybach, Huo Ci pulled Chu Lianxing tightly into his arms, burying his face in the crook of his neck like someone embracing a rare, lost-and-found priceless treasure.
Chu Lianxing was just about to deliver a few sarcastic remarks when he sensed a slight dampness against his neck.
Huo Ci’s voice trembled: “Xingxing, I almost lost you again.”
A thousand words and ten thousand phrases condensed into a soothing caress.
He shared his speculation that he could suppress the plot’s control with Huo Ci, and requested to be taken to the research laboratory.
Huo Ci agreed quite readily.
Looking puzzled, he asked, “How do you know about the laboratory, Xingxing?”
“You managed to stage a comeback by relying on the Chu family’s influence; every single move you make has people reporting it back to me.”
Being kept under complete control and surveillance did not make Huo Ci angry; instead, it filled him with a sense of satisfaction as though his heart had been stuffed to the brim.
He truly loves me after all, otherwise why would he have people keep an eye on me?
I love him and he loves me; we are running toward each other in a two-way rush.
Before he could continue lingering in tender intimacy with Chu Lianxing, however, Chu Lianxing had already shifted the focus back to work.
“Something’s not right. Based on our current guesswork, the plot shouldn’t have the capacity to plunge someone whose ending has already been altered back into a state of death, yet Huang Chuyan’s mother simply vanished directly.”