Qin Yin seemed to find the whole thing rather amusing. “What are you talking about? How could I possibly have a son like you?”
“You’re an adult yourself. You should understand the rules of society by now. Do you really still believe in things like ‘love your own young, and by extension, the young of others’? Just name your price. How much do you want before you’ll leave Sheng Xun?”
Su Qingyu thought about it for a moment, then put on an expression of having been deeply insulted. “How much were you planning to give me to leave him?”
Qin Yin: “Three million.”
“That’s not enough. You’ll have to add more.”
“…”
Qin Yin gave a mocking laugh, her expression saying that she had expected exactly this. She asked directly, “How much do you want?”
Su Qingyu: “Six million. Give me six million, and I’ll leave Sheng Xun immediately. I’ll stay as far away from him as possible.”
The disgust on Qin Yin’s face deepened. “Don’t be so greedy.”
But Sheng Yunkai said, “Are you sure?”
As far as he was concerned, if they could resolve this embarrassing matter as quickly as possible, six million was acceptable.
Su Qingyu: “I’m sure. Otherwise, shall we sign a contract?”
After seeing the six million transferred into his account, Su Qingyu stood up in complete satisfaction. He looked at the two of them and said, “First, the one who should be embarrassed is your son, not me. He was the one who shamelessly pursued me first. I rejected him several times, and plenty of people at our school know about it.”
“If you want to resolve the problem, you should go deal with your own son. Don’t push the responsibility onto me. That only makes your family look worse.”
“Second, don’t blame me for the fact that Sheng Xun likes men either. He already liked someone named Gu Mengchen when he was in middle school. He even went abroad for him. I’m merely a substitute who happens to look like Gu Mengchen.”
“Third, stop acting so superior and wearing that mocking expression all the time. It only makes you look uneducated, like nouveau riche.”
“Fourth, I’m leaving Sheng Xun because I took your money. That doesn’t mean I’m leaving this company because of it. Even the person who does the worst at our school wouldn’t sink so low as to come work for your company.”
The two of them stared at Su Qingyu in disbelief, completely dumbfounded by the barrage of words he had just thrown at them.
Just as Su Qingyu was about to leave, he turned around and added, “Oh, fifth, Madam Sheng, that scarf you’re wearing today doesn’t go very well with your outfit. It looks tacky. I think a black one would look much better.”
By the time the two of them finally recovered, Su Qingyu had already walked out of the office.
Qin Yin abruptly shot to her feet. Pointing furiously in the direction he had left, she said, “What was he talking about?!”
Sheng Yunkai’s expression was equally unpleasant, but he did not place all the blame on Su Qingyu. Instead, he darkened his face and said, “Call Sheng Xun over.”
527 said excitedly, 【Host, that was so satisfying! You finally got all that anger out!】
Then it said in surprise, 【Huh? The repentance value increased by five points.】
Su Qingyu walked out in an excellent mood. After passing the stunned secretary and the colleagues who were openly watching him with undisguised curiosity, he returned to his workstation and tidied things up. He did not take anything with him. Then, looking at the people who had been secretly peeking at him all this time, he said, “Everyone, I’m leaving. I wish you all a pleasant time at work and an early retirement.”
Under the astonished and curious gazes of everyone in the company, he happily walked away.
After stepping outside the building, he used the money the Sheng family had given him to generously order takeout for everyone in the company.
Stinky tofu.
527: 【……】
What a menace.
Sheng Xun was probably going to be furious, right? And so were Sheng Xun’s parents.
Watching Su Qingyu walk away in such a good mood, 527 asked him, 【Host, Sheng Xun didn’t know what you said to his parents in the office just now, but the repentance value still increased by five points. So those five points didn’t come from him, did they?】
Su Qingyu: 【My system really is too smart.】
527 covered its ox head and gave a little 【Hehe】.
Su Qingyu: 【I told you last time that the merit value we receive comes from the commissioned ghosts. We serve the Fengdu System, and we also have to carry out tasks on behalf of those commissioned ghosts. Part of the repentance value comes from the elimination of their lingering obsessions. There is the scumbag’s repentance, but it doesn’t only come from the scumbag.】
527: 【So, we have to put ourselves in the commissioned ghosts’ shoes and consider things from their perspective, right?】
Su Qingyu nodded.
527 suddenly felt that its mission had acquired a little warmth.
They were not simply driven by hatred, focusing wholeheartedly on taking revenge against scumbag men. They were the commissioned ghosts’ representatives.
If it weren’t for the obsessions they could not let go of, who would willingly remain trapped in Fengdu’s underworld, enduring the corrosion there? The system and host they had summoned by painfully working to earn merit were their only hope.
They should not treat that hope carelessly.
527 not only came to understand where much of the repentance value came from, but it also understood why its host had never chosen to become a celebrity.
Becoming a celebrity would have been effortless for him. He could have done it with ease, and that path would have been the simplest one.
But perhaps that wasn’t what Jiang Chu’s lingering obsession truly wished for.
What they had to do was fulfill the things the commissioned ghosts had longed for most desperately at the moment of their deaths, but had either never had the chance or never dared to do. They had to fulfill their wishes.
527: 【Just now, you stood up for Jiang Chu and said everything he had been wronged over.】
Su Qingyu: 【I didn’t just talk about his grievances. I also brought up Sheng Xun’s business.】
He smiled. 【Sheng Xun should be furious enough to go crazy by now, right?】
527: 【What do you mean?】
Before getting into the taxi, Su Qingyu turned back and glanced at the company building with a smile. 【527, tell me, do you think there’s a possibility that Sheng Xun likes Gu Mengchen because Gu Mengchen looks a lot like his mother?】
527: 【(⊙-⊙)】
527: 【Does he have a mother complex?】
Su Qingyu: 【That’s not necessarily the right way to put it. Sheng Xun has been growing up with the goal of making his parents satisfied with him. A lot of the things he does seem to be for the sake of pleasing his parents. Or perhaps, more accurately, he might simply want his parents to love him.】
527: 【Oh, right. It’s not just his mother. There’s his father too.】
527 thought back to the plot it had seen. 【It really does seem like that’s the goal of his entire life.】
It understood. 【That’s the key to controlling him, just like Xu Yunhan’s “father and homosexuality.”】
Su Qingyu nodded.
527: 【But why is that? Why does the scumbag work so desperately to win his parents’ approval, while also falling for Gu Mengchen, who looks like his mother?】
Su Qingyu: 【My guess is that it’s probably a sense of security.】
Everything happened exactly as Su Qingyu had expected. As soon as he left, Sheng Yunkai summoned Sheng Xun to the office and questioned him harshly, his expression dark and unpleasant.
“You were the one who pursued Jiang Chu? Even after he rejected you several times, you still kept pursuing him?”
“You liked men back in middle school? And during such a crucial period in high school, you ran abroad just to see a man? Was that the summer camp you told us about?”
Sheng Yunkai questioned him again and again, and the disappointment on his face grew heavier with every word.
Seeing that he remained silent, Qin Yin’s expression also began to darken. “Sheng Xun, is this really true?”
Sheng Xun opened his mouth. “Dad, Mom, listen to me. I really… I really didn’t mean to deceive you.”
“Sheng Xun, you’ve disappointed us so much!”
“How could you?! Aren’t you ashamed? You’ve made our entire family lose face!”
Sheng Xun clenched his hands tightly. Looking at the disappointment written across their faces and listening to their furious scolding, the pain in his palms grew sharper and sharper.
It had always been like this ever since he was a child. No matter how hard he tried, as long as there was even one thing he had failed to do well, they would seize upon that single mistake and berate him over it relentlessly.
He had never understood it. Clearly, when his classmates ranked among the top three, their parents would hug and kiss them, pat their heads, and praise them. Yet when he ranked first, all his parents would ask was why everyone else had scored full marks in mathematics while he had only gotten ninety-nine.
Sometimes, he would wonder whether he really was his parents’ biological son. Why did they seem to treat him more like a tool than a son? Why couldn’t they give him just a little more love?
Once that thought took root in his mind, he actually began to notice that he looked nothing like his parents. He didn’t resemble his maternal uncle or his paternal uncles either. Somehow, he seemed completely out of place in this family.
Once he became aware of that, the young boy began to feel a little frightened.
He worked even harder to become more like his parents, desperately wanting them to like him. He wanted his parents to love him, and he wanted his grandfather to love him too. He almost exhausted himself trying.
But why were they still so dissatisfied with him?
He had disappointed them again.
He hated seeing that disappointed look on their faces more than anything. He didn’t even know when it had started to become something he feared so deeply.
It left him miserable and irritable.
Sheng Yunkai: “You’ve turned your mother and me into a complete laughingstock!”
Qin Yin: “Weren’t you the one who said he was pestering you? We came here to make him leave, only for us to end up being the ones who lost face.”
Sheng Xun had just been about to explain when Sheng Yunkai spoke again. “You liked a man back in high school, and you even let him interfere with your studies while deceiving us about it. You still haven’t explained that to us.”
“Keep your voice down.” Qin Yin said this to Sheng Yunkai.
Just as Sheng Xun looked toward her, he heard her say, “What if someone else hears us? What will happen to our reputation then?”
Sheng Xun clenched his fists and closed his eyes.
After leaving the office in exhaustion and pain, Sheng Xun was immediately hit by the strong smell of stinky tofu. A shop employee was happily handing out portions of stinky tofu to everyone in the company.
“……”
He was so furious that he nearly couldn’t breathe.
The two words “Jiang Chu” were practically being ground to pieces between his teeth.
Su Qingyu returned to his rented apartment and tidied things up for a while. In a fairly good mood, he went to an upscale restaurant for a meal. That evening, as usual, he headed to Fill the Void Bar.
On his way to the bar, he received a message from Xia Hongyu. It was an extremely brief one.
Xia Hongyu: [Gu Mengchen is back in the country.]
Su Qingyu was slightly surprised. According to the plot of the world, Gu Mengchen should not have returned until two days before Qin Yin’s birthday. Why had he come back so early?
527 was also very surprised. 【Host, wasn’t he supposed to appear much later, right at the end? Could it be that we’ve affected the world’s plot?】
Su Qingyu was somewhat puzzled as well. 【We haven’t affected the overall direction that much yet, have we?】
Su Qingyu was only puzzled for a moment and didn’t pay it much attention.
Gu Mengchen was indeed Sheng Xun’s white moonlight, but he had never actually harmed Jiang Chu. In other words, he had nothing to do with their mission.
His return to the country would not affect Su Qingyu’s plans.
When Su Qingyu arrived at the bar, everyone except Xia Hongyu was there, including Sheng Xun’s friends.
During this period, whenever Su Qingyu came to the bar, they were always there. Anyone who didn’t know better might have thought they had been Su Qingyu’s close friends for many years.
Xia Hongyu wasn’t there today. It was probably related to Gu Mengchen’s return, which he had just told Su Qingyu about.
The moment Su Qingyu entered the bar, he received an enthusiastic welcome. By now, he had already become a celebrity at this bar, and many people came specifically because of him.
After chatting with Sheng Xun’s friends for a while, and at the invitation of many people as well as the bar owner, Su Qingyu asked the owner for a guitar and went up onto the stage to sing a song.
This was the first time he had ever played the guitar, and he chose to sing a fresh yet profound song about longing for home.
For an actor with such strong emotional appeal, someone who could convey feelings with such precision and intensity, singing this kind of song was simply perfect.
Beneath the dim, shadowy lights, he wore a clean, fresh grass-green shirt, the sleeves loosely rolled up to his elbows. His slender fingers gently strummed the guitar, while his quiet yet moving voice seemed to come from the mountains and forests, from home itself.
Everyone in the bar fell silent as they listened. There was not even the slightest trace of noise.
When Su Qingyu finished the song and stood up from the chair, many people were still unable to pull themselves out of the homesick emotions the song had evoked. He smiled and bowed to everyone.
“Thank you for keeping me company during this time. This may be the last time I sing at Fill the Void for a while.”
Those words immediately jolted everyone back to reality.
Someone immediately asked him what was going on.
“Jiang Chu, don’t tell me you’re quitting drinking?”
“Don’t!”
“Or are you leaving?”
“Yes, I’m leaving.”
The people here had seen him display all kinds of sides of himself on the stage, bewitching, passionate, sorrowful… Yet this was the first time they had seen him smile onstage with such genuine, radiant warmth.
He said, “I’m going back to develop my hometown. My hometown is a small, poor little village and town. It may need me there.”
Everyone fell silent.
Some of the people here had first been drawn to him after seeing him dance on the pole. Others had discovered him online through his dancing and singing. They all knew that he was a top student from Jin University, and they also knew that agents frequently came to the bar hoping to sign him, only for him to turn them down every time.
In the eyes of many people, Jiang Chu possessed opportunities that countless others could never obtain even in an entire lifetime. Someone as dazzling and captivating as him would either enter the entertainment industry and enjoy being pursued by countless fans, or enter the financial world and become an unconventional master of wealth and capital.
No one had expected that he would actually return to such a small, impoverished place to develop his hometown.
He was always capable of surprising people.
He was a top student from Jin University, yet he had stunned the entire bar with a pole dance.
He was naturally suited for the spotlight and wealth, yet he was choosing to leave the stage and return to a poor rural village.
There was a rebellious streak in him, but somehow, that very rebelliousness was touching.
527: 【Host, the repentance value has increased by three points! It seems Jiang Chu really did want to return and develop his hometown.】
Su Qingyu: 【Perhaps he had never been this clear about it before. But he must have thought about it at the moment of his death.】
Su Qingyu had always remembered the scene from just before Jiang Chu died. The final straw that broke the camel’s back had been the innocent, kind words spoken by those two children.
Those two children represented countless parents. He had been the pride of the people in his hometown, and the people there were filled with kindness and expectations toward him.
Yet he had actually become a substitute lover without any sense of self or dignity, slowly losing his self-respect by Sheng Xun’s side.
He regretted not making his mother stay. He regretted being with Sheng Xun and losing his dream because of it. He regretted failing to do something more meaningful with his life, something he truly should have done.
Su Qingyu would do it for him.
He would make up for all the regrets Jiang Chu had left behind.
“There isn’t such a big bar there, nor is there fine liquor, and there’s no one like all of you…” Su Qingyu said with a smile. “I’ll probably miss you.”
“I’ll bring you liquor!”
“I’ll miss you too, Jiang Chu!”
“Yess!”
Sheng Xun’s friends were also stunned when they heard what he said.
They simply stood there, staring at Jiang Chu on the stage, their hearts shaken in a way they could hardly put into words.
Before meeting Jiang Chu, they had all assumed he would be an uninteresting small-town bookworm who wore thick glasses and did nothing but study. After meeting him, however, he had given them one surprise after another, and it wasn’t just that pole dance.
The people they encountered in their circle came in all shapes and forms, yet somehow, they also seemed to have been carved from the same mold. Jiang Chu, however, possessed a genuine and free soul. He was unpredictable, multifaceted, and captivating.
They had already begun to accept the possibility that Jiang Chu’s future might be far more exciting than theirs.
Yet now, he was actually going back to his hometown.
He was truly free.
Truly different from everyone else.
Beneath his carefree attitude was an unwavering set of beliefs of his own.
If they were honest with themselves, they knew they could never do what he was doing.
At this moment, they found Jiang Chu even more attractive than before. Their feelings toward him were no longer so superficial.
Amid the enthusiastic cheers that filled the entire bar, no one noticed the person standing silently at the entrance.
He stared gloomily at the person onstage.
…..
“May I ask you something rather presumptuous? Were you dating Sheng Xun back then?”
In the Gu family’s backyard, Xia Hongyu asked Gu Mengchen this question.
Gu Mengchen had returned to the country, and his family had held a simple welcome dinner for him. The Xia family and the Gu family had been family friends for generations.
Xia Hongyu had come here with his father, and the moment he saw Gu Mengchen leave the restaurant, he followed him outside and asked the question he had been most eager to know the answer to.
That was also the reason he had come here.
Gu Mengchen really did look very much like Jiang Chu. He was wearing a white shirt, and his hair was slightly long, giving him a distinctly artistic air.
When he heard Xia Hongyu’s question, he was slightly taken aback, but he did not show any sign of being offended. Instead, he smiled and said, “Sheng Xun did pursue me back then. For a very brief period of time, I also considered whether I should be with him.”
“So, you two were never actually together.” Xia Hongyu couldn’t tell whether the faint emotion in his heart was disappointment or relief.
He remained silent for a few seconds before asking, “Why didn’t you get together?”
“There were two reasons why I didn’t get together with him. I can tell you the second one.” Gu Mengchen said, “He has far too much of a controlling personality.”
Xia Hongyu was somewhat surprised. “Controlling?”
He had heard Jiang Chu say that Sheng Xun was extremely controlling, and he had also seen it for himself when it came to Jiang Chu. But before they had met Jiang Chu, none of them had ever thought Sheng Xun was particularly controlling.
He had never expected that Gu Mengchen had felt the same way.
Gu Mengchen mistook his surprise for confusion over how being controlling could possibly be enough of a reason not to date someone.
He said, “Do you know how frightening it is when someone is excessively controlling? Sheng Xun gives people the feeling that he has to completely control another person before he can feel at ease. That’s terrifying.”
….
After singing his farewell song, Su Qingyu had a few more drinks with Sheng Xun’s friends.
Su Qingyu: “Consider these your farewell drinks.”
Hua Shuming was extremely dejected. He asked, “Jiang Chu, are you really going back? I haven’t given up on signing you and making you a big star yet.”
Su Qingyu smiled. “I really don’t want to become a celebrity. But you can help me in other ways.”
Hua Shuming immediately perked up. “Jiang Chu, just tell me! As long as there’s something I can do to help you, I’ll definitely help. Just don’t let our relationship end because of this.”
Su Qingyu took a sip of his drink. “Of course. Help me develop my hometown.”
“……”
Because Su Qingyu was leaving, they drank until very late that night before finally dispersing.
Hua Shuming wanted to take him home, but Su Qingyu refused. Hua Shuming had been drinking too, so there was no way he could drive anyway.
Su Qingyu took a taxi home alone. When he got out on the roadside opposite the entrance to the residential complex where he was renting, 527 immediately reminded him, 【Host, Sheng Xun is here.】
Sheng Xun got out of the taxi that had stopped behind them.
Su Qingyu looked at him leisurely. “Why are you following me?”
Sheng Xun’s face was covered in frost. “Jiang Chu, you said all those things to my parents, and now you’re just going to walk away like nothing happened?”
Su Qingyu: “I’ve already broken up with you. I can go wherever I want. It’s none of your business.”
Sheng Xun’s dark eyes gleamed as he stared at him. “Let’s see whether it’s any of my business.”
As he spoke, he had already walked up to Su Qingyu and reached out to grab his wrist. “Come with me. You’ve made me into this mess, and now you still want to leave?”
This time, Su Qingyu tried to use the same clever technique he had used the previous two times to slip free, but he unexpectedly failed.
He looked at Sheng Xun in surprise, only then realizing that the dark gloom and violent irritability on his face were almost overflowing.
Qin Yin and Sheng Yunkai’s questioning and furious reprimands had dealt a greater blow to him than Su Qingyu had anticipated. On top of that, seeing Su Qingyu preparing to leave at the bar had filled him with even more anger, driving him into a state of frightening violence.
527 noticed it too. 【Host, he’s a little scary right now. What do we do… Host, I’ll call the police for you!】
Su Qingyu frowned. He turned his head and glanced at the security booth of the residential complex directly across the road. Gathering strength in his leg, he took advantage of Sheng Xun’s momentary lack of attention and kicked him away with all his strength.
Sheng Xun let out a cry of pain. When he looked up and saw that Su Qingyu was actually trying to run, he reacted like an enraged beast and shoved him hard in the shoulder. “Jiang Chu, you still want to run?!”
The force behind the shove made Su Qingyu stumble. If he hadn’t caught himself with his hand, his face would have nearly slammed into the ground.
He was just about to call for the security guards when he suddenly heard a scream, followed immediately by the unmistakable sound of bones breaking.
Su Qingyu froze for a moment.
Just as he was about to get up and look, a hand with clearly defined knuckles descended beside his right wrist.
He stared blankly at that hand for a moment.
This scene felt strangely familiar.
Then he remembered.
It wasn’t some vague image from his previous life.
It had happened in this life.
When he had first died, it had been just like this. A hand had reached out, grabbed him, and helped him to his feet.
It had belonged to the White Impermanence whom 527 was so afraid of.
Bo Yunyi.
And it had been his right hand.
At the time, his right hand had hurt terribly.
Looking at his own right hand, Su Qingyu suddenly remembered another strange point. Back when he had been in his soul state, why had his right hand hurt?
He had died in a car accident. Since his death had been caused by a car accident, there was no way the only injury he could feel would have been a broken hand. Then why had he felt nothing anywhere else, while his right hand alone had hurt so badly?
Following the clue of his right hand, he suddenly remembered someone from Xu Yunhan’s world who had never once allowed him to carry anything heavy with his right hand, no matter how light the object might be.
When they were signing a contract, Su Qingyu would carry the document bag in his right hand, and the man would casually take it from him.
When they went to the film set, Su Qingyu would carry a bag of oranges in his right hand, and the man would also stand up and take it from him without a word.
When Su Qingyu was given soup that was meant to nourish his stomach, he would reach out with his right hand to take it, but the man would instead place it beside his left hand.
On a rainy night, when the man carried him back to the hotel, he had handed the umbrella to his left hand.
……
Thinking back now, there had been many little things like that.
So many that they could no longer be dismissed as coincidences.
Even Zhou Yi’an had noticed it. He had once made a sarcastic remark under his breath, asking whether Jiang Huiyin thought he was a delicate woman, because apparently he couldn’t even carry anything with a little weight in his hands.
While Su Qingyu was thinking about all of this, someone had already helped him back to his feet.
A low, pleasant voice sounded beside his ear, carrying the coolness and chill of the deep night and the wind.
“Sorry. I’m late.”
Su Qingyu’s heart stirred.
He raised his head and looked at the man.
Standing to his right was a man dressed in a white shirt. They were standing beneath a large tree by the roadside in the darkness. Su Qingyu couldn’t see his face clearly. He could only see the distant streetlights casting a shadow across the bridge of his tall, straight nose.
His eyes were deep.
Su Qingyu asked 527, 【Who is he?】
527 didn’t recognize him either. 【A good Samaritan?】
From where he lay on the ground, Sheng Xun called out weakly, “Xi… Xi Qinghe?”
527 immediately searched the name. 【Found him, Host. Xi Qinghe. Bull!】
Su Qingyu: “……”
For 527, who was constantly carrying around an ox head and dreamed of becoming a member of the Ox-Head and Horse-Face family, calling someone “Bull” was an extremely high compliment.
The last time Su Qingyu had heard it describe someone this way had been Jiang Huiyin, right when Jiang Huiyin had first appeared and 527 had finished searching his information.
Those familiar words made Su Qingyu pinch the bridge of his nose.
527 suddenly gave an “Eh?” 【Host, I found something else.】
Su Qingyu: 【Tell me.】
527: 【Xi Qinghe is Hua Shuming’s maternal uncle.】
Su Qingyu: “……”
527 gave an even louder “Eh!” 【Host, I found something even bigger.】
Su Qingyu: 【……Go on.】
527: 【Xi Qinghe is Gu Mengchen’s white moonlight.】
Su Qingyu: “……”
Author’s Note:
Hua Shuming: ……?
✦ ✧ ✦
Cressilia
[Translator]
☕ A LITTLE SOMETHING FOR THE TRANSLATOR
A coffee would be extremely convenient right about now. Just saying.
☕ BUY THEM A COFFEE →
✧ (づ｡•ㅅ•｡)づ ☕ ✧
✦ thank you for reading ✦
← Previous
ChaptersChapter 30 · Fengdu Underworld (1)Chapter 31 · Fengdu Underworld (2)Chapter 32 Part 1 · The Humble Young Master (1)Chapter 32 Part 2 · The Humble Young Master (1)Chapter 33 Part 1 · The Humble Young Master (2)Chapter 33 Part 2 · The Humble Young Master (2)Chapter 34 Part 1 · The Humble Young Master (3)Chapter 34 Part 2 · The Humble Young Master (3)Chapter 35 · The Humble Young Master (4)Chapter 36 · The Humble Young Master (5)