[Argh! I’m so mad, this is so frustrating! Gu Wangzhou is such a double-standard hypocrite! He spends every day doubting you and Qi Fan, yet he turns around and admits to the entire Sheng family that he’s emotionally cheating—and he’s doing it big time!]
Although a fight between Gu Wangzhou and the “White Moonlight” was inevitable sooner or later, Lin Weiyu was still fuming.
At this point in time, Gu Wangzhou should theoretically be absolutely unwilling to break things off with his White Moonlight. His earlier paranoia was enough to prove that Sheng Zhiyu held significant weight in his heart.
Was he possessed by a ghost last night? To actually admit to his relationship with Ruan Chen!
The Male Lead’s character shift was so drastic in such a short time that if it were any ordinary task-taker, they’d probably be depressed all night.
Sheng Zhiyu, however, remained completely unperturbed.
The reason a “White Moonlight” is a White Moonlight is that they aren’t cherished until the very end; he was well aware of his role’s positioning.
As for being treated differently, he was no stranger to that.
Sheng Zhiyu was still organizing his thoughts, trying to parse the reason behind Gu Wangzhou’s abnormal answer.
[Could this be why they are the fated Main Couple? No matter how deep the bond with others is, in the end, it’s always “you and me” entangled forever?]
Lin Weiyu hadn’t let out his pent-up frustration and was still grumbling.
Sheng Zhiyu was getting a headache from the noise. Just as he turned over to mute the System, a corner of his quilt was lightly tugged.
Sheng Zhiyu was slightly startled. As he sat up, he remembered there was a Qi Fan under his bed.
In the darkness, he quietly gripped the quilt, calming his heart. “…What is it?”
Qi Fan remained silent for a moment before whispering, “I think I pressed on the wound.”
Sheng Zhiyu hadn’t even let him take a shower, fearing that this man who was so careless about bandaging himself would aggravate the injury.
He sighed, used his points to exchange for medical supplies for wound care, and then commanded: “Turn on the light.”
When the lights flickered on, Qi Fan squinted slightly before sitting back on his floor bedding. One long leg was bent in front of him, and he leaned lazily on his arm.
Sheng Zhiyu held the medical kit and ordered: “Lift your shirt.”
Qi Fan glanced at the item in his hand and chuckled softly. “I recall that medical kit costs 500 points?”
This number wasn’t low; it was equivalent to completing a major A+ rated mission node.
“I don’t use my points, so keeping them is useless,” Sheng Zhiyu said with disdain. “Hurry up. I’m in a rush to sleep.”
The two stared at each other for a moment. Just as Sheng Zhiyu began to feel puzzled, Qi Fan suddenly laughed.
He said softly, “I thought you’d just shove the kit at me and make me handle it myself.”
Sheng Zhiyu snapped back to his senses, but Qi Fan had already unbuttoned his clean shirt.
Realizing he had accidentally invited a tedious chore upon himself, Sheng Zhiyu walked over to Qi Fan’s side with an impatient expression.
However, when the gauze was peeled away, his feigned impatience vanished.
Sheng Zhiyu frowned. “How exactly did you sleep to make it look like this?”
The areas that had stopped bleeding were wet with blood again.
Yet the owner of the wound acted as if he had lost his sense of pain. “It looks so uncomfortable. I want to shower.”
Sheng Zhiyu: “…Do you usually fill your head with water when you shower?”
Qi Fan looked like he’d been mortally insulted. “Is this how you normally talk to an injured person?”
“Are all of you in the Scumbag Top Group this melodramatic?”
“…Are all of you in the White Moonlight Group this sharp-tongued?”
Sheng Zhiyu threw the kit down with a cold face. “Deal with it yourself.”
He was looking for an excuse to quit anyway.
But just as he turned around, Qi Fan caught his sleeve. “That’s so inconvenient. Let’s help each other.”
Earlier downstairs, Sheng Zhiyu had torn his own wound while pulling Sheng Li away; his palm was seeping blood.
By the time Sheng Zhiyu looked down, Qi Fan had already unraveled the gauze on his left hand, layer by layer, revealing the wound.
Sheng Zhiyu instinctively tried to pull back, but he noticed Qi Fan frown imperceptibly.
For a split second, a doubt crossed his mind. Did Qi Fan go through all this trouble just to check on his injury?
But in the next second, Qi Fan waved the bloody gauze in front of him. “Look, you’re bleeding more than me, and your wound is harder to handle. We’re helping each other; you’re getting the better deal.”
“…”
I thought too much, Sheng Zhiyu realized.
Qi Fan’s bandaging technique was more skilled and efficient than Sheng Zhiyu expected. His hand was treated in no time.
When it was Sheng Zhiyu’s turn, he hesitated while holding the antiseptic. “Your technique is quite practiced. Why did you bandage yourself so poorly earlier?”
Qi Fan looked at him sincerely. “There is, after all, a difference between treating yourself and treating others.”
Sheng Zhiyu lowered his eyes. To prevent Qi Fan from moving and tearing the wound again, he used bandages to wrap around the man’s waist.
As he pulled the bandage tight, he realized too late that circling the waist required a movement akin to a hug. He froze in his crouch, looking at Qi Fan’s lean, sturdy back.
…Though he had seen it once before, touching him again at such close range caused his heart to race inexplicably.
The scratches on the sides of the waist were too obvious, and the back was a mess.
For the first time, Sheng Zhiyu clearly recognized his own destructive power.
Lin Weiyu, who had been hiding, couldn’t help himself: [Damn, he really is a Scumbag Top. He even goes into the battlefield in person. Looking at those marks, you guys played pretty wild.]
Sheng Zhiyu was startled, nearly losing his balance and falling onto Qi Fan’s back. He hurriedly shifted his weight to the bedding on the floor.
He quickly muted Lin Weiyu. When he looked up, he met Qi Fan’s sideways gaze.
Because his expression was unreadable, the man’s pupil color became exceptionally vivid.
Sheng Zhiyu opened his mouth and said calmly, “My hand slipped.”
He didn’t know if Qi Fan saw through him, but the man eventually turned his head back.
Sheng Zhiyu closed his eyes, clearing his mind of stray thoughts. Just as he was about to finish the job quickly, he heard Qi Fan’s voice.
“The fight with Gu Wangzhou today—was that one of your mission nodes?”
Sheng Zhiyu didn’t expect the conversation to shift to work so suddenly. “…Yes.”
“In the original script, did he also choose Ruan Chen?”
Sheng Zhiyu sneered. “As a fellow scumbag, aren’t you clear on what he’s thinking?”
Qi Fan lowered his gaze, watching the hand holding the gauze extend from his side and slowly wrap around his abdomen.
The fingers were long, the wrist bones slender, fair and beautiful.
He propped his leg up again, resting his face on his hand against his knee. “Scumbags usually play both sides until the final breakup. A ‘confession’ like Gu Wangzhou which is clearly a case of wanting both while being incredibly clumsy about it would be penalized by the System for being ‘too stupid a scumbag’.”
Hearing a scumbag critique another scumbag made Sheng Zhiyu want to laugh. “Whether he confesses or not, he’s going to end up with Ruan Chen anyway. What does it matter?”
He wrapped the bandage twice more and tied a knot on the uninjured side.
“Stop moving around.”
Having finished, he walked to the light switch and hesitated slightly.
…He had made Qi Fan turn off the light earlier. Now that he had walked over himself, he had no reason to order someone else to do it.
However, there was now a Qi Fan sleeping by his bed.
“What’s wrong?” Qi Fan asked, seeing him silent.
Sheng Zhiyu looked back, mentally noting the distance between him and the bed. He turned his head. “Nothing.”
The lights went out, and the world plunged into darkness. Everything seemed to twist into an infinite blackness, becoming chaotic.
The mental map he just made blurred instantly. Sheng Zhiyu hesitated, slowly feeling the way with his toes.
Previously, he always had the System help turn off the lights. Now that Lin Weiyu was muted, he had to bite the bullet and feel his way back to bed.
He was used to having visibility and subconsciously assumed Qi Fan couldn’t see anything in the dark either.
He didn’t know that Qi Fan was currently sitting in his bedding, watching him stumble around with great interest.
Sheng Zhiyu slowly shuffled to the edge of the mattress. When he felt the silky texture of the fabric, he was startled. Lacking anything to hold onto, he quickly crouched down.
…He was quite practiced at knowing how to prevent a fall.
Qi Fan hesitated. Guided by the dim silhouettes, he moved silently toward him and waved a hand in front of Sheng Zhiyu’s face.
No reaction.
“Qi Fan?”
But Sheng Zhiyu’s intuition was accurate.
Qi Fan retreated and whispered, “What?”
Judging by the voice, Sheng Zhiyu concluded the man was at a distance. He felt relieved and stood up again to search.
Identifying the position by sound actually brought a sliver of security. Sheng Zhiyu hesitated for a moment before continuing: “When you leave tomorrow morning, don’t get caught.”
“Okay,” Qi Fan laughed silently. Watching Sheng Zhiyu’s slow movements, he added, “I didn’t expect you to have such a ‘morning person’ temper.”
There were still two meters to the bed. He intended to find a random topic to sustain him, but he didn’t expect Sheng Zhiyu’s sense of direction to be so abysmal. Sheng Zhiyu tripped directly over a pillow placed on the floor.
In a panic, he instinctively reached out to steady himself, only to remember too late that his hand was injured.
He thought the wound would tear open again, but before he hit the ground, a hand caught him by the waist.
The clumsy fall never happened. Instead, Sheng Zhiyu heard a dull thud as someone hit the floor, followed by Qi Fan’s muffled groan.
In the darkness, Sheng Zhiyu was draped in Qi Fan’s arms, his knees on either side of the man’s waist. After the impact, only the sound of their tangled breathing remained.
The sudden proximity and the pitch blackness made Sheng Zhiyu feel out of place. He instinctively tried to back away, but his lower back bumped into Qi Fan’s propped-up leg.
He froze on the spot, his hands braced against Qi Fan’s shoulders.
“You…” Sheng Zhiyu first realized he’d been seen through and felt a flush of embarrassment, followed by concern. “What about your wound?”
“It’s fine.” Taking advantage of the fact that Sheng Zhiyu couldn’t see, Qi Fan shifted slightly to move his wound away from Sheng Zhiyu’s leg. “You’re quite heavy.”
Hearing that his breathing was steady and his tone was normal, Sheng Zhiyu’s lips gradually pursed.
Qi Fan kept an arm around his waist and led him to the bed in two steps. “Why didn’t you say you have night blindness?”
Sheng Zhiyu: “…”
Back on the bed, he found his safe harbor and quickly pulled up the quilt. “…So, you found out.”
Qi Fan laughed silently. He didn’t rush to leave, instead watching Sheng Zhiyu’s blurred silhouette. “I wanted to ask you something just now.”
“…What?”
“If a mission target like Gu Wangzhou, who plays at cheating so poorly, were to fall on hard times, would you be happy?”
Sheng Zhiyu was silent for three seconds, his expression complex. “Why would I have emotional fluctuations over a mission target?”
Qi Fan let out a low, light laugh. “Truly an outstanding employee with the top performance record. You’ve memorized the rulebook about not empathizing with anyone in the scenario quite well.”
It didn’t sound like mockery, but Sheng Zhiyu didn’t take it as a compliment either.
“Go to sleep. Get down.” He lay back down coldly. He wanted to just cover himself with the quilt and ignore the world.
But because he couldn’t see, he miscalculated the position and banged his head against the headboard.
Thud. The sound was exceptionally loud in the dark.
Sheng Zhiyu: “…”
Qi Fan: “…I’m holding back my laughter.”
Sheng Zhiyu: “.”
The faint rustle of fabric drifted away; Qi Fan had likely returned to his spot.
In the total darkness, Sheng Zhiyu slowly opened his eyes.
A memory buried deep in the past was suddenly unearthed in the night.
——Newbie Sheng Zhiyu, Red Grade-3 Mission. Completion: A. Exam Emotional Value: -57. Comprehensive Evaluation: E.
——Examiner’s Comments: This candidate has too much empathy. Not recommended for the Transmigration Group. Exam failed.
——Low probability of success in re-examination. Suggested relocation to another department.
Sheng Zhiyu closed his eyes and buried his face in the quilt.
When Ruan Chen woke up, it was 7:00 PM the following evening.
A maid at the Gu residence was wiping his face. Seeing him open his eyes, she immediately stood up. “Mr. Ruan is awake? Are you hungry? The kitchen has porridge warming for you.”
Ruan Chen’s head felt like it was splitting open. He asked vaguely why he was there.
“Mr. Gu brought you back,” the maid smiled. “The Master is currently in the study.”
Ruan Chen immediately threw off the quilt and got out of bed. Only with the maid chasing after him did he manage to put on his shoes.
Gu Wangzhou sat at his desk before a scattered game of international chess. He was holding the White Queen, eyes lowered in thought.
The phone on the desk was on speaker. An assistant’s voice was flat: “Should we check all of Mr. Sheng’s social connections abroad?”
“Yes,” Gu Wangzhou said. “Focus on whether he had any contact with people domestically.”
After the assistant complied, Gu Wangzhou asked, “Still no news on Qi Fan?”
“The cruise ship has reached international waters, but we still haven’t found him. Mr. Qi is likely not on board.”
“Keep watching. Wait until he returns.”
When the sound of hurried footsteps approached, his brows knitted slightly and he hung up the phone.
His expression returned to normal the moment the door opened.
“Wangzhou.” Ruan Chen looked at him, panting. The cold war of the past few days seemed to have vanished into thin air, and his eyes reddened instantly.
Gu Wangzhou gently set down the White Queen, his expression cold. “Why are you here instead of sleeping?”
“How did you know I was at the Sheng house?” Ruan Chen only stared at him, as if grasping at a sliver of hope.
“Someone saw Sheng Li take you away.” Gu Wangzhou’s expression turned cold, not responding to his warmth. “Go back to sleep. That magazine shoot you were vying for has been finalized.”
Ruan Chen had an ominous premonition. He asked blankly, “What do you mean? Wasn’t that shoot already given to someone else?”
Gu Wangzhou glanced at him. “Once you spoke to me, it wouldn’t be given to anyone else.”
His surging emotions were finally extinguished by a dull realization. Ruan Chen realized then that Gu Wangzhou had no intention of ending their cold war.
“So, you’re compensating me now?” His lips trembled. “Because the White Moonlight is back, you plan to dismiss the toy you used to kill time?”
Gu Wangzhou said nothing, looking down at the chessboard.
Ruan Chen gritted his teeth and knocked over the White King. “If that’s the case, why did you bring me back? Wouldn’t it have been better to let the Sheng family keep me locked up?”
With the game disrupted, Gu Wangzhou slowly looked up, watching him calmly. “I rescued you because my people have never suffered. As for why I brought you back… Ruan Chen, under what circumstances would you suddenly stop liking someone?”
The dull pain in his head resurfaced. Ruan Chen suddenly understood the reason.
“You saved me to spite Sheng Zhiyu? Because he’s been abroad for over ten years and doesn’t like you as much anymore?”
In the quiet space, the sound of a chess piece falling on the cypress wood board was crisp.
While it wasn’t such a childish reason, there was indeed a test involved.
Gu Wangzhou wasn’t angered by the second half of the sentence, mostly because he didn’t seem to care.
He just looked at Ruan Chen calmly: “Unfortunately, he wasn’t angry.”
In that moment, Ruan Chen felt his heart’s pumping action weaken; his limbs felt as if they were losing blood, becoming increasingly cold.
The person who dragged him back from that suffocating silence was a light double-tap on the door.
“Sorry for the intrusion.”
A frivolous, lazy male voice intervened, drawing the eyes of both people in the study.
A flash of darkness crossed Gu Wangzhou’s face.
As for Ruan Chen, it was an inexplicable fear.
Qi Fan held a manila folder, giving Ruan Chen a customary smile. “You two don’t seem to be having a very pleasant talk. Can it end now?”
Ruan Chen suppressed his emotions and turned to leave the study.
Qi Fan’s gaze followed him for a moment before shifting upward to meet Gu Wangzhou’s forest-cold eyes.
The folder landed on the desk. Qi Fan leaned one hand on the table and, with great interest, picked up the Black King to reset the board.
“Why so quiet? Aren’t you going to ask how the matter you entrusted to me is progressing?”
Progressing… Gu Wangzhou knew when he arranged for Qi Fan to board that cruise ship that he couldn’t possibly succeed.
So, was Qi Fan here to demand an explanation?
“The deal was signed.” The chess pieces returned to their places. Qi Fan sat in the guest chair, propping up his face in a leisurely posture, as calm as their previous conversations. “However, they didn’t seem to trust the Gu Group much and changed to another partner.”
Gu Wangzhou gave a faint smile, placing a white piece. “So, you’re here to show off?”
“It’s just a piece of land; how could it be worth using to provoke Mr. Gu?” A black piece followed immediately. Qi Fan removed the White Pawn that had moved first. “Naturally, I must use something more valuable.”
The folder was opened. As the documents fell out one by one, Gu Wangzhou’s face darkened significantly.
“During the years the Gu family was down, Young Master Gu must have been blinded by resentment to forget that some things cannot be erased from history.” Qi Fan used the captured White Pawn to weight down the papers. His eyes were deep and dark, yet his smile never faded. “As a friend, I felt it necessary to remind you.”
Back then, Gu Wangzhou was desperate and took massive risks using underhanded means to turn the tide. The pawns he discarded weren’t something a thin stack of papers could fully carry.
Business warfare is simply a contest of whose methods are more vicious.
Gu Wangzhou was that person once, and now, so was Qi Fan.
Gu Wangzhou moved his White Bishop, taking a black piece that had entered hunting range. “Did you spend these two days of disappearance collecting these? You rarely do something so time-consuming and laborious.”
Qi Fan looked at the piece pressing toward him and chuckled. “It seems you don’t know yet. Old Man Gu fell while retiring abroad and is currently being resuscitated in the hospital.”
Although the Gu family was a prestigious clan, Gu Wangzhou’s father had a poor relationship with the Old Man. The father and son broke ties before the father developed his own business domestically.
After the Gu family fell, besides grasping the enterprises left by his parents, Gu Wangzhou’s most important move was reconciling with his biological grandfather.
Even if it meant betraying his parents.
But the Old Man had more than one grandson. Gu Wangzhou only held domestic power; true control still resided with the Old Man.
With the Old Man’s life hanging in the balance, the war for succession was naturally on the table.
Gu Wangzhou was originally the frontrunner for this position.
But now, the folder in Qi Fan’s hand was the sharpest threat.
—These things could return Gu Wangzhou to that state of humiliation and distress at any moment.
Gu Wangzhou spoke coldly: “Qi Fan, what do you mean?”
Qi Fan’s gaze remained on the chessboard, seemingly enamored with the game, indifferent to the changes in Gu Wangzhou’s expression.
“When I used to play chess with you, you said you didn’t like ‘castling’… you believed it was a final act of escape for a King cornered in desperation.”
However, Qi Fan first moved the Black King to 8C, then moved the Black Rook from the corner to the King’s side.
The Rook entered the fray, and the tempo suddenly accelerated. By the time Gu Wangzhou snapped back, the White pieces were in disarray.
Gu Wangzhou knew he had already lost this game.
“But I quite like it,” Qi Fan said. “After all, this move is quite convenient for escaping a check while setting up a kill.”
A black pawn reached the opponent’s baseline, transforming into a Queen, instantly forcing the White King into a stalemate.
“Checkmate.”
Both were silent, neither officially declaring the winner of the match.
Qi Fan stood up under Gu Wangzhou’s gloomy gaze and smiled nonchalantly. “It seems you haven’t played chess in a long time.”
“Qi Fan.” Gu Wangzhou called his name before he left. “I underestimated you.”
He had calculated only one step; Qi Fan had returned a game-ending checkmate.
“What did you do all this for?” Gu Wangzhou’s eyes were like a hawk’s, dark and impenetrable.
The more cautious he became, the more tranquil Qi Fan looked, his brows carrying a careless smile. “An eye for an eye?”
“If I must find a reason for this… then you can assume I simply don’t understand why you’d discard a perfectly matched White Moonlight to protect an inferior imitation.”
Qi Fan’s smile reached the depths of his eyes, slow and indifferent. “Trash with no taste.”