Pei Guangji was in a terrible mood.
He believed District Six had pushed a fool into the position of manager.
District Six was located in the mid-latitude coastal area, with convenient transportation, serving as the central hub of the Thirteen Districts.
For the Pei family, who controlled Shennong Pharmaceuticals, District Six offered the best conditions for transportation and factory construction. Even though the city’s infrastructure was practically a mess, with the underground organization Black Snake standing in opposition to the district government, violence and poverty occurred on every street corner.
Still, District Six housed the most pharmaceutical factories under Shennong, producing immense wealth for the Pei family every single day.
Any bottle of gene-enhancing drug from those factories could fetch a price on the black market equivalent to several years’ salary for an average person.
A bullet skimmed the side of the manager’s polished leather shoe and embedded itself into the floor.
As a light weapon, the revolver inevitably released bluish-white smoke from the muzzle due to the high temperature and pressure.
Pei Guangji tossed the handgun to the bodyguard behind him.
He sat down on the sofa, leaning lazily against the backrest.
His dark phoenix eyes locked onto the manager, who was trembling like a leaf.
His voice was low and hoarse, slow and cold like a piercing winter wind. “Faking an accident, staging a factory fire…what were you thinking?”
Pei Guangji continued in a faint tone, “In other words, who was behind this? Who gave you the orders?”
The Pei family had never shown mercy to traitors or dissenters.
The manager only felt a “boom” in his head, as if thunder had struck. Cold sweat poured down, soaking through his decent-looking suit. His knees could no longer hold him, and he collapsed heavily onto the floor.
“Young Master, I…I was only thinking of the Pei family’s best interests!” The manager knelt and shuffled forward on his knees. Just as he was about to reach Pei Guangji’s feet, a shot from the black-clad bodyguard stopped him in his tracks.
The manager’s heart was about to leap out of his chest. He wished he could slice it open to prove his loyalty. “Young Master, Young Master! I was thinking, since the price of the F-series drug has been dropping lately, if we could spread fake news of a factory accident, people would think production had been reduced, and that would raise the price of the District Six’s drugs!”
Pei Guangji let out a cold laugh, then quickly returned to his expressionless demeanor.
The manager’s heart sank halfway into despair, then he heard Pei Guangji’s chilling voice: “The G-series drug is entering the market next month. The F-series is about to be discontinued. You think the price was falling naturally?”
Shennong was merely riding out the final wave, dumping out the remaining stock from the warehouses.
The general public might not have known, but as the regional manager, how could he also be unaware of the news of the G-series?
Aside from the manager being unbelievably stupid, there was another possibility: he had only recently been pushed into the position as a disposable pawn, and was someone had never been involved with Shennong’s inner circle.
Pei Guangji spoke. “Why are you still kneeling? Do you want me to invite you to sit down?”
“No, no, I wouldn’t dare.” Thinking he had been spared, the manager shakily sat on the sofa opposite.
Everyone knew the elder of the Pei family was considering retirement. Pei Guangji was the unquestionable heir. Since taking over responsibilities this year, this was his first inspection of District Six.
The manager had thought this was a golden opportunity to get his face remembered by Pei Guangji.
Who would have thought that his clever little stunt a week ago would end up causing him to fall flat on his face now.
He had originally planned out all kinds of events to welcome the Pei family’s eldest young master.
The manager asked the assistant beside him, “Where are the people Black Snake arranged?”
Black Snake was the underground organization of District Six. Its gambling industry was thriving, and even the black market was basically under its control.
The leader of Black Snake had promised to find someone suitable to serve the Pei family’s eldest young master.
He was, after all, a young master from a wealthy family. Although he had probably seen all kinds of Omega men and women around him, he likely hadn’t seen a beauty born from a chaotic place like District Six.
The manager continued to guess with unwarranted cleverness.
The private room door creaked softly.
Someone was pushed inside, their footsteps unsteady.
The door behind them closed mercilessly.
Xin Hexue smelled the mixed scent in the air of unburned particles, gun oil, and metal shavings.
Someone in the tea lounge area of the room called out, “What are you waiting for?! Don’t make the young master wait!”
Xin Hexue glanced up once, then lowered his eyes quietly.
The effects of the drug made his reactions sluggish. Because of the face blindness that had come with his body entering into this small world, he could only recognize people through their clothes and the current situation.
The manager hadn’t asked the Black Snake leader to verify the goods, so he had no idea who Black Snake had actually found.
Until the young man stepped out from the dim corridor into the lighted area beneath the ceiling lamp.
Too beautiful.
His skin was cold and fair, thin eyelids tinged slightly red, as if someone had teasingly rubbed the outer corners of his eyes with their fingertips.
Dark lashes cast faint shadows under the light.
He looked like a handful of fresh snow under moonlight, a dazzling illusion too beautiful to be real.
The manager began to doubt whether someone like this could truly exist in District Six, or if the fear had made him hallucinate.
Pei Guangji frowned, and his cold and sinister gaze swept across to the manager, instantly understanding his intention.
‘Really, ridiculously stupid.’
Pei Guangji had severe mysophobia, and one had ever dared to send people to his side.
And yet the moment he arrived in District Six, this idiot couldn’t wait to shove some random person toward him.
With a single glance, the black-clad bodyguard standing across the room immediately understood, and the gun muzzle in the shadows pressed against the manager’s back.
The manager tensed up and sweated even more profusely, not daring to move an inch. “Young Master, w-what does this mean?”
Pei Guangji’s expression stayed cold, giving no reply.
The manager swallowed hard and fell silent.
But before Pei Guangji could react, the young man who had entered the booth had already quietly sat down on the sofa.
Silent like a cat.
Like a white cat that had accidentally wandered into an opera stage or the scene of a gunfight, curled its tail, and sat gracefully on the sofa, claiming its territory.
The black-clad bodyguards standing nearby hadn’t received any signal from Pei Guangji. For a moment, they couldn’t figure out what he was thinking and stood frozen in place.
Xin Hexue’s gaze was a bit dazed, and the drug in the tea made his body feverish.
The ears hidden beneath his dark hair were already flushed with a decadent red.
That splash of red caught Pei Guangji’s eyes.
His rut period was about to begin. At the moment, his head was splitting with pain, leaving him no energy to deal with anything else…so he hadn’t immediately ordered the young man out.
Fortunately, the other person was just sitting a bit farther away on the opposite side of the sofa.
Still within the tolerable range.
Pei Guangji quickly noticed the young man leaning slightly toward him. Just as he thought the other was about to lean over without knowing whether to live or die, he heard Xin Hexue politely ask, “Hello, could you pass me a glass of water?”
A soft and slightly hoarse voice.
Pei Guangji smelled the scent coming from the young man.
A faint aroma of green sandalwood, mixed with the bitter smell of medicine.
Strangely, it calmed his throbbing nerves.
The tea table was positioned farther from Xin Hexue and closer to Pei Guangji.
Xin Hexue: “Cool boiled water is fine.”
A black-clad bodyguard helped pour a glass of water.
Xin Hexue: “Thank you.”
The cool water moistened his dry throat.
The originally light pink lips were now flushed with a decadent hue under the effect of the drug, and the lingering droplets of water glistened faintly.
The young man seemed to have mistaken this place for some public lounge room for customers to rest.
So much so that when he saw Pei Guangji beside him pressing at his temples with an ugly expression, he even kindly asked, “Does your head hurt a lot?”
It felt like a dull knife was gouging and stirring flesh inside Pei Guangji’s skull, and his eyes were bloodshot. “Yeah.”
In order to ensure pure bloodlines and produce the most outstanding Alpha heirs, the powerful aristocratic families of the Core Zone often arranged close-relative marriages between Alphas and Omegas.
After all, with the Core Zone’s level of medical technology, various genetic diseases could be avoided. But the heirs raised in such extreme and twisted ways experienced especially painful rut periods.
After mating, that pain would transform into an overwhelming surge of desire, which could be considered as generations of filtered perverted genes continuing their work in producing the next generation.
Pei Guangji hated this condition.
He heard the young man beside him say, “I’ve learned some massage techniques that relieve headaches. If you don’t mind, I could try them.”
Pei Guangji gave no response, his eyes dark as ink.
If this person dared get any closer, he would throw him out.
Pei Guangji smelled a faint scent of sandalwood and herbs.
Soft fingertips gently pressed against his temples.
They were so close, he could almost count the other person’s overly long eyelashes.
Pei Guangji’s jaw tightened. For some reason, the fleeting thought in his mind was that this person shouldn’t be doing such a thing.
Xin Hexue mimicked the massage technique that the infamous treacherous minister You Yi used to serve him in a past life. “Is this alright?”
Not even a Jiu Qiansui could enjoy this kind of treatment.
Xin Hexue thought lightly to himself.
The manager was always keeping a close eye on the situation. Seeing that Pei Guangji hadn’t shown any obvious signs of resistance, he was secretly delighted. “Young Master, about that pharmaceutical factory in West City…”
The pharmaceutical factory in West City of District Six sat at the border between two zones and was managed by someone else. It had always been a fat source of profit and the manager had coveted it for a long time.
The young man’s eyelashes fluttered as he glanced around sluggishly and blankly, as if sensing something was off.
‘Too noisy?’ Pei Guangji glanced over coldly. “Shut up.”
The manager laughed awkwardly.
Suppressing the discomfort brought on by the drug, Xin Hexue stood up, looking slightly uneasy. “Sorry, did I come to the wrong booth? Just now the waiter said…”
He raised his hand and glanced at his watch again, looking uneasy. “I’ll leave first.”
If he didn’t leave now, he wouldn’t be able to withstand the effect of the drug.
The empty glass was set aside.
Because Pei Guangji didn’t speak, his silence was taken as tacit approval, and no one dared to stop Xin Hexue from leaving along the way.
………
Pei Guangji got up and left.
He paused at the door of the booth and said to the accompanying bodyguard, “Take the one inside and interrogate him. If he doesn’t confess, then just kill him. Do it cleanly.”
He thought of the young man he had just seen.
The words he wanted to say reached the edge of his thin lips but were swallowed back down.
‘Forget it, he was probably just an innocent person dragged in by that idiot.’
Pei Guangji was born in the Core Zone. Even if he hadn’t seen all the messy affairs between the powerful families firsthand, he had heard plenty.
Just as he was about to step out of the restaurant, a waiter hurried over, full of apologies. “Hello, Mr. Pei. The original guest at table 035 said to put the bill on your tab.”
Pei Guangji frowned deeply. “Who?”
The waiter gave Xin Hexue’s name. He thought the young man had some kind of close relationship with Pei Guangji.
Seeing Pei Guangji’s confusion at the name, the waiter then described the young man’s appearance, specifically mentioning that he had come out of Pei Guangji’s booth.
Pei Guangji responded, “Mm.”
It seemed his understanding of the young man had been off.
‘Playing hard to get by pretending to retreat?’
Pei Guangji instructed the bodyguard again: “Check his identity.”
………
According to the original plot, “Xin Hexue” was supposed to be unable to resist the effects of the drug and end up sleeping with Pei Guangji in a one-night stand.
But now, he had completely dodged the plot.
Otherwise, the protagonist gong might have committed the crime of desecrating a corpse.
Xin Hexue immersed himself in the cold water of the bathtub.
His entire body burned like it was on fire. His nerves were already somewhat numb. He wished he could bury himself in a pile of snow.
System K couldn’t help but ask a question, [Why did you tell the waiter to make Pei Guangji pay the bill before you left?]
The cold water seeped into his body with no gaps.
But Xin Hexue’s throat still felt like it was on fire. He inhaled sharply, and then suddenly began coughing.
Water splashed out of the bathtub.
K watched as Xin Hexue leaned against the edge, his back gradually arching.
Its host had an excessively white and smooth body, so white it was almost blinding.
But it didn’t seem overly fragile. The thin muscles formed slight rises and dips, indicating this was the body of a young man not yet fully matured.
K knew that Xin Hexue had lived eighteen years in his first life. In his second life, due to his soul not being compatible with the small world, he had rarely been clear-headed before the age of eighteen. All in all, he had only lived two years consciously.
So in total, about twenty years.
The age of adulthood for men in the big world was twenty-two.
‘The host was still young.’ K thought this to himself.
‘And physically weak.’
Because of the coughing, his lashes blinked out reflexive tears, and his eyes turned red.
Xin Hexue leaned back and lay down in the water again.
His slender, fair neck, Adam’s apple rising and falling.
He spoke softly with a hint of hoarseness, “Because I gave all the money you gave me, gege, to Xin Bao.”
That card had been prepared for Xin Hexue by K according to the script. It was basically this character’s entire net worth.
K hadn’t expected that answer.
Just because he didn’t have enough money, and didn’t want to dine and dash?
He thought…
That it was a tactic his host used to attract the target.
While K was lost in thought, Xin Hexue still had the mood to joke, “Are dog-blood scripts like this popular in the big world too? In the next world, gege, are you going to assign me a plot where I run away with the ball?”
“When I joined, I never said I could have children.”
Xin Hexue had strong learning abilities. The various dazzling skills listed on his resume were his highlights.
During the interview, he did say he knew a bit of everything. Xin Hexue assumed that the fact that males couldn’t naturally get pregnant was just common sense.
But now he was a little worried.
K: [No, there’s no such script.]
After K finished speaking, he asked in an unnatural tone, [Why are you calling me gege?]
“I thought calling you that would make us feel closer faster.” Xin Hexue said, “If you don’t like it, I can just call you K.”
K didn’t respond.
The conversation between man and system ended just like that.
Cold water wasn’t enough to ease the effects of the drug.
Xin Hexue still felt like he was being roasted alive.
He lowered his eyelashes, and reached his right hand into the depths of the bathtub.
He didn’t treat K as an outsider…he didn’t even see K as human, so in front of a non-human program made of code, there was no need for shame.
In the late night air, there were only the soft sounds of gentle breathing and splashing water.
Xin Hexue rarely did such things, so his movements were a bit clumsy.
It took some time.
His snow-white teeth bit down on the knuckle of his left thumb, leaving a red mark.
A low moan escaped.
Like a feather tickling the tip of the heart.
K didn’t look.
Out of politeness, the moment he guessed the purpose of Xin Hexue’s actions, he blocked visual input.
Only when he estimated by sound that things were probably resolved, did he restore visual access.
…Its host seemed to have passed out in the bathtub.
A tall, transparent humanoid figure appeared in the bathroom and lifted the young man out of the tub, holding him at the waist and behind the knees.
K could feel the shocking heat radiating from him.
He called for emergency medical help.！
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