When he opened his eyes, all Xin Hexue saw was a sea of white.
‘Hm?’
‘Was this heaven?’
Xin Hexue forced himself to sit up by holding onto the bed rail. His whole body ached in a way that shouldn’t exist after ascending to heaven.
[This is a hospital ward,] K reminded him, [your right hand is still hooked up to an IV.]
‘… It’s not heaven.’
As expected, he was still a 007 host employee with no social insurance or benefits.
The disinfection staff probably forgot to open a window for ventilation.
The air was filled with the pungent smell of free chlorine.
Xin Hexue had originally thought he had a good grasp of his own physical condition.
At the very least, it shouldn’t have been bad enough to faint in the bathtub just from a handjob.
It was probably the drug’s effect.
He had also drunk a lot of cold tea yesterday and soaked in cold water in the bathroom for a long time.
In the past, he wouldn’t have touched any of that.
Tea had to be warm, and if it got even slightly cold, a new pot had to be brewed. The bathwater had to be at a comfortably hot temperature.
All these matters used to be handled by You Yi.
Although this eunuch in charge of the Silijian (Imperial Household Department), who had held more power than the emperor when the late emperor was still alive, was sometimes really annoying and keeping him around was risky, Xin Hexue had to admit that You Yi took good care of him.
Otherwise, with his chronic illness in his past life where he coughed blood at the slightest wind, he wouldn’t have lived an extra two years and even shown signs of improvement.
Unfortunately, he still died from poisoning in the end.
Xin Hexue let out a sigh.
He did have a few suspects in mind for who might have poisoned him, but since he was already dead and his past life had become a thing of the past, thinking about it now was just a waste of mental energy.
After waking up, the noise in the ward also poured into his ears.
This should be a regular ward of the West City Second Hospital in District Six.
After all, this hospital was the closest to the small apartment Xin Hexue lived in.
Xin Hexue began to worry whether the little money he had left was enough to cover the ambulance and hospitalization fees.
His throat was very dry.
He looked up at the IV bag that was almost empty.
In the nearby bed, a family member pressed the IV call button repeatedly, the beeping sounding sharp as they started cursing.
Xin Hexue’s gaze swept across the corridor.
He looked down and pulled out the indwelling needle from the back of his hand. The sharp pain made his expressionless face pale for a moment.
He propped himself up, got out of bed and walked out of the ward.
…
Xin Hexue didn’t really understand the layout of this hospital.
He made a round of the original second floor but didn’t find a hot water room. The only discovery was that the Federation’s hospitals provided way too many services.
He saw the doctor on duty, who was fully armed like an astronaut, using an electric screwdriver to dismantle a patient’s mechanical arm. Because the surface of the mechanical arm got scratched, it quickly escalated into a medical dispute. A security guard, who actually looked more like a Transformer, rushed over after hearing the commotion and joined the live-action street fighter match with clanking sounds.
“…”
Xin Hexue stepped back.
He bumped into something hard.
He originally thought it was some patient’s stray prosthetic limb.
Looking down, a short and flat cleaning robot was repeatedly bumping into his heels. “Are you there? I’m blocked.”
Xin Hexue silently moved out of the way.
No wonder they didn’t open the window for ventilation after disinfection.
He watched as the cleaning robot, only as tall as his calf, rolled away.
Xin Hexue made another round and finally found the hot water room on the first floor.
Along the way, through his observations, Xin Hexue concluded that the patients here fell into two categories: one had undergone partial mechanical modifications, while the other, like him, appeared closer to the original state of natural humans.
Maybe the second category of patients also had some genetic differences compared to him.
Under the current circumstances, there were two favored directions of human evolution: one was mechanization, the other was genetic modification based on natural humans.
The leading companies in these two evolution paths just happened to correspond with the Xi family and the Pei family in the plot, the Xi family’s Nuwa Bionic Manufacturing Company and the Pei family’s Shennong Pharmaceutical Company.
Xin Hexue remembered that aside from Pei Guangji, the character with the second most screen time in the script was his childhood friend, the Xi family heir, Xi Zhengqing.
He was also the first to deceive “Xin Hexue” and pretended to be Pei Guangji to ask him to fulfill the obligations of the lover contract.
Thinking of the vile behavior described in the script, Xin Hexue’s lips curled into a cold smile.
It seems like regardless of the direction of evolution, Alphas during their rut periods were no different from primitive beasts.
The disposable plastic cup crumpled under his fingers and lost its shape, and Xin Hexue threw it into the trash bin.
A large open area was fenced off on the first floor, and a few longan trees stood tall with canopies like umbrellas. Since no one trimmed them, the branches had already reached the windows on the second floor.
In the poorly constructed city cluster of District Six, flowers, plants, and trees were extremely rare. Greenery was a scarce and precious resource. The colors visible in the city mostly came from the kaleidoscopic neon lights in the rainy nights.
The week-long rain seemed to have passed and today was a sunny day.
Amid the noisy comings and goings on the first floor, countless glances, subtle and fleeting, fell upon the young man standing at the center of the courtyard.
The young man was basking in the sun. Under the daylight, his entire figure looked as white as foam produced by the waves in a fairy tale, enough to make people feel faint.
When he moved, people suddenly realized this wasn’t a painting, and they withdrew their gazes in a daze.
Xin Hexue stretched his waist.
The continuous rain had made him feel like he was wrapped in a layer of moisture-trapping velvet. After being baked by the sun, he felt rejuvenated.
As he turned to go back, he ran into a strange little boy.
Judging from the material of his clothes and the expensive bouquet in his hands, he clearly wasn’t an ordinary civilian child.
The little boy took a single flower out of the bouquet, squatted in a corner, and plucked off the petals one by one, letting them float to the ground.
“Likes me, doesn’t like me, likes me, doesn’t like me…”
He was standing right at the corner of the only path through.
Xin Hexue crouched down. He had extra patience with children. “Little friend, can you tell gege what you’re doing?”
The little boy, who looked only about seven or eight years old, looked up at him and said, “Xiao Mei is sick. I want to bring her flowers to visit, but I’m not sure if she’ll like them.”
‘So he was anxiously plucking petals, hoping to let luck decide?’
Maybe what he wasn’t sure Xiao Mei would like wasn’t the flowers. After all, kids these days were more mature.
Xin Hexue pointed to the flower in the little boy’s hands. “Cosmos petals always come in even numbers. If you start counting from ‘doesn’t like me’, there won’t be a problem.”
The little boy was stunned.
Xin Hexue paused, realizing what he said lacked any sense of childlike innocence. “Sorry.”
He didn’t really believe in luck. In all events involving chance, Xin Hexue was used to controlling every variable to the extreme.
The little boy said nothing, stripped a flower bare, and verified that what Xin Hexue said was true.
He looked up, looking somewhat happy. “Thank you, gege! This candy is for you.”
The little boy handed the candy from his pocket to Xin Hexue.
“Thank you.”
Xin Hexue accepted it and was just about to stand up when his vision turned into black sparkles like fireworks.
His heart sank.
At the moment the fireworks exploded, Xin Hexue collapsed.
“Gege?”
As the little boy stood frozen in place, helpless, a tall Alpha stepped forward and picked up the slender young man. Behind him followed bodyguards in black.
A dense crowd of men in black.
At the head, Pei Guangji lowered his gaze and examined the little boy, his eyes devoid of emotion. “A child of the Xi family?”
The little boy shrank back and nodded. “Mm…”
Pei Guangji’s tone was indifferent. “Go play.”
………
After the adults left, the little boy suddenly twitched, as if freed from some sort of control, and his eyes once again became pure and filled with confusion.
Strange…
His memory was hazy. The little boy only remembered that he had been plucking petals, saw something at the corner as he passed by, then ran into a pretty gege, and then bumped into Uncle Pei.
So what exactly did he see in the corner?
No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t remember, so he shook his head.
This was the last time he could spend summer break in District Six. Next semester, he would transfer to District One to live with his little uncle, Xi Zhengqing.
He wanted to give the flowers to Xiao Mei.
The little boy nervously hugged the bouquet and searched for the hospital ward.
Under the sun, his overly long shadow drifted out.
Before the shadow hid back into the shaded corner, on the white wall it passed, there appeared a tall, sharp black silhouette over two meters high.
Carapace like pitch-black iron armor, jagged scorpion pincers, bone spurs dragging along the floor making a sound like glass being scraped, crushing cosmos petals underfoot and squeezing out sticky flower juice.
Then it vanished into the darkness.
………
Hypoglycemia was an accidental event.
Xin Hexue frowned.
So, can the inexplicable increase of ten points of love value from the mission target [Pei Guangji] be attributed to luck?
The Alpha sitting on the sofa nearby noticed the young man on the hospital bed stirring.
Fair skin, thick ink-like eyelashes..just a flutter was easy to spot. Pei Guangji glanced over and asked in a cold voice, “Are you awake?”
Xin Hexue could no longer pretend to be asleep.
He opened his eyes and sat up in bed. His first sensation was a sense of unfamiliarity brought on by the bright hospital room.
Spotless.
Comfortable and warm interior style.
A down-filled sofa leaned against the wall by the bed. A potted green plant sat on the bedside cabinet. On the cabinet opposite, a holographic projection device was installed for the patient’s entertainment.
K: [The protagonist gong upgraded you to a VIP ward.]
Xin Hexue asked K with some expectation: [Did he also help pay off the previous bills?]
K: [Yes.]
Considering Pei Guangji’s behavior so far still counted as somewhat humane, Xin Hexue’s impression of him went up by 0.5 points.
Pei Guangji closed the file that contained detailed information about the person in front of him.
With a serious expression, he handed a contract to Xin Hexue.
Pei Guangji never learned how to speak tactfully, and his tone was always cold. Because the young man suffered from face blindness, he made an extra effort to be patient and said, “Let me introduce myself. I’m Pei Guangji.”
“Your adoptive father sold you to me.” He said, “Sign the contract.”
The young man pinched the edge of the paper, and his lowered lashes trembled slightly, as if he wasn’t too surprised by what his adoptive father had done.
Pei Guangji had reviewed the information compiled by his assistant. Judging from Xin Hexue’s upbringing, it was easy to determine he was the kind of person who submitted to adversity, even showing an unusual tolerance toward his scumbag adoptive father.
Maybe it was because he was indecisive and couldn’t cut off the adoptive father-son relationship. Or maybe, after years of childhood violence, he had lost the instinct to resist.
Whatever the reason, Pei Guangji didn’t care.
He had only one goal…having Xin Hexue resolve his troublesome rut period. Anything else that didn’t interfere with that was irrelevant to him.
This heir of the Pei family was born at the top of the pyramid in the Federation’s Core Zone, lacking the empathy of ordinary people, and possessed a combination of arrogance, conceit, and indifference.
Just when Pei Guangji thought the other would sign obediently…
“Mr. Pei.”
A clear and gentle voice, but still hoarse and soft due to illness.
Pei Guangji saw Xin Hexue give him a faint smile and heard the words, “Human trafficking is illegal.”
‘Too naive.’ Pei Guangji thought.
“Your adoptive father owes Black Snake one million star coins,” Pei Guangji said. “Xin Bao has no property under his name to repay the debt. The father’s debt is paid by the son. He gave you to Black Snake at a discount.”
Federation laws were just scraps of paper to underground organizations like Black Snake. Their leader could even use a small shredder to destroy the laws right in front of the district government, and still not face any consequences.
Pei Guangji; “I paid Xin Bao’s debt. Now, you belong to me.”
He paused, seemingly unsure what noun to use at the end to define Xin Hexue’s position.
“Sorry, I can’t sign.”
Xin Hexue spoke in a soft and calm tone.
Pei Guangji frowned, his patience running out. “You don’t have the right to refuse. Otherwise, I’ll hand Xin Bao over to Black Snake.”
‘Well, that would be great.’ Of course, Xin Hexue didn’t say that out loud.
He raised his hand, revealing the large bruise on the back of his right hand to Pei Guangji’s eyes.
Xin Hexue’s voice was low and soft as he gave the reason he couldn’t sign, “My hand hurts.”
His hands were long and elegant, like top-grade white jade that had been carefully nurtured. Beneath the thin skin, the pale blue veins gave off a fragile feeling, as if they could break at a touch.
The bruise, caused by improper removal of an indwelling needle, looked especially severe.
[Pei Guangji kove value +2]
?
Xin Hexue was baffled and he looked up to meet Pei Guangji’s gaze.
