Chapter 27#

The Innocent and Naive Fool#

—The First World · Side Story—

…

…………

In the third winter after Lin Xiaodong left, Lin Xiamian jumped from a building.

It happened to be the Start of Winter.

When Gu Xi received the call from the hospital, he was at home giving Lin Puppy a bath.

“Is that so,” he said indifferently, holding the phone in his left hand. “I understand.”

With that, the man hung up, set the phone aside, and continued what he was doing.

He methodically applied foam to Lin Puppy’s entire body, rubbed it in, rinsed it off with clean water, and finally dried the fur with a hair dryer.

Lin Puppy was not small now.

As a Husky, his height approached that of a large breed; one bath lasted from afternoon until evening.

By the time the blow-drying was finished, he was already a bit impatient, pressing a paw onto Gu Xi’s hand as he reached for the phone. Gu Xi was startled for a moment, then smiled: “You don’t want me to go either, do you?”

He had never been a generous person.

These past few years, he couldn’t help but think: if not for Lin Xiamian, perhaps the person sitting in the driver’s seat that day would have been himself.

Though there were no “ifs” in this world.

“Then I won’t go.”

He rubbed the dog’s head and muttered to himself.

Stepping out of the bathroom, Uncle Zhong stood silently at the door, handing him a handkerchief.

Gu Xi took it to wipe his hands, saying casually: “Arrange for someone to go to the hospital and help handle Lin Xiamian’s affairs.”

“Yes.”

After dealing with the day’s business, he returned to the second-floor bedroom and lay on the bed with his eyes closed.

Only when alone in the room did the man’s features finally reveal a hint of profound exhaustion.

On the two-meter-wide bed, the other side was empty.

In the spot that originally belonged to Lin Xiaodong, there now lay only a neatly folded white school uniform.

That day, when Lin Xiamian heard the news, he thought he was dreaming.

By the time he and the others rushed to the riverbank, Lin Xiaodong and the car were nowhere to be found. Only a soaking wet woman sat on the shore, weeping.

The police communicated seriously with Gu Xi, saying several hours had passed since the accident and it was the flood season with rapid currents. In such circumstances, the possibility of survival was basically nil.

Lin Xiamian felt his world spinning. He swayed, shook off the hands of those trying to steady him, and rushed to the woman, grabbing her collar and roaring: “Tell me, where is my brother!”

“What are you doing!”

The woman’s boyfriend immediately ran over to stop him, but Lin Xiamian couldn’t hear a word. He only knew to stare fixedly at the person before him, clinging to his only sliver of hope as he asked repeatedly: “He saved you, so he must be fine too, right? Say something!”

The woman shook her head, crying: “I don’t know. I only remember being rammed off the mountain by a car. I fainted when we hit the river. When I woke up, I was on the shore, and there was no one around…”

“Liar!”

Lin Xiamian’s eyes were bloodshot with rage, but his raised hand was grabbed by the man behind him.

“Enough!” Gu Xi stared at him, a trace of extremely suppressed emotion hidden in his hoarse voice. “Lin Xiamian, this is no place for your hysterics. Your brother hasn’t been found yet. Instead of venting at a pregnant woman here, you should follow the search and rescue team to help!”

“Get lost!”

Lin Xiamian violently shook him off and, under the bewildered gazes of the crowd, strode away without looking back.

The incident was so big that even Chief Chen from the neighboring province called. Upon hearing the news, they immediately launched a cross-province manhunt with the local police, finally catching the fugitive Qi Huaishui on the highway at 3:00 AM that night.

But according to his confession, he had only driven away from the scene after seeing Lin Xiaodong personally swept away by the river water.

Hearing these words, Gu Xi closed his eyes, a surge of metallic sweetness suddenly rising in his parched throat.

He forced the sensation down and replied: “I understand. Thank you.”

“President Gu,” Chief Chen sighed. Having worked on the front lines for many years, he had seen too many sacrifices. “My condolences.”

Gu Xi hung up without saying a word.

Until the person was found, he didn’t want to hear any such “consolation.”

The search and rescue lasted for a day and a night.

At dawn, the rescue team finally sent word.

Lin Xiamian’s last sliver of hope was also extinguished.

After returning, the city’s police station sent a commemorative banner to the Gu Group, but on the day it arrived, it was destined to be buried at the bottom of a trunk forever. Due to Lin Xiaodong’s identity, although the entire Gu Group refused all interviews, the media that rushed to the scene still investigated the entire event inside and out.

Only then did people discover that Lin Xiaodong’s life experience was nothing short of a legend.

Though not a policeman—having not even graduated from high school—all the teachers, classmates, and friends who had been in contact with him firmly believed Lin Xiaodong was a selfless and kind person. Especially toward his brother, he was caring and protective to the extreme, even giving up his education and future for the other party, choosing the most perilous path.

What was most shocking was that during the short years he worked at the Gu Group, he helped the police seize a total of 377 kilograms of heroin, 104.5 kilograms of meth, and 98 kilograms of marijuana, along with various other drugs. While he was alive, to protect the informant’s safety, the police never mentioned his name in any press releases. It wasn’t until his sacrifice that many people in the comments realized the world had never truly been at peace; it was just that someone was silently protecting them in the shadows, bearing the weight.

“Damn, my defenses are really broken.”

“Yeah, when I saw the photo, my tears just came down.”

“This is too young. Those drug dealers are simply insane!”

“It says he was only in his early twenties, still a kid…”

“I remember seeing news of his proposal to the Gu Group president not long ago. I was envious for a while. How did it end up like this?”

Some people in the comment section also educated others on the harms of drugs, telling them that once so many drugs appeared on the market, several surrounding provinces would be affected, and thousands of families would fall apart because of it.

Residents of the port city, in particular, felt this deeply.

The police press release was only a few hundred words, but the comments below numbered in the tens of thousands, with countless reposts and likes.

But none of that mattered anymore.

On the day of the funeral, the sky was overcast with a drizzling rain. To prevent private retaliation, the specific location of the cemetery was not made public. However, tens of thousands of people spontaneously came to the walls of the Gu Group and High School No. 1, placing countless white chrysanthemums, candles, and cards at the base of the walls. When reporters arrived at the scene, they specifically sought out a local resident who was crying the hardest for an interview.

“May I ask how you’re feeling right now?”

He held the microphone in front of the man with full-arm tattoos who was crying messily, asking earnestly.

Meng Jinlong’s bull-like eyes glared: “My eyes are swollen from crying, and you’re fucking asking me how I feel? Are you blind!”

“Friend, I understand your feelings, but please don’t use foul language,” the reporter argued. “My meaning is, you’re so sad, there must be something about Mr. Lin’s spirit that touched you? Could you tell us in detail?”

“What a joke.” Meng Jinlong sneered, then suddenly snatched the microphone from the reporter’s hand and roared toward the lens: “Brother, listen up! You’re a hero! In this life, I don’t respect anyone, but I respect you!”

After speaking, he gave the reporter an internationally recognized gesture of friendship, tossed the microphone into his arms, and swaggered away.

The reporter scrambled to catch the microphone, stunned for two seconds before reacting.

“Shit, we’re live!”

Not long after the funeral, by chance, Gu Xi saw Lin Xiamian again.

He could say with certainty that in his half-lifetime, he had never been so angry.

But seeing the Lin Xiamian before him, who was a complete “Lin Xiaodong” look-alike—even his behavior, mannerisms, and facial expressions had undergone a huge change—Gu Xi’s long-suppressed anger instantly exploded.

He smashed the mirror in Lin Xiamian’s hand on the spot.

Gu Xi grabbed the youth’s school uniform collar, saying to him in a tone of extreme loathing: “Lin Xiamian, I don’t care if you’re truly crazy or faking it. From now on, don’t you fucking appear before me in this outfit! Or else I’ll hit you every time I see you!”

But Lin Xiamian only stubbornly twisted his head, his eyes staring straight at the mirror shards scattered on the floor, the corners of his lips curling into a paranoid and crazed arc.

“Brother,” he looked at the countless reflections of himself in the mirror, laughing obsessively, “Brother, look at me…”

The force on his collar loosened. He took a half-step back, lost his footing, and fell to his knees with a thud, his palm pierced by a shard of the mirror.

He looked pathetic and wretched.

Just as it was written on the school bulletin board back in high school, Lin Xiamian had always harbored deep guilt toward Lin Xiaodong. He knew that in essence, he was a despicable and shameless fellow, a thief, a liar, completely unworthy of being Lin Xiaodong’s brother.

His entire high school career, even that period of carefree youth, had been stolen from Lin Xiaodong’s hands.

But Lin Xiaodong always tolerated his wretchedness and everything about him with a cloudless smile, again and again.

So Lin Xiamian had been spoiled, becoming self-righteous and carried away.

In the end, he reaped what he sowed.

Today’s Lin Xiamian was full of regret and agony, living in a daze every day like a walking corpse.

For the current him, in the days without Lin Xiaodong, just being alive was an ordeal.

If he could, he would give everything to trade back for Lin Xiaodong’s forgiveness.

But even if Lin Xiamian knelt before the tombstone and tore out his heart, saying “I’m sorry” ten thousand times, the only person in this world willing to give him everything could no longer hear it.

Gu Xi looked down at the black-haired youth’s tear-streaked face. After a long while, he let out a cold snort.

“I truly feel he wasn’t worth it,” he said.

With that, he turned and left.

On the way home, a wild cat on the roadside suddenly meowed at him.

Gu Xi stopped and looked at it in silence.

The wild cat glanced at him, then lowered its head, sitting on the wall and gracefully licking its paws. Then it jumped down nimbly, tail held high and back arched, squinting its eyes as it rubbed enjoyably against Gu Xi’s trouser leg.

The man bent down, wanting to pet it, but the wild cat quickly dodged away.

Gu Xi’s movement paused, and he gave a self-mocking laugh.

Turns out, the ending had never changed from beginning to end.

He selected the finest feed, the cleanest water, and even tried to forge the most beautiful and exquisite cage out of gold, all to keep someone who didn’t belong to him.

In the end, it was all for naught.

—The First World · Side Story (End)—

Inside the dark sleep chamber, Gu Xi opened his eyes.

The little merman was lying beside him, sound asleep.

Looking at the familiar face in the darkness, his breath somehow missed a beat, and he subconsciously gripped the other’s hand tightly.

“What is it?” Sensing the movement, Lin Xiaodong asked dizzily, his voice still holding a trace of sleepy nasality. “Is it dawn?”

“No… just had a dream.”

“A nightmare?”

“Mm.”

“Then your dream definitely didn’t have me in it,” the merman lazily rolled over, his large tail unceremoniously resting on the man’s leg. “Go to sleep. It’ll be the Central Planet by dawn.”

But Gu Xi couldn’t sleep.

The contents of the nightmare were completely forgotten the moment he woke, but the waves of throbbing pain in his heart and the cold sweat soaking his back still left him with lingering fear. He didn’t know what exactly he had dreamt of. Perhaps past memories? Or perhaps…

Lin Xiaodong muttered a few words, changed his position, and fell back into a deep sleep.

After the person beside him’s breathing became even again, Gu Xi carefully pulled his leg out from under that silver tail and walked softly out of the lounge.

Crossing the hallway to the brightly lit bridge, the adjutant was busy organizing data sent from the military department during this time.

Seeing Gu Xi, the adjutant hurried to give him a salute, saying with a frown: “Major General, latest news: brainworms have parasitized nearly fifteen percent of the residents around the Central Planet, including several aristocrats out on excursions. Although a large-scale death event hasn’t broken out, the situation is already very critical.”

Gu Xi thought for a moment: “What’s the response from the royal family?”

The adjutant silently handed over a piece of paper drawn with golden patterns.

This was the specific paper used when the royal family issued an edict. Gu Xi quickly scanned the contents, his expression instantly freezing into a cold glaze.

Presumably, the news of aristocrats being infected had finally made this group of habitually high-and-mighty fellows nervous. Upon hearing that Gu Xi had returned with a merman, the old King immediately issued instructions demanding the military present the merman to the royal family as a tribute at the first opportunity.

Considering the subordinate’s emotional matters, at the end of the decree, the old King had even perfunctorily added a phrase “Minister has worked hard, there shall be a great reward.” Combined with the preceding lengthy commanding tone, the arrogant posture was almost laughable.

He seemed not to have realized yet who the person truly in control of military power on the Central Planet was now.

The adjutant asked in a low voice: “Major General, what should we do now?”

“What should we do?”

Gu Xi’s lips curled slightly. In front of all the soldiers in the bridge, he tore the decree to shreds on the spot.

“Get someone to clean this up,” he said indifferently, tossing the waste paper aside. “And if those bastards raise any more objections, just throw one word at them—”

“Scram.”