Chapter 8#
The Self-Deceiving Liar#
Seeing that Lin Xiaodong didn’t speak, Gu Xi rubbed his temples, enduring the surging heat within his body, and said hoarsely to the driver sitting in front:
“Drive.”
He had changed his mind.
“How many days are left until the New Year?”
After a while, Gu Xi suddenly asked a nonsensical question.
The driver replied while driving: “One hundred and thirty-six days. Why do you ask, President Gu?”
“Nothing,” Gu Xi said calmly. “A hundred or so days is enough to hold a funeral for the Wang family.”
After saying that, the man’s gaze swept over. Lin Xiaodong’s expression was as usual, acting completely as if he were deaf.
He heard nothing.
The car drove out of the garage and sped along the empty road in the middle of the night.
The faint sound of a ship’s horn came from the distant pier. Seeing that Gu Xi hadn’t made a move for a long time, Lin Xiaodong felt sleepy. He leaned against the car window in a daze and let out a weary yawn. By the time he came back to his senses, he realized that the car’s partition had been lowered at some point.
With a swish, Lin Xiaodong immediately straightened his back, becoming as alert as could be.
“P-President Gu?”
In the darkness, he could only barely make out the man’s profile through the light of the street lamps. The enclosed space amplified one’s fear, but beyond fear, a certain obscure, unspeakable desire was also slowly brewing and fermenting.
Gu Xi’s voice was low and hoarse: “Come here.”
Lin Xiaodong kept his body tense, leaning against the car door.
“Don’t make me say it a second time.” The man lowered his eyes, his tone brooks no argument.
Lin Xiaodong hung his head and shifted his butt bit by bit, sitting down next to him.
His expression was still very reluctant.
System: “Stop faking it, I can’t even watch anymore.”
Lin Xiaodong: “What, the basic sense of ritual for a forced play is still necessary.”
System: “…………”
“Have you ever done it with a man before?” Gu Xi hooked Lin Xiaodong’s chin with his knuckles and asked in a low voice, “First time?”
In the dim space, a faint cold fragrance wound around Lin Xiaodong’s torso like tiny silk vines. Looking at the handsome face so close at hand, his throat felt tight. In a momentary lapse of judgment, he shook his head.
Gu Xi was silent for a few seconds, his expression not changing much.
He just said calmly: “That’s fine. Then I don’t have to be too concerned.”
…
…………
Lin Xiaodong never wanted to recall what happened next for the rest of his life.
Although it wasn’t like he didn’t feel good, but…
Lin Xiaodong: “I’m brain-dead.”
System: “I think so too.”
Because of insufficient foreplay and a somewhat rough process, he lay like a corpse in the house under Gu Xi’s name for a full three days.
“Do you think he eventually found out?” Lin Xiaodong asked the system while lying flat on the bed. “I feel like he knows, otherwise why would he apologize to me?”
System: “Maybe it’s because you yelled too loudly later?”
Lin Xiaodong’s old face turned red.
Wasn’t it just the feeling coming on?
After a while, he hugged the pillow and rolled over on the bed, only revealing two resentful eyes staring at the bank card on the bedside table.
There was thirty thousand yuan inside. Gu Xi hadn’t given him too much, just let Lin Xiaodong stay here and rest well, saying he could leave whenever he wanted.
Presumably, he felt that a one-night stand wasn’t worth this price.
“System,” he asked mournfully, “Am I being kept as a substitute by Gu Xi now?”
The system gently stroked his dog head in the void; the manual said this could effectively relieve the host’s mental pressure: “No, babe. We’re just eating his, wearing his, and using his. How can that be called being ‘kept’? This is called fleecing the wool of capitalism.”
Lin Xiaodong thought for a moment and became happy again: “I think you have a point.”
The system sighed.
Fortunately, this host was a bit slow.
With the system’s comfort, Lin Xiaodong regained his spirit.
With the scar healed and the pain forgotten, as soon as he had recovered from his injuries, he immediately used the money he got to order a big meal for himself. Abalone, Australian lobster, Buddha Jumps Over the Wall—everything was arranged, and he briefly experienced the joy of spending money like water.
Not only that, he also took the money to a hair salon to get a hairstyle.
Anyway, he had earned enough money and didn’t need to go out and collect debts anymore, so Lin Xiaodong simply dyed his hair back.
That head of yellow and green hair, let alone others, even he himself found it an eyesore.
God knows how Gu Xi could have stomached it before.
“You’ve fallen,” the system said.
“I haven’t fallen,” Lin Xiaodong said seriously, looking at the young man in the mirror whose cheeks were gradually becoming fuller. “I’m just too happy.”
During this time, he ran into Zheng Li once on the street. The way the man glared at him was full of hatred and fear, presumably thinking that Lin Xiaodong had successfully climbed the ladder to curry favor with Gu Xi and was about to take revenge on him.
Lin Xiaodong was about to go over and call out to him, but when that guy saw him, it was like seeing a ghost, and he slipped away faster than a rabbit.
“Based on this idiot’s expression, I have to stay in Gu Xi’s house for a few more days no matter what,” Lin Xiaodong, who was being treated like a kingdom-toppling concubine, was so happy his mouth was crooked. He solemnly promised the system, “I’ll leave as soon as Lin Xiamian finishes his exams and comes back, really!”
System: “…………”
It had a premonition that Lin Xiaodong would mess up again.
As it turned out, the system’s premonition was not wrong at all.
Lin Xiaodong thought Gu Xi wouldn’t come back, but to his surprise, the man visited again a week later.
Hearing the sound, Lin Xiaodong ran downstairs. Looking at the man at the door reeking of alcohol and with eyes full of ferocity, he was a bit at a loss, but he still walked up to him cautiously and asked: “President Gu, are you… alright?”
God knows how much Gu Xi had drunk. The man stood still for a while, lifted his eyes to look at him, and his gaze finally landed on Lin Xiaodong’s newly dyed black short hair.
“Lin Xiamian?” he said subconsciously.
Lin Xiaodong was stunned. Before he could react, Gu Xi suddenly pulled off his tie, strode up to him, and picked him up horizontally.
“Wait… Gu Xi, let me go!”
Lin Xiaodong was startled and pounded hard on the man’s back: “You’re drunk. I’m not Lin Xia… mmm mmm…”
Gu Xi threw him directly onto the sofa and then pressed himself on top of him. The buttons of the clothes that were crudely torn open clattered all over the floor.
“Don’t speak,” Gu Xi’s eyes were dark and gloomy like an approaching storm, and his hoarse voice suppressed a venting, tyrannical rage. “Tonight, you just need to cry.”
After saying that, ignoring the young man’s resistance beneath him, he lowered his head and blocked the mouth Lin Xiaodong was about to open.
The system was eager to try: “Need help? I can shock him unconscious.”
Lin Xiaodong struggled “desperately,” and in the midst of his busy schedule, he even asked expectantly: “Can you control the intensity of the current?”
The system didn’t want to understand immediately at all: “…Go away!”
The next day, Gu Xi woke up very early.
He opened his eyes while holding his splitting head, stared at the living room ceiling for two seconds, but his gaze suddenly froze when he saw the young man curled up beside him.
Lin Xiaodong was sleeping very restlessly.
The tear stains at the corners of his eyes hadn’t dried yet, and his lips were sucked until the skin was broken. Probably disturbed by Gu Xi’s movement of getting up, the child struggled to lift his eyelids but failed to wake up because he was too tired. Finally, he could only let out a pitiful, aggrieved whimper from his nose.
Gu Xi looked down at him for a while, and the memories after getting drunk finally came back bit by bit.
Work emotions shouldn’t be brought into life, not to mention this was originally his own problem; Lin Xiaodong was innocent.
He was the one who broke the principles first.
Gu Xi tightly pressed his lips together, slowly pulled his arm out from under Lin Xiaodong’s neck, bent down to pick the person up gently, carried him upstairs, and covered him with a blanket.
A bit heavier than before, he thought involuntarily, feeling the weight in his arms.
But still too thin.
Even with such a large movement, the child on the bed still kept his eyes tightly closed. It seemed he was truly exhausted.
The man sat by the bed for a while and saw Lin Xiaodong frown and roll over, seemingly about to wake up.
But Gu Xi suddenly didn’t know how to face him.
He stood up abruptly, wanting to leave, but paused when he reached the bedroom door.
In the end, he turned back, poured a glass of water for Lin Xiaodong, and then left.
“Ding! Good Person Card fragment +1.”
“Ding! Over half of the Good Person Cards for this world have been collected. Please select a key character to unlock their character biography.”
Lin Xiaodong, lying on the bed, slowly opened his eyes.
The room was empty; Gu Xi had already left.
“System, I…”
Not until he spoke did Lin Xiaodong realize his voice was hoarse.
The system said this wasn’t surprising at all. Lin Xiaodong was addicted to acting last night, and his tears were like the flood discharge of the Three Gorges Dam—they never stopped.
He fished out his phone from under the pillow and found two unread messages.
Both were from Gu Xi.
Gu Xi: “I ordered porridge for you. Remember to eat light recently. Call me if you need anything.”
Gu Xi: “I’m sorry.”
“How many times has he apologized to me now?” Lin Xiaodong said to himself, a bit amused.
He hovered on the edge of blocking the big boss for a moment, but in the end, he chickened out.
“I’ll look at the character biography when I come back tonight,” he said. “Now I have to go out for a bit.”
System: “Where are you planning to go? Home?”
“Why go home?” Lin Xiaodong said. “Of course, I’m going to Wanxiao. I haven’t settled the score with that grandson Zheng Li yet. Taking advantage of Gu Xi’s current guilt toward me, isn’t this the time to seek an opportunity to use the tiger’s might? Do you think I’m such a generous person?”
System: “…I didn’t say that, don’t talk nonsense.”
Lin Xiaodong cornered Zheng Li at the back door of Wanxiao.
He grabbed the man’s collar and, in front of all the security guards and Manager Hu, picked up a brick from the corner of the wall and smashed it down.
System: !!!!
“Are you crazy?” it said in a raised voice. “Stop right now, or headquarters will send heavenly thunder to strike you!”
Lin Xiaodong wiped the blood from the corner of his lip with his thumb and grinned: “Go ahead and strike.”
System: “…………”
System: “When did you find out?”
Lin Xiaodong huffed: “Your change in attitude toward me lately couldn’t be more obvious. You haven’t been nagging me to be a ‘Goody-Two-Shoes’ every day either. Although I don’t know the reason, something must have gone wrong at your headquarters, right?”
“…Yes,” having the truth pointed out, the system could only admit it reluctantly. “I haven’t been able to contact headquarters for a while now. But every system also has an internal electric shock program, so just this once, don’t let it happen again. If you go too far, I won’t be soft-hearted either.”
“Pleasure doing business with you.” Lin Xiaodong smiled.
Actually, he quite liked the feeling of acting like a “Holy Father,” and a system that could tell dry jokes probably couldn’t be found anywhere else in the world.
Under the terrified gazes of everyone, the young man swung the brick in his hand again.
Once, twice, three times…
Zheng Li’s screams went from heart-wrenching at the beginning to dying out; no one dared to step forward to help.
Manager Hu watched them in fear and screamed: “Stop hitting! You’ll kill him if you keep hitting!”
But his feet were like they had grown roots, not moving an inch.
Lin Xiaodong slowly straightened his body, threw the brick in his hand aside, and let go as if throwing away trash.
Zheng Li, who had been beaten until his face was covered in blood, instantly slumped to the ground.
Seeing his calm face after almost beating someone to death, Manager Hu finally realized that the young man in front of him was by no means the easy target they thought he was.
This was simply a beast disguised as a little white rabbit!
“You, you,” as Zheng Li was being carried onto the ambulance, he struggled to lift his head, which was covered in blood, and stared at him while dying, saying, “You won’t… cough, cough, you won’t have a good end! Gu Xi is, is just temporarily fooled by your disguise…”
Lin Xiaodong looked down at the man on the stretcher who was fierce in appearance but weak in reality. He suddenly curled his lips and revealed a clean and bright smile.
In that instant, the young man’s appearance looked exactly like Lin Xiamian’s.
Under Zheng Li’s gaze, which was mixed with hatred and fear, he leaned down and whispered gently into the man’s ear:
“Don’t worry, I’ll fool him for a lifetime.”