Chapter 138: The Sea of Wandering 31
Fresh from the shower, Zhuang Ningyu was wrapped in a large bath towel by Yi Ke and carried back to the bed in the master bedroom. There was indeed a set of new pajamas laid out beside him, but the person in question had no desire to put them on yet. Instead, he tugged at Yi Ke’s collar, tilting his head back to offer a kiss. The soft towel slipped from his shoulders; the slightly damp scent, evaporated by the warmth of his skin, became increasingly enchanting and rich.
Yi Ke didn’t stand on ceremony. He leaned down, capturing those thin lips, grinding against them and lingering until he had tasted his fill. Only then did he sit up, skillfully grabbing Zhuang Ningyu’s ankle to pull on his underwear.
“…”
What was bound to come couldn’t be avoided. Five minutes later, clad in new pajamas, Zhuang Ningyu sat solemnly amidst a sea of roses, watching helplessly as Yi Ke approached with two glasses of pink champagne.
Music drifted faintly in the air. Yi Ke clinked his glass against Zhuang’s. “I’m ready.”
Zhuang Ningyu stared at him face-to-face for a few seconds, then said, “You did this on purpose.”
Yi Ke nodded vigorously, “Mmhmm,” looking quite righteous about it. He scooted forward, resting his chin on his wife’s shoulder, and whined coquettishly, “I just want to hear it. Even if you tell me you had absolutely no impression of me at the time, that’s fine too.”
Zhuang Ningyu, caught between laughter and tears, pressed his cold wine glass against Yi Ke’s cheek. “You prepared such a grand ceremony; how could I have the heart to say I had no impression?”
Yi Ke grinned. “Then just say something nice to coax me.”
Zhuang Ningyu placed his wine glass on the coffee table to the side. When he turned back, Yi Ke had already opened his arms. The tacit understanding between lovers meant that eye contact wasn’t even needed anymore; he smilingly caught the person diving into his embrace, wrapping his arms and legs around him, and nuzzling his head against him like a puppy.
As his thoughts drifted back, Zhuang Ningyu actually did remember that day, including many details. He remembered that when he left the house, the weather was sunny, and the taxi ride over wasn’t congested. The lemonade he bought on a whim was fresh and delicious; it seemed like everything was going smoothly.
There were many people in the bookstore at the time. Before the reading event started, it was always a bit noisy, with members and staff running around moving chairs. Yi Ke, however, was leaning alone in a corner, leisurely flipping through a book. He became the sole point of stillness amidst the motion, particularly favored by the sunlight which spread over him like broken gold, giving his entire being an air of extremely restrained nobility.
Zhuang Ningyu said, “I think you standing there was just right.”
Yi Ke looked a little smug. “I knew it. You definitely wouldn’t have had zero impression of me.”
Zhuang Ningyu cupped his face. “Why?”
Yi Ke planted a kiss on his wife’s forehead. “Because that day, before me, at least ten people asked for your contact information, but you didn’t agree to any of them.”
Zhuang Ningyu had forgotten about the existence of those first ten people. “Really?”
Yi Ke nodded rapidly, his eyebrows dancing. Yes, oh yes!
Zhuang Ningyu laughed and slapped him lightly. “Idiot.”
Yi Ke held his fragrant, pale wrist, happily pressing it against his own cheek. “At that time, I knew I would definitely be able to catch you.”
“And if you couldn’t catch me?”
“Then I would have shamelessly chased you. You wouldn’t have really driven me away, anyway.”
Zhuang Ningyu indeed hadn’t driven him away later on. His special status was established from the very first glance. Yi Ke was full of confidence about this: Wifey absolutely must love me!
Zhuang Ningyu laughed and clinked glasses with him again. The alcohol content of this wine wasn’t high, and the fermentation time was short, so it hadn’t yet become round and mellow. Instead, it retained a sweet and sour, refreshing berry flavor, tasting young and sunny. As the pink liquid was swallowed down with the bobbing of that delicate Adam’s apple, the wine glass was plucked from his hand the very next moment.
Yi Ke didn’t take him back to the bedroom but pressed him directly onto the newly replaced white wool carpet. Beside them were large swathes of blooming roses, and overhead, the brilliant crystal chandelier left no hiding place for even the slightest arousal. Zhuang Ningyu closed his eyes, turning his head slightly to the side, allowing himself to be exposed, bit by bit, under the bright lights.
The scent of roses grew heavier. The body displayed amidst the sea of flowers was as beautiful and exquisite as the world’s most perfect work of art. Even Yi Ke’s touch carried a sense of reverence. He first caressed gently with the back of his fingers, then lowered his head to trace every inch with his lips. When the final kiss landed on an ankle, he sat up, his breath scandalously hot.
The prologue of the night had only just begun.
Roses were crushed, the world turned upside down.
It felt as if the senses were opened to their absolute limit.
Zhuang Ningyu felt like he was thrown back into the stormy seas, yet it was different from the Wandering Sea. Back then, every layer of the black giant waves was bone-chillingly cold. But now, what flowed through his body were tremors hot enough to melt the entire summer.
The wine that hadn’t been swallowed in time soaked a large patch of the expensive pure white carpet, but it didn’t matter, because it was already very wet.
This intimacy lasted for a full four hours. Yi Ke’s forehead hair had long been soaked with sweat, hanging down messily and obscuring the near-mad obsession in his eyes. After being satisfied once again, he finally spared the trembling lover in his arms, leaning down to comfort him with an incredibly long and utterly gentle kiss.
Zhuang Ningyu slept straight through until 12:00 PM the next day.
The phone on the bedside table buzzed twice, then quickly stopped. The person on the bed opened his eyes, staring somewhat dazed at the wall clock ahead. His throat was dry and painful, and his body ached. He struggled to sit up, propping himself up to shuffle to the bathroom. Wanting to clear his head as quickly as possible, he filled the sink with cold water and buried his entire face in it.
“Baby!” Yi Ke, returning to the bedroom, was startled and rushed forward to pull him up.
Zhuang Ningyu, eyes red, was coughing. Water streamed over his collarbones, making him look dazed and disheveled. Knowing he was in the wrong, Yi Ke quickly picked him up and carried him back to the big bed. After drying him off and changing him into pajamas, he poured a glass of the snow pear water he had just brought in. Watching him finish it, Yi Ke asked cautiously, “Are you okay?”
Zhuang Ningyu asked back with a hoarse voice, “What do you think?”
Yi Ke shamelessly snuggled up, extending an arm to hug his waist, pressing his cheek against him, and arching his head, beginning the standard procedure: “Wifey, I was wrong…”
Zhuang Ningyu was both angry and amused. He tried to push him away twice but failed, so he just let him hang there while he leaned back against the headboard. Yi Ke kissed his flat stomach. “I ordered soup from your favorite place. Lie down a bit longer, then come down to eat, okay? I’ll go make you some noodles to go with it.”
“Okay.” Zhuang Ningyu slapped away the hand resting on his waist, signaling him to leave quickly. But Yi Ke was relentless, clinging to him for a few more kisses before running back to the kitchen to continue cooking. Before leaving, he didn’t forget to shove another cup of snow pear water into his wife’s hand. He had gotten up early specifically to stew it; it was sweet, warm, and enhanced with some bird’s nest he had raided from Ms. Deng’s refrigerator.
While drinking the “Loving Husband Brand” snow pear water, Zhuang Ningyu casually picked up his phone and unlocked it—
Fifteen minutes ago. Missed call. Unknown number.
His brow furrowed slightly as he quickly guessed who the call was from. He dialed Fu Han’s number again. Still no answer. However, a few seconds later, a call came in from a new unknown number.
After connecting, the person on the other end didn’t speak for a long time. Zhuang Ningyu asked directly, “Where are you?”
Fu Han paused, then finally spoke, “At sea.”
“Do you know that Song Qiaowei confessed that Fu Dong bought off Gao Weicheng, and your NeuroX was swapped three years ago?”
“I know.”
“Then you—”
“The NeuroX isn’t important. I called to say I’m sorry. Regarding the New Gene Bio Rule Zone, that was just an immature experimental product. I… didn’t expect Shi Cheng to release it without permission and trap you inside.”
Fu Han omitted a large section of explanation in that pause. What was there to explain? * “When I created that Rule Zone, I was obsessed and wrote both your DNA and mine into the program”?* Such words sounded ridiculous even to himself—a dark voyeurism, a pathetic thief.
He seemed to give a self-deprecating laugh and continued, “Regarding New Gene Bio, regarding the Wandering Sea, regarding the Fu family—I’ve compiled everything you want. It will be automatically sent to your email shortly. If there’s anything new later, I’ll send it over immediately. Finally, thank you… for once considering me a friend. Goodbye.”
“Fu Han!” Zhuang Ningyu heard the abnormality in his tone and raised his voice. “The Invisible Giant isn’t that easy to deal with. Whether you want to cooperate with them or make enemies of them, you—”
The “beep-beep” busy signal came from the receiver.
Zhuang Ningyu immediately called the Investigation Team to report the matter and opened his email to check. Sure enough, a massive file package was sitting quietly in his inbox.
If Song Qiaowei’s confession shook the foundations of the Fu Group, then the data provided by Fu Han flipped the entire building over. Thousands of documents scrolled frantically across the screen as they decrypted. Amidst the flashing code, the formerly glorious Fu Group completely disintegrated.
Father Fu, who had just transferred from Country G to the US, suffered another stroke upon hearing the news and was admitted to the ICU. All the open and hidden lines related to the Fu Group were laid out on the table, without a single omission. The group’s elders looked ashen in the conference room; no one had imagined that the Second Young Master, whom they thought had been marginalized to the fringes, possessed such immense power.
The Fu Corporation fell. Fu Dong was dead. Father Fu was critically ill.
An investigator said, “Three years ago, Fu Han secretly had someone remove his mother’s ashes from the Fu family ancestral tomb.”
As for Shi Cheng, he was merely one of many trusted aides of Fu Dong that Fu Han had bought off, responsible for passing Fu Dong’s information to him. Years ago, when the initial New Gene Bio Rule Zone appeared, it was Fu Han who entered in time and brought him out.
“Fu Han didn’t actually fully trust Shi Cheng, so he used Zhang Yunxia’s obsession to modify a new New Gene Bio Rule Zone. On the surface, it was to provide Shi Cheng with an absolutely safe hiding place—it seemed that as long as he exploited the bug, he could rest easy forever. But in reality, Fu Han hid an unknown rule inside it. Once the Rule Zone formed, one had to find the hidden broadcaster in time and change the exercise music, otherwise, the experimenters would immediately riot and hunt down the administrator with full force.”
The conference room was filled with sighs of emotion. Leaving everything else aside, Fu Han’s ability to replicate Rule Zones was truly impressive. No wonder he could transform the Wandering Sea into a card game.
“In the data provided by Fu Han, the Wandering Sea Rule Zone underwent three modifications. The first version came from him, the second from the Invisible Giant, and the third was urgently reverted significantly by Fu Han,” the investigator continued. “Although he didn’t explain in the data why he created this Rule Zone, we all know it was to take revenge on Fu Dong and Song Qiaowei.”
“We’ve finished analyzing the three versions.” A researcher took over the rest of the meeting. “Fu Han only targeted the Fu Dong couple. He didn’t want to go against the Order Maintenance Department. In fact, according to Team Leader Zhuang’s analysis, choosing Qing Gang and Zhong Mu as the Princess and the Minister was because these two roles required extreme tacit understanding to maximize the power of the item cards. And Qing Gang and Zhong Mu just happened to be last year’s ‘tacit understanding stars’ of the Order Maintenance Department.” regardless of whether the award name was tacky, the chemistry was real.
“What about the Invisible Giant’s modification direction?”
“To wipe out our team. Furthermore, they created another passage, attempting to trap the ‘Listener’ and lead Team Leader Zhuang to the next unknown Rule Zone. But before it could spawn on the sea surface, it was forcibly reverted by Fu Han.”
Everyone looked at each other. Fu Han and the Invisible Giant… what exactly was their relationship? You couldn’t say it was bad, as they seemed to be cooperating; but you couldn’t say it was good, because this didn’t look like cooperation.
Zhuang Ningyu leaned back in his chair and shook his head. “It’s unclear. But there is one thing I can be sure of. The Invisible Giant has always taken pleasure in manipulating the fates of others. Fu Han, however, has no interest in manipulating others’ fates, nor will he submit to having his own fate manipulated. He and the Invisible Giant are incompatible.”
Autumn deepened, and the weather slowly turned cold.
The meal that Yi Ke and Zhuang Ningyu had owed for a long time—commonly known as the “meal you must treat friends and colleagues to after getting together”—was finally put on the schedule.
In Zhuang Ningyu’s understanding, booking one or two tables for ten or twenty people would be about right. But Yi Ke listed three pages of names in a document. When Zhuang Ningyu walked past the study and glanced at it, he was stunned on the spot. “This is too many!”
Yi Ke wagged his finger. NO NO NO, I’ve already deleted a lot.
Zhuang Ningyu: “Why is the Propaganda Department included? Are you close with them?”
Yi Ke: “I don’t know a single one of them.”
Zhuang Ningyu: “?”
But Yi Ke was insistent. Whether they knew them or not didn’t matter much; did not knowing them mean they couldn’t eat their celebratory candy?
Zhuang Ningyu took a deep breath. “What celebratory candy? It’s not a wedding.”
Yi Ke replied, “Of course it’s not a wedding. If we were getting married, how could we invite only three hundred or so tables?”
Zhuang Ningyu once again fell into a deep linguistic barrier.
Yi Ke held his hands and confessed affectionately, “You don’t need to worry about this kind of thing at all. Just leave it all to me.”
Zhuang Ningyu nodded. “Okay, for the wedding, I’ll listen to you. For this time, listen to me. Go delete the list right now.”
Yi Ke hummed and hawed, bargaining, “What if I don’t delete it?”
Zhuang Ningyu pressed down on his shoulder. “Then you won’t have a wedding to get married at.”
Yi Ke didn’t even look back. His fingers flew across the keyboard, skillfully hitting “Select All” + “DEL”.
“Okay, wifey!”
Bye, colleagues!
