Chapter 74: Chengnan Bookstore 21
Zhuang Ningyu couldn’t quite judge whether this “special desire to kiss” was “special” enough to require telling a doctor. But after a brief consideration, he felt that he should be thorough during the consultation. So, he nodded, “Yes.”
Yi Ke didn’t think the medical exam would ask about this, so he just gave a perfunctory nod and didn’t take it to heart. But as fate would have it, the next day, when he was sitting in the doctor’s office, the fifth question he faced was: “How is your sex life?”
“…” Yi Ke looked at the authoritative expert before him and answered stiffly, “I don’t have one.”
“Do you have thoughts about it?”
“…Yes.”
“Are they strong?”
“…Mmm.”
The medical exam lasted for nearly five hours. The report would be ready in a week. During this time, Zhuang Ningyu waited for him at the coffee shop across from the medical center. When he saw it was about time, he went back to the car first. Half an hour later, Yi Ke indeed pulled open the passenger door and got in. He didn’t fasten his seatbelt first but lunged over to hug Zhuang Ningyu, burying his face in his neck, looking utterly and earth-shatteringly wronged. “Wifey!”
“What’s wrong?” Zhuang Ningyu was taken aback by his reaction. He patted his head. “Sit up properly and then talk.”
Yi Ke didn’t want to sit up properly. He complained gloomily, “The doctor asked me if I have a sex life! What does my evolution have to do with whether I have a sex life or not!”
Zhuang Ningyu: “…”
Yi Ke continued to babble, “I said no, and he asked me if I wanted to! I said yes, and he asked me how strong my desire was!”
Zhuang Ningyu pursed his lips tightly, choosing his conscience over his amusement. He unbuckled his own seatbelt, turned sideways, and hugged him comfortingly. “Alright, alright, it’s okay, it’s okay. Let’s go home first.”
The two had originally planned to go for grilled seafood, but Yi Ke was still immersed in the sorrow of having his privacy stripped bare by the doctor. He had no appetite, like an eggplant hit by frost. Zhuang Ningyu cancelled the reservation and drove home to cook himself. Yi Ke lay weakly on the sofa, seemingly having lost all his strength and tricks, and asked in a buzzing voice, “Will my medical report get out?”
“It won’t. You have to trust the professionalism of the center’s testing staff,” Zhuang Ningyu said, beating eggs at the stove. “Besides, the accompanying manifestations of an evolver’s evolution are often bizarre and varied. This is just a normal need of yours; there’s nothing to be ashamed of.”
That being said, Yi Ke was still unwilling to recall what he had gone through that morning. When Zhuang Ningyu came out of the kitchen with the cooked food, he was sitting cross-legged on the sofa, his fingers flying across the keyboard. The webpage name clearly showed the medical center’s suggestion box! Comrade Xiao Yi wrote furiously, demanding from all angles and at multiple levels that all future privacy questions be changed to questionnaire format with computer analysis, in order to reduce embarrassment, lower the risk of leaks, weaken social desirability bias, optimize data collection structure, and eliminate unnecessary labor… He wrote thousands of words, leaving Zhuang Ningyu dazzled. It was a pity the Order Maintenance Department didn’t require regular submissions of “Departmental Work Summary of Shortcomings and Improvements,” wasting such a report-writing genius.
After submitting his suggestions, although Yi Ke still hadn’t overcome his psychological trauma, he was at least willing to get up and eat. Zhuang Ningyu peeled shrimp for him while glancing at the work computer placed beside him. “He Mo said that within five days, the research group should be able to replicate the Zeus Grand Hotel rule zone.”
“Do they have any specific ideas?” Yi Ke asked. “Is it still just a simple replication?”
“All the experiments we’ve conducted so far have been ‘original replications’,” Zhuang Ningyu said, feeding him a shrimp. “But Ren Bing has a not-so-mature experimental method in his hands. It’s a new one developed in the capital, which can achieve ‘iterative replication’.”
“What’s the difference between the two?”
Zhuang Ningyu wiped his hands and drew a circle on the computer screen. “If this is the original rule zone A, then ‘original replication’ is to use it as a benchmark to continue creating replica B, replica C, replica D… In short, no matter how many are ultimately replicated, the basic reference is always A.”
Yi Ke looked at the four circles of roughly equal size on the screen and nodded. “Understood.”
Zhuang Ningyu drew a large circle again. “This is still the original rule zone A,” he said, continuing to draw a slightly smaller circle inside the large one. “This is its replica B,” and then inside the smaller circle, he drew an even smaller one. “Then, using B as the benchmark, create replica C, and subsequently, using C as the benchmark, create D, and using D as the benchmark, create E, generation after generation, like Russian nesting dolls.”
The end of a Russian nesting doll is usually a wooden block so small its features can no longer be seen. As for the end of an “infinitely iterative” rule zone, it was still hard to say. They might coexist, they might merge, or they might mutate. For example, four different versions of Dou Dekai might appear simultaneously in the Zeus Grand Hotel.
Yi Ke: “…Tsk.”
“When the experiment reaches a certain stage, the research group will apply for cooperation from the action team to actually enter the rule zone,” Zhuang Ningyu said. “The investigation team will also continue to dig deeper into the truth about the Zeus Grand Hotel during this time. The more detailed the information, the safer the subsequent action will be.”
But it could only be relatively safe, not a hundred percent guaranteed. After all, the technology of iterative replication itself was extremely immature. Zhuang Ningyu put the computer back and wiped his hands with a wet wipe. “We’ll see then. If your physical condition is still unstable, then I’ll help you ask for leave from Old Man Huang.”
Yi Ke didn’t try to be tough about this and obediently said “mhm.” Taking leave was fine, or not going to work at all was also fine. Anyway, his wife’s salary was very high, and his house in Fuxing Court was about to be demolished and relocated. Demolition households are rich! He was very enthusiastic about eating soft rice; that’s just how he was, with no career ambitions.
Zhuang Ningyu was charmed by this “mhm,” so he peeled another shrimp and fed it to him. He had originally planned to go to the office for a look after dinner, but he changed his mind and decided to work from home. The two of them snuggled on the sofa together, covered with a soft cashmere blanket, and reviewed the new files uploaded by the investigation team. Although Ni Ruiling hadn’t confessed yet, Hou Junye’s driver and bodyguard were clearly very pragmatic. The bodyguard, in particular, was an “old employee” of the Invisible Giant. This man had even been with the organization longer than Ni Ruiling.
According to his confession, the Invisible Giant had noticed Ni Ruiling six years ago. At that time, she would often post her views on rule zones on the dark web, which was very much to the organization’s taste. So they hacked into her computer through the internet to learn more about her. And the result of their investigation was—pretty, young, smart, with an average financial situation, highly narcissistic, and at the same time, possessed a naivety of thinking she had touched the truth of society. She was one of the easiest groups to manipulate.
Yi Ke said, “Beautiful women are Dou Dekai’s prey, Dou Dekai is Ni Ruiling’s prey, and Ni Ruiling is the Invisible Giant’s prey. There’s such a clear food chain among this group of people.”
However, if the Invisible Giant wanted to control Ni Ruiling, it was obviously not as simple as how Ni Ruiling controlled Dou Dekai, where they could successfully brainwash him just through online chats. Their plan was much more elaborate. First, they sent out that group of swindlers, carefully designing a plan to step by step drive Ni Ruiling into a dual predicament of financial and emotional despair. Just as “love in the low times is the most moving,” salvation in the low times is also the most effective. To get her, they had to destroy her first.
But unexpectedly, although the first step of the plan went very smoothly, Ni Ruiling did not, as the planners had expected, fall into despair, or at least not for a short period of time. On the contrary, she quite calmly resigned, sold her car, had plastic surgery, and used that pure first-love face to successfully find a patron.
“Bao Yuzhou?”
“Yes.”
During his glory days, although Bao Yuzhou had briefly lingered on the fringes of the Invisible Giant, he had not had contact with the central figures. After his own business empire collapsed, he was increasingly treated as a “discarded piece,” with no value to be saved. So, the Invisible Giant, hidden in the shadows, silently observed the entire process of the kidnapping and bombing, and once again verified Ni Ruiling’s “conviction and wisdom”—she would stop at nothing for her own benefit. Whether it was Dou Dekai or Bao Mingming, she would not hesitate for a moment over their deaths, even though Bao Mingming didn’t have to die.
Zhuang Ningyu said, “Dou Dekai actually suggested that Bao Mingming could be kept in another place. He said that in movies, hostages are always in another place, but Ni Ruiling refused. She insisted that he keep Bao Mingming with him.”
“So she deliberately sent Bao Mingming to his death,” Yi Ke slid his finger across the computer screen. “But the two of them should have had no interaction at all, right?”
“There are probably two reasons. One, she wasn’t sure what Bao Mingming had heard from Dou Dekai, so only a dead person is the safest. Two, she and Bao Mingming’s biological mother were both Bao Yuzhou’s lovers, but the latter was obviously much more ‘successful’ than her, I mean in terms of money, and Ni Ruiling cannot accept any failure.”
After the bombing, Ni Ruiling used the swapped three million ransom to open her beauty salon, and the Invisible Giant was greatly impressed by her outstanding ability. The two sides began formal communication. The reason Ni Ruiling’s beauty business had been so successful in recent years, with her assets growing exponentially, was inextricably linked to the strong support of the organization behind her. She also used this high-end beauty salon to successfully get in touch with many women of high status, as well as the men associated with these women. Her performance looked quite good.
Yi Ke pondered, “But if Ni Ruiling knew that the group of swindlers was the Invisible Giant’s handiwork, a tool used to destroy her life, and that they had succeeded, and that the love she had once been fully invested in, every detail of it would be uploaded and watched by others, then according to her personality, would her heart really be completely unmoved?”
“That will depend on how the investigation team and the police question her next,” Zhuang Ningyu turned to look at him. “By the way, I might have to work overtime frequently recently.”
Yi Ke immediately put on a heartbroken expression.
Zhuang Ningyu didn’t want to work overtime either. The main reason was that from any angle, he felt that Yi Ke was about to undergo a second evolution and needed to be monitored 24/7. So he tried to negotiate, “Do you want to move back in with your parents? It’s better to have someone take care of you.”
As expected, the proposal was flatly rejected by Yi Ke. “I’m not going back!”
This child was too difficult to handle. Zhuang Ningyu regretted not taking the time in college to get a kindergarten teacher’s certificate. But on second thought, it probably wouldn’t have been of much use, especially in the dead of night, when Yi Ke came to bed shirtless after a shower—if this scene were to happen in a kindergarten, the 110 emergency line would be ringing off the hook.
Yi Ke did not wear the cute animal-print pure cotton pajama set that Zhuang Ningyu had carefully selected for him. In a room with underfloor heating, he was too hot to sleep. He was willing to wear a pair of underwear, which was already a sign of respect for civilized society. Zhuang Ningyu first turned off the underfloor heating, then planned to open the window, but was pulled back onto the bed by Yi Ke. “Am I really going to evolve?”
Zhuang Ningyu patted his face. “Congratulations, you’re finally willing to admit it.”
Yi Ke frowned in discomfort, his breath scorching hot, quickly causing a thin layer of sweat to form on Zhuang Ningyu’s neck. He turned his head slightly and suddenly asked, “After having sex, will your symptoms be relieved?”
“…” Yi Ke’s body stiffened, then he hugged him even tighter. “No.”
“No?”
“Just no.”
Yi Ke kissed him by his ear. When it came to love, to Zhuang Ningyu, he had an exceptionally strict and solemn sense of ritual, and would not tolerate any grievance. After kissing for a while, he noticed his breath was getting hotter and hotter. He finally moved his lips away, propped himself up, and looked at the other’s beautiful, slightly flushed face without blinking, liking him so much. So he lowered his head and gave him another light kiss, saying reluctantly, “Sleep. I’ll go to the guest room.”
Zhuang Ningyu said, “You seem to have forgotten that I am also one of the subjects in this relationship.”
Yi Ke asked, puzzled, “Hmm?”
Then he was flipped over onto the covers. Zhuang Ningyu straddled him, one hand on his shoulder, and leaned down. “So for this kind of thing, you can’t be the only one who has a say.”
