About chili peppers, about the secret mentioned by Xu Chenghao, about some inconceivable things… Jing Yicheng endured for two months, and finally waited until the agreed time when he could ask openly and justifiably.
Xu Chenghao hesitated for a moment, then tested the waters: “Have you eaten your fill?”
Jing Yicheng: “Mn.”
“How’s your mood now?”
“Not bad.”
“Oh…” That meant the danger level wasn’t high. Xu Chenghao was slightly relieved. He told the auntie to leave work early, and once she had gone, he locked the door, obediently sat on the living room sofa, cleared his throat: “Then I’ll say it?”
Jing Yicheng sat beside him, his expression serious: “Go ahead.”
【Ding—Warning: Do not tell characters in the book that this is a fictional world!】
The system’s sudden warning startled Xu Chenghao, who had just opened his mouth. He started coughing repeatedly, and under Jing Yicheng’s abruptly narrowed gaze, he gave a dry laugh: “Got a bit too excited…”
System, are you trying to scare me to death!!!
His mind fell into silence; the other party clearly had no intention of responding to him.
Xu Chenghao was so angry his chest ached, and he decided to take back all his previous feelings of being moved. He carefully considered his wording in his heart, and finally polished it a bit before speaking: “Have you ever heard of ‘soul transmigration’? It’s when someone travels from their own body into another person’s body.”
Jing Yicheng immediately straightened his posture: “You?”
“Mn, that’s what happened to me.” Xu Chenghao admitted: “I’m actually not the real Xu Chenghao. He died when he suffered a head injury. I just happened to die in a car accident at the same time and transmigrated into his body… At the time, a system told me that if I grew chili peppers, I could return to one second before my accident. So I’ve been working hard to grow chili peppers…”
Seeing Jing Yicheng’s expression darken little by little, Xu Chenghao quickly grabbed his hand to try to salvage the situation: “At that time I hadn’t even gotten together with you yet!”
“But even after you got together with me, you were still growing them.” Jing Yicheng said coolly, “Even after meeting the parents, you were still growing them!”
“That’s because later I wanted to stay. The system said if I completed the final task, I could unbind from it, and then I could stay here permanently. So during the days I was unconscious… that probably had to do with the unbinding or something. From now on, you don’t have to worry anymore.”
Jing Yicheng furrowed his brows. “Give me some time.”
Xu Chenghao nodded in understanding. After all, this kind of thing was far too inconceivable. It was normal to need time to buffer and digest it.
Ten minutes later, Jing Yicheng successfully processed everything and linked it with past events. He quickly seized on a flaw in Xu Chenghao’s words: “The final task definitely wouldn’t be that simple, right? Otherwise, why were you so nervous the last time? Is it that completing it means you can stay, but failing to complete it comes with a punishment?”
Xu Chenghao was momentarily speechless, then lowered his head and said: “It’s not exactly a punishment…”
Jing Yicheng pressed on: “What is it?”
Xu Chenghao deliberately spoke vaguely: “Just… a bet with my own little life.”
Jing Yicheng’s voice instantly rose: “Say that again!”
Xu Chenghao shrank his neck and shouted loudly: “It’s a bet with my own little life!”
Jing Yicheng almost immediately clenched his fist, scaring Xu Chenghao into quickly grabbing a throw pillow to shield himself: “Y-you-you can’t hit me!”
Jing Yicheng sneered: “If I don’t hit you, you’ll never learn your lesson!”
As he spoke, he yanked Xu Chenghao over. Xu Chenghao didn’t dare resist and instead took the opportunity to hug his neck, burying his head into the crook of his shoulder and acting spoiled: “Cheng-ge~~”
The raised hand froze in mid-air. Jing Yicheng aimed at his butt several times but couldn’t bring himself to strike. In the end, he gnashed his teeth and said: “You’re here just to torment me!”
Xu Chenghao didn’t dare make a sound.
Jing Yicheng: “Keep talking!”
“That was everything.”
“That was the abridged version. I want to hear the full, detailed sequence of events!”
“……”
“If you dare leave anything out, I really will hit you!”
“……”
Xu Chenghao felt he was doomed, but under the pressure of someone’s rising fury, he had no choice but to start talking—changing “entering a book” to “transmigration” and revealing everything in full.
And then… Xu Chenghao really did get his butt beaten. QAQ
What made Jing Yicheng angry wasn’t the chili peppers or anything else—it was that Xu Chenghao didn’t cherish his own life, casually staking it in a gamble. Had he never considered what would happen if the system harbored ill intentions? Had he never thought about what if there was a natural disaster or accident and the number of peppers wasn’t enough—what then? Had he never considered what would happen to him—Jing Yicheng—if Xu Chenghao failed and left him behind, all alone?
While angry, Jing Yicheng felt even more a deep sense of fear. When Xu Chenghao was in a coma for a week, he had spent each day consumed by worry and dread. Now, this revelation was the final straw that broke him. Jing Yicheng was anxious, furious, terrified all at once—he wanted nothing more than to give him a proper beating so he would remember it well.
But in reality… once Xu Chenghao wrapped his arms around his neck and obediently nestled in his embrace, Jing Yicheng simply couldn’t bring himself to let his raised hand fall.
His heart softened again.
Jing Yicheng massaged his temples in frustration, then suddenly pinched Xu Chenghao’s waist and directly hoisted him up, striding toward the bedroom—if he couldn’t bear to hit him, then he had to find another way to make sure the lesson stuck!
Xu Chenghao: “!!!”
——————
Today was the fourth day of President Xu’s disappearance. Li Nian sat in his office, propping up his head as he stared at his phone, his mind racing to figure out just what was going on.
Ever since the call four days ago reporting the disappearance of the chili peppers, both Xu Chenghao and Jing Yicheng had vanished without a trace. Could it be that Xu Chenghao was hit too hard by the loss and had become heartbroken, and Jing Yicheng was comforting him? Given how much Xu Chenghao valued those chili peppers, it wasn’t entirely out of the question.
But under normal circumstances, after hearing the news, Jing Yicheng—who would definitely want to console Xu Chenghao—should have gone out of his way to find the culprit. So why was there no sign from him either? Could he have actually believed Xu Chenghao’s dazed, burned-out muttering of “I know”? That was impossible—Jing Yicheng was such a shrewd man…
Li Nian couldn’t figure it out no matter how he thought about it. As usual, he sent a message to the assistant to inquire: Has your boss made contact?
The assistant replied: “No. Has President Xu made contact?”
Li Nian replied: “Still nothing.”
The two of them: “……”
Had they gone completely off the grid???
Li Nian finally couldn’t hold back anymore. He exited the chat screen and called Xu Chenghao’s phone. After a long series of dial tones—the call was hung up!
Li Nian: “???”
What the hell was going on?
Unwilling to give up, Li Nian kept calling. On the third try, the other party finally picked up, and before Li Nian could even question anything, a cold voice asked directly: “Do you need something?!”
That impatient tone, that frosty delivery—who else could it be but Jing Yicheng!
Li Nian coughed twice, suppressing all the questions in his throat, pretending to be serious as he said: “I’m just a little concerned about President Xu. The chili incident was a big blow to him. Is he alright now? How’s his mental state?”
Hearing that it was someone checking in on Xu Chenghao, Jing Yicheng finally reined in his anger and said flatly: “He’s fine. As for the chili peppers, don’t worry—we know exactly what happened. That’s it, hanging up now.”
Li Nian: “……”
Li Nian: “???”
Why did it feel like Jing Yicheng had been infected by Xu Chenghao’s idiocy? They didn’t do anything—so how the hell did they know what happened?!
As Li Nian roared in frustration in his office, on the other side, Jing Yicheng had already tossed the phone aside and was once again leaning down to press kiss marks onto the shoulder of the person in his arms, forcing him to answer: “Have you learned your lesson yet?”
The person in his arms whimpered and burrowed deeper into him, hoarsely and pitifully responding: “I’ve learned, I’ve learned.”
Jing Yicheng hugged him tighter, biting his ear as he said: “If you dare not cherish your life again, I’ll make sure you experience what it feels like to be fucked until you cry.”
“……”
Xu Chenghao was truly afraid of him now. He had no idea where Jing Yicheng found the time and energy to come up with all these useless tricks. The past few days of being flipped over and over again had nearly cost him half his life. Not only had it etched an indelible black mark into his memory, it left him both cowardly and humiliated!
But this was exactly the effect Jing Yicheng wanted—after all, this was the only kind of thing he could bear to see him cry over.
On the fifth day, Xu Chenghao was finally released from the house and allowed to breathe some fresh air. He was wearing a white dress shirt, the collar of which could no longer cover the kiss marks. If one looked closely, they would notice that not only were there marks behind his ears and on the back of his neck, even his wrists and ankles had not been spared—as if he had rolled through a bed of roses, with his entire body covered in the traces of petals.
However, with the menace that was Jing Yicheng standing beside him, no one dared look too closely at Xu Chenghao. As a result, the overflowing dog food* all fell onto Li Nian, nearly making him snap on the spot—if not for the ocean-view house! He wouldn’t have almost snapped; he really would have snapped! Hmph!
Speaking of which, even Xu Chenghao had already loosened up, yet Jing Yicheng still hadn’t made a move… Was he really not planning to propose?
Li Nian quietly studied Jing Yicheng, only to meet his gaze head-on. Startled, he quickly looked away and settled down obediently.
A few seconds later, his phone vibrated with a new message—it was from Jing Yicheng.
Jing Yicheng: “I’m proposing this afternoon. Go help the assistant set up the scene.”
Li Nian: “…Alright.”
Silently, Li Nian left the office. Xu Chenghao didn’t notice their exchange and remained curled up in the office chair, acting spoiled: “Cheng-ge, my waist hurts.”
Without hesitation, Jing Yicheng immediately stepped forward: “You rest. I’ll take care of things.”
Xu Chenghao was very pleased, relocating to the couch to lie down and rest. In high spirits, he held up his tablet to browse web articles, and before long, he unexpectedly came across the male lead’s name in an entertainment news piece—the Ruan family had recently made a comeback. After Ruan Chenxuan replaced Han Haofeng’s position, he quickly stabilized the situation and delivered a heavy blow to his opponents. Although he couldn’t surpass the Xu Group, he had regained his status as the second-ranking group in the industry.
Xu Chenghao clicked his tongue in amazement at the comments online. After finishing the male lead Ruan Chenxuan’s embarrassing news, he felt he needed to notify the PR department to make sure Ruan Chenxuan showed up less on entertainment gossip pages in the future.
But what he never expected was—that very evening, he himself would be sent to the top of the headlines by Jing Yicheng!
Thank You for the new chapter ( ˘ ³˘)♥