WCHM Chapter 5

The car was quiet, with only the air conditioner humming faintly in the background.

 

In Lu Chi’s mind, the system was shrieking in horror: [H-he-he-he-he!! He actually… What a pervert!!]

 

Dude, it was just a leg touch!

 

And yet… The guy got a full-on, raging boner!

 

Lu Chi stayed silent for a few seconds. Yeah… He also hadn’t expected Liang Jiashu to be so “youthfully vigorous.” Judging from his graveyard face, he had genuinely thought he’d run into some twenty-year-old priests, so Lu Chi hadn’t thought much about stepping on him, just a little payback for the stalking and intimidation.

 

But apparently, he wasn’t a monk at all. In fact, he was just playing dead!

 

The system continued to sob indignantly: [Baby! Slap him! Just like you slapped Liang Zhiyu! Perverts need to be slapped!]

 

Slap him?!

 

Lu Chi didn’t move. His long lashes stayed perfectly still, giving him the appearance of a Sim frozen mid-animation by a bug. He was afraid the guy might actually…

 

Enjoy it!

 

The system also went quiet for a second and its data stream paused. Then, as if miraculously, it came back online with some actual brainpower, stuttering: [Host… Baby… Don’t tell me… You don’t know how to get out of this?!]

 

Lu Chi: [Yup.]

 

System: […]

 

There was no helping it. Back in his acting days, Movie Emperor Lu only ever encountered perverts while surrounded by bodyguards or inside a police station. His team was also fiercely protective, never letting him face danger alone. So, never, not even in his wildest nightmares, did he think someone would spring a boner after barely meeting him!

 

How was that even polite?!

 

Still, he held his ground, and his face didn’t change at all. Lu Chi’s expression remained calm as his upturned, seductive eyes fixed on Liang Jiashu with a provocative smile, asking: “Liang Jiashu, looks like I’ve got you hooked too, huh?”

 

Their gazes locked.

 

Liang Jiashu heard the light, sticky tone in his voice, an almost smug, purring tail-end of a sentence, just like a cat’s tail brushing past with practiced pride, leaving behind a faint, teasing itch. However, his pupils remained pitch black and his mouth stayed closed.

 

Even with Lu Chi pinning his nape, he still showed no sign of panic. In fact, it was only at the moment of… Well… Physical reaction had his face go blank for a second.

 

But it was only for one second.

 

Then, suddenly, Liang Jiashu reached out, grabbing Lu Chi’s pale, porcelain ankle and yanking it into his lap in one swift motion.

 

Caught completely off guard, Lu Chi lost his balance and toppled forward like a falling domino, straight into the man’s arms. His nose smacked into the curve of Liang Jiashu’s shoulder, where he was instantly overwhelmed by the suffocating smell of chemical disinfectant.

 

He sneezed twice from the stench, then coughed and glared up in shock.

 

When he noticed just how enthusiastic the other man had become, his voice came out incredulous, asking: “…You’ve got issues, don’t you?!”

 

Is this what turns you on?!

 

Liang Jiashu looked straight at him. Now that Lu Chi had finally dropped the calm and collected act, he finally spoke, voice level: “You started it.”

 

Whether it was at FOM or on the street, it was Lu Chi who had deliberately drawn his attention first… A butterfly fluttering around a graveyard, dancing just out of reach…

 

Was it his fault for wanting to catch it the moment he saw it?

 

Liang Jiashu had never seen someone so vividly alive.

 

Lu Chi laughed in disbelief, just about ready to accuse him of having a delusional mental illness: “Everyone in the room was looking at me! Just who the hell are you?! I get hit on in public bathrooms… You’d have to take a number just to get in line!”

 

It was his first time getting pulled into someone’s arms, and also his first time having his ankle grabbed like that.

 

They were way too close. Liang Jiashu’s palm felt burning hot against his skin, like a water ghost trying to cling tight and drag him under. Yet that face remained unreadably calm and unshakable to the end.

 

The A/C was still blowing, chilling the air in the car, but the sharp edge in the atmosphere had dissipated.

 

And what remained in its stead… It was a strange, subtle, and ambiguous quiet.

 

Lu Chi felt completely uncomfortable, and his tone cooled to match his mood as he shoved Liang Jiashu away. “Unlock the door,” he said. “I’m going home to sleep.”

 

He was too tired to keep playing with a bratty twenty-year-old!

 

But Liang Jiashu just stared at him, his large hand refusing to let go. As his gaze fell on the faint fuzz along Lu Chi’s jawline, he asked flatly: “How do I get a number? I want to get in line.”

 

Lu Chi: “?!”

 

Yep. Confirmed.

 

The male lead was insane!

 

Lu Chi didn’t answer. Instead, he just kept yanking his leg free with increasing force. He was a grown man, after all. One hard kick later, he shook off Liang Jiashu’s grip, scrambled to the far end of the backseat like he was avoiding a demon, and looked out the window…

 

Only to realize the scenery was starting to look familiar.

 

Two more turns later, the black Maybach smoothly rolled to a stop in front of a very familiar apartment complex.

 

His very familiar apartment complex.

 

Click. The door locks released.

 

Lu Chi raised a brow but didn’t turn around. He didn’t wait for the driver to come around either, opening the door and hopping out on his own.

 

The summer night air rushed into his face, hot and sticky.

 

The driver trotted over and explained with a respectful smile: “Actually, the Young Master just wanted to take a longer route, stall for time a bit. He wasn’t really trying to abduct Mr. Lu.”

 

It was just to scare you a little, nee~

 

But no one had expected Lu Chi to be so fearless, stepping on people as if it were nothing!

 

The car window rolled down and Lu Chi turned his head lazily, meeting Liang Jiashu’s eyes inside. Still the same pitch-black pair, silently staring, not looking away even after being caught. His previously crisp collar was now wrinkled all over, like it had been crumpled by a mischievous little demon…

 

…And he was still very visibly hard.

 

Lu Chi was done. Done with him, done with his life, done with this entire world! In the end, he simply whipped his head away, acting like his eyes had been personally violated.

 

Liang Jiashu, however, remained perfectly composed. His eyes didn’t move, his gaze unreadable as he said coolly: “Give me a number.”

 

Lu Chi: “…”

 

No longer in the mood to deal with that lunatic, Lu Chi hugged his depressing frog-head bag, turned on his heel, and walked away with not even a drop of sentimentality.

 

And Liang Jiashu also didn’t follow after him.

 

In the data stream, the system was a scrambled mess, completely unable to understand why the male lead was acting that way. Completely defeated, it mumbled: [OOC… Total OOC… What even is that pervert’s logic?!] Then it added, using a serious tone for the first time since it was launched: [Host… This world isn’t going the way I expected.]

 

Lu Chi gave a vague hum. Honestly, he felt the same.

 

The system asked again: [Why do Gong No.1 and Gong No.2 both seem off… And now even the Shou is weird?!]

 

However, Lu Chi was too tired to think, yawning and brushing off the system with a sleepy mumble: [I dunno. Maybe they’re depressed. Maybe they’re angry. Maybe life just sucks for them.]

 

The system went blank again, lost in thought.

 

Lu Chi yawned again and made his way up to his apartment building. He beeped in with his card, the elevator dinged, and the doors opened.

 

The weather was hot. His place was a small two-bedroom, one living room unit, and the second the door opened, a wave of heat whooshed out. Lu Chi quickly slipped off his shoes, turned on the air conditioner, and headed straight for the shower.

 

His dusty pink hair was soft and frizzy and, after blow-drying it, the natural waves fell into his eyes, making him look like some sort of haunted Victorian doll in a store window. But Lu Chi was too exhausted to bother styling it.

 

After all, so much had happened that day and he was completely and utterly worn out. Sluggishly changing into pajamas, he reached out and turned off the main lights, leaving only a soft nightlight glowing in the corner. Its warm amber hue gently washed over the room.

 

Satisfied, Lu Chi flopped onto the bed, but his mind still wandered briefly back to Liang Jiashu’s strange behavior.

 

It wasn’t just out-of-character.

 

If he had to be sincere, it felt like… A test.

 

Frowning slightly, Lu Chi asked the system: [Are you sure my identity in this world checks out?]

 

The system promised with all the conviction in the world: [Host, your identity is 100% clean! Absolutely, absolutely, absolutely no issues at all!]

 

Lu Chi still felt like something was off, but his brain was too tired to dig deeper. He nodded, curled up in his blanket like a sleepy puppy, and drifted off within seconds.

 

The nightlight bathed the lean young man in soft, golden light and the system went quiet. Afraid he’d catch a cold, it quietly nudged the A/C temperature just a little higher.

 

…………….

 

The crescent moon hung like a hook in the sky.

 

Liang Jiashu looked up, expressionless, his eyes fixed on the warm yellow glow of a certain floor-to-ceiling window. Ever since Lu Chi had left, his driver and assistant had both gone silent, and the car had regained its usual, graveyard-like silence.

 

But Liang Jiashu could still feel the temperature and shape of Lu Chi’s ankle in his palm, slender, sharp, and warm. And there was still a lingering scent at the tip of his nose, subtle, like the delicate scent of shampoo.

 

It wasn’t clear how long he sat there, but eventually, Liang Jiashu gave the order to leave.

 

The black Maybach started up and soon disappeared around the corner. Half an hour later, it pulled into the Shuiyun Garden complex and parked beneath a single-occupant apartment tower.

 

It was one of Liang Jiashu’s properties, very close to A University. He had combined the 22nd and 23rd floors into one large unit and when he wasn’t in the lab, it was here he hid from the world.

 

Walking upstairs with Lu Chi’s file in hand, Liang Jiashu showered, changed, and went to bed, completely silent the entire time and…

 

…Just as quiet as a ghost.

 

Early the next morning, a Liang family assistant came knocking. As he entered, he caught a glimpse of the folder on the coffee table, recognizing the subject at a glance.

 

“Young Master,” he asked cautiously. “Should we continue investigating Mr. Lu?”

 

Liang Jiashu was seated on the couch, staring down at something in his palm. At a closer glance, it was actually… A strand of pastel-pink hair. His expression was still unreadable.

 

His personality was moody and strange, but those who worked with him were already used to reading his emotions. Generally, Liang Jiashu’s silence usually meant “yes”.

 

The assistant took the hint and carefully gathered the documents, then pulled out the second folder, the one for Gu Yanyan.

 

Last month, Mrs. Liang had accidentally discovered that someone was targeting her nephew, tracking every single one of Liang Zhiyu’s movements. She didn’t have time for that kind of trivial nonsense, so she tossed the task to her son, claiming it was “for his training.”

 

Despite being in his third year of grad school, Liang Jiashu still spent every day buried in biochemical reagents like some mad scientist on the verge of inventing the atomic bomb. Rumor had it he’d blown up lab equipment more than once and if it wasn’t for the Liang Group donating to A university every year, the board of directors would’ve stepped in by now and expelled him a long time ago.

 

Finally done with her son’s peculiarities, Mrs. Liang hadn’t said much. As an educated woman from a powerful family, she was a person of action rather than emotion. In the end, she dealt with him in a simple and swift manner, having his lab locked down last night.

 

Liang Jiashu had taken her call right after waking up. His mother had just finished a meeting, skimming documents while casually telling him: “Go out! Interact with people! Smell the grass and get some fresh air! I’m afraid one day you’ll have a psychotic break and start poisoning people!”

 

Her son hung up without changing clothes and went straight to FOM, his plan simple: drag that idiot Liang Zhiyu home and keep him out of trouble.

 

If the brat kept screwing around, he wouldn’t hesitate to break one of his hands or feet. That’d teach him to behave.

 

But what he hadn’t expected… Was a pink butterfly.

 

One with thorns.

 

Lu Chi had appeared too suddenly and too brightly, catching everyone off guard. Liang Jiashu immediately ordered his people to investigate at top speed, but still couldn’t stop himself from following.

 

The Liang family’s intelligence network moved quickly, already confirming that Gu Yanyan was the Lin family’s man, clearly having an agenda of his own. However, Lu Chi’s file was truly strange. He was born, orphaned, studied, and worked… Other than getting saddled with some random gambling debt, his life was clean, as clean as if it had been printed from a template.

 

Too clean even.

 

And that was the real problem.

 

Liang Jiashu stared at the frizzy strand of pink hair. After a moment, he got up, sealed it in a sterile test bag, then sat back down and resumed staring at it, lost in thought.

 

His poor assistant looked away, doing his best to suppress the words “deranged, creepy, damned pervert!“ from flashing through his mind.

 

Sunlight poured through the windows.

 

Eventually, Liang Jiashu turned his head and said flatly: “Tell the manager of FOM to come. Now.”

 

……………..

 

It was a warm morning at the tail end of August.

 

Around 9 a.m., Gu Yanyan finally returned to his uncle’s rental place after a full night shift.

 

The sky was bright and blue. His house was located in one of A City’s inner districts, down a narrow alley. However, the area was chaotic, hiding a mix of all kinds of people, many less-than-legitimate.

 

Most of the neighboring houses had their doors shut. The dirty windows glowed faintly with pink-purple light as muffled, sticky sounds leaked out, making anyone who heard them blush.

 

Gu Yanyan kept his eyes straight ahead, walking past several broken street lamps. He opened the gate, only to see his uncle, Gu Jie, shamelessly crouching at the corner and eavesdropping on his neighbour’s “work”, his yellow-stained teeth on full display in a greasy grin.

 

Gu Yanyan paused, frowned, and closed the gate behind him. When he turned back around, Gu Jie had already rushed over, eager to ask: “Well? How’d it go?”

 

Gu Yanyan pulled a still-lit recording pen from his pants pocket and shook his head, saying: “Liang Zhiyu was in a good mood last night. I didn’t get a chance to get close.”

 

Gu Jie’s face turned stormy. He stared at Gu Yanyan suspiciously, his eyes sharp and cruel as he raged: “The Lin family said Liang Zhiyu’s been in a foul mood lately! All it takes is a little provocation and he starts hitting people! Why would he be in a good mood?!”

 

He then grabbed Gu Yanyan by the collar and shook him hard, continuing to scream in his face: “You were scared, weren’t you?! Didn’t even dare try!”

 

The younger man’s thin body lurched forward, nausea rising in his throat. Swallowing his bile, he tried to explain calmly: “I’m serious. There was someone else at the club last night… Someone really beautiful. Just looking at him made people feel good.”

 

And he also smiled at me.

 

Gu Yanyan remembered that dazzling, glittery smile, and after a moment, added softly: “Liang Zhiyu was too busy talking to him… So he didn’t pay any attention to me.”

 

T.N: Sweet baby Jesus, I’m having so much fun translating this novel 🤣

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