Chapter 41: Confession Game

Luo Shang began reciting the lines from the script the System had provided.

The gist of it was that he didn’t believe he was the Su family’s biological son and thus unworthy of Shen Changqing. Better to let Su Mingyao take his place. Though Su Mingyao hadn’t received any formal training in managing family businesses growing up, he struck Luo Shang as clever and quick to learn—he’d surely master it in no time, with no trouble at all. Shen Changqing and Su Mingyao were simply made for each other, a perfect match…

Old Master Shen might have been getting on in years, but he wasn’t senile by any means. Luo Shang’s words made his intentions crystal clear.

The boy clearly didn’t want to call off the engagement and had come to badmouth himself instead. Su Shang’s paltry life experience from the original work was no match for Old Master Shen’s worldly wisdom.

Still, it spoke to how much his grandson mattered to the young man. Shen Changqing was upstairs in the study right now, discussing who-knew-what with Su Bingyao and his brother Su Mingyao—deliberately avoiding the pitiful Luo Shang down here. Old Master Shen could understand why he’d run to him with this spiel.

Barred from the Su family inner circle for not being blood-related, Luo Shang was even more desperate to hold on to his marriage alliance with the Shens.

After all, Shen Changqing was prime stock among B City’s elite young heirs—not just a business prodigy, but squeaky clean in his personal life to boot.

Before Su Mingyao entered the picture, he’d never been linked to so much as a single starlet. Su Shang, on the other hand, had tangled with some A-list influencer in the tabloids, but Shen Changqing? Spotless.

Even with his engagement set from way back, plenty of people batted their eyes at him, dropping hints like “let’s have some fun together.” Men, women—he turned them all down flat, so chaste it had folks wondering if something was wrong with him down there.

Luo Shang, of course, never bought that for a second. He knew better: as the protagonist gong, Shen Changqing’s prowess in bed was beyond question. No real gong could lack the goods—that was just how it worked. His monkish restraint was only because he hadn’t met the right one yet, not because he was broken.

And sure enough, later in the plot, the moment Su Mingyao showed up, the sparks flew. They tumbled right into bed, debunking the rumors with a vengeance.

Others didn’t know the truth, though. Jealous rivals snickered about it behind his back, planting seeds of doubt in Su Mingyao’s mind for ages. Shen Changqing eventually set things straight the hands-on way, and their gong-shou chemistry—with all its delicious contrasts—served up a massive dose of sweetness.

None of that sugar for vicious side character Luo Shang, though. He saw his role clear as day: the shield propping up Su Mingyao’s path all these years. Shackled by the engagement, Shen Changqing had stayed off-limits to the horde of suitors. In the end, that engagement landed on Su Mingyao anyway, so Luo Shang’s job was just to fend them off until the Child of Destiny arrived.

Luo Shang didn’t envy the protagonist shou one bit, either. The protagonist gong’s skills? Meh, nothing special. He and his partner Ke Yanjin were both non-humans by now—plain human thrills barely registered anymore.

Ke Yanjin worked overtime at it, dead set on keeping Luo Shang happy. The guy had real study spirit, shelling out Spirit Energy Points for secret techniques from every race under the Myriad Worlds and even consulting the realm’s top masters… Luo Shang was plenty satisfied. He just wished the frequency would dial back a notch.

Old Master Shen mulled it over: with a catch like Shen Changqing, how could Su Shang possibly stay unmoved? Rushing over like this—it had to be all about his grandson.

In truth, Luo Shang’s mental tally had already flung the old man’s grandson clean out to the farthest reaches of the sky.

[Alas, no can do. Can’t let my head fill up with romance as a player. Gotta stop thinking about Ke Yanjin. Focus on my career instead—get serious, pull out some real acting chops.]

[Keep this up all stiff and wooden, and he’s gonna catch on.]

Luo Shang’s lines were pitch-perfect sophisticated stuff, naturally—they were premium green tea dialogue, penned by the original Su Shang after boning up on the source material. But his delivery? Bone-dry. Zero emotion. It left Old Master Shen baffled.

Say you like my grandson? Your vibe says otherwise. Say you don’t? Then why show up at our house acting this way, spouting all this like you’re head over heels?

So what was his deal with Shen Changqing, really?

Old Master Shen couldn’t hear Luo Shang’s inner voice. But the three upstairs on the third floor could.

Hearing Luo Shang pine for his partner Ke Yanjin settled Su Bingyao right down, eased Su Mingyao’s mind, and left Shen Changqing convinced he’d truly grown into “Changqing.”

Right on cue, the System chimed in.

[Don’t underestimate the power of romance. It’s a perfectly valid path. In Greek mythology, Apollo offended the god of love, Cupid, who struck back by hijacking his heart. Apollo fell madly for Daphne but could never win her, left in utter agony to teach him a lesson.]

[Um, but if Cupid were strong enough on his own, wouldn’t it be great if he just punched Apollo’s teeth right out? It’s just that he himself lacks the combat power for it.] Luo Shang shifted his attention elsewhere.

System: [I’m just giving an example. Cupid’s divine duty is love, not fighting. Don’t drag your combat mindset into this.]

System: [Though it’s not easy for you to have gotten this far with Ke Yanjin. I’ve heard the rumors from when you first entered the Reincarnation Space—how you thought no man in the world was any good and swore off emotions and romance entirely. Who would’ve thought you’d end up falling in love.]

Luo Shang: [How do you know so much? Did your predecessor leave you some files on me or something?]

System: [I just wanted to learn a bit more about my future master, so I picked up some rumors beforehand. No need to worry—your predecessor lost all its memories, poor thing, and didn’t leave me anything.]

[I did swear off emotions for a while. I even cultivated the Emotionless Path back then,] Luo Shang said.

[Before finding a Path that truly suits you, doesn’t everyone experiment like that? Picking up a little here, a little there, until something clicks. Early Players had abysmal survival rates, so the more you learned, the better your odds.]

[Besides, Ke Yanjin isn’t a man,] Luo Shang emphasized.

System: [Mm, got it. He’s a male fish.]

[Exactly, a male fish,] Luo Shang said. [So I haven’t changed at all. When it comes to men, I absolutely mean it—no emotions, no lies.]

Su Bingyao and Su Mingyao turned to look at Shen Changqing again.

Shen Changqing—defeated by a male fish! The thought made Su Bingyao want to burst out laughing.

A male… fish? Su Mingyao pictured the scene. A merman, probably…? He wasn’t quite sure.

Shen Changqing let out a cold snort.

Luo Shang could date whoever he wanted, so long as he stopped harassing him.

Still, Shen Changqing had to admit some curiosity. Just what kind of male fish could it be? To tame a walking disaster like Luo Shang, it had to be an even greater menace.

The System seemed utterly choked by the sheer shamelessness in Luo Shang’s words and fell silent for a long moment.

His conversation with Old Master Shen had played out like a textbook rendition of the script. Luo Shang had infused his demeanor with all the investment Su Shang showed in the original work, and Old Master Shen had responded just as he did there. That made everything to come straightforward—Luo Shang simply needed to hit his cues with the lines. No heavy thinking required.

The System could even prompt him on timing, so yeah, this was basically a vacation, he mused.

The one problem? No Ke Yanjin.

Luo Shang thought back carefully and realized that ever since they became partners, they’d spent every single vacation together.

Once they turned lovers, those breaks had mostly been about experimenting with new… positions…

[We started out as partners. We both harbored grudges against our Native Worlds, which was how we connected. That was our first meeting. During one mission, I cursed out my Native World. He glanced over, then joined in. We clicked perfectly on that job, so we agreed to team up again next time,] Luo Shang said.

System: [Hold on, I’m really not that interested in your love story…]

But we are! Su Bingyao, Su Mingyao, and even Shen Changqing all perked up their ears, listening in stealthily to hear how it all went down.

Luo Shang ignored the System entirely and kept going—he’d say what he wanted to say.

[From short-term partners, we became long-term ones. Then lovers.]

[Truth is, the more time we spent together, the more I sensed something off between us. I couldn’t picture him spending years with anyone but me. The mere thought irritated me. At the same time, I didn’t mind it—in fact, I started looking forward to getting physical with him.]

That was when Luo Shang knew: he had fallen for Ke Yanjin.

For him, the line between brotherhood and romance came down to one thing—wanting to sleep with the other person. If you did, it was love.

Once he’d sorted out his own feelings, the question became Ke Yanjin’s.

They’d been the best of partners and brothers for so long. Did he feel the same spark of romance?

Luo Shang agonized over it.

If he never said a word, they could keep this closeness forever. Not quite lovers, but with no one else as near, it satisfied him just fine.

Yet it carried a risk: someday, Ke Yanjin might fall for someone else and shatter it all.

But if he confessed outright—would Ke Yanjin even accept him?

Would he find me disgusting and start pulling away from me? Would we never be able to stay as close as we were now?

Back when it happened, Luo Shang had agonized over it endlessly. He had never been bold when it came to matters of the heart. After experiencing heartbreak from reading the original plot, he had even dabbled in the Emotionless Path for a time, only abandoning it later when he switched to a different path.

To confess? Or not to confess?

Whenever Luo Shang tried to probe Ke Yanjin’s thoughts on partners, the man always dodged the question—or worse, he would flatly state that he hadn’t given it any thought and that they would remain good friends forever.

Yes, good friends!

Luo Shang felt like his teeth might shatter from how hard he was gritting them.

No matter how he asked what the other man thought of him, the answer was always “best friends.” How was he supposed to work up the nerve to confess like that?

He was terrified that it wouldn’t end in a confession at all—it would just be goodbye.