Chapter 80

[But that won’t feel good.]

[Seems like he has pretty good service awareness, huh?]

996 sprawled across the table, its beady eyes fixed on the purple-packaged aroma candle as it sniffed at it.

Its data bars were all running hot.

Qi Jing sat in the chair with a frown, a flush spreading across his ears.

“I-I don’t know…”

His thoughts afterward came in fragmented bursts.

He only knew he’d be carried off for a bath.

“Then what do we do?”

996 sat up straight, its body bouncy and jelly-like. Its beady eyes drooped for a moment before it pointed at the box.

[I have a way.]

Qi Jing peeled open a jelly for it. The system had no hands—it didn’t need to keep manifesting physically, after all.

So it hadn’t developed human-like hands.

They were like those lazy-drawn arcs in cartoons, only able to pinch at things.

Tearing open plastic-sealed food was still tricky, though.

996: [Ah—]

Qi Jing frowned and took a small bite for it.

[Wait, doesn’t Mr. Gu let you eat?]

[Just taste it. Don’t swallow.]

The slime gulped it down immediately, right before Qi Jing grabbed its hind legs and shook it.

Even with its beady eyes spinning from dizziness, it didn’t spit it back up.

[Mission’s done. Little Jing, it’s fine if I crash.]

[…]

Qi Jing felt a complicated mix of emotions. [Aren’t you afraid of getting scrapped?]

996 paused.

[But I’m not taking missions anymore.]

Silence settled over the room.

Did that mean it was already scrapped?

“Alright, tell me. What do we do?”

996 perched primly on the tabletop and began its earnest lecture:

[Threshold too high—which includes a lot of aspects, like pain threshold and sexual threshold. Here… let’s start with the latter.]

Qi Jing had initially thought it was just addiction.

It turned out to be something else.

[Sexual threshold too high. It can be innate or acquired.]

Qi Jing asked out of curiosity:

[What’s acquired mean?]

996 thought it over:

[It’s when people chase ever-stronger thrills, trying out increasingly extreme behaviors, until normal methods can’t satisfy them at all anymore.]

Qi Jing’s face paled.

He pursed his lips.

His gaze drifted away.

He’d thought the events from earlier that day had been shocking enough, but this made him feel even more disoriented.

“A-ants?”

[Ah? Did I pull that info straight from your mind?]

[You can’t listen to this! You can’t!]

Qi Jing merely pursed his lips again. [I’m an adult. It’s fine.]

[This is so weird…]

School was an ivory tower, after all.

From elementary to middle school, high school, university…

Social circles kept expanding.

University got closest to real society.

It was also when worldviews got completely reshaped.

[Doesn’t matter anyway. For a protagonist top like him, it’s innate.]

[And innate cases have their own solutions.]

996 looked utterly composed.

~~~

Bo Chengyan made a call from the study.

It was to the sanatorium.

“Miss Shen’s emotions are stable now, though she has some eating issues. Also…”

“I’m not calling to hear that.”

The person on the line hesitated.

Perhaps they hadn’t expected such cold indifference.

People feared death, but once it tangled with “love,” they began to romanticize it—even if it was one-sided.

“President Bo, then…”

“She can’t die just yet.”

“Follow my father’s protocols.”

He hung up.

Bo Chengyan glanced down at his wristwatch, rose, and pulled a medicine bottle from the drawer. He examined it.

As he twisted off the cap,

Lin Se called—as if he had no sense of time.

It was already evening.

“Bo, I sent over the new drug. Give it a try later.”

“Oh, right—I heard your… that little stepmom tried to off herself?”

“Don’t let the kid find out—”

Bo Chengyan frowned and replied offhandedly, “He can know, of course.”

Lin Se paused. In his hotel room, he was flipping through a book by Freud, which discussed Oedipal dynamics.

It wasn’t exactly the same situation.

But he wanted some reference material.

This guy meddled far too much.

“Ah, but won’t that hurt your image—”

Bo Chengyan merely lifted an eyelid faintly. “Lin Se, I don’t understand.”

“I have no time or energy to concern myself with others.”

“She’s free now. Whether she kills herself has nothing to do with me.”

His tone remained even throughout.

But it was utterly frigid.

Lin Se froze for a moment before remembering the sort of man he was dealing with.

Only in front of Qi Jing…

Did he put on such a good act.

The young man frowned.

He’d wanted to probe further, but the sound of the medicine bottle made him freeze.

Was he using it?

“Th-that one—I did say ‘multiple small doses,’ but you, you still…”

“Is that the drug? Hold it under your tongue for a bit.”

Bo Chengyan replied expressionlessly, “Anything else?”

“…”

He hung up.

The study’s decor was classically elegant, yet it carried an undercurrent of stifling repression.

It had always been that way in his childhood.

He would overhear flirtatious banter from the study—crude words, spoken without shame.

The old estate never saw outsiders.

But those phone calls were more repulsive than any physical affair.

His mother loathed his father, and that loathing extended to him.

Bo Zhonglin… drowning in lust and vice.

He hated it down to his bones.

The long-term mental strain had naturally taken its toll.

Bo Chengyan leaned against the desk as the pill dissolved slowly under his tongue, releasing a chemical bitterness.

His slender fingers slid open the drawer, revealing a stack of photos.

The moment they entered Macau territory, the snapshots would start.

No blocking them all.

Some even captured clear shots of his face.

Qi Jing’s eyes were limpid and purely black, carrying a sense of detachment in the sunlight.

Like… fine porcelain.

Bo Chengyan drained the water from his cup and checked his wristwatch.

He waited a few minutes.

Otherwise, the bitterness would linger.

Perhaps it was the persistence of some inferior genetic legacy.

Bo Chengyan gazed down at the drug box, its labels crammed with foreign phrasing for adult concerns.

“Sex addiction…”

His expression turned profoundly cold.

Like father, like son.

A curse.

~~~

Qi Jing’s ears burned red in the bedroom. Even after washing up in the bathroom, he still asked the 996 on the table with some worry.

“You sure this’ll work?”

The blue jelly was nuzzling into the aroma candle—which had gone out—coating itself until it smelled nice and fragrant.

It just felt a little off.

It had tasted grape before. Was this it?

[Of course. Across the vast worlds, characters deal with all sorts of conditions—skin hunger syndrome, sleeping beauty syndrome… tons of them.]

[They all have ‘cures.’]

Qi Jing pursed his lips and climbed into bed, glancing at the door.

[He’s busy in the study.]

The slime focused diligently on scenting itself, working away industriously.

[No problem. He’ll be here soon.]

The young man remained a bit tense.

[This is called con—]

996 was just about to hold forth when the door opened.

It vanished instantly.

But woozy from the fumes, it knocked over the aroma candle on the table as it went.

Qi Jing, clad only in a bath towel, panicked for a moment and didn’t know where to look. He started to bend down for the shattered aroma candle on the floor.

But Bo Chengyan was already walking over.

“I saw the maids using these to scent things. There’s a whole box in the corner.”

The youth grabbed the man’s arm and stretched his slender neck to gaze up at him.

“Does it smell good?”

Qi Jing was just making small talk, but he wanted to seduce him a little.

To test it out.

If the other kept holding back… wouldn’t that mean he was the one being serviced?

Not ideal.

“It’s grape flavor,” the youth added.

Bo Chengyan moved then, setting the item on the table. Under the dim yellow glow of the bedside lamp, traces of the aroma lingered.

Purple label, a string of English.

Qi Jing tilted his head back and clutched at the buttons of the other’s shirt.

“Can’t… quite reach you.”

It was as blatant an invitation as could be.

Qi Jing felt his wrist being stroked upward, then shadows fell over him and hot breath drew near.

So familiar, and yet.

He looped his arms around Bo Chengyan’s shoulders. His waist was lifted and drawn inward, right to the center of the bed.

“Mm…”

Only the bedside lamp illuminated the master bedroom.

Dim and yellow, with a hazy, intimate atmosphere.

Shadows flickering indistinctly.

They had to practice every day.

To get better faster.

Qi Jing floated in a daze, the back of his neck and his elbows slick with sweat as he clung to the other man.

It didn’t hurt.

It was just…

His waist was lifted, and he was scooped up.

As if to make sure he could breathe freely.

Forty minutes…

Around that?

Qi Jing was too embarrassed to say it directly at first, so he settled for a simple phrase.

—O-One more time.

It was only when even his fingers lacked the strength to pull free that

he finally couldn’t hold back the tears.

His soft sobs sounded utterly pitiful.

“Baby.”

Qi Jing felt gentle fingers brushing his damp forehead hair; the corners of his eyes were bright red.

All he could manage were intermittent hums.

Like notes from some delicate instrument,

rising and falling with the varying intensity.

Qi Jing was almost frightened by the end. He simply clung to the other man, trembling as he was brought to his peak. In that moment, he remembered what he needed to do.

“Papa.”

His voice carried a tone of utter dependence.

~~~

A few hours earlier.

【Little Jing, this is a mission world. The protagonist top’s afflictions are usually resolved by the ending.】

996 spoke with the wisdom of experience, then cradled the plastic shell of a jelly cup and gave it a lick. It had only opened one.

【His threshold is too high… and when it comes to that side of things, it’s obvious he carries a psychological burden without enough “reward.”】

【Perhaps a lack of security?】

996 pondered for a moment. Truth be told, it didn’t fully understand, but it explained earnestly:

【Qingshi asked me to tell you that your partner’s possessiveness stems from not receiving enough emotional feedback in return—or at least, not in proportion to what he gives.】

Qi Jing lowered his gaze and fidgeted with his fingers. It did seem that way.

It was always like this.

Bo Chengyan served him so thoroughly.

Even when Qi Jing offered to help in return, the man wouldn’t allow it.

【This psychological burden might be tied to his family background.】

【You could start by trying something from the bedroom.】

Qi Jing’s cheeks flushed red.

He reached out and pinched the slime in front of him.

Its texture was like jelly—soft and not sticky to the touch.

Sometimes firm, sometimes completely floppy.

【Why are you talking about it so dirtily?】

996 blinked its beady eyes in confusion.

【You’ve grown up now.】

【I don’t have a specific age, but I’m definitely older than you.】

【Qingshi educated me on it.】

【I bear permanent responsibility for supervising you.】

996 stretched lazily in the young man’s hand, quite seriously.

Sex education was very important, after all.

Qi Jing couldn’t help but be touched. He pursed his lips, a little embarrassed.

【But I still can’t let you eat too much jelly.】

It had picked up a bit of that Chinese restraint.

【Then what words should I use?】

996 thought it over, its beady eyes rippling with a scanning pattern as it replied gravely:

【His psychological pressure… mainly comes from family factors. He hasn’t formed any successful intimate relationships… until he was on the edge.】

【Until he met you.】

996 snapped back to attention, having analyzed it fully.

【The best choice is to use terms from traditional family relationships.】

【It will be easier to break through his mental barriers.】

Qi Jing paused for a moment.

【In short.】

【**】

The next day—

Qi Jing rarely woke up in the morning. Bo Chengyan held him as he dressed, one of Qi Jing’s hands resting on the man’s shoulder while the other rubbed at his eyes.

“Home.”

His voice was hoarse and muffled.

They were due to head back today.

This was the first time the two of them had risen at roughly the same hour, and Qi Jing found it quite nice.

It didn’t interfere with the next day at all.

By his calculations, they could still get five or six hours of sleep.

It was exactly nine in the morning now.

But right then—

“Who did you learn that from?”

Qi Jing sat perched on Bo Chengyan’s forearm. He froze for a second, but his eyes remained clear and calm.

He thought it over.

“You don’t like it?”

Bo Chengyan’s movements paused.

“No.”

Life was short.

Being insincere would only waste their precious time together.

Their flight was in the afternoon.

They still had plenty of time.

Bo Chengyan lifted Qi Jing onto the nearby desk. It hadn’t been there originally—he’d had it delivered in case Qi Jing wanted to take an online class. The color scheme matched perfectly, giving it an air of quiet elegance.

The desk surface was still too hard, so Qi Jing ended up sitting directly on Bo Chengyan’s hand. He propped himself up with one hand on the man’s shoulder.

His gaze drifted to the shattered diffuser from yesterday.

“It’s ruined.”

Qi Jing picked up the glass bottle and pulled off the looped paper label. It was all in a foreign language.

“Isn’t this grape…”

His voice trailed off slowly.

The English skills he’d picked up in the International Department let him make out some basic phrases.

[Ylang Ylang]

[enhance romance and intimacy]

[relieve stress and promote love]