WCHM Chapter 41

Lu Chi opened the video and saw that it was an English song. The girl wore a body-hugging skirt and danced in front; the boy stood behind her in a suit, completely motionless like a stupid block of wood, only responsible for reaching out to hold his girlfriend’s waist.

The comments were all: [Another day of feeling happy, bro!]

Just as Lu Chi finished watching, Liang Jiashu’s call came through. He connected via Bluetooth and heard the familiar voice on the other end.

“Lu Chi, what do you think?”

“Think what?” Lu Chi played dumb.

In the silent laboratory, Liang Jiashu lowered his head expressionlessly and continued scrolling through videos on another phone.

“Couple dance. I think you’d suit it.”

Lu Chi’s waist and hips were extremely flexible. In bed, he could move back and forth like a snake. His waist was slim and resilient, his skin smeared with white marks, wanton to the extreme.

Lu Chi laughed, giggling for several seconds before asking, “So at the end, I have to jump into your arms, and you hold me up and kiss me?”

Liang Jiashu hummed in agreement, then added calmly, “And I won’t even need both hands to lift you. I can hold you with one.”

“Wow, then Brother Liang is really amazing.”

Lu Chi chuckled as he stepped on the accelerator and turned a corner, leafy banyan branches filling his view. According to the map, after crossing two more districts, he would reach the Lin family’s ancestral estate. He stopped at a red light, held the steering wheel with one hand, and chatted leisurely with Liang Jiashu.

“Liang Jiashu, spend less time online. Your way of thinking isn’t suited for the Internet.”

He was genuinely afraid that one day this man would snap and upload their sex videos with faces mosaicked… Lu Chi blurred throughout, only himself clearly visible, entangled with pixel blocks, captioned: [Doing it with my Baby.]

Just imagining that scene made Lu Chi laugh again.

Liang Jiashu frowned, but didn’t say anything. After a moment of silence, he found another topic.

“What did you say to Gu Yanyan?”

Lu Chi replied, “I just told him to stop contacting the Lin family. The Lin family is a bit off. Those photos from a few days ago were probably sent by them, too.”

Liang Jiashu hummed, answering, “Actually, we don’t need to care about Gu Yanyan.”

“What do you mean?”

“Just observe from the sidelines.” With that, Liang Jiashu closed the videos and walked over to the lab bench, coldly watching the struggling white mouse on the table before continuing, “Whatever the Lin family wants to do will eventually show through Gu Yanyan’s behavior.”

His thinking perfectly overlapped with that of Liang Jiashu from the original novel: coldly watching from the sidelines, waiting for the protagonist group to walk toward destruction to uncover the truth behind it.

Lu Chi smiled faintly and didn’t comment.

“I still have something to do today. I’ll probably be back late.”

Liang Jiashu immediately said in a low voice, “What is it? With whom? Gu Yanyan?”

Lu Chi didn’t want to tell him about going to the Lin family yet. Hearing that, he deliberately picked a fight and asked lazily, “So you don’t trust me?”

“…I do.”

“You clearly don’t.”

“Really do.”

“You really don’t.”

The man’s trailing tone was like a cat’s tail, lightly brushing Liang Jiashu’s ear through the signal, slightly coquettish, slightly cute, slightly itchy.

…A little like he missed him.

Liang Jiashu lowered his eyes. After a long pause, he suddenly said without preamble, “Lu Chi, I love you.”

Love wasn’t something that happened in an instant. It was something long-lasting, layered, repeatedly piercing through the body, an omnipresent emotion.

The previous second, this second, the next second.

Because of Lu Chi, Liang Jiashu felt it over and over again.

Outside the car window, sunlight was bright, the weather brilliant. Lu Chi blinked, the corners of his beautiful lips lifting into an unconscious smile. After a moment, he answered, “I know.” He thought for a bit, then continued, “I’m going clubbing. I’ll be back in the afternoon. You don’t need to pick me up, okay?”

The laughter and pleasure in his voice were far too obvious, and Liang Jiashu was easily bewitched. After a long while, he forcefully suppressed the heavy control urge deep in his heart, lowered his gaze, and replied softly, “…Okay.”

“Then I’m hanging up?”

“…Mm.”

“…?”

“Lu Chi?”

After a long silence, the man laughed on the other end, saying, “Liang Jiashu, actually, I kind of miss you too.”

Click.

The call ended cleanly.

The tall young man stood at the lab bench, dark pupils staring at the cold, sharp surgical knife. A rare dazed look appeared on his handsome face.

…Falling in love was truly too unfamiliar to him.

So perhaps, just following Lu Chi’s rhythm was enough.

After spacing out for a long time, Liang Jiashu withdrew his hand that had been about to contact a private detective. A moment later, he carefully pressed stop recording and lifted the phone to his ear.

Every time he called or video-chatted with Lu Chi, he recorded it.

Playing it back again, the silent laboratory was once more filled with Lu Chi’s smiling voice, gently and pleasantly brushing his ears.

“Liang Jiashu, actually, I kind of miss you too.”

“Liang Jiashu, actually, I kind of miss you too.”

“Liang Jiashu, actually, I kind of miss you too.”

Liang Jiashu slowly crouched down and lowered his gaze. It was as if a god’s hand reached down, pressing his surging possessiveness flat, easily soothing the beast within and calming that gloomy, twisted urge.

Because Lu Chi had said he missed him too.

……………….

[Baby is amazing! He calmed the Gong No. 1 immediately!]

Lu Chi didn’t reply, continuing to drive casually. However, the system felt clever again and started offering terrible advice: [When it’s time to break up, Baby, why don’t you say this to the Gong No. 1? Best if you cry with award-winning acting: “I’m sorry, I had no choice, let’s just separate for now, waaah.” Then I’ll immediately take you and run away, never to be seen again!]

The last words, never to be seen again, were shrieked out by the system in mechanical tones.

Clearly, the one driven mad by the protagonist group and desperate to run was actually the system!

Lu Chi laughed wickedly, humming once more like a crazy hamster. The car soon crossed two districts, followed the road signs, and stopped at a red light. It was already near the edge of the Lin family estate, so traffic was sparse. Looking out the window, he could see an ordinary-looking cluster of villas. Some security guards were patrolling, but the surroundings were eerily quiet.

Like a mass grave.

Lu Chi didn’t rush in. He stayed in the car and first called Lin Rong, carefully asking about the layout of the estate as she remembered it. After hanging up, he tapped the system.

[I remember you’re a string of data, right?]

The system replied proudly: [Yes, Host Baby! I am a data stream!]

[Then try infiltrating this number and check who it belongs to.]

The number Lu Chi gave the system was the Lin family’s.

0000-112111211121

The system made two oh-oh sounds. A moment later, the mechanical voice suddenly crackled as if the power had cut out, buzzing nonstop. After a few seconds, it abruptly went silent again.

Lu Chi’s mind fell into a dead quiet. He lowered his eyes and waited patiently.

Three seconds later, the system said proudly:

[Yes, Host Baby! I am a data stream!]

[……]

Lu Chi rubbed his face. After a long pause, he suddenly started laughing for no apparent reason.

The system, having lost the memory of the last seconds, didn’t understand. However, it didn’t say anything either. Toward this useless, senile old cat, Lu Chi actually felt a strange sense of patience and indulgence. So the man got out of the car, emotionally steady, and said: [It’s nothing. You’re amazing. Go play.]

He hadn’t had much hope in the system to begin with.

Besides, Lu Chi had always been independent and never placed his hopes on others. Compared to waiting for fate to take pity, he preferred to walk into the fog himself and then use an industrial-strength fan to blow it away. Lu Chi was never the one who waited. He walked forward unhurriedly, lightly knocked on the black glass window of the security booth, leaned closer to the camera, and smiled politely.

“Hello, I am…” Before he could finish speaking, the camera flashed a green light. As if recognizing his face, it suddenly creaked, and the iron gate entwined with black branches swung open at once.

The surroundings were silent. No one came out. No one spoke.

Lu Chi blinked in silence. After a moment, he lifted his foot and walked into the Lin family estate.

The manor was quiet as well.

After entering, there was still no sign of anyone. Early autumn sunlight poured down, and Lu Chi quickly realized the place was huge. Although desolate in places, it was strangely filled with all kinds of flowers and plants. Red and yellow crowded together, petals in full bloom, thriving vigorously.

It lent the manor a trace of vitality.

He walked along the road with a bit of interest. Originally, being directionally challenged, he had been worried about not finding the main villa. But for some reason, the estate had only built a single main road. Neat and straight, overbearing in its simplicity. Not a single bend, as if afraid Lu Chi might get lost.

“……”

Lu Chi felt a strangely thoughtful consideration. He stopped and suddenly asked the system: [Does this world have two Liang Jiashu?]

The system shook its head: [There is only one Gong No.1. In this world, he cannot split in any form.]

[The worldline also will not produce a second character this deranged.]

Lu Chi paused. His beautiful, sharp brows lowered slightly, his expression unreadable as he quickly reached the main villa and pushed the door open.

According to Lin Rong’s memories, when she was a child, she and her parents were not allowed to approach this place. Instead, they lived in a house some distance away from the main villa and usually entered and exited through another, closer gate. The front gate was unfamiliar to them.

Her parents told her that if they needed the family head, they should call the second floor. That was where the family head and the Lin family heir lived, as only the two of them were allowed to reside there.

But Lin Rong had never heard their voices.

Lu Chi lowered his gaze and slowly opened the door. The next second, he saw an empty shell of a villa.

Furniture, decorations, servants… Inside the enormous, hollow villa, there was nothing at all.

The system screamed in his head: [What the hell?! Host Baby, let’s get out of here right now!]

However, Lu Chi remained calm. Ignoring it, he casually turned around once, then went up to the second floor. But the second floor was even eerier, without even a carpet laid down. Each step on the wooden floor produced a crisp echo. The system was so scared it nearly pissed itself and fled, forcibly logging itself offline…

There weren’t even any ghosts. Lu Chi had no idea why it was so timid. In the end, he could only raise an eyebrow with a smile and look at the only room at the end of the corridor.

Up to now, the so-called “heir” of the Lin family who had returned to the country had still not appeared. He had searched online and couldn’t even find the person’s name. And now, standing before the door within arm’s reach, the doubts that had long existed surged up in his mind.

Did the Lin family really have a so-called ‘family head’ and ‘heir’?

Or perhaps… they were merely manifestations of the worldline’s will.

The ‘family head’ was responsible for forcibly pushing the original plot forward, driving the protagonist group toward its predetermined ending.

Then what was the ‘heir’ responsible for?

Lu Chi stepped forward and pushed open the door without hesitation.

……………………..

T.N: if you enjoy this novel so far, please consider giving it a good rating on Novel Updates. Much appreciated, thank you!

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If you’re interested, the first arc is already completed on my Patreon! You can support me and read up to Chapter 52 here, with 5 new chapters coming next month! Happy Reading!