UCS Chapter 133

Chapter 133

Once Gao Shi arrived, Zhang Xu and the earlier activities were completely forgotten; all that remained was the sound of frantic screaming in everyone’s minds.

Gao Shi—an investment legend, a figure hailed as a god in the industry!

Since stepping into the public eye, his decisive, swift, and ruthless methods had swept away all the unfavorable speculation surrounding the Gao family. The industry consensus was that with Gao Shi at the helm, the Gao family could flourish for at least another two hundred years!

And the best part? He was incredibly handsome, too!

It is no exaggeration to say that over eighty percent of the students in the Finance Department were fans of Gao Shi. A wave of feverish excitement instantly shattered the eerie silence that had hung in the air moments before; everyone’s eyes were fixed on Gao Shi, sparkling with eagerness—they could hardly wait for the lesson to begin.

……

“Alright, that concludes today’s lesson.”

“Does anyone have any questions?”

Gao Shi turned off the multimedia equipment.

He lectured without ever needing to glance at a textbook or reference materials. He could effortlessly draw upon countless corporate battles as case studies, leaving his students utterly captivated—so much so that they felt like business titans themselves, emerging from the get out of class in a daze, as if returning from another world.

As soon as Gao Shi finished speaking, hands shot up across the room; only a fool would miss out on an opportunity like this!

Still buzzing with excitement, Yun Zhiyi tapped Gao Gusheng on the shoulder. “Uncle Gao is absolutely amazing.”

Reflecting on her past taste in idols—Qin Shi had ended up behind bars, and then Xiao Yusheng had followed suit—she decided that this time, she would stan a role model who actually put those two away.

Yun Zhiyi gazed unblinkingly at Gao Shi. “Oh no, my old habits are kicking in. I feel a sudden urge to boost his rankings and buy merchandise.”

Yun Zhiyi had once been a leading figure in Qin Shi’s fandom. As a dedicated “career-focused fan,” she had managed dozens of fan groups and earned the title of “Head Fan Leader”—companies had even tried to recruit her to manage their communities. Gao Gusheng suspected that this was exactly where she had honed her management skills.

If she were actually put in charge of managing a fan group for his father, Gao Gusheng had no doubt that his dad would become a household name nationwide by tomorrow and go global within a week. Gao Gusheng felt a bit sheepish. “No, I don’t think my dad could handle the level of professional intensity you’re looking for—plus, he wouldn’t want that kind of fame…”

His father not only refused to inherit the family business but had actually handed the reins to him—Gao Gusheng—when he was just eighteen. The goal was for him to take over operations within three years, finally freeing up his grandfather, who spent his days dreaming of traveling the world with his grandmother and holding a destination wedding.

Yun Zhiyi shook her head regretfully and opened her finance textbook. “That’s okay; reading the textbook is sort of like reading a biographical sketch anyway.”

What kind of biographical sketch was *that*?

Zhou Jing listened quietly to the conversation between Yun Zhiyi and Gao Gusheng. He glanced up at Gao Shi, stole a look at Yun Zhiyi’s profile, and then lowered his head to organize the math paper he was holding and set it aside.

“Finance…”

Gao Gusheng glanced at Zhou Jing and raised an eyebrow.

The frenzied atmosphere in the classroom persisted well into the break; no one even heard the bell ring for the next period.

Gao Gusheng didn’t have a class next, so he tucked his books under his arm and sent a message to Gao Shi.

【Dad, what brings you here? (Confused cat emoji)】

【Handling some work, and dropping by to see you.】

Gao Shi turned off his phone screen. He was standing on the rooftop, looking down.

This was the same vantage point Zhang Xu had occupied when he jumped.

The sky was a brilliant blue with soft, fluffy clouds. An unidentified bird flitted past, circling in mid-air before curiously drifting closer to Gao Shi.

A breeze blew by; standing there, one felt a sense of openness and clarity.

Nothing seemed amiss.

He looked down and could see students filing out of the teaching building; Zhang Xu was walking out alongside the students from Gao Gusheng’s class. His appearance was exactly the same as before, yet there was an inexplicable sense that he had changed completely.

He was surrounded by a crowd; students nearby appeared to be asking him questions. His expression was calm and detached, though he seemed to be answering earnestly—a faint blush rising on the face of the student who held his gaze.

Charisma is linked to appearance, certainly, but it is by no means limited to it.

Zhang Xu exuded a singular kind of charisma—one that compelled people to draw close to him willingly and offer up their very selves.

Having read countless novels, Gao Shi found two terms that fit the situation perfectly: “protagonist aura” and “dominating presence.”

Suddenly, Zhang Xu looked up; across the span of several stories, his gaze locked unerringly with Gao Shi’s.

In that single glance, Gao Shi understood why his son had been so unsettled when he came home.

It was a gaze of profound detachment; though he was looking upward, he seemed to be gazing down upon the masses from on high.

Zhang Xu withdrew his gaze, as if the eye contact had been nothing more than a coincidence.

A bird fluttered its wings and flew away, and Ying Bujie appeared silently at Gao Shi’s side.

“Is it him, Daoist?” Gao Shi asked.

Ying Bujie shook his head. “I can’t say for sure.”

There was a rare note of surprise in his voice.

“No rush,” Gao Shi said, squinting up at the sky. “He’s bound to slip up eventually.”

The omnipresent plot, the Heavenly Dao striving to steer everything back onto its prescribed track, and the nightmares that had haunted him since the age of eight—he would uncover the truth behind them all.

***

Upon returning to the department, he found Chang Yang and Ran Qiu bickering playfully.

Chang Yang was brandishing a piece of blue-colored pork rib, trying to shove it into Ran Qiu’s mouth; Ran Qiu was resisting for dear life, eyeing the rib as if it were a lump of shit.

“Just give it a taste—it’s actually really good. I’ve already tried it myself.”

“How the hell did you manage to turn pork ribs blue?! Even Snow White’s evil stepmother would have to come to you for pointers!”

“It’s cola! I added blue cola!”

“Why couldn’t you just make regular cola-braised chicken wings? Why did you have to lay your evil hands on poor Pigsy??”

“Cooking is all about innovation~ Hehe, just have a taste~”

“Don’t do it, Brother Chang—”

The incident concluded with Chang Yang successfully shoving the blue rib into Ran Qiu’s mouth. Having just won a battle, Chang Yang, in high spirits, called out to Gao Shi, “Boss, want to try these ribs?”

Gao Shi silently stepped to the right. “No, thanks; I already had lunch.”

Huang Shan watched the scene with a smile. Feiyu, who had come over to find him, wrapped his arms around Huang Shan’s waist with a hint of jealousy. “I’ll make this for you when we get back, too.”

Recalling the two pots Feiyu had ruined by burning them, Huang Shan gave a helpless, wry smile. “Maybe I should just…”

Meeting Feiyu’s gaze, Huang Shan resignedly changed his tune. “Alright, let’s pick up some chicken wings on the way home. Yiyi likes Coke-braised wings—the kind made with regular black cola.”

It looked like he’d have to keep a close eye on him tonight; blowing up a pot was one thing, but he couldn’t let the man cook a dozen batches in a row just to get one edible dish—only to secretly eat all the failed attempts himself.

Having gotten his way, Feiyu smugly nuzzled the crook of Huang Shan’s neck; Huang Shan, his eartips turning red, gave him a gentle push.

Feiyu seemed to love this particular pose.

Whether now or in the past…

Images from the past flashed through Huang Shan’s mind: two young men in the prime of their youth, expressing their love most directly through the intimate melding of their bodies—something Feiyu had always adored.

He had always loved leaving marks on Huang Shan’s skin and baring his teeth, as if he could knead his lover inch by inch right into his own flesh and blood.

Noticing his lover’s mind wandering, Feiyu tightened his embrace in dissatisfaction; were it not for the public setting, he would have bitten Huang Shan’s earlobe and demanded to know exactly what he was thinking.

Huang Shan snapped back to reality and offered an apologetic smile. “I remembered something from before.”

Things from before…

Feiyu buried his face in Huang Shan’s neck, feeling a touch of agitation.

He couldn’t recall it.

Even though he had regained his other memories, the details of his time with Huang Shan remained elusive.

He loathed this feeling of forgetfulness; instinctively, he wanted to possess every single thing connected to his lover.

Huang Shan stroked his silver hair. “It’s alright; there’s no rush.”

They had plenty of time to piece those memories back together slowly.

As Feiyu nuzzled against Huang Shan’s neck, a silver mark on Huang Shan’s shoulder—hidden beneath his clothing—faintly pulsed with light.

No one noticed.

Gao Shi returned to his workstation, where Ran Qiu—finally recovered from the shock of the “Blue Ribs” incident—handed him the summary of the previous week’s work.

Gao Shi flipped through the report. Due to the massive reincarnation event the week before, the Anomaly Management Bureau had actually seen very few call-outs; only one or two cases had surfaced recently.

He surmised that—since “ghosts tend to drift toward areas with lower ghost concentrations”—specters from other cities had likely wandered into their territory.

Gao Shi opened the system’s recent case logs; sure enough, the frequency of deployments had dropped significantly across all departments.

However, two specific cases in the Bureau’s records caught his eye.

Both involved the deaths of homeless men.

One man had died under a bridge, the other in a narrow alleyway; the causes of death were myocardial infarction and freezing, respectively.

Criminal investigators had examined the scenes and ruled both deaths as accidental. Coincidentally, the spirit police happened to pass by during both autopsies. Yin Ling hadn’t seen the homeless men’s souls; he instinctively checked for any supernatural interference at the time of death but found nothing amiss. He concluded that the men had likely already entered the cycle of reincarnation, or perhaps their spiritual energy was too weak to leave a soul behind.

The paths of the spirit police—traversing the Underworld—and the criminal police—walking the world of the living—had silently converged during this specific call-out.

Nothing seemed amiss.

The cursor swept past the cause of death, and the page turned.

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