Chapter 4

Shen Ji took his handkerchief, wiped both hands where they'd touched Jiao Bai, tossed it down by his feet, and rose to leave.

Jiao Bai's knees gave out and he pitched forward, his forehead knocking against the floor. He tried to push himself up and couldn't; his whole body was shaking like a sieve.

Fuck, that hurt.

Jiao Bai clenched his jaw, his sweat-soaked face pressed to the floor as he gasped for air in ragged heaves. He forced himself to take a deep breath, the thin layer of fabric on his back soaked through and clinging to a spine that was thin and wretched, yet still stubbornly trying to hold itself up.

After reviewing the surveillance footage from Qi Yiliao's room, Shen Ji felt thoroughly humiliated. Qi Yiliao's room had cameras everywhere, scattered in every corner—it wasn't impossible that one or two of them might be discovered.

Only, what Shen Ji hadn't expected was that the dog he'd brought along would dare pull a stunt on his friend's bed, right under the eyes of multiple cameras.

Putting on a performance that shoddy, and still hoping to draw attention.

A disobedient dog had to be punished.

Now that Shen Ji had finished his "inspection," the old injuries in this body of Jiao Bai's had flared back up. He lay sprawled on the floor thinking about how Shen Ji would end up someday, and found that the thought dulled the pain a little.

Jiao Bai lay there a while, then, gracelessly, ass in the air, propped himself up on his elbows and inched his way back to his feet. He saw Shen Ji standing at the doorway with his back turned, his assistant beside him, reporting something in a tone of deep deference.

Shen Ji buttoned two buttons and left. The assistant came in, ignored the little Chili Pepper still on the bed, and told Jiao Bai in a flat, formulaic tone to go wash his face.

Jiao Bai's face had carpet fuzz stuck to it, matted on by cold sweat, looking thoroughly grimy.

"Mr. Wang, you belong to the Chairman. You need to mind your image in public," the assistant reminded him, stiff as ever.

Jiao Bai had no energy left to talk back. His whole body was drained of strength; he braced himself along the wall and shuffled into the bathroom, where he stared at himself in the mirror for a long, silent moment.

Thick hair, a ragged, uneven fringe, downturned eyes, plump under-eye pads, indistinct lips — the whole face read as dull, wooden, easy to push around.

Then, the next instant, the corners of those perpetually drooping eyes in the mirror tilted upward, and something wild and blazing that didn't match the rest of the features leapt up in them.

Jiao Bai grabbed a handful of his own bangs and leaned in close, studying himself carefully — even skinnier than in the comic.

His chin was sharp, dark circles under his eyes, the exposed skin utterly bloodless, the pale blue veins beneath it clearly visible.

Like...

Like he hadn't seen sunlight in a very long time.

Jiao Bai wondered if the original owner of this body had been sick. The thought needled at him — surely not, there'd been nothing about it in the memories he'd absorbed, and the comic hadn't mentioned it either. Well, fine, he was just a pawn; it wasn't strange for a detail like that to go unmentioned...

So then, why did the original body look like such a walking corpse?

Jiao Bai splashed water on his face in a hurry and walked out of the bathroom, distracted.

There was no trace of the little Chili Pepper left in the room, and the wrecked bed had already been tidied up — the assistant clearly had plenty of practice at this sort of thing. He said, neither warm nor cold, "Let's go, Mr. Wang."

Jiao Bai's body ached badly; sitting was more painful than standing. He didn't make a sound the whole ride, not until the car pulled up at their destination — Qinxin Garden.

This estate had shown up many times in the comic, mostly tied to Li Jue. Early on, Li Jue had come here to sort through the belongings of the older brother next door and stayed a short while; later, he'd come to visit his beloved's little stepmom.

Under the night sky, the estate looked like a grave — not a single servant came out to greet him. Jiao Bai walked in alone and went straight for the kitchen. He was hungry.

Jiao Bai puttered around for a while, then came out of the kitchen carrying a plate of fried noodles. In the dim lamplight, a figure in a black-and-red tangzhuang stood there, and he nearly hurled the plate at it in fright.

"Uncle Kang, still not asleep?" Jiao Bai steadied his nerves.

The old butler said nothing.

Jiao Bai gave up trying to make sense of the ghost-like old man and simply sat down at the table, eating his noodles on his own.

He hadn't even finished half the plate before the shadowy figure had already vanished.

Jiao Bai put down his chopsticks and got up to find something to drink. That old man belonged to Old Madam Shen — planted here as a set of eyes and ears. When the original owner had first arrived, he'd treated him like a kindly old grandfather from back home; only later did he realize the man regarded him as a dog. And not even a decent dog — an ugly, mangy mutt, an embarrassment.

It wasn't just the old butler. Every bodyguard and servant on the property thought the same.

There was only one story about a sparrow flying up and turning into a phoenix — how was a mutt supposed to fly? Laughable.

Once Jiao Bai had eaten his fill, he went upstairs. He walked slowly, pausing every few steps, savoring the scent of the mansion — he couldn't place it at all, only noticed how loudly the place echoed.

The original owner's bedroom door wasn't locked; it opened at a twist of the handle. Jiao Bai shut it behind him, took a deep breath facing the unfamiliar room, and immediately began searching without pause.

Only a few minutes later, Jiao Bai had a medical chart in his hands. The page it was open to was covered in an illegible scrawl; he managed to make out five of the characters.

— Photosensitivity syndrome.

Jiao Bai: "..."

The plain, easily understood diagnosis made his vision go black for a second, and he sat down hard in a chair, jarring the injury at the base of his spine and setting off a few spasms.

No wonder the original body's complexion was so unhealthy.

Sun allergy — unable to be exposed to sunlight. For someone like Jiao Bai, who loved running around outside, that was nothing less than being shoved into an invisible cage.

So why was this missing from the memories he'd received from the original owner? Had something glitched during the transfer? What kind of raw deal was this?

Jiao Bai's face darkened as he yanked open every drawer, dragging out a pile of medications — topical, oral, even bath soaks. He picked up a box at random to check it — expired.

Tossed it, grabbed another — also expired.

...

Most of this pile of medicine was past its expiration date, and yet the original owner had apparently still been using it.

Jiao Bai held his head in both hands. This body had already fallen apart, from a mix of congenital and acquired causes. How was he supposed to fix it?

First, he needed money.

Nothing could be trusted, except money.

Jiao Bai found a bank card in a small metal box; there was just over a thousand yuan on it. He gripped the card and slumped there, unmoving.

Shen Ji had plenty of properties, but he came to Qinxin Garden fewer than five times a year, and even when he did, he never stayed the night — just went through the motions and left. The money wasn't even something Shen Ji arranged personally; it was all handled by Old Madam Shen's people, dressed up nicely as "living expenses," nothing to do with being kept.

Money was deposited on the first of every month.

Jiao Bai checked the calendar on his phone — four more days, and the balance on the card would jump from four digits to five.

But five digits still wasn't much — not enough to give someone like Jiao Bai, trying to rewrite the original owner's fate, any real sense of security.

"Chuqiu!" A bright voice rang out beyond the door, followed by the sound of the lock being turned. "Why'd you lock the door?"

Jiao Bai swept everything on the table out of sight and went to open it. "Shuangshuang, why are you up?"

"I was half asleep and heard noise outside," Qi Shuang mumbled, drowsy-eyed, dressed in a set of sky-blue pajamas. "Why are you only getting back now, it's so late — where's Sir? Did he come back with you?"

Jiao Bai looked down at Qi Shuang, who was a little shorter than him. Qi Shuang was the young master of the Qi family, and also the other candidate the Shen family had picked out for Shen Ji as a spouse.

The two of them had been placed in this estate one after the other, and had lived here for two years now.

Qi Shuang wasn't a friend on Jiao Bai's account, so there was no activity value to worry about with him.

Jiao Bai reached out and pinched Qi Shuang's soft, chubby cheek.

Qi Shuang's eyes went wide, stunned. "Chuqiu, you — you you you — why'd you pinch me?"

"Because you're cute," Jiao Bai said, smiling. "Sleep with me tonight?"

Qi Shuang broke into a smile too, soft and sweet, the kind that made you want to take a bite out of him. "Okay."

Jiao Bai ruffled his hair. "Get in bed first, I'm going to shower."

"I'll wait for you." Qi Shuang rubbed his eyes and asked why he looked so awful, why he was walking so stiffly, whether Sir was hard to serve.

He talked a lot.

Jiao Bai pulled off his pants, exposing two spindly, unlovely legs in the lamplight. A patch of bruising covering his knee stood out horrifyingly against the pale skin around it.

There was even a spot in the middle of the bruise where the skin had broken — a wretched sight.

Qi Shuang said quietly, "That must really hurt."

"Yeah, it really hurts." Jiao Bai grabbed the hem of his shirt and pulled it up, tossing it carelessly onto a rack. He studied his own body in the mirror — skin and bones, thin and withered.

Qi Shuang wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. "How can Sir be so cruel?"

Jiao Bai shut the door firmly. "Shuangshuang, you can say that kind of thing in front of me, but you can't say it out there."

"I'm going to say it anyway!" Qi Shuang said, indignant. "Chuqiu, you're just too soft-hearted. Look at your knee — there's no way you'll be able to walk properly tomorrow." He bit his lip, his eyes brimming with worry. "Where else does it hurt besides your knee? Let me look."

"Nowhere else," Jiao Bai said, pressing his lips together.

"You!" Qi Shuang stamped his foot. "Why do you never tell me the truth? Did you clean yourself up properly? If you don't clean it out well, you'll get sick."

"Isn't that exactly what I'm about to go do?" Jiao Bai said with a helpless laugh, patting Qi Shuang's still-not-fully-grown back. "It's fine, don't worry."

He bowed his head slightly. "Shuangshuang, I'm tired. I want to shower quickly and go to sleep. Can you step out for a bit?"

"Then go wash up." Qi Shuang sniffled. "I'll stay out here and talk to you while you wash — call me if anything's wrong, whatever you do, don't push through it alone."

Jiao Bai gave him a grateful smile.

......

Around three or four in the morning, Qi Shuang, lying beside Jiao Bai, suddenly made a retching sound.

Jiao Bai jolted awake. "Shuangshuang?"

"Ugh—" Qi Shuang hung off the edge of the bed, vomiting again and again.

"What's wrong? Don't scare me like this!" Jiao Bai fumbled the light on in a panic.

Qi Shuang's face and neck had broken out in large blotches of red. His lips had turned purple, and a labored, wheezing sound came from his throat.

Jiao Bai didn't know what to do. "Shuangshuang! Shuangshuang! Where does it hurt?!"

Wherever Qi Shuang scratched, a patch of red bloomed. He convulsed, clawing at Jiao Bai's arm, nails digging in. "Help... help me..."

"I'll go get someone, hold on!" Jiao Bai stumbled out of the room.

Before long, the estate's butler and every servant in the house had come running, alarm written across their wrinkled old faces.

Total chaos.

Jiao Bai stood by the window, watching the car pull out of the estate below. The worry and panic in his eyes had already retreated; he wiped a hand over his face, his expression something between a smile and not. The bastard who would have run over and killed the original owner that night was none other than Qi Shuang.

The young master of the Qi family was allergic to yellow peaches — even the smell alone was enough to set him off. Not many people knew this. As it happened, Jiao Bai, who'd read the comic, was one of the few who did.

And there was no reason not to make use of that.

As for why Jiao Bai had turned around and alerted the butler and the others at the critical moment, sending Qi Shuang off to the hospital — that was because Qi Shuang couldn't die now. If he died, Jiao Bai would end up as the one remaining brick tossed into the Shen family, becoming old cucumber Shen Ji's nominal spouse, with a son only a year younger than himself. And that son happened to be the scum gong of this very comic — later on, an utterly deranged madman, even more twisted than his own father. Jiao Bai had no interest in being his little stepmom.

Even though it meant getting dragged deeper into the vortex of the main storyline, Jiao Bai refused to let Shen Ji treat him like livestock the way he had at "Diye." He had other plans.

Step one of that plan was not to kill Qi Shuang outright — just teach him a lesson — and then...

Jiao Bai suddenly turned around.

The old butler stood in the doorway like some kind of specter, staring at Jiao Bai as though watching a clown leap about on a stage. "I've already called the Qi family. They'll be here soon to ask about the situation."

Jiao Bai rubbed the tip of his nose twice, catching the scent of yellow peach still on his fingertips. "Fine. Got it."