The Genius Cannon Fodder's Counterattack 3

Forty minutes later, Chi Xiaochi reached his destination.

The moment he got out of the car and saw the four characters "Beiman Cemetery," and took stock of the bleak, windy, moonless surroundings around them, the system's vision went black.

Warily, it said, "What are you planning to do?"

Chi Xiaochi set the parking brake and killed the engine, looked at Yang Baihua, dozing in the rearview mirror, and smiled a sinister little smile. "Heh heh heh."

System: "......"

Chi Xiaochi asked, "Excuse me, how many affection points would it take to redeem a razor blade?"

The system, expressionless: "Calling the police is free."

Chi Xiaochi: "No blade, then. A wire would do too."

System: "......?"

Chi Xiaochi glanced at the cemetery gate. "Never mind. Won't need it anyway."

Chi Xiaochi didn't do anything to Yang Baihua.

He got out of the car and stood facing the direction of the graveyard for a while in the desolate, cold wind, as if deep in thought.

This was, of course, not that famous burial site of auspicious feng shui where people say "born in Suzhou and Hangzhou, buried at Beiman"—just a cheap knockoff hanging a sheep's head to sell dog meat. A lock the size of a fist, rusted bronze, hung on the iron gate; weeds grew wild everywhere; and the fist-sized bronze character "Man" had lost half of itself, leaving only a lonely right ear stroke behind.

Chi Xiaochi took off his down jacket, set it on the hood of the car, backed a few steps away from the gate to leave himself enough room to build speed, and charged straight at the iron gate.

He seemed well-practiced at scaling gates. Three steps from the iron bars, he leapt, planted one foot precisely on a rusted iron floral scroll carved between the railings, caught the bronze character "Bei" with his right hand as a brace, followed through with his other foot landing on the crossbar at the top of the gate, and vaulted lightly over, landing himself successfully on the other side.

After he landed, Chi Xiaochi flexed his ankle.

System: "You okay?"

Chi Xiaochi frowned. "A little numb."

The system said nothing. It connected to his neurons, silently clearing the tingling, jarred nerve pathways, and the numbness vanished instantly.

Chi Xiaochi made a small sound of surprise, stamped his foot a couple of times and thought, Huh, that recovered pretty quickly.

He didn't dwell on it. Once the feeling came back, he started walking into the weeds, which stood as tall as the gravestones.

The system asked, "What are you here for?"

It was rather afraid Chi Xiaochi would say, I'm here to case the place.

Fortunately, Chi Xiaochi's answer was fairly normal: "Looking for someone."

The system grew curious. "Who?"

Chi Xiaochi didn't answer, just trampled down a patch of wild grass sprouting from a crack between bricks.

Winter grass, lacking moisture, crunched loudly underfoot.

He lit his way with his phone, ignoring the gravestones packed together tight as a honeycomb, and walked straight toward his target.

Soon, he stopped.

The glow of his phone fell on a cheap stone gravestone. The name carved on it was Wang Jianguo, born in 1949, died in 1989, age forty at death.

Chi Xiaochi brushed away the weeds and dust clinging to the headstone, stood in a moment of silent tribute before it, then turned and left the way he'd come.

The system probed, "Who is he to you?"

Chi Xiaochi answered, "Don't know him."

System: "......"

Chi Xiaochi added, "Good thing I don't."

System: "??"

To make scaling the gate easier, Chi Xiaochi had taken off his down jacket, and a black fitted sweater traced the lean, handsome lines of his waist and torso.

He tucked both hands into his pants pockets for warmth, puffs of white breath drifting slowly from his mouth as he spoke. "......You told me that, to make missions easier, the worldline of the first world would closely resemble the world I originally lived in."

......The system seemed to understand something.

It recalled, from when it had scanned the new host's file, that Chi Xiaochi's hometown shared a name with this city.

Chi Xiaochi went on, "......Also called Beiman Cemetery, laid out exactly the same. What a coincidence."

......But the person buried here was not the person he was looking for.

Chi Xiaochi pulled a cigarette from his pocket, fished out a lighter, and reasoned, "In this worldline, Brother Lou might still be alive."

The system didn't know who "he" was, but considerately didn't press the matter. "Are you going to go find him?"

The system was a little worried that Chi Xiaochi might get so caught up in his personal business that it would derail the main mission.

After all, it was only during the tutorial stage that the master system would provide a host with a worldline close to their original world, as practice.

Once the tutorial was over, worldlines would turn up stranger and stranger. If he wanted to find someone in particular, this chance wouldn't come again.

"Not looking." Chi Xiaochi's head was clear enough on this point. "He's doing fine. He doesn't know me. What would I look him up for."

Having said that much, Chi Xiaochi stopped talking, and the system didn't press further.

Chi Xiaochi raised a hand to block the wind and tried to light his cigarette. But just as the flame was about to catch the tobacco, he put the lighter away.

The system asked, "Not smoking after all?"

Chi Xiaochi said, "Cheng Yuan has taken care of his voice for so long. I'm not going to be the one who ruins it."

The system said nothing, just nudged the warmth setting it had switched on earlier up half a degree.

By the time Chi Xiaochi got back in the car with the unlit cigarette still between his lips, his body hadn't been chilled through by the cold wind at all—still warm.

He thought, not bad, this little young master's body runs plenty hot.

Thinking that, Chi Xiaochi bit down on the filter, started the car, and left the cemetery, driving slowly homeward.

Passing a soy milk shop, Chi Xiaochi stopped the car and tucked the cigarette back into his pocket.

Before driving out to pick up Yang Baihua, Chi Xiaochi had specifically checked Cheng Yuan's schedule for the day, which mentioned stopping by Sun's Soy Milk Shop to buy soy milk for his "old Yang."

The shop's handmade soy milk was stone-ground, with a smooth, fine texture that Yang Baihua loved.

After Cheng Yuan and Yang Baihua got together, Cheng Yuan had accompanied him through countless breakfast stalls, pinpointing exactly the soy milk flavor he liked best—and had, in the process, gradually forgotten that he himself had never liked soy milk at all.

Chi Xiaochi didn't like soy milk either, and he certainly wasn't going to make himself suffer for it.

He bought himself a bowl of red bean porridge, and two cups of soy milk for Yang Baihua.

While waiting for the order to be packaged, Chi Xiaochi asked the system hopefully, "If he drinks these two cups of soy milk, how many affection points will that get me?"

System: "......"

The tone of it sounded exactly like discussing the science of raising pigs.

Still, Chi Xiaochi's mood seemed to have recovered well; the business at the cemetery didn't appear to have affected him much.

By the time Chi Xiaochi got back in the car, the hypnosis card's effect had worn off. Yang Baihua was awake, fiddling with his phone in the back seat.

Cheng Yuan's eyes crinkled into a smile as he shook the two cups of soy milk in his hand. "Afraid you'd be hungry when you woke up—both of these are for you. We'll grab some little steamed buns up ahead too, something good to eat."

The moment Yang Baihua opened his eyes, he was docked thirteen affection points out of nowhere. He'd been fairly indifferent toward Cheng Yuan, but the smell of soy milk warmed something in him, and seeing Cheng Yuan's clean, open smile, his affection points climbed another three. "Good boy."

Chi Xiaochi said to the system, "See that? Sixty-two points. Passing grade."

System: "......A person ought to have some ambition in life."

It felt like an old father, lecturing earnestly at a foolish son who was already pleased with himself over a bare pass.

Chi Xiaochi said, "Let's set off a firework to celebrate."

The system said, "Don't start."

Chi Xiaochi said, "Fine. Redeem me some sugar for my mung bean porridge, then—forgot to add it earlier."

The system was somewhat despairing. "Mr. Chi, what exactly do you think the mission target's affection points are for?"

Chi Xiaochi said, righteously, "Points, obviously. You said I could redeem them, so I'm redeeming them."

System: "......"

It suddenly regretted a little, having let Chi Xiaochi learn that the inventory redemption system existed at all.

The system spent one affection point redeeming half a spoonful of sugar from the inventory, stirred it into the soft-packaged hot porridge, and mixed it in with uncomplaining diligence.

In the back seat, Yang Baihua watched Cheng Yuan in the rearview mirror, opening his mouth to speak and closing it again, over and over.

Chi Xiaochi let him stew in his hesitation for a while before putting on a show of concern. "Old Yang, what's wrong? Carsick?"

Yang Baihua had made up his mind.

He leaned forward and asked, "Have you been busy lately?"

"So busy. So, so busy."

Even as he said it, Cheng Yuan's voice was brimming with energy from the inside out, dripping with coyness.

Yang Baihua asked him, "How's the songwriting coming?"

Cheng Yuan had meant to launch into a long answer, but he knew Yang Baihua was an engineer through and through, with little interest in his profession, so he swallowed the words back down. "Writing lyrics right now."

Yang Baihua said, "Xiao Cheng, there's something I want to discuss with you."

"Go ahead."

Yang Baihua said, "My parents and my third sister are coming next week. You're busy writing songs right now, and my sister might bring her kid along too—it wouldn't be good if they disturbed you."

Chi Xiaochi, in high spirits, analyzed aloud to the system, "See that? He's kicking me out."

The system said nothing.

This wasn't an unreasonable conclusion on Chi Xiaochi's part. At this point in time, Yang Baihua still hadn't come out to his own family.

To be precise, up until he married a pretty mixed-race woman, no one but Yang Baihua's parents and his cousin Xiao Yan ever knew Yang Baihua had once been gay.

Even in the original worldline, even someone as oblivious as the original host could tell that Yang Baihua's excuse was a poor one.

The two of them had already been somewhat unhappy with each other over the matter of Cheng Yuan's older brother sending him a car. Cheng Yuan had complained, "Am I really that embarrassing to be seen with?" and the two had bickered, rather fiercely, and that night Yang Baihua had gone to sleep on the couch.

Luckily Cheng Yuan was easygoing and didn't hold grudges—early the next morning he'd rolled himself in a blanket straight onto the couch and made the first move to patch things up.

Phone in hand, he'd nestled against Yang Baihua's chest and said, "Look, next week I'll go stay at my classmate's place for a week. Don't be mad anymore, okay?"

As Chi Xiaochi received the worldline's memory of this and watched the scene play out, he thought: buddy, you really are a blockhead.

Of course it was fine to voice displeasure—but if you were going to voice it, there was a right way and a wrong way to go about it.

Cheng Yuan paused, not answering right away.

Yang Baihua felt a flicker of unease, and watched Cheng Yuan's expression in the rearview mirror.

Soon, Cheng Yuan broke into a grin, baring a row of small white teeth. "Sure thing."

His little finger rubbed lightly against the leather of the steering wheel cover. "Mom and Dad would never want to stay at a hotel—they'd say it's too expensive. And the guesthouse near our place is in bad shape. They'd come all this way just to use a public bathroom with no guaranteed hot water around the clock. That's really not great."

Having said all that in one breath, he glanced up at Yang Baihua in the rearview mirror with a faint smile, full of reassurance.

Then his long lashes dropped, and the warm yellow glow of the streetlights outside slid across his cheek, exactly as it should.

"But our place really is just one bedroom and a living room. Mom and Dad would take the bedroom, you'd take the couch—would we need two air mattresses on top of that for your sister and her kid?"

After rambling on like that for a while, he looked up again to seek Yang Baihua's opinion in the mirror.

But in the span of just that one sentence, Cheng Yuan's eyes had gone faintly red around the rims, misted over, and when the light outside flickered across them, they shone, startlingly bright.

Realizing he'd slipped, Cheng Yuan quickly looked away and coughed, as if trying to cover something up.

Yang Baihua's heart lurched. "......Xiao Cheng."

Realizing he'd been caught, Cheng Yuan, helpless, raised his eyes again, fixed them on Yang Baihua, narrowed them, and smiled gently, as if to say he was fine.

Looked at by eyes like that, Yang Baihua's heart melted completely.

......Cheng Yuan understood his predicament and knew that Yang Baihua was not yet ready to come out to his parents, so although Cheng Yuan was clearly hurt, he was still trying hard to accommodate him.

Guilt wound itself, strand by strand, around Yang Baihua's heart.

Yang Baihua said, "Xiao Cheng, let me find you a hotel to stay in."

Cheng Yuan didn't refuse. With a slight whine in his voice, he said, "Mm. I want somewhere good. Five stars."

Yang Baihua was amused, and played along. "Yes, yes, five stars."

The system was astonished.

This performance was a genuine single unbroken take.

Every micro-expression of Chi Xiaochi's had been astonishingly coordinated—he'd even made full use of the shifting light and shadow outside the car window.

If this had been a film set, his expression would have been flawless from any camera angle.

The system had skimmed Chi Xiaochi's file once before and knew that before transmigrating, he'd been an actor who started out as a model, drowning in both fans and hate alike.

Twenty-six years old, started as a model, mired in a swamp of fan worship and public backlash—running the numbers, the system had concluded Chi Xiaochi was most likely a celebrity who lived off his face rather than a true actor.

That didn't seem to be the case, though.

The system decided it would make time to study Chi Xiaochi's situation more closely, to end the adjustment period as quickly as possible and raise its efficiency at completing missions.

Compared to other systems, 061 had always placed great importance on efficiency when carrying out missions.

And this particular performance of Chi Xiaochi's had been quite the haul.

He said, pleased, "System, system, affection points up fifteen, regret value up six."

The system also received a stream of notifications: "Mm, keep it up."

Chi Xiaochi: "Usual rule—redeem me a card."

System: "......" Where did this "usual rule" come from.

Chi Xiaochi: "What can fifteen points redeem?......Never mind, send me the inventory tonight, I'll browse it myself."

System: "......Mm."

Chi Xiaochi asked again, "Can unused cards be carried over into the next world?"

System: "......Yes."

Chi Xiaochi grew even happier. "Excellent. How many cards are in the inventory total? If I collect the whole set, is there a reward?"

The system felt compelled to remind him, "Mr. Chi, this is a proper system. It's not a card-collecting game."

Chi Xiaochi said, "I like card-collecting games. I had one on my old phone called 'Demon God Summon'—five hundred and thirteen heroes, and I was only six short of a full set."

Here, Chi Xiaochi said, pained, "......Now that this has happened to me, who knows how long it'll be before I can finish the set."

For a true collector, that was simply too cruel.

The system ignored him, and Chi Xiaochi, unbothered, just shrugged.

They were almost at their destination.

The residential complex the two of them rented in had no free parking, so Chi Xiaochi parked the car on the street outside it.

As he pulled the key from the ignition, Chi Xiaochi turned his face aside and caught, just then, Cheng Yuan's reflection in the car window.

In his natural, resting state, the corners of his mouth were still faintly upturned—every bit a tender young shoot nourished lush and green by love.

No one could have guessed that a young man this cheerful, this unguarded, would—because of moderate depression—slit his own wrists three years later, in some little town by the water in a foreign country, and take his own life.