HOYSE CHAPTER 107

Chapter 107 — The Fall of a God

If I cannot make it back, then neither can you.

Once I end this body’s life, what good is your return? You would be nothing more than a wandering ghost.

The thought struck through his mind like a shard of ice, a remnant whisper from the copied body’s own fading will.

Rong Jing staggered back a few steps as memory snapped into place. After he had been forced out, the copy had gone to seek out Wu Hanqi. But in the original story Wu Hanqi was a spectator who scarcely cared for the protagonist, let alone anyone else. Perhaps the only person capable of stirring him was his blood, Wu Fuyu.

Despairing, the copy had decided to end it by throwing himself into the sea. Doing that would all but sever any path for Rong Jing’s return.

This was the final wager against the so-called god.

There was no official time limit to the confinement, but three years marked a turning point. If the two conditions remained unmet by then, it meant there was no coming back. The more people accepted the copy, the more the original would fade from memory. And once the world forgot you, how could you possibly turn the tide?

How long had it been this time?

A haze blurred his thoughts, as if he were cut off from the world. He checked his phone. Half a year had passed.

He looked out toward the sea where lightning stitched the horizon. Even now it did not feel real. Had he truly won?

It took a long moment before he could get his breathing under control. He retraced his steps and slid into the driver’s seat, the road ahead an ink-black ribbon.

A scene surfaced. After he was gone, the copy had actually tried to force himself on Gu Xi.

Rong Jing called Gu Xi at once. As he expected, during the past half year Gu Xi had severed all contact with the copy. After constant harassment by text and call, he had not only blocked him on WeChat but had blacklisted his number altogether.

Rong Jing tried Mo Dian next. His voice came shaking and tearful, and he hung up mid-call as if something were wrong. When he dialed again, the line would not connect. Great. Even Mo Dian had blocked him.

He still remembered that lurch in his spirit somewhere in the fog, the way his soul had quivered as if it sensed Gu Xi was in danger. The yearning had nearly broken free of its cage.

He called the bodyguards he had assigned to Gu Xi. No one picked up. That was not normal.

As the worry sharpened into fear, his phone rang in the dark. Wu Fuyu.

Rong Jing answered. Wu Feiyu burst out, “Gu Xi—”

He broke off with a curse. He had been on the phone with Gu Xi just now when the call cut out for no reason, and now Gu Xi would not answer at all. He did not want to admit it, but Gu Xi did have the kind of beauty that tempted people into crimes. The sudden silence felt ominous. In a panic he had called Rong Jing out of instinct, then remembered this should be the fake and moved to hang up in a rush.

“Wait. What happened to Gu Xi?”

“It has nothing to do with you. Get lost and do not try to find out where he is!”

“…I am back,” Rong Jing said after a beat of silence.

“Tsk! Anyone can say that. Where is the proof?” Wu Fuyu did not believe him for a second.

Rong Jing wanted nothing more than to go after Gu Xi right now; there was no time to argue. But Wu Feiyu seemed to know something, so he ground down his impatience. “Ask me a few questions. If I answer them, you tell me what you know.”

It did not sound especially reliable. The fake had known a lot too. Still, questions first.

“Where did we first meet?”

“Maya City, outside the VIP restroom.”

“What nickname did I give you at the start?”

“Godzilla.” That one he had heard from Zhou Xiang.

Two more questions followed. Then the one that actually mattered.

“Do you like me?”

“No.”

Oh.

Now they were getting somewhere. The earlier questions had been decoys. This was the only one he truly cared about.

“What if I agree to be your side piece and let Gu Xi be the main one?”

“Get lost.”

“F*** F*** F***!”

Only the real one could reject him that cleanly and curse him to high heaven without a blink. That cold, ruthless dismissal, he had not heard it in so long. This was the Alpha who made his blood sing.

You finally came back.

Wu Fuyu howled so loudly on the other end that Rong Jing’s eardrums rang.

“Watch your mouth,” Rong Jing said, clapping a hand over his ear.

“It is a plant,” Wu Feiyu muttered, instantly lowering his volume.

“You said something happened to Gu Xi.”

Wu Feiyu relayed what he knew. Combined with the unanswered calls to the bodyguards, Rong Jing understood at once that something had gone very wrong.

“Can you get the traffic bureau to pull street cameras?” In this city, the Wu family’s reach in that realm was second to none.

“I can, but—”

“I do not care how, just do it.”

He opened an app backend and activated the locator on Gu Xi’s pendant, pinging its position. He called Xie Ling next and explained, in broad strokes, what was happening. Xie Ling could not be sure which Rong Jing he was, but if his sister-in-law was in danger he would not sit on his hands.

Rong Jing then dialed Zhou You, who had been fired by the copy a long time ago. No one tracked patterns and people like Zhou You.

Zhou You had set a special ringtone for Rong Jing. He shot awake, eased the sleeping Omega from his arms, and answered. “President Rong, your orders.”

Rong Jing paused, at a rare loss for words. The copy had burned that bridge brutally. He had no guarantee Zhou You would help.

He drew a breath. “Will you come back? Name your terms, I—”

“Yes.” Zhou You did not let him finish. He had been waiting for this call.

He hung up grinning, a smile splitting the face that was usually set in stone. He sprang out of bed, opened his closet, and took out a classic three-piece suit he had stashed for exactly this moment.

Guan Hongyi stirred awake, still savoring the taste of long-coveted goose he had finally gotten to eat, and watched as his freshly claimed husband answered one phone call from his ex-boss and immediately headed for the battlefield.

“Right now?”

“Yes. It is urgent.”

So that was how it was. Who exactly had a place in that heart? Why did one call from my former crush make you drop everything? Do you even have me in there?

“How urgent?” Guan Hongyi asked, a little sour.

“Mr. Gu seems to be missing.”

Guan Hongyi sprang up like a rabbit. “Wait for me. I am coming.”

…

At the Wu residence, Wu Hanqi sat with a blanket over his knees, the silver in his hair now fully white. If you did not look closely, you could mistake him for a man without breath.

He kept waiting. The waiting had been so long that even he seemed ready to dissipate into the air.

Suddenly a violent tremor went through him. The spot in his mind that belonged to the red bug burst into brilliance, the red washing to a safe silver.

Agony ripped his chest. His whole body seized and he toppled out of the wheelchair.

When an old god dies, the one bound to it suffers a pain beyond imagining.

The butler rushed in and found him crumpled on the carpet, unmoving. His hands shook as he held a finger under Wu Hanqi’s nose. There was almost no breath at all. He swiped at his eyes and called an ambulance.

He did not notice the faint smile at the corner of Wu Hanqi’s mouth.

Kid, he thought, you still won.

Even drugged, Gu Xi retained a thread of awareness. He felt himself being hefted onto a seat, a belt tugged across his chest. A car. Where were they taking him?

He tried to speak but found he had no strength to open his mouth. His limbs were heavy as iron.

Voices came from very close by.

“I am only doing this one last job. You better not rat me out. I have a family.”

“Relax. It is the last time. And thank you for all your help before.”

The moment the second man spoke, Gu Xi knew who it was. A familiar voice. Someone who had taken a long leave, a driver who had worked here for years.

If only that long-dead mind-reading ability would flare back to life, Gu Xi thought. It might not save him from Ji Jiongjie, but at least he could dodge this kind of danger.

Ji Jiongjie drew a knife and drove it into the driver’s chest.

No one would have thought he had sunk so low that he would kill the man helping him. He did not care about anything else anymore. He only wanted to drag more people into the grave with him.

Gu Xi heard the sound of metal parting flesh. He could not move.

With this kind of reckless madness, a terrible premonition twisted in his gut.

Darkness surged and swept him under. He did not know how much time passed before a shred of strength returned. He forced his eyes open; the lashes trembled. The car was on an elevated stretch. Ji Jiongjie sat at the wheel, eyes crazed.

“You are insane!” Gu Xi rasped.

He raised a trembling hand to his throat, seized the pendant there, and pressed the power button, searching for one last grain of hope in the middle of despair.

Ji Jiongjie’s lips curled. Seeing Gu Xi awake did not rattle him. His face looked almost intoxicated. “I am insane. Come with me. If in this life we must die, then we will be one in death.”

“What are you doing…”

Gu Xi could only watch, eyes wide, as the man stomped on the accelerator and wrenched the wheel. At the downward ramp, using the momentum, the car smashed through the guardrail and hurtled toward the river.

Bang.

Metal screamed. Water roared up to swallow them whole.

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