HOYSE CHAPTER 118

Chapter 118 — Side Story 2: The Present World

A long time later, Rong Jing dreamed of the past.

As he and Gu Xi grew closer and closer, the bindings this world had placed on him dissolved completely.

Only then did Rong Jing recall that when he first arrived in this world, he had lost a piece of memory.

He had been in a car accident after wrapping on set, on his way home to reunite with his family. In a haze somewhere between sleep and wakefulness, he heard a voice begging him to come. If he succeeded, the voice promised, he would have a chance to return alive to his original world.

That person was crying as if the sky had collapsed. The helplessness and pain in the voice bled into Rong Jing, and he sensed his own life slipping away.

Perhaps from the moment that bargain was struck, they were both gambling everything for the ones they each held dearest.

Rong Jing sat bolt upright in bed. The Omega draped around his waist was still fast asleep, exhausted from earlier.

Rong Jing ruffled his hair. Gu Xi rubbed against his palm on instinct and hugged tighter around Rong Jing’s lean waist.

Rong Jing had always felt he was forgetting something important.

A stranger’s soul had brought him here. That person was…

A jolt ran through him. He called Xie Ling at once.

Xie Ling was still asleep. Lately he had been following his little brother’s advice to soak his feet at night, and he had been sleeping like a rock. When his phone rang, he peeled off the penguin sleep mask, Rong Jing’s Father’s Day present that year, and answered in his usual cool voice. “What is it?”

“Ge, he loved you!” Rong Jing realized that sounded confusing and scrubbed a hand through his hair. “I mean Rong Jing. Not me, him. He did not die accidentally. Someone killed him. It was Xie Jisheng.”

The reason Rong Jing had been able to wake up in the park was that, with his last breath, the original Rong Jing had shoved Rong Jing’s soul into his body and locked it there until that exact moment so the body would not reject it.

[Time for me to go. Do not be sad. We were only strangers. Why would you grieve for me? I am leaving you a mess. You should curse me. I do not know what you will face. It will not allow us to exist. If it can, it will also…]

[No, not you. I dream of becoming someone like you. If it were you, you could change things. Another cycle. Another damned cycle. All of us are trapped beasts.]

[When you wake again, you will forget me. I should not exist. I am a fluke favored by the gods, and a thorn in Its eye.]

[I am sorry, Rong Jing, for dragging in someone who had nothing to do with this. You cannot go back to your world. I lied to you.]

[I will give everything I have to atone.]

[If one day you remember, could you bring a message to my ge…]

[Hurry, It is coming!]

Only much later did Rong Jing learn who “It” was.

The transfer between worlds had cost him a crucial memory. On top of that, because he was trying to adapt to a new body, he spent the next few days in a fog, unable to believe he had crossed into another world so absurdly.

“He never had time to finish his sentence. He always wanted to tell you this: he was happy to have you as his big brother. And also, he said he was sorry.”

He had always thought you did not welcome him. He kept stabbing at you with words, twisting every kindness, leaving you covered in wounds. And you never blamed him.

For the first time, Xie Ling stammered. “What… what are you saying?”

“I remember everything now,” Rong Jing said, a little breathless.

The original had a message, terribly late. After so many cycles, it could finally be delivered.

“Ge, we both love you. You are the best big brother.”

…

……

Xie Ling forgot how he ended the call. He fell back onto the bed.

He had never been a snoozer. Work always came first. He attacked his job with a passion that bordered on fever. For the first time in his life, he drifted back to sleep.

He pulled the blanket over his head and pressed his face into the pillow.

Thin, muffled sobs soaked a small damp patch into the fabric.

---

The next day, Rong Jing returned from a week-long business trip. The absence had been torture for Gu Xi. The instant he heard Rong Jing’s voice downstairs, he got too excited, rushed out, missed a step, and twisted his ankle.

Rong Jing scolded him with a stern face. It was equal parts exasperation and affection. He still insisted on a full work-up. During the X-ray, they discovered a tiny piece of metal in Gu Xi’s ankle. It was so small, no bigger than a needle tip, that the doctor nearly missed it.

Several experts weighed in. It was likely a tracker, and it was still pinging a signal.

Rong Jing did not tell Gu Xi right away. After the wedding, Gu Xi had slowly fought his way out of that old, tight-fisted fear of loss. Maybe there would be a better time to bring it up. This was not it. He did not want Gu Xi realizing he had been living under a shadow this entire time. It had taken so much to pull him back from the edge. The last thing Rong Jing wanted was to shove him near it again.

He scheduled a procedure to remove it. It was minor, and Gu Xi would recover quickly.

Rong Jing thought back over the original story and landed on the most likely culprit. If it was that person, then when had it been planted?

Probably that day Gu Xi escaped from Chu Yang’s villa.

Rong Jing went to the Wu residence. In recent years, Wu Hanqi had withdrawn from public life and transferred his assets piece by piece to Wu Fuyu. Rumor had it Wu Hanqi was gravely ill and had one foot in the grave. The staff rolled their eyes at the gossip. No one was healthier than that old devil. If anyone was done for, it would not be him.

Wu Hanqi’s body was slowly recovering. Hearing from the butler that Rong Jing had come, he woke from a light doze. For a moment he heard Wu Fuyu calling out in pain, but he realized it was not the present, but a cry from another world in another time.

He suspected he owed Rong Jing a debt beyond words, though he could not say why.

Rong Jing had not seen the man in a long while. His hair was all silver now, but his spirit was bright. Seated in a wheelchair, he was unhurried, sipping tea. Looking at him, you did not notice his features first. You noticed the quiet gravity that somehow stilled the room.

After years of integration, he had learned to live with the vast power inside him. Even then, once that power had been reclaimed, Gu Xi was still the primary soul. Wu Hanqi was only a secondary operator.

As the world’s source, Gu Xi was naturally its god. Though Gu Xi himself seemed mostly… indifferent to that?

Amusing, in its way.

“A rare guest. Long time no see, kid.”

“Uncle Qi.”

They had not met since Gu Xi had been saved. Both men knew the truth: Wu Hanqi had helped them, in the end. Rong Jing’s feelings were complicated. On some level, this man was dangerously born. He was dangerous in a way that felt innate, and also restrained himself from it.

“You are here for Gu Xi,” Wu Hanqi said.

“I think you owe me an explanation, Uncle Qi.”

“Better than my brat. At least you did not burst in and start shouting,” Wu Hanqi said, amused, and poured him a cup of Tieguanyin. “His pheromones caused panic. When he was born, the hospital had an alpha riot. The people above needed a way to watch him and a suitable time to act, to prevent more incidents. Used properly, his pheromones are not purely a bad thing.”

It sounded like an explanation, and also like none at all.

His white lashes lifted a fraction. The indifference in his gaze still held a universe.

“Even if I did not put it on him, someone else would have. You cannot let him grow wild.”

“You mean the Pheromone Safety Bureau…” Rong Jing knew there was such an agency that regulated pheromones. Wu Hanqi had no need to lie, and he was too proud to bother.

Wu Hanqi had always liked Rong Jing’s sharp mind. One sentence was enough for him to connect the dots.

“From different positions, you make different choices. Understand?”

“Gu Xi should thank you, in fact,” Wu Hanqi added after a beat, looking out the window. “If you two had not matched and reset the rhythm of his pheromones, he might have been forcibly paired.”

He paused. “Only a possibility, of course.”

“A future that never happened is anyone’s guess.”

Gu Xi was not someone to be handled. He might look soft, but he was tougher than most alphas, sometimes in ways that startled even Wu Hanqi.

No wonder he was the unchanging center of this world.

As Rong Jing took his leave, Wu Hanqi said, “I will own what I have done. Soon, I will send you both a generous gift. Consider it my apology.”

Since becoming one of the world’s governing wills, he had been exploring other timelines. He was very curious about where Rong Jing came from. If all went well, he might send them back to visit for a short time and test the feasibility of linking universes. A natural world with no heaven’s will interested him even more than this one.

Rong Jing did not take it seriously. He never imagined that not long after, Wu Hanqi would deliver.

One night, Rong Jing fell asleep beside Gu Xi, who had just recovered enough to walk, nestled together in their carefully decorated bedroom. Suddenly he found himself conscious but unable to move. He strained to twitch a finger, rolled his eyes left and right.

The slight motion was caught by his second sister, Rong Qingyun, who had been watching him closely. She shouted for the doctors, sobbing with delight. Their little brother was waking up. Against all odds, he had been saved.

The room spun with urgent footsteps and familiar weeping. Rong Jing wanted to tell them, Do not cry, I am back.

When he opened his eyes again, several days had passed.

His second sister had never left his bedside. She explained that two weeks earlier he had been in a car accident. They had barely pulled him back from the brink. Even so, the doctors had warned he might remain in a vegetative state forever. Their parents had been so devastated they put all work on hold. They had just gone home to rest. Their oldest sister would take the night shift.

A cloud had hung over the family since the accident, until a few days ago when Rong Jing suddenly showed a response. It was like the house took a breath for the first time.

“You have no idea,” Rong Qingyun said, using humor to soften the telling. “Other than that time you got lost in the rainforest as a kid, I have never seen Mom and Dad so undone. And our iron lady of an older sister, bawling in the bathroom in the middle of the night. For all her talk, she is still human.”

She did not mention herself. Of them all, she had loved beauty most. Since the accident, she had run herself ragged across the world begging doctors to come.

Rong Jing saw the smudged circles under her eyes and the exhaustion she could not hide. His chest filled with something tight and aching.

His second sister was the family’s chatterbox. He drank her in greedily. He felt as if he had been gone an awfully long time, so long he had trained himself not to think about home, because that was the deepest, rawest wound in his heart.

Rong Qingyun brushed his cheek. “What is it? Why are you staring at me?”

“I missed you all so much,” he said.

He had never said it so plainly. Her eyes went wet. She scrubbed at them, embarrassed, and husked, “Silly boy.”

“If you miss us, then remember this is always your home. Do not forget again.”

“Now that you are back, our family is whole.”

The mood was slipping into something too tender. By instinct, Rong Jing tried to lighten it.

Out of nowhere he said, “Second Sister, did you say once that readers only like the domineering lead, and someone like me would never be noticed?”

She blinked. What kind of topic change was that?

But since it was her little brother, she dug around in her memory. She did enjoy web novels and, yes, she had said silly things like that because her little brother was handsome. She nodded. “I did.”

“Not necessarily,” Rong Jing said.

“Hm?”

“It is possible to fall for an ordinary supporting character.”

Whew. He had wanted to say that for ages. Finally he could say it to her face.

Rong Qingyun stared, then cautiously asked after a long pause, “…Did your brain get knocked loose?”

Huh?

Rong Jing came to himself too. Why had he said something so strange?

He had the sense he was forgetting something he absolutely should not forget. Another voice in him insisted it was temporary, that the memories would come back soon.

He glanced down at his arms.

It felt like someone should be in them. Who?

Worried by his odd remarks, Rong Qingyun consulted the doctors. Several psychiatrists ran tests. All agreed that Rong Jing’s cognition was intact. He knew the people around him. The experts concluded that the prolonged coma had caused inconsistencies in his memory. A little jumbling of words was not unusual.

Rong Jing repeated that he was fine, that it was only a side effect of the coma. Slowly his family relaxed.

Back in familiar surroundings, he felt at ease except when he looked in the mirror. Then it felt like there was another face overlaid on his own. That face was a little less handsome, but in every other way… perfect. And in the middle of things, he would drift off, sure that there should be someone beside him. Someone cool on the surface and chaotic at heart, who never let him eat in peace.

At night a low-grade panic nipped at him. He missed that person so badly, even though he could not remember a face, or an age, or even a gender.

One afternoon, while walking in the courtyard, he overheard a bit of gossip.

A head nurse from a different floor had found an unconscious young man near the hospital. Out of the kindness of her heart she had fronted the medical bills, arranged care, and put him in a ward. She checked on him constantly.

Nurse A: Do not tell me she has a crush.

Nurse B: The head nurse is over fifty. That is maternal love. You have not seen him. Once you do, you will want to pour your heart into looking after him too.

Nurse C: Exaggerate much?

Nurse B: He looks like an angel. Those features, that presence, he does not seem born of this world. He is like a 2D character come to life, without a single flaw. I swear there really are people who can steal your heart on looks alone.

Nurse A: No, no, no. You are giving me goosebumps. Stay away from us. You are all bewitched.

They fell silent when they saw Rong Jing, cheeks flushing as they scurried off.

Rong Jing was a globally known actor with multiple major awards for film and TV. After the crash, his fans had gathered quietly outside the inpatient wing every day to pray. They never disturbed anyone, and their devotion had softened many hearts toward their idol.

He headed upstairs, unhurried. First things first: recover his body. Then he could handle everything else.

Gu Xi had been in this strange world many days. He did not know his name or his home. He had lost so much. He only knew he was looking for someone. Someone carved into his heart.

The people here were strange. They had no pheromones. And they were absurdly warm to him.

He was cautious by nature, but even the cautious had to eat and sleep. For now, he had accepted shelter.

He had asked around about pheromones. People had googled the term and told him it was a “six-gender” setting in a fictional universe.

Not fiction. Real.

He wanted to argue. He had no proof.

He knew nothing about this world, and his heart felt hollow.

He had lost his most precious treasure. How was he supposed to find him? Where was he?

Gu Xi went downstairs with a cool face and brushed past a stranger.

In that instant, something tugged. He turned sharply.

Rong Jing also stopped.

From several meters away, their gazes struck and sparked in midair.

I think… I have fallen in love at first sight.

---

The Wu residence.

Wu Hanqi frowned up at the sky. With half the world’s guiding will gone, the heavens looked heavy and dim.

The apology had been sent. He was not used to the controls, though, so he had accidentally sent a second person along for the ride.

Outside, his unfilial son was raising a racket, desperate to find three missing people.

Wu Hanqi pressed his fingertips to his temples. If that headache of a boy were not his flesh and blood, he would have thrown him out ages ago.

The two worlds had their own protection protocols. Memories would be sealed for a while, but eventually they would return. He tapped an absent rhythm on the table. The portal function was not stable yet. Never mind. Let them play for a bit. Once the power ran low, he would yank them all back. Best to cherish the little holiday while it lasted.

…

In the middle of a crowded street, Xie Ling stood frozen in his pajamas, becoming the unmissable center of attention.

His handsome face was veiled in frost. The air around him crackled. He looked around in confusion, watching the flow of passersby, and smelled no hint of pheromones.

Where is this?

Why am I here?

And most important of all:

Why does this world have only two genders?

---

Author’s Note:

Softly asking for a five-star review (If you want to give 5 but the system stops you, you can leave it unrated for now, QuQ. Thank you, kisses~~)

Xie Ling: This world does not make sense…

Yu: What about me? I want to go too! Me too!

Xi Xi saved himself. If he had not struggled all along, there would have been no accident, and without the accident he would not have met Rong Jing. Cause and effect. Your spouse is me.

Hehehe. I planned this side story’s ending back when I started writing, like the end of a movie. It is extra fun, but it did not fit the main narrative, so I saved it. Finally got to write it~~ spinning in circles.

The side stories are the main cast’s little field trips. Later they can hop over occasionally.

New book info is in my profile. If you are interested, feel free to bookmark it you will get a notification when it launches. And if you like me in general, you can bookmark my profile and let me be your couch potato to pet~~~

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