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HOYSE CHAPTER 22
Chapter 22 — Give Me a Room
“Get in. I’ll give you a ride.”
It was tossed out lightly, the tone almost casual.
Gu Xi’s pupils tightened a fraction.
Did he recognize me?
Or… is he baiting me on purpose?
Wu Hanqi was a master of phrasing, and Gu Xi caught the absence of a subject in that sentence. Nerves coiled tight, he forced himself to calm down and analyze.
Back in Neon he had shadowed an international SFX team, the kind that had worked on character design for Avanya. He had only been a glorified gofer, but he’d picked up a few tricks. If he ever wanted to tweak his features a little, it would not be that hard. Right now, though, there was no need.
He had rushed his makeup today, but even rushed he was not someone the average person could pick out. Rong Jing had only suspected anything after seeing him up close. Gu Xi glanced around. The mountain road was swallowed by darkness. Forest pressed up against the guardrail. A few weak streetlights cast a pale wash.
In this murk… and Wu Hanqi could tell?
“Thanks, I’ll walk,” Gu Xi said, making a snap decision to gamble that the man had not recognized him.
“The city is not exactly around the corner. How long are you going to walk alone at this hour?” Wu nodded as he spoke, merely advising.
He had guessed right.
Gu Xi let out a thin breath and flexed the palm that had gone clammy with cold sweat. Good thing he had not blurted his name. He still did not know if Wu Hanqi had thrown that line on purpose. He had almost taken the hook.
Wu did not look like the type to force the issue. He was very gentlemanly and why would he need to push? Men like him had people lining up to come to them.
“Besides, walking this stretch is good exercise,” Gu Xi added with a smile, still declining. He lowered his head and moved on. If you looked closely, you could see his body trembling slightly.
The car did not pass him. It purred along at a lazy pace behind him, and his heart crawled back up his throat. Why did this mountain road feel so long.
If only his mind-reading would switch on again. No one knew that he sometimes heard other people’s thoughts, but the ability was as fickle as his heat cycles, blinking on and off without warning.
Years ago, after he was kidnapped to a villa, he had fought to keep himself safe and burned through the rope to escape. On the run, it was Wu Hanqi who had picked him up, Wu Hanqi who had leaned on the press to bury the story, Wu Hanqi who had had the lunatic packed off to a sanatorium.
Three times, at critical moments. By rights, he should have felt moved. He did feel grateful. He just did not want to get close.
How convenient that the man always appeared when he was in trouble. Back then his mind-reading still worked. He had focused until it hurt, trying to catch a whisper from Wu Hanqi’s thoughts.
He failed. Every time.
There was nothing. No voice.
What kind of person thinks nothing at all.
Not a person, he thought. A god, or… a demon.
Sensing Gu Xi’s tension, Wu did not insist.
“All right. Be careful then. It isn’t safe for Betas out alone.”
He sounded like any passing stranger who saw someone trudging a mountainside and offered help. Since the offer was refused, he did not push. He left with easy grace.
Only after the taillights dissolved into the dark did Gu Xi’s rigid spine slowly loosen. Maybe he had misjudged him. In truth, Wu Hanqi had never done anything bad to him. Was he really going to keep suspecting a man just because he could not hear the man’s thoughts? That seemed a bit much.
It was not the first time Wu Hanqi had seen Gu Xi in disguise as he had caught glimpses of him at several banquets in Hushi as well. Wu had firm principles and a fierce steadiness toward his own. He saw Gu Xi as a little orchid no storm could bow. Such a blossom would only open bright if it were cultivated slowly and handled with care.
Watching the mirror, he took another look at the figure shrinking into the dark, then glanced at the little red dot on his phone moving farther away. He smiled faintly and tucked the phone back into his pocket.
When Xie Ling reached the lot, a fool of a big dog was pawing at the car door, whimpering like it was telling him to open up. He remembered how this Labrador used to circle wide whenever it saw his brother. Sun rising in the west now?
He had the servants pull the dog aside and opened the door. There was his brother slumped weakly against the passenger seat.
“He took off. What are you afraid of,” Xie Ling muttered, half exasperated, half amused by the way the kid had slunk back to the car.
“I didn’t take my antihistamine today.” Rong Jing sounded helpless. In his original world's house, in his friends’ words, was like a petting zoo. He never bought animals. They found him on the road, stuck to him, and would not leave. He brought them home. Then they refused to go. His family always laughed that he collected strange strays.
Zhou Xiang slid into the back and let the brothers have the front.
Rong Jing looked over at Xie Ling and a thought knifed through him, bleak and quick. If he really did go back to his original world… would this body drop dead the moment he left it.
“Brother, if I die…” He had skimmed the plot and, strangely, never found the original Rong Jing’s ending. Was he truly just a nameless extra?
Xie Ling snapped his head around, gaze fixed and flat, a stare like the cold edge of death.
“…Nothing.”
Xie Ling’s brows were locked tight as they drove a while in silence. “Do not say that. I do not want to hear it.”
Rong Jing saw his brother’s mouth go tense and nodded. “Okay.”
From start to finish at the banquet, the original’s mother had not even greeted him, much less noticed that he was different. In hindsight his earlier worries felt ridiculous. He had never expected that the one to care would be Xie Ling, supposedly estranged in the original’s memory. People, you really cannot judge them by the surface.
They wound down the mountain. At the foot, Rong Jing caught sight of a solitary figure walking toward the bus stop. Might be that tacitly coordinated “waiter.” Then Xie Ling turned and the sight was gone.
Since Gu Xi had decided to request time off, his agent had been bombing his phone. He finally picked up and was blasted with, “Are you insane? It is just heat. Stop being dramatic. What Omega does not show up for work. You think you are some young master we have to keep? Get back here.”
“I am exhausted. I want a break. One week,” Gu Xi said, pressing a palm to his racing heart. By his count, he had not slept in more than sixty hours. He fished a CoQ10 capsule (supplement) from his kit, swallowed it with water.
“One week? Not even one day. Ask Party A and the investors if you get a break!”
“I already paid off what I owed you.” The other night the agent had tried to push him into a dinner with a big shot. He had refused, and the man had latched on like a rabid dog. With his contract running out, they had been booking him nonstop, trying to squeeze the last drop.
“Do not forget the contract you signed back then. You skip work, the penalty is ten times. Did you not buy an apartment recently? Think you can make the mortgage? And your brother, studying overseas in M Country, that tuition must be sky-high.”
Gu Xi was stuck in an old, exploitative contract. Back when his family fell apart, his little sister missing, his father jumping from a roof, his mother running off with what money they had and abandoning three kids, he had signed a lopsided deal. The company took a huge cut, the agent took another, and what landed in his pocket was not even one tenth.
“Got it. Heaven and earth and all that. I hear you. I am not going back.” His agent was still ranting when Gu Xi pulled the phone away. His chest was easing. The weakness made the defiance flare instead of fold. “Forget the apartment. I will sell it. That should cover the penalty. If it doesn’t, I will write you anshort for “I owe you.” IOU.
He hung up and blocked the number.
A night bus pulled up. Gu Xi tapped his card, sank into a seat, and let the bravado drain from his face. His eyes stared past the window at trees like a black sea, the forest fog thick enough to swallow a man whole.
Xie Ling still needed to swing by the
It may also imply a sudden,
private shift or detour in plans. hairpin turn
Rong Jing remembered the original’s bedroom which was pink from floor to ceiling and balked. “I will stay somewhere else.”
Xie Ling’s eyes chilled. Was the kid going to start up again? Years of storming off had left him wary of backsliding. “What do you mean?” Another fight with the family?
When the original had come to the Xies with his mother, Xie Ling had assumed the new sibling was an Omega. Han Lianmei was so delicate that he’d expected a soft, sticky-sweet little brother. Finding out he was an Alpha had surprised him. The room had already been done, though. He had asked if they should redo it. The original had not answered, so Xie Ling assumed he liked pink.
One-track mind that he was, he had never guessed how tender and timid the original’s heart was. The boy did not like it at all. He was just afraid to say so.
Rong Jing was honest. He, like the original, preferred colors that suited a man better.
Xie Ling was a little embarrassed. He had thought his brother was… feminine. The misunderstanding had lingered to this day. “Next time you do not like something, say it. Do not make me guess.”
Rong Jing nodded. If they actually talked, most of these brotherly misunderstandings would be unnecessary.
Xie Ling dropped him near the XieLier Hotel. “Your room at home will be redone. Stay at the XieLier for now.” Anywhere else, he would not rest easy. Without waiting for argument, he shoved a black-diamond card into Rong Jing’s hand and drove off. Very Xie Ling.
Rong Jing ducked into a 24-hour convenience store. The original had picked up smoking and drinking after the breakup with Qi Ying. The drinking was easier to quit. In the car just now the nicotine itch had flared. His throat tickled. He bought a few lollipops. If he kept at it, the habit would break.
He waited at the crosswalk. The light turned green and he stepped out without thinking.
A hard shove from behind sent him crashing to the ground. The haze ripped away. A car screeched to a halt inches from his legs. Another few centimeters and he would have been under the tire. The driver cursed. If not for the Alpha who shoved him, he might have died just now.
He looked up at the signal again. It had been red the whole time. It had only now clicked to green.
No. I just saw green.
What is going on?
He thanked the Good Samaritan Alpha and headed for the hotel.
With Xie Ling’s black-diamond VIP, he could have a presidential suite. As he checked in, the man beside him was asking for one. There was only a single suite left, and it had just been reserved for Rong Jing. The next few days were packed with major events. The place was nearly full. The front desk apologized, offered a business suite instead. The man hesitated.
Rong Jing did not care. In his last life he had been so spoiled by family that he had become indifferent to most things. And if he yielded, Xie Ling could bill the difference. A win-win. “Give it to him. I will take a standard room.”
The man turned to thank him and stared. “Ah, Young Master Xie. We meet again.”
Rong Jing did not recognize him, but the man was not embarrassed. They had only glimpsed each other at the banquet. Someone of Rong Jing’s status would never remember a small fry. The man quickly explained with a smile, “I am one of Director Wu Hanqi’s assistants. He is staying here tonight, still out on a project meeting. I came ahead to book the room.”
Just like how Wu Feiyu would book at a Xie property, the Wu family had hotels too, just not of Xie’s caliber. The two families kept a long-standing friendship. Whenever Wu came to the capital, he booked Xie’s hotel to show goodwill.
Rong Jing nodded. Milk the Wu family a little. Bleed them some. Fine by me.
He headed upstairs, still chewing on the traffic-light hallucination. He was sure he had seen green. His eyesight was excellent. He did not notice the duty manager on the far side of the lobby lift a phone and make a call as he stepped into the elevator.
Gu Xi did not go home. His agent was waiting there.
He missed his family, and he needed a little courage. He could not help dialing his little brother overseas. Only after he hit call did he remember the time difference. It was daytime there. Class hours. Sure enough, he heard the soft roar of English in the background, a few specialized terms. A lecture was in progress.
He rarely called at this hour. His brother immediately asked if something urgent had happened. The kid was always so sharp. Gu Xi smoothed the dejection out of his voice and smiled. “Nothing. Your big brother is a star, remember. I have a little pull. Nothing can happen to me.”
He told him that if money ran short, he should say so. Big brother was making plenty these days. His brother said he had scholarships and told him not to overwork. Because class was in session, Gu Xi kept it brief and hung up.
He called Guan Hongyi next. Guan was on set. Night scenes had to be rushed. The line crackled with shouts. “Not there. Move the prop, you crush someone and who pays for it!” After a blast of scolding, Guan came back. “What's up? How come you are calling this late? Where are you?”
Gu Xi paused, something clicking. The question he had meant to ask bent mid-air. He smiled. “Almost home. Just wanted to chat.”
Friends had their own lives and careers.
“That leech Yang actually let you rest?”
“If I say I won’t, he cannot make me,” Gu Xi said.
They chatted a bit. After he hung up, his smile faded. He stood in the night breeze and looked up at the towers, the neon, the giant LED screens blazing on their sides, the constant flood of traffic. He felt very, very small. This sprawling capital did not hold a single corner that felt safe.
He blinked hard and pushed the heat back down. And then, at a distance, he saw Rong Jing’s back as the man walked alone into the XieLier. Not star of the room, not ringed by admirers. Just a tall figure going in.
By the time Gu Xi came to, he was already at the front desk. He looked around in surprise. How had he followed him all the way here.
“Sir,” the receptionist said with a warm smile, unfazed by his waiter’s uniform, “how may I help you?”
Polite, professional, even to a man in staff clothes. Maybe this was one reason the hotel had come back to life after the acquisition.
Gu Xi hesitated for a long moment, then tugged the brim of his cap lower. “Give me… a room.”
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