HOYSE CHAPTER 23

Chapter 23 — Beeeeeeeep

When the front desk clerk took Gu Xi’s ID, she glanced at the boy in the drab server’s uniform with his cap pulled low and did a double take. He looked like a teenager, but the card said he was twenty-three. He even had the same name as the mega-star Gu Xi. Obviously it could not be the same person, but just seeing that name made her heart thump.

Wait a second. The photo on the card…!

A face like that is not something just anyone can imitate. Plenty of people had tried to copy Gu Xi’s features with surgery and none of them had really managed. The clerk almost screamed. Standing right in front of her was the real one. Alive. In the flesh.

People nearby were already noticing the odd vibes at the desk.

Gu Xi immediately leaned in and made a shushing gesture. “There are a few behind-the-scenes shots to film. The crew is doing a secret follow. Could you please keep this between us?”

Anyway, “A Day in the Life of a Star” would air soon. He might as well use the show to plug the cover story.

The clerk happened to be a career-fan of Gu Xi, and anything to do with filming triggered her sense of mission. She flipped on her paparazzi radar. No one was going to mess up her idol’s work or carefully maintained image. Now she even shared a little secret with him. She nodded hard.

Even after Gu Xi left, she stared at his retreating back in a daze. Her coworkers were busy with their own tasks. Seeing her expression, one asked, baffled, “You’ve lost it, huh? Crushing on some pimply kid? Planning to rob the cradle?”

The clerk shook her head proudly. Look at their idol. He was twenty-three, yet when he did not lean into a mature style, he still looked like a boy. Others simply could not compare.

“Don’t talk nonsense. You don’t get it,” she murmured, eyes pained. “Is it just me, or is he getting thinner and thinner? That tiny waist. Sigh. I wish he wouldn’t push himself so hard. Does his agent even remember to feed him properly?”

Of course she knew Manager Yang Qi by name. He was a famed marketing hand, and most of Gu Xi’s scandals could be traced back to him. Still, it was true that part of Gu Xi’s popularity came from the man’s machinations, and on Weibo he looked like he cared. As fans, they did not want to slander him for nothing.

Gu Xi reached his floor. As soon as the door closed behind him, the straight posture and healthy shine he had been projecting collapsed. Without even taking off the makeup, he sank into the soft bed, boneless.

“Hoo…” He let out a long breath. Finally, a moment’s rest. It felt like stolen happiness. He did not care which room Rong Jing had chosen, only that they were in the same building. He just needed a place to curl up for a while.

At that very moment, Rong Jing was not far from him. In fact, he was extremely close. Only a wall stood between them.

The front desk had checked them in back to back. A team-building group had just vacated several rooms on this floor.

Rong Jing finished washing up. He had changed back into his own T-shirt and felt loose and light. His phone vibrated on the vanity. Unknown number. When it rang a second time, he answered.

“It’s you, right? You didn’t suddenly go mute, did you?” The voice was cocky and overbearing, full of personality.

“What is it?” Rong Jing kept it short, meaning talk fast. It would not be hard for someone like that to get his number.

He cradled the phone between his ear and shoulder, wrung out a towel with both hands, and studied himself in the mirror. To shave or not to shave? Alphas in this world had fast metabolism. A whole night and the stubble came in quick. He preferred to be clean-shaven, so twice a day it was. He reached for the shaving foam.

“We just spent forever looking for Huang Jian. Guess where we found him?” Huang Jian was the blond punk he and Gu Xi had tied up and taught a lesson to. Huang really was his surname.

“Where?”

“In the Alpha restroom. That was you, wasn’t it!”

“Do you have anything else? If not, I am hanging up.” The hallway cameras would have caught him going into the restroom, but only that. With no real evidence, Rong Jing felt bulletproof.

“Come to Winter Rest. Since we started out throwing punches, let’s get to know each other. How about it?” Wu Fuyu had dropped the blond’s business for the moment. What he said next was basically an invitation to join his circle. Among his peers, Rong Jing was one of the very few he wanted to treat as an equal.

Rong Jing thought of the original novel’s Winter Rest Teahouse, a place steeped in classical Chinese elegance. The name came from a tale of filial integrity in the Biographies of the Worthies of Runan, later used to mean untroubled purity, not as a put-down but as a lofty, upright state of mind. It fits Wu Hanqi’s public naming style. Stillness. Distance.

“I am busy these days. Another time.” Given the Xie and Wu families’ friendly business ties, he could not trip Xie Ling up by running his mouth. As for a grand banquet of words, he was not going.

In the Winter Rest private room, the chatter stopped. Eyes slid around and no one spoke.

The call had been on speaker. Everyone had assumed that with the crown prince himself stepping in, face was guaranteed. In truth…

A friend leaned toward Wu Fuyu. “So he is… actually turning you down?”

Wu Fuyu flushed red. He shoved away the Omega princesses clinging to him and growled, “What do you know? All you want is to vent your urges. Vulgar. Have you even been in love? He is playing hard to get. He wants to make me pay attention. People with culture have more moves.”

Talking himself into it, the more he thought about it the more it made sense.

Back in the hotel, as Rong Jing hung up, his hand slipped and the razor nicked his jawline. He rinsed clean at once. The cut was shallow, just a red line.

Wu Fuyu was one of the canonical attackers in the original book, occupied a lot of page time, and was among the craziest. Most of the threats and intimidation had his fingerprints on them. In reality, he seemed offbeat most of the time but the offbeat was not an act. In the novel he was vicious; here he was showing maybe a tenth of it.

What made the difference? Because Gu Xi had not stabbed him in the critical spot?

Rong Jing glanced down, a bit sheepish. To be fair, if someone injured him there and it could not be healed, his worldview would crumble. For someone like Wu Fuyu, it would be even worse. Madness and malice would match his original setting.

And Gu Xi loathed Alphas. Rong Jing remembered he was an Alpha himself. The air below felt chilly. A protagonist like that was not to be messed with. Best not.

Finished with his routine, he sat cross-legged on the bed and tried to recall where he and Xie Ling fit into the book. Why was everything so foggy?

Even with the limits gone, he had only read the original once and not to the end. There was still a lot he could not fully remember.

The Xie family had a second young master, Xie Jisheng. His birth had not been exactly glorious. Xie Zhanhong had three wives. The first was Xie Ling’s mother. His birth was the most legitimate, and he had been the first in line from the start, a decision made when his grandfather was still clear-headed. The old man had said Xie Zhanhong would end up dying on a woman’s belly. If the family were handed to him, it would be finished, so he named Xie Ling early.

During his marriage, Xie Zhanhong cheated with a Miss Ji. She was already married, which made it double adultery. Xie Ling’s mother died of rage. Three months before the funeral rites had even ended, Xie Zhanhong married the Ji woman. The good days did not last. She died in a car accident, leaving little Xie Jisheng behind. The Ji family pitied the boy and often brought him back to his mother’s side of the family, which meant he had never been close to the Xies.

The original owner’s mother, Han Lianmei, was the third wife, and the one who lived the longest. She had been the prettiest among Xie Zhanhong’s many lovers, almost accidentally chosen.

Marriage did not mean no lovers. To this day, Xie Zhanhong’s women were scattered across the country, which was how he earned the nickname Human Engine.

Second Young Master Xie Jisheng was one of the original attackers, and he had lots of scenes. He would soon ascend to family head, becoming a top bachelor at a young age.

Rong Jing’s heart gave a tiny jolt. Had he missed something important?

If the Xie family head was Xie Jisheng, then what about Xie Ling? What about Xie Zhanhong? Where did they go?

How could he have missed something that big? That was not like him.

The fog seemed to settle over the vital pieces in his mind. At first he had thought he simply had not read carefully, but it was more than that. The will of the world felt like it was blocking the memory.

He pressed both hands to his pounding head. Slowly, his expression shifted from twisted, to calm, to faintly panicked.

The complete beginning came back to him. Xie Ling died.

The night he went to Maya Mall was the story’s opening.

In the original, that night Gu Xi’s pheromones leaked unexpectedly. In a panic he stabbed Wu Fuyu. Wu Fuyu went wild searching and mistaking someone else for him, forcibly invaded an Omega’s pheromones in public. The Alphas in the mall went into heat. The disturbance turned into a riot. One Alpha died in the stampede.

Fleeing Wu Fuyu, Gu Xi jumped into a car by mistake and was nearly given a temporary mark by the second scumbag attacker. He barely fought his way free.

The next day, Gu Xi’s good friend Guan Hongyi was found dead on the outskirts, head missing. With his mind in pieces, Gu Xi went to identify the body and sobbed over it.

The police believed it was a serial case and Guan Hongyi was one of the victims. However, the killer was still at large.

Blow after blow, Gu Xi’s spirit wavered. His reason was gone. Rumors sprang up online that the mall riot might be connected to Gu Xi’s paid appearance there. The noise turned into a crusade demanding a life for a life. People called him a murderer, told him to die for his sins. The victim’s family hung banners and camped under his company’s building every day, baying for his life.

Gu Xi climbed a tower and meant to jump. At the last second, Wu Hanqi saved him and talked him back to living.

Meanwhile, Xie Jisheng was preparing to acquire Gu Xi’s agency. When Xie Ling rejected his plan, resentment took root. He went crooked, found the shattered Gu Xi, and said he could help find the killer because he had friends inside the police and could get first-hand news. In exchange, he wanted a small favor.

His big brother was a fan. He wanted Gu Xi to put in a good word and bring a bottle of the black coffee his brother liked to drink as a gesture of apology from a younger brother to an elder.

Gu Xi was at the end of his rope. Seeing real case notes in Xie Jisheng’s hands, he agreed to help.

Xie Ling had just learned that his younger brother was dead. The body was found in an empty park and at first mistaken for a vagrant. If Rong Jing had guessed correctly, then in the original story, he was only cannon fodder. He never even made it to the stage. At most, he was given a single line before being written out.

After hearing that the boy had died of alcohol poisoning, Xie Ling shut down all business, refused to see anyone, and locked himself in his office. He believed he had caused his brother’s death. If he had cared more, would that so-called accident have happened? The guilt dragged him under.

So when Gu Xi came looking for him, Xie Ling was surprised. They did not know each other. He was actually not a fan; he simply liked the face. Basically, it was just pure appreciation.

He agreed to meet Gu Xi, and then nothing. Soon after, Xie Zhanhong dropped dead of a sudden attack. The family went to the previously overlooked Second Young Master, Xie Jisheng.

From there, Xie Jisheng caught Gu Xi in several traps and announced that Gu Xi had killed Xie Ling. The black coffee can Gu Xi had brought bore a crucial fingerprint.

Gu Xi then attempted suicide more than once, but each time he failed. When Xie Jisheng realized he could not be controlled, he brought Gu Xi’s younger brother back from overseas to use as leverage. After that, Gu Xi stopped trying.

By the time Rong Jing reached this point, his face had gone chalk white.

So when did Xie Ling die? In the book, it was the second day of the opening. In other words, the fifth day after the original owner’s death.

Like a stalled machine, he stared at the time on his phone screen.

… Today.

Images flashed across his mind. Xie Ling’s expressions in the car earlier. The black diamond VIP card shoved at him with the line that if he did not use it, he did not recognize him as big brother.

Rong Jing covered his face. His nose stung.

Where was Xie Ling?

He had said he was going to the mountain switchbacks to find Xie Jisheng.

Even if the plot had shifted, maybe it just chose another route.

Without pausing, Rong Jing grabbed his phone and dialed.

Beeeeeeeeep.

---

 PREVIOUS           TOC           NEXT