PBMM CH16

He Qing jumped. Carrying endless despair, he leapt from the rooftop. No matter how spirited his eyes had been in life, they would never open again.

His body was covered with a white cloth, blood splattered on the ground beneath him. Lin Chi’s eyes widened in disbelief. Walking forward slowly with trembling hands, he lifted the white cloth. The teenager’s eyes were tightly shut, half of his face bathed in blood, mangled beyond recognition. Yet Lin Chi recognized him at a single glance—this was He Qing, his lover.

“A… Qing…” His vision blurred, the two words squeezing out from his throat. “A-Qing…” His hands trembled terrifyingly as he placed them against the bloody half of He Qing’s face. Forcing a smile onto his devastated face, Lin Chi gently wiped the teenager’s cold, lifeless cheek with his hand: “You can’t see again, can you… your face is all dirty…”

Looking half-crying and half-smiling, Lin Chi held the limp He Qing in his arms with shaking hands, coaxing the teenager in a gentle voice: “I’ll wipe it clean for you… don’t be afraid…”

“Don’t be afraid… A-Qing, don’t be afraid…”

“I will protect you, no one can hurt you…”

“I’ll never leave you alone again, A-Qing… A-Qing, open your eyes… That’s right, you can’t see, then touch my face, touch it!”

Lin Cheng’s driver stood at a complete loss, looking at the man standing nearby. “President Lin, Young Master Chi, he…”

In the next second, the driver’s pupils dilated abruptly: “President? President Lin?!”

The man still stood ramrod straight, but his hand was clutching his chest, a streak of fresh blood spilling from the corner of his mouth. Terrified out of his wits, the driver scrambled forward to support him: “President Lin, what’s wrong with you, President Lin?”

Lin Cheng shoved away the driver’s helping hand. Clutching his chest with his right hand, his face deathly pale, he walked with slow yet resolute steps toward He Qing, who was cradled in Lin Chi’s arms.

How could this be A-Qing? That night, hadn’t A-Qing said he wanted to take the college entrance exams, become a teacher in the future, and guide children to study hard? He also said that when they grew old, they could adopt a child, and he would put all his heart and effort into teaching the child to be kind, letting them grow up happily…

How could he be lying on the ground like this now, completely devoid of breath?

Even though he knew He Qing had mistaken him for Lin Chi that night, Lin Cheng had always treated those words as their future. A-Qing would peacefully take the exams, become a teacher, and they would buy a house—it didn’t need to be big. A-Qing loved the warmth of family, so they would adopt a few children who would call him ‘Father’ and A-Qing ‘Dad’…

A-Qing liked the countryside so much; they could visit the village for a day every month…

At night, they could embrace each other and gaze at A-Qing’s favorite stars…

Clearly—clearly, he had already successfully driven the two apart, and A-Qing had agreed to live with him, agreed to give him a chance!

No matter how slow his pace, the man eventually reached He Qing’s side. With just a single glance at that mangled half of a face, Lin Cheng’s steps halted, his gaze freezing on the teenager.

It was… A-Qing…

How could it be A-Qing…

The cozy little house… the children, mischievous or well-behaved… the two of them embracing under the starry sky…

Those scenes shattered piece by piece…

A coppery sweetness welled up in his throat. Ignoring the driver’s attempts to support him, Lin Cheng endured the agony spreading from the depths of his heart. With an ashen face, he stepped forward and kicked Lin Chi away with tremendous force. He gently gathered the teenager into his arms. The teenager’s body was still soft, just like usual, only slightly colder. Lin Cheng carefully tucked He Qing’s dangling hands into his own coat to keep him from freezing.

“A-Qing, I’m taking you home.”

Kicked away by the heavy blow, Lin Chi sat on the ground looking utterly shattered, still muttering dazedly: “Impossible… impossible…”

[Hmm…] In his soul form, He Qing looked at the bleak, lonely back of the man, and then at Lin Chi on the ground, falling into a dilemma: [One is holding my corpse, and the other is the mission target. Which one should I follow?]

The system’s halo of light, similarly detached from the physical body, replied: [It is recommended that the Host follow the mission target, Lin Chi.]

[Alright!] He Qing nodded, floating along behind Lin Cheng: [We’ll follow the corpse.]

System: […]

Lin Cheng gently held the teenager’s corpse, softly wiping the bloodstains from his face. “A-Qing, don’t be afraid. I’ll cure you.”

His gaze toward the person in his arms was exceedingly gentle as he whispered soothingly, “Don’t be afraid. If we miss the exams, we can just retake them next year. I’ll stay with you.”

“A-Qing might not know, but my grades have always been top-notch since I was young. When the time comes, I’ll teach you, okay?”

Naturally, the teenager couldn’t answer.

The car fell into silence for a moment before Lin Cheng forced another smile: “Don’t be angry anymore. Last time was my fault, I was wrong, and I’ll change. Forgive me, okay?”

The blood on He Qing’s face was gradually wiped clean. His expression was calm, looking exceedingly peaceful.

Lin Cheng looked at him and leaned down to kiss him. As their lips met, accompanied by bitter tears, he muttered, “I’ll change, I’ll change everything… I know my mistake. Whatever you dislike about me, I’ll get rid of it, okay?”

“You like Lin Chi… I won’t tear you two apart anymore… Open your eyes, okay?”

“A-Qing… A-Qing…”

Watching Lin Cheng weep bitterly while clutching the corpse, He Qing, floating inside the car, felt a sudden impulse to slip back into that body. Of course, the impulse lasted only a single second before he snapped back to reality~

Lin Cheng held the teenager tightly in a daze: “Someone harmed you, someone harmed you… I’ll find out! I’ll make them pay the price!”

That last sentence was spoken with bone-chilling coldness.

————

Soon, everything that had happened on the day of He Qing’s suicide was reported to Lin Cheng in detail. He had never known that in the place where Lin Chi was, the teenager had lived such a wretched, degraded existence.

Stroking the neatly cleaned, still-supple cheek, Lin Cheng’s voice was laden with frost: “A-Qing, even after being treated like this, did you still like him?”

He pressed his face against the teenager’s icy forehead, his voice tender and lingering: “He made you fall ill, so let’s punish him, okay?”

“Since A-Qing isn’t speaking, I’ll take that as your agreement…”

Lin Chi heard that recording.

“It was just a game, how could I possibly like a man!” That impatient, disgusted tone… Lin Chi clutched his head tightly. He knew how sensitive A-Qing was, not to mention that he had deliberately given him the cold shoulder to please Sun Yumeng.

After being bullied by Sun Yumeng, hearing those words from him—what must A-Qing have felt?

In the surveillance footage, the teenager’s gaunt figure appeared before the bulletin board, then walked away as people pointed fingers at his back. He walked upstairs… Lin Chi switched to the next camera. He Qing had followed the stairs all the way to the top floor, pausing outside the rooftop door. He pulled out his phone, pressed a few buttons, and brought it to his ear.

Lin Chi watched the expressionless teenager on screen call once, twice, three times…

Finally, he pushed open the rooftop door and never appeared again.

Lin Chi’s eyes were bloodshot. Self-tormentingly, he rewound and rewatched the teenager making those calls over and over again. Who was he calling? At that moment, A-Qing must have been so scared, so lonely! If only he had called him, he would have comforted A-Qing properly, and A-Qing wouldn’t have jumped!

His expression froze abruptly. With shaking hands, Lin Chi pulled out his phone and checked his blocked call log: A-Qing, 3 calls…

A searing agony pierced his heart. Lin Chi curled into a ball from the pain, tears streaming down his face. “A-Qing… A-Qing…”

It turned out that the final salvation you thought of was still me…

[Ding! Lin Chi favorability: 100. Task complete. Please select: 1, Depart from this world, 2, Spectate subsequent developments.]

Thinking of Lin Cheng placing his corpse on the bed and sleeping next to it, He Qing shivered: [What’s there to spectate? Let’s go, let’s go. By the way, you’re not allowed to secretly deduct my points! If I catch you again, I’ll file a complaint!]

[Oh, then don’t leave. Leaving costs points.]

[…]

————

Lin Chi took over Lin Corporation, but what awaited him was an empty shell drowning in staggering debts. He went to Lin Cheng and said he wanted to marry Sun Yumeng. Lin Cheng looked at him coldly and agreed.

And so, no matter how unwilling she was, Sun Yumeng still married the now-destitute Lin Chi. Lin Chi lived a grueling life, working day and night without rest, yet the debts he owed were something he couldn’t pay off even in several lifetimes. He was discriminated against, humiliated, and spat on countless times. He was beset by poverty and illness, and even his once-handsome face was worn away by the hardships of life.

Lin Chi lived worse than a sewer rat, yet he stubbornly clung to life. Everyone knew Lin Cheng was wealthy, but as his son, Lin Chi would end his life in agonizing torment amidst sickness and poverty.

Sun Yumeng was naturally dissatisfied with this kind of Lin Chi. What she loved was the handsome, dashing fiancé who was poised to inherit Lin Corporation, not this silent, dull man who spent every day spacing out, lost in unknown thoughts.

However, her father refused to take her back home. Her former classmates and friends all knew that President Lin despised her, so they avoided her like the plague. Sun Yumeng had never endured hardship, nor was she willing to. To afford the designer clothes she used to buy casually, she became someone’s kept mistress.

Lin Chi paid her no mind. Although they were legally husband and wife, Lin Chi never shared a bed with her. He only wanted to use his swamp-like, ruined life to drag this woman—who had also played a part in killing He Qing—down with him into the abyss.

Sun Yumeng died from malicious gossip and rumors.

“How disgusting, she’s actually a mistress!”

“Really? Then let’s hurry and stay far away from her, lest she infects us with some filthy disease!”

“Look, that woman is a kept woman. She broke up someone’s family, living in the shadows!”

In a cramped, squalid rental room, she hanged herself by the doorway using a designer belt. When Lin Chi returned and saw her, he ate and slept as usual. It wasn’t until the corpse rotted and gave off a foul stench that prompted neighbors to complain that he finally had her cremated.

A little over a year after Sun Yumeng’s death, Lin Chi fell from a great height while carrying heavy loads on a construction site.

In the final second of his life, Lin Chi thought: A-Qing, have you forgiven me?

When he learned of Lin Chi’s death, He Qing was staring blankly at his own corpse. Lin Cheng insisted that he had merely fallen ill, keeping the body cryogenically frozen. Over the past decade or so, he had been obsessively trying to figure out how to ‘cure’ He Qing.

He Qing watched as one doctor after another advised Lin Cheng to see a psychiatrist, and then watched as Lin Cheng turned to searching for his soul instead: Daoist priests, Buddhist monks, scientists—anyone he could find, he sought out.

Lin Cheng’s hair had turned white overnight back then. After so many years, wrinkles lined his face, his hair was completely silver, and the deep furrow between his brows from frowning for years made him look exceedingly intimidating and unapproachable. He Qing still maintained his youthful teenage appearance, sitting cheekily by the bedside looking at him: “Hey! Old man Cheng-cheng!”

Lin Cheng couldn’t hear him. He was still meticulously taking notes, studying how one could capture a human soul. Having watched him obsess over this for over ten years, He Qing found himself increasingly reluctant to leave. The sheer tenacity of this man was truly awe-inspiring.

When the system coldly notified him that the mission target had died and it was time to withdraw, He Qing genuinely felt a pang of reluctance. He stood up, walked to Lin Cheng’s side, and brushed his lips against the man’s cheek. “This is a gift. Thank you for loving me.”

The teenager’s figure completely dissolved into the air. Lin Cheng’s heart suddenly felt hollow. Clutching his chest, he felt an overwhelming sense of having lost something irreplaceable.

Suddenly, the door burst open. A blond man in a white lab coat with disheveled bird’s-nest hair rushed in: “Lin! I found it! I found how to connect to the spirit realm!”

__

Author’s Note:

Tired to the point of vomiting blood, writing until my paws hurt, need kisses, hugs, and being lifted high into the air~

When my bestie Gua read the previous chapter, being an accountant by profession, she found it completely unreasonable: Minors cannot hold shares; it can only be held in trust or by a legal guardian.

Me: Chichi isn’t a minor! He’s an adult!

Bestie Gua: Do you know what gifting 30% of equity means for a massive corporation?

Me: …Not really.

Bestie Gua: It means you need the signatures of all shareholders and formal certifications. Where is your certification? Where are the signatures?

Me: …But isn’t this how it’s always portrayed in TV dramas?

Bestie Gua: Heh, do you know why evil mothers-in-law in dramas always slap checks in the female lead’s face at the drop of a hat?

Me: Probably… because she has too much money to burn?

Bestie Gua: Because if the signature or seal gets folded or creased, it can’t be cashed.

Me: (Dumbfounded.gif) So the evil mother-in-law was playing 4D chess all along!

Bestie Gua: Also, do you know how much tax has to be paid on share transfers? For a huge company like the Lin Corporation, they’d have to pay at least #$%^& in taxes. Did you pay it?

Me: …Paid it… probably? No! Wait! Isn’t this supposed to be a brainless feel-good novel?

Bestie Gua: It’s a brainless tragedy—a tragedy for the finance department! My heart aches for the Lin Corporation’s accountant; he’s not far from getting arrested!

Alright, I’m going to go beat her up now!