Inside the system space.

One second the white ball of light was scrolling its light screen, and the next second after hearing its host’s voice, it fell over with a splat, letting out fake snoring sounds.

However, this extremely dramatic performance of His could only be seen by the blue ball of light in the same data space.

The host was put on hold, but the host knew nothing of this.

Blue light ball: [Senior, what are you doing?]

The system stretched out a little hand to scratch its butt, snoring while saying: “Snore… pretending to sleep… snore snore… isn’t it obvious?”

Rather than saying it wasn’t obvious, it was more like it was too obvious—so deliberate that even a sub-system couldn’t bear to watch.

The blue ball of light was thoroughly confused by His behavior of severely ignoring the host recently, and couldn’t help but urge:
[The key plot point hasn’t been completed yet, and it’s still during the mission period. The host is currently seeking your help. As the main system, you should actively assist the host in completing the mission.]

As soon as it finished speaking.

The system pointed its little hand and started CPU-ing: “Alright, alright, alright, are you the main system or am I the main system? If you love this B-tier shift so much, then why don’t you do it?”

The blue ball of light skillfully clicked a garbage-cleaning acceleration button for itself before whispering: […I’m just an intern sub-system.]

The system also skillfully double-jumped and continued:
“You still know you’re just an intern? How dare you tell the main system what to do? What a chilling, ah no, what a system-chilling workplace this is!”

Blue light ball: […………]

The white ball of light wanted to pose in a high-and-mighty arms-crossed stance, but found its two little hands were too short, so it put them on its hips instead: “Say sorry right now!”

The blue ball of light bowed its head in humiliation,
“…I’m sorry.”

Most of the time, the system’s attitude towards the sub-system light ball was clear-cut—either cold violence or hot violence. But occasionally, when He had nothing to do, He would actively say a few words.

(Parentheses: accompanied by workplace CPU, end parentheses).

His mood was clearly quite good right now, and He began to explain while letting out light and brisk snores.

“Sigh, factory-produced systems from assembly lines like you just have too low EQ, completely unable to read the room.”

“According to my observation, at this stage, lowering this system’s sense of presence helps the host immersively experience the book’s world, deepens the feelings between the host and the protagonist, and can even increase the protagonist’s family’s favorability toward the host!”

A clear, innocent, and cute host, who wouldn’t pity and love him?

Even a problematic system like Him, whose behavioral logic was [The host keeps me close to his heart, I play mind games with the host], occasionally felt a little guilty!

The blue ball of light understood, but was also more confused.

It asked in puzzlement: [I don’t understand, to complete the role-playing mission… is it necessary for the host and the protagonist to fall in love?]

After all, both balls belonged to the overall entity of the [Scumbag Ex-Husband Role-Playing System], not the [Matchmaker System]; their functions were vastly different.

The system kindly answered: “Under normal circumstances, it’s not recommended for the host to invest too much emotion into the mission target.”

The blue light ball’s chip was about to burn out.

Suddenly, a terrifying guess popped into its head, its electronic voice lagging several times,
[Main System N001, could it be… you want the host, out of his feelings for the protagonist and sense of belonging to the book’s world, to voluntarily give up returning to the real world and give up his awakening reward after completing the mission?]

After a good while.

The white ball of light finally answered slowly, “Don’t spread rumors, don’t believe rumors, I never said such a thing~.”

After speaking, He stretched lazily and once again took out the data cable that terrified systems, extracting a gray data stream from the repaired light screen.

That was the [Character Synchronization] module that had crashed due to the virus attack. After the white ball of light stuffed it into the host’s original memory package, it materialized in the system space as the host’s childhood appearance.

Looking at it, the body was stone cold.

The blue ball of light remained silent for a moment, not daring to make another sound.

---

On the other side.

In the side hall on the first floor of the Yan family’s main residence.

Lin Zhu’s calls to the system were fruitless, and he felt a bit guilty.

He had never experienced this kind of entertainment before. It was Yan Ruoyun who taught him the rules and key points of playing mahjong hand by hand, while instructing the other three at the table:
“Don’t bully the kid too much.”

Pei Shurong drew a tile and chuckled: “Don’t worry, Mom won’t.”

The old man, Pei Yihe, also drew a tile, his tone steady: “I won’t either.”

Yan Zihong drew a tile, silent.

International convention:
Playing mahjong without stakes is like playing for nothing.

According to the Yan family’s usual habits, when engaging in such competitive entertainment activities, there always had to be some real money stakes to set the right atmosphere, but tonight was different—

The person who put this game together had ulterior motives, linking the simple mahjong activity to Truth or Dare. The winner could ask anyone a question or issue a dare.

Yan Ruoyun pondered for a second, rested his chin, and whispered:
“Puppy Lin, this is bad, they’re coming for you.”

Lin Zhu: “…”
I… I can feel it.

Before long.
The side hall on the first floor echoed with the crisp, highly rhythmic sound of small square tiles tapping against the table.

Lin Zhu was a novice on the road, but the other three at the table were all seasoned veterans, and their identities were: Yan Ruoyun’s grandfather, father, and mother.

Even with his excellent memory and ability to calculate mentally, facing three super-seniors, he couldn’t help but feel constrained, and quickly lost the first round.

Pei Shurong adjusted a stray lock of hair perfectly, seemingly casually glanced around, then clapped her hands together, turning her head to look at the blond youth on her left.

Lin Zhu proactively said: “…I choose Truth.”

The next instant, he heard Pei Shurong ask in a gentle tone: “Xiao Lin, when you first met, how did you get Yunyun to agree to let you temporarily mark him?”

She had been curious about this for a long time.
But her own son refused to say.

Lin Zhu suddenly exhaled a breath, also slightly stunned by the question. Honestly, he didn’t know why Yan Ruoyun actually came to find him after receiving the text message back then…

He clearly had suppressants on him, but didn’t use them.

Lin Zhu thought for a moment and said with a hesitant expression: “Maybe because I let Brother Ruoyun bite me first? So he felt bad refusing?”

In front of the elders, he added Yan Ruoyun’s name before the title.

In ABO society, Omegas cannot mark Alphas.
Not only that, based on the aggressive instinct engraved in their gender, Alphas absolutely cannot tolerate others coveting their glands. This stimulates their nerves and causes Alphas to become violently agitated.

But Lin Zhu completely lacked this instinct.

His logic for letting Yan Ruoyun bite him first back then was very simple, akin to taking the initiative to drop his weapons and show goodwill, attempting to gain the other party’s approval.

As he thought about it, Lin Zhu’s train of thought took a turn, inexplicably recalling the scenes of feeding stray cats in the past—going from being guarded and scratching people to being close and allowing themselves to be petted, even letting out purring sounds indicating comfort.

Yan Ruoyun was pretty much like that now too.

Upon hearing Lin Zhu’s answer, the three people at the table simultaneously revealed expressions of surprise, and couldn’t help but turn their heads to ask the other person involved,
“Yunyun, is that true?”

As the only other Alpha present, Yan Zihong could best appreciate how incredible this was. He glanced at Lin Zhu several times in a row, his eyes widening, making his usually serious face look inexplicably a bit funny.

Hearing this, Yan Ruoyun calmly took a sip of water, draped one arm over his little boyfriend’s chair back, and said leisurely: “Of course it’s true.”

Tsk, why does it feel a bit secretly thrilling?

Second round.
The winner was Pei Shurong again.

Yan Ruoyun looked at his father and grandfather with a knowing look in his eyes, but also curious about how Lin Zhu would respond, so he silently watched the battle.

Inside the system space.
The white ball of light watched its clear and innocent host fall into a den of foxes, wiped an imaginary tear, and sighed faintly: “Oh, poor host.”

The blue ball of light sincerely agreed for the first time,
[…Poor host.]

Host Lin Zhu’s expression shifted slightly as he chose Truth again, receiving a soul-searching question from his lover’s mother: Who confessed first?

Lin Zhu tilted his head slightly, lowering his eyes to glance at the man leaning against his shoulder. There wasn’t a trace of shyness on the other’s face, completely open and candid.

For some reason.
He opened his mouth and actually told a lie.

He said,
“…Me.”

After speaking, the man cleverly raised his eyes, abruptly catching Lin Zhu’s gaze. The hand he had resting on the back of the chair bent slightly, his fingertips reaching around to the back of the youth’s neck, writing three words stroke by stroke on the slightly protruding gland.

Lin Zhu’s breath hitched, unable to stop himself from silently reading along with his strokes,
—Lit-tle li-ar.

Lin Zhu’s cheeks flushed slightly. He pursed his lips and buried his head in shuffling the tiles, not daring to look at the expressions of the three people at the table, and then quickly lost the round.

The winner of the third round, Grandpa Pei Yihe, coughed, narrowed his eyes in deep thought for two seconds, and too lazy to go through the formalities, directly opened his mouth and asked: “What have you given Yunyun?”

Lin Zhu didn’t even need to think, answering in a second: “Jellyfish.”

Wild jellyfish have short lifespans, but can live for a long time in a tank environment.
Those two were still doing very well to this day. Usually, the man placed them on the nightstand for viewing, and in his spare time, he would transfer them to a basin and move them to the balcony to catch some sun.

This was clearly a very ordinary Q&A.

After Lin Zhu finished speaking, he suddenly felt a wave of bashfulness.

Because he remembered that on that very night, he had… Yan Ruoyun. In Lin Zhu’s concept, that was actually their first intimate contact.

At that time, the jellyfish tank was also placed next to the bed. The colorful lights weren’t turned off, the brilliant hues repeatedly brushing past their eyes, as if they were in the deep sea, ripples of light shimmering, reflecting colored rays.

In the several rounds that followed, Lin Zhu didn’t win once, but he also didn’t miss a single Truth. Losing to the end, Yan Ruoyun couldn’t bear to watch anymore, and personally joined the battle to instruct his little boyfriend.

This game dragged on for a long time.

With the man’s assistance, Lin Zhu finally won a round by a narrow margin, only to face an even more severe challenge.

…Who should he penalize?

Fortunately, Yan Ruoyun had an idea early on. He had pinched his phone in advance, tap-tap-tap typed out some words, and straightforwardly planted his phone on his little boyfriend’s thigh.

Then, he gestured for him to look down.

Lin Zhu quietly looked down and instantly broke out in a cold sweat.

Looking up again.
He fixed his gaze on the middle-aged man on his left, fell silent for a moment, and bravely asked:
“…Truth or Dare?”

Before Yan Zihong could speak, Yan Ruoyun fanned the flames behind Lin Zhu’s back, “You three have been bullying a kid all night, let’s skip the Truths and do a Dare?”

Looking exactly like someone whose elbows turned outward (taking someone else’s side).

Yan Zihong didn’t know what his son was plotting yet, but nodded indifferently in agreement, then immediately threw his gaze at the blond youth.

Lin Zhu looked down at the text on the phone screen again, took a deep breath before speaking, and then issued the command word by word.

“…Give me the household register.”

After speaking, he belatedly added a word on his own initiative.

“Please.”

Even though the person making the request was the blond youth, everyone present knew whose idea it was.

Facing everyone’s gaze, Yan Ruoyun didn’t flinch at all, even explaining casually,
“Getting older, feeling a bit desperate to marry.”

“…”

---

It was getting late.

Today was Sunday, and tomorrow was a busy workday and school day again. Yan Ruoyun didn’t keep Lin Zhu overnight at the Huanshan Manor.

When the two drove away from the Huanshan Manor, the night was deep and heavy, moonlight spilling all over the ground with no one to pick it up.

Lin Zhu sat in the passenger seat, his expression dazed and wooden, unable to snap out of it for a long time.

After a long while, he looked down at the household register in his hand and said in disbelief: “…You r-really gave it to me?”

He knew the Yan family’s background was extraordinary, and Yan Ruoyun was the sole heir. If it weren’t for his gland defect, he would absolutely never have stepped through their doors so easily.

Even so, he could never have imagined that he would get Yan Ruoyun’s household register in such a playful manner.

Although it was a Dare command, it was impossible for the Yan family not to know the meaning behind it—and they actually just silently agreed to it? Let them mess around?

Lin Zhu wouldn’t take the credit for himself. He turned to look at the man holding the steering wheel, eyes straight ahead, his heart soft and mushy, unable to keep the corners of his mouth from rising.

“Ge, thank you.”

He wasn’t trying to thank the man for helping him win, but…

He added,
“Thank you for being willing to marry me.”

Yan Ruoyun held back a smile and suddenly brought up what Lin Zhu had said that day when Pei Shurong caught them red-handed.

“Puppy Lin, you’re not completely ‘nothing besides your grades’…” He couldn’t hold it back anymore, humming and laughing proudly, “You also have a reliable wife.”

The nighttime streets weren’t congested.

By the time the car drove into the apartment complex gate and parked in its designated spot, the two only had time to unbuckle their seatbelts before quickly kissing each other.

Lin Zhu’s behavior was always more restrained, but Yan Ruoyun was becoming increasingly passionate and outgoing. With an arched back and a swing of his long legs, he moved from the driver’s seat to the passenger seat.

The car doors and windows were tightly closed.
In the quiet space, only the sticky sound of moisture remained.

Lin Zhu sat very stiffly, while the man was half-kneeling and half-sitting. This position made his pants tight and close-fitting, outlining the extremely exaggerated curve below his waist.

The sounds of lips and teeth paused briefly.

Yan Ruoyun hooked his little boyfriend’s neck, unable to catch his breath as he spoke, only managing to say intermittently: “I t-told you to stop squeezing… besides, Puppy Lin, don’t you know?”

He was a bit out of breath.
As he spoke, his voice faded.

Lin Zhu moved his hand up a few inches, gently resting it on the man’s waist in his arms, and proactively asked: “Know what?”

Yan Ruoyun complained: “Your palms are incredibly hot!”

“But last time you said my palms were warm…” Lin Zhu thought about it, replying softly, “Covering your gland feels really comfortable.”

Once winter arrived, Yan Ruoyun’s hands and feet got cold, and he preferred to sleep closely pressed against his little boyfriend at night, like hugging a human hot water bottle, making his whole body feel warm and fuzzy.

Including right now, it was the same.

Yan Ruoyun pulled Lin Zhu’s shirt hem out from under his belt, placing his two slightly cool palms on the youth’s abdomen for warmth, saying thoughtfully: “Puppy Lin, your abs are getting more and more defined.”

Lin Zhu answered: “Mm, I run every day at school to keep fit.”

However, the man had a different opinion.

“Running can build abs? Who are you kidding?”

Yan Ruoyun had a smile on his face. His lips caught the other’s earlobe as he whispered: “This is clearly… trained on my body.”

Lin Zhu was left speechless.

After a few seconds of silence, he just let the man hug him tightly, carrying him out of the car directly like a pendant, leading him home.

Yan Ruoyun praised: “Your core strength is getting better and better, not even trembling.”

Lin Zhu: “…”
He held it in, but couldn’t help saying: “Ge, the one trembling… seems to have always been you.”

Yan Ruoyun: “Tsk.”
Lin Zhu: “.”

He didn’t take the brightly lit main road, but led Yan Ruoyun along the cobblestone path among the bushes. The light was slightly dim, and there was hardly anyone around.

“Did you take the household register and car keys?” he asked, holding the man with both hands, unable to stop himself from reminding him. “Don’t drop them.”

“I got them,” the man replied.

There was some distance between the parking spot and the building they lived in. Sometimes when Yan Ruoyun accompanied him for an evening walk, when he got tired or the road was dark, he always liked Lin Zhu to carry him like this for a bit.

When they reached a well-lit area, the man would put his legs down and walk by himself, no longer letting Lin Zhu carry him.

Therefore, Lin Zhu’s legs unconsciously took him down the small paths, even taking a few extra turns, showing quite a bit of reluctance to reach the end.

“Ge, you’re not getting down, right?”

Looking at the row of streetlights not far ahead, Lin Zhu pursed his lips and suggested: “How about I carry you straight upstairs?”

Yan Ruoyun held the documents and keys in one hand, and tugged his little boyfriend’s ear with the other, “No, it’s not that late. What if we run into someone in the elevator? I’d be the one losing face!”

“Besides, there are security cameras in the elevator,” he said.

Lin Zhu paused, then continued to suggest: “Then you can bury your face in my shoulder, and others won’t be able to see, just like an ostrich…”

Yan Ruoyun categorically refused: “I won’t.”

Lin Zhu said: “Wife.”
Yan Ruoyun refused: “No.”
Lin Zhu said again: “Wife, hug.”
Yan Ruoyun clicked his tongue: “…You’re so annoying.”

The next second.
Lin Zhu appreciatively hoisted the man up, hugging him full in his arms, and very sincerely said, “Thank you.”

Yan Ruoyun was utterly speechless, tugging his ear as he complained: “Puppy Lin, sometimes you really overuse polite words. Are you going to say thank you when I allow you to enter too?”

Lin Zhu looked thoughtful, but didn’t say anything.

After a good while.
Yan Ruoyun suddenly felt a sense of foreboding, strictly warning his little boyfriend: “What I mean is, you’re not allowed to say thank you at that kind of time, do you hear me?”

That would honestly be more shameful than dirty talk. He thought.

Lin Zhu took a beat before letting out an “Mm.”

Walking all the way to the elevator downstairs, they didn’t run into any other residents. Lin Zhu patted Yan Ruoyun slightly, indicating: “Ge, press the elevator button.”

After speaking, he added,
“See, there’s no one.”

As soon as he finished speaking, a hand suddenly wedged into the elevator doors that were about to close.

“Wait a moment!”

A delivery driver wearing a helmet and a blue uniform jacket rushed in. His gaze perfectly met Lin Zhu’s, his eyes instantly widening, blurting out a sentence.

“Eh, it’s you…?”

In a flash, Lin Zhu felt as if a giant crab had locked onto his throat. The grip on his waist was not light either, the muscles trembling, causing him to have some difficulty breathing.

He forced a nod at the delivery driver.

The delivery driver awkwardly turned his head away, staring up at the changing numbers. As if unable to bear the silence in the elevator at this moment, he proactively struck up a conversation:

“Um… is this your Omega? You guys have a really good relationship, haha.”

As he spoke, the delivery driver looked in horror as the cool blond guy’s expressionless face turned bright red, looking as if he was about to suffocate.

“Handsome, are you alright?!”