Zhou Sicheng walked into the bathroom with his phone, appearing perfectly calm. Xiang Zhen didn’t doubt him for a second; in his mind, humans were inseparable from their phones in the bathroom. He stayed on the bed, finishing the video he was watching, where the creator hammered the table and declared: “Follow me to become the perfect wife!”

Xiang Zhen clicked “Follow” on this “Sister Wang.”

Auntie Guihua had bought Xiang Zhen this phone specifically so he could learn about the human world as quickly as possible. For Xiang Zhen, going online was strictly for academic purposes—he learned whatever the algorithm fed him. Being a “wife” was a brand-new concept, something he had never encountered before. The big data knew he had a husband, so it had pushed “Sister Wang” his way.

He opened Sister Wang’s profile. The bio read: Everything you need to know: the secrets for a wife to firmly hold the reins of the household.

He scrolled down; Sister Wang had posted over a hundred videos. The pinned one was titled: How to check your husband’s WeChat—keep the family harmonious and happy.

Xiang Zhen blinked slowly. Do I need to learn this much? He clicked on the video and began studying it frame by frame.

Inside the bathroom, Zhou Sicheng turned on the faucet to create some noise, then quickly called his secretary, lowering his voice: “Contact the technical department at Feichi Ride-Hailing. Create a driver account under my name. Make the car model a BYD and simulate a month’s worth of ride logs. Now.”

Feichi Ride-Hailing was a subsidiary of the Zhou Group. Secretary Gao initially thought the CEO was making a late-night inspection, so he immediately linked up with the tech department. The tech director was on high alert, though completely confused. After receiving the CEO’s ID, driver’s license, and insurance policy, they swapped them into a background test account.

“Simulate logs?” a key programmer whispered to the director. “Full-time driver? How high should the revenue be?”

The director pondered. More and more people were turning to ride-hailing after losing their jobs, competition was fierce, and per-ride prices were dropping. Plus, rivals had recently increased subsidies to attract new drivers, causing a month-over-month decline in per-driver revenue. That wasn’t a trend he wanted the CEO to see. The director said craftily, “Simulate it based on ideal conditions, of course.”

The programmer immediately scraped data from the day’s top-earning driver and generated the logs.

Zhou Sicheng waited patiently for the account to generate, telling Secretary Gao: “Send over all the registration materials for a ride-hailing account later. I want a real, verified account by tomorrow.”

Outside, Xiang Zhen was learning how to check WeChat records, thinking that if he could just follow along on his husband’s phone while watching the video, he’d definitely remember all the operations. Zhou Sicheng had been in the bathroom for a long time. He’d heard the sound of water ten minutes ago—why hadn’t he come out yet? Had he fainted?

Worried, Xiang Zhen got out of bed, ran barefoot to the bathroom door, and asked, “Husband, are you okay?”

Zhou Sicheng: “I’m fine.”

Xiang Zhen: “Is your stomach upset?”

Zhou Sicheng: “Yes.”

“I’ll boil some hot water for you.” Xiang Zhen pressed the button on the kettle, grabbed a plastic stool, and sat right in front of the bathroom door. “I’ll keep you company. Call me if you need anything.”

Humans were so fragile, Xiang Zhen thought, filled with concern.

Zhou Sicheng looked at himself in the mirror. Anyone who had raised a child knew that when a kid fell and no one was around, they’d struggle to get up on their own, but the moment a parent asked, “Baby, what’s wrong?”, they would burst into tears. Xiang Zhen’s concern made Zhou Sicheng feel sick even though he wasn’t.

Zhou Sicheng had been raised on elite education, groomed to be a cold-blooded capitalist; he wasn’t allowed to be swayed by “cheap” emotions. But he was human—how could he not crave pure love? Yet, he was surrounded by walls made of money; he was the very synonym for wealth. Everyone saw “Zhou Sicheng,” but no one saw the man hidden inside the walls. Living with Xiang Zhen was the right choice. He stepped out of the wall, and for the first time, the sunlight hit him.

Zhou Sicheng could have stayed moved a bit longer, but then he heard the audio from Xiang Zhen’s video:

[WeChat bills are the most intuitive. Where your husband went, what he spent money on… if he bought a sundae at Mixue Bingcheng, was it for one, or for the mistress and himself…]

Zhou Sicheng: “…”

He opened WeChat, went to his billing history, and deleted the 7,600-yuan charge from dinner with Fan Hao. Then, there was the charge from last month—he’d discovered a small restaurant under a mountain he liked, but the decor was too shabby, so he’d given the owner 30,000 yuan to install a private room for his next hike…

Zhou Sicheng had a lifestyle manager, so he rarely paid for things himself. He finished checking the bills in moments.

[If you open your husband’s WeChat bill and find no abnormal spending, don’t be happy too soon. Open ‘WeChat Pay’ next; there might be payment records he forgot to delete.]

Zhou Sicheng: “…”

Delete, delete, delete. He noticed several large charges coming from a small group chat of fellow CEOs. During the New Year, they had all been competing to send red envelopes, and Zhou Sicheng, to keep up appearances, had sent some too.

Send, my ass. Zhou Sicheng deleted the group chat history.

[If your husband’s list of ‘brothers’ looks fine and the group chats seem innocent, don’t worry. Click ‘Initiate Group Chat,’ select an existing chat—everything from top to bottom, in chronological order, all clear as day.]

Zhou Sicheng: “…” He followed the instructions. Sure enough, the cursed group chats appeared. He exited the groups.

Xiang Zhen was smart; he watched most learning videos at 2x speed. Thinking these operations weren’t difficult, he kicked it up to 3x speed. Consequently, Zhou Sicheng heard an urgent, terrifyingly fast tone.

[Group chats can be traced even after you exit! Click ‘Payment,’ select ‘Group Collection’—at the bottom, you can see the history of group collections!]

Zhou Sicheng opened the record with trepidation, and there, staring back at him, was a record for [-50,000].

?

Zhou Sicheng was exhausted. Why did this obscure corner have a record he had no memory of? He stared at the initiator [Huo Xuan] and finally remembered: two years ago, at an exhibition, Huo Xuan had seen a cool-headed college student whose parents were both terminally ill. Perhaps he’d found “true love” and was too shy to step up alone, so he’d launched a group collection request on the spot under the name [Corporate Joint Charity Donation].

Outside the door, Xiang Zhen couldn’t help but sigh: “So that’s how it works.”

Zhou Sicheng: “…”

Why isn’t the ride-hailing account ready yet? Every minute of delay is another lethal skill Xiang Zhen learns.

Zhou Sicheng, nearly 1.9 meters tall, was hunched over in the tiny bathroom, looking nothing like the man who could command the business world. Outside was his partner, evolving and learning; on the other side, a technician was typing so hard his keyboard was sparking.

I should just register a new WeChat account.

No, wait.

Zhou Sicheng closed his eyes: When did I ever agree to let Xiang Zhen check my WeChat? Plenty of couples broke up over whether or not they could check each other’s phones. Even long-married couples maintained some privacy. And he and Xiang Zhen were just roommates who had known each other for two days.

“Mr. Zhou, the account is ready to log in!”

Zhou Sicheng bolted out of the bathroom like he was escaping prison and snatched the phone from Xiang Zhen’s hand: “Weren’t you looking for the ride-hailing logs?”

Xiang Zhen: “Oh.”

They went back to bed. Xiang Zhen suspected Zhou Sicheng’s stomach pain was due to the damp, cold weather—he’d been sitting in a car all day, soaked in humidity. He reached out, placed his hand on Zhou Sicheng’s lower abdomen, and rested his chin against him, letting the power of the sun flow through his palm into his husband. “How is it? Does it feel warm now?”

Zhou Sicheng: “…” How could it not?

Xiang Zhen opened the ride-hailing log and his eyes widened. Zhou Sicheng had made 1,002 yuan on Labor Day!

“Husband, you’re amazing!”

Zhou Sicheng glanced at the fake logs and gave a casual “Hmm.” He’d been in such a rush he hadn’t checked the logic; if Xiang Zhen scrutinized it, he’d definitely find bugs. He needed to have a talk with Xiang Zhen to avoid being caught off guard again. He started drafting a speech in his mind about how financial logs were citizen privacy—that even husbands, parents, or banks couldn’t access them without authorization. With Xiang Zhen’s personality, would bringing up “the bank” be more convincing?

Xiang Zhen opened the detailed bill for Labor Day and froze.

On Labor Day, Zhou Sicheng had started driving at 5:30 AM to take a customer to the airport for an early flight. He didn’t finish until 2:00 AM the next day, taking the last customer from the train station to a hotel.

The entire day—twenty hours—without even time to eat, driving through every street in the city.

Humans aren’t meant to endure this.

Xiang Zhen thought about Labor Day—he hadn’t even arrived in the city yet; he had spent the day basking in the sun on the hillside. And yet, Zhou Sicheng was willing to give him 5,000 yuan a month out of the hard-earned money he made from his sweat and blood.

Xiang Zhen felt his eyes getting hot.

Zhou Sicheng: “Xiang Zhen, let’s talk—”

“Husband—” Xiang Zhen threw the phone aside, wrapped his arms around Zhou Sicheng’s neck, and buried his face in his shoulder, his voice choking with sobs. “You work too hard.”

Zhou Sicheng fell silent, all his prepared words swallowed back into his throat. They usually held each other when they slept, but this felt like their first true, meaningful embrace.

Xiang Zhen looked up, his eyes slightly wet, his face possessing the stunning beauty of a hibiscus flower weeping dew. His eyes were resolute: “Husband, don’t drive for that ride-hailing app anymore. I’ll support you.”

Zhou Sicheng felt as if his raised hands were being weighed down by a thousand pounds of responsibility and guilt. He sluggishly stroked the corner of Xiang Zhen’s eye and said the opposite of what he’d intended: “What’s wrong with driving? I like it.”

Xiang Zhen wants to check the logs? Fine. Let him check. He can check the company’s logs, too.

Xiang Zhen: “Your working hours are too long. It’s not safe. If something happened to you, I wouldn’t have a husband anymore.” A sunflower would wither if it lost its sun.

Zhou Sicheng looked at the insane logs the technician had made for him and frowned. If the technician could fake logs like this, did it mean such a situation really happened to others? “I promise you, it won’t happen again.”

Xiang Zhen suddenly came up with a brilliant idea: “Your education is so high. Starting tomorrow, you can stay home and study for the Civil Service Exam. I’ll support you no matter how long it takes.”

If I have to, I’ll take out a small loan from the Fairy Fund. It’s not reckless spending; it’s an educational subsidy for my husband. Once he passes the exam, my husband will be a civil servant.

Zhou Sicheng: “…”

Zhou Sicheng: “I can’t take the civil service exam.”

Xiang Zhen was confused: “Why?” Based on his observations, taking the exam was one of the most frequent human behaviors. He’d already decided to write this down in the Guide to Adulthood for future generations—if any future fairies went to university, this would be a clear path to success.

Zhou Sicheng gave an impeccable reason: “It’s hard to come out of the closet when you’re in the establishment.”