Xin Hexue closed his eyes to rest.
With his eyes closed, he did not notice the sea creature's arms slipping silently through the gaps in the bamboo fence and into the courtyard.
Like agile, winding snakes, they followed the pebble path, flicked their ends, then slid down the stone wall into the warm spring water.
Once in the water, the tentacles swelled slightly.
Even though they had been electrocuted with a hundred thousand volts in the bathtub last time, scorched on the outside and tender on the inside, and had spent a long time soaking in repair fluid before their injuries healed, the two tentacles still refused to answer the central brain's persistent questions, guarding their secret fiercely.
Even when they came over today, they remembered to sever the flow of information between the peripheral and central nervous systems, blocking the central brain on their end.
The two arms tangled in a fight at the bottom of the spring for a while. Only after a winner emerged did one of them swim forward.
Xin Hexue had grown drowsy in the hot spring and was dozing with his eyes closed. His body slipped lower with the ripples, and the water rose over his shoulders, gently lapping at his chin in successive waves and wetting the ends of his black hair.
Suddenly, something cold and slick coiled around his waist, brushing intimately over his smooth skin like a sucking kiss. Where it rubbed, his delicate skin grew warm and flushed pink.
Its color resembled the thin, juice-filled skin of a fully ripened peach.
The strange sensation was nothing like the warmth of the spring water. Xin Hexue stirred and instantly woke up.
His eyes flew open. "What was that?!"
But the hot spring was calm again, its surface undisturbed, though the chill seemed to linger around his waist.
White mist rose, and droplets of condensed vapor clung to Xin Hexue's eyelashes.
For some reason, Xin Hexue felt a sense of danger. His intuition was usually right, so he decided not to stay any longer.
He stepped out of the hot spring pool.
His snowy-white body was dripping wet, the vast expanse of white broken only by pink.
Xin Hexue hurriedly wrapped himself in a dry bathrobe and started toward the inner room, intending to leave the courtyard. But after he stood up so abruptly, the sensation of floating in the water followed him, or perhaps his body simply couldn't adjust after soaking for so long.
Points of light flashed before Xin Hexue's eyes like bursting fireworks. In a daze, he stepped on something, and the world spun around him.
This is bad, he thought.
But the expected pain of hitting the ground never came.
It was like falling onto soft jelly.
Xin Hexue lay there in a daze for nearly a minute. When he got up, there was nothing on the ground except the still-wet traces of spring water left by someone walking past.
It made Xin Hexue wonder if the sensation of his fall had been an illusion.
He could only hurry to the inner room. Once inside, he pushed the floor-to-ceiling glass door firmly shut.
In a hidden corner of the courtyard.
"...＆￥％＃ ＠＆...＆＊"
My wife stepped on me. I'm so happy. This octopus life was worth it...
Xin Hexue left the room and stood in the lobby.
He knitted his brows and asked K, [What was that just now?]
K had witnessed almost everything and answered truthfully: [Two tentacles. They might be the ones we encountered last time.]
Another mutant?
With the limited information in the script, Xin Hexue couldn't understand why there were mutants in District One too. According to the news, their major strongholds should have been in the outskirts beyond the Twelfth District, far too distant from District One.
Yet in a short time, he had already seen two mutants, and at the Pei family's home in the Core District, no less.
Had he overlooked something?
Xin Hexue leaned against the wall with his arms folded, his eyes lowered in thought.
He had changed into the clothes he had brought with him: a thick, sky-blue hoodie that made him look like an exceptionally youthful and attractive college student.
Considering his age, that was what he should have been.
A flurry of commotion and noise came with a rush of approaching footsteps.
Shutters clicked in a jumble, and camera lenses were shoved almost into Xin Hexue's face.
Paparazzi and reporters crowded around, pushing and shoving as they thrust microphones forward and fired off questions. "Hello, what is your relationship with the eldest young master Xi, the heir to the Nüwa Bionic Manufacturing Company?"
"Someone saw you and young master Xi entering and leaving the same room. Is that true?"
"Is your relationship more than friendship? Oh, you seem to be a Beta. Mr. Xi Zhengqing has kept himself above reproach for years. Does that have anything to do with a special preference for Betas? Could you tell us?"
The matter concerned the Federation's famous Xi Family and held the makings of a major scoop. The excited reporters bombarded him with questions, unwilling to miss the slightest scrap of information that might make tomorrow's front page.
Flashbulbs went off in a chaotic, dazzling glare.
Xin Hexue raised his hand and lowered his head, shielding his eyes and brows with the back of his hand.
"We're just friends. As for the other questions, I'm sorry..."
The crowd was packed tight and the air barely circulated. Xin Hexue wasn't feeling well after his soak in the hot spring, and he began to cough.
His face turned as pale as snow as the coughs came in rapid succession, shaking his shoulders with their force.
Shining black leather shoes struck the marble floor in hurried footsteps.
Xi Zhengqing spoke sternly. "Security, escort these people out."
The Alpha's expression was frighteningly cold. He steadied Xin Hexue and let him bury his face against his chest and shoulder. Facing the reporters, he spoke with a chill in every word, as though his throat were lined with ice.
"Who let you in? In any case, please do not disturb my friend."
"Jiajin Newspaper and Hua'ali Newspaper? I'll be contacting the people in charge of you later."
The noisy lobby fell quiet again.
The resort manager hurried over to apologize to Xi Zhengqing. As compensation, he promised that Xi Zhengqing and his friends would receive black-gold customer treatment every time they visited, plus free lifetime membership at the archery club.
To the Xi Family, which already owned numerous resorts and high-end private clubs, these things were hardly worth mentioning.
Xi Zhengqing dismissed the resort manager with a few words.
He sat down on the sofa with Xin Hexue and handed him a cup of tea to moisten his lips. "Are you feeling all right?"
Xin Hexue lowered his eyelashes. After the warm tea moistened his pale lips, a brighter color rose to them.
Xi Zhengqing's throat tightened.
Xin Hexue explained softly, "There were too many people just now. I wasn't feeling well."
"I'm sorry. This was all my fault," Xi Zhengqing apologized sincerely. "I didn't expect them to speculate so maliciously about our friendship and cause you trouble."
Xin Hexue shook his head. "It's not your fault. Just like you said before, some unscrupulous media outlets like to chase shadows."
Afterward, he gave two more soft coughs.
Xi Zhengqing knew he had social anxiety disorder. Suddenly becoming the focus of a crowd might have triggered an instinctive panic response.
He had never known Xin Hexue's reaction could be so severe, though. Xi Zhengqing used a tissue to wipe the cold sweat dampening the hair on Xin Hexue's forehead and asked solicitously, "Would you like to go back to your room and get some sleep? I'll call you when it's time for lunch."
Out of the corner of his eye, Xin Hexue glimpsed the blond Alpha's back as he flashed past in the corridor.
Xin Hexue nodded at Xi Zhengqing's considerate inquiry.
He didn't let Xi Zhengqing take him back to his room.
When he turned into the corridor,
Xin Hexue saw the blond Alpha. He wore a black leather jacket with a washed, distressed finish, sunglasses hanging from its half-open collar, and had a roguish air.
Qiu Yuan had deliberately waited for him.
Xin Hexue had clearly recognized him, but pretended to be face-blind and not know him. Just as they were about to pass each other—
Qiu Yuan spoke. "The resort's security guards aren't just for show. Besides, the heir to the Zuo family, a media giant, is here today too. Unless they wanted to lose their jobs, those reporters wouldn't have courted disaster."
Xin Hexue looked at him.
Qiu Yuan met his gaze. His eyes were deep-sea blue, and he raised a brow, saying with interest, "Xi Zhengqing arranged for them to come."
"I'm guessing he might have wanted to stage a hero saving a beauty... Oh, I watched the whole thing. Perhaps I should pay my childhood friend for a ticket."
Keeping his distance, Xin Hexue asked, "What exactly are you trying to say?"
Qiu Yuan sized up the Beta before him. His looks certainly gave him what it took to have Pei Guangji and Xi Zhengqing wrapped around his finger.
He knew that even without a warning, Xin Hexue had probably guessed most of it. After all, the young man had looked dazzlingly clever while shooting.
Yet just now he had put on an act of being frail and easy to bully.
He could clearly drive arrows into the bullseye with ease, and that night at the Pei Residence, he had ridden the bionic man in complete control, issuing orders coldly.
His health did seem poor, though. He had passed out after just three fingers.
"Can't stand Xi Zhengqing?" Qiu Yuan paced a circle around Xin Hexue. "I just wanted to say that if you can't stand him either, then we ought to be friends with something in common."
He had grown immensely curious about the young man before him.
Xin Hexue...
What exactly do you want to do?
Suddenly, Qiu Yuan froze, as though he had been nailed to the spot.
Why was his scent on the young man?
Chapter 27: Face Blindness (27)
That night in the Pei Residence's banquet hall, after Qiu Yuan learned that the operation to assassinate Gerard had succeeded, he found The Cutter.
The Cutter was hiding inside the body of a silver-haired bionic man. Qiu Yuan could tell that it was even a butler-model bionic man, which made The Cutter look especially ridiculous.
Qiu Yuan said coldly, "You'd better explain to me why you wasted so much time for nothing."
The bionic man swept an inorganic gaze over him and walked straight out.
The Cutter had always worked alone and never communicated with others.
Qiu Yuan knew his temperament and therefore didn't expect The Cutter to give him an honest account.
Besides, he wasn't The Cutter's direct superior.
Qiu Yuan and Spark merely had a cooperative relationship in which they used each other. When necessary, The Cutter had to obey his orders.