Face Blindness (31)

But it occurred to Pei Guangji that he might find clues to his missing memories on his personal communicator.

Before this, his special assistant had routinely backed up everything on his personal communicator.

Pei Guangji had never concerned himself with such a small matter.

So after Jiang Jing left his job, he had no way of finding the key to the cloud server used for the backups.

He had to contact Jiang Jing as soon as possible.

Pei Guangji pressed a hand to his forehead. "Get the car ready. We'll go back to the Davik Hotel first."

He usually disliked staying at the chaotic Pei Residence. Although he owned several apartments and properties in upscale communities in the Core District, Pei Guangji was accustomed to renting the presidential suite at the Davik Hotel long-term.

It was close by and convenient for both life and work. The Davik provided a private butler team, and he didn't have to worry about maintenance.

The two-hundred-square-meter suite had a living room, dining room, kitchen, bedroom, study, and private pool, enough to meet Pei Guangji's needs living alone.

Pei Guangji sat in the back seat.

The driver who had taken leave to visit his family was back. He asked, "Young Master Pei... oh, President Pei, are we going back to the Halfway-Up-the-Mountain Villa in South City, District One, this time?"

After thinking carefully, Pei Guangji remembered it was a property he had once lent to Pei Ying to live in.

He had never lived there before.

Why had the driver asked that?

When the driver heard no answer, he gave an awkward laugh. "It seems you haven't stayed there in a long time."

Something stirred in Pei Guangji's heart.

"Then let's go back."

He had unconsciously used the words "go back."

The scenery outside the car window shifted and receded, and for some reason, Pei Guangji found himself feeling a sense of anticipation.

Pei Guangji shut the car door behind him with a muffled thud.

He frowned deeply at the hovercraft parked in front of the villa's garden. It bore the Xi Group's insignia.

Xi Zhengqing was helping the young man move his luggage.

Pei Guangji strode forward. "What are you doing?"

Xi Zhengqing seemed to notice him only then. He smiled. "You're here? I haven't properly thanked you."

"You see, my family objected before, so I had no choice but to let Hexue stay at a property under your name, just to keep up appearances." Xi Zhengqing put an arm around Xin Hexue, who kept his eyes lowered and said nothing, and explained unhurriedly, "You know what my family is like. They're traditional to begin with, and there's the lesson of what happened to my eldest sister... But none of those obstacles matter anymore. I'll take care of everything, so I won't trouble you any further. I'm here to pick up my boyfriend today."

Xin Hexue pressed his lips tightly together.

[Talk about turning the world upside down.]

Only by complaining to K could he keep himself from laughing out loud.

Pei Guangji seemed unable to process what Xi Zhengqing had said. Half a beat late, he turned to look at Xin Hexue.

The young man kept his head slightly bowed, his dark hair falling neatly beside his neck. He had not said a word the entire time.

Holding the mechanical cat, he left.

Chapter 31: Face Blindness (31)

Xin Hexue moved out of the villa in South City.

He took his mechanical cat and android butler with him.

He had to take the former. As for the latter, its body had a recording and memory function. Xin Hexue was concerned that simply deleting its memories might not be thorough enough; he feared leaving clues that would alert Pei Guangji that something was amiss.

There were no surveillance cameras in the Halfway-Up-the-Mountain Villa in South City, so Xin Hexue didn't have to worry about Pei Guangji seeing everything that had happened through the footage.

At present, Pei Guangji's Heartbreak Value was only thirteen.

He could be certain that Pei Guangji had yet to discover the string of messages he had sent him while he was being confined.

In any case, technology was so advanced these days that, whether the records had been lost or the communicator damaged, Pei Guangji would surely find a way to recover the chat history.

Xin Hexue was very patient. He wasn't going to let Pei Guangji learn everything about their past all at once.

A brief pain was too easily forgotten. After a sudden pang passed, nothing would leave a trace on the heart. It was like a sunshower that fell in an instant at the rumble of thunder: once the rain clouds passed, sunlight streamed down again, and before long, every drop on the ground had evaporated.

Xin Hexue wanted to leave Pei Guangji with pain that went on and on, without end.

He hadn't actually taken all his belongings. In the spacious, quiet villa, Pei Guangji would find matching toothbrush cups and toothbrushes on the bathroom counter, plush slippers in coordinating colors on the shoe rack by the entrance, and warm-toned decor and furniture more suited to Xin Hexue's tastes...

The lonely, empty villa had once been a place warm enough to call "home."

Perhaps, in the smallest corners, Pei Guangji could piece together the details of their former life, bit by bit.

However desperate he was, he could only recall scattered memories slowly, as ripples of bitterness spread through his heart.

The process of recovering his memories would be like a knife cutting into flesh, causing a continuous dull ache.

Only when he finally saw the message history would he realize that he had lost everything himself.

It would be like endless, unbroken rain, enough to leave half a lifetime damp.

The sea breeze blew in, its damp breath brushing his cheeks. A thick white mist had risen along the shore in the early morning.

Xin Hexue stood on the balcony.

Yangnan Bay in North City, District One, faced the sea.

It was a long way from South City.

Perhaps because he didn't want Xin Hexue to remember his life at the Halfway-Up-the-Mountain Villa, Xi Zhengqing had originally chosen a sea-view villa in Yangnan Bay for him, but Xin Hexue preferred a luxury apartment on the other side.

It was fine, really. It had four bedrooms, two living areas, two bathrooms, and a study, and the balcony faced the sea.

It was indeed smaller than a villa, but they had chosen the furniture together and gradually made the place look like a "home."

The overall style was a warm, clean white. In a corner of the living room, the mechanical cat stretched lazily on its cat tree.

Xi Zhengqing came up behind him. The alpha's uniquely advantageous build allowed him to wrap the young man completely in his arms.

"I have to go back to my parents' place tonight." Xi Zhengqing took Xin Hexue's hand and wrapped his own warm hand around it, brushing a finger over the ring on the young man's middle finger. "Your audition is tomorrow. Don't be nervous. Shall I pick you up at nine in the morning?"

Xin Hexue turned around.

With his cool palms cupping the alpha's cheeks, he raised his head, the line of his neck stretching, and brushed his lips against Xi Zhengqing's, ever so lightly and softly.

Xin Hexue seemed not to notice Xi Zhengqing's pupils contract with excitement. He lowered his gaze again. "All right. I'll wait for you at home."

Neither of them mentioned Pei Guangji again. They were like an ordinary couple deeply in love.

Reluctant to part even for a short while.

Even as they said goodbye at the door, their gazes remained entwined.

Xin Hexue had read the script Qiu Yuan sent him.

Unlike other students who tried to escape their mentor's influence on the style of their work, Qiu Yuan made no secret of the fact that he was director Yun Ziming's student.

Although Qiu Yuan had rarely attempted the delicate art films his teacher Yun Ziming excelled at before this, the first work that brought him fame was an

apocalyptic

road movie, its scenes so bloody that the Star Network barred minors under sixteen from watching it.

Because it was so far removed from Yun Ziming's gentle, delicate style, many people who had come because of Qiu Yuan's connection to Yun Ziming cursed him on the Star Network, saying his reputation as a "genius director" had been manufactured through marketing. Those voices soon died away, however, without causing a stir.

The film Qiu Yuan was preparing this time, however, was completely different from his previous work. He was making a sequel to one of Yun Ziming's films, the one in which Xin Hexue had starred as a teenager.

In the original, Yi Si, a boy from the Lower City slums, received a wealthy businessman's sponsorship at the end, allowing him to continue his studies in the Upper City and work toward completing his education and becoming an expert in android manufacturing.

It was an open-ended yet happy ending for everyone.

Unlike the warm, lighthearted comedy of the first film, the sequel was steeped in darkness and hedonistic excess.

Once in the Upper City, Yi Si discovered that his dream was not something he could achieve through hard study alone. He was a beta, worth less than a mechanical part in the Upper City. The alphas there monopolized every resource that offered a chance to rise, while omegas of the same social standing were almost all alpha supporters.

That was the case even though he had yet to fully enter Upper City society and was merely studying at a first-rate academy.

At the academy, people were sorted into ranks according to their genes, bloodlines, and genders.

Unsurprisingly, Yi Si, a male beta, was at the bottom. He suffered all kinds of cruel physical and psychological abuse from his peers.

At the top of the academy's pyramid stood a pair of half-brothers. Their family name was Carter, a prominent family that had long held sway in the Upper City.

When the younger Carter brother cruelly tormented Yi Si by replacing the uniform trousers in his locker with a skirt after swimming class, the elder brother came to his aid and looked after him with painstaking care afterward.

As time went on, they developed feelings for each other, and Yi Si fell in love with the elder brother.

But this was merely a game between the Carter brothers.

Yi Si was astonishingly beautiful, and naturally, he was to become the brothers' shared lover. Before that, they had to break his will. In the end, it would be enough for their beautiful prey to become a helpless lamb dependent on them.

At the graduation ball, everyone present received an intimate recording of Yi Si and the elder brother: expanses of red velvet, and a flawless white body exposed before the camera.

On learning the truth, Yi Si nearly suffered a mental breakdown.

A seed planted in the first film was also brought to fruition: the hit-and-run driver who had caused the car accident in which his parents died before they could be rescued was none other than the Carter brothers' father.

Yi Si had scarcely any time to grieve. He maneuvered between the two brothers, and under the guise of docility, gained access to a commercial secret vital to the Carter family when the elder brother was drunk.

He moved through high society like a social butterfly and joined forces with another family that had long had its eye on the Carters. The leak of the secret shook the foundations of the Carter family to a great extent.

A deliberately engineered accident ended the lives of the family he had sought revenge against.

But Yi Si had nothing left. His body, his dignity, and his dreams had all been destroyed in the Upper City.