On the 24th, deep in the night, in the Imperial Capital.
Inside the luxurious private room on the top floor of the Nameless Club, the air was filled with a faint, expensive aroma, completely isolated from the bustle of the city outside.
Gu Jinzhi, dressed in low-key casual wear, sat opposite a young man wearing an ear stud and a floral shirt.
"Got the stuff?" The floral shirt youth leaned forward, rubbing his hands together excitedly, his eyes full of eagerness.
Gu Jinzhi suppressed the fatigue in his expression, picked up a hard-shell file folder from the sofa beside him, and tossed it over casually.
"Hey, hey, hey, watch it!"
The floral shirt youth caught the folder with both hands, opened it, and cautiously pulled out a somewhat wrinkled A4 piece of paper.
Looking at the printed form on it and the dense signatures covering it, he began to tremble with excitement.
"Ah~ Goddess! My goddess!" He hugged the A4 paper as if holding the girl of his dreams.
"..."
Gu Jinzhi raised a hand to cover the bridge of his nose, his thumb and middle finger massaging his temples as he simply couldn't bear to watch.
"Ahem!"
After "entangling" with the paper for quite a while, the floral shirt youth finally gave two dry coughs, put the file folder away, straightened his expression, and cupped his fists. "Brother, a great favor goes without thanks!"
Gu Jinzhi's thin lips pressed into a tight line, his face cold. "Zeng Yi, act normal."
The floral shirt youth, none other than Zeng Yi, chuckled with a mischievous grin. "Don't be so serious! If you're like this, what are you going to do if you scare my sister-in-law after you get married?"
Next, he shifted his backside, bypassed the coffee table to sit beside Gu Jinzhi, hooked an arm around the latter's shoulders, and said, "Sister-in-law is super gorgeous, I'm telling you! If I didn't already have Goddess Shen, I'd definitely compete with you fairly!"
With that, he even put on a deeply affectionate look. "Sigh, how does that poem go again? 'Having beheld the vast sea, waters elsewhere are hard to water; except for Mount Wu, no cloud is a cloud.' Ah~ My Goddess Shen!"
Gu Jinzhi's chisel-hewn jawline stiffened. Frowning, he pried Zeng Yi's "dog paws" off his shoulder, shifted another seat away, and frowned. "Stop messing around, I want to ask you about something."
"Tsk!" Zeng Yi sat back on his side, looking wounded. "And here I thought you were sincerely treating me to a drink..."
Ignoring the complaint, Gu Jinzhi cut straight to the point. "You claim to be the love sage of Qingyun, so let me ask you: is there any way to make a woman thoroughly loathe you?"
Zeng Yi's eyes widened. "Loathe? Are you out of your mind? Why would you want to make a woman loathe you? You already admitted I'm the love sage of Qingyun, don't you know that I only make women fall in love with me?"
Gu Jinzhi struck a fatal blow. "Doesn't Shen Yaochi loathe you?"
Zeng Yi clutched his chest, unable to breathe. "Brother, you just killed the conversation..."
The atmosphere in the private room remained stiff for quite a while, until Zeng Yi finally cracked under Gu Jinzhi's calm yet intensely oppressive gaze.
He said listlessly, "What kind of play are you putting on now? Is Yun Xi bothering you again?"
"It's not Yun Xi..." Gu Jinzhi shook his head. "It's Jiang Xue."
"Huh? Sister-in-law?!" Zeng Yi was dumbfounded. "Aren't you guys getting married soon? Brother Da Zhi, what kind of act are you putting on now?"
Gu Jinzhi fell silent, his knuckle slightly curled as he unconsciously tapped lightly on the coffee table. "You know my situation... I can't return her feelings... Besides, if I fail to come back..."
"Bah, bah, bah!" Zeng Yi interrupted the rest of Gu Jinzhi's words with exaggerated gestures. "For the past two years, you've led the brothers on missions and breached rifts, what kind of massive storms haven't you seen? Now that you're getting married, why bother saying such discouraging things?"
Hearing the word "married," Gu Jinzhi frowned, his dark eyes seemingly enduring something deep within.
"This time, it's different..."
Zeng Yi slammed a palm onto the coffee table, actually cracking the heavy marble surface into a web-like pattern of fractures.
"What's different? Isn't it just the Zhang family trying to harm you? So what if he's a Martial Immortal? Are Martial Immortals so great? My Zeng family isn't without a Martial Immortal either!"
"My great-grandfather ranks thirteenth on the Martial Immortal leaderboard, way better than that old scoundrel Zhang Luye! How about this, Brother Da Zhi, I'll go with you to the Western Frontier!"
"Hmph! Let's see if his Zhang family has the guts to scheme and kill the two of us brothers together!"
Click! Hiss--!
If you can't find the book by its title, try searching for the author instead; it might have been renamed!
Gu Jinzhi shook his head with a wry smile, popped open a canned beer, took a heavy gulp, and once again stared at the youth opposite him. "Thanks, I appreciate the thought. But the business between the Gu and Zhang families isn't something others should meddle in. If you don't want your grandfather to break your legs, don't do anything stupid..."
Zeng Yi's momentum deflated, replaced by an inexplicable irritation.
He popped open a can of beer as well, chugging it down in one go. Ignoring the beer spilling from the corner of his mouth, he glared with reddened eyes and roared, "Brother Da Zhi, stop always thinking about trading your own life to make the Zhang family back down! My great-grandfather said the Zhang people are wolves, and wolves have no humanity!"
"...You're getting married soon, and to such a great girl! You aren't alone anymore, so stop giving up on yourself, okay? Even if you won't consider yourself, you have to think about sister-in-law, right?"
The knuckles of Gu Jinzhi's hand holding the soda can tightened, a shadow flitting across his handsome features. "You're worrying over nothing, I won't make a joke of my own life... If the Zhang family wants me dead, they'll have to see if their teeth are strong enough."
"Then you?" Zeng Yi stared into Gu Jinzhi's eyes, unsure whether his words were true or false.
Among the brothers who grew up playing together, Gu Jinzhi had been old before his time, never showing joy or anger on his face.
Trying to see through him was simply too difficult.
Gu Jinzhi shook the somewhat deformed can, raised his hand, and likewise finished it in one draught. "Don't overthink it, I just don't like Jiang Xue..."
He paused, then continued, "Romance is a burden to me."
Zeng Yi opened his mouth, and after a long while, finally raised a thumb. "You're something else! I hope you can still be this tough when you see sister-in-law..."
"My question," Gu Jinzhi regained his composure, his voice cold and stern, "if you can't answer it, I'll find someone else."
"Don't!" Zeng Yi made a surrendering gesture. "Isn't it just making a woman loathe you? Heheh, I've got plenty of ways!"
"Speak." Gu Jinzhi signaled him to begin his performance.
Zeng Yi: "You could disguise yourself as a domestic abuser?"
Gu Jinzhi: "No, change it. That's too terrible for one's character."
Zeng Yi: "Being unhygienic and slovenly?"
Gu Jinzhi: "Jiang Xue has already strayed into deviation, that method is way too slow."
Zeng Yi scratches his head: "Exposing scandalous dirt about being intimate with other women, making her think you cheated?"
Gu Jinzhi frowned: "Given Jiang Xue's temper... it wouldn't end well..."
Zeng Yi clenches a fist: "Not cleaning or taking care of kids, lying on the couch all day scrolling on your phone?"
Gu Jinzhi's mouth twitched: "We have employees for cleaning, we don't have kids yet, and I have to train normally—no time to scroll on the phone..."
Zeng Yi racks his brains: "Got it! I read a female-oriented novel a couple of days ago..."
Gu Jinzhi: "Spit it out."
Zeng Yi: "There was this insanely disgusting guy in it, so bad it made me want to rush into the book and kill him. The kind who is an extreme control freak, keeps her locked in a dark room, wears gold chains, loves fiercely... makes a woman feel suffocated and terrified, and then take the initiative to stay away..."
Gu Jinzhi: "..."
Zeng Yi: "..."
Gu Jinzhi: "Go into detail..."
Zeng Yi: "You're kind of perverted!"
Gu Jinzhi: "Cut the crap!"
Zeng Yi: "After meeting, you go like this... and like that... then... and then..."
Gu Jinzhi listened with rapt attention, his facial muscles twitching from time to time.
Finally, Zeng Yi concluded, "There's a premise, though: you have to be able to beat the other person... The novel I read took place in a world without martial arts."
He used himself as an example: "Real-life operations have to factor in both sides' strengths... For instance, if I did that to Shen Yaochi..."
Thinking of some possible outcome, he shuddered and fell silent.
Silence fell over the private room once more, leaving only the slightly oppressive sound of their breathing.
After a long time, Gu Jinzhi slowly spoke, his voice carrying a trace of imperceptible hoarseness: "Just as you said... I'll give it a try?"
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