Seeing that Ji Hanxing had truly bristled, Yan Jinyue immediately withdrew his probing feelers.
He pointed at the self-balancing scooter that had just glided past them. "There really was one. I wasn't lying."
Ji Hanxing: Would you listen to what you're saying?
You took advantage of me, and now you're making excuses.
Pah. I look down on you.
Yan Jinyue secretly rubbed the fingers of his lowered hand together. In that case, next time he would hold his hand openly.
Ji Hanxing started walking ahead, and Yan Jinyue followed with a smile.
In the system space, System 004 watched Ji Hanxing and Yan Jinyue's behavior and sank into thought.
Why did something feel off?
It searched its existing database and found an explanation: two men behaving intimately and sharing a deep bond could be understood as kindred spirits. They might even sleep together with their feet touching.
The male lead and the villain were close, like-minded friends early on. The better their relationship was at first, the more heartbreaking their eventual falling-out would be. Nothing wrong with that.
As Ji Hanxing walked, he kept an eye on the system in his consciousness. Only when he saw that it showed no reaction did he relax a little. As long as the system hadn't judged him to be acting out of character.
The time limit had already expired, so Yan Jinyue could no longer hear Ji Hanxing's thoughts. He saw him walking straight ahead without a word.
"Are you angry?"
Ji Hanxing glanced at Yan Jinyue. "Not that angry."
He looked coolly elegant and aloof, as though he wouldn't stoop to arguing with him.
Yan Jinyue nodded. "Mm, Lord Hanxing is very magnanimous."
Hearing this, Ji Hanxing grew a little more haughty. "Of course."
That haughty gaze was like a Maine Coon perched high up, looking down on everything below.
Yan Jinyue slowly clenched his hand. His fingers itched. He wanted to pet him.
But he needed to restrain himself. His little test just now had already made Ji Hanxing bristle, so he had to take things slowly. A determination to succeed lay hidden in Yan Jinyue's eyes. He would proceed gradually.
Ji Hanxing only felt a chill down his back, as though something had set its sights on him.
"It's a little cold. Let's go back."
"All right."
Spicy food was a delight going down, but the diarrhea afterward was hell.
In his sleep, Ji Hanxing felt his abdomen cramping, the pain so intense that a sheen of cold sweat broke out on his forehead. Suddenly, a wave of nausea rose in him. Clutching his abdomen, he stumbled into the bathroom and dry-heaved.
By the time Ji Hanxing emerged from the bathroom, his legs felt as limp as two strands of noodles.
He sprawled on the bed, his face pale and his hand covering his still-aching abdomen.
"Hmph! That's what you get for eating recklessly. Gave yourself acute gastroenteritis, didn't you?"
It was hard to tell whether the system's AI voice was mocking him or expressing exasperation at his failure to do better. But Ji Hanxing had no time to ponder that anyway.
Two straight days of heavily spiced, oily, salty food had successfully given this body, which had originally eaten a light diet, acute gastroenteritis.
Ji Hanxing missed his former unfeeling iron stomach terribly. He hadn't even gotten diarrhea from eating at that Hua-something fast-food place.
In the system space, the system watched Ji Hanxing pitifully curl up on the bed in pain, and its data fluctuated a few times.
"According to the setting, most domineering CEOs in romance stories have stomach problems. There should be stomach medicine kept at home."
It was all for the mission! It wasn't because it felt sorry for Ji Hanxing.
With his head buried in the covers, Ji Hanxing's eyes flickered slightly at those words.
"Thanks."
Ji Hanxing thought for a moment, then, following his memories, reached out to open the nightstand drawer and fished out a blister pack of pills.
But when he pressed a finger against it, it was empty.
"System!"
His abdomen gave another sharp spasm. Ji Hanxing gritted his teeth, forcing the word out through them.
"According to the setting, the domineering CEO has stomach problems, but when they flare up, he happens to be out of medicine. This is when our female lead needs to make her entrance."
"What the domineering CEO needs to wait for is the female lead's salvation."
"Get lost!"
Ji Hanxing squeezed his eyes shut in pain. Where was he supposed to find the female lead now?
Rather than wait for someone else to save him, he might as well rely on himself.
It wasn't as though he couldn't call 120 himself!
"Actually, you could call Assistant Xue, Xue Hui."
Ji Hanxing ignored the system entirely and used his fingers, trembling slightly from the pain, to dial 120.
He knew contacting Xue Hui would be quicker and more convenient, too, but didn't workers' lives matter?
What time was it already!
The man was here to work, not to sacrifice his life.
Damned capitalists.
Ji Hanxing didn't think this was anything particularly serious, either. He could handle it himself.
After receiving his call, the emergency center quickly dispatched the nearest ambulance. Ji Hanxing was soon taken to a nearby tertiary Grade A hospital, A City First Hospital.
Consultation, pain relief, an IV drip-swift and effective.
"Hmph, suffered for it, didn't you? Let's see if you dare eat that again."
"If you ate the fat-loss meals this system arranged, all wholesome and healthy, none of this would have happened."
The system couldn't help launching into a lecture at Ji Hanxing.
Ji Hanxing had an IV drip attached to one hand while the other rubbed his abdomen.
"Why wouldn't I dare? This stomach is just too fussy. That's why it can't withstand even a little hardship."
"Not only am I going to eat it, I'm going to eat more, so I can train it back into my old, unfeeling iron stomach as soon as possible!"
The system: You really won't listen to a thing.
Ji Hanxing: Sorry, a wild boar can't appreciate fine bran.
The painkillers the doctor had given him slowly took effect, and the spasms in his abdomen gradually eased.
Suddenly, Ji Hanxing felt someone looking at him. He looked up, only to see the hem of a white coat flash past the infusion room doorway. Presumably, it was a doctor or nurse passing by.
Ji Hanxing sat alone in the infusion room, watching the colorless liquid drip from the IV bottle. His eyelids gradually drooped until they closed completely.
The cold medication flowed into his body through the vein in his hand. In his sleep, Ji Hanxing shivered and instinctively curled up a little, as though that would make him warmer.
This was the sight that greeted Yan Jinyue when he arrived at the infusion room, panting.
Ji Hanxing sat all alone in the infusion room, his body curled up, his face pale, and his eyes tightly shut. One hand lay exposed, connected to the cold IV tubing.
Yan Jinyue's heart instantly felt as though it had been stabbed. His brows knitted tightly, and he strode forward, slowing his steps as he drew near.
Ji Hanxing was sleeping deeply. Yan Jinyue sat down beside him and draped his own clothes over him, but even that failed to wake Ji Hanxing.
Yan Jinyue reached out and covered the icy back of Ji Hanxing's hand.
Feeling the warmth, Ji Hanxing gradually relaxed his body and slept even more deeply.
Yan Jinyue simply sat beside him, silently watching Ji Hanxing, keeping an eye on both his condition and the IV bottle.
When Yan Jinyue's friend Si Mu, an attending physician in the emergency department at City First Hospital, called to tell him that Ji Hanxing had been brought to their hospital by ambulance, Yan Jinyue had rushed over.
On his way there, Si Mu told Yan Jinyue that Ji Hanxing had developed gastroenteritis from overeating, and Yan Jinyue guessed that it was related to the hotpot meal he had shared with him.