Dumbass x2

His ribs and knees hurt agonizingly, and fine sand left unswept on the floor scraped back and forth against his exposed skin. Born under the red flag and raised in the spring breeze, when had Ji Tan ever suffered like this?

Anger surged through him, giving him the nerve to lash out. He snatched the proposal and slapped it hard against the floor, pointing at the conspicuous "233" as he loudly accused, "Xie Zhi! For you, I shed tears by day and sobbed late into the night, went without sleep or rest, suffered every hardship, and even lost my life in the end, and you're just going to watch them bully me?"

"Ooh-"

The entire corridor fell silent, and gasps rose from the crowd one after another.

A bald man in a hospital gown excitedly raised his phone. "Folks, come take a look! The president of Huo Group abuses his lawful spouse, and his husband throws himself into another man's arms on the spot. Is this the distortion of human nature or the collapse of morality?"

"..."

Xie Zhi stared steadily at Ji Tan, his thin lips pressed into a straight line. "You and me? Did any of that happen?"

Huo Zhaixing, who had just wiped away his nosebleed, strode over, his expression thunderous. He shoved a bodyguard aside, seized Ji Tan by the collar, and hauled him into a sitting position, demanding through gritted teeth, "What's going on between you two? Ji Tan, you dare betray me!"

Ji Tan coughed as his hospital gown tightened around his throat.

Xie Zhi frowned slightly, raised one hand, and snapped his fingers crisply. "Grabbing people by the collar is forbidden here."

Ji Tan glanced at his solemn-faced former boss and rolled his eyes weakly. "Quit messing around, man..." Before he could finish, his breathing suddenly eased. He slowly lowered his head and saw the five fingers of his husband in name, which had been clutching his collar, spring open one by one against their owner's will, then stubbornly close again, only to loosen in succession once more.

"Are you playing the pipa?" Ji Tan looked at President Huo, who was stubbornly practicing finger rolls against his collarbone, and grabbed the proposal to hit him again. Before the scumbag could retaliate, an arm in a silk shirt slipped beneath Ji Tan's armpits and hauled him several steps away.

"Archon?" Huo Zhaixing ground out the word, his entire body tensing. Still kneeling on one knee, he reached toward his waist with one hand.

Two black-clad bodyguards quickly positioned themselves in front of President Huo, watching Xie Zhi warily. Fear entered the eyes of the doctor holding the syringe, and he quietly backed away.

"Huo, you're bleeding." A frail boy in a hospital gown stumbled over to Huo Zhaixing and gently helped wipe away the blood trickling from his nose again. Even after he had been wiping for some time, Huo never looked at him, still staring fixedly at Xie Zhi.

Only after receiving no response did the boy look toward Xie Zhi, his expression turning grave as well. "This man is... an Orderly?"

"Your dear Huo called him Archon," the young nurse who had handed Ji Tan the note eagerly volunteered, drawing out the final word with a distinctly mocking tone.

"This handsome guy is the new Archon?" Nearby onlookers heard her too.

"Does City A have an Archon?"

"Of course it does. The districts each handle their own affairs, but there's always been an Archon."

"Impossible. The new Archon is still attending his inauguration in the Central District." Someone beside the wall-mounted television pointed at the footage playing on it.

[Today's news: City A welcomed its new Archon, Mr. Xie.]

The new Archon on the screen, dressed in finery with a cold, stern expression, had the same face as the man before them who had stolen Huo's husband away.

"Gasp-"

Everyone looked at the television, then back at the scene before them, and still more gasps followed.

The bald man holding his phone timidly lowered his hand. He could feast on juicy gossip about wealthy families all he liked, but anything involving the Archon required some consideration. So he lowered his voice and spoke into the microphone with an air of utter furtiveness. "Folks, come take a look! The new Archon and the president of Huo Group are fighting over a man!"

The boy who was presumably called Qiao Qiao relaxed after seeing the television footage, however. He gave a derisive laugh, pressed one hand to his chest, and said mournfully, "Ji Tan, it's fine if you don't want to save me, but why hire a fake Archon to deceive Huo? The inauguration is being broadcast live. He can't be the real Archon."

The onlookers relaxed at these words too. Right, a person couldn't be in the Central District's square and a hospital in the North District at the same time.

Only President Huo and his bodyguards remained on high alert.

Huo Zhaixing stood and tentatively extended a hand as though feeding a wild beast. "Tan, come here. The man behind you is dangerous!" As the last word left his mouth, he shot forward like an arrow loosed from its bow, fingers curling into claws as he went straight for the wrist of the hand Ji Tan was secretly using to flip him off.

Wasn't this supposed to be about a domineering CEO? How had it turned into a martial arts movie?

Before Ji Tan could lower that towering finger, the rush of air from Huo's palm had already touched his skin, raising the hairs on his forearm one by one before his eyes. At the critical instant, his body was suddenly lifted into the air, skimming past President Huo's "eagle claw" before retreating several meters.

Holding Ji Tan under one arm, Xie Zhi snapped his fingers again with his other hand. "Speeding is forbidden here for thirty seconds. Speed limit: one mile per hour①." The moment he said it, every bodyguard, patient, medical worker, President Huo, and even that weeping white moonlight in the corridor seemed to have been put into slow motion.

A patient's family member who had been rushing over from afar with a wheelchair to watch the commotion abruptly slowed. The wheelchair slipped out of their hands but continued forward at the same constant speed. The wheelchair fled, the family member chased, and at one mile per hour, hand and chair never met, like a ridiculous mime performance.

Xie Zhi gave Ji Tan, who was hanging limply in a daze with both armpits resting over his arm, a little bounce.

"Director Ji, you now have thirty seconds to run."

"..."

Ji Tan was a little dazed. The sheer fantastical nature of this world had exceeded his comprehension. Yes, this was a world inside a novel, but it didn't just have Overlords and white moonlights. It had superpowers too!

Garbage AI, what the hell had you secretly been consuming? What even was this stuff you'd written?!

Ji Tan stood unsteadily and stuffed the proposal back into his stretchy waistband. The anesthetic had yet to wear off, leaving him without the strength to talk or the time to worry about these supernatural powers. He had to leave this hospital as soon as possible. He glanced at President Huo, who looked ready to burst with rage but was advancing at a snail's pace, then turned and left.

Putting strength into his ankles and arches at once, Ji Tan assumed the form he had used in his high school hundred-meter race and broke into a sprint. He ran straight into air that was thick and sluggish, as though it had become transparent jelly.

His legs rose high, bent and straightened slowly, and landed softly. Speed: one mile per hour.

"..." Ji Tan stood silently in place, staring at the little mole on the bridge of Xie Zhi's nose. The longer he looked, the more it resembled a bull's-eye inviting a punch.

Xie Zhi tilted his head innocently.

"Are you a dumbass too? With a one-mile-per-hour speed limit, I'm restricted too." Ji Tan strongly suspected the man was messing with him on purpose.

"What do you mean, 'too'? Ji Tan, you've successfully angered me!" President Huo, still struggling forward over there, couldn't resist interjecting.

Ji Tan said, "Oh."

"Pfft." The bald man holding his phone at chest level had suppressed his laughter so hard he had given himself a double chin, but a little escaped. He quickly lowered his head to pretend to use his phone, then suddenly cried out, "My phone!"

His phone, which had been diligently livestreaming for the "folks," had cracked at some point. Its screen was pitch-black, and electrical arcs occasionally flashed through the spiderweb of cracks.

Xie Zhi echoed, "Oh."

With that, he scooped up Ji Tan, who was standing barefoot on the floor, slung him over his shoulder, and strode swiftly away on his long legs, leaving Huo Zhaixing's furious roars behind them.

"Seal off the hospital! Not even a fly is allowed out!"

The booming roar echoed through the quiet hospital, its sound waves almost tangible as they tousled Ji Tan's upside-down hair.

"Oh dear." Xie Zhi sighed softly and turned into the elevator. "We can't get out for the moment."

Ji Tan laboriously raised his head and saw the hospital lobby's glass doors and ventilation windows closing one after another. A doctor trying to leave was stopped by an invisible wall, while orderlies urgently carrying a stretcher inside crashed into it hard enough to bloody their heads.

As the elevator doors closed, Ji Tan patted Xie Zhi to signal that he should put him down. He was about to throw up.

After leaning against the elevator and catching his breath for a while, Ji Tan recovered somewhat and looked up at Xie Zhi, who had one hand in his pocket. Since the man had called him Director Ji, he was admitting that he had transmigrated too.

In this perilous other world, meeting someone else from Earth would have felt incredibly heartwarming even if they were the village idiot, a rival fan, or the auntie who snatched his plastic water bottles at the bus stop every day.

But this was his annoying boss. His feelings were complicated.

Neither spoke, and the elevator was quiet for two seconds. Ji Tan looked away first and glanced at the elevator buttons. "Ahem, are we going to the roof?"

"Mm." Xie Zhi clearly didn't know what awkwardness meant. His dark eyes simply stayed on Ji Tan, roaming from the red marks around his neck to his bruised hand, then to the proposal tucked into the back of his waistband.

"How long have you been here?" Uncomfortable under his gaze, Ji Tan tried to make conversation.

Presumably, time flowed differently in this world than on Earth. After all, he had seen Boss Xie at the office just yesterday. Yet Xie Zhi had already worked his way up to Archon of City A here.

"Ding!" The elevator doors abruptly opened, and the wind from the rooftop rushed inside, lifting the hem of the coat draped over Xie Zhi's shoulders. He reached up and smoothed his windblown hair back, drew in a breath of cold air, then exhaled. "A long time."

Having completed this elaborate series of movements, Xie Zhi turned sideways and extended his hand toward Ji Tan, palm up.

Ji Tan looked at that beautiful, slender hand, not particularly wanting to hold it. But with a formidable enemy at their heels, he couldn't afford to be picky, so he offered his own hand.

The next second, Ji Tan was seized by the forearm and pulled out of the elevator. With a "Su Qin carrying a sword" maneuver, the world spun, and he was hanging over Xie Zhi's shoulder again.

"Hey, those thirty seconds ended ages ago." Ji Tan tried to struggle, grabbing Xie Zhi's belt to prop himself up.

"Do you have the strength to climb stairs?" Keeping one hand in his pocket, Xie Zhi stepped steadily onto the stairs.

The elevator didn't go directly to the rooftop; they still had to climb a flight of stairs. For Ji Tan, who had no shoes and numb legs, that was indeed a considerable challenge.

Ji Tan gave up struggling and let both hands hang down, pretending he was a towel.

He was still clutching the young nurse's note. Though it was useless, he didn't dare litter, afraid Huo Zhaixing would take his anger out on the girl. Hanging there was uncomfortable, so he glanced at it again to distract himself and discovered there was actually writing on the back!

Could the young nurse have told him the secret to staying alive, only for him to carelessly overlook it and misjudge a kind person? He hurriedly unfolded it to look. The back read:

[This is the Huo family's private hospital. You can't escape.]

"..." Perhaps he hadn't misjudged her after all.

The rooftop was no different from any stereotypical hospital rooftop, crowded with ventilation shafts and crisscrossed with pipes, its dark gray surface covered with a slightly sticky waterproof coating.

Ji Tan wiggled his toes, which were sticking to the surface. "How does this tycoon family's private hospital not even have a helipad?" The fancy private hospitals in television dramas all had places for helicopters to land, making it convenient for Overlords to take air ambulances.

"This isn't a proper hospital." Xie Zhi closed the rooftop door and snapped his fingers to forbid anyone else from opening it.

Medical workers who could disregard a patient's wishes and simply cut out his heart were certainly unreliable. Anyone who could afford an air ambulance probably wouldn't want to enjoy this sort of "heart-and-lung-removing" medical service either.

"Then how do we leave?" Ji Tan fretted.

Seeing how confident Xie Zhi had been at first, he had assumed the man had arranged a backup plan on the roof, such as a helicopter coming down to pick them up. Instead, his backup plan was to hide on the rooftop and effectively weld the door shut. That was no solution!

"Wait." Xie Zhi stood at the edge of the roof, looking down at the chaotic jumble of ambulances below. "With Huo Zhaixing's abilities, the lockdown will last ten minutes at most."

"Ten minutes is enough for him to find us. Your speed limit only lasted thirty seconds, after all." Ji Tan paced anxiously, the waterproof coating making smacking sounds against his soles that only added to the irritation. "How do these superpowers of yours work? Why can Huo Zhaixing last longer than you?"

Xie Zhi stiffly turned his head. "What. Did. You. Say?"