RALP Chapter 14

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It is actually quite rare for Du You to visit the same restaurant twice, because he likes to sample new dishes. Though he still accepts the invitation regardless.

The chef seems to be in a state of bliss, “customer, can you add me on WeChat if that’s alright? I actually post my latest cooking inspirations on there. If you are interested in any of them feel free to visit at any time.”

So they exchange contact details.

Afterwards, the chef leads his staff in seeing Du You off. Assistant Xiao who is following him almost feels like they’ve transmigrated to the imperial dynastic eras.

Right outside the door, she is handed a credit card.

Du You tells her, “pay them.”

“Understood,” receiving the card, she asks respectfully, “so you would not expect to visit this place a second time? As expected of Mr. Du, to avoid making enemies whenever possible.”

“No,” replies Du You, “I’m just rather worried the place will go under before I could come visit again.”

“…”

Are you really not worried about getting sick?!

Assistant Xiao is so shocked she is speechless. Her steps are unsteady all the way to the counter.

Eh. Her CEO Du must have a metallic tongue without the sense of taste to go with his stomach of steel.

Back in his car, Du You’s phone dings, reminding him of a new message.

The sender is ‘Chef Shen,’ it seems he has quite the obsession with being called a ‘chef.’

[Customer, you really didn’t need to – I was told by staff earlier that you came back to pay regardless (cry). I will definitely come up with new recipes soon, so please come again!]

Du You replies with an ‘ok’ gif and then puts his phone away.

It seems others have a hard time with the food here. Next time he will be visiting by himself.

As Xiao Tiantian failed to spot either Du You or You Haoyu in the end, he returned home defeated.

Though the positioning service is not precise, it is definitely accurate. So not meeting them at all is surely just bad luck.

He cheers himself up thinking so.

That is when his phone suddenly vibrates, reminding him of a cash transfer in his account.

Xiao Tiantian’s heart skips a beat. Who was it?

Certainly not Haoyu, who lost his memories. Is it You? Or Shen Chen?

But he figures out the person’s identity immediately afterwards, because the person has added him on WeChat.

The profile picture is just a white ‘X’ on a pure black background.

This familiar symbol. Xiao Tiantian’s eyes widen as he covers his hand over his mouth in shock.

Besides Shen Chen who is originally here, this is the third person to come for him in this world.

How many are there in total?

After accepting the friend request, he receives a message, [Tiantian?]

There’s no mistake. The only person that would call him so intimately must be the Top from that world.

With trembling fingers, and suppressing his inner excitement, he types, [Yes, it’s me.]

It took less than a second before the next message comes.

[Found you.[

Xiao Tiantian’s chest tightens as he jumps right onto his bed, burying his head into the pillow and shake his feet left and right.

Making contact with this person makes him more exhilarated than meeting any other Top. Even the sadness from not seeing Haoyu or You today is cleared up.

Because this person, is the most beautiful of all his capture targets, and the only one that fell for him completely since their first meeting.

Though right now he didn’t expect that it was only several days (TL: The original says ‘dozens of days,’ but I find that too immersion breaking in my mind in terms of plot progression) before he would again be making excusions into Trending –

The boy with the angelic voice has a sugar daddy
The boy with the angelic voice is seeing many people at once

When Du You is browsing on WeChat, he again sees the ‘angelic voice’ being number one on Trending.

Inside is a 3 by 3 photo album of Xiao Tiantian, with each of the photos depicting Xiao Tiantian with a different man.

Du You has never seen this ‘different man.’ He is plump and uncouth, even wearing gold chains as necklace. He looks like any typical antagonistic cannon fodder in novels.

There’s only textual descriptions in the trending article about him seeing many people. The OP says that he often listens to Xiao Tiantian singing in the bar he works in. And every time Xiao Tiantian would leave in a different, luxurious car driven by different men.

The description contains such excruciating detail that even Du You almost believed it.

The system tells him, “the photos are photoshopped, and the contents are all fake. Don’t believe in them, host. Besides you guys the Bottom never made advances towards any other men.”

Du You says indifferently, “oh.”

Great. It knew the host wouldn’t care. It just explained out of reflex.

Du You asks, “what plot point are we at?”

“I wouldn’t tell you; you must be trying to break down the plot again.” The system says, putting its hands on the sides of its waist.

Du You picks up a fruit from the basket, “I’ll treat you to a mandarin.”

“What in the world is with you and mandarins, and I told you it’s a rip off already!”

So Du You can only enjoy it by himself.

The slices are sweet, juicy, crunchy. While eating, he picks up the phone and makes another call.

If the system isn’t helping, then he can only contact the people he arranged to keep Xiao Tiantian under watch.

Meanwhile, since making contact with X, Xiao Tiantian has had a pretty good mood these days.

Since Shen Chen would only do it with him the harsh, uncompromising hard way without any sweetness, and Haoyu lost his memories, and You… felt colder and colder, that sometimes even he couldn’t tell what he was thinking about.

But the Top this time around has made him truly feel the sweetness of love.

He’s been successful in both his emotional fulfilment and his career these days.

Since videos of his singing made it onto Trending, besides the many more customers that visit the places he worked for, there have also been entertainment companies making contact with him recently.

Though these are all small-scale with unappealing contracts. Even the only one that made a decent offer clearly only wanted to cash him out in the short term using his recent popularity.

So he is waiting. Waiting for his talents to bloom enough that big companies would sign him.

But this wait only led to these damaging materials blowing up online.

Xiao Tiantian is seriously in disbelief when he sees the photo album and that laughable ‘seeing many men’ theory online.

But then when he looks at the comments, all those accounts that once praised him are as if strangers have replaced the person behind them, and say how shameless he is, and are even suspecting that he bought his own trending topic the last time.

Feeling wronged, tears roll off the corner of his eyes.

Why, when he has done nothing bad at all, are the people all chastising him so.

And the man on the photo is so ugly. Even if he needed money he wouldn’t have been so cheap.

Yet, despite his sadness, in this cramped, damp rented unit there is no one to embrace and soothe the poor little him.

Now, there is only the one person who can warm him up.

He picks up his phone in tears, and relays all his sadness over the connection.

There was no reply for a long time.

Did even he become disgusted with him?

When he is on the verge of breaking down, though, his phone dings.

The person has sent him a link.

When reading the message sent, his tears stop.

His face, still marred by the trails of tears, gives way to a sweet little smile.

At the same time, in a residential unit opposite Xiao Tiantian’s unit, a man puts his binoculars away and reports into his phone, “yes. He was crying just now, but has started smiling all of a sudden. I suspect he may have taken hallucinogenic agents.”

There’s also a young man in the room, who is working on his computer which is showing complex, everchanging code.

Seemingly noticing something, he turns and says, “boss, I got something just now. Someone has purchased a plane ticket in Xiao Tiantian’s name with his passport set to depart two weeks from now, heading for Australia.”

The boss tells the message as-is over the phone.

On the other side of the call, Du You falls into thought hearing the situation.

Xiao Tiantian is heading abroad? That will be problematic.

Since a split member of the Top may be in contact with Xiao Tiantian, if he goes abroad looking because of them, then he will have to follow.

Though he is a bossy CEO of the Du Conglomerate, even if he is practically negligible in terms of contribution, he can’t stay abroad forever.

He should try to stop it first.

Du You asks, “do you do kidnappings?”

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TL’s notes: Oi oi oi, didn’t you say the other day you won’t do anything illegal?