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After opening the bathroom door, Liu Yu’an and Shao Yanxi stand face-to-face. They are both silently standing for a while.
Soon enough, a kiss. Liu Yu’an pulls Shao Yanxi into his embrace, the shorter form snuggling comfortably into his hug, and says, “stop overthinking it, alright?”
Shao Yanxi ‘mm’s and nudges his head towards Liu Yu’an’s neck, and nibbles on his skin. He has pretty sharp canines and would often pierce Liu Yu’an’s skin with his bites. This time he has gone about it gently though, and Liu Yu’an is instead aroused by the tingling sensation, and gasps lightly. He lifts his hand to push Shao Yanxi’s restless head down.
Shao Yanxi struggles a bit as his breathing has gone uneasy. He pushes Liu Yu’an, and then lifts his head, planting his chin onto Liu Yu’an’s shoulder instead. That is when he has thought of something else, and leans back a little, asking, “how many years is your conscription?”
They were both rather agitated just now and so some details were glossed over. And given that in this world at least, ‘conscription’ usually applies to normal, powerless families. Those with more sway usually send their own into military academies first, and end up in higher ranks in the military with medals and stuff on their first day too. So Liu Yu’an is from an ordinary family, right?
They are both good at managing companies and making money. If Liu Yu’an is busy with military stuff, he can earn money to feed him, he thinks, and plants a kiss on Liu Yu’an, which blanks Liu Yu’an out as he was trying to say ‘I’ll see if I can negotiate a shorter time.’
Shao Yanxi then says, “nevermind. I’ll wait for you how ever many years it may be. I’ve made up my mind. I’ll go with you, and while you are off fighting, I’ll be making money at home and be the breadwinner. When you’re back, I’ll go apply to that Centre of yours and work with you too.”
Liu Yu’an is touched, so much so that he swallows everything he wanted to say and says, genuinely, “I see. Thanks, I love you, so much.”
And he’s thinking as well about the advanced medical technology there. He’ll probably be able to lengthen Shao Yanxi’s life expectancy by a century or something.
Or maybe they can even apply to go to one of those cultivation worlds, and spend millenia together in their minds.
Oh, love, sweet love.
Shao Yanxi’s cheeks redden. He says forcefully, “remember what you just said, I’ll never forgive you if you go back on your words,” then he continues, “after I finish dealing with the companies’ stuff…” Then, he looks off into the distance for a moment, and changes his words midway, instead asking, “did you say Jiang He is the protagonist of this world?”
“Kinda.”
Because this world is bugged, so ‘protagonist’ doesn’t exactly apply.
“Oh, wait,” Shao Yanxi gasps a little, and says, “now you’re helping me. I’m the antagonist, so. Uh, if I defeat the protagonist, would the world collapse again or something?”
Liu Yu’an watches him as he says the word ‘antagonist’ and doesn’t seem the least bit concerned. It seems he has got over the fact quite well. Or rather, he might even be proud of it, a little bit. He can’t help but smile at that, and says, “you’re my dearest, what, you want me to help him instead of you?”
Shao Yanxi is spooked at the thought of Liu Yu’an helping Jiang He against him, and quickly says, “nevermind, eugh, just keep helping me instead.”
Then, he pauses a little before asking, “the world won’t collapse, right?”
“It won’t.”
Liu Yu’an chuckles and pinches Shao Yanxi’s cheeks. He really is cute, in spite of his cold appearance. Even if just to reassure him, he’ll pull some strings when his identity is restored and make sure they keep the world stable.
Though assistant He would probably object at him calling Shao Yanxi cute if he did say it out loud, hehe.
“This world is no longer bound by normal rules since it’s bugged, so nothing we do that breaks character would affect it.”
“I see. That’s good.”
Shao Yanxi sighs in relief. If anything happening to Jiang He might affect this world, then he’ll have let him go, despite how much of a grudge he has against him.
This world is the world in which they met, and fell in love with each other. He doesn’t want to see anything happen to it. Maybe they can even revisit this world when they’re older.
And besides, he doesn’t want Liu Yu’an’s original mission to fail either.
Shao Yanxi already has a plan in place that could bankrupt the Jiang family. Politically protected? Yeah, he can’t target the person individually, true, but he won’t be able to protect any of his assets or money.
He even thought about forcibly shutting down all medical services under his control to threaten the higher-ups to back off as well, since it will definitely cause massive social upheaval – he has control of almost 1/3 of all global medical services, including medical supplies, medicine, protective clothing, and even actual hospitals.
He is confident that two days is all he needs to cause chaos on the streets and for the politicians to acquiesce to whatever his demands are; even if not for all the hospitals shutting down, but at least for all the foreign pressure as their countries will also face massive medical demand shortfalls. Just like how the world ended up spiralling towards before he transmigrated back in time in this world.
He is sure he can win. He will win. For both himself and Liu Yu’an.
Anyway, now that everything is cleared up, Shao Yanxi starts pushing Liu Yu’an away, “I’m going to shower and… get out.”
“I need to wash up too, you know. Together?”
“No way,” Shao Yanxi pushes Liu Yu’an out forcefully and locks the door again, smiling at Liu Yu’an, and says, “you can wash up after me.”
He really is a sex fiend. Wash together? Instead of cleaning up, it’ll just get even ‘dirtier.’
Liu Yu’an “…”
He touches his nose. Is he really that untrustworthy? … Maybe.
He shrugs, then goes to lie down at the sofa. Shao Yanxi only comes back out after over half an hour in a bathrobe with a towel in his hand, and water droplets still visible on his hair. He raises his chin at Liu Yu’an, pointing towards at the bathroom, “I’m done.”
Liu Yu’an gets up, but instead of going to shower, he asks, “need me to help apply cream for you?”
Shao Yanxi blushes, and rejects him, “no. Go wash up.”
Liu Yu’an, slightly disappointed, nonetheless chuckles a little, and says, “sure. I’ve resupplied too. They’re still at the bottom drawer. If you can’t reach inside, call for me ok?”
“Yeah yeah, got it, just go.”
“Alright, alright,” Liu Yu’an shakes his head, resigned, and gets into the bathroom.
After he is done, he comes back out to find Shao Yanxi asleep already.
He really has been exhausted these days… And definitely not because of what they did in the parking lot earlier.
He fixes up his blanket before heading out to the living room to contact the Virtual World Management Centre again. He tells them everything, before requesting for permission to take Shao Yanxi out to the main world.
The girl on the other side of the line has blanked out as soon as she heard that Liu Yu’an is the youngest prince that’s gone missing for six years already. Liu Yu’an had to repeat everything again.
“Are you really that ‘Triple-S Prince’?” She sounds like she’s hyperventilating.
He really hates that nickname, though he is requesting something of the Centre, so he just says, patiently, “yes.”
“Oh my god! Aaaah! I just, I am talking to the prince, the prince!” She has moved her mic away before yelling out… It hasn’t helped much, as Liu Yu’an still had to cover his ears. Two seconds later, she puts her professional tone back on to say ‘understood.’
While the request is being processed, the call is transferred higher and higher until it reaches the general manager who is extremely busy and frustrated right now dealing with the aftermath of… everything just falling apart in the middle of a vacation. Some static later it is finally patched to his older brother, who immediately starts scolding him.
After covering his ears up until the scolding is over, Liu Yu’an quickly starts schmoozing and praising him to no end because he still has to pull favours to get Shao Yanxi out when he hasn’t nearly enough work done to buy a pass for him. His older brother finally relents, but then warns him, “you be careful too. His royal ass has probably heard about it by now.” Well, all the sternness is gone when he is referring to that damned father of theirs by that nickname. Plus his ‘I’m looking forward to this’ tone too. Damn him.
The entire galaxy knows that Liu Yu’an went missing and there’s an extremely high price on his head… Or not, but at least for his whereabouts.
Somewhere along the lines just now he’s probably already been reported for the bounty. That old man has probably heard.
He schmoozes some more so his older brother would help him out a bit instead of laughing at him on the sidelines, before hanging up.
While he can just leave at any time with his real identity blown, but not Shao Yanxi. Even with the pass there’s still all sorts of administrative BS to go through. In this case it’ll probably be well over half a year, main-world time.
Which is why the pass costs 100 million points, when finishing a mission can at most award 200 thousand, and more often than not they usually only end up with 170, 180 thousand at most for completing the mission, and not to mention the times when the mission fails or isn’t completed to standard that they are only awarded 10,000 for effort.
The bar is set so high that up to this point only five people have ever been brought into the main world from a virtual world, with only 3 of them through the official pass; the other 2 went through the ‘VIP treatment’ that Shao Yanxi is about to receive.
Anyway, with everything set in motion already, besides Shao Yanxi being a bit excited for a few days, their lives in this virtual world continue virtually unchanged.
Shao Yanxi put the length of his economic tug-of-war with the Jiang family at about a month, but it has actually ended in less than a week; not only that, but somehow Jiang He’s dad is even in jail.
Shao Yanxi is shocked. While what he did is sufficient for him to end up in jail, but with the political clout behind them he thought they would get off scot-free.
While pleasantly surprised at first, his joy is dampened when he learned that it was because the Hao family pulled some strings behind-the-scenes themselves. He looks into it some more, and realise Liu Yu’an has went to them earlier.
For some reason, he feels a little disappointed finding that out. He adjusts himself pretty quickly though, and decides now that everything is finally done and over with, to visit Liu Yu’an at the studio for ‘You Are My Youth and My Warmth;’ while he was busy fighting in business, Liu Yu’an’s work has also started.
There’s another reason he has to visit too, because the CP fans online are already starting to mourn after not seeing them together for such a long time. He must destroy these acrimonious rumours himself.
TL’s notes: Phew, it’s almost done. Time to look for the extras too.
Oriental Rabbit 
💜💜💜
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