translator: loop
proofreader: roki
That word was simple and vague, and a little hard to distinguish through the door, but it still made Chu Si straighten his spine in an instant. His face suddenly changed.
He stood motionless, and for a moment he couldn’t hear anything else. The nerves in his body seemed to come alive out of his flesh and poke right through the door into the apartment, so that the slightest negligible movement made his body stiffen even more.
The sound of footsteps in the apartment suddenly became apparent, as if someone was shuffling away from the door with slippers on.
The lock on the door that had sounded once did not move again, perhaps because the person at the door changed their mind when they did not hear an answer.
Sometimes, you knew a person so well you could tell who they were by just the sound of their footsteps.
The moment the footsteps were about to move away, Chu Si subconsciously opened his mouth and replied, “Me.”
His voice was muffled and hoarse due to his bewilderment and stiffness, suppressed at the bottom of his throat, so low that even he himself couldn’t hear it clearly.
As soon as it came out of his mouth, he laughed at himself. “Me” was an extremely simple answer to be used only by those closest to a person, where the other party would know who it was right away. Otherwise, it would only add to the embarrassment.
But who was he now? For the person behind the door, he was an unfamiliar voice and an unfamiliar face, a stranger who knew nothing about him. Where did he get the right to answer like that?
It seemed he went completely stupid… Chu Si mocked himself in his heart.
However, despite his moment of foolishness, he wasn’t worried that he would be turned away. After all, the person behind the door was quite good-tempered. When a neighbor’s fingerprint lock malfunctioned and he couldn’t return home for a while, he also let them in, and they seemed to have stayed for quite a long time. To this day, he still hadn’t figured out why Jiang Qi, someone involved in the chaos of war, was so unguarded.
The footsteps paused for a moment, then suddenly grew clearer and clearer, sounding like they were coming back to the door.
“You’re nervous.” Sa’e Yang suddenly whispered in Chu Si’s ear, as if telling him a secret.
“I’m not,” Chu Si replied.
However, it wasn’t until those words were uttered that he realized he had in fact been holding his breath, and the hand hanging at his side had unconsciously clenched into a fist.
Sa’e Yang was right; he was indeed getting nervous, and he didn’t even notice it himself.
The lock on the door once again sounded softly from the inside, this time without stopping.
The metal door hinge turned slightly and the door swung open. The man standing there wore a simple shirt and pants, his collar casually open, one sleeve folded to his elbow and the other just half turned up.
He had the sharpness of a soldier, the bookishness of a researcher, and a slight yet relaxed weariness.
Jiang Qi…
Despite having made a guess in his mind just now, and having mentally prepared himself for a while, Chu Si was still stunned by the sight of him, revealing a nearly dazed expression.
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
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The moment he heard Jiang Qi speak, the bones on the side of Chu Si’s face moved, and it looked as if he had subconsciously clenched his teeth.
He furrowed his brows, lowered his head, and pinched the bridge of his nose with his fingers, waiting for the heat around his eyes to subside before lifting his head again.
Jiang Qi was slightly taken aback, and asked, “What’s the matter?”
Such a tone was too familiar, so familiar that Chu Si was stunned for another instant before he coughed low in his throat and cleared his voice, saying, “We live upstairs, but our fingerprint lock is malfunctioning and we can’t get through the door at the moment. Can…”
At a time like this, Chu Si no longer had the spare attention to think of new excuses, and the only thing that came to mind were the words of those two neighbors back then.
He regretted it a little when he finished speaking, and wondered if the same reasoning would sound suspicious to Jiang Qi.
Jiang Qi didn’t respond immediately, but just looked him up and down for a while longer, his gaze eventually falling to his eyes as if to confirm if he had good intentions or not.
He swept another glance toward Sa’e Yang by the door, but sidestepped out of the way in the end and smiled: “There’s been a malfunction with the underground energy pools, and it’s already being repaired. Come in first.”
Two softly glowing emergency lights lit the apartment, one at the corner of the couch and one at the entryway.
Standing once again in this apartment, Chu Si’s feelings were very complicated, a paradoxical combination of subconscious relaxation and rational constraint.
After following through the door, Sa’e Yang showed great interest in this place. He glanced at the general layout and decoration of the apartment, then patted Chu Si on the shoulder and leaned over to ask in a low voice, “My dear.”
“En?” Chu Si’s gaze was fixed on Jiang Qi’s back, and he didn’t even process what Sa’e Yang said.
It took another two seconds before he realized Sa’e’s words and sent him a glance: “…”
“Only two people live here?” Sa’e Yang continued his question.
Chu Si could only respond unkindly: “En.”
Jiang Qi folded up his other sleeve and asked, “What would you like to drink?”
“Water is fine, thank you.” Chu Si tried to make himself and Sa’e Yang seem like normal neighbors.
“Come sit down.” Jiang Qi poured two glasses of water and walked over to set them on the glass counter, then bent around to the double sofa.
Chu Si had barely noticed anything else when he entered the room, and it was only then that he realized a child was nestled on that double sofa.
He appeared to be less than ten years old, wearing a light gray, long-sleeved shirt. The way he curled up made the bones in his shoulders and back stand out, making him seem very thin.
He buried his face in a cushion, arms covering his forehead. One couldn’t see his facial features, only that his hair was pitch-black, causing his skin to look particularly pale.
“So, that curled-up little thing is…” Sa’e Yang asked knowingly.
Chu Si turned his head to face him: “…”
Sa’e Yang looked back innocently.
Chu Si, afraid of being heard by Jiang Qi, froze his face and mouthed, “Do I even have to thank you for not using the word ‘little fool’?”
Sa’e Yang laughed, his light-colored eyes shining brightly as they curved.
Jiang Qi tried to pick up the curled-up child, but the child buried his face deeper in the cushion and murmured something vaguely.
“Won’t sleep on the bed but will sleep on the sofa, this kid…” Jiang Qi didn’t insist, just raised his hand to feel the child’s forehead, and muttered, “Are you sick?”
The child just shook his buried head and finally said a clear word, “Sleepy.” His voice still hadn’t changed, with the characteristic softness of a child’s.
“All right…,” Jiang Qi straightened up somewhat helplessly and turned his head to smile at Chu Si and Sa’e Yang. “When my son falls asleep, he won’t move again. He’s easy to laugh at.”
Sa’e Yang smirked and lazily said, “It’s okay, he’s quite interesting.”
Chu Si: “…”
He was probably the most awkward person in the apartment, with Jiang Qi and Sa’e Yang talking to each other in such a way that every word stabbed him in the face, washing away the little bit of emotion he’d felt and leaving nothing behind.
In this space-time continuum, Jiang Qi seemed to have just arrived home. He gestured for Chu Si and Sa’e Yang to sit on the sofa and said, “I’ll go get this kid a blanket.”
Sa’e Yang didn’t even show the slightest hint of courtesy and chose a spot near the double sofa to sit down.
Jiang Qi shuffled in slippers to the bedroom. Chu Si glanced at his back, then turned his head to look at Sa’e Yang, revealing a slightly warning look.
Yet, as long as there was that miniature version curled up next to him in a deep slumber, the effectiveness of all warnings was greatly reduced.
As expected, Sa’e Yang’s smile was full of profound meaning.
Chu Si: “…”
But to be honest, in this current situation, no matter what the bastard did or said, Chu Si wouldn’t get impatient or annoyed.
“You look very happy,” Sa’e Yang said, squinting at him. “Perhaps even a little excited, but not relaxed.”
It has to be said that this person was sometimes as sharp as a beast, able to sniff out his slightest emotional changes—
Chu Si was indeed happy because he had once again met the only person he could call family, Jiang Qi, but he did not relax as he knew that everything was only temporary.
“You’re really such a… strange person.” Chu Si hmphed and sat down next to him.
His ability to sniff out emotion was so keen, yet his sense of empathy was strikingly muted.
The two didn’t speak loudly, but the child curled up on the couch stirred. He raised his eyes from the cushion and frowned, giving them a rather impatient look.
There was still some tiredness in his eyes, and he didn’t seem to be fully awake. His gaze contained neither softness nor gentleness, but Sa’e Yang, for whatever reason, actually beckoned a finger at him and whispered teasingly with a smile on his face, “Hello, little Executive.”
Chu Si: “…”
The child curled up on the sofa furrowed his brows even tighter, as if he felt this person had something wrong with his head. His squinted eyes quickly closed and he buried his head back in the cushion.
“The habit of burying your face with something when you sleep must’ve been developed from a young age,” Sa’e Yang said.
Chu Si opened his mouth and was about to insult him back, but suddenly remembered something.
In his memory, he vaguely remembered that two neighbors were let in by Jiang Qi because of a malfunctioning fingerprint lock.
On that day, Jiang Qi was scheduled to hold an academic research conference in another city, which would last for about three days.
Chu Si was on the couch reading a book when his headache hit, and since there was no one home and he was too lazy to go back to his bedroom, he simply curled up on the sofa.
Yet when he was feeling dizzy with pain, Jiang Qi came back because he forgot to bring something.
Due to that headache, his memory of that night was somewhat fuzzy and incoherent. He only remembered that when he opened his eyes again, it seemed like there were two more people on the sofa.
He didn’t even see clearly what they looked like, or whether they were young or old. He only vaguely remembered a person saying something to him, calling him “Executive” or something.
For a moment he had thought that the latter scene was the result of the confusion of dream and reality. After all, it was impossible for anyone to shout “Executive” at a child, yet now it seemed… that those two neighbors, of whom he had always retained a slight impression, were simply Sa’e Yang and himself.
But if what was happening at this moment was what had happened in his memories, then…
“I know what I need to find.” Chu Si looked at Sa’e Yang.
“Tell me about it.” Sa’e Yang straightened his long legs and shifted to a more comfortable position.
Chu Si lowered his voice: “A draft.”
In his memory, something happened right after those two neighbors left— an important draft of Jiang Qi’s research was lost.
t/n
The way I SCREAMED when it all came together!!! So are they basically in a loop?
It was so fun reading this chapter, with connecting the dots and all that. I wonder what’s in that research 🧐
Answer to the t/n: yes, yes and yes.
Thanks for the update! 🫶
mouth was wide OPEN WHATTT
SCREAMING, SQUEALING, PUNCHING, CRYING INTENSIFIES
Thank you for the chapter, I am very calm.
WAIT! so then are his headaches related to his own interference in time??! I’M-
I knew it!!! So that thief kid must be Sa’e
CALLED IT! Love it when things coalesce like this