translator: loop
proofreader: roki
“What kind of draft?” Sa’e Yang blatantly scanned the living room. “Are you speaking of the most primitive version of a draft, an electronic version, or even an emphatic version?”
The first two would be relatively easy to find, but if the draft was an emphatic draft, things would get a little troublesome.
“I don’t know,” Chu Si replied.
Sa’e Yang withdrew his gaze and turned to face him: “My dear, are you joking with me?”
Chu Si lowered his voice: “How many details do you expect a nine-year-old to remember? Not to mention that the draft is related to military research. Why don’t you tell me?”
He only remembered that when the research draft was first lost, Jiang Qi searched for it for a long time and discussed the details of those days with him twice. Later, he didn’t know if the Military Research Institute suddenly took remedial measures or turned it into a secret operation, but the search for that draft suddenly came to an end, or at least it was announced to the public as so.
“I only remember that draft might’ve been put in a black folder—” Chu Si was about to continue when Jiang Qi came out of the bedroom, both hands empty as if he hadn’t taken anything.
He put his elbow against the door and gave a dry laugh at the two on the couch, saying, “Eh, my body’s here, but my brain’s probably still running around somewhere. I can’t remember where I put that blanket.”
Chu Si subconsciously replied, saying: “Master bedroom.”
In Chu Si’s memory, Jiang Qi often experienced this situation.
He knew where each document was like the back of his hand, and could follow the timeline and logic to remember where a research paper he had written years or even decades ago had been placed. Sometimes, he could even remember whether it had been placed with his left hand or right hand, and roughly the position it had been on the desk.
But he never knew which cabinets or drawers basic necessities were in. If it wasn’t in front of him, he would search all over the apartment for it. At such times, one word at a time would jump out of Chu Si, who quietly gave reminders with a child’s cold face.
Jiang Qi also formed a certain conditioned reflex towards this kind of reminder. Even if the Chu Si sitting in the living room was a complete stranger to him, after he coldly threw out the phrase “master bedroom,” Jiang Qi didn’t hesitate to walk towards the other bedroom.
A remote-controlled cabinet door made a slight sliding sound, and soon Jiang Qi’s voice drifted over: “It’s not here either.”
“Study.” Chu Si threw out another sentence.
Jiang Qi’s figure emerged from the master bedroom and shuffled towards the study in slippers. It wasn’t until he passed the living room and was about to enter the study that he finally reacted and froze for a moment, turning his head to look at Chu Si.
When Chu Si received his questioning gaze, he also froze, then smiled and said, “I’m sorry, I’ve always been like this at home, it’s… like a habit for me.”
Jiang Qi’s gaze swept over Sa’e Yang. As if to ease the atmosphere, he joked, “It seems you and I are birds of a feather.” After speaking, he entered the study.
Chu Si: “…”
He was stunned for a split second, then said, “Who’s birds of a feather with him?”
Sa’e Yang separated his long legs and rested his elbows on his thighs, lazily tapping himself with his thumb. “If his eyes weren’t on two people at once, he probably was talking to me.”
Chu Si: “…”
I’ve always been like this at home…
It seems you and I are birds of a feather…
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.
Olrafclcu ab atbrf akb rfcafcmfr abufatfg, Jte Vl mbeiv afii rbwfatlcu kjr cba delaf gluta. Yynlberis, atfgf kjr j ylu wlrecvfgrajcvlcu.
Po la kfgf rbwfbcf firf pbxlcu ilxf atlr, fnfc lo atfgf kjr j wlrecvfgrajcvlcu, Jte Vl kbeivc’a ybatfg ab fzqijlc tlwrfio. Dea atf qfgrbc lc ogbca bo tlr fsfr kjr tlr jvbqalnf ojatfg. Snfc atbeut atfs kfgf lc j rqfmlji rlaejalbc ktfgf rqjmf-alwf mbcalceewr bnfgijqqfv, Jte Vl vlvc’a kjca Aljcu Hl ab tjnf atf kgbcu lvfj.
Sa’e Yang saw through his thoughts in a second. Spreading his hands, he said, “Executive, don’t forget the excuse we used to enter this apartment.”
What excuse did they use?
We live upstairs, but our fingerprint lock is malfunctioning. Can we stay at your place for a while?
After recalling, Chu Si pinched the bridge of his nose—
From the perspective of a third party, the state of “living together” always made people think of two relationships: either lovers, or roommates. It was just that Chu Si later said “I’ve always been like this at home.” Whether it was the use of a word like “home,” or the meaning conveyed in that sentence, it all implied a more intimate relationship.
No wonder Jiang Qi made such a joke.
Even if they wanted to, they couldn’t explain. If they wanted to continue staying here, they couldn’t give Jiang Qi any reason to doubt them. The more one spoke, the more flaws they would expose— such a principle was always true.
Chu Si’s face instantly became complicated.
“I found it, it really was in the cabinet over there.” Jiang Qi came out clutching a dark blue blanket and smiled at Chu Si.
He unfolded the blanket and neatly wrapped up Little Chu Si, who was curled up on the double-person sofa. Perhaps because he was afraid Little Chu Si would kick it away in his sleep, he also tucked in all the corners, wrapping him from feet to neck.
Little Chu Si just lifted his eyelids and glanced at him, moved his lips twice, and muttered something, half-asleep, then continued to bury his face into the cushion and obediently became a silkworm pupa.
Executive Chu, who was sitting off to one side: “…”
Jiang Qi’s personality wasn’t too uptight, either. After wrapping up Little Chu Si, he propped one hand on his waist to admire what he had done, and didn’t hold back his smile.
Chu Si looked away, frustrated, only to see Sa’e Yang also smiling and looking over.
“…”
Spacetime had been fucking tangled up, but each day was still impossible to get through.
It was fine for Jiang Qi to tease his own son, but he just had to do it in front of the adult version of the victim.
Or it would have been fine if there were only them two father and son, but Sa’e Yang just had to be there as well…
At that moment, Executive Chu’s mind was filled with the thought of being disgraced in his own home, to the point where he didn’t even realize this uniquely familial atmosphere had its own special intimacy. Even though Sa’e Yang, an outsider, was part of it, there was not much dissonance.
Jiang Qi also poured himself a glass of water and sat down on a single-person sofa. He took a sip of water, then said to Chu Si and Sa’e Yang, “You two live on the 63rd floor? I haven’t met you two before.”
Over the years, Chu Si had honed his ability of spewing lies with both eyes open to the point of perfection. However, he was facing Jiang Qi right now, and the situation was a little different.
Except for pretending to be sleepy whenever he had a headache, he never lied to Jiang Qi.
Chu Si picked up the glass of water in front of him as well, but didn’t drink. Instead, he slowly turned it around in his hand. “Our work keeps us a little busy, and we rarely come back at a normal time of day.”
Jiang Qi let out an “oh.” His gaze fell on Chu Si’s glass of water, then swept over his finger. He said, “Then it’s normal to not have met before. I never come back at a set time, either.”
From these words alone, it was difficult to discern whether he believed Chu Si’s excuse, or if he was suspicious about their sudden appearance.
To be honest, if Chu Si was the one in his situation, regardless of whether he had any suspicion toward the other party’s identity, he would choose to open the door. After all, it was much easier to be on guard against someone whose actions were all in the open than someone who was kept in the dark.
So he faintly thought that Jiang Qi may have had the same idea, wanting to test their identities first and get rid of them on the spot if there were any problems.
However, thinking of this, he felt somewhat helpless towards his adopted father.
Chu Si himself chose to test the waters this way because he spent most of his life dealing with various dangers and had absolute confidence in his skills. Just two people were nothing to worry about.
But Jiang Qi was different. As far as Chu Si knew, he had indeed spent time in the Mecha Combat Department when he was young, and had also experienced war on the battlefield, so his combat ability was fine. But since he later transferred to the Research Institute, he hadn’t spent much time maintaining his physical fitness and skills, so he didn’t have much chance of a 1v2 victory.
What level of confidence was needed to let two strangers in their prime enter the door…
Chu Si really couldn’t figure it out.
“Since your work doesn’t have a set schedule, do you also eat out? Eight out of ten people your ages have stomach problems.” Jiang Qi acted like an ordinary neighbor, casually chatting about topics that always came up when strangers first met, not crossing the line, but also gleaning some subtle information from it.
“En, we just eat at random spots around our workplaces.” Chu Si picked a simple answer and didn’t go into too much detail.
When he and Jiang Qi lived together, they were separated by generations and had a significant age difference. They had never had such an equal conversation, and he had never heard Jiang Qi chatting with someone unfamiliar before. For a moment, it felt a bit… novel.
Even though they were only chatting about random topics, he felt neither bored nor sick of it.
But after he finished answering, Jiang Qi joked again, “Then even while out eating, you two don’t have the chance to meet up?”
“Us?” Chu Si froze.
A second later, he realized that Jiang Qi was following a certain misunderstanding down a crooked path again.
But his goal was to minimize Jiang Qi’s doubts as much as possible, rather than explore how to resolve this misunderstanding. So Executive Chu vaguely weighed the pros and cons, swiftly changed his expression, and gave a laugh as he said: “Meeting up less often doesn’t cause any problems.”
As soon as he finished speaking, he heard Sa’e Yang beside him laugh and respond lowly, “En.” It could barely be counted as agreement.
“That’s good.” Jiang Qi’s gaze moved, and he lowered his eyes to take a sip of water, slightly smiling. “I can tell that you two have a good relationship.”
Chu Si: “………………………………………………”
If he wasn’t facing Jiang Qi, he would’ve immediately dragged this person by the collar to take him to the hospital for an eye examination.
And not only that, but he was convinced Sa’e Yang’s inner mockery wasn’t any less than this—
What kind of eyes do you have to see a “good relationship”?
Chicken eyes?Any more conversation around such topics and he probably wouldn’t be able to keep his expression natural.
Chu Si was just thinking about how to probe about that research draft when the communicator in his pocket suddenly vibrated. He felt it out, glanced at it, and saw that Tang had sent a new message—
Executive, the group of “floating objects” orbiting the planetary fragment has suddenly emerged from their dormant state. I suspect they will take action soon. How is your and Mr. Yang’s exploration going?
On the other hand, after the wanderers greeted my eighteen generations of ancestors for the second time, I finally had a human conversation with Carlos Black. Progress is great.
Also, Executive, is your holographic screen on? I synchronized the latest dynamic changes of the floating objects.
The moment he saw these messages, Chu Si’s heart tightened.
The incident of seeing Jiang Qi again caught most of his attention, so much so that he almost forgot about the sparrows surrounding them like a mantis stalking a cicada.
Currently, the chaotic energy field had stabilized, and the final barrier that prevented them from entering the apartment complex had disappeared. There was a possibility that they could attack at any moment.
Originally, when Chu Si saw this place reappear, he only subconsciously felt that time had gone back to before the apartment complex was demolished— when Jiang Qi was already dead and no longer lived here, and this apartment was nothing more than an empty house on the list of the Military Department.
So he only needed to find the target object and avoid those sparrows. As for whether their tactics were fierce or not, and whether the situation was dangerous or not, he didn’t really care.
But he didn’t expect the time here to actually regress straight back to when both he and Jiang Qi were still together. Thus, his primary concern wasn’t whether he could successfully find the target object or not, but rather that he couldn’t let the people in the apartment be targeted by those sparrows for no reason.
He couldn’t let those unknown people bring disaster to Jiang Qi.
However, in his memory, Jiang Qi didn’t encounter any trouble aside from losing an important research draft. But since he and Sa’e Yang coincidentally returned to this period of time and participated in it, it was difficult to say whether things would follow their original trajectory, or if any deviations or changes would occur.
He didn’t want his only family member to be dragged into such troublesome business.
“When we entered, you seemed to have just arrived home?” Chu Si calmly finished reading all the messages and asked a question while holding his communicator.
He needed to find a way to get Jiang Qi out of here.
Jiang Qi was stunned for a moment before he pinched his brow with an “oh”: “I was supposed to leave for a meeting, but halfway through, I found out that I didn’t bring an early-stage draft with me. I came back to get it.”
Early-stage draft?
Chu Si sensitively captured this key phrase.
Human memory was always a bit strange. Sometimes the details of certain things would be swallowed up by the passage of time, and one wouldn’t even remember they had forgotten them. However, upon suddenly hearing a key phrase or seeing a certain scene, those swallowed details would be hooked out.
Chu Si finally remembered that Jiang Qi had returned midway to retrieve the draft, but later it seemed that he had found out that the draft had been lost.
Chu Si didn’t know the specific details, after all, Jiang Qi would never casually tell a nine-year-old child about matters involving military secrets, even if it was his own son.
Chu Si found a breakthrough in his words, and immediately followed the conversation: “Then don’t you still have to leave to go attend that meeting? Our apologies, we’ve been holding you up.”
Buzz—— buzz——
Two vibrations from his communicator rang out one after another. Chu Si swiped the screen and glanced down to see Tang had sent another message over—
Executive! Those floating objects are moving! They’re gathering swiftly towards your position! Have you and Mr. Yang finished exploring? Do you need any support?
Chu Si’s outward expression showed no change, but his fingers tightened around his communicator.
I immediately clicked on the update~ It’s nice to enjoy the homey family pace for the most part. I guess it truly is meeting the in-law in a certain sense for Sae Yang~
Thanks for the chapter! 🫶
I wonder if Jiang Qi will realize at some point that there’s an adult Chu Si in front of him! Their faces can’t be too different right?
Maybe after his body crushed after accident, he has different face 😶😶