After Transmigrating as the Northeast CEO's Pampered Little Husband - Chapter 17

The small interruption was quickly glossed over. Once everyone had arrived, Dai Gucan introduced his friends one by one.

Excluding Qi Jing, who hadn’t arrived, the man in the floral shirt was Xu Mingrui, the crew-cut man was Liu Zhengzhan, the one who won rock-paper-scissors was Wen He, and the total dope who lost was Cheng Sheng.

Once all six people were seated and familiarised, and the food was ordered, the gathering essentially became a dinner party for the men. Dai Gucan wasn’t much of a talker to begin with, and Gu Jiaoyang was entirely focused on Mr. Dai, so while they were sweetly absorbed in each other, Dai Gucan’s friends were quite relaxed, discussing recent business affairs openly and amongst themselves.

Gu Jiaoyang rested his hand on Mr. Dai’s thigh. Because the air conditioning in the private room was quite low, his hand felt somewhat warm.

When the young man put his hand on his thigh, Dai Gucan almost failed to suppress a twitch. Luckily, his self-control was strong, and he wasn’t too ticklish, but the heat transmitted through the summer fabric was like a small match, whoosh, lighting a fire under this ancient block of wood.

He felt terribly restless.

Dai Gucan pretended to be deep in thought, resting against the menu. The chatter of his friends about the business world drifted in and out of his ears, but his focus was entirely on the young man beside him.

The boy was clearly uninterested in their adult conversation. One hand fiddled with the glass of pudding, and the other rested on his thigh, showing absolute dependence.

Fair enough. He sighed inwardly. I dragged him along to meet my friends without a word, he’s bound to be nervous and shy.

After an inner struggle, Dai Gucan finally put the menu down, freeing his other hand to cover the young man’s small hand under the table.

It was tiny, soft, and squishy, like a kitten’s paw.

Dai Gucan took a sip of iced beer to cool down. He maintained an expressionless face while moving subtly beneath the table, his eyes fixed ahead as though listening intently to his friends’ conversation.

“…Ah, I know, you don’t need to remind me so many times. I’m perfectly clear on it. The projects I’m giving him are just small-fry stuff. Now, shift, I dropped my lighter down there!” Xu Mingrui, during a break in the conversation, pressed on the table and bent down to retrieve his lighter. It was a limited edition he’d only had for a few days.

The lighter had rolled slightly too far in, forcing Xu Mingrui to duck down lower and squat to pick it up.

“Running away, are you? Don’t think your wealth gives you the right to be rude.” Xu Mingrui picked up the lighter and raised his head, resting his hand on the table’s edge. He inadvertently caught sight of two hands stacked one on top of the other, under the table opposite.

Hang on a minute?!

Xu Mingrui quickly returned to his seat, casually wiped his lighter, and put it down. He coughed under his breath and nudged Liu Zhengzhan next to him.

“Ahem!” Down there! Down there! Look!

Liu Zhengzhan was busy discussing military supplies with Wen He. He instinctively flinched when Xu Mingrui nudged his palm. He turned back, saw Xu Mingrui’s frantic winks, and took a moment to realise he was being told to look under the table.

What’s so interesting? Did Cheng Sheng put his trousers on backwards again?

Unable to resist Xu Mingrui’s insistent demands, Liu Zhengzhan finally compromised, tossed his chopsticks onto the floor, and bent down very perfunctorily to retrieve them.

That’s when he saw Dai Gucan and the young man holding hands.

Liu Zhengzhan’s poor acting skills did not escape the eyes of the other two. They exchanged glances and seemed to instantly understand something when they saw Liu Zhengzhan stand up with an expression of complete disbelief. One after the other, they pretended to knock something over and then bent down to pick it up.

Ooh-hoo! Hand-holding!

While inwardly astonished, the friends finally stopped seeing Gu Jiaoyang as a temporary fling in Big Boss Dai’s otherwise sterile romantic history. The fact that Dai Gucan, with his stone-like emotional intelligence, would voluntarily hold someone’s hand meant he was genuinely serious.

They were convinced Dai Gucan had grabbed Gu Jiaoyang’s small hand and placed it on his own thigh.

So, they secretly started chatting in their group messaging app until Dai Gucan looked at his phone, which promptly muted the entire group chat.

Fine. You’re the one with a wife, you win.

The atmosphere during the meal was relatively harmonious. Because Gu Jiaoyang barely spoke, their impression of him was that he was simply shy, reserved, and clingy. The way he kept staring at Dai Gucan suggested he was utterly obedient.

Gu Jiaoyang wasn’t entirely uninterested in their conversation; it was just that most of it involved proprietary information about the Capital’s business circle, secrets they couldn’t share publicly. Therefore, Gu Jiaoyang was sensible enough to voluntarily tune out.

“I need to use the washroom,” Gu Jiaoyang said. He was quietly circulating his minor zhou tian (spiritual circuit) when he suddenly sensed the stirring of a resentful spirit nearby. He scattered his spiritual energy to investigate and, sure enough, detected the presence of a vengeful ghost near the men’s washroom.

It wasn’t a truly malicious spirit, so it wouldn’t cause a death immediately.

The System had previously warned him not to act in ways that would contradict the world’s direction, so how did a resentful spirit even appear in this world?

Gu Jiaoyang poked the System, only to find a message saying that the Observation System had returned to headquarters to file a report.

With the System gone, Gu Jiaoyang, as a cultivator, couldn’t suppress his curiosity and need to meddle. He immediately cast a ling qiankun protective spiritual bubble over himself and headed toward the men’s room.

“Damn it, I must have caught something from that idiot Zhou Cheng, bad luck! Bad luck!” Cursing repeatedly, Zhu Zhengwen rubbed his hands vigorously at the sink. He scooped up cold water and splashed his face. He looked up at himself in the mirror, his mouth full of a metallic, bloody taste.

The reflection showed a fat man with deep eye bags and dark circles, his complexion pale, his lips-tinged purple. He wore a cap, and in the shadow of the brim, his awful colour wasn’t obvious. But as soon as he took off his hat to wash his face, his ghastly appearance became glaringly clear under the bright light.

Zhu Zhengwen stared at himself in the mirror. The thought of Zhou Cheng constantly calling and pressuring him intensified his annoyance. The sound of the running water seemed like noise, giving him a massive headache. He leaned closer to the mirror, and in his own reflection, he saw Zhou Cheng’s irritating face.

Smash that face! Smash it!

Just as Zhu Zhengwen pulled out his folding fruit knife attached to his keychain, intending to stab the face in the mirror, a surprisingly young and bright voice detonated in his ear like thunder.

“Excuse me, sir, could you move over? I need to wash my hands, too.”

Zhu Zhengwen rubbed his temple and turned to look at the boy next to him.

He was short, slender, with slightly curly hair, and looked like a child.

“There are other sinks over there!” Zhu Zhengwen’s head was pounding. He gripped the keys tightly in his hand and answered sluggishly.

“But there’s a big sister standing at the sink next to that one. There are three sinks in total, and that sister is leaning over and taking up two spaces. I’m too shy to ask her to move.”

The boy’s already pale face, when illuminated by the overhead light, cast jagged shadows due to his pronounced features. Zhu Zhengwen was startled by the boy’s innocent yet terrifying words. It was as if he suddenly remembered something, and he shot upright, his thick hands tightly clenching the string of keys, his eyes bulging.

“You… what nonsense are you talking about? Are you mental?!” Zhu Zhengwen quickly wiped his face and fled the washroom as if his life depended on it.

“You didn’t personally harm anyone, but a vengeful spirit is following you. You got played, didn’t you?” Gu Jiaoyang leaned against the smooth marble wall, watching the fat man run away frantically. He then turned his attention to the mirror over the sink the man had just used. A layer of steam slowly condensed on it, and then, stroke by stroke, the character for “SCRAM” was written in the condensation.

“You can interact with some physical objects. You haven’t been around long, have you? Though, Miss, your temper is genuinely awful.” Gu Jiaoyang wiggled his fingers, then pointed to his own head in the mirror. “You can call on me if you need anything. Maybe I can help you out. After all, I was a cultivator in my previous life, the kind who specialised in catching demons and vanquishing evil.”

But the fog on the mirror had already dissipated. Gu Jiaoyang shrugged, disappointed. He didn’t need the toilet, so he simply washed his hands and stepped over to the hand dryer.

Meanwhile, Dai Gucan checked his watch. The young man had been in the washroom for over ten minutes. Could he be having stomach issues? Thinking that he had changed all the boy’s clothes, he might not have any tissue on him, and he wasn’t sure if the washroom would be stocked, Dai Gucan grabbed a packet of tissues and went to check on him.

Even in high-end establishments, sometimes the toilet roll isn’t changed in time. Dai Gucan, holding the tissues, mentally added another thought: if the young man was indeed unwell, he should call a waiter for medicine immediately, especially since the boy seemed distressed on the lift earlier.

He needs to listen to the doctor and rest for a few more days. Just looking alright on the surface isn’t enough.

Maintaining a composed exterior while processing all these concerns in the short walk, Dai Gucan opened the men’s washroom door. He spotted the young man playing with his fingers in front of the hand dryer and nearly choked. He quickly turned to the sink, pretending to wash his hands.

“Did you get something on your hand, Mr. Dai?” Gu Jiaoyang finished drying his hands and walked towards Dai Gucan, wanting to see what was on his hands that made Mr. Dai rush to the washroom to clean.

“Hey! …Mmph!”

Neither of them anticipated that the fat man had carelessly splashed water and hand wash everywhere while frantically scrubbing his face. The floor outside the slip-resistant mat was wet. Gu Jiaoyang was focused on Mr. Dai’s long, handsome fingers and didn’t notice the floor. His right foot slipped, and he nearly did the splits.

Dai Gucan was startled by Gu Jiaoyang’s sudden yelp and reflexively spun around to catch him. But his legs were naturally long, and his stride was large. That step also took him out of the safe, non-slip area next to the sink. The two men ended up in a strange, lunging split position, Dai Gucan’s leg sliding between Gu Jiaoyang’s, while his arm, trying to hold Gu Jiaoyang steady, naturally wrapped around his waist.

With that lunge forward and pull back, he pulled the young man into his embrace and his leg pushed up, causing their mouths to collide perfectly.

A tall, large man lunging forward carries a significant amount of impact. Gu Jiaoyang was hit so hard by Mr. Dai that tears sprang to his eyes. His nose felt numb, never mind his mouth.

Although he was the one who slipped first, Mr. Dai’s impact made him see spots. The bridge of the nose is easily hurt, and Gu Jiaoyang’s small, weak body couldn’t handle it. Large, bean-sized tears streamed down his face.

Dai Gucan was also in pain, but because he was positioned above, the only parts that hurt were his mouth and cheekbone. Therefore, more than the pain, he was aware of the sensation on his mouth.

Soft and slick, with a hint of pudding.

Recalling something, Mr. Dai froze stiffly in that position, until the young man’s tears fell onto his hand. He recoiled as if burned, quickly pulling his leg back and straightening his posture, moving his mouth away. He looked down and saw that the young man’s lip was bleeding, his nose was red, and tears were pattering down he looked pitifully devastated.

Bloody hell, he cursed inwardly. Looks like I just assaulted him.

Mr. Dai eyed the tearful, red-eyed young man who was sobbing uncontrollably. He could taste the slightly metallic, pudding-flavoured blood in his mouth and was awkwardly aware that he was, unbelievably, aroused.

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