After Transmigrating as the Northeast CEO's Pampered Little Husband - Chapter 22

Even though the kissing had exhausted a great deal of his energy, Dai Gu-can, having kissed Gu Jiao-yang, looked at their wrists tied together and, in an exceptionally good mood, picked up the bowl and continued to knead the dough.

Gu Jiao-yang remained tied to his side, following Dai Gu-can to the other table. He obediently leaned against Mr. Dai, watching the CEO, who normally looked like he didn’t belong to the mortal world, roll up his sleeves, earnestly scoop a basin of hot water, mix it with flour, and start kneading.

This was Gu Jiao-yang’s first time seeing how to prove dough, and he noticed that Dai Gu-can’s technique was surprisingly skilled. If their wrists weren’t inconveniently tied together, Mr. Dai could probably have worked with both hands and finished kneading the dough quickly.

“Do you need the dough this big for dumplings?” Gu Jiao-yang asked, staring at the dough ball that was growing larger as Dai Gu-can mixed and kneaded it one-handed. To his surprise, the answer he received was Mr. Dai, wearing an innocent expression, turning his head and giving him another surprise kiss: “Smack.”

It seemed the drunken Mr. Dai was quite bold. Gu Jiao-yang covered the cheek that had been ambushed, feeling as though he had discovered a new continent.

Dai Gu-can returned to ignoring him, but Gu Jiao-yang wasn’t annoyed. Having been kissed for so long, he felt almost “kissed full,” and his hunger pangs had subsided, so he let Dai Gu-can keep him tied without any complaints.

After kneading, the dough still needed to prove. Since the summer temperature was high, it just needed to be set aside somewhere.

Dai Gu-can took Gu Jiao-yang, still tied to his side, over to the large table next to the kitchen. He set down the large dough board, scooped a ladle of flour onto it, and scattered some around the surface.

Gu Jiao-yang had never seen anyone make dumplings before; he only ate shop-bought or frozen ones. So, he found Dai Gu-can’s process quite novel and wasn’t bored watching, even after a long time.

There was still some time left for the dough to rise. Dai Gu-can raised his flour-dusted hands, cupped Gu Jiao-yang’s small face, and muffled, “Hungry.”

“I’m hungry too… You… Mmph?” Before Gu Jiao-yang could grasp the second meaning behind Dai Gu-can’s word, his mouth was thoroughly sealed by the other man.

So, when you’re hungry, you take a couple of bites out of me to curb the craving?

Gu Jiao-yang was held and kissed by Dai Gu-can for ages again. It wasn’t until the dough had proved that Mr. Dai finally let go, licking his lips with a look of lingering desire.

Gu Jiao-yang also dabbed his numb lips, wondering if Mr. Dai would remember any of the night’s events. If he did, he truly wanted to see what he would look like when he woke up the next morning.

He took out the proved dough. It wasn’t until Dai Gu-can fetched a knife and started slicing it into pieces the size of a fist that Gu Jiao-yang realised he was making steamed buns baozi.

Because their wrists were tied together, Dai Gu-can’s mobility was limited, and the steamed buns he made were rather elaborate and varied wildly in appearance.

Furthermore, whenever he pinched the folds of the buns, his eyes kept glancing at Gu Jiao-yang’s wrist dangling next to his. Dai Gu-can constantly wanted to touch it but couldn’t put down his work, so Gu Jiao-yang’s fingers frequently brushed against the dough, leaving indentations all over the bun skins.

Consequently, by the time Dai Gu-can finished making all of them, the buns lined up on the large dough board looked as if they’d been beaten up; their round bellies were covered in pits that resembled stretch marks.

At least none of the filling showed.

Dai Gu-can put the buns in the steamer, placed the egg timer on the table, and then pulled Gu Jiao-yang over to the sofa in the living room to snuggle and wait for the buns to steam.

The living room lights weren’t on, as it wasn’t typically a night-time activity area. There weren’t even the small nightlights like those on the stairs, leaving the entire room in darkness. Only the fish tank in the corner emitted a faint light, but this was filtered green by the aquatic plants, making it look quite spooky at first glance.

His work done, Dai Gu-can settled onto the sofa, cuddling the little one. He buried his head in the boy’s neck, rubbing back and forth with his nose, like a large dog pining for affection.

Gu Jiao-yang was trapped in Dai Gu-can’s embrace and couldn’t move. He decided to use his free hand the one not bound by the tie to stroke Mr. Dai’s hair.

Because of the hair gel or styling spray, Dai Gu-can’s hair still held the shape it had for lunch. It was stiff and inelastic, not great to the touch.

Gu Jiao-yang followed the hair backwards, finding that only the very short, soft strands near the nape of his neck, right against his collar, felt like a child’s fleece.

Gu Jiao-yang couldn’t resist stroking it a few more times, truly feeling like he was petting a large dog.

And the large dog, Dai Gu-can, was indeed snuggling obediently against Gu Jiao-yang in his arms, making no further inappropriate moves.

While the Dai house was cosy and peaceful, a residential flat somewhere outside Changjing was anything but calm.

“Was it you?! Come out!!! Come out!!!” “I, Zhu Zheng-wen, am upright and righteous! My conscience is clear!” “If you want revenge, go find Zhou Cheng!!! It was him who harmed you! It was him!!!”

The last roar was clearly one of exhaustion. The man gasped for breath, collapsing onto the floor, scattering and smashing numerous beer bottles.

Zhu Zheng-wen stared at the ceiling, his bloodshot eyes wide open, while in his ears he heard the faint, lilting sound of a woman singing.

The song had been ringing in his ears ever since he returned from dinner, as if a female ghost were singing directly to him clearly audible and full of emotion.

He had drunk over ten cans of beer since coming back. The scattered bottles, thrown onto the living room floor and then knocked over by his obese body, glowed with an eerie green light from the distant streetlamps filtering through the window, resembling the eyes of a spirit under water.

She’s here to claim my life. This thought suddenly sprang into Zhu Zheng-wen’s mind when he realised the ghostly singing was constantly repeating in his ear like a hallucination.

He knew the song all too well. During a certain period in his student days, he heard it almost every day.

It was “My Dear You,” a highly popular, mainstream love song. The melody wasn’t particularly amazing, but the lyrics were catchy, bold, and passionate, and it had been a huge hit for a long time in his memory.

Lying on the cold living room floor, cold sweat streamed down Zhu Zheng-wen’s corpulent, pale skin, slowly soaking his back. His sweat-drenched clothes gave him the terrifying illusion that he was slowly sinking underwater, making him writhe on the spot, guttural sounds escaping his throat.

His excessive weight made movement difficult and dulled his senses.

He failed to notice the tap left running in the kitchen sink next to the living room. Unwashed dishes had blocked the drain, and the water slowly accumulated until it breached the edge, easily flooding the kitchen floor and seeping out towards the living room.

Zhu Zheng-wen’s living room floor was covered in marble, and high-quality sealant had been used at the edges and seams, preventing the water from leaking through to the floor below.

“Gasp… It’s you!!!!” “Liu… Liu Su-ya… Gasp…”

Zhu Zheng-wen thrashed desperately on the floor, trying to get up. But the smell of stale alcohol and sweat was like a wad of hair shoved down his throat, making breathing difficult. A feeling of immense weight pressed down on him, preventing him from rising, and his sweaty, obese fingers kept slipping on the floor, offering no purchase.

Yet, despite his choked breathing, a faint scent began to spread beneath his nose, like a bewitching drug.

It was a niche, fruity perfume that had been popular over ten years ago.

As his mind grew hazy, his bloodshot eyes seemed to suffer a hallucination: long-repressed memories were suddenly restored and began to flash before his eyes.

Liu Su-ya sat behind him. She was a fair-skinned, big-eyed girl who liked Zhou Cheng, the boy who sat in front of him.

Zhu Zheng-wen was the middleman between the two, passing notes large and small, yellow and green, filled with adolescent longing back and forth.

Zhou Cheng secretly wrapped the little bottle of fruity perfume in ordinary tissue paper and slipped it to him under his arm, asking him to pass it to Liu Su-ya behind him.

Zhu Zheng-wen wasn’t so heavy back then and was agile enough to sneak around under the teacher’s nose. He calculated the perfect moment: as the teacher turned to write on the blackboard, he swiftly passed the tissue-wrapped perfume bottle backwards.

By the time class ended, his nose was filled with that scent.

That faint fruity aroma stayed with him for over a year. Ever since Zhou Cheng gave Liu Su-ya that bottle, she wore that same perfume throughout their year together.

The school strictly forbade dating, and things were especially tense during breaks. If a boy and girl so much as stood close together, their classmates would tease them, attracting the attention of the disciplinary committee. Thus, their “secret affair” sometimes had to be nurtured by passing notes via Zhu Zheng-wen during the sleepy atmosphere of lessons.

Zhou Cheng and Liu Su-ya often exchanged notes during class, mostly containing lyrics copied from the most popular songs of the time, such as, “I’ll love you for ten thousand years, my heart will never change…” These ridiculously cheesy lines were not only written on the notes but also frequently hummed by the pair before and after class.

Zhu Zheng-wen spent his most difficult student years immersed in the aural baptism of that song.

Right up until graduation, Zhu Zheng-wen genuinely believed he was a good person for having facilitated their romance.

However, everything changed the moment Zhou Cheng borrowed his phone to message Liu Su-ya, turning his good deed into a death warrant.

Before graduation, there was a class reunion. Zhu Zheng-wen, who was underage but bold enough to drink, was stopped by Zhou Cheng, who claimed his phone battery had died and asked to borrow his to text his girlfriend. Zhu Zheng-wen, without a moment’s doubt, handed his phone over.

A few days later, once they truly graduated and their phones were returned, news of Liu Su-ya’s death suddenly appeared in the class group chat. Zhu Zheng-wen, breaking into a cold sweat, opened his messaging history from days prior and found an endless stream of messages between himself and Liu Su-ya.

Zhou Cheng had used Zhu Zheng-wen’s number, speaking under Zhu Zheng-wen’s name, to send a long series of aggressive messages. In short, the gist was: “I know you slept with Zhou Cheng, and I know you’re pregnant. You’re both criminals now, and I’m going to tell the school. You’re finished.”

Then, after Liu Su-ya’s desperate pleas, he “benevolently” suggested she have an abortion… The place he recommended was an illegal backstreet clinic. Having taken money from Zhou Cheng, they naturally had no intention of letting Liu Su-ya live. They tricked her into signing a waiver, and she died a few days after returning home. Since her family was poor and the waiver was in place, they couldn’t win a lawsuit and had to let their daughter die in vain.

Zhu Zheng-wen, upon learning the truth, naturally went to confront Zhou Cheng. However, Zhou Cheng, discarding their years-long facade of friendship, told Zhu Zheng-wen that he had already forwarded the chat history to his own phone and created screen-recording backups. Furthermore, Zhu Zheng-wen had no evidence to prove those messages weren’t his.

If Zhou Cheng reported him to the police, Zhu Zheng-wen would be implicated as the murderer.

Zhu Zheng-wen could only swallow his indignation!

When he came to his senses after turning eighteen, he realised he could clear his name by finding the illegal clinic and uncovering evidence of their collusion with Zhou Cheng. But in reality, so much time had passed that the clinic was long gone; the people had scattered and couldn’t be traced.

Thus, Zhu Zheng-wen had been controlled by Zhou Cheng ever since. He didn’t want to burn all bridges, and Zhou Cheng, in turn, didn’t want to exploit Zhu Zheng-wen so severely that he would secretly plot a violent revenge.

In this way, over a decade had passed. Fortunately, Zhou Cheng hadn’t asked him to commit any further crimes, and Zhu Zheng-wen had simply grown accustomed to running errands for him.

“Gasp…” As the memories concluded, Zhu Zheng-wen lay on the floor, clearly close to death, his eyes bulging. The water flowing from the kitchen was steadily approaching him, about to wash over him.

“BANG!!!” Perhaps humans exert powerful potential when near death. Zhu Zheng-wen’s wildly flailing, plump hand finally managed to grab a beer bottle. He thought he could use it to lever himself up, but his struggle was too vigorous. With a violent swing, the bottle slipped and was accidentally flung away.

The bottle skimmed low in a short arc, smashing into a small glass bottle kept on the bottom shelf of the coffee table. Both shattered upon collision, scattering broken glass everywhere.

“Cough, cough, cough!!!” As the fragments scattered, the sound jolted Zhu Zheng-wen. He abruptly sat up on the floor, as if his strength had returned. Not only was his breathing no longer strained, but the crushing weight he felt had also vanished.

It took a moment of deep breaths for Zhu Zheng-wen to regain his composure. He sat on the floor, stunned, until the sound of running water from the kitchen reached his ears. He let out a startled cry, helped himself up with the sofa, and, trembling, went to the wall to turn on the light. It took him another while to gather the strength to go into the kitchen and switch off the tap.

Liu, Liu Su-ya… Having just cheated death, Zhu Zheng-wen sat on the sofa, afraid to turn off the lights. Staring at the mess in his flat, his mind suddenly flashed to the boy he’d met in the Du Jiang Villa washroom that day.

But there was a jiejie older sister standing right next to the sink, and she was leaning on the washbasin, occupying two spots. I felt awkward asking her to move.

That boy could see Liu Su-ya!!!

The boy’s words appeared before Zhu Zheng-wen like a lifeline. He immediately stumbled to the other end of the sofa, pulled his phone from his clothes, and shakily started dialling.

“I’m bloody working, who in hell is calling…”

“Old Li! It’s me!!! Old Zhu! I need you to look into something for me! It was a boy eating at Du Jiang Villa at lunchtime today!…”

Gu Jiao-yang, who was stroking Mr. Dai’s hair, suddenly froze. A trace of spiritual energy he had released had just been consumed.

Gu Jiao-yang paused for a moment but continued stroking. The image of the plump man he had encountered in the washroom that afternoon flashed in his mind.

Using a vengeful spirit to commit murder? As a cultivator, he could see that the plump man was not the actual target of the grievance, nor was the spirit seeking him according to the natural laws of karma.

Gu Jiao-yang sensed a hint of a Soul Exchange Curse on the plump man. Unsure, he couldn’t act rashly.

Therefore, Gu Jiao-yang had left a sliver of good fortune on the plump man, which could temporarily help him avoid being killed once. He hadn’t expected the energy to be used up so quickly, which suggested the vengeful spirit had been following the man for quite some time.

Heaven is benevolent and values life. Gu Jiao-yang was different from those cautious, anxious cultivators; his sect was inherently easygoing and had, in their dealings with the world, adopted many of the Buddhist principles. They preferred not to immediately fight and kill vengeful spirits, but rather to understand the entire story first. This led Gu Jiao-yang to develop a habit of putting off the subdual of a spirit until later.

His sect was genuinely Buddhist in nature; he, however, had simply found that adopting the Buddhist approach often led to more amusement.

Just like this incident at Du Jiang Villa: the wronged and the debtor are established. Seeking revenge on the wrong person is a breach of natural law and involved other factors. So, Gu Jiao-yang decided to give both the plump man and the vengeful spirit a chance, hoping he could casually resolve the situation the next time he encountered them.

This would save the plump man’s life and prevent the vengeful spirit from taking a life before reincarnation, thus avoiding a grim fate.

But then Gu Jiao-yang recalled his first impression of the plump man who had sworn at him and thought that if he did get the chance to save his life, he must extort a good sum of money from him.

After all, driving out demons and subduing monsters had an established fee; otherwise, how would young cultivators afford to invest in and sustain their spiritual fields?

Those spiritual fields were practically fed on money.

While Gu Jiao-yang was plotting how to earn a service fee from the plump man, Dai Gu-can, who had been nearly asleep on him, suddenly woke up. With a slight scent of alcohol, he blinked and playfully butted Gu Jiao-yang’s forehead with his own.

“The buns are ready.” Dai Gu-can, who had just nudged Gu Jiao-yang’s head like a little goat, stood up from the sofa. His steps were slightly wobbly as he headed toward the kitchen.

Gu Jiao-yang’s forehead ached from the bump. Since Mr. Dai had long legs and walked quickly, he had no choice but to follow, their wrists still bound, all the way to the kitchen.

The steamer in the kitchen was indeed ready. The egg timer was ringing merrily, and vast clouds of steam billowed out, covering the entire ceiling like a fairyland.

Discounting, of course, the potent smell of cabbage and pork.

Gu Jiao-yang, who had been hungry all afternoon, heard his stomach rumble as soon as he smelled the food. Dai Gu-can glanced at him in response, and the corner of his mouth curved up a rare, fleeting smile that the sharp-eyed Gu Jiao-yang still managed to catch.

Mr. Dai truly smiled very little. It is often said that people who don’t smile often had unhappy childhoods. Gu Jiao-yang only recalled the author’s brief mentions in the original novel: Mr. Dai lost his father young, and his mother, unable to bear the grief, soon followed. His relatives also passed away one after the other. In just a few strokes, the image of a beautiful, tragic, but strong character was brought to life. Most people only saw how accomplished Dai Gu-can was now and wouldn’t imagine the pain he endured in his youth.

Gu Jiao-yang couldn’t possibly know, but a sudden pang of sympathy hit him, and he instinctively wanted to hug this tall man tightly.

It must have been truly difficult.

“Hoo!” Scalding hot steam rushed out as Dai Gu-can lifted the lid. Dai Gu-can, whose sense of pain was slightly dulled by alcohol, didn’t flinch as the steam hit his face, allowing the moisture to leave him feeling damp, making his lips hot, red, and glistening.

It was hard to tell if the redness was from the alcohol or the kissing, but either way, it was extremely pleasing to look at.

After steaming for so long, the buns had puffed up. Even the indentations poked into their sides were gradually obscured by the expansion, but the messy, haphazard folds Dai Gu-can had pinched remained, clearly proving that the bun-maker’s mind was only half on his task.

The buns were larger than a fist. Dai Gu-can fished out two bowls from the cabinet, filled them, and urged Gu Jiao-yang over to the dining table. He pushed the boy down to sit and then got up to retrieve something else from the kitchen.

Gu Jiao-yang had originally intended to sit, but since their hands were still tied, he had no choice but to follow Dai Gu-can back into the kitchen.

“You’re clingy,” Dai Gu-can said expressionlessly, turning to the boy who was trailing him, as if expressing indulgent helplessness toward an overly attached child.

“You’re the one who tied me up, aren’t you?” Gu Jiao-yang retorted, shaking their bound wrists, accusing Mr. Dai of being unreasonable.

“…Oh.” It took a good moment for Dai Gu-can to remember why they were tied together. He nodded, as if nothing unusual had happened, and pulled Gu Jiao-yang into the kitchen anyway.

He pulled out three spring onions, crushed a bowl of garlic, and grabbed a jar of bean paste from the cabinet.

Are you seriously this down-to-earth?” Gu Jiao-yang couldn’t help but blurt out as Dai Gu-can pulled him back to the table.

To be honest, he recalled that in his shijie’s older sister disciple’s novels, CEOs… never seemed to eat at home. They were always at hotels and restaurants, eating Western food, steak, and sashimi.

Forget plain steamed buns mantou; they hadn’t even eaten rice.

Gu Jiao-yang seriously racked his brain, recalling every novel he had read, and genuinely couldn’t remember a single one where the CEO ate spring onion dipped in sauce.

This dazed contemplation only ended when Dai Gu-can brought a chair over, sat down next to him, picked up his bowl  carefully to avoid burning his hands, and started eating the buns. He would take a few bites, set it down, use his chopsticks to grab some crushed garlic, place it on the bun, and take another large mouthful. Gu Jiao-yang finally snapped out of it, awakened by the aroma of the cabbage and pork buns mixed with the pungent scent of garlic, and started eating the buns without any further hesitation.

He was truly starving!

What CEO? This is the taste of Dad!!!

These buns were absolutely delicious!

Gu Jiao-yang sat with Dai Gu-can, happily eating the buns one-handed with great relish.

So what if he’s a CEO? He wasn’t a fairy from heaven. CEO Mr. Dai was just an unpretentious guy from the Northeast he still had two eyes and one mouth, and he still had to eat, drink, and relieve himself, didn’t he?

When he gets drunk, he steams buns what a practical domestic skill!

He doesn’t hit, doesn’t swear, doesn’t brag, doesn’t sleep around, doesn’t drink and drive, and the buns he makes are delicious!

He’s so genuine!

A happy, home-loving good man!

Gu Jiao-yang ate three in one go and still wanted more. Dai Gu-can had used plenty of meat and seasoning, and eating the fragrant buns with spring onion dipped in sauce and crushed garlic was truly scrumptious and satisfying.

Pure bliss!

The next day.

Dai Gu-can, the man who steamed buns all night, sat up in bed, his hair a mess, staring blankly ahead. Suddenly remembering something, he pressed his hands to his face and slowly hunched forward until his face was buried in the duvet.

Ruined.

Dai Gu-can, who retained a complete memory of his drunken antics, didn’t know whether he should be ashamed of having kissed the little one more than once, or of having his bizarre compulsion to steam buns when drunk exposed.

The clock pointed to 9 o’clock. Lifting his head from the duvet, Dai Gu-can picked up the phone on his bedside table and, with the same grave tone one might use for losing a billion-dollar project, informed his secretary of his intention to take the day off.

The secretary, hearing the boss’s dreadful tone, nervously hung up, assuming a major project negotiation had failed over the weekend. They cautiously issued a serious command in the company chat, warning employees to be extremely careful and ensure their current projects were flawless.

Dai Gu-can, having hung up, indulged in a rare bout of lying in. He smacked the bed a few times with his large hand, then fretfully ran his fingers through his already messy hair, but ultimately decided to get up and wash.

He couldn’t just stay in his bedroom forever. As for last night’s events… he’d try to explain.

Dai Gu-can stood in front of the sink, spitting out toothpaste foam with an expression of existential despair.

Unlike Mr. Dai, who was still struggling with how to face him, Gu Jiao-yang was fast asleep in his own bedroom. Last night, Mr. Dai had steamed a huge pot of buns the steamer had three layers, with eight buns per layer. Since Mr. Dai felt full from the alcohol, he only ate three. Gu Jiao-yang, however, had eaten the remaining nine by himself and was stuffed to the gills.

This was the first genuinely satisfying meal he’d had since arriving in this world.

Cultivators have enormous appetites. Although he had transmigrated into a body with a normal stomach capacity, it was still hard to feel truly full. The meals prepared by the Dai household were certainly more substantial than those of an ordinary family, but they only amounted to the portion size of a big-eating adult male for Gu Jiao-yang, who was in the Qi Condensation stage, it was merely enough to stop the worst pangs.

Gu Jiao-yang couldn’t very well flaunt his unusual appetite. While he could claim to be a competitive eater on a livestream, it would be too conspicuous in the disciplined Dai household.

In truth, Gu Jiao-yang was mostly too embarrassed to give Mr. Dai the impression that he was a glutton.

The genuine article, no less.

So, taking advantage of Mr. Dai being drunk and the absence of other watchers, Gu Jiao-yang ate to his heart’s content in one go. Though he still felt he could have eaten more, he had certainly filled his stomach regardless of how quickly it would be digested.

Steamed buns truly are the only things that satisfy!

Having just eaten the previous night, Gu Jiao-yang was already savouring the taste of Mr. Dai’s steamed buns in his dreams. He couldn’t help but smack his lips while dreaming, still having not had enough.

So, Gu Jiao-yang’s current dream was entirely about Mr. Dai, wearing that deep pink little apron, busily steaming an endless supply of buns for him. While eating, he could admire the handsome man and even take a few liberties.

Bliss!

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