After Transmigrating as the Northeast CEO's Pampered Little Husband - Chapter 69

“Right then, what’s the matter?” Gu Jiaoyang took a sip of his coffee and looked across the table at the noticeably awkward Qiu Xue.

Qiu Xue quickly glanced up at Gu Jiaoyang, then lowered his head in extreme shyness, remaining silent.

Gu Jiaoyang looked at him, utterly bewildered, sensing that Qiu Xue was acting strangely today.

“Actually… well, um, we should wait a moment,” Qiu Xue said immediately, slightly startled by the hint of irritation on Gu Jiaoyang’s face. His hands flailed awkwardly in the air, looking both clumsy and funny.

“Alright,” Gu Jiaoyang put down his coffee cup, crossed his arms, and leaned back against the sofa, pulling out his phone to exchange messages with Dai Gucan.

Qiu Xue had dragged him all the way to this private booth in the coffee shop, and now he didn’t seem to know what to say. Gu Jiaoyang didn’t have much patience to begin with, and what little he did have was reserved solely for Dai Gucan. Others shouldn’t even think about it.

The coffee was served first. Not long after, a waiter approached their booth, pushing a small trolley topped with a covered platter. When the waiter stopped in front of them, Gu Jiaoyang realised the item was for their table.

“Sir, here is your Sweet Diamond Snow-Fête Tower. We wish you both a delightful time and a century of happiness,” the waiter said, placing the covered dish on the table. When he lifted the dome, the dessert inside was a small cake wrapped in roses, topped with a strange, oddly shaped candle and several pieces that looked like crystal diamonds.

The rose scent was rather pungent; it seemed the fragrance came not from real roses but from rose flavoured cream.

“Did you bring this to the wrong table?” Gu Jiaoyang wasn’t so dense that he couldn’t tell this dessert was clearly something for a couple. He asked the waiter with a suspicious look.

“It was ordered for this table, dear,” the waiter replied with a polite smile before leaving.

“Did you order this?” Gu Jiaoyang looked at the strikingly conspicuous dessert on the table. Surely they didn’t offer a buy-one-get-one-free deal that included a complimentary cake?

Qiu Xue froze when asked, then picked up a small spoon next to the cake, shyly lowered his head towards Gu Jiaoyang, and said, “Why don’t you try it first?”

Gu Jiaoyang took the spoon and looked at the dessert, which was so heavily dyed red it looked almost toxic. Yet, his appetite overcame his caution, and he dug a large piece with the spoon and put it in his mouth.

It tasted surprisingly good sweet with a slight tartness, probably due to the added fruit. The flavour was actually quite nice.

“There’s something in it,” Qiu Xue said, relieved that Gu Jiaoyang had eaten some of the cake. He pointed towards the centre of the dessert, mumbling.

Gu Jiaoyang assumed Qiu Xue meant there was a filling, and happily dug the spoon into the middle of the cake. But instead of the brightly coloured filling he expected, his spoon unearthed a hard object.

“What’s this?”

Gu Jiaoyang poked it with the spoon, discovering it was a small roll wrapped in food paper. He wiped off the surrounding cake crumbs with a tissue and unwrapped it…

“I like you.”

“What exactly are you trying to say?” Gu Jiaoyang looked up sharply, holding the paper scrap with the tissue and staring at Qiu Xue, his gaze intense.

“It’s the literal meaning!  I like you!” Qiu Xue was so agitated when he spoke that he practically yelled it out, stiffening his neck in the process, which startled Gu Jiaoyang across the table.

“Wait, why are you suddenly…” Gu Jiaoyang felt the piece of paper was scalding hot. He quickly stuffed it back into the cake, completely bewildered.

“It’s not sudden! The moment I met you that day, I fell for you immediately! I genuinely, truly like you! Everything, from seeking you out deliberately to spending time with you and my brother, was all because I wanted to be closer to you!” Qiu Xue suddenly stood up and tried to grab Gu Jiaoyang’s hand, but Gu Jiaoyang was quicker. He swiftly dodged, pressing against the booth wall, looking at the overly agitated, seemingly unstable Qiu Xue opposite him, and felt thoroughly horrified.

What the devil was this? An unsolicited confession out of nowhere?! Qiu Yu never mentioned his brother was gay!

Gu Jiaoyang stared blankly at Qiu Xue, who was still rambling about his affection. A vibration from his phone on the table pulled him out of the awkwardness. He quickly opened the message, found that Dai Gucan had indeed replied, and with a sigh of relief, held the phone screen out to Qiu Xue. “I’m sorry, I have a boyfriend, and our relationship is excellent.”

The two of them had just been discussing whether to eat lamb chops that evening, and Dai Gucan’s reply conveniently lit up the screen.

“Fine, whatever you say.”

“Mwah.”

Qiu Xue abruptly stopped his sprawling speech of affection, his eyes crimson as he stared at the screen showing their intimate interaction: the mutual kisses and the cute emoticons, especially the two characters Gu Jiaoyang had sent: “Hubby.”

It’s fine, I can.

“No, you can’t! Calm down! Listen to me, Qiu Xue, I don’t think you genuinely like me. Have you run into some kind of trouble recently…”

Gu Jiaoyang had a feeling that Qiu Xue’s next words would shatter his worldview, so he quickly reached out to stop him from continuing, only to find that this seemed to be counterproductive. Qiu Xue seemed as if he’d been given a stimulant, bypassing the table to get right next to him, his eyes red and looking terribly like a zealot.

“It’s fine, I like you. I’m willing to love you alongside him… you…”

“Are you bloody mad?! Let go!” Qiu Xue rounded the table and immediately reached out to grab Gu Jiaoyang’s shoulder. Luckily, Gu Jiaoyang wasn’t as soft as he looked. He immediately punched Qiu Xue right in the face. After delivering the blow, he fastidiously wiped his hand with a tissue, genuinely disgusted.

This was certainly not normal.

Gu Jiaoyang carefully observed Qiu Xue’s state after knocking him to the floor. He truly looked like he was high on something he hadn’t even registered the pain, staring up at Gu Jiaoyang with eyes as red as a rabbit’s. It was unnerving.

Is it the father ghost? Impossible. That thing only causes bad luck; it doesn’t make people hallucinate or turn into a pervert, does it?!

“Qiu Yu’s going to worry about you,” Gu Jiaoyang muttered, secretly forming a spell with the hand behind his back. When Qiu Xue lunged for him a second time, he seized the opportunity to place his index finger on Qiu Xue’s forehead.

“Bloody hell, it didn’t work?!”

Qiu Xue, whose forehead was touched by Gu Jiaoyang’s Clarity Spell, merely paused for a moment before lunging again, trying to grab him. Gu Jiaoyang had no choice but to dodge, grabbing his canvas bag and running for the exit.

He could have cast a sleeping spell, but there were surveillance cameras overhead. He couldn’t just suddenly knock Qiu Xue out and sneak away. He had no choice but to lure him outside to a private spot, give him a good thrashing to work off some steam, and then knock him out.

“Did you offend someone, or did I offend someone?” Gu Jiaoyang quickly strode into a small alleyway with his canvas bag. Qiu Xue, seemingly having completely lost his mind, stumbled along behind him and followed him straight into the deserted alleyway.

Qiu Xue’s condition was absolutely the result of someone messing with him, but the motive behind it… Gu Jiaoyang had a bad feeling that it was probably aimed at him. Qiu Xue was likely just an unlucky casualty, which ironically validated the father ghost’s reputation.

After several twists and turns, they reached a genuinely isolated spot. Gu Jiaoyang stopped, turned around, and smiled sinisterly. Whether the other person was an innocent bystander or not, the impulse to put his hands on him had certainly put Gu Jiaoyang in a foul mood.

It was his business if he wanted to watch drama unfold, but when the drama involved him, it became someone else’s problem.

“Thwack!” Considering he was Qiu Yu’s younger brother, Gu Jiaoyang went relatively easy on him. He kicked him a couple of times, gave him a good slap to the head, and only when he still wasn’t lucid did he chant a sleeping spell, leaving the poor, unlucky Qiu Xue lying on the ground to “savour the fragrance of the earth.”

“Damn you, that’ll teach you to get handsy. Little Zhi, scan the surroundings and see if there are any issues.” Gu Jiaoyang was busy performing a full examination on Qiu Xue, calling out his monitoring system to watch their surroundings.

Little Zhi scanned the area and reported the position of a man squatting behind a rubbish bin outside the alley to its user.

Would Little Zhi be of assistance to you?  The monitoring system, which hadn’t been called upon for some time, clearly wanted to be useful and seemed eager to go and teach the man taking photos a lesson.

“No need. I want to see who’s pulling the strings. We’ll fight fire with fire. Taking photos of me and Qiu Xue they’re obviously trying to use this to cause trouble in my relationship with Mr. Dai.”

Gu Jiaoyang patted the head of the unconscious tool, Qiu Xue, who now had a noticeable lump where he’d been hit.

[But that will create a misunderstanding! The other party clearly wants to sow discord!] The surveillance system, which had become addicted to Earth’s TV dramas during its downtime, could already picture all sorts of messy, melodramatic, rich-family conflicts, including things like mistresses taking over, and so on…

“It’s fine. Why don’t we make a bet? Do you think Mr. Dai will believe it? I bet he won’t, and you bet he will. If I lose, I’ll find you a few more TV shows to watch. How about that?”

[Yes, yes!] The monitoring system happily returned to the depths of the sea of consciousness to clear its memory, anticipating new TV shows in a few days.

“Hey, you’re pretty confident. I’ve never lost a bet yet,” Gu Jiaoyang sighed helplessly, crouching down to pat Qiu Xue’s head. He then called Qiu Yu, telling him his brother had fainted from low blood sugar and needed to be picked up.

“Who could it be?”

Gu Jiaoyang leaned against the alley wall, waiting for Qiu Yu, stroking his chin in contemplation.

The original plot had already deviated so much that its own mother wouldn’t recognize it. He couldn’t rely on the original sequence of events to predict who would appear next. With the timeline entirely messed up, he could only take things one step at a time.

“I hope the final big boss is an idiot too. That way, I can deal with him easily and get back to enjoying my time with Mr. Dai.”

Gu Jiaoyang stretched, licked his lips, and felt a strange little thrill.

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