I Entered the Villains’ Den While Pretending to Be a Righteous Man - Chapter 16

Right as the phone ringtone was committing its heinous crimes, Bai Shuijin lunged forward and slammed his hand down to cut the call off with a loud smack.

Looking at Wang Huanxiu’s utterly indifferent, “I-saw-through-you-eons-ago” expression, Bai Shuijin desperately wished he could clap his hands together in prayer and ascend to the heavens right then and there.

Good God. If the universe wanted his life, it could at least be a bit more subtle about it instead of launching a direct, unvarnished assault like this.

That specific ringtone had caught him off guard once before. However, out of pure laziness, he hadn’t bothered to actually change the file at the time; he had simply slid his finger across the screen to set the device to silent. Because his phone had only been vibrating whenever people called over the past few days, the issue had completely slipped his mind.

Who would have calculated that the very ringtone that had successfully ambushed him once before would return to ambush him a second time?

For a moment, the atmosphere in the hospital room reached a state of peak existential awkwardness. The elderly couple and their daughter had thankfully activated their own mental mute functions a split second before Bai Shuijin’s phone went off.

The old lady in particular had just been trying to help smooth things over, only to accidentally position herself as an accessory to the crime.

As a result, the slices of watermelon gripped tightly in the hands of the family of three felt exceptionally well-timed for a front-row audience.

The invisible hands of fate had achieved their absolute crowning achievement at this exact microsecond.

The daughter was the premier node to reboot her cognitive processors. “I’ve been laying around all day yesterday and my bones are feeling incredibly stiff. Mom, Dad, let me support you two for a stroll outside. The weather looks quite operational.”

The pathways were clear of snow accumulation and entirely non-slip.

The elderly couple instantly chimed in: “Yes, yes, excellent plan.”

Without even waiting for their daughter to step over and assist them, the duo simultaneously threw back their duvets, scrambled off their mattresses, and vanished from the ward, moving with absolute, high-velocity strides.

Bai Shuijin: “……”

At this point, the sheer embarrassment had caused Bai Shuijin’s toes to curl up violently beneath the sheets.

Once the family of three evacuated the perimeter, the room was reduced exclusively to himself and Wang Huanxiu.

Ever since the ringtone had initialized its broadcast, Wang Huanxiu had maintained the posture of a supreme presiding judge, looking down at him with a chilling, contemptuous gaze that practically radiated, “I knew it.”

“Hubby-Bro, this is all an absolute misunderstanding.”

“Mm. My systems are logging your input.”

Bai Shuijin let out a small sigh of relief. “That tracks well.”

Thank goodness Wang Huanxiu’s hard-coded character settings aligned with the domineering, wildly arrogant, and completely unhinged CEO archetype, rather than a green-tea sweetie-pie who would frantically shake his head and refuse to listen the moment a misunderstanding initialized.

This granted him a prime window to deploy a comprehensive explanation. Bai Shuijin exhaled heavily, opening his mouth to release a preliminary syllable string.

Wang Huanxiu interrupted smoothly: “Continue your fabrication loop.”

“……”

It appeared the CEO persona had been cross-contaminated with a microscopic trace of green-tea sweetie-pie after all.

“Hubby-Bro, the absolute reality is that I’ve been meaning to swap out that ringtone for ages. It’s just that the device is permanently locked on silent, and I only unmuted it last night while playing games, so it slipped past my filters.” Terrified that Wang Huanxiu would flag the explanation as a lie, Bai Shuijin aggressively appended: “Genuinely!”

Yet, despite the verbal defense, the deep, ink-black void of Wang Huanxiu’s gaze failed to register even a microscopic shift.

Evidently, the man refused to authorize a single data line of this pale, powerless rhetoric.

Bai Shuijin’s internal engines began spinning in frantic circles, leaving him with an intense urge to frantically crawl all over the mattress.

“Hubby-Bro, your system must authorize a trust protocol!” Bai Shuijin shifted his weight across the sheets, sliding his frame over to sit directly opposite Wang Huanxiu, his eyes wide with desperate pleading.

Wang Huanxiu simply sat there, arms tightly crossed, maintaining absolute vocal stasis.

“In the eyes of the law, that individual and I possess zero structural correlation. The only entity I command a legal bond with is your person.”

“You mean as the plaintiff and the defendant?”

“……” Bai Shuijin desperately wished he could violently flip the bedside over-bed table. Absolutely not!

In reality, his internal processing unit held a very high valuation of Wang Huanxiu. After all, within this entire world, this man stood as the one singular node who shared a legitimate connection with him mirroring the exact concept of “family” he had permanently yearned for.

Having craved a family since his early development blocks, he calculated that a cohesive household unit structured the absolute pinnacle of human happiness; it was his ultimate dream paradigm.

Consequently, he aggressively resisted the initialization of a misunderstanding loop. Furthermore, if the man genuinely locked down a betrayal conclusion, his physical chassis would likely be sliced into premium sashimi and systematically dispatched to feed the local shark population.

“Hubby-Bro, my system truly harbors absolute zero romantic data toward Pei Zhiheng.”

“Is that so?” Wang Huanxiu countered smoothly. “Then how has my network harvested intelligence stating you are attracted to him to the point of complete cognitive and digestive disruption?”

“Mathematically impossible!” He slammed his hand against the table surface. “That tracks as a malicious slander! A completely unvarnished, direct slander! And besides…”

Bai Shuijin’s expression suddenly mutated into a display of pure shyness. “A diet restricted to ‘cognitive and digestive disruption’ wouldn’t provide sufficient caloric intake to keep my system operational.”

“……”

The primitive node responsible for broadcasting such unverified rumors deserved to have a closed umbrella forcefully inserted into their rear sector and aggressively expanded!

“Hubby-Bro, my office has officially issued a clean debunking script regarding this matter. Do not authorize the rumor into your active database.”

Bai Shuijin swiftly seized his phone, his mouth working at high velocity as he laid down his logic: “I shall execute an immediate override to delete this ringtone right this second. This garbage asset will be permanently banned from my system.”

Look at how severely impacted my Hubby-Bro’s internal climate is; his literal hair mass is practically turning green with rage.

The exact millisecond his fingerprint cleared the phone’s biometric lock, the lock screen wallpaper illuminated to reveal an entirely separate, extraordinarily handsome male face.

It was none other than the premier male lead of the historical costume drama Bai Shuijin had been obsessively binge-watching lately.

An environmental gaze, carrying the precise thermal property of an ice pick, drifted over to pierce his frame with absolute silence.

Bai Shuijin: “……”

He had completely omitted this specific variable from his calculations.

During his late-night mobile operating session, a short while back, he had judged the default wallpaper format to be excessively monotonous and executed an alternate asset swap. He had completely failed to project that his late-night historical self would launch a devastating backstab against his current position.

Sucking a massive pocket of atmosphere into his lungs, he lifted his head once more. “Hubby-Bro, this entire visual matrix tracks exclusively as a…”

Wang Huanxiu arched an eyebrow. “Misunderstanding?”

He let out a weak, sheepish chuckle. “Hubby-Bro, your cognitive processors have mastered the art of speed-answering. I shall execute an immediate liquidation script against this wallpaper file as well.”

As his fingers flew across the interface to rapidly overwrite the image asset, Bai Shuijin’s internal core was practically drowning in a sea of pure, concentrated regret. As expected, the state’s public service announcements warning citizens to stay completely clear of pornography, gambling, and narcotics were absolutely vital; the character for “lust” truly commanded a lethal blade positioned directly over one’s head.

This structural event simultaneously delivered an important life lesson: do not operate mobile hardware during late-night hours.

Despite running a high-vigilance internal audit over his own behavioral errors, his subconscious still wanted to weep. I am literally just a harmless consumer of high-tier aesthetic males, wahhhh…

While Bai Shuijin was aggressively rewriting his phone’s ringtone and wallpaper configurations, the external climate suddenly initialized a rare meteorological phenomenon a sun-shower. Witnessing a high-volume downpour while the sun remained fully active was an exceptionally rare anomaly during the winter cycle, though the ambient temperature today tracked at a significantly warmer baseline compared to the prior cold front.

Staring at the bean-sized atmospheric drops pounding against the landscape, he figured the elderly couple’s outdoor promenade was about to encounter severe environmental friction.

Yet, within this highly adverse, counter-directional scenario, all systemic occurrences were actually mutating to favor his defensive script.

At that moment, a medical nurse breached the ward perimeter. “Does your system require the manual closure of the window units?”

Bai Shuijin flagged the prompt: “Negative. My person must shortly execute a formal oath directed straight toward the heavens.”

“……”

Once the ringtone and wallpaper profiles were successfully sanitized, Bai Shuijin threw back his duvet, allowing his hospital-issue textiles and Wang Huanxiu’s premium business tailoring to stand in direct, unvarnished confrontation. He raised three fingers straight toward the atmosphere, his expression morphing into a state of severe, unyielding gravity: “I, Bai Shuijin, formally swear an absolute oath before the universe that I harbor zero romantic parameters toward Pei Zhiheng.”

Concluding the statement, he shot a swift glance out the window. The landscape remained completely stable; the sun-shower was maintaining a flat baseline.

Bai Shuijin let out a small sigh of relief. “Furthermore, my system explicitly rejects executing any future viewing scripts targeting attractive male entities.”

BOOM!!!

A titanic, earth-shattering crack of thunder violently detonated directly overhead, the accompanying high-density electrical flash instantly plunging the entire room into a split second of absolute darkness.

“Holy mother of God! Hubby-Bro!”

Already operating under an extreme “guilty-thief” cognitive load, the sudden atmospheric detonation caused Bai Shuijin’s entire system to explode with pure terror. He literally launched his physical chassis straight off the mattress, landing squarely on top of Wang Huanxiu’s body, burying his face directly into the man’s premium chest like a frantic piece of mutton-fat jade.

“……”

Fuck! Was that localized lightning bolt genuinely calibrated to execute a terminal strike against his coordinate?!

Once the audio echoes of the thunder claps completely cleared the airspace, he gingerly lifted his head, only to realize that Wang Huanxiu’s facial expression had sustained a highly bizarre, fractured transformation.

He sniffled softly, his voice dropping into a small, muffled whine: “Hubby-Bro… what specific system error has your person encountered?”

Ten minutes later, inside the Orthopedics Wing.

The attending orthopedic specialist systematically drafted a referral slip for an immediate X-ray scan, querying flatly: “What specific operational breakdown triggered the physical trauma this time?”

The exact millisecond his optical sensors mapped the extraordinarily bashful, trembling silhouette of Bai Shuijin lurking directly behind Wang Huanxiu’s flank, the physician sighed: “Disregard the prompt. There is zero requirement to output a explanation.”

“……”

Jiang You walked smoothly into the ultra-exclusive VIP lounge located deep within the high-end golf club perimeter. Noticing that his silhouette was the lone entry from their core circle, the surrounding cluster of friends immediately initialized a sequence of queries.

“Where is Huanxiu? For what tactical reason has his person failed to execute a joint transit to these coordinates with you?”

Yesterday’s impromptu drinking protocol had been completely liquidated, but today’s golfing itinerary had been firmly locked into their schedules five whole days in advance.

Jiang You collapsed his frame onto a luxury lounge chair. “Your profile is querying my database, but whose database am I supposed to query?”

He was concurrently burning to decode why on earth Wang Huanxiu had chosen to ghost the event.

He had dispatched a text query to the man’s terminal, only to harvest an identical automated response to the one received the prior evening: Busy.

If he wasn’t coming, he wasn’t coming. Given Wang Huanxiu’s hard-coded status as an absolute, uncompromising authority figure whose decisions stood as law, who in the cosmos possessed the systemic leverage to manipulate his trajectory?

Considering that Wang Huanxiu had recently entered a matrimonial alliance, the group had fully intended to weaponize today’s session to aggressively roast his life choices. Ultimately, the target had failed to manifest.

However, it was an undeniable consensus among this elite circle of friends that Wang Huanxiu had fundamentally suffered a severe cognitive blackout during this marriage cycle.

Even if his primary strategic objective was to violently spike Old Master Wang’s blood pressure by dragging a completely vulgar, unrefined entity through the front gates, he should have at least demonstrated some basic self-preservation. Who could have calculated that the man would execute a lethal kamikaze strike against his own lifestyle, choosing a pathetic, heavily made-up clown like Bai Shuijin?

This entire circle of friends had personally deployed to the wedding venue. A few of them had even silently traced a crucifix over their chests to offer long-distance spiritual support for Wang Huanxiu.

The visual data captured at that scene could only be described as completely catastrophic; Bai Shuijin’s facial canvas had been rendered with such an absurd density of cosmetics that his features had structurally collapsed into a flat, 2D matrix.

“Bro Xiu’s execution of this wedding script is the exact type of nightmare that causes an entity to wake up in the dead of night, completely paralyzed by regret, forced to scramble out of bed.”

“If my profile commanded Bro Xiu’s asset portfolio, I would have accepted a terminal execution loop before agreeing to sign a marriage contract with Bai Shuijin.”

“Intelligence cleared stating his hand sustained a structural bone fracture recently. Was that event engineered by Bai Shuijin?”

As the sequence of friends continued to unpack the narrative, their calculus firmly locked Wang Huanxiu as an exceptionally tragic casualty; since finalizing the marriage script, he hadn’t harvested a solitary day of premium, peaceful living.

“Bro Xiu’s domestic operations are tracking at an incredibly low tier of comfort.”

Tracking at a low tier of comfort?

Jiang You recalled the unmasked visual profile of Bai Shuijin he had recently logged; that absolute bastard’s daily operations were tracking at an elite, staggeringly comfortable standard.

Watching his circle of companions universally outputting waves of profound pity and mourning for Wang Huanxiu, Jiang You gently rubbed the side of his neck, delivering a dry, unvarnished syllable string: “In all honesty, my personal evaluation is that his marriage is actually operating at a fairly decent baseline.”

“Pfft—Jiang You, has your processing unit sustained a complete system crash from over-allocating your cognitive runtime to that fresh game architecture proposal? Your vocal tract is outputting pure, unadulterated madness.”

Operating at a decent baseline after signing a contract with Bai Shuijin? Do you even compile the absurdity of the data strings clearing your throat?

Furthermore, the historical data confirming Bai Shuijin’s pathetic, absolute subordination to Pei Zhiheng was a universally synchronized data point across the entire high-society network.

Speaking of the landscape, the structural dynamics separating the House of Wang and the House of Pei were exceptionally convoluted. Old Master Wang and Old Master Pei had originally forged their foundational asset empires side-by-side as blood brothers battling through the early corporate wildlands. Following their massive commercial success, neither titan was willing to submit to the alternative’s authority; yet, to ensure their core brotherhood sustained zero structural friction, they executed a clean 50/50 split of all acquired capital, with each patriarch founding his own distinct mega-commercial corporate brand.

While the two original old heads commanded an exceptional relationship, that baseline failed to accurately map the behavioral patterns of the subsequent generations. The exact millisecond the patriarchs cleared their schedules and transitioned executive authority down to the younger lineage, a savage, cloaked commercial war immediately initialized. The volume of premium real estate and corporate flesh within the commercial market was mathematically finite; naturally, both empires desired maximum consumption. The House of Wang and the House of Pei had executed dozens of clandestine, cutthroat corporate strikes against one another beneath the surface. It was merely because the retired old masters completely omitted tracking these metrics that they remained under the delusion that the two clans were operating on a highly harmonious frequency.

The patriarchs would routinely organize social summits to force the younger generation to interface, issuing directives mandating that their lineages maintain a brotherhood protocol for the subsequent eight generations.

Advanced age genuinely breeds an immense tier of irrational greed.

Wang Huanxiu had been systematically conditioned from early childhood to command the empire as the absolute prime successor; his operational capabilities were monstrous, a universally validated fact. Just a brief duration ago, his units had completely outmaneuvered and neutralized Pei Zhiheng’s third uncle. Now, Pei Zhiheng this fresh, twenty-year-old university student node had suddenly sprouted onto the map.

The youth had publicly broadcasted a manifesto declaring his intent to launch an independent corporate architecture to directly clash with Wang Huanxiu. As for what specific trajectory his operations would capture in the future, the data remained unverified.

“Playing a match without Huanxiu completely saps the entertainment value from the session; his golf metrics permanently track at the absolute apex tier of this circle.”

“If the situation demands it, simply execute a secondary voice call to his terminal. Hasn’t his network just finalized a major commercial project? Surely a CEO managing a high-density schedule can clear enough runtime to execute a brief golfing script.”

Fang Ming extracted his mobile hardware, dialing Wang Huanxiu’s private communication code.

Simultaneously, back at the medical facility, Wang Huanxiu had just finalized the secondary stabilization of his arm splint when his phone’s default, unvarnished factory ringtone initialized its broadcast. Compared to the historically dramatic, unrefined audio files Bai Shuijin had previously deployed, this standard track radiated an immense tier of simplistic humility.

Bai Shuijin immediately launched a light, tactical brown-nosing maneuver: “Hubby-Bro, your choice of ringtone has successfully bridged the gap to seamlessly blend with the common civilian masses.”

“……”

Wang Huanxiu cleared the connection channel. “State your business.”

He logged a brief sequence of sentences across the line before cleanly terminating the call.

Bai Shuijin’s curiosity engines immediately fired up. “Hubby-Bro, what specific agenda has cleared your network?”

“An invitation to execute a golf session.”

Golf—a sport that hard-coded an immense tier of elite social status and prestige. Bai Shuijin immediately slapped his own chest proudly. “Hubby-Bro, your profile should absolutely authorize an escort script to bring my system along to the coordinates.”

Wang Huanxiu dropped his gaze to systematically scan the boy’s current outfit a standard, standard hospital-issue patient uniform. “Your configuration is operationally capable of executing an external deployment?”

“The attending physician explicitly stated my discharge protocols are cleared to initialize this afternoon; consider this a vital phase of my physical rehabilitation.” Bai Shuijin appended smoothly: “Furthermore, it has been an immense duration since my system last commanded a golf club.”

“Quantify the exact duration.”

“Precisely twenty years.”

“……”