No Pampering the Vicious Cannon Fodder! [Quick Transmigration] - Chapter 16

Without Andy having to explain in detail, Xin Rong had already guessed seventy or eighty percent of it.

Yesterday was the day the results for the guaranteed admission exam were released. According to the script, Qiu Han had already failed to make the cut, and the next part of the plot involved Qiu Han’s family taking their anger out on Jing Yue and making things difficult for him in every possible way.

Sure enough, Andy’s narration matched his deductions perfectly.

The Qiu family had aggressively come to the door, pouring all their resentment over Qiu Han’s failure in the exam onto Jing Yue, accusing him with heart-piercing words of leading their son astray.

Kahn fought desperately to protect Jing Yue, refusing to back down. Who knew that the Qiu family had somehow obtained a pile of evidence regarding the arena’s illegal operations? Every single point was enough to make Kahn go bankrupt or even face imprisonment.

Jing Yue had taken the initiative to go with them so as not to implicate the arena.

“Honestly,” Andy said in a heavy voice, “although Jing Yue and I have never really gotten along, I have to admit, he was truly loyal this time.”

Even though he had known the plot’s direction long ago, Xin Rong still felt a tightness in his chest, an indescribable sour ache.

“Oh, right.”

Andy suddenly remembered something and went around to the bar’s front desk, returning a moment later carrying a wooden basket.

“Jing Yue told me to hand this over to you before he left. He even specifically warned me not to sneak any.” Andy shook the basket. “Count them yourself—fifty berries, not a single one missing.”

Xin Rong stared at the basket full of strawberries, his fingertips trembling. He didn’t reach out to take it for a long time, feeling as though all the strength in his body had been drained.

“Hey, are these strawberries really that delicious?” Andy leaned in curiously. “I saw Jing Yue head out before dawn, running a great distance just to pick them.”

“Yes,” Xin Rong murmured softly, “they are very delicious.”

“Then let me try one?”

Andy had been craving them secretly for a long time. He thought to himself that while Jing Yue was narrow-minded, Xin Rong was well-behaved and gentle; surely he wouldn’t be so stingy as to refuse him even a single strawberry?

So, he impatiently reached his hand toward the basket.

In the next second, however, Xin Rong suddenly snapped back to his senses and snatched the basket away.

“You can’t!” Like a small animal guarding its food, he firmly protected the strawberries in his arms. “These are mine!”

Andy’s hand froze in mid-air, and he rubbed his nose sheepishly. He hadn’t expected the usually good-tempered Xin Rong to suddenly become so stingy.

Realizing his lapse in poise, Xin Rong offered a distracted apology and left with the basket in his arms.

When the system generated his identity for this world, it automatically provided him with an apartment as a sort of employee benefit for the host.

The apartment wasn’t luxurious, but it was fully equipped.

Back at his residence, Xin Rong placed the basket on the coffee table and curled up on the sofa with his knees hugged to his chest, staring blankly at the strawberries in a daze.

After a long while, he called out softly: “Little Coal Ball.”

050 responded immediately: “Yeah, what’s up?”

“Is he… already locked in the wooden hut right now?”

“Um…” Seeing Xin Rong looking so despondent, 050 tried to make its tone sound more lighthearted. “Host, are you worried about him?”

Xin Rong did not answer.

050 already knew the host’s temperament well. Despite his eagerness for revenge, because of his healing instincts, he couldn’t stand to see anyone get hurt.

So, it tried to comfort him: “Host, don’t worry. The protagonist has protagonist armor, nothing will happen to him. Didn’t the script say, ‘Jing Yue was made things difficult for by Qiu Han’s family, tied up in a wooden hut on a desolate mountain as a fire raged—a narrow escape, but he still escaped death’?”

“Escaped death…” Xin Rong repeated it quietly. “That still means being very close to dying, right?”

050 faltered: “Well, that…”

Even if he wouldn’t die, he would be injured—heavily injured.

Even if he weren’t injured, it would still hurt, he would be miserable.

Such a big fire, such thick smoke…

Tied up inside, he would cough, he would be poisoned, he would find it hard to breathe…

Flashes of the scars he had seen on Jing Yue’s body crossed his mind. Old wounds unhealed, new wounds overlapping, almost reaching the limit of what a human body could endure.

The so-called protagonist armor was merely to ensure he didn’t die, but it couldn’t spare him even a shred of pain.

“Host,” 050 didn’t know how else to persuade him, so it simply said, “it’s very late. Get some sleep early.”

It faintly felt that the host’s thoughts were wandering near a dangerous edge, and it was powerless, only able to hope that everything would return to normal after a night’s sleep.

However, Xin Rong was unable to fall asleep.

In the dead of night, he rose silently and headed straight for the place where Jing Yue was imprisoned in the script.

He knew clearly that this action would likely disrupt the mission.

Previously, when he treated Jing Yue’s wounds, the system had not issued a warning, indicating that within a certain range, deviating from the plot was still tolerable.

But the system’s operation was still full of variables. One careless step could trigger an uncontrollable chain reaction.

Just as even today he hadn’t figured out why Jing Yue hadn’t lost his job at the arena.

So this time, he deliberately did not alert 050. Only after confirming that the mission points had been credited and everything had settled did he head to the desolate outskirts alone, attempting to minimize the risk of plot deviation.

The night wind was piercing, and the mountain road was rugged.

The higher he went, the steeper the terrain became. The damp, cold air pierced to his marrow, making his steps heavier and heavier, and the bewilderment in his heart deepened.

For a moment, he didn’t even understand why he had come.

Jing Yue was just a protagonist in a mission world.

Between them, they clearly couldn’t be considered friends, nor did they even get along well.

Ultimately, what did Jing Yue’s fate have to do with him?

Why risk his own mission for an insignificant character?

But just then, firelight in the distance tore through the night, reflecting the entire forest in a stinging crimson.

In an instant, Xin Rong’s legs, which were originally as heavy as lead, became light. All the bewilderment and hesitation in his heart vanished.

Only one thought remained—

Inside that sea of fire was a living person.

A person who went out every day before dawn to pick strawberries for him.

At that moment, Jing Yue was no longer a mission, no longer a cold name in a script.

He was… Jing Yue.

Simply Jing Yue.

His body moved faster than his mind. Xin Rong rushed toward the sea of fire almost instinctively, shouting hoarsely—

“Jing Yue!”

“Jing Yue!”

The only thing responding to him was the crackling sound of the flames.

The pungent smell of gasoline spread through the air. In these desolate outskirts, besides him who held the script, there wouldn’t be a second soul around.

The Qiu family… were hell-bent on taking Jing Yue’s life.

The moment he stepped into the sea of fire, the scorching air turned into blades, slicing at his skin. The firelight flickered and distorted in his vision, making the whole world seem blurred.

Xin Rong endured the stinging pain of the smoke and forced his eyes wide open, searching for that familiar silhouette.

—Nothing.

Had he already escaped?

Or… was he collapsed in some corner, waiting to be consumed by the flames?

Xin Rong didn’t know, but he couldn’t gamble. He could only grit his teeth and continue deeper into the fire.

Suddenly, a loud crash exploded!

A crossbeam overhead snapped violently, and the burning remains slammed down. Tongues of fire instantly surged several meters high.

The house… was going to collapse!

The entire world fell into an incandescent white blur. Even though Xin Rong had worn a smoke mask when he came, it was useless against this overwhelming fire.

Thick smoke poured into his lungs. A tearing pain nearly submerged him, and his consciousness was stripped away bit by bit by the sensation of suffocation.

Just as Xin Rong thought he was going to lose his life here, a powerful force suddenly grabbed him.

Amidst the chaos, he felt himself pulled into a burning yet trembling embrace, being dragged stumbling toward the exit.

He wanted to open his eyes, but his vision was blurred by the smoke. He could only feel the person’s scalding body temperature.

When he finally regained his senses, he was in a safe zone.

Behind him, rolling black smoke swallowed the entire wooden hut.

And before him—

He finally saw that person’s face clearly.

His charred clothes were burned to tatters, messy hair clung to his sweat-drenched forehead, and his well-defined face was covered in soot and smoke.

Those lead-gray eyes were bloodshot, looking as if they held unextinguished embers, frighteningly red.

Only then did Xin Rong realize that the strength that dragged him out of the fire had come from the doorway.

In other words, before he had arrived, Jing Yue had already escaped.

Thank goodness.

He probably hadn’t inhaled too much smoke.

Xin Rong panted heavily with a sense of survival. Just as he was about to ask if Jing Yue was injured, he saw the man look up, a surging rage rolling in his blood-red eyes, the ferocity around him almost turning physical.

“Do you have a brain at all?!”

His wrist was grabbed violently. The pain made Xin Rong flinch.

Jing Yue’s voice was terrifyingly hoarse: “You see a fire and don’t know to run, but instead charge inside? Are you tired of living?!”

Xin Rong opened his mouth, but before he could make a sound, he was interrupted by a more furious roar.

“Do you know how dangerous it was just now? If I had been one second later—”

He got only halfway through the sentence before he couldn’t continue.

When Xin Rong arrived, he had finally managed to chafe through the ropes and escape. He had barely taken a few steps toward the exit when he heard someone shouting his name.

In that instant, he didn’t even have time to think. He turned around and charged back into the fire.

If he hadn’t heard it…

If he hadn’t gone back…

If…

Countless terrifying hypotheses flashed through his mind. His heart, liver, spleen, and lungs were all twisted into a ball, numbed by pain.

Xin Rong’s head hung low. He didn’t say a word, looking as if he were scared witless.

But Jing Yue was already blinded by immense rage, unable to stop himself from continued roaring: “You only know how to act recklessly, only know how to make people worry, only know how to cause trouble for others. Now? Is it fun? Is it stimulating? You could have lived a good life, but you just had to—”

His voice stopped abruptly.

He saw Xin Rong’s shoulders shaking.

Tears as large as beans burst from his eyes, rolling down his pale chin.

One drop after another, like beads with a broken string, impossible to stop.

Xin Rong tried in vain to wipe his face with the back of his hand, but the tears only increased. Small whimpers leaked from his lips. Within a few seconds, the suppressed sobbing turned into uncontrollable gasping, and then into loud crying.

Jing Yue froze on the spot as if struck by lightning.

In over twenty years of life, he had never been so helpless. After a long while, he stiffly reached out his hand to hold Xin Rong’s shoulder, clumsily squeezing out a sentence: “You… don’t cry.”

Xin Rong wanted to push him away, but he was so weak from crying that he could only limply swat at the man’s arm.

“I… I just wanted to see if you were okay…” His voice was hoarse beyond recognition, every word broken to pieces. “Burns hurt a lot. I was afraid you would be in pain…”

“I know I’m stupid, I’m troublesome, and you hate me, but… can’t you just speak properly?”

“I don’t hate you.” Jing Yue’s heart tightened, and he blurted out, “You’re not stupid, not troublesome… I’m sorry, stop crying.”

“You scold me every time. Whatever I do, you scold me… Your voice is so fierce, I can’t win an argument with you at all…”

“It’s my fault.” Jing Yue watched the tears falling rapidly, his heart carved into countless pieces. “I won’t be fierce to you anymore. Don’t cry, okay?”

“I know I’m not a good person… I’ve done bad things, and I’ll do even worse things in the future…” Xin Rong was crying so hard he could barely catch his breath, becoming increasingly incoherent. “But… but you can’t hate me this much. I’m just… anyway… anyway, you can’t hate me, you can’t be this mean to me!”

“I don’t hate you, I won’t be mean to you.” Jing Yue coaxed in a low voice, unconsciously moving closer to him.

Xin Rong’s crying wasn’t the quiet kind of shedding tears; it was vocal, like a child who had suffered great grievance, yet it was more suppressed and heart-wrenching than that.

Jing Yue realized for the first time that tears had weight. And Xin Rong’s tears were hitting his heart one by one, almost crushing it.

Xin Rong was crying so sorrowfully and so intensely that he completely failed to notice Jing Yue was already so close to him—so close that with just a stretch of an arm, he could pull him into his embrace.

“Don’t cry.” Jing Yue took Xin Rong’s hand and pressed it against his own chest. “I’ll do whatever you want, as long as you stop crying.”

His voice was trembling violently. His reason was wandering on the edge of collapse, as if if Xin Rong didn’t stop, he would do something uncontrollable.

“I want to cry!” Seeing this attitude, Xin Rong felt even more aggrieved, sobbing out his accusations, every word carrying a heavy gasp. “You even want to control my crying. How can you be so overbearing… If you don’t want me to cry, then don’t bully me—mph—”

The words he hadn’t finished were crushed between his lips and teeth.

The aggrieved accusations, the trembling breaths, the heavy sobs, the scorched after-fear… all turned into a whimper in this sudden, moist kiss.

Under the night sky of the desolate mountain, the firelight reflected their intertwined silhouettes in red.

Jing Yue hugged Xin Rong tightly, his palm clasping his slender waist. His lips, carrying the scent of smoke and dust, pressed down heavily, his tongue aggressively sweeping across the soft flesh of the mouth.

As overbearing as ever, he used a smoke-scented kiss to end all of his tears.