The Eleventh Year of Making Hate with My Lover - Chapter 3

Wu Que ignored him and closed his eyes to take a nap; he was exhausted from all the commotion.

Shen Wang watched him curled up in the corner, his long hair still slightly damp and partially stuck to his face. The hem of his undergarment was tattered and torn; he had pulled it down to avoid exposure, which caused the silver ring hanging at his neckline to dangle back and forth.

“That is…”

Ever since he entered the cave and saw that silver ring, he had felt it was familiar. Now, his curiosity was simply impossible to suppress. He imagined asking about it directly, but given Wu Que’s protective attitude earlier, he would likely only receive an eye-roll in response.

Shen Wang opened his palm and released his supernatural ability. Black, fluid-like matter spilled from his fingertips, dropped to the ground, and transformed into a small, black tentacle that wriggled toward Wu Que.

The tentacle stretched out cautiously, fearing it might wake the person in front of it.

Shen Wang curled his finger slightly, and the small tentacle attempted to touch the silver ring on Wu Que’s neck. His original intention was merely to have the tentacle wrap around it, as the tentacles he released could provide sensory feedback.

However, in the next second, the tentacle was grabbed by a hand with well-defined knuckles. In its panic, it accidentally slipped inside Wu Que’s collar.

“……” Wu Que let out a muffled grunt, grabbing the mischievous tentacle. The tip of the tentacle hooked onto the silver ring and wouldn’t let go; in the struggle, the red string snapped. Not only did the silver ring not get captured, but the tentacle also pulled down the neckline of Wu Que’s garment.

The tentacle slid off his body; the smooth, delicate sensation was transmitted back to the master controller. Shen Wang retracted it as if he had been scalded.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Wu Que said in a deep voice, his chilling tone unusually clear in the quiet cave.

“……” Shen Wang didn’t dare look at him. He wanted to explain that he wasn’t being a hooligan, but when his gaze fell upon the silver ring on the floor, he froze.

He couldn’t be mistaken about the familiar aura on that silver ring; this thing was definitely related to him.

Shen Wang reached out to grab it, but someone was faster. A hand covered the back of Shen Wang’s hand.

A gust of wind rose, the firelight in the cave flickered violently, and Wu Que pressed him down beneath his body.

Shen Wang looked up. At such close proximity, Wu Que’s handsome facial features were fully exposed in the firelight. He hadn’t had time to fasten his clothes, so his neckline was wide open, his snow-white neck and chest flushed a faint pink.

“You want this?” Wu Que held the silver ring, rubbing it. His blue-pink eyes blinked: “Do you know what this is?”

Shen Wang pursed his lips and said honestly: “I don’t, but it looks familiar.”

Wu Que enunciated clearly: “A wedding ring.”

Shen Wang looked at him suspiciously, as if trying to discern the truth in his words. If it were true, then his familiarity with this item might be a physical reaction from the original body.

If that were the case, then this item had nothing to do with him personally, and Shen Wang instantly lost interest. Concerned about the wound on his waist, he didn’t immediately try to forcefully shove the man off.

However, Wu Que frowned as he stared at Shen Wang’s languid face. He had always hated this expression indifferent to everything, casual about everything, including life itself.

Wu Que grabbed Shen Wang’s hand, intending to put the ring on his ring finger. Shen Wang was startled and subconsciously tightened his palm: “Aren’t we already divorced? Why are you still keeping it?”

Wu Que let out a cold laugh: “Of course it’s because I can’t forget our past love.”

He straightened up, ignoring Shen Wang’s wound, straddled his waist, and patted his face: “Don’t provoke me, or I’ll deal with you right here.”

“?” Shen Wang’s eyelid twitched.

[System, is he mentally ill?]

The system sniffled: [Wait, I’m still just a child.]

[……]

Wu Que’s hand stroked his face, then slid down, his slender fingertips beginning to undo his buttons.

Shen Wang stiffened, just about to flip over and throw the man off, when the weight on his waist suddenly vanished.

Shen Wang opened his eyes in surprise. The man with the slender waist and long legs was gone. In his place was a small, squishy jelly fishing (crawling/lying) on his chest. Its pointy ears twitched, and the blue-pink eyes on its umbrella-shaped head blinked, staring eye-to-eye with him.

Looks like he consumed too much energy, Shen Wang thought with a touch of schadenfreude.

“What a pity.” The Wu Que-version of the little jellyfish sighed regretfully, arched like a kitten, and squeezed into his chest.

Shen Wang sat up and plucked him from his clothes, restraining the urge to pull on his tentacles and play with them like a spring.

He exhaled wearily and asked the system: [Where is the task location? I want to send this ancestor away as soon as possible.]

System: [The Tianshu Base.]

A place where Spirit-Awakening Masters gathered, and also where the original owner currently worked. It sounded like it was on the way. But…

[Is that it? Can’t he walk there on his own legs? Isn’t he also from the base?]

[You must protect his safety on the way.]

Shen Wang laughed in anger: [Me? Protect him?]

Big brother, did you miss the part where he single-handedly blew up two flying vehicles with his bare hands?

The system seemed to choke for a moment: [My program settings are just like that.]

[May I ask which sick person set you up in my spiritual sea?]

The system pondered for a moment: [I’m not clear on the specifics; I was generated by supernatural abilities. If you really want to calculate it, the person who set me up was you.]

[Bullshit, how could I…] Shen Wang thought for a moment, he must mean the original owner, right?

Ha… He laughed again in anger. Could these two be performing some kind of dog-blood melodrama of love and hate?

Am I a part of their two-person play?

Shen Wang’s anger flared up. Looking at the small ball of cat-eared jellyfish rolling on his clothes—though cute Shen Wang couldn’t wait to stomp it to death with one foot.

…

There were still two hours until dawn. Shen Wang stared blankly at the water curtain at the entrance of the cave with a cold, handsome face, thinking about how his days had been nothing but troublesome ever since he revived.

Between throwing Wu Que away and escaping together, Shen Wang agonized for half the night before ultimately choosing the latter. Yielding to the system’s “tyranny,” he decided to temporarily set aside their past grievances (although his memories were damaged, so he couldn’t remember what those grievances were) and endured the role of playing his amnesiac ex-husband.

For the sake of survival, a little sacrifice of my appearance is nothing. Off we go—

When the rain stopped, the horizon was already streaked with white. The clothes in his arms had been dried by his body heat. Wu Que was resting quietly on the edge of his pocket, his tentacles neatly tucked around his umbrella-cap, looking exceptionally well-behaved.

He reached out and rubbed him twice. Wu Que curled up a tentacle and gave him a lash it was so light it felt like an itch.

Shen Wang thought, if he stayed in his little jellyfish form all the time, I might be able to give him a pleasant expression.

When he stood up, the jellyfish slid out of his pocket, rolling toward the fire pit. If the fire hadn’t long since gone out, he might have ended up with a grilled jellyfish.

Shen Wang picked him up, gripped one of his tentacles maliciously, patted the dust off his umbrella-cap, and said with a smile that wasn’t quite a smile: “Young Master, time to wake up and run for your life.”

The jellyfish in his hand was pinched until it “Guji-Guji” cried out: Don’t pinch my butt.

The sky was dimly lit, and the sea was shrouded in mist.

Shen Wang scanned for any ships while dodging Wu family flying vehicles. Fortunately, they didn’t have to wait long before a fishing boat passed by.

“Little brother, how did you drift here?” The captain looked curiously at the black-haired, black-eyed youth; he didn’t look like someone from these parts at all.

He reached out to pat Shen Wang on the shoulder and said meaningfully: “We haven’t seen a living soul around here for many years.”

Shen Wang instinctively wanted to dodge, but his face showed a half-measure of appropriate exhaustion: “The ship sank, and my companions are missing.” He put on an appearance of being harmless: “Could you take me with you? Reward is not a problem.”

The captain squinted his eyes to assess him for a while, then suddenly laughed: “Alright, consider yourself lucky.”

The fishing boat’s deck was bumpier than he had imagined. Shen Wang leaned against the railing, watching the shore gradually shrink into a line on the sea horizon. The jellyfish in his chest pocket suddenly moved; its tentacles tentatively poked out from the fabric, shivering in the salty, damp air.

“Behave.” He warned in a low voice, pressing his fingertips against the restless tentacle. A chilling touch came through, carrying a familiar numbing itch.

“Don’t shock me.”

He vaguely felt that this sea area was a bit strange. His terminal hadn’t received any signals, and he had tried to contact the base, but the messages were like stones sinking into the sea.

But they should have discovered he was missing. As the team captain of the Sixth District of the Tianshu Base, the original owner had been working non-stop. Every day was spent eradicating supernatural entities and cleaning up polluted areas. When he first revived, his terminal had dozens of messages all demanding him to go back to work.

Spirit-Awakening Masters only accounted for one-thousandth of the population, and eighty percent of those were concentrated in the Spirit-Awakening Alliance. As the center of the Alliance, the Tianshu Base was responsible for talent recruitment and mission execution. People were scarce and tasks were many, not to mention high-risk tasks that could only be done by high-rated Spirit-Awakening Masters, like Shen Wang…

He was basically being used as an ox and a horse.

In the days he had been missing, the base should have been doing everything in its power to reach him.

The hull suddenly swayed violently, interrupting his thoughts. Schools of fish surged beneath the water, crashing against the bottom of their ship.

Suddenly, a pitch-black ghost hand reached up from the school of fish, about to grab a fisherman’s foot. Shen Wang, who was standing to the side, stepped on the ghost hand and ground it down.

The jellyfish Wu Que poked its head out, blinking its big blue-pink eyes at the ghost hand. The ghost hand seemed to shudder; another hand reached out, trying to pull its right hand from under Shen Wang’s foot.

Shen Wang bent down, intending to pick up this ghost hand to see its full appearance. Although he hadn’t eradicated many supernatural entities himself, the innate intuition of a Spirit-Awakening Master made him particularly sensitive to this aura.

If he wasn’t mistaken, this should be a minor entity lurking in this sea area; it wouldn’t be able to cause much trouble.

The fisherman next to him pushed him away and shouted: “Stop! How can you be disrespectful to the Sea God!” The others who heard this all cast dissatisfied looks his way. Only the captain squinted his eyes, smoking to the side.

The ghost hand immediately shrank back. Shen Wang looked at where it disappeared, then at the fishermen pointing fingers at him, and gave a cold laugh.

Interesting. A group of fishermen shouting at a supernatural entity as if it were a god.

The captain stood by, watching the show, as if explaining to him or talking to himself: “They all say that when the illusion appears, it’s the Sea God bestowing blessings.”

Shen Wang said lazily: “Why aren’t you kneeling?”

The captain waved his hand dismissively: “I’m just an outsider; I don’t have customs like that.”

Around noon, the fishing boat docked at the pier.

Shen Wang felt his pocket; in truth, he had no cash on him to pay for the ride.

Wu Que quietly extended a tentacle from his pocket, which was curled around a shiny coin.

This fellow seemed a bit proud of himself, lying in the pocket, blinking his big blue-pink eyes upwards, and lifting his other tentacles as if asking for credit.

…He’s like a little cat wagging its tail.

Shen Wang resisted the urge to rub his head and told himself to get a grip this guy was extremely vicious when he was human.