The Protagonist and the Villain Both Kissed Me [Quick Transmigration] - Chapter 23

Inside the massive private booth, people with their own hidden agendas sat in their seats, most of them casting covetous and blunt gazes at the person surrounded in the center. Their intentions were obvious, yet they were restrained by the status of the two men sitting beside him. They could only numb themselves with the faint scent of orchids lingering in the air.

However, Su Xi, the object of such intense scrutiny, seemed completely oblivious. He lowered his eyes, his jade-like face flushed a deep crimson from the alcohol. Drunk and muddled, he leaned against Fu Heng, who was sitting to his left. His slightly rounded eyes were moist, and he gave a coquettish command: “Pour me a glass of wine.”

Hearing this, Fu Heng’s hand, which rested on the boy’s supple waist, paused slightly. His tone was a bit cold: “You’ve already had a lot.”

His underlying meaning was clear: the boy had drunk enough and couldn’t have any more. The drunken Su Xi merely lowered his head with a trace of grievance and stopped clamoring for a drink. His fragile gland was lightly brushed by the man’s cool fingertips, causing his body to shiver instinctively.

Su Xi felt uncomfortable and tried to shift his body, but a glass of wine was suddenly pressed against his lips. He lifted his eyes to the person before him, his long, thick eyelashes trembling. Once he identified who it was, he parted his red lips. The slightly spicy liquid flowed between his teeth; wine he didn’t have time to swallow slid from the corner of his mouth, the scarlet drops trickling down his snow-white skin.

Someone nearby inadvertently mentioned Duan Cheng again. Su Xi turned his shimmering, affectionate eyes toward the speaker, parted his lips, and frowned: “Duan Cheng is just an ordinary Beta. I could never like him.”

Inside the already noisy booth, the crisp sound of glass shattering rang out again. Everyone looked up at the sound, only to see a figure dressed in black quickly pulling up their hood and vanishing from sight. It was as if everything that just happened had been a mere farce.

Su Xi had drunk too much; his head was spinning when he stood up, and he needed someone to support him just to go to the restroom. As the host of this party, Li Huai naturally couldn’t leave his seat, so the task fell to Fu Heng.

Fu Heng stood outside the restroom waiting, the bright lights casting a halo above his head.

Su Xi leaned against the sink to rinse his hands. Hearing a movement behind him, he froze and looked back, his autumn-water eyes brimmed with a hazy mist.

“Duan Cheng?” His voice was filled with surprise; he clearly hadn’t expected to run into the man here.

Duan Cheng looked at Su Xi’s intoxicated face, his tone cold: “Were you serious about what you said just now?”

In vino veritas truth is often told in wine, and false words are rarely spoken then. The hope he had previously harbored was instantly smashed to pieces, like the glass that had just been shattered, impossible to restore. Even if it were mended, it would be covered in cracks.

A person who cannot be held in one’s hand…

Su Xi let out a scoff: “Of course. Do you really think you’re worthy of being my fiancé?”

He tilted his head, using the most innocent face to speak the most hurtful words. The moment he finished speaking, the system announced that the Salvation Value had reached ninety-five.

“Host, that was amazing! But since you’ve said such harsh things, why are we still five points short?” System 1368 asked in confusion as it watched the progress bar and Duan Cheng’s despondent appearance.

“Don’t worry,” Su Xi let out a lazy yawn and exited the restroom. Seeing Fu Heng, he muddledly leaned into him. He embraced the man’s arm and said coquettishly, “Take me home. I don’t want to go back there.”

“Alright,” Fu Heng nodded, supporting the swaying boy.

Su Xi was practically carried home. When he lay on the bed, he was as soft as a puddle of water, his breath filled with a faint woody fragrance. He hugged the quilt and grabbed Fu Heng’s hand to prevent him from leaving. His butterfly-wing-like eyelashes trembled slightly, and the corners of his eyes were flushed a fiery red, making his eyes appear even more beautiful and alluring.

“Stay and keep me company,” he said to Fu Heng with sparkling eyes.

Fu Heng’s hand, which had been about to pull back, paused. His once-cold demeanor had long since vanished. The calm and reason he usually prided himself on had collapsed and disintegrated in front of Su Xi. The boy’s pheromone compatibility with him was too high; he was destined to be unable to leave him.

Receiving no response for a long while, he looked down the red-faced Su Xi had already fallen asleep.

The next morning, Su Xi enjoyed a rare, peaceful sleep. After washing up, he saw a thermos and a note on the table. He pulled out a chair and began to eat breakfast. There were several prominent red marks on his fair skin. “When did Fu Heng leave?”

“Six-thirty. After he saw you fall asleep last night, he sat by the bed the whole night. He went back to catch up on sleep after delivering breakfast this morning,” System 1368 reported the itinerary in detail. “Host, I’ve already completed the task you assigned me.”

Before falling asleep last night, Su Xi had asked Xiao Ba to send a message to his mother, notifying her of the total dissolution of his engagement with Duan Cheng. Now, the trending topics and public opinion in the Imperial Capital had clearly exploded. Duan Cheng wasn’t some primitive person without internet access; he had naturally seen the news as well.

“The Salvation Value is at one hundred. Why can’t I go back yet?” Su Xi swallowed a mouthful of blueberry cheese bagel with milk and asked with feigned indifference.

“This…” System 1368 hesitated.

“Why are you stammering? If there’s something to say, say it.” Su Xi had known for a long time that System Xiao Ba was occasionally unreliable, but he hadn’t expected its next words to be so shocking.

“The mission duration is three months. It’s only been twenty days, so we can’t go back yet,” System 1368 said succinctly.

Su Xi’s mission was simply to prevent any emotional entanglement between the villain and the protagonist. As long as there were no feelings, there would be no confrontation, and certainly no tragic, scorched-earth ending later on.

His understanding of “saving the villain” was to make the villain fall in love with someone else so they wouldn’t fight the protagonist.

And now the system was telling him he couldn’t leave… how could the current him deal with the grown-up villain?

“You mean we have to stay here for another two months?” Su Xi found the lavish food in front of him suddenly tasteless, like chewing wax. He sat dazed for several seconds before he couldn’t help but say: “According to the original plot, isn’t my family supposed to go bankrupt soon?”

His life after bankruptcy would not be pleasant. Clearly, this outcome and result were not what he wanted.

“Yes, Host. The trending topics in the Imperial Capital have already exploded. The number one trending topic is your broken engagement with Duan Cheng, and the number two is the exposure of Duan Cheng’s identity,” System 1368 said, proactively pulling up the light screen in front of Su Xi.

On the blue-lit screen, the bold red headlines were striking: What is the Truth Behind the Seeming Decline of the Duan Family? The Prosperity of the Su Family Hides Countless Acts of Corruption.

Su Xi skimmed through the top trending topics. He pursed his lips, his expression clearly unpleasant. Releasing this information so quickly was undoubtedly an attempt to completely bring down the Su family. Aside from Duan Cheng, he couldn’t think of anyone else who would do this.

Breaking the engagement one moment and acting decisively the next he truly lived up to the title of a villain.

“Host, what do we do now?” System 1368 asked anxiously, clearly helpless in the current situation.

Su Xi’s lowered eyelashes trembled. His communicator was flashing with many messages from various friends. What seemed like kind comfort was actually malice and vulgarity beneath the surface. How was he, an Omega at the center of the controversy, supposed to conduct himself at school?

Upon receiving the news, Li Huai and Fu Heng immediately dropped what they were doing and rushed toward Su Xi’s residence.

However, when they arrived, the house was already empty.

Su Xi, the protagonist everyone was watching and thinking about, was currently walking along the street fully disguised. He touched the scent-blocker behind his ear to ensure it was still there, then pulled the brim of his hat lower. He took a long detour past the noisy swarm of reporters at the front of the Su estate and entered through the back door.

The once-lively rooms were eerily quiet, and even the lights weren’t turned on.

Su Xi saw his red-eyed mother sitting on the sofa, as well as his nominal father for the first time. The middle-aged man looked haggard, clearly having not slept all night. Overwhelming questioning and public opinion were permeating the Su family from every angle.

“Dad, Mom.” Su Xi didn’t know if it was the original owner’s subconscious or something else, but he felt a sting in his eyes and his voice was a bit hoarse.

“Xiao Xi, why did you come back?” Mother Su, who had been so elegant and smiling last time they met, lowered her head to wipe her tears before standing up.

“I know everything.” Seeing Mother Su opening her mouth to explain, Su Xi comforted her in a calm tone: “It’s okay. I’ll do my best to help.”

For the current Su family, the surging public opinion had caused the stock price to plummet; they were undoubtedly facing bankruptcy. What they needed most now was money. But the business world was often driven by profit; everyone crowded in when there was something to gain, but once trouble hit, they couldn’t wait to distance themselves completely.

Even if many who had received favors from the Su family wanted to help, they had to weigh whether they could afford to oppose the mastermind behind this business war.

The fact was, they couldn’t. In just three days, Su Group was on the verge of extinction.

Actually, there was another solution. During this period, many people came to the Su family to propose marriage, but without exception, they were all rejected by Su Xi’s parents.

They would not treat their beloved son as a commodity to be traded.

The bedroom door was closed tight. Su Xi leaned against the sofa in exhaustion, having blocked all messages on his communicator. Fu Heng and Li Huai had also helped quite a bit these past few days; he ultimately had to thank them.

“Xiao Ba, aren’t Fu Heng and Li Huai the protagonists? How come they can’t even beat the villain?” he chatted with the system in his mind.

“This… because our main task was to save the villain. Perhaps we went too far and the world collapsed a bit. But it doesn’t matter, Host. Don’t worry,” System 1368’s cold mechanical voice was very calm.

But Su Xi heard a few traces of anomaly in it. His already restless heart grew even more chaotic. “Help me find out where Duan Cheng is. I’m going to find him.”

Since the mission had already been judged as complete, it wasn’t out of the question to go and talk to Duan Cheng.

“At Night Encounter,” the system quickly provided Duan Cheng’s location.

Su Xi could almost imagine what Duan Cheng looked like at Night Encounter. His eyelashes trembled. He hadn’t expected their status to reverse so soon after the passage of time.

He currently had no relationship with the man; how was he going to convince him to help?