The Protagonist and the Villain Both Kissed Me [Quick Transmigration] - Chapter 52

Yicheng, Suburban Villa.

A thin, drizzling rain fell silently, sliding down the eaves and gathering into small puddles on the ground. The solemn, dignified doors were adorned with many black flowers. The noisy, fragmented sounds of conversation hummed incessantly. At the wide-open entrance, a young man dressed in gray robes sat kneeling on a wooden prayer mat with his head bowed, his overly long hair obscuring his face.

The people standing behind him pointed and gestured at him without reservation. Though their voices were hushed, he could still detect a great deal of malice in their tone.

The young man had a mullet haircut with a wolf-cut finish, dyed in a champagne-pink hue. A star-and-moon pendant hung from his ear, its tassels resting against his slender, porcelain neck. He was surrounded by an aura of profound sadness. This was Su Xi, who had just transmigrated into this world.

Su Xi felt as though the burning sensation from his previous body still lingered. He lifted his gaze to the photo frame above the altar. The man in the black-and-white funeral portrait had slight wrinkles at the corners of his eyes, but they did not detract from his handsome features; instead, they added a touch of mature charm a gift bestowed by the passing years.

“Madam Shen, please accept my condolences,” someone walked to his side, patting his shoulder in comfort.

“Heh.” A disdainful male voice rang out abruptly, followed by words spoken in a tone of undisguised loathing: “A piece of work like you is actually fit to be my stepmother?”

“What do you mean by that?” The man standing to Su Xi’s left was Lawyer Ding, hired by Shen Chengzhou before his death to handle his estate and asset distribution.

Su Xi, the target of the verbal abuse, kept his head lowered, yet his slightly trembling shoulders made it clear he was suffering. In his mind, he had just finished processing the information about this world and grasped the basic situation.

The subject of this memorial service was his husband, Shen Chengzhou, who had recently died in a car accident. Su Xi himself was, in the eyes of outsiders, a calculating and extremely dissolute socialite who had used every trick in the book to marry into the wealthy Shen family.

The person insulting him was his cheap stepson, Shen Jingye, who had just returned from abroad.

Su Xi had heard of Shen Jingye’s temperament from Shen Chengzhou a rebellious, cynical rich young master who had moved abroad for two years simply because of a quarrel with his father. Had this tragedy not occurred, he likely wouldn’t have returned so soon.

“It’s fine.” Su Xi reached out and tugged on Lawyer Ding’s sleeve, signaling that there was no need for more words. Because he had been kneeling for so long, he inevitably stumbled as he stood up. If the person beside him hadn’t steadied him, he would have fallen awkwardly to the floor.

He knew not how many people at this memorial service were waiting to laugh at his expense.

Su Xi used the excuse of feeling unwell to head to the backyard for some air. He leaned against a pillar, a few stray hairs falling over his forehead. “Do I have to find the villain myself this time, too?”

System 1368 was already prepared for Su Xi’s inquiry and answered promptly: “Yes, Host. But don’t worry, we will definitely be able to complete the mission.”

“There was no rest after the last world ended. Why was I suddenly transported to a new plane?” Su Xi massaged his aching knees, his brow furrowing slightly.

“There was an accident with the transmission channel. It’s undergoing emergency repairs. This won’t happen again in the future, Host, so please don’t worry.”

Seeing Su Xi’s exhausted face, System 1368 knew he hadn’t yet recovered from the previous world and added considerately: “The difficulty level of this world isn’t very high, and there is no time limit for the mission. You can relax a bit, Host.”

Hearing the system’s words, Su Xi did not feel relieved. Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted a youth emerging from around the corner and said cryptically, “I don’t want to look for trouble, but trouble seems to find me.”

“Running to the backyard all alone are you afraid of making a fool of yourself? I don’t know what my father saw in you.” Shen Jingye sported a head of flamboyant silver hair, and his youthful face was filled with contempt and disgust.

His bold gaze swept up and down the young man before him, who looked only a few years older than himself. He felt there was nothing special about him Just slightly better looking than a normal person, only slightly.

Furthermore, despite being a man, he had long champagne-pink hair. He didn’t even know what to make of it.

“Young Master Shen must be joking. The night before your father’s accident, he was still being intimate with me in bed. Even if you don’t acknowledge me, I am still your elder.” Su Xi gave Shen Jingye a fake smile. Without noticing it himself, the youth’s ear-tips turned pink.

“You! Shameless!” Shen Jingye’s brow furrowed tightly as he realized the implication of Su Xi’s words. He gave a cold snort and turned to leave, his retreating figure betraying a hint of fluster.

Su Xi watched him walk away, his long eyelashes fluttering. He let out a light chuckle and murmured to himself, “He’s just a wet-behind-the-ears kid, and so pure. He probably isn’t the villain.”

He first mentally dismissed the idea of Shen Jingye being his target for salvation, then opened the detailed mission description to browse.

The cold wind blew against him as the sky grew darker. Su Xi timed his return to the front hall to wrap up the remaining matters before dragging his tired body back to the bedroom.

The bedroom decor was minimalist yet grand, but many areas still showed it was a shared living space matching cups, bathrobes that only differed in color… Su Xi thought of the funeral portrait he had seen earlier and felt a sudden chill down his spine.

He packed a few simple items, planning to make do in the guest room for the night. To his surprise, as soon as he pulled open the door, he ran into Shen Jingye, who was also preparing to go downstairs.

Previously, only he and Shen Chengzhou lived here. Aside from the living staff, servants were not permitted on the fourth floor. He had forgotten that since Shen Jingye was back, he would naturally stay at the main residence. However, if he remembered correctly, the Shen family was so wealthy they had plenty of real estate. Since Shen Jingye hated him so much, why didn’t he stay elsewhere?

The room hadn’t been lived in for a long time. Even with regular cleaning by specialized staff, oversights were inevitable. Shen Jingye thought he might have tucked away something he’d previously tossed into a corner, but he couldn’t find it for the life of him, so he decided to find someone to ask.

“Dressing like this in the middle of the night who are you planning to meet?”

He looked at Su Xi, who was wearing only a thin bathrobe. His unstyled long hair was draped softly over his shoulders, and his shimmering peach-blossom eyes were clouded with sleepiness, making him look dazed.

Su Xi let out a yawn. It was hard to say he found the master bedroom creepy and wanted to sleep in the guest room, so he made a vague excuse: “I was thirsty and going to the kitchen for a glass of water.”

“Getting water?” Shen Jingye clearly didn’t believe Su Xi’s explanation, but he didn’t want to talk to him further. He bypassed the man and headed downstairs as if the other carried a plague.

In the first-floor kitchen, Su Xi familiarly opened the refrigerator and grabbed a bottle of sea salt lychee soda. He twisted the cap and tilted his head back for two gulps. Just as he was about to close the fridge, he suddenly heard approaching footsteps.

To avoid trouble, he hadn’t turned on the lights at all, navigating the kitchen by the moonlight. Now that someone was approaching, he couldn’t see the person’s face.

“Who’s there so late?” a voice rang out nearby. Immediately after, the overhead lights were flicked on, and the piercing brightness illuminated the room.

Su Xi instinctively raised his hand to block his eyes, but they were still unavoidably hit by the light, causing a sting of watery soreness.

He waited a moment before lowering his hand to look at the newcomer. The person had tea-brown hair and wore gold-rimmed glasses. Upon seeing Su Xi’s face, his expression seemed somewhat complicated.

“My apologies, Madam. I didn’t know it was you.”

Ji Zhuo’s voice was sincere and tinged with apology. He looked at the sea salt lychee soda in the man’s hand, then glanced at the clock on the wall. “Madam, drinking cold things at night will cause stomach pain.”

“…” Su Xi was momentarily speechless. He had arrived just in time for the memorial, but someone who could still be seen at night was likely the Shen family butler mentioned in the introduction, Ji Zhuo.

He coughed lightly and arched an eyebrow. “It’s not your place to tell me what I can or cannot do.”

Now that Shen Chengzhou was gone, his status in the Shen family would surely plummet. If he wasn’t assertive, these people would definitely try to walk all over him.

That wouldn’t do. He had worked hard to marry into the Shen family; he wouldn’t let himself be kicked out so easily.

“Madam, that isn’t what I meant.” Seeing that Su Xi seemed angry, Ji Zhuo immediately took two steps back and said softly, “It is late. Please rest early, Madam. I shall take my leave.”

Once Ji Zhuo had completely left, Su Xi dropped his sharp front. He leaned against the table, breathing softly with a thin layer of sweat on his forehead. Luckily, the conversation hadn’t continued, or he might have been exposed.

Unlike the previous two worlds, this one didn’t have a full introduction. The system had only given him the backstory and character profiles, so he knew nothing of the future plot development and had to explore on his own using this information.

His train of thought interrupted by the sudden event, Su Xi was no longer in the mood to stay on the first floor looking for clues. He hurried back to the bedroom, pulled back the covers, and lay down. A faint scent of agarwood seemed to linger in his breath as his consciousness gradually drifted into chaos.

The next morning, the warm sun spilled into the room through the gaps in the curtains, falling upon the young man sleeping peacefully on the soft, large bed. His smooth long hair spread across the deep red bedding like fine silk. Perhaps dreaming of something, the youth’s long eyelashes fluttered, and he slowly opened his eyes.

“Ugh…” Su Xi sat up by the edge of the bed. He felt even more tired after sleeping than he did yesterday. He rubbed his numb wrists and headed into the bathroom to wash up.

In the mirror, his face was flushed and his lips were a deep red. Beneath those beautiful peach-blossom eyes was a teardrop mole. Combined with the pink hair and silver tassel earrings, he perfectly embodied the “glamorous and trashy socialite” setting he had been given.

“I don’t have any lovers, do I?” Su Xi blinked, and the person in the mirror mirrored the action.

“No. To marry into the Shen family, the original host kept himself very clean. At most, he held hands or shared a hug with those he took a fancy to not even a kiss,” Xiao Ba, being a system, was online twenty-four hours a day and responded promptly.

“That’s not what I meant,” Su Xi said, shaking his head.

“Huh?” System 1368 didn’t understand. “Then what did you mean, Host?”

“I mean, I’ve cut ties with all of them, right? It shouldn’t affect my saving the villain later.” Su Xi spat out his mouthwash and dried his face with a towel before answering Xiao Ba.

Even though this was a modern world, it was hard to guarantee that no supernatural phenomena would occur.

After all, last night he felt as if he were suffering from sleep paralysis he didn’t have a shred of energy this morning.