The Scum Gong Villain Returns to Work - Chapter 3

The item held in the assistant’s hands was a thick Tom Ford coat. Yu Baihua had always been well-aware of Yu Sui’s preferences; even items bought off-the-rack on short notice adhered to a low-key and understated aesthetic style. A magician on stage needed to be supremely flamboyant to capture the audience’s attention, whereas off stage, Yu Sui disliked being stared at by crowds any longer than necessary.

An ordinary person would have accepted the gift with effusive gratitude and thanks, yet Yu Sui merely raised an eyebrow beneath the assistant’s gaze, asking with a trace of perfectly calibrated confusion: “President Yu… actually happens to know my clothing size?”

The assistant had initially bowed his head slightly. Regardless of who stood before him, as long as it was someone singled out by Yu Baihua, he maintained a facade of respectful deference. At that moment, however, he straightened up and thoroughly appraised Yu Sui according to his own judgment before answering: “Whatever the President wishes to know, he will always find out.”

“Very well.” Yu Sui shrugged, making no further attempt to decline. “Pass along my thanks to President Yu.”

Yu Sui didn’t utter lines like, “If there’s ever a time you need me, just say the word I don’t owe favors,” or, “I’ll definitely pay President Yu back in the future,” or even, “I don’t need his charity”clichés compiled by 058 the night before from its digital manual titled *The White Lotus Female Lead’s Guide to Conquering the Dragon-Sovereign . This lack of cliché melodrama left 058, which had watched the entire exchange unfold, feeling exasperated and disappointed in his lack of ambition.

058 believed that if Yu Sui were truly expected to carry out a conquest mission, the only reliable asset he had was the system itself; one simply couldn’t pin hopes on someone like Yu Sui, who found it difficult to feel genuine annoyance or anger. After all, it had spent the previous night sifting through over 500 “Bossy CEO Falls in Love with Me” novels, leveraging big data and algorithms to synthesize a flawless handbook.

Yu Sui asked 058, which was pacing back and forth with simmering indignation inside the system space: “In what way am I a white lotus, and in what way is Yu Baihua a Dragon-Sovereign?”

058 retorted in astonishment: “Your look just now, your gesture, your lines, aren’t they the textbook definition of an advanced green-tea white lotus?”

“…” Yu Sui fell silent for a moment before arriving at a sudden, enlightened realization. “That’s considered being a white lotus? I’ve been acting like this since the very first day I met Yu Baihua.”

Indeed, 058 thought, otherwise how on earth did you manage to play him the way you did during the last mission? From the perspective of a simple, innocent little system like 058, Yu Sui was ruthless and full of hidden tricks… If they were meeting Yu Baihua for the first time, executing a conquest mission would certainly be a breeze; the catch was that Yu Baihua currently practically hated Yu Sui to the bone.

058 continued: “Yu Baihua hasn’t actually changed much, except he’s lost way too much weight.”

“Has he… really not?” 058 began to doubt its own digital optics. If the host’s reaction back then had been even a fraction of a second slower, he would have ended up stuffed into a barrel of wet cement down at the docks by tonight.

Yu Sui thought to himself: Naturally, he hasn’t. He was still just as blustering on the outside yet soft-hearted and easily manipulated on the inside.

“Since Yu Baihua just left like that, how are we supposed to get close to him again?” 058 asked with curiosity.

“He’ll come back,” Yu Sui replied with unhurried composure.

“How would an ordinary student with no exposure to high society know that a bottle of Burgundy Chardonnay requires thirty minutes of decanting? Kevin didn’t realize it not just because the bottle was the boss’s personal reserve, but also because that isn’t standard or common drinking etiquette it’s simply because Yu Baihua prefers it that way.”

Yu Sui’s magic performance was about to begin. He drew out a brand-new deck of cards, fanned them open to inspect them, and chuckled softly: “When all is said and done, the most vital technique in magic is misdirection, and that is further divided into three categories.”

“First, psychological.” Yu Sui closed the deck and asked 058: “Did you see me pull off any sleight of hand with that pack of cards just now?”

“I didn’t see clearly…” 058 inquired: “Did you put a crimp or a special mark on them?”

“I did nothing at all,” Yu Sui said. “Yet the moment I posed that question, you inevitably found yourself wondering what trick I had pulled on them, and you convinced yourself it was true.”

“Second, visual. You can think of it this way: when I don’t want you to look at one specific thing, I will ensure you have something entirely different to look at.” Casually drawing the Ace of Hearts from the deck, Yu Sui slipped it back into the middle right before 058’s eyes, then snapped his fingers lightly.

His distinct knuckles tapped together as Yu Sui flipped over the topmost card: the Ace of Hearts was resting precisely at the top of the deck.

Slowing down his movements, he repeated the demonstration. Without needing a high-framing-rate camera, 058 could clearly see that Yu Sui had used his pinky finger to maintain a gap at the second card. While it appeared as though he was casually inserting the Ace of Hearts into the middle, he had actually slotted it seamlessly into the second position all along. When he finally flipped the cards over, he had simply turned the top two cards simultaneously.

“Third, temporal,” Yu Sui said. “That’s simple enough to understand: by the time you think an event is happening in the present, the magician has already finished it.”

Gathering the cards, Yu Sui stood up to head toward the stage, murmuring softly to 058 in the privacy of his mind: “A magician’s code is that the exact same magic trick is never performed for the same spectator a second time.”

“I am going to leave Yu Baihua with more clues… letting him guess whether I, too, have been reborn.”

“Until he has gathered sufficient, conclusive evidence, he won’t make a move against me. In any case, I won’t let him fixate all his energy entirely on how to torture me.”

Yu Sui let out a soft sigh. “In a sense, his habit of exacting revenge is something I taught him—give someone what they desire most, and then strip it all away.”

“And the moment he uncovers the truth, he will fall in love with me.”

Yu Sui spoke with absolute conviction, entirely devoid of lingering anxiety. He never performed magic without preparation, and the moment he laid eyes on Yu Baihua, Yun Sui understood one thing: when it came to Yu Baihua, he was never unprepared.

“Have you already figured out what you’re going to do?” 058 didn’t fully grasp Yu Sui’s plan, but it trusted his competence; if Yu Sui said so, everything would undoubtedly remain within his control.

“Yes… perhaps I will even have to lean upon things I have already finished doing in the past.”

Just as Yu Sui finished those words, the music swelled to its climax it was time for him to take the stage.

Standing beneath the spotlight, he held absolute mastery over the entire scene.

Heavy black velvet curtains shielded the flickering neon lights of the night. No illumination could pierce the cold, desolate room; an oppressive atmosphere enveloped everything within it, and the slightest sound was enough to startle Yu Baihua awake.

Yu Baihua could not remember when he had drifted off to sleep amidst a sensation resembling burning pain. When he awoke, his entire spine was trembling, as though being licked by the tongues of a fire.

Yu Baihua remembered that day had been overcast, devoid of sunshine, wind, or rain. Standing alone inside the empty villa, he had pulled back the curtains only to catch sight of that person standing quietly outside the garden.

Tall and graceful, with an elegant posture even viewed merely as a silent, unmoving silhouette, Yu Baihua could instantly recognize who it was.

He figured he must have lost his mind. Was this truly Yu Baihua himself, or merely another hallucination born within the pitch-black darkness?

Yet Yu Sui would come to see me, wouldn’t he… Yu Baihua had kept thinking that way. He had originally wanted to walk out and take a look, but it was too slow and too late; Yu Sui had already left.

Yu Baihua couldn’t catch up.

Overcome by a profound sense of loss, he slumped heavily to the floor, only to be startled by the notification chime of a message on his phone. A few “friends” with whom he had lost contact for ages informed him, with varying shades of mockery and banter, that Yu Sui was rumored to be getting engaged.

To the young master of the Tang family, the Yu family’s greatest sworn rival.

Yu Baihua twitched the corner of his lips. He refused to believe Yu Sui could genuinely love anyone, so was this once again a matter of mutual utility? Discarding whatever was useless while flattering whoever proved advantageous.

Yu Baihua felt an agonizing ache in his chest. Remembering the birthday gift Yu Sui had once given him, he stumbled to his feet, rummaged blindly through a cabinet, and pulled out a box.

It was an old, weathered lighter, appearing utterly devoid of monetary value.

Perhaps it was the will of heaven.

Inside the room, he set fire to everything Yu Sui had ever gifted him. Then, feeling his grip on the boundary between illusion and reality begin to slip, his old illness flared up once more.

The flames continued to burn unchecked; no one intervened.

His palms clenched unconsciously until bloody gasps of friction tore at his skin, while waves of psychological nausea churned violently in his stomach from the sheer weight of memory. Desperately suppressing the urge to retch, Yu Baihua reached out blindly to grab the water glass on the nightstand, only to abruptly lose his strength. The sharp, piercing shatter of glass split the air. Clicking on the bedside lamp, Yu Baihua began picking up the shards with a self-abasing cruelty, his fingertips blooming with fresh blood.

He parted his lips in silence, yet not a sound escaped. Not even the physical agony could jolt him fully back to sobriety. He yanked open the cabinet in search of medication, scattering dense clusters of pill bottles across the floor out of sheer impatience and torment. Grabbing a handful at random, Yu Baihua forced them down dry, scraping his throat raw in the process.

Time ticked by second by second. Powerless, Yu Baihua curled his body inward, burying himself between his own knees, seeking warmth all alone within the pitch-black night. Hallucination and reality intertwined, and once again, he seemed to catch a glimpse of Yu Sui.

Did you ever, even for a single moment, harbor a shred of genuine sincerity?

Yu Baihua thought silently to himself before finally reaching for his phone, sliding to unlock the screen, and issuing a command:

“Bring Yu Sui to see me.”