Chapter 104

Chapter 104

The weather was getting colder, and Xie Yunshen decided to go back to the small building to grab some warm clothes.

Although Mr. Yan had mentioned that brands would send clothes tailored to his measurements, Xie Yunshen still couldn't part with his trusty old clothes.

Returning to the small building, he saw the novel on the table, and his eyes filled with worry.

He picked up the dusty book, opened the last two chapters, and read them again.

Just a few sentences had already summarized the tragic end of the Yan family.

Xie Yunshen placed the book at the very bottom of his backpack, glanced at the suit of golden armor, and left the small building with a few warm clothes.

By the time he rode his motorcycle back to the villa, it was already dinner time. Mr. Yan was waiting for him at the dining table.

Halfway through the meal, Xie Yunshen suddenly blurted out as if struck by a sudden thought, "Have I been slacking off lately?"

Yan Shiqi looked up. "Stop joking."

"No, I really think I should find something to keep me busy."

Being a bodyguard wasn't an option. Mr. Yan would never let him work as a bodyguard again, and he couldn't leave Mr. Yan's side either. With Top Star Gate gone, there weren't any real threats now.

"The Bodyguard Association wants me to be an instructor, Mr. Yan..."

"No." Yan Shiqi looked at him firmly.

Most people would back down immediately under Yan Shiqi's gaze, but Xie Yunshen still dared to talk back. "It's just four hours a day."

"It requires travel." Yan Shiqi saw right through him.

"I can ask to skip those."

"Still not happening."

"Do you really have to be so mean?" Xie Yunshen leaned in with his head tilted.

Yan Shiqi put down his chopsticks, sat back in his chair, closed his eyes, and wouldn't look at his pitiful face.

Xie Yunshen had already figured out what worked on Mr. Yan.

"Mr. Yan! Mr. Yan!" He put his head in Yan Shiqi's lap.

But Mr. Yan was determined not to look at him.

Suspecting he might have fallen asleep, Xie Yunshen reached out a finger to lift his eyelid.

The butler standing nearby was startled. Oh my god, who did Xie Yunshen think he was? How dare he do such a thing?

Yan Shiqi lightly batted his hand away.

Xie Yunshen laughed. "Mr. Yan, stop pretending to be asleep."

"After you become an instructor, I'll look for other bodyguards to protect me."

Xie Yunshen was taken aback. What did that mean?

"But didn't you say before that you didn't need bodyguards?"

"I only said I didn't need you to sacrifice your life to fulfill a bodyguard's duty. That doesn't mean I don't need security."

Xie Yunshen thought it over. There were too few Golden Bodyguards left, and they were pretty much all booked.

If it were Mr. Yan, the Bodyguard Association would definitely recommend Silver Bodyguards. Pictures of qualified colleagues flashed in Xie Yunshen's mind...

When he wasn't around, Mr. Yan would have to spend twenty-four hours a day with those unreliable guys.

And they would probably badmouth him.

A chill ran down Xie Yunshen's spine, like he'd just woken from a bad dream. "Forget it, I won't go!"

Yan Shiqi looked down at him. "No take-backs." His eyes held a hint of warning, serious, like making a promise.

With his head buried in Yan Shiqi's lap, Xie Yunshen grabbed the armrests of the chair, lifted himself up, and looked at him. "Right, only I can protect Mr. Yan."

"Good boy." Yan Shiqi finally let a small smile show and extended his arms.

Xie Yunshen hugged him and even nuzzled against the still-fading pink mark on his neck.

*Clatter!*

A piece of spare rib fell onto the table. Yan Shiling, sitting beside them, held his chopsticks, mouth agape, eyes wide with shock.

Oh no, he'd forgotten there was a real younger brother sitting right there. Xie Yunshen froze.

"Ew..." Yan Shiling, a straight guy, gave them a disgusted look and turned back to his meal.

Xie Yunshen, with his arms still around Yan Shiqi, blinked. "...Why so disgusted?"

Still, it seemed this guy was doing much better than when he first got out of prison.

He wasn't eating so frantically anymore now.

"Or what? You're supposed to be my brother's so-called brother, but you're actually a couple? What am I supposed to call you?"

"I wouldn't mind if you called me sister-in-law." Xie Yunshen shrugged.

"Pfft!" Yan Shiling almost choked on his soup.

Xie Yunshen: "..."

Yan Shiqi lowered his head, a smile in his eyes.

"Last time, didn't you say you had someone look into the bullying your brother went through?"

While working in the study, Xie Yunshen brought it up.

"We found out. In prison, some cult members approached him and filled his head with bad ideas."

"Cult members?"

"A new cult has popped up recently called the Other Shore Divine Sect. This cult only accepts people under thirty and tells its followers to devoutly dedicate everything they have. Inside, inmates regularly have their little fingers amputated."

"Why?"

Yan Shiqi said, "To become a follower, you must cut off your little finger and sacrifice it to the Other Shore God."

"But Yan Shiling's fingers are all there."

"Yes, he's clever. In prison, he either purposely made his hand swell or used his pinky to pick his teeth, claiming the Other Shore God wouldn't accept an imperfect, unclean pinky. Though he still couldn't avoid a beating."

Xie Yunshen laughed. What a genius.

It seemed that being Yan Shiqi's brother meant none of them were fools.

"Now that he's out, he should be fine, right?"

"I heard that after being released, followers still need to check in with a specific church. However, Yan Shiling hasn't left the house since getting out, probably hiding from them as well," Yan Shiqi pondered.

The next day, on the way back, Xie Yunshen spotted Yan Shiling by the roadside.

At a fork in the road, Yan Shiling followed two men into an alley.

"Mr. Yan, wait for me here." Xie Yunshen was curious and felt a sense of justice.

Damn it, messing with Yan Shiqi's brother was like messing with his own.

Xie Yunshen got out of the car and followed them until they entered an iron-barred gate. The house was completely covered by two felt cloths, emitting a faint, eerie red glow.

"Shiling, it's been hard to find you lately. This is the time when devotion is most needed. You knew that from your time inside, didn't you?" A man pressed his hand on Yan Shiling's shoulder, speaking softly.

"I know." Yan Shiling knelt on the ground, never looking up.

A circle of men sat around, draped in oversized trench coats, their gazes cold and gloomy.

"By the way, who would have thought your brother is Yan Shiqi, the entrepreneur who's been in the news lately?"

"So what? That has nothing to do with me." Yan Shiling held a small knife, trembling slightly.

"How is it unrelated? We'll need you to support our funding for operations generously in the future."

A small knife was handed over and placed in his hand.

Cold sweat dripped from Yan Shiling's forehead.

"Put your nice little finger in here, and you'll be the most devout follower of the Other Shore God," another man urged him, holding a small glass jar.

Yan Shiling whispered, "But I never said I'd join."

"You should know the consequences of betraying the Other Shore God. Even if your brother is Yan Shiqi, the Other Shore God doesn't care." The man tightened his grip on Yan Shiling's collar.

Yan Shiling's expression hardened. He slashed the man with the knife and bolted, but two other men at the door grabbed him.

"Fuck!" A fist came down hard.

But someone intercepted it. *Thud!* A tooth flew through the air and landed at Yan Shiling's feet.

He looked up and saw Xie Yunshen catch one man with a sideways elbow to the jaw, a bloody mess, while the tooth had flown from another man's mouth.

Xie Yunshen hadn't even warmed up yet, and two men were already on the ground.

"It's you?" Yan Shiling stared in shock at Xie Yunshen appearing before him.

Xie Yunshen glanced at the circle of kneeling men around them. He had thought these guys would swarm him.

But even as he pulled Yan Shiling out, none of them moved a muscle.

Truly a cult of nutjobs, everyone inside was acting crazy.

"What were you doing coming out here?"

The sky looked down on the two as they passed through this seemingly endless alley.

"Today was the day to report to the police station. I was spotted when I came out."

Xie Yunshen was taken aback. "Shouldn't you have told your brother about that?"

"Didn't my brother already give up on me long ago?" Yan Shiling squatted on the ground, arms resting straight on his knees, speaking lazily.

Xie Yunshen gave him a dead-fish stare. "...Hey, don't tell me you're a brother-con too?"

"Just the self-awareness of someone who's been abandoned." Yan Shiling smiled self-deprecatingly.

Yan Shiling turned his head. "Really?"

Xie Yunshen smiled. "Of course. Compared to your other two brothers, you're just a clueless kid at most."

Yan Shiling doubted himself. "Did my big brother randomly adopt another brother again?"

"No, I mean, in a parallel world, maybe you have two other brothers." Xie Yunshen looked up, his gaze drifting through the narrow strip of sky above the alley, as if traveling to another world.

"Are they as amazing as you?"

"Me? What's so amazing about me?"

"Such humble-bragging. Is there anyone in this world more formidable than the Golden Bodyguard?" Yan Shiling was speechless.

Xie Yunshen pulled Yan Shiling back to the car.

Seeing Yan Shiqi, Yan Shiling felt a bit awkward.

"How did it go?" Yan Shiqi asked.

"Totally a cult. You should have someone call the police," Xie Yunshen said.

Yan Shiqi took his hand, pulled out a neatly folded handkerchief from inside his suit, and wiped the blood from his knuckles.

Only then did Xie Yunshen realize there was blood on his fist; he didn't know when it got there.

"It's useless. They... are terrifying." Yan Shiling, who had been silent, suddenly spoke.

"No way?" Xie Yunshen picked up a bottle of mineral water, unconcerned.

Could they possibly be scarier than Top Star Gate?

"Because sister-in-law is so strong, you just don't get it."

*Pfft!*

This time, it was Xie Yunshen's turn to do a spit-take.

"I beg you... just call me brother." Xie Yunshen wiped the water from the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand, looking aggrieved.

Yan Shiling glanced at Yan Shiqi, then at Xie Yunshen.

"But you two are a couple, right? That kind of relationship." Yan Shiling put two fingers together, having already ascended to chief CP fan.

Xie Yunshen couldn't exactly deny it, yet felt a vague sense of frustration.

Yan Shiqi didn't say a word the whole time, but his silence spoke volumes.

That night, before going to sleep, Xie Yunshen went online and found a social app in the app store whose logo caught his eye.

It looked strikingly similar to the account he had registered back in the novel world.

Xie Yunshen began to wonder if he was experiencing another glitch in his perception.

He downloaded the app—he still remembered his old password.

Xie Yunshen tried logging into his account. Since it only required a numeric ID and password, without needing more info, he gave it a shot on a whim.

To his surprise, he successfully logged in!

Xie Yunshen shot to his feet.

2.1 billion followers?!

Wait, when he was shot in the novel, wasn’t it only a bit over 300 million followers?

No, that wasn’t the point.

The real question was: which world was he actually in now?

All of this was supposed to exist only in the novel; these followers should have been people from that fictional world.

Why? Why did this account appear on the real internet?

Xie Yunshen put down his phone, unable to help but wonder if something was truly wrong with him.

If he tried going live, would anyone watch?

Warily, Xie Yunshen tapped the live stream button. Before starting, he chose an inconspicuous corner and used a mirror to broadcast.

Live stream viewers: 0

Damn, he really was overthinking it.

Xie Yunshen chuckled at his own ridiculous delusion.

It must be a bug in the app.

Just as he was about to end the stream, the screen suddenly froze, and a jolt like an electric shock ran through his hand.

The phone fell to the ground.

With the camera facing the floor, the live feed went black, but the viewer count began skyrocketing.

Xie Yunshen watched as the number of viewers surged to over 100 million in an instant.

Comments flooded the screen.

His eyes turned deep and solemn.