Chapter 383 What’s Going On

Chapter 383: What's Going On

Cheng Ge was the first to give out in the middle of the beating. The violent swings of emotion and physical exertion drained what little strength he had left. His chest tightened with a suffocating, stabbing pain, stars swam before his eyes, and a coppery, metallic taste surged up his throat again.

He hastily let go of Zhou Ming, staggered back a few steps, then slowly slid down to the ground, gasping for air as cold sweat instantly soaked his underclothes.

Zhou Ming, his face swollen and bruised, huddled off to the side, trembling, not daring to breathe too loudly.

Cheng Ge closed his eyes and rested for a long while before he could barely suppress the feeling that he might pass out at any moment.

Zhou Ming, still shaken, peeked through his fingers and saw Cheng Ge coughing up blood and looking utterly drained. He was terrified too, scrambling to scoot a little farther away but not daring to actually run.

It took a long time before Cheng Ge managed to catch his breath, by which point he no longer even had the strength to curse.

He opened his eyes and looked at Zhou Ming, his voice hoarse, carrying a resigned exhaustion and gritted-teeth fury:

"This goddamn poison... besides that... that bullshit cure... is there any other way?"

Zhou Ming looked at his frail yet fierce demeanor, hesitated for a moment, then said quietly: "I... I don't know..."

Cheng Ge made a move as if to get up and beat him again.

Zhou Ming scrambled away in terror, covering his head with his hands: "I really don't know! I swear! I just... just wrote it casually, to... to advance the plot, create conflict and... and... some spice! Who knew you'd actually get poisoned! I mean, who knew you'd transmigrate into the book, of all things!"

Cheng Ge's vision went dark again with rage. He clutched his chest, feeling like he might die from being pissed off by this idiot before the poison even got to him.

He took a few deep breaths, barely managing to steady himself: "Fine... then what's the name of this poison you wrote? You at least gave it a name, right?"

Zhou Ming looked at Cheng Ge, and under his murderous gaze, reluctantly, almost imperceptibly... he shook his head.

"You—" Cheng Ge nearly choked on his own breath. "You wrote the poison yourself, and you didn't even give it a name?!"

"I... I really didn't give it one." Zhou Ming's voice grew smaller and smaller, almost on the verge of tears. "Everyone... was there for the plot and... and that stuff, who'd care what the poison was called..."

Cheng Ge: "..."

He was completely speechless, only feeling a profound sense of helplessness and absurdity wash over him.

Transmigrated into a book, severely injured, afflicted with a strange poison, and the cure was so ridiculous it was beyond belief, and now he didn't even know the name of the poison.

And the source of all this was that he had a roommate who wrote smut novels, and that roommate was a hack who put minimal effort into his world-building.

Cheng Ge tilted his head back, looking at the grayish sky, a faint look of death on his face.

"You..." He finally found his voice, every word ground out through gritted teeth. "Writing this kind of stuff... aren't you afraid of getting shot!"

Zhou Ming didn't dare respond, only shrinking even smaller, wishing he could disappear on the spot.

Cheng Ge was silent for a long while, feeling a lump stuck in his chest that wouldn't go up or down, making his vision swim.

He irritably ran a hand through his hair, his fingertips touching the cold roots, which helped him steady himself a little.

He couldn't just let this go. Even if he was going to die, he needed to die knowing the truth.

He took a deep breath, enduring the burning pain in his chest, and changed the subject with a hoarse voice: "...How's Cui Ji?"

Zhou Ming was huddled up like a scared quail, but froze at the question, blinking his swollen, nearly shut eyes: "Huh? What Cui Ji?"

Cheng Ge clicked his tongue in annoyance: "Prince Zhenbei, Cui Ji! He's in this book, right? What happened to him at the end? Did he die of old age, surrounded by kids and grandkids?" He paused, then thought of two other key figures. "And the Eldest Young Master Lin, Lin Nanshu, and the Emperor Zhou Mingqi—what happened to them?"

Zhou Ming's head started throbbing at the question. The pain from his injuries plus his guilty conscience made sweat bead on his forehead again.

He wiped his face haphazardly, his voice tinged with bitterness: "This... I... I really don't know..."

"Don't know?!" Cheng Ge's eyes turned fierce, his voice suddenly rising, which aggravated his injuries and sent him into another coughing fit.

Zhou Ming flinched, then quickly explained in a rush of words:

"You... you didn't follow the plot at all! Originally you were supposed to be kidnapped by bandits, then... you know... sold to a brothel... But now the whole plot is messed up. It's like the butterfly effect—I have no idea how it's going to play out!"

He stole a glance at Cheng Ge's increasingly dark expression, his voice growing quieter, with a hint of whatever-happens-happens resignation: "And... and I hadn't even written that much yet... before you found out, so..."

The rest went without saying.

The outline hadn't even been fleshed out, let alone specific character endings. Anything was possible, which also meant nothing was certain.

Cheng Ge: "..."

He felt an even deeper, bone-deep sense of helplessness seize him.

Transmigrated into an abandoned novel, afflicted with a nameless strange poison, key characters' fates unknown, and the road ahead pitch black.

His life was now as screwed as it could possibly get.

And on top of that, he had to drag this broken body around to deal with that brute Wuliji.

Just thinking about it made Cheng Ge's head throb with annoyance!

His gaze drifted unconsciously over Zhou Ming, who was huddled to the side with a battered face, and then paused.

Cheng Ge leaned forward slightly, squinting at Zhou Ming, and asked one word at a time: "You... like men?"

Zhou Ming's heart gave a violent lurch at the question, as if someone had stepped on his tail.

His gaze immediately flickered, not daring to meet Cheng Ge's eyes, his face flushing red and white by turns.

His lips moved a few times, but in the end, he gave a barely perceptible nod, his voice as faint as a mosquito's hum: "...Yeah."

After saying that, Zhou Ming quickly glanced up at Cheng Ge through his lashes, then added: "But don't worry... I like muscular men..."

As he said it, his gaze swept meaningfully over Cheng Ge's pale face, the implication painfully obvious.

Cheng Ge: "..."

He felt that stagnant old blood in his chest surge upward again.

Cheng Ge stared at the mix of fear and disdain on Zhou Ming's face, and the suppressed fury in his chest nearly blew up.

The corner of his mouth twitched, and a nearly twisted sneer crept across his face.

"Heh... muscular men?" Cheng Ge's voice was hoarse, carrying the weakness of excessive blood loss, but that roguish spirit of his surged right back up.

He shuffled half a step forward, closing in on Zhou Ming, even though he could barely stay on his feet. "Even if I've only got one breath left, I'm still your daddy!"

Zhou Ming, cowed by the murderous look in his eyes, instinctively tried to shrink back again.

Cheng Ge dropped his voice, rough and cold like sandpaper scraping rust: "You've screwed me over like this—don't you owe me?"

Alarm bells went off in Zhou Ming's head, a bad feeling creeping up on him. He opened his mouth to refuse: "I..."

"Look at this hand when you talk to me." Cheng Ge slowly raised the hand that had just hit him, still smeared with blood he'd coughed up, his gaze icy.

Zhou Ming choked back the "no" on his lips, ducked his head, and quickly switched gears: "...Of course... of course I'll take responsibility!" His tone was firm, like he hadn't been about to bail seconds earlier.

Cheng Ge looked satisfied (or at least pretended to be), dropping his hand and wiping it off on Zhou Ming's robe like it was nothing.

"Good, since you agree too," he caught his breath, leaning on the cold lumber pile behind him just to keep up his tough-guy act, "there's something I need you to do."

The knot of dread in Zhou Ming's stomach tightened, and he forced himself to ask: "...What is it?"

Cheng Ge coughed twice, his pale face expressionless, just a flicker of reckless spite and mischief deep in his eyes.

He leaned in, making sure Zhou Ming caught every word, but kept his voice low.

"...That thing of yours... you like big, buff guys, right?"

Zhou Ming: "...?" He was confused, had a vague idea where this was going, but didn't dare follow the thought.

Cheng Ge curled the corner of his mouth, his smile flat-out creepy: "Wuliji... that brute—looks pretty 'buff,' doesn't he?"

Zhou Ming's head spun, his eyes going wide as he stared at Cheng Ge in shock.

Cheng Ge went on like it was no big deal, as casual as if he were talking about the weather: "Perfect. So you go... uh... seduce him. Keep him in check for me. Think of it as... a little treat for you."

Zhou Ming: "!!!"

Zhou Ming felt like he'd been hit by lightning, his whole body locking up, mouth hanging open, not a sound coming out.

Even the bruises on his face couldn't hide how pale he'd gone or the terror in his eyes.

Seduce... Wuliji?! What the hell was that about...

"I... I..." Zhou Ming's tongue got all twisted, cold sweat breaking out instantly, worse than when he'd just gotten his ass kicked, "A Ge... you... don't mess with me..."

Cheng Ge's mouth twitched into a weak, nasty smile: "Mess with you? Do I look like I'm in the mood for jokes?"

He caught his breath, lowering his voice even further, putting on that smooth, devilish tone of his.

"Aren't you... into buff guys? Isn't that right up your alley?"

Zhou Ming's face scrunched up in misery, fear taking a backseat as he tried to reason.

"I do like buff guys, sure, but... but too buff is a problem."

Who knew better than him, the original author?

Back then, he'd written without holding back, lost in the moment—no one knew better than him how... gifted those Beidi men were.

At this rate, he'd literally split in half on the spot!

The more he thought about it, the bleaker his future looked—like he could already picture himself getting flattened by some ungodly monster.

Pure survival instinct kicked in.

He scrambled, desperate to crawl into the shadows, babbling his refusal:

"No way, no way! This won't work! I can't do it! Someone's gonna die!"

But... before he could finish, his body suddenly locked up, every move freezing mid-action.

He slowly lowered his head, inch by inch, staring at the toe of a boot just 0.01 centimeters from him.

Every hair on his body stood up, blood rushing to his head before instantly freezing solid in his lower half.

The last thread of sanity in his brain snapped with an audible pop.

Splitting open was a possible future death, but getting kicked into uselessness was an immediate, right-now, no-question-about-it outcome!

He knew Cheng Ge—the guy would absolutely do it!

"Uh... well... that..."

Zhou Ming's Adam's apple jumped, his voice dry as sandpaper, and he forced a smile uglier than crying.

"Actually... it's not... totally impossible..."

...

Cheng Ge had only recently come out, with twenty years of straight-guy thinking baked into his bones.

Zhou Ming, though, had been gay for years—naturally way more experienced than Cheng Ge.

Cheng Ge looked Zhou Ming up and down, his brow furrowed so hard it could kill flies.

Zhou Ming was wearing just a thin white shirt, belt hanging loose.

His collar was wide open, and he was shivering in the below-freezing wind.

"Aren't you... cold like that?" Cheng Ge asked, his tone genuinely puzzled, even carrying a hint of "are you sure your head wasn't hit too hard" suspicion.

In his view, seduction at least required wearing something decent, right? What was the difference between this and voluntarily peeling off a layer of skin before walking to your death?

Zhou Ming was hugging his arms and shivering. Upon hearing this, he cautiously shot Cheng Ge a sidelong glance, his eyes full of the superiority of "you don't understand art."

"You straight guys wouldn't get it," he sniffled, his voice trembling from the cold, "this is called... a sense of mystery! 'Hiding half her face behind her guitar,' get it?

Taking everything off is just being a pervert. It's the tease—half-off, half-on, playing hard to get—that's the real killer move! Visual impact and psychological suggestion, double stimulation!"

Cheng Ge listened to this string of "theories," his brow furrowing even deeper, nodding with vague understanding.

Though it sounded like nonsense, it seemed to have... some twisted logic? He struggled to digest this completely unfamiliar field of knowledge.

Suddenly, certain past images flashed through his mind.

"Back in the dorm," Cheng Ge blurted out, with belated realization and curiosity:

"in the dead of winter, you always wore that see-through shirt, never buttoning it all the way, your collarbones red from the cold..."

Zhou Ming was rubbing his hands and blowing on them for warmth. He froze mid-motion, a flicker of embarrassment at being caught crossing his face, but it was quickly replaced by the stubbornness of a "professional."

He stiffened his neck and muttered quietly: "That... that was my blush!

Creating a... fragile, delicate yet slightly alluring atmosphere! What do you know!"

Cheng Ge: "..."

Blush?

He stared at Zhou Ming's face, pale from the cold, then recalled that so-called fragile, tempting act back in the dorm...

A surge of anger at having been fooled for so long, mixed with a sense of absurdity, flared up again.

"Blush?!" Cheng Ge's voice shot up, the strain pulling at his wound and making him hiss through his teeth, but his fury only burned hotter.

"Zhou Ming! You son of a bitch... I really thought you were so damn broke you couldn't afford a thick coat!"

The more he went on, the madder he got, remembering how he'd seen Zhou Ming in thin clothes and gone out of his way to bring him a bunch of warm outfits from home.

"Pay up!" Cheng Ge was seeing red, jabbing a finger at Zhou Ming's nose. "Pay me back every damn cent I spent on those clothes for you! With interest!"

Zhou Ming: "…"

Cheng Ge's accusation hit like a red-hot iron, making Zhou Ming wince. He hunched his shoulders guiltily, not daring to meet his eyes.

But Cheng Ge didn't immediately keep roaring. Instead, as if his own words had just triggered something, he stopped dead.

The anger mixed with absurdity on his face gradually melted into something deeper—a dawning, almost horrified realization.

He stared intently at Zhou Ming's guilt-ridden face, and countless details from the past came flooding into his mind like a code that had finally been cracked.