Even before the knock at the door, the dandelion had darted up Fu Changxun’s sleeve and curled up obediently.
Now, hearing the guys outside demanding protection fees, it stirred restlessly, itching to slap a few of them.
So arrogant!
But that dangerous impulse was quickly squashed—literally—by Fu Changxun’s fingertip pressing down hard through the fabric.
Stay put. If someone saw it, he wouldn’t be able to protect it.
Dong Zi blocked the doorway. “Protection fee? No one said anything about that when we entered the city.”
“You’re staying here, right? That means we’re protecting you,” the guy said with shameless conviction, reaching out to push Dong Zi aside—but the moment he touched him, he realized the man was solidly built and didn’t budge an inch.
Only then did the would-be extortionists glance into the room and realize—there were a whole bunch of adult men inside. Every single one of them was now looking right at them.
The gang: “…”
All of these guys in one room?
Were they really so poor they couldn’t even cough up a pack of instant noodles each?
There was no way they were getting any protection money out of this group.
And with such a huge disparity in numbers, if a fight broke out, they’d get destroyed.
Quickly calculating the pros and cons, the gang decided to cut their losses and leave.
But—
“What’s the rush?” Fu Changxun leaned on Dong Zi’s shoulder and peeked out. “We haven’t even had a chance to properly welcome you yet.”
The thugs: “No, no, we’re good…”
Fu Changxun’s expression darkened. “Get ‘em! Robbery!”
Everyone in the room surged forward at once, dragging the gang inside and slamming the door shut.
And so, the robbers were robbed in turn. The local hooligans who had been collecting protection fees for days were stripped of all their instant food.
—Well, not completely. Just the food they had on them. But it was more than enough to make sure they’d never dare try that trick again.
Most importantly, they weren’t the ones who started it—the livestream viewers could all testify.
“Still think it’s smart to rob people, huh?” Qiu Yi barked at the ringleader, gripping his collar. “You’re grown men. There are better things to do with your damn lives!”
“No more, ge—gege, we swear! We were just collecting a little protection fee!” the guys blubbered, faces black and blue. The beatdown wasn’t serious, but it left them colorful and humiliated. “We never hurt anyone! We only collect so no one else robs people living here!”
Fu Changxun immediately thought of the woman on the street earlier. “So you’re saying the people who get robbed on the road just didn’t pay the fee?”
The thugs: “Uh… yeah!”
“Bullshit,” his voice dropped to a dangerous pitch. “She clearly begged you for help. You ignored her and walked right past.”
The gang saw things were going south fast and stammered, “She—she didn’t pay! So we didn’t get involved!”
Fu Changxun stared them down for a long moment, then sighed. “Still lying. Hopeless. Toss them.”
He’d originally considered letting these people protect the area in exchange for food. But now? He’d rather leave the NPCs to protect themselves.
The gang was thrown out unceremoniously and fled down the hall, tripping over each other.
Every NPC on the street saw it.
“Those punks who shake people down for food?”
“Hahaha, got their asses kicked? Who did it? Hell yeah—about time.”
“Shhh, careful. What if they come back for revenge? Just peek, don’t stir things up.”
“Serves ‘em right. They took so much of our food, I’ve been down to two meals a day—sometimes one—and they didn’t even do a good job protecting us. Useless cowards.”
“Hahahaha I can’t stop laughing—look at them go!”
“…”
Dong Zi closed the window, shutting out the rare chaos and laughter from outside.
After what had just happened, Qiu Yi was preparing to head out with Song Zhenpeng to explore more of C City.
Fu Changxun spoke up. “I’ll go too. I’ll stick with Ah Zi and be back before dusk.”
Dong Zi had no objections and accompanied him out.
Security in C City had grown lax in the wake of the apocalypse, but there were still plenty of street stalls—only now, most of them had shifted to a barter system: “jade and jewelry for bread,” “phones and electronics for rice,” “clothes for crackers,” and so on.
Since they would only be staying here for less than a month, they didn’t need any of it—just wandered around, browsing out of idle curiosity.
Dong Zi, likely worried the silence would turn awkward, made casual conversation whenever something caught his eye. “…Look at that outfit over there. I remember you had something like that back in high school. Ahem, speaking of which, when you turned me down the second time a few days ago, I actually felt a little nostalgic…”
Fu Changxun abruptly turned to him, frowning in confusion. “Wait—did you say second time I turned you down? But… I don’t recall there ever being a first time?”
Back then, he’d assumed Dong Zi was straight—how could he not remember being confessed to?
“It’s not surprising you don’t remember,” Dong Zi said softly. “The first time was six years ago, right after we graduated.”
“At the time, you were wearing that outfit. You rejected my letter—and my confession.”
Fu Changxun’s brows knitted tighter. “No, that can’t be right. I have zero memory of that—like, it’s not that I’ve forgotten, it’s that there’s not even a trace of it in my mind. Besides, I only wore that outfit once, and shoved it to the bottom of a drawer because someone made fun of my legs when I had it on. Someone’s definitely misremembering something here.”
He added seriously, “Do you remember the exact day? I need to confirm it.”
“It was the day we took our graduation photos!” Dong Zi looked up suddenly, a sense of urgency in his voice. “You came to find me in person and told me you couldn’t accept my feelings!”
“I didn’t,” Fu Changxun said calmly. “I’m absolutely certain that doesn’t exist in my memory. I’ve never been hypnotized, never had any kind of head trauma or memory loss. And that letter you mentioned… I never received it either.”
Dong Zi reeled as if struck. Unable to wait until they returned to the hotel, he glanced around, then dragged Fu Changxun into a nearby alley.
It wasn’t convenient to talk out in the open. The alley he picked was narrow, just wide enough for two people to walk side by side—no one else was around.
“Let’s continue,” Dong Zi said anxiously. “So, are you saying my memory’s the one that’s messed up?”
He wasn’t a psychology major, unlike Fu Changxun, and couldn’t judge for himself whether his memory had been distorted.
Fu Changxun wasn’t entirely convinced either and hesitated before suggesting, “Why don’t I… try a simple hypnosis? Nothing supernatural, just a regular one—to help you recover the memory.”
Dong Zi, of course, didn’t object.
Fu Changxun had him close his eyes, take a deep breath in, then slowly exhale. He began to speak in a low, guiding voice.
“Imagine yourself standing in our high school courtyard, getting ready to hand Fu Changxun your letter.”
“It’s the day of the graduation photos. You’re wearing your sharpest outfit.”
“You…”
“…You walk over and see—”
“What do you see?”
Dong Zi’s willpower was formidable. It took over ten minutes of steady guidance before he finally slipped into the memory.
His brows furrowed as he spoke haltingly. “I see Ah Xun… wait…”
“It is Ah Xun, but his cap is pulled low, covering half his face. His jaw looks a little blurry… wait a minute. Is that even Ah Xun…It doesn’t really look like him… not quite…”
As expected, memory could lie—but the image itself, the visual imprint left behind, would not.
The hypnosis should have ended there. But then Fu Changxun, as if possessed by something, suddenly asked, “Do you really like Fu Changxun?”
As soon as he said it, he realized how inappropriate it was—but he couldn’t help wanting to hear the answer.
“No, I don’t like him,” Dong Zi said blankly. “I love him.”
The first half of that sentence nearly made Fu Changxun snap. The second half left him speechless.
Someone without professional training could never resist the effects of hypnosis—Dong Zi’s words had come straight from the heart. They were his truest feelings.
A faint blush crept over Fu Changxun’s face.
Digging into someone else’s private thoughts like this… it wasn’t right. A sin, truly a sin.
He quickly broke the hypnosis. “You must’ve seen someone else. Even under hypnosis, you sensed something was off—the guy had a hat pulled down over his face.”
Dong Zi, naturally, had no memory of what happened while hypnotized, and couldn’t repeat anything he’d just said. But the image in his mind was starting to sharpen. That figure, once blurry, now grew clearer—and those subtle differences were enough for his six-years-older self to realize something was wrong.
The person may have worn the exact same outfit as Fu Changxun, but he was slightly taller, and his voice had a rough edge to it—completely different from the real one.
Just as Dong Zi leaned in, about to explain all this, Fu Changxun whispered, “Someone’s coming.”
“My little baby, come here—no one’s around!”
“Oh, stop it…”
“C’mon, just a kiss! I’ll buy you a big dinner later, hehe, don’t be shy—”
A man and woman’s voices drifted in from the far end of the alley, followed by two entwined shadows stumbling in.
The sound of their kissing echoed through the alley, amplified a dozenfold by the narrow walls.
They were so caught up in each other, they didn’t notice Fu Changxun and Dong Zi standing there at all.
Already? the two of them thought in unison, stunned into silence. Talk about no regard for bystanders.
To make matters worse, Fu Changxun was still pressed against the wall by Dong Zi—their pose now looked downright suggestive. He shifted awkwardly and whispered under his breath, “Let’s get out of here.”
Dong Zi wasn’t the type to enjoy watching live-action porn. His hand slid up slowly to cover Fu Changxun’s eyes, and then, keeping close, he quietly led them both out of the alley and back onto the bustling street.
“Doing it under the open sky like that… probably just a one-night stand,” he muttered, clearing his throat.
Fu Changxun chuckled. “Why would that be a problem? Are you uncomfortable with that kind of thing?”
A deadly question.
How the hell was he supposed to answer that?
Dong Zi’s brain instantly kicked into overdrive—if he said no, it would sound like he condoned random public hookups. But if he said yes, that might spell doom for his future sex life.
What was the optimal response?
In that moment, he ran through hundreds of possible answers in his mind, then finally said:
“I’m not uncomfortable with it. But if you don’t like it, I’d never do it. Ever.”
