Chapter 2: Aesthetic Sense Is Terrible

Lin Jiangye’s breath caught slightly.

This was impossible. This was unreasonable.

This had no logic at all.

That floating pink glowing sign was even fluorescent. It was so strange, and its aesthetic sense was terrible.

Lin Jiangye stared at it with some dissatisfaction and fell into deep thought.

Could it be that some colleague hated him so much that even after knowing he had died, they deliberately chased after him to cause trouble again?

“Do you want to break up with Yu Lin?”

Just then, an unexpected question suddenly interrupted Lin Jiangye’s increasingly drifting thoughts.

Lin Jiangye instinctively nodded, then added a soft “Mm,” continuing to openly stare at the gentle man before him.

What exactly did "available to romance” mean? This sign was truly unreasonable. He was honestly very curious…

And Yu Wangxiao seemed completely unsurprised by his rash intrusion, nor was he in any hurry.

He calmly finished the company meeting, exited the online room, and only then did he leisurely lift his deep gaze, letting it slowly fall on Lin Jiangye’s still-red and swollen eyes.

“I can help you. Sit first.”

Yu Wangxiao was very gentlemanly. The lofty, cold, and dignified authority that had been briefly mentioned in the original book was not reflected in him at all.

He invited Lin Jiangye to sit on the soft sofa in the study and rest for a moment. Then he called a servant to bring a cup of steaming ginger tea and a windbreaker coat to keep out the cold.

It was a very considerate action. Lin Jiangye just happened to have a slight cold, and his head felt heavy.

The well-tailored black windbreaker was draped over his shoulders, gathering warmth and carrying the clean scent of laundry detergent.

Compared to Yu Lin, he was so normal.

After confirming that Lin Jiangye was not at risk of collapsing from illness, Yu Wangxiao smiled and turned his head to continue discussing the meeting contents with his assistant.

The two briefly arranged the schedule for tomorrow. From beginning to end, they did not avoid the person on the sofa…

the “canary” belonging to his nephew.

Lin Jiangye did not feel uncomfortable either. He tilted his head and listened in while absentmindedly holding the cup.

A meeting at noon, a meal with overseas partners, a meeting in the afternoon, and dinner with President Wang in the evening.

What a plain and simple schedule. Lin Jiangye thought for a moment and drank a large mouthful of ginger tea filled with brown sugar.

“…Mm.”

He drank too quickly, and his throat was scalded hoarse.

So human tea could also be a murder weapon.

Fortunately, the pain of the flesh was insignificant. Lin Jiangye raised his hand and pinched his trembling throat, suppressing the body’s instinctive urge to escape. Then he placed the teacup down properly and slowly stood up.

The two people around the desk looked at him at the same time.

“Uncle, are you not going out tonight?” Lin Jiangye calmly confirmed in a hoarse voice.

The assistant’s expression changed slightly, as if he found Lin Jiangye’s form of address indescribable. Holding back the smile at the corner of his mouth, he quickly pushed up his glasses.

He was about to answer, but Yu Wangxiao curved his lips first and said gently, “Mm. It’s the Mid-Autumn Festival. Family reunion is the most important thing.”

Lin Jiangye looked into the man’s dark and quiet eyes, carefully distinguishing his words. “Really?”

“Really.” Yu Wangxiao’s eyes were deep, and he answered patiently. He seemed very clear about what Lin Jiangye wanted to confirm.

“Ding-dong—”

The moment his words fell, the assistant’s phone suddenly rang with a notification.

His expression turned serious. “President Yu, something happened at the processing plant in North City—”

“I’ll leave it to you. Don’t rush to the airport. Negotiate by phone first. Your bonus will be doubled.”

Yu Wangxiao calmly interrupted him and made the arrangement.

The assistant showed not the slightest dissatisfaction. Instead, the eyes hidden behind his lenses suddenly lit up. “Yes. Then I’ll go first. Happy Mid-Autumn Festival, President Yu.”

The young man in a suit strode away, and his back carried a cheerfulness that did not quite match his temperament. It seemed the bonus he received every month was quite substantial.

Lin Jiangye felt slightly reassured, but his doubts deepened.

This tool character, who was supposed to die in a late-night car accident, had no intention of leaving the old residence because of sudden work.

His schedule was also very organized. Clearly, he was not the type of person who forgot to eat and sleep because of work.

But this completely failed to match the original plot.

There must be some abnormal factor that had changed his originally predetermined fate.

Was it that fluorescent sign with the terrible aesthetic sense?

In any case…

Yu Wangxiao seemed not to need him at all. He even seemed to have known the enemy’s plan earlier than him.

Since things had already developed chaotically, as long as he waited for tonight to pass and ensured Yu Wangxiao’s life was safe, he could continue running away.

Once he stayed far away from the strange protagonist group and recovered his health, his life from then on should be very free, right?

Lin Jiangye quietly curled back up on the soft sofa, lowered his eyes, and began thinking about future money-making plans. He touched the still-warm cup in his hands and took another sip.

The bitterness and spiciness of ginger juice flowed hotly down his throat, and even his cold fingertips warmed up along with it.

Actually, being human did feel quite nice.

“Little Young Master Lin, do you want to live in a different way?”

“…Mm?” Lin Jiangye looked back at him blankly.

“Take back the shares that should have belonged to you. Let your parents and Yu Lin see Lin Jingyao’s true face. Drive your older brother, who has always bullied you, out of the Lin Corporation as well. Make everyone who wronged you regret it beyond measure.”

Yu Wangxiao closed the computer and continued unhurriedly, “If you came to me tonight to achieve one of these lives, I can help you. But you also have to help me once.”

For some reason, the topic had suddenly run off to a place a hundred thousand miles away.

The conquest progress bar above Yu Wangxiao’s head had actually risen by 0.1%.

Lin Jiangye did not feel moved at all. Instead, he thought Yu Wangxiao’s schemes were not small.

Speaking so gently and patiently coaxing and tempting a “young master of the Lin family” who had no status should theoretically bring Yu Wangxiao no benefit.

Unless he knew clearly that Lin Jiangye was one of the protagonists of this world and that his influence was not weak.

Awakened? Or reborn?

The souls of such people were usually very difficult to harvest, and their taste was exceptionally unique…

Lin Jiangye still found them difficult to forget even now.

Yu Wangxiao wanted to bind him and hold his emotions and desires in the palm of his hand. Perhaps it was to control the future direction of the plot. Perhaps there were other intentions Lin Jiangye did not know.

Staring at the man’s gentle and handsome face, a chill instinctively seeped into his heart.

Before his strength recovered a little, Lin Jiangye absolutely could not let anyone know that the core of this body had been replaced by an outside species.

Perhaps he needed to imitate the behavioral logic of this world to be safer.

Thus, he lowered his head, recalled the original owner’s words and actions, and softly lied in a weak voice, “I just… I just want to be loved.”

The fluorescent conquest progress bar suddenly froze, then mercilessly dropped into the negatives.

Yu Wangxiao himself did not change expression. He nodded with a faint, understanding smile and took out a paper contract that had clearly been prepared long ago from the drawer.

He stood up and personally handed the contract to Lin Jiangye. The soft sofa sank slightly. The man carried a pleasant cold fragrance, and as the distance closed, strands of it wrapped around him.

—Contract Couple.

There was a long list of clauses and confidentiality rules. Lin Jiangye could not quite understand them for now.

He raised his eyes and looked at the man for help. Yu Wangxiao’s gaze was gentle as he explained warmly, “It’s very simple. Pretend you’ve fallen for someone else and be with me.

“I will act as if I love you enough, and you also have to cooperate with me and do what couples should do.”

Lin Jiangye’s expression went blank for a moment as he tried to quickly digest this complicated information.

“May I ask, what should couples do?”

Using the behavior of characters in the original book as reference did not seem rigorous enough, and it could easily endanger his life.

As for the couple souls he had harvested all at once before…

their ways of dying had each been twisted in their own way, and some were even hard to speak of.

Yu Wangxiao froze. He had completely failed to expect that Lin Jiangye would ask such a question. Yet Lin Jiangye’s attitude was direct and sincere, without the slightest trace of mockery.

“Sign it. I’ll teach you.”

After all, Yu Wangxiao was someone who had seen great storms. He did not say much and only answered calmly with a good temper.

Of course, Lin Jiangye’s mental state was temporarily marked by him as suspicious and abnormal.

Abnormal was fine too. It made him easier to control and extremely easy to manipulate.

The beautiful doll once controlled by the world should now change owners.

A nearly imperceptible darkness flowed in the depths of the man’s eyes. His handsome face shifted between light and shadow under the desk lamp, and the curve of his lips rose elegantly as he gently held Lin Jiangye’s hand.

A cold steel pen slid into his palm. Lin Jiangye was almost guided by Yu Wangxiao’s own hand as he signed his name.

In the next instant, an indescribable eerie feeling, wrapped in a chill of deviation from the original track, suddenly erupted in Lin Jiangye’s heart.

Yu Lin, who was showering in the bathroom, inexplicably slipped and fell. It hurt so much that he could not get up for a long time, his mouth full of blood.

Father Yu, who was drinking red wine, suddenly choked. Because of violent coughing, his spleen ruptured, and he was immediately dragged off for emergency treatment.

Moonlight flowed along the window edge. In the quiet late night, the Yu family old residence suddenly turned into chaos, noisy and unable to settle down.

Yu Wangxiao hung up the internal line as if nothing had happened. Holding a glass of slightly cool whiskey, he clicked open a newly released romance movie.

He sat gracefully beside Lin Jiangye, his distinct-knuckled hand resting lightly on his thin shoulder. Warmth seeped through the fabric.

Meanwhile, Lin Jiangye was wrapped in a fluffy blanket, tucked into a corner of the sofa, silently enjoying caramel biscuits.

The deliberately dimmed light swayed, outlining the steam slowly rising from the ginger tea. It was warm and subtle.

The humans in this world had a very strange grasp of personal distance…

Lin Jiangye glanced at the man’s jaw from the corner of his eye and seriously evaluated him.

If Yu Lin was dazzling and sharply exposed, then Yu Wangxiao was very much like the moon hidden in mist.

Although this man looked extremely gentle, terrifying things always happened at night.

Death did too.

But brown sugar ginger tea really was delicious, and the coffee biscuits also tasted very good. When Yu Wangxiao watched him eat, the conquest progress bar would occasionally shoot up strangely for a second before slowly falling back to its original place.

Reasonable deduction: Yu Wangxiao liked observing others eat, so he would not be stingy about providing food. Staying beside him might speed up the process of recovering his body.

In order to obtain more food and energy, Lin Jiangye obediently slept that night in the temporarily cleaned guest room.

Even though there seemed to be only a hidden door that could be opened at any time between this guest room and Yu Wangxiao’s bedroom.

A gorgeous, classical goat painting hung over the hidden door, concealing the potential danger surging beneath the surface.

Lin Jiangye slept especially sweetly.