Chapter 309 Whatever You Want (1)
By the time they got back to the hotel, the hands had already deviated from 12. Chu Hengkong was a little sleepy, but his mind was still sharp. His thoughts drifted along with Kanin's final question, and in a state of half-sleep and half-wakefulness, he dreamed of the upstream of his memory...
Back to the last time he heard this question.
·
Seven years ago, Las Vegas.
"This is a room where no one has died." Chu Hengkong said with satisfaction, "I haven't lived in such a clean room in a long time."
As always, after inspecting the room, he began to browse the hotel menu. The Alliance Hotel in Las Vegas was surprisingly well-maintained. Not only were there no cameras or bugs, not even traces of blood were to be found. Velvet figured it was probably because there were so many lavish spenders here. The residents, regardless of their wealth, were all incredibly generous, while the hotel owners couldn't afford to gamble.
Over the years, she and Chu Hengkong had stayed in hundreds of hotels, sometimes with his men, but more often just the two of them. Chu Hengkong would point to a painting and tell her it was the room where a gunfight had taken place, removing the frame to reveal the filled-in bullet holes in the back as proof. Before falling asleep, he would suddenly mention that someone had been shot dead in the bed, then lift the mattress to reveal the broken wooden frame beneath, stained with dried blood.
At first she felt disgusted, then numb, and finally a bit of curiosity. As he had said long ago, nothing was trustworthy except people.
Brands, rules, even the Blood Alliance itself—their "reputation" all had a price. And that price was surprisingly low, because to maintain their reputation, they would actively cover up scandals within their territory. However, most people were unaware of this and blindly trusted it.
She sat at her desk, tapping away at the keyboard, enduring the cacophony outside. It was another rainy night, and no matter how soundproofed the hotel was, she could still hear the raindrops splattering on the glass, like bones hitting rusty iron, irritating.
"What are we having for dinner?" Chu Hengkong was still looking at the menu. "Steak, French fries, onion soup... Oh, they even have barbecue here! It's no wonder this is a casino."
"I don't want to eat." Velvet declared in advance. Chu Hengkong had already picked up the phone.
"I want 30 lamb skewers, 5 chicken wings, 10 each of heart tubes, bone marrow, and baby backs, plus two toasted sesame cakes." He flipped to the first page of the menu. "And a sandwich combo with black tea."
Velvet couldn't help but sigh. She would be working tonight amidst the aroma of cumin. Chu Hengkong pulled out his NDS and began to immerse himself in those childish games again.
"I've always told you that sighing too often will make you look old, but you're getting prettier and prettier. It's really strange," he said. "Maybe you're just born beautiful. You work so hard every day and still have great skin."
She flipped the power button and observed herself through the dark screen, the stiff-looking girl sitting in front of her laptop. She wore a black suit, had long, straight, undyed hair, and her overly fair skin gave her a cold expression. She was taller than her peers, but her figure remained the same.
How could such a person be attractive? Even by Oriental standards, she was unusual, and her only connection to beauty was probably social terms like "beautiful lady."
“Please don’t make fun of me,” Velvet said coldly.
"You're just like that. When someone gives you a sincere compliment, you think they're making fun of you. We usually call people like that 'sensitive' or 'mean.'" Chu Hengkong twirled her hair with his fingers. "Based on my experience, women who are both sensitive and mean usually don't have great figures. If you don't find a way to correct your personality, I'm afraid you'll be a flatterer for the rest of your life, Miss Velvet."
"It doesn't matter. I don't care." Velvet said, "I don't need a body."
"Oh well, you're at it again."
She continued to check the report. "I don't plan to fall in love. I don't plan to get married. I don't need a husband. I don't need a lover. So whatever you want to say, I don't care."
"Please, someone please save me! I really can't chat with teenage girls anymore." Chu Hengkong sighed. "Every compliment you give you makes you think I'm contradicting you, and every compliment you give me back ten times. Please don't rebel just for the sake of being rebellious, okay? Other people's high-class flowers are roses with thorns, but you're about to become a thorn field."
"I'm going to keep stabbing you hard."
She knew she hadn't controlled herself well today, because Chu Hengkong was a little annoyed. He closed the game console, put his hands on her shoulders, and his voice became deeper.
“Velbert, I’ve told you many times that there are serious consequences for joking around with men like this.”
She raised her head, and Chu Hengkong's face turned around in her eyes.
"If you want to use me to vent your lust, feel free to do so."
Chu Hengkong pinched her cheek hard, causing her some pain: "If you hear that again, we'll break up."
“I’m sorry.” Velvet gave in at the right moment and counterattacked with another blow, “But you were the one who just said I was beautiful.”
Chu Hengkong stared at her for a long time until she smiled smugly. He let go and lay back on the bed, complaining, "I really have nothing to say to you."
At that moment, the doorbell rang. Chu Hengkong brought a plate of grilled skewers, placing her portion next to the computer. The sandwich, with salami, tomato, lettuce, and mozzarella cheese, was an Italian panini. He wouldn't order a high-calorie, greasy American sandwich for her.
As she immersed herself in the form again, she heard Chu Hengkong ask, "Honestly, do you really plan to keep going like this?"
"What's wrong?"
"Look, you've made a lot of money, you have a lot of followers, a lot of cars, a lot of guns, and a lot of houses." Chu Hengkong spat out a chicken bone, "But you haven't had a peaceful life for a few days. In the past three years, I've almost traveled all over the world with you. You spend a third of the year negotiating business and a quarter on planes. The little free time you have left is spent holding family meetings, directing fights, and occasionally dodging aliens."
“It’s very fulfilling,” Velvet said.
"You're overdoing it," Chu Hengkong said. "You're only 14, Boss. You're capable and talented, but do you really intend to live like this for the rest of your life? Walking down a path you can see the end of?"
“You know full well I can’t quit.” Velvet shook her head. “I could walk away without saying goodbye, across the ocean, with a check, but I’m still Velvet Velus. My enemies, my subordinates, even my blood allies will be looking for me. There’s no quitting here.”
"They're all excuses." Chu Hengkong laughed. "You can easily hide yourself in a corner of the world, like hiding a drop of water in the ocean."
"You have too much confidence in me."
"When you said this, you had already made several versions of your retirement plan." Chu Hengkong pointed out.
He was right. She had considered retirement six months ago. By then, she would become a quiet Chinese girl, attending a foreign language school in Shanghai. Her parents worked away from home all year round, and she would rely on her idle brother for support.
The only flaw in this plan was that even if Chu Hengkong was willing to undergo plastic surgery, he would never be able to live a peaceful and ordinary life. Before the Blood Alliance found Velus, the local police would find him first.
"Those plans are impossible to achieve. And until I achieve my goals, I can't escape from my current life."
"You do have a purpose."
"I want to find out the cause of my father's death."
Chu Hengkong frowned: "I thought it was Lucas."
"Lucas is so incompetent. Even if he were a traitor, the information he leaked would have been pre-arranged false information," Velvet said. "Yet such an incompetent man learned of my father's death before me and took action before me. This was all planned. Lucas was supposed to accept the Velus family and lead them to their downfall, but he unexpectedly failed."
"The cultists can't get any information about your father... so what about the people within the Blood Alliance?" Chu Hengkong pondered. "You haven't found any trace of him yet, so you need to increase Velus' influence as much as possible until he can no longer bear it and actively contacts you."
"right."
"When will this cycle of revenge ever end?" Chu Hengkong sighed. "Come on, boss. Remember to call me before you start."
Velvet was very happy that he didn't try to show sympathy or show solidarity.
By the time she quietly finished the spreadsheet, Chu Hengkong had already finished solving those weird problems and was playing games on his laptop. She turned off the computer and asked, "Akong, how about you?"
"how?"
"What are you going to do?" she asked. "Why are you still living this way?"
Since the negotiations with the Russians ended, she began to ask Chu Hengkong for work more and more frequently. Because apart from him, she could no longer find another person she could completely trust, and the crises she faced would only become more dangerous each time.
This strange employment relationship lasted for three years, so long that Chu Hengkong got used to calling her "Boss" and she unknowingly started calling him "Akong." But their relationship never really changed. Chu Hengkong accompanied her on her travels, killing all kinds of people, and then returned to the pizza shop to deliver takeout. It was the same old routine.
"I don't have any plans." Chu Hengkong was still playing games. "It's fine like this now. I'll just take it one step at a time."
"If you were obsessed with your current life, you'd already be a killer. If you were determined to just go with the flow, you should stay in your rental house and continue delivering food," Velvet said. "But you're neither of those things, Sora. You have many paths to take, but you don't choose. You just stand there stubbornly, reaching out to touch everything you see, but you don't move forward or backward. I can only assume that you don't really care about these things. You don't care about anything around you."
Chu Hengkong laughed: "You make me sound so heartless."
"You're not heartless. You're arrogant." Velvet stood up. "You're too strong, Sora. You're like a different species from the others. This difference makes you look down on everyone equally. You never even take society into consideration for a moment."
"Have you always thought I was an alien?" Chu Hengkong laughed non-stop. "I thought you were just rebellious, but I didn't expect you to be a bit of a middle school student..."
He still didn’t understand. Velvet thought desperately. He still didn’t understand what she was really trying to say.
"Do you care about the police, Sora?"
"I respect their work."
"What about the law?"
“Follow the correct part of it.”
"government?"
Chu Hengkong laughed again: "Don't be like this."
"Do you feel any psychological burden when you kill someone?"
"I only kill those who deserve to die."
"That's why I said you don't care."
Chu Hengkong realized she was serious. He put down the game console and stood up.
"Yeah," he said. "I don't care."
"You know what, Sora? Any psychologist would declare you a typical sociopath. The difference between you and those potentially dangerous individuals is that you don't need a gun to be more powerful than them," Velvet said. "You don't fit in with this world. You're still standing here, searching for something you desire, but I don't know what you really want."
Chu Hengkong stared at her for a long time, then suddenly reached out and ruffled her hair.
"You're childish for once," he said with a smile, just as he had taught her long ago. "Not everything needs a reason... Not everyone knows what they need as clearly as you do. Most people just live aimlessly, day after day."
"Then why are you still here?" she asked persistently, "Why did you save me that day?"
"I can. I will. I ought," he said. "So I act."
He placed his chin on Velvet's head and patted the girl gently. "Okay, go to bed early."
Before going to bed, Chu Hengkong packed up the trash and placed it in the corridor. He had been too lazy to clean it up before, but after all, he was out with his boss, and she would be unhappy if it was too messy. He lay in bed, ready to spend another sleepless night, when he heard a faint thunder outside the window.
"Boss, look." Chu Hengkong felt a little headache, "You're almost fifteen..."
Velvet, lying on the bed, said nothing, only staring at him from the side. Chu Hengkong once again flinched at that look, curling up slightly when the thunder roared.
He turned off the light and lay down next to Velvet. The girl gave him half of the quilt.
"Go to bed early." Chu Hengkong sighed.
(End of this chapter)
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