Chapter 46 The Infinite Boss Invites You to "Eat Melon" 46. And so...
Friday's team building activity involves a trip to the island of Rainbow Shell near Hellon Island to admire the crystal-clear sea and participate in various water sports, such as snorkeling, surfing, and beach volleyball.
The notification sent in the group chat said to meet at the resort entrance at 8:30 am. When Lu Yu got on the bus, it was already 8:20 am, and most of his colleagues had already arrived.
He carried two bags, one large and one small, and wore a sun-protective jacket. As soon as he arrived, he went straight to the back, found an empty seat, and sat down, looking like a lone wolf with a low-key demeanor.
Someone noticed something was wrong and quietly glanced out of the car, but didn't see Pei Yanzhi anywhere.
What's going on?
People immediately started popping up in the gossip group.
Why is only Master Lu here? Where's Master Pei? Aren't those two inseparable, like conjoined twins? Why is one of them missing today?
[Perhaps he didn't participate in today's activities, was experiencing traveler's diarrhea, was sick, or didn't get enough rest.]
[Could it be that Sister Liu and the operations department worked so well together yesterday, pushing these two to their limits and greatly enhancing their relationship? Then, when they got back that night, they were like dry wood meeting a raging fire, completely out of control, and the creaking of the bed didn't gradually stop until dawn...]
In short, did they push themselves too hard and can't recover?
[Possibly.]
[Possibly +1.]
[Possibly +2...]
No, no, no, I don't think that's right!
If it were truly for such a sweet and passionate reason, why would Master Lu look so bitter and resentful, like he'd been working overtime for a month and had two thousand yuan deducted from his salary, as if he wanted the earth to explode? At the very least, he should be beaming with joy, radiant with energy, and overflowing with enthusiasm...
That makes sense.
[Makes sense +1.]
[Makes sense +2...]
[Stop copying, just go and ask directly! Someone, please get Sister Liu!]
Sister Liu, the powerful leader of the gossip group and the gossip boss of Xiaoxixi Media Company, was finally woken up from her sleep.
She glanced at the messages in the group chat, then at her colleagues who were exchanging gossipy glances around her. She straightened her collar, decisively stood up, switched seats with the colleague in front of Lu Yu, and squeezed in. While naturally smiling and taking snacks out of her bag, she turned to Lu Yu and said, "Little Lu, I didn't see you come down for breakfast. Are you hungry? Here, a small pork floss bun. I remember you like it. Take it and have some."
The car full of colleagues were itching to get out, like weasels in a melon patch. Lu Yu wasn't blind, how could he not see them?
However, he pretended not to see it.
Although this whole affair was a bit unfair to his well-meaning colleagues who worried about his love life, they were natural audience members and intelligence sources. Ji Chengchuan trusted the gossip they shared and the news in their gossip group chat even more than Jiang Yan's intelligence.
Furthermore, the good colleagues didn't lose out either; at least they got to hear the gossip, and it was freshly made.
"Thank you, Sister Liu."
Lu Yu did not refuse Sister Liu's kindness and reached out to accept the small pork floss bun.
Once the conversation started, Sister Liu didn't stand on ceremony. She leaned closer and lowered her voice, saying, "Little Lu, I just told you yesterday to be moderate, to be moderate. How come you couldn't even let Xiao Pei go out to sea today? Sigh, actually, today wasn't anything tiring, just a bit tiring from the boat ride. But we could have come..."
“No.” Lu Yu interrupted Sister Liu.
His expression was indifferent, but his brows furrowed almost imperceptibly, concealing a hint of hidden pain in his eyes: "It's nothing to be tired about."
He said, "He's not coming because we broke up."
Sister Liu: "?!"
The colleagues around, who were eavesdropping, exclaimed: "?!"
Sister Liu's eyes nearly popped out of their sockets: "No, really? How could this be so sudden? You were all fine yesterday!"
Having navigated the world of gossip for so long, Sister Liu has seen countless big scenes, but she was still shocked by the unpredictable emotional lives of contemporary young people.
Old Gu, forgetting all about catching up on sleep, peeked over from the side and said nervously, "Um... is it related to the game we played yesterday? Everyone was just being a bit dramatic, no bad intentions, maybe we went too far. If Mr. Pei minds, we'll go apologize. Please don't let such a small matter..."
“It has nothing to do with those,” Lu Yu said.
"What is that?" Sister Liu paused for a moment. "Well, if it's inconvenient, you don't have to say, but if it's convenient, please tell us so we can all give you some advice and help you solve the problem..."
Lu Yu hesitated, his brows furrowing as if he was about to speak, but just then, footsteps suddenly came from the bus door.
Excuse me.
Pei Yanzhi's clear, melodious voice, like shattered jade, rang out.
The entire group of colleagues in the car suddenly shuddered as if they had been strung together by a high-voltage line. They then quickly turned their heads to look at the source of the sound. When they met Pei Yanzhi's tired yet surprised gaze, they all seemed to fall back into a daze and began to awkwardly touch their chins, scratch their heads, straighten their clothes, look for things, and check their phones. In short, they were all extremely busy.
Sister Liu also turned her head back instantly, and with lightning speed, she took out a makeup mirror and began to touch up makeup that wasn't even there.
Pei Yanzhi weaved through the bus full of people, busier than a morning market, and walked to Lu Yu's seat: "Make way."
The bus was already filled with people from Laughing Media, and Lu Yu occupied a double seat by himself, sitting in the aisle seat, while the window seat inside was empty.
Lu Yu didn't move, looking at him indifferently: "What are you doing here?"
Pei Yanzhi lowered his eyes slightly: "Let's talk."
Lu Yu closed his eyes briefly, his expression suggesting he wanted to refuse, but then, as if remembering something, he frowned and said, "Okay, let's talk when we get out of the car."
As he spoke, he was about to get up.
But before he could stretch out his long legs, the bus suddenly jolted and started moving.
The bus driver was a local and couldn't understand anything except the local language and English. He didn't know what the people on the bus were doing, but he knew that it was time to go to the pier.
"Let's talk about it when we get there," Pei Yanzhi said. "Don't waste everyone's time. Or are you saying you don't even want me to participate in this team building activity?"
Lu Yu glanced at him, his brows furrowing even deeper, but he didn't say anything more. He simply moved his leg to let Pei Yanzhi into the seat inside.
The bus slowly started moving, and the atmosphere inside was strange and extremely quiet.
The gossip group's messages quickly reached 99+ in the blink of an eye.
[Help! I'm afraid to breathe!]
The atmosphere is so strange...
[The last time I saw this kind of scenario—falling in love yesterday, breaking up today, and then pretending nothing happened by going out together—was in a melodramatic dating show!]
So why did they break up so abruptly? Is it possible for a marriage arranged between members of the Taoist community to end?
Did they really break up? Judging from their previous behavior, I felt more likely to receive a wedding invitation than a breakup announcement...
[They must have broken up. This natural yet awkward, distant yet tacit understanding, tinged with a hint of resentment... ugh... I never expected to stumble upon such juicy gossip while out and about.]
[Hiss.]
【hiss……】
The gossip group was filled with constant hissing; anyone who didn't know better would think they'd fallen into a snake pit.
While their colleagues were engrossed in online gossip and discussions, Lu Yu and Pei Yanzhi remained remarkably quiet in their seats.
One of them turned to look out the window, while the other looked down at his phone. They sat together in silence, as if a thick barrier separated them.
Who would have thought that just an hour or two ago, these two people were pressed together in the dimly lit dressing mirror of the hotel, completely intimate?
Pei Yanzhi was neither too close nor too far away. Lu Yu could sense the aura he had left on him, and his heart couldn't help but stir. However, he could only pretend to be indifferent.
The bus gradually drove away, and soon we came to a rather bumpy stretch of road.
Pei Yanzhi, who was playing the role of "arrogant and awkward but forced to seek peace," suddenly twitched his eyebrows.
He had long known that Lu Yu had a ruthless streak, and when he got really angry, he was incredibly ruthless. He hadn't let him off the hook last night, and although he had applied medicine and massaged the bruises this morning, his buttocks were still swollen and even more painful.
Pei Yanzhi had been pampered since childhood, and had never been beaten like this before.
But to say that I really didn't want to would actually be true.
After all, it wasn't someone else who did this to him, but Lu Yu. That hot and powerful hand, when it slapped him, stirred up not only waves of emotion, but also certain unspeakable thoughts.
It really hurt, but it also really felt good.
Pei Yanzhi's pupils shifted slightly as he used his spatial powers to observe the gazes of the other passengers in the car, while subtly shifting his body to the side.
Lu Yu's attention had been focused on him, and he noticed it immediately, casting an inquiring glance under the guise of adjusting his glasses.
Pei Yanzhi glanced down, then looked at him.
Lu Yu was taken aback, then suddenly realized.
He thought for a moment, adjusted his seat, then raised his arm to take off his coat, draping most of it over his waist and abdomen, while casually brushing a small portion onto Pei Yanzhi's legs.
When he came up, he only put the large backpack on the luggage rack, and the other small one, which contained his personal belongings, was placed in his arms. Now, Lu Yu's arms and waist were covered by the large coat.
Pei Yanzhi didn't know what Lu Yu was trying to do, and he didn't want to look directly at him, so he could only pretend to ignore it and continue looking at the scenery outside the window.
But before two seconds had passed, a hot and soft palm suddenly pressed against me.
Pei Yanzhi's back stiffened, and his breathing became lighter.
He used his spatial powers to peer into his side and found that Lu Yu had leaned back in his chair, turned his head to the side, closed his eyes, and looked like he was ignoring the outside world and wanted to catch up on sleep.
But what is the reality?
The man's right hand had already crept up from below and touched his wound, kneading it gently and evenly.
With his bag and coat concealing his movements, none of the thirty or forty pairs of eyes in the car could detect his actions.
Such a proper yet vulgar secret encounter made Pei Yanzhi unable to restrain himself, and his cheeks and neck instantly flushed with an astonishing red.
Feeling a tingling sensation in his lower back, Pei Yanzhi rested his forehead against the car window, trying to breathe slowly and gently to ease his discomfort.
Sister Liu glanced at him unintentionally, carefully turned around, looked at Pei Yanzhi, then glanced at Lu Yu who seemed to be asleep, and whispered with concern, "Little Pei, your face is so red, are you not feeling well? It's a bit stuffy in this car, I have some cooling patches here, here, take a few..."
Before Pei Yanzhi could refuse, Sister Liu took out a pack of five cooling patches and slipped them through the gap in the seat.
Pei Yanzhi had no choice but to go along with it and accepted: "Thank you, Sister Liu. I'm fine, just a little hot."
Pei Yanzhi expressed his sincere gratitude.
Sister Liu didn't doubt his reasoning at all, and even nodded in agreement: "Indeed, the weather on Heroland Island, it's said to be in the thirties, but it's definitely over forty. It's very hot, be careful not to get heatstroke. Oh right, I still have some Huoxiang Zhengqi Water here, would you like some?"
“No need,” Pei Yanzhi said. “I’ll come and ask if you need it later.”
“Okay,” Sister Liu stopped rummaging through her bag, glanced at Lu Yu with his eyes closed, and then lowered her voice even further, “Xiao Pei, you and Xiao Lu… are you having relationship problems?”
Pei Yanzhi delivered a superb performance with a helpless yet sorrowful and desolate look in his eyes: "Yes. He wants to break up with me, but I... don't really want to."
Instead of trying to reconcile them, Sister Liu asked them again about the reason for their breakup. However, she remained firm and didn't insist on knowing the reason. She only said that if they needed help, whether it was to confide in someone or seek assistance, they would be happy to help.
“It’s a crisis of trust,” Pei Yanzhi said, pulling out his prepared explanation. “We’ve discovered that our relationship isn’t as good as we thought, and we don’t really trust each other… A rift has appeared, and he thinks it’s hard to repair, but I think nothing is absolute, and maybe there’s still a chance.”
"After all, our relationship is more than just love."
There are also allies.
This was the unspoken meaning left for Ji Chengchuan to hear.
[There's even a marriage alliance!]
This is an in-depth analysis from a gossip group.
But Sister Liu, who was facing this problem head-on, was a bit at a loss.
Trust crisis is a perennial problem in intimate human relationships.
Even though she boasts of being a seasoned womanizer for thirty years, she wouldn't dare guarantee that she could solve this problem.
“You guys… calm down first, then let’s talk,” Sister Liu said carefully. “When you talk, don’t get angry, don’t bring up the past, try to keep your emotions in check, be honest and clear things up, and then think of ways to rebuild trust. This takes time and can’t be rushed…”
Sister Liu racked her brains and tried her best to pass on her experience.
At first, Pei Yanzhi listened with a smile, but gradually, the curve of his lips became more and more stiff, his breathing became hot, and his brows furrowed slightly, showing a strange discomfort.
Sister Liu noticed and realized that she had been talking to Pei Yanzhi, who was feeling unwell, for too long. She quickly stopped talking, apologized softly, handed Pei Yanzhi a bottle of water, and told him to rest well, take a nap if he felt unwell, and call her if he still felt unwell.
Pei Yanzhi responded, leaned back in his chair, and remained silent.
Sister Liu turned around, made some rustling noises, and seemed to fall asleep as well.
Pei Yanzhi couldn't hold back any longer. He slipped one hand under his coat, pinned Lu Yu down, and quietly wrote on the inside of Lu Yu's wrist: [Don't do this.]
Lu Yu appeared to be asleep, but his hand gently flipped over, grasping Pei Yanzhi's hand and pushing his palm away. His fingertips slid across Pei Yanzhi's, leaving a ticklish and tingling sensation: "Doesn't it hurt?"
Pei Yanzhi: [Not rubbing it just hurts, rubbing it makes it hurt more than just hurt.]
After Lu Yu finished reading the words on the wrist, he gripped Pei Yanzhi's fingers even tighter, causing the veins on the back of his hand to bulge slightly and turn blue.
"Don't you really want me to rub you?" Lu Yu wrote. "If you don't want to, then hold me down."
Pei Yanzhi's fingertips stopped on Lu Yu's wrist bone and remained motionless.
Lu Yu wrote, stroke by stroke: 【You think.】
Pei Yanzhi had no way to refute it.
He suppressed his breathing, pulled down his sunglasses, and his fingers, hanging beside Lu Yu's coat, tightened inch by inch as time went by, crumpling the hem of the coat.
But Lu Yu was ultimately honest.
In public, he didn't actually do anything out of line. When there were still ten minutes left before reaching his destination, he pretended to wake up and withdrew his hand, but he didn't immediately pick up his coat.
Pei Yanzhi "woke up" a few minutes later than him.
When the group got off the bus, Sister Liu took a special look at Pei Yanzhi. His face was no longer red, as if he had taken a nap and applied a cooling patch, which worked like a miracle drug.
At the dock, a row of booked boats were already waiting.
After counting the number of people, everyone boarded the ship in batches. Lu Yu remained indifferent, neither inviting nor stopping them, letting Pei Yanzhi follow behind him onto the same ship.
The speedboat arrived near Rainbow Shell Island at 10:30 a.m. The team-building group was to stay there for an hour to check out the glassy sea and silver sand beach, and go snorkeling.
It's not peak tourist season on Hiroland Island yet, but these attractions are still packed with people. Numerous tour groups come and go, and team-building groups have had to use small flags and loudspeakers to avoid chaos.
When Pei Yanzhi arrived at the beach, he looked hesitant, wanting to find an opportunity to talk to Lu Yu, but there were too many people around, and he couldn't find a good opportunity.
There weren't many opportunities for snorkeling.
Both of them went into the water and swam for about twenty minutes. When they came up, Sister Liu couldn't hold it in any longer and came over to ask, "Xiao Pei, how did you get that butt? I work out every week and never slack off, and I even have a natural advantage because of my gender, but my butt isn't as good as yours..."
Lu Yu, who overheard this while passing by, was speechless.
Pei Yanzhi glanced at the "passerby" with a half-smile, and said to Sister Liu, "...You still need to practice more. I have collected some fitness tips, let me share them with you, Sister Liu."
"Oh, okay, okay."
Sister Liu happily took out her phone.
Lu Yu, feeling innocent, sat down on the boat and picked up a towel to wipe his face.
Lunch on these day trips is usually served near the snorkeling spot. The lunch arranged by the Fengdu Group through the travel agency was on Caibei Island. It was a buffet lunch featuring local dishes.
This doesn't quite suit Lu Yu's taste.
He found a corner to sit down, and Pei Yanzhi followed him to the other side as usual.
The two sat facing each other, eating in silence, perfectly enacting a breakup scene, a moment of icy resentment. A circle of empty seats surrounded them; no one dared sit down, fearing that the two might suddenly throw ice water in each other's faces, injuring innocent bystanders.
Lu Yu also felt uncomfortable during the meal.
Even though the spatial barrier was gone and the misunderstanding was over, Pei Yanzhi was right in front of him, within easy reach to touch and kiss him. Yet, he couldn't touch or kiss him openly and honestly, which was truly agonizing.
Halfway through his ordeal, his phone vibrated.
Jiang Yan sent a message in the encrypted group and tagged him.
"Thank you for the purification this morning," Jiang Yan said. "This is a message Qian Yue asked me to give you. She completely stabilized herself and composed herself ten minutes ago before leaving. Before leaving, she gave us two pieces of information and said she would provide assistance if necessary, but only if it did not harm her life or interests."
Lu Yu was not surprised by Qian Yue's attitude.
He only focused on the key point: [What information did she provide?]
-----------------------
Author's Note: This world will end in about four more chapters. Here's a preview of the second world, an alternate ancient setting, a story of a detached and mysterious Chinese wild god x a bright and flamboyant young master [dog head with rose in hand], with a slight touch of non-human elements.
[World 2 "Blasphemy"]
Copywriting:
Chu Shenxiang's time as a human on Earth was only a little over twenty years, but her time as the otherworldly wild god Shenxiang Jun was a full two hundred years.
How can twenty years compare to two hundred years?
In a chaotic world filled with hatred and resentment, surrounded by demons and evil spirits, he had long since lost everything that belonged to humanity, leaving only a clay statue devoid of joy or sorrow, destined to crumble into dust sooner or later.
Later, for reasons unknown, Chu Shenxiang regained her humanity.
But he no longer cares.
He believed he no longer needed any humanity and would never be moved by anything again, until one night, the arrogant young master from the foot of the mountain, who had worshipped him as his sworn brother since childhood in an attempt to change his fate, sleepwalked into his temple, stripped off his clothes, and clung to his statue, weeping.
Chu Shenxiang: ?
Good brother, is this how you show filial piety to your godbrother?
Note: The protagonist and the antagonist are not related by blood or kinship. The protagonist is a wild god, and the antagonist's act of worshipping the wild god as his sworn brother is adapted from the old custom of "adopting a godparent," serving only the background of the ancient novel and not intended to promote feudal superstition.
CP: Chu Shenxiang (top) X Shen Mingxin (bottom)
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