Chapter 208: Awakening

"Who are you?" The scream echoed in Luo Qi's mind.

"Is Du Zhengyi a good man?" The anger in someone else's mind was as real as his own anger.

In someone else's memories, he saw Du Zhengyi coldly and ruthlessly strike down a father and take away a child; he heard the mother's pleas, but Du Zhengyi did not even turn his head. On that face Luo Qi was familiar with, there was only indifference. He watched Du Zhengyi act with clean, efficient movements, without a single wasted motion or glance. He had come here to execute a mission, as cold and ruthless as a machine.

Luo Qi downed half a bottle of liquor and smashed the bottle into the well at the Zhouqiao Grass Market.

Several hours later, the alcohol, fatigue, and mental overexertion had turned Luo Qi into a wreck. Carrying a cat on his shoulder, he stumbled into the hotel room. Majiang watched in astonishment as a low-spec version of Du Zhengyi wobbled in, his body tipping over toward the bathroom wall, his forehead hitting the wall with a loud "thud." The plastic card inserted into the slot to draw power happened to slice a bloody gash into his forehead. Luo Qi let out an "ah" of pain, and clutching his head, he sobered up quite a bit, retracting his mental camouflage.

"You motherf..." Majiang paused for a moment and covered his own mouth. "Is this the state you've been in while hanging out outside for two days?"

He closed the door, and the stunned Guan Xinyue only then saw Majiang snickering.

Luo Qi groaned while clutching his forehead, swaying as he walked toward the inner room. As he passed Guan Xinyue, he muttered "little sister" and shoved something into her hand. Guan Xinyue stood dazed as Luo Qi crossed past her into the bedroom inside the suite, where Du Zhengyi was still sleeping on the bed.

The evening afterglow fell into the room; the bedroom was warm and comfortable, and Du Zhengyi was fast asleep on the bed, his expression peaceful. Luo Qi choked back a sob. Guan Xinyue remembered what Majiang had said, and she also remembered Majiang's instruction never to tell Luo Qi, but Luo Qi, who knew nothing, looked even more pitiful, and she couldn't help but want to comfort him.

But before she could speak, Luo Qi swayed and collapsed horizontally onto the bed. Half his body was sprawled on the bed with his legs still hanging off, the cat jumped onto his back, and he had already fallen asleep.

Guan Xinyue stood frozen at the doorway. Majiang had followed, originally intending to interrogate Luo Qi, but now that was completely impossible. Infuriated, he let out a hiss, "Do you think he did that on purpose?"

When Du Zhengyi finally woke up, the sky had brightened once more. Majiang was standing beside him watching him; he knew it was Majiang who had awakened him, and he had likely made it through again this time. He gave Majiang a grateful, faint smile, then raised his eyes to see Guan Xinyue there too, sitting on a sofa a little further away, nervously hugging her knees as she looked over. He nodded at Guan Xinyue as well.

There was still one left. Just now, as he was about to wake up, he had felt Luo Qi's Yajian curled up outside his own Yajian barrier, whimpering pitifully as it pressed against his barrier, like a puppy left outside the door. He sighed in his heart and raised his hand, just able to rest it on Luo Qi's head. He lifted his head slightly to see what he was doing; after a long sleep, his limbs were inevitably stiff, and the movement was a bit strenuous.

Luo Qi was only half-sprawled on the bed, his head resting against his side, seemingly still asleep. But at least he was finally back; he wouldn't have to go to the trouble of searching everywhere for him after waking up. Du Zhengyi rubbed a few handfuls of hair on the back of Luo Qi's head. Luo Qi finally woke up, sluggishly lifting his head and rubbing his eyes to see if Du Zhengyi had really woken up.

Another black cat appeared behind Luo Qi. For some reason, this one looked much more imposing than the previous one. Its hind feet stepped on Luo Qi's collar, its front feet stepped on Luo Qi's head, and it stared imposingly at Du Zhengyi for a while. Just as Du Zhengyi reached out to touch it, it retreated to Luo Qi's side and curled up.

"Brother," Luo Qi called out in surprise and joy, "you're awake!" The grievances filling his heart vanished like smoke, and all those unpleasant things were cast aside.

Du Zhengyi looked at him and suddenly reached out to brush aside the hair on his forehead, "A bump really did rise, and there's a cut too."

Luo Qi naturally looked young, with big eyes and fair skin. Now, with a large bump on his forehead and a bloody gash on his brow that wasn't exactly shallow, although it wasn't serious, it looked particularly ghastly on this face.

Du Zhengyi couldn't help but ask, "Who hit you?"

Majiang had been secretly laughing, but who would have thought that the bastard Luo Qi would turn his head and point straight at him, "He hit me!"

Majiang was secretly shocked, thinking that when Luo Qi returned, he was so drunk that he might truly not know what had happened, and it was possible he thought he had hit him.

But Du Zhengyi actually glared over. Just as he was about to deny it, that drama queen Luo Qi actually reached out to hug Du Zhengyi's stomach, leaning on it and howling, "Boss, stand up for me! He thought I stayed out playing for too long, so he beat me like this, hit me in the face!"

This was intentional. Majiang was choked with anger, realizing that Luo Qi knew perfectly well what was going on. This little brat was trying to take the initiative to admit his mistake to reduce the heat, and also to spread the heat onto him. "I... thank goodness I have a witness. Girl, tell me, didn't he drink too much and bump into it himself?"

"I..." Guan Xinyue hesitated, "I was in the bedroom at that time, so I didn't actually see..."

"Damn it," Majiang said, nearly spitting out a mouthful of blood, "Luo Qi was drunk and gave the wall a headbutt the moment he walked in."

"I didn't drink," Luo Qi said, buried against Du Zhengyi's stomach. "How could a minor like me drink?"

"You... certainly drank... quite a bit," Guan Xinyue said cautiously. "If you weren't drunk, you wouldn't have bought a Peppa Pig balloon for me, would you? I'm not six years old."

"Hm?" Luo Qi froze against Du Zhengyi's stomach, raised his head suspiciously, and turned to see the pink hair-dryer-shaped balloon tied to the leg of the coffee table, floating ostentatiously in the bedroom. He really couldn't remember why he had bought a Peppa Pig balloon and hung such a large piece of evidence.

Majiang gained the upper hand, "You can turn into a three-year-old in front of Du Zhengyi in a second, aren't you pretty badass? Why don't you tell your boss yourself what you were doing outside?"

Luo Qi's heart hung in the air. Unexpectedly, a hand gently touched the scar above his eyebrow, "It wasn't him who hit you? You see him bleeding and just leave it alone? If you had treated this kind of minor wound for him yesterday, it wouldn't have scarred. Look at it now, it's definitely going to leave a scar on his face."

Luo Qi laughed out loud, and Majiang was angry enough to explode, "He fell asleep right next to you after he bumped it, his head buried in the quilt, how was I supposed to know he had sliced such a deep cut? Great, girl, now we'll definitely have to pay the hotel's cleaning fee. Besides, what does it matter if a grown man has a scar?"