Chapter 95: He’ll Be Leaving Soon
After all the commotion, Mu Mu was in no mood to reopen the store. He habitually turned to look for Zheng An, about to call him so they could go home together, when he suddenly remembered: the annoying man in front of him had sent Zheng An out on a delivery run.
Mu Mu pouted. As he pulled out his terminal to message Zheng An, he grumbled to himself. Their little store barely had any delivery orders. An An should have been done long ago. The fact that he wasn’t back yet meant he must have found somewhere to slack off again.
Speaking of Zheng An, had he really gone out for deliveries? Yes, and no.
Just as Mu Mu had thought, their delivery service was new, and not many people knew about it, so there were only a few orders. At Zheng An’s usual pace, it would have taken two hours at the absolute most.
But with A’Qi and Sha Xia along for the ride, Zheng An worked with unprecedented speed, finishing all the deliveries in just one hour.
So where did he go for the rest of the time? The answer: he took A’Qi, Sha Xia, and a handsome man with a high, golden ponytail he’d never seen before back to the apartment he shared with Mu Mu.
They were currently living in an old-style, seven-story residential building with seven separate entrances. Their apartment was on the fourth floor of the second entrance, a south-facing unit that got great light.
As it happened, this building was also owned by that friend of Zheng An’s. Just like with the storefront, he had given Zheng An a discounted price.
Zheng An opened the door and stood nervously by the entrance, watching as A’Qi, Sha Xia, and the blond man did a quick tour of the eighty-square-meter rental. Then, they led him out again.
They didn’t go far, just to a nearby aircraft.
Seated in the same row as A’Qi, Zheng An shrank back, pressing himself tightly against the cold metal wall, creating a chasm-like distance between them.
After confirming the address with Zheng An one more time, A’Qi turned to the beautiful blond man sitting across from them. “Adjutant Wen Si’erte, I’ll have to trouble you with this.”
The man called Wen Si’erte offered an elegant smile. “It’s a small matter. Do you need the entire unit?”
It really was a small matter. The compensation for the residents was all being paid for by Yan Guixing.
A’Qi considered for a moment. “This will be enough for now.”
Wen Si’erte tapped away at his terminal, then spared a moment to ask A’Qi, “But are you sure your admiral can get used to these living conditions?”
A’Qi turned his head to look out the porthole at the old, brick-red building. Their boss… he could probably handle it, right?
Although their boss was from the Planet of No Return and had endured all sorts of hardships on the border planets in his early years, that was a long, long time ago.
Ever since he’d achieved financial freedom, Yan Guixing had never let himself suffer when it came to food, clothing, or shelter.
Forget suffering—he was the very definition of extravagance. Everyone in the military knew that Admiral Yan was the best at enjoying life. It was no wonder Adjutant Wen Si’erte was concerned.
For a moment, even A’Qi couldn’t give a confident answer.
The silence in the aircraft was deafening.
But things proceeded according to plan. Old buildings like this one had very few permanent residents. Most were transient tenants attracted by the cheap rent, and many units were vacant to begin with, which made the process of relocating everyone much simpler than expected.
Watching the people bustling in and out, Zheng An finally understood. Yan Guixing hadn’t just come to find his little fool. He was planning to live here, to become their neighbor, and to wear the little fool down until his heart softened and he agreed to go back with him.
Having uncovered the truth, Zheng An began pacing anxiously in their apartment. He was so agitated that he didn’t even see the message Mu Mu had sent him. It wasn’t until Mu Mu walked in that he pounced like a hungry tiger, grabbing Mu Mu by the shoulders.
Mu Mu jumped, his hand going slack. The bag he was carrying fell to the floor, and the fruit-flavored nutrient solution he’d brought back for Zheng An spilled everywhere.
“An An, what’s wrong? You’re scaring me!” Mu Mu said urgently, seeing the look on Zheng An’s face and grabbing his arms in return.
“It’s not what’s wrong with me, it’s what’s wrong with you,” Zheng An said, pulling Mu Mu into the room by the wrist. He pointed at the ceiling, then the floor, then to the walls on either side.
He leaned in close to Mu Mu’s ear and whispered mysteriously, “Did you know? We’ve been surrounded by Admiral Yan’s people.”
Seeing that Zheng An wasn’t in any real trouble, Mu Mu breathed a sigh of relief. But he didn’t understand what all this “surrounded” business was about. He looked at Zheng An quizzically. “Surrounded? An An, what are you talking about?”
Zheng An poked Mu Mu’s forehead in exasperation. “You’re so dense! It means that the admiral has bought out all our neighbors—upstairs, downstairs, left, and right! All the apartments are filled with his people now. There’s no escape for us!”
“Oh, right! And they have help,” Zheng An added, pulling out his terminal and shoving it in front of Mu Mu. “See this guy with the blond hair? That’s Aolesi Wen Si’erte, Adjutant to Admiral De Ximo! De Ximo! He’s in charge of our entire star sector!”
“Oh,” Mu Mu said. After living with Yan Guixing for so long, he was used to seeing A’Qi, Sha Xia, and the others around. Now that they were here with Yan Guixing, he didn’t see it as a problem.
On the contrary, if Yan Guixing had truly shown up all by himself, that’s when Mu Mu would have thought something was seriously wrong.
Zheng An clutched his hair with both hands and wailed under his breath, “We’re doomed! This time, there’s really no escape!”
“Why do we need to escape?” Mu Mu tucked Zheng An’s terminal back into his pocket and turned to pick up the spilled nutrient packs from the entryway, placing them on the table.
“We haven’t stolen anything, or robbed anyone, or broken any laws. An admiral can’t just do whatever he wants to us. Gui…” Mu Mu’s eyes darkened for a second. He pressed his lips together, then continued, “His Excellency the Admiral is a very busy man. He won’t stay here for long. Soon, he’ll leave.”
“Really?” Zheng An looked up, a spark of hope in his eyes. He was genuinely terrified of Yan Guixing, always feeling like the man wanted to strangle him. “Are you sure he’ll be leaving soon?”
Mu Mu stood with his back to Zheng An, bathed in the warm yellow light. His eyelashes cast a small shadow beneath his eyes, hiding the dimness within them. The corners of his lips seemed to be pulled downward by invisible threads.
“It’s true. He’ll be leaving very soon,” Mu Mu’s voice, unlike his expression, was still bright and cheerful, giving Zheng An no hint of anything amiss.
Zheng An clapped a hand to his chest and let out a huge sigh of relief. “Hearing you say that makes me feel so much better. The sooner he leaves, the better. It’ll be a relief for you, too. Seriously, Admiral Yan is just too scary.”
The sooner he leaves, the better? Mu Mu suddenly felt a wave of confusion. Did he really want Yan Guixing to leave?
He didn’t know.
He asked himself another question: Are you willing to go home with him? He knew the answer to that one. No. Being kicked out was too painful. He didn’t want to go through that kind of pain ever again.
Mu Mu thought this would help him figure out whether he wanted Yan Guixing to leave, but the answer was still the same. He didn’t know.
After turning it over and over in his mind to no avail, Mu Mu gave up. He sighed like a world-weary old man, picked up a pale green nutrient pack, and handed it to Zheng An. “Apple flavor. You haven’t had dinner yet, right, An An? Here.”
Zheng An hadn’t eaten all day. He’d woken up late and planned to eat at the store after finishing the deliveries, but then he ran into Yan Guixing and was whisked away by A’Qi and Sha Xia.
A’Qi and the others didn’t know when Mu Mu would be home, so they had rushed to get everything done as quickly as possible. No one had mentioned food, so Zheng An had to go hungry along with them.
Even if they had mentioned it, he probably wouldn’t have been able to eat. With A’Qi and Sha Xia standing over him like a pair of intimidating door gods, he was too scared to be hungry.
Zheng An brought up a different topic, and neither of them mentioned Yan Guixing again. That night, Mu Mu went to bed early. For once, his dream had nothing to do with Yan Guixing.
But it wasn’t a good dream. Everything he saw was blood-red, and somewhere in the distance, someone was calling his name over and over: “Mu Mu.”
He couldn’t tell whose voice it was, but it was so familiar it made him want to cry.
He eventually sobbed himself awake. Sitting up, he touched his face and found his palm wet and cold.
The crimson of the dream and the unidentifiable voice left his heart pounding. When he lay back down, sleep wouldn’t come for a long time. He could only stare at the dim glow of the nightlight on the wall.
He didn’t know how much time had passed before he finally felt drowsy again. He rolled over, burying his tear-streaked face in his pillow, and thought fuzzily, My star lamp is still at Gui Gui’s place. I have to get it back from him.
When you don’t sleep at night, you naturally can’t wake up in the morning. By the time Mu Mu woke up again, it was almost ten o’clock.
He stretched languidly, trying to remember what dream had scared him so much that he’d been awake for half the night.
But his mind was still a groggy fog, with not a single trace of the ominous dream remaining.
The store was what mattered. With a bedhead that resembled a bird’s nest, Mu Mu left his bedroom. He called out for “An An” a few times, and when there was no answer, he figured Zheng An must have gone to the store ahead of him.
This time, Mu Mu wasn’t in a hurry. He detoured to the small bathroom for a hot shower, and only after he was properly dressed and had drunk a nutrient pack did he head downstairs.
To his surprise, just as he stepped out of the building’s entrance, he saw Yan Guixing not far away, chatting with several white-haired seniors. It was a Yan Guixing with his hair unstyled, wearing a simple black hoodie.
Mu Mu thought he must still be asleep, sleepwalking. How else could he be seeing a softer, more approachable version of Yan Guixing patiently chatting with a group of old grandmas?
In the moment he was dazed, Yan Guixing spotted him and gave him a wave. The seniors beside him saw the gesture and turned their heads curiously.
Seeing Mu Mu standing by the entrance, wrapped in a light-colored duffle coat and a white scarf, one of the grandmas smiled. “Oh, so little Mu is your wife!”
“Ah?” Mu Mu uttered, realizing that not only had the “wife” joke not died down, but now even his neighbors knew about it.
Faced with the approaching seniors, Mu Mu could only force a smile, not daring to say a single word of protest. After Yan Guixing’s “clarification” yesterday, he knew no one would believe him anyway.
After dealing with the seniors, Mu Mu ignored Yan Guixing and walked straight ahead with a stern face. But Yan Guixing’s legs were long, and he caught up in just a few strides, which made Mu Mu whip his head around to glare at him.
“Why is His Excellency the Admiral still here?”
Yan Guixing smiled. “I’m waiting to escort the store manager to work, of course.”
Mu Mu said fiercely, “Didn’t I tell you not to come to my store anymore? You’re fired!”
“One day isn’t enough for a proper trial,” Yan Guixing said, shamelessly pleading. “Little manager, just try me for a couple more days before you make your decision, okay?”
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