Chapter 30: He Decided to Secretly Shadow Jian Tang
Jian Tang waited anxiously.
The bad news: His wife looked even angrier.
The good news: His wife was finally looking at him directly.
“Who taught you to say that?” Feng Xun asked, straightening his posture and knitting his brows.
His tone was cold and hard, carrying an immense pressure that Jian Tang couldn’t resist at all. The boy immediately confessed, “…I learned it online.”
While searching for beginner recipes today, he had realized the human internet was highly entertaining. It even automatically recommended related information based on user needs.
For instance, when he searched for a beginner cooking guide, the platform automatically pushed the topic “How it felt to cook for the first time” to him. After clicking on it, all sorts of threads immediately refreshed onto his screen.
In one of the threads, a helpful user enthusiastically claimed that saying the ultimate phrase—”Do you want to shower first, eat, or eat me?”—the moment your partner got home could rapidly warm up the relationship and make the cooked food taste incredibly delicious.
The comment section below was filled with strings of yellow hearts, and others had shared their own experiences, attesting that it was highly effective with review after glowing review.
Jian Tang had read it with total confusion, not quite understanding what “warming up a relationship” had to do with “cooking,” but given his current predicament, it seemed perfectly applicable.
Yellow represented warmth, and since everyone was replying with yellow hearts, it must mean this trick would definitely cause a relationship that had plunged below freezing to rise back to a warm level.
Once the relationship warmed back up, they would sit down to eat the heart-filled meal he made. Naturally, his wife would think it tasted fantastic and incredibly delicious, spelling a massive success for their relationship icebreaker, right?
After listening to Jian Tang’s “confession,” Feng Xun: “…”
He just knew it.
He knew this guy understood absolutely nothing, yet grew bolder the more incompetent he was.
“Kids shouldn’t spend so much time online,” Feng Xun said with a stiff face. “Stop learning random nonsense.”
Jian Tang opened his mouth, but in the end, he didn’t voice the words, I’m not a kid, you’re the kid.
Whatever. He wouldn’t lower himself to the level of his baby wife, who had only lived for twenty-seven years.
“Wife, have you eaten dinner yet?” Jian Tang perked up again, looking at the other man expectantly. “I made a special combo for you. I tasted it myself, and it’s really good. Do you want to try some?”
Feng Xun: “?”
He was wondering why the room smelled so strongly of burnt food. So the culprit behind the kitchen disaster stood right here.
Feng Xun immediately walked toward the kitchen, with Jian Tang jogging closely behind. The two of them arrived in the dining-kitchen area together.
To Feng Xun’s surprise, the situation in the kitchen wasn’t too bad. Aside from the heavy burnt smell, there was no catastrophic scene—the other party must have intentionally cleaned up after cooking, completely destroying all evidence of the crime.
Feng Xun then looked at the dining table. A single portion of food was set out on a heated rotating tray, keeping it steaming hot.
One bowl of rice, two dishes, and a soup—it really did add up to a full combo meal.
“Wife, sit down, please sit.”
Jian Tang pulled out a chair like a total flatterer and eagerly handed over the utensils.
“Wife, you worked so hard during the day. Eat well to replenish your energy.”
Feng Xun cast a subtle glance at him before sitting down at the table.
He took a bite of the rice, tried a piece of the dish, and drank a spoonful of soup.
Well. The rice was undercooked, the dishes were burnt, and the soup was violently salty.
To face a meal like this and still say, “I tasted it myself, and it’s really good,” this guy’s taste buds… were indeed different from regular people.
“Is this your first time cooking?” he asked.
“Yes.” Jian Tang was a bit nervous, like an elementary school student waiting for a teacher to grade his homework. “W-What do you think of the taste? Is it good?”
Feng Xun fell silent for a moment, then picked up another piece of food with his chopsticks and put it in his mouth.
“It’s decent.”
In truth, the taste was genuinely terrible, but the hostility that had been coiled up inside him for most of the day suddenly dissipated by a lot.
To use a line that had once been popular—
—At least he cared enough to put effort into me.
Seeing the man take bite after bite of his “heart-filled combo,” the anxiety hanging in Jian Tang’s heart finally settled by more than half.
He pulled out the chair opposite and sat down obediently, watching his wife eat.
Feng Xun glanced at him.
“Aren’t you eating?”
“I already ate.”
One continued to eat.
One continued to watch.
Feng Xun: “…”
Feng Xun: “Stop staring at me.”
“Why?” Jian Tang looked utterly innocent. “Wife, you’re so handsome, why can’t I look? I want to look. I’m going to keep looking.”
“…”
Feng Xun’s lips twitched, but in the end, he forced them straight, keeping a rigid face.
“When your client eats, do you stare at him like this too?”
Jian Tang: “?”
Jian Tang: “Of course not. A client is a client, and a wife is a wife. I only want to look at my wife, not a client. What’s so good about a client? Only my wife is the most handsome, super handsome.”
Feng Xun let out a cold laugh. “Then who was the one who ditched his wife at noon and ran off with a client?”
“…”
Here it came.
The ultimate move universally acknowledged to be in a wife’s arsenal—his wife had activated the “dredging up the past” skill!
“Wife,” Jian Tang asked cautiously, “the messages I sent you… did you read them?”
Feng Xun, who had accidentally crushed his phone in a fit of rage earlier: “…”
Realizing the other man hadn’t read them at all, Jian Tang immediately began to explain.
“Actually, I wanted to text you the moment I left the coffee shop,” he said. “But Fi… but Mr. Pei was too wicked. He confiscated my phone.”
Jian Tang repeated the explanatory message he had sent to Feng Xun. Regarding why he absolutely had to chase after the client back then, the reason he gave was a fear of industry competition. He claimed he worried that the massive client their factory had worked so hard to secure would be snatched away by a rival, so he had to stay by the client’s side to monitor him to feel at ease.
“Wife, this order is incredibly important to our factory,” Jian Tang said pitifully.
“The market is bad right now, and everyone’s income is low. If the order gets hijacked, no one will get a year-end bonus, and they won’t even be able to scrape together the travel fare to go home and reunite with their families. That would be so tragic… I’m carrying the hopes of the entire factory on my shoulders, so I didn’t dare be careless for a single second.”
This statement was half-true and half-false.
The “false” part was that the order had actually been settled long ago. The three Realm Lords had already paid the bosses the deposit for the first production run, so there was no risk of them backing out.
The “true” part was that due to the trend led by the Bloody Butcher in recent years, their type of dungeon prop trash-refurbishing factory was indeed facing grim profits. Last year, they hadn’t even given out year-end bonuses, and everyone had been living quite miserably.
Feng Xun stared at the boy’s worried little face for a while. After a long moment, he averted his gaze and put another bite of food into his mouth.
Though the dish was burnt and bad enough to make it hard to swallow, a long, long time ago—during the years when the world was on the brink of destruction—even seeing a meal like this was a luxury for many people.
He had been disconnected from the normal world for too long, so long that he had almost forgotten: even in peaceful times, if ordinary people wanted to live with a bit of dignity, they could not avoid rushing about and working hard for their entire lives.
In a world where one didn’t prove their path solely through absolute power, many things could not be solved simply by relying on fists.
After a long silence, Feng Xun nodded.
“Alright, I understand,” he said. “I won’t interfere with your business anymore.”
Jian Tang’s eyes lit up, knowing this meant the other party was willing to forgive him and agreed to let today’s matter go.
“Thank you, wife!” Jian Tang was overjoyed. His mouth was as sweet as honey as he poured out rainbow farts without hesitation.
“Wife, wife, you really are such an understanding, good wife! Oh my, I’m so lucky to have such a wonderful wife like you!”
“Don’t call me wife,” Feng Xun said abruptly.
Although he understood Jian Tang’s actions and knew the boy was forced by reality, the thought of that trashy, blond-haired guy’s obnoxious, gloating face today—and how Jian Tang had chased after the blond, leaving him behind in a restroom stall—still left him feeling displeased.
“Don’t call me wife.” Feng Xun coldly bit through a rib in his mouth. “I am not your wife.”
He wasn’t to begin with.
…If anything, it should be the other way around.
Jian Tang’s expression stiffened. For a moment, he couldn’t tell if the other man was being serious or just throwing a small tantrum, so he asked cautiously.
“Th-Then, do you want me to call you Mr. Feng from now on?”
“…”
Jian Tang carefully observed the man’s expression. “Can I only call you Mr. Feng in the future?”
“…”
Uh-oh, why does my wife look even angrier now?
The more Jian Tang thought about it, the more confused he became. He couldn’t call him wife, and he couldn’t call him Mr. Feng. What on earth did he want to be called?
He suddenly recalled the numerous terms he had encountered while browsing the human internet today. He had truly gained a lot of new knowledge—
“Then how about… Baby?” he asked. “Hubby? Sweetheart? Darling? Or, Honey?”
Feng Xun: “…”
He massaged his temples expressionlessly, feeling a headache coming on.
He was really just looking for trouble.
He shouldn’t have made things difficult on this issue for a little idiot who had been excessively brainwashed.
“Suit yourself.” Feng Xun lowered his eyes and continued eating. “Call me whatever you want.” He had no intention of managing it anymore.
Eh?
Jian Tang blinked, testing the waters. “Then… then I’ll keep calling you wife?”
The man didn’t speak, his expression calm—which could also be interpreted as resigning himself to his fate—so Jian Tang took it as an agreement by default.
Awesome! I’ve officially obtained a ‘calling him wife’ permit! This counts as bringing it out into the open!
Unsure of what he had thought of, the boy suddenly let out a “hehe” giggle. His eyes staring at Feng Xun were bright, resembling glittering emeralds.
Feng Xun subconsciously touched his cheek, wondering if a grain of rice was stuck to his face. “What are you laughing at?”
“I just remembered what happened the first time we met.” Jian Tang rested his chin on his hands, his eyes curving happily. Because he was very relaxed, his body swayed gently, and the ahoge on his head bobbed up and down like a cute little tail.
“Back then when I called you ‘wife,’ you weren’t happy at all.” he said with a beaming smile. He had already discovered that his wife was actually a tsundere wife. “Now when I call you that, you’re very happy to accept it, hehe.”
Feng Xun: …I’m not exactly happy to accept it, alright.
Jian Tang grew even more carried away, directly shaking his head as he began to sing, “Wife, wife, wife, yo yo yo, wife, wife~ you are my good wife~ yo yo yo~ my wife, wife, wonderful wife~”
Feng Xun: “…”
He regretted it.
Calling him Mr. Feng would have been better!
The boy sang happily, his eyes crinkling into little crescent moons. His opening and closing lips were tender and bright red, looking like sweet pink jelly—plump and soft.
Feng Xun’s eyes darkened a fraction, a wicked thought suddenly surging from the depths of his heart.
He really wanted to find something to plug that small mouth.
Plug it once for every time he called out, to see if he would still dare to call out randomly in the future.
“Wife!” Jian Tang felt the atmosphere was perfect right now and boldly voiced the idea he had been coveting for a long time. “In the future, I’ll call you ‘wife,’ and you call me ‘darling,’ okay?”
The cute wife in the Book of Destiny addressed the big monster exactly like that. Therefore, in Jian Tang’s heart, if his wife could call him “darling,” it would mean the other party fully accepted him, and it would be the most blissful, most harmonious manifestation of a family relationship!
“…”
Feng Xun pulled his gaze away from the other party’s non-stop babbling little mouth and lowered his head to continue eating.
“No.”
Jian Tang: “!”
Jian Tang: “Why?!”
Feng Xun: “No reason.”
Jian Tang: “QAQ!!”
Dammit, looks like I still need to keep working hard… But one day, one day!
I will make you call me that willingly, wife!
—
The meal was soon finished.
Feng Xun didn’t let Jian Tang lift a finger again, placing the emptied plates and soup bowl into the dishwasher himself, and wiping the dining table clean. Once he finished busying himself, Jian Tang leaned over mysteriously.
“Wife, come over here for a second, let me show you something.”
Feng Xun: “?”
He was led into the living room by Jian Tang. The boy pressed him down to sit on the sofa, then fished a small black box out of his pocket.
This scene felt somewhat familiar, and Feng Xun couldn’t help but recall the brooch the other party had given him yesterday.
“Another gift for me?”
“Yes.” Jian Tang scratched his head with a sheepish grin. “But it’s a bit different in nature from yesterday’s gift. You’ll see once you open it.”
Feng Xun opened the box. Upon seeing the contents inside, he couldn’t help but freeze.
—It was a pair of silver couple rings.
The two silver rings overlapped together, matching exactly in style. A tiny diamond was embedded in the center of the bands, making them look quite like… wedding rings.
“One for you, one for me.” Jian Tang said seriously. “I will wear it all the time.”
Having provoked his wife into a massive rage today, Jian Tang had reflected deeply on himself.
He had reviewed the entire process of the midday incident and felt that while he had his own difficulties for not acknowledging his wife’s status in front of Lord Fila, from his wife’s perspective, his behavior equated to refusing to give him an official status in front of outsiders. Of course the other party would be very angry.
Jian Tang had heard that humans proved the ironclad relationship between two people by gifting rings and having both parties wear the same design. Therefore, on his way home, he had gone to a nearby mall to purchase a pair of couple rings.
The price was a bit expensive, but if it could grant his wife a sense of security regarding his “status” and prevent the two of them from having conflicts over similar matters in the future, then it was highly worth it.
Feng Xun stared at the rings in the box for a while, seeming slightly lost in thought. Only after a long moment did he lift his head to look at Jian Tang.
He didn’t say anything, and there was no expression on his face, but miraculously—perhaps their time together over the past few days had cultivated a bit of unspoken understanding—Jian Tang instantly grasped the other man’s meaning.
“Alright, I’ll put it on for you.”
Jian Tang used his fingers to slip out the ring with the slightly larger size, while his other hand held up Feng Xun’s left hand.
Feng Xun watched quietly as the boy held the band with his fingertips. After a brief hesitation, the boy slid the ring onto his ring finger.
His heartbeat suddenly missed a beat.
Regardless of whether the other party knew what this represented… no, even if someone was excessively brainwashed, as long as they were a normal human, they should understand what placing a ring on someone else’s ring finger meant—this was basic common sense in human society.
The ring was quickly pushed to the base of the finger. Before Feng Xun could carefully admire it, the other party swiftly slid the ring off his ring finger again.
Feng Xun: “…”
“The size seems a bit too big.” Jian Tang muttered to himself, switching the ring to the man’s middle finger. This time, it fit perfectly.
“Yours is on!” Jian Tang announced happily, then quickly put the other ring onto his own middle finger as well.
“Mine is on too!”
The little monster, wearing a human ring for the first time, extended his middle finger and gleefully showed it off to his human wife.
“How is it? Does it look good?”
Feng Xun, looking at the other party continuously flashing his middle finger at him: “…”
He hadn’t felt it much when buying it, but once it was on, Jian Tang simply couldn’t bear to part with the ring. He looked at his own, then at his wife’s. Seeing the two of them wearing the same ring in the same position, he suddenly felt a sensation—
Between him and his wife, a faint, inexplicable connection and bond truly seemed to have formed.
How magical.
“In the future when we run into others outside, there’s no need to explain at all. One look at our rings and they’ll know what our relationship is.” Jian Tang said happily.
“Know what our relationship is?” Feng Xun raised his eyebrows, offering a half-smile. “Then tell me, what is our relationship?”
“The relationship where you are my wife.” Jian Tang said.
Feng Xun: “…”
Yeah, rest assured, I guarantee others won’t be able to tell.
After this minor interlude ended, the time was already quite late. The two exchanged goodnights and returned to their respective rooms.
Back in his bedroom, Feng Xun changed into his pajamas and lay down on the bed.
Usually at this time, he would use his phone to browse the local social networks for a while, checking to see if there were any suspicious reports to make it easier to lock onto the next monster gathering point.
But today, he inexplicably lacked the mood to do proper work.
He lifted his left hand, spreading his palm against the light from the ceiling, staring at the ring worn on his middle finger.
Feng Xun did not lack rings at all.
In his original safe house, the boxes holding rings alone filled three entire large cabinets—all of them system items.
Priceless ones, ones with staggering attributes, ones stacked with bonus buffs; all kinds, a vast array, any type of high-level ring could be found there.
But a regular human ring with no attributes, completely ordinary, and purely decorative—this was the first time he owned one.
It was also the first time someone had held his hand and solemnly put it on him.
Although it wasn’t worn on the ring finger, he vaguely remembered that wearing a ring on the middle finger seemed to hold a special meaning as well.
…What was it again?
The silver band reflected small halos of light. Feng Xun stared at it for a long time, then suddenly flipped over and sat up.
He waved his hand to summon the system light screen, using the camera on the screen to take a photo of his left hand wearing the ring.
Then he pulled open his contact list, moved “He Mengxing’s” name out, and sent the photo to him.
After thinking about it, he appended a sentence.
[They’re couple rings.]
The other party replied instantly.
He Mengxing: [?]
He Mengxing: [What couple rings? The sister-in-law gave them to you?]
Feng Xun sent a “.” to let the other party figure it out himself.
He Mengxing: […]
He Mengxing: [Bro, there’s no shame in not being able to win over a wife. No need to buy a ring yourself and take a picture just to save face, okay? I’m no rookie newbie, you can’t fool me.]
Feng Xun: [?]
Feng Xun: [Who’s fooling you? Do I look like I have nothing better to do?]
He Mengxing instantly slapped over the “roses and finger heart” official announcement photo he had sent that evening.
He Mengxing: [This is the correct way to show off love, got it?]
He Mengxing: [Anyone who only shows off themselves without showing off the other party will be treated as a single dog using fake photos by default.]
He Mengxing: [Take a word of advice from a bro: it’s fine to trick your brothers, just don’t end up tricking yourself. It really doesn’t matter if your brother gets tricked by you, we can just laugh it off. But using this kind of talk to fool a brother is about enough, don’t go making yourself take it seriously, alright?]
“…………”
Feng Xun expressionlessly kicked the person back into the blacklist.
He swatted away the light screen, turned off the lights, and lay down.
Sleep!
—
The night passed.
The next day, Jian Tang still woke up very early. Walking out of the bedroom, he discovered that Feng Xun had actually already prepared breakfast and was sitting in the living room waiting for him.
“Why are you up so early?” Jian Tang said in surprise. “Do you need to clock in early for work?”
“No work.” Feng Xun said. “Today is Saturday.”
In fact, he might work on Saturdays too, as someone needed to be on duty in the department, but his name wasn’t on the roster for this week.
“Wow—” Jian Tang let out an envious gasp. “You guys actually get two days off, that’s so nice.”
He could only rest for half a day each week. Previously, in order to earn more performance points to save up for his wife-fund, he basically wouldn’t rest during this half-day off either, actively going to the factory assembly line to continue working overtime.
Hearing Jian Tang describe his factory’s “vacation situation,” a vein throbbed on Feng Xun’s temple.
Wasn’t this a standard sweatshop? What was worth holding onto in a garbage job like this?
…This job was definitely getting changed.
Feng Xun’s gaze was deep, but he said nothing—he wouldn’t start another dispute with the other party over this. If he wanted Jian Tang to willingly change his job, he had plenty of methods at his disposal.
Time was tight in the morning, so Jian Tang didn’t chat much with Feng Xun. He hastily ate a few bites of breakfast and rushed out the door.
“Goodbye, wife!”
Feng Xun stood at the front door to see him off, nodding calmly. “Yeah, goodbye.”
He watched the boy’s figure disappear from the stairwell. Once he heard the footsteps leave Building 44, he immediately threw on his coat, grabbed his car keys, and quickly went downstairs.
Although today was a rest day, Feng Xun had no intention of resting.
—He decided to secretly shadow Jian Tang.
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