Daily Life of Being Turned Gay by the Male Lead After Transmigrating into an Apocalypse – CH57

Chapter 57: Past Events

Jiang Jue lifted his eyelids, cast a brief look in his direction, and uttered two words with absolute brevity: “Second rank.”

“Whoa! Second rank! Boss, you’re amazing!” Lin Xiao gave an enthusiastic thumbs-up, then turned toward Chu Yang with a broad grin. “Third Brother, what about you? What rank are you at now? Seeing how smoothly you use your power and how fierce your attacks have become, you can’t be far behind, right?”

At the question, Chu Yang’s smug pride flared to life. He tilted his head with a wide, playfully infuriating smile, dragging his words out for dramatic effect: “Hehe, since you asked so sincerely… I shall generously enlighten you. I am officially at the third rank!”

“Third rank?!”

Lin Xiao and Su Mubai gasped in unison, their faces filled with utter shock.

Lin Xiao’s eyes went wide. “Holy crap! Third Brother, you’re a monster! When did you quietly break through to the third rank?! That speed is downright unnatural!”

“Truly impressive,” Su Mubai agreed with heartfelt sincerity, his clear eyes shining with admiration.

Being showered with praise made Chu Yang feel a rare touch of sheepishness, though the grin on his face remained impossible to suppress. He waved a dismissive hand. “Average, average. Just a tiny, insignificant step ahead of you guys.”

“No way, I can’t let you leave us in the dust!” Lin Xiao slapped his own thigh, looking as if he had just been injected with pure adrenaline. He immediately pulled the pouch of crystal cores from his coat, his eyes blazing with determination. “I feel challenged! I need to start absorbing these right this second! Little Bai, let’s do this together. We have to catch up to this freak of nature!”

Su Mubai nodded earnestly, pulling out his own pouch of glowing stones.

“Heh, give it your all, boys! I believe in you!” Chu Yang waved at them with a benevolent, patronizing expression—the very picture of a seasoned senior graciously encouraging his juniors.

Watching Lin Xiao and Su Mubai find quiet corners to sit cross-legged, closing their eyes to channel the energy from their cores, Chu Yang felt a sudden wave of heavy fatigue wash over his own frame.

He stretched with a massive yawn, his spine popping with a light crack. Turning toward Jiang Jue beside him, he murmured, “Brother Jiang, now that they’re hard at work, shall we head back to our room to sleep? Today was absolutely exhausting.”

Jiang Jue’s gaze lingered on Chu Yang’s tired face. He offered a low, quiet “Mm,” signaling his agreement.

The two made their way into the inner room one after the other.

The portable heater hummed softly in the corner, casting a steady, warm orange-red glow across the space.

Chu Yang quickly shed his thick winter coat, leaving only a fitted long-sleeved cotton shirt and loungewear pants. With a soft cheer, he dove headfirst into the thick, plush bedding, letting out a long, luxurious sigh of pure comfort.

He rolled across the spacious double mattress like a large dog settling into a cozy den, finally coming to rest on his side. He faced Jiang Jue, who had already laid down and closed his eyes, seemingly on the verge of sleep.

The warm, muted light brushed across Jiang Jue’s profile, softening the cold, rigid lines of his jaw without diminishing his striking looks in the slightest.

Chu Yang parted his lips, initially wanting to ask if Jiang Jue was still bothered by what had happened with Jiang Lin that afternoon, or simply wanting to chat for a while.

Yet seeing Jiang Jue lying there so peacefully with his eyes shut, his breathing slow and even, Chu Yang swallowed his words.

Forget it, he thought. Brother Jiang must be drained after carrying us through the blizzard today. I shouldn’t keep him up.

Chu Yang closed his eyes as well.

The deep physical exhaustion coupled with the soothing warmth of the room allowed him to unwind completely. Within minutes, his breathing settled into a deep, rhythmic cadence, and he drifted into a peaceful slumber.

The moment Chu Yang’s breathing became steady and long, Jiang Jue slowly opened his dark eyes.

Outside, the winter moon hung high and bright, casting a silver sheen through the frost-dusted window.

Muffled by the gentle orange glow of the electric heater, the room was bathed in a quiet, hazy warmth.

Jiang Jue turned his head slightly, his gaze falling upon Chu Yang’s sleeping face, resting mere inches away.

In sleep, Chu Yang had lost all the sharp, teasing energy of the daytime, appearing remarkably quiet and almost innocent. The ambient heat had flushed his cheeks with a soft, healthy pink, his lips parted ever so slightly, and his long, dark lashes fluttered faintly with every breath.

A few unruly strands of black hair fell across his smooth forehead, making him look utterly unguarded and soft.

Jiang Jue watched him in absolute silence. His dark eyes were deep and fathomless, as though trying to see past the youth’s skin and peer into the very soul beneath.

Never in his wildest dreams had Jiang Jue expected that in this post-apocalyptic wasteland—where civilization had crumbled to dust—he would run into someone tied to the Jiang family.

Jiang Lin…

The daughter of his so-called father’s younger brother.

He did, in fact, retain a faint, distant memory of her.

Not for any special affection, but simply because among all the sneering faces in the Jiang household, she had been the only one who hadn’t looked at him with sheer disgust or mocking cruelty. She had even once tried to hand him an umbrella in the rain.

Jiang Jue had known since early childhood that he was an “illegitimate bastard.”

That title hadn’t been stamped on him by cruel strangers; it was his own mother who had carved it into his bones and blood, over and over, with sharp fingernails and even sharper venom.

His mother… a woman who might have once possessed youth and beauty, had long since been consumed by obsession, bitterness, and creeping madness.

She had brought him into the world for a single, horrifying purpose: he was the only bargaining chip she had left to force her way into the prestigious Jiang family.

She didn’t love him. She only loved the half of his bloodline that tied him to that wealthy man.

In his earliest memories, the backdrop was always that cramped, damp rented flat. The air had constantly reeked of cheap, pungent alcohol mixed with a foul, suffocating layer of mold.

Whenever the woman was drunk, she would yank him by his hair and slam his frail, scrawny frame against the peeling walls, screaming curses through her tears. She would call him a “useless little parasite” and an “unwanted bastard,” shrieking at him, asking why he wasn’t more like his heartless father, and demanding to know why he couldn’t secure her a life of luxury.

Slaps, vicious pinches, and hours of forced kneeling were daily rituals.

Her crazed, bloodshot eyes had been the deepest nightmare of his childhood.

Yet whenever she sobered up, she would plummet into extreme remorse, displaying a twisted, suffocating version of maternal love. She would pull him into her arms, weeping hysterically, repeating over and over that he was all she had, sobbing apologies while her cold, trembling hands rubbed cheap bruise ointment into his battered skin.

That relentless cycle of fire and ice had forced the young Jiang Jue to learn silence and watchful caution far too early. He had learned to bury all his agony, vulnerability, and tears deep beneath an impenetrable, frozen shell.

The clearest, most humiliating memory had occurred when he was fourteen or fifteen.

It had been a dreary, rain-soaked afternoon. His mother had caught wind of a rumor that the old patriarch of the Jiang family was hosting a lavish banquet at their private estate.

She had dug out her most decent dress from the bottom of an old trunk, painstakingly fixing her makeup. Though the cheap synthetic fabric was obvious, she had tried her best to mimic the poised elegance of a high-society lady.

Clamping a vice-like grip around his wrist, she had dragged him through the downpour to the magnificent villa he had previously only glimpsed in glossy magazines and television broadcasts.

Between the doorman’s cold sneers, their initial refusal of entry, and his mother’s frantic, screeching scene of throwing herself onto the pavement, they had finally drawn the attention of the guests inside.

At long last, they were escorted into the cavernous grand salon—a hall so impossibly vast that one could have galloped horses across the polished marble floor.

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