Chapter 2
“Really? Did I hear wrong?” Lin Mu put the phone back to his ear and waited patiently.
He had to be patient. Lu Xiao wasn’t someone who liked answering calls—it was like he hadn’t topped up his phone credit in eight hundred years.
……
In the southwest of China, famed for its beautiful karst landscapes. As the sun rose, brilliant rosy light shot through the clouds, illuminating the solitary peaks scattered across the land—sacred, magnificent, breathtaking.
At the summit, the ancestors of the Lu family lay at rest. A century-old grave. Each year, after the Winter Solstice and before Qingming, they crossed rivers and climbed cliffs to perform the arduous ancestral rites.
Tomb-sweeping was an important affair for the Lu family, never entrusted to outsiders. The three Lu brothers—eldest Lu Lou, second Lu Yushu, and third Lu Xiao—each capable of stirring storms in the outside world, now had no choice but to bend down and do hard labor.
They started climbing at five in the morning, and after three or four hours of work, finally rescued the ancestral grave from the wildly overgrown vegetation.
Lu Xiao held a chainsaw, jumped down from a newly trimmed tree, and straightened his long, bent legs, his figure exceptionally tall and upright. Several thin red cuts from sharp leaves marked his neck and arms, standing out starkly against his cold, pale skin.
He was dressed simply in a black tank top and cargo pants, his entire body clad in an intensely pure black. It only made his features look even more cleanly handsome. Against the backdrop of lush green mountains and rivers, atop a towering peak, the brilliance of March sunlight in the mortal world illuminated his profile—like a beautiful god from ancient myth.
“All right, bow once and let’s head down,” the eldest brother, Lu Lou, said.
All three had stripped off their outerwear from the heat. They took turns kneeling before the grave and kowtowing.
Respecting seniority, Lu Lou went first, then Lu Yushu. Neither said a word.
When it was Lu Xiao’s turn, he bent his knee and knelt. His face was expressionless, but his voice was not quiet at all. “Bless my wife to love me.”
Two cutting remarks drifted over from the side.
Eldest brother: “Let the ancestors see how spineless you are.”
Second brother: “Your great-grandma is dead, not ascended to immortality.”
Lu Xiao shot them both a cold glance and added, addressing the ancestors, “My wife’s name is Meng Xuehuan.”
After that, Lu Xiao bent down and dug his jacket out of a pile of branches, shook off the fallen leaves, and took out his phone to check the time. His top was soaked with sweat, clinging to his skin and outlining smooth, defined muscles.
Eight thirty.
A pile of missed calls.
Lu Xiao ignored them outright. Just as he was about to turn off the screen, the poor signal at the mountaintop suddenly seemed to connect, sluggishly pushing out a trending news item.
Keyword: Meng Xuehuan.
He immediately moved around, chasing better signal strength, read the news from start to finish, and frowned deeply.
What kind of useless agent was this—to mess up even this much. Lu Xiao closed his eyes briefly. His wife must have felt terribly wronged. Without thinking, he opened Weibo and posted a short message.
The signal was awful. That single line of text took a full minute before it finally posted.
Eldest Brother Lu waited a bit and said patiently, “What, are we waiting for the ancestors to manifest before we leave?”
Lu Xiao: “Get lost.”
The two brothers wisely shut up—no one wanted to start a fight at the ancestral grave, come as three and go back as one, like a suspense drama.
Lu Lou and Lu Yushu could be considered kings of the gym, but against someone like Lu Xiao—who had grown up wild like a special forces soldier—they had no chance. Same upbringing, yet he was as if he’d spent ten years crawling and fighting through the Amazon jungle.
Sunlight pierced through the clouds, spilling golden light over everything.
Lu Lou raised a hand to shield his eyes and looked toward a neighboring solitary peak. Mountain flowers were in full bloom, a riot of colors. He squinted. “Last year I suggested buying that peak to build a helipad, then putting a skybridge across…”
Lu Yushu said, “The secretary went to negotiate. They won’t sell.”
“All right then.” Lu Lou sounded a little regretful. If they didn’t want to ruin the ancestral grave’s feng shui, borrowing a neighboring mountain for a helipad would’ve been the fastest solution.
Looks like next year they’d still have to rely on Lu Xiao to do the hard work.
Even if he was unruly and squandered his talents, he was still the backbone of the Lu family.
Lu Xiao was just about to stride off when another message came in.
Meng Xuehuan’s agent said that by sheer coincidence, their two statements had collided, and netizens had mistaken it for a public relationship announcement. They should discuss how to handle it.
Lu Xiao stared fixedly at the message. His heart skipped, a thought flashing through his mind that made his pulse race.
Suddenly, his agent’s call popped up on the screen.
His gaze darkened. He swiftly tossed the phone into the deep stone cauldron used for burning joss paper. With several loud clanks, the phone bounced around inside the square vessel, shattering to pieces.
Eldest Brother Lu: ?
Lu Xiao said lightly, “The ancestors manifested. I burned them a phone.”
Second Brother Lu: ?
Lu Xiao: “Let’s head down.”
Lu Lou and Lu Yushu exchanged a look and shrugged. Their good-for-nothing little brother was just like this. There wasn’t any business secret on that phone anyway. Calls—answer them or not. Phones—throw them away if you want.
After walking a bit downhill, a helicopter appeared in the distance, descending as it approached, its engine roaring like thunder.
Eldest Brother Lu took the helicopter, racing back to the Nancheng financial center for a meeting. Second Brother Lu got into an off-road vehicle, picked up the unfinished legal contract in the back seat.
Third Young Master Lu swung his long leg over a motorcycle and took a shortcut.
Not using the same mode of transport—first, because their relationship wasn’t that close; second, out of habit, to avoid total annihilation if something went wrong.
Mountain weather was fickle. A gust of wind and rain swept through, mist rising from the green hills, draping the land in a veil of mystery.
……
Meng Xuehuan hugged a cushion to his chest. The cushion was satin, embroidered with a lavish, brilliant peony. His fair, slender wrist rested atop the flower—both sights of a beauty that dominated spring year after year.
He sat upright. “Still not answering?”
“It’s off,” Lin Mu said awkwardly, lowering his phone. Getting through to Lu Xiao was always difficult. He switched to contacting Lu Xiao’s agent; as expected, the other agent said they could only wait until they reached Lu Xiao.
PR had a golden window—miss it, like oversleeping in the morning, and silence would be taken as tacit admission.
“How about we explain things on our side first?”
Meng Xuehuan lowered his eyes slightly. “Too much explaining just annoys people. Let’s stop here.”
After all, everything was just netizens’ speculation. Once enough time passed and the heat died down, and he and Lu Xiao had no interactions, people would gradually forget.
“Help me find a new apartment as soon as possible,” Meng Xuehuan said. He didn’t like being hemmed in, unable to go out. It was spring, flowers blooming everywhere—he wanted to go to the park and breathe some fresh air.
Lin Mu said, “You’ve earned quite a lot these past two years. You’re usually frugal, don’t invest—why not just buy a place?”
Most people, once they had money, wanted to buy property and settle down. Meng Xuehuan had never had that thought.
Meng Xuehuan said, “Oh. I’ve already spent all the money.”
Lin Mu: “…What?”
How did he spend it?! Acting fees, endorsement fees, commercial appearance fees—that was tens of millions in liquid assets. How could it all disappear without a sound?
Lin Mu looked around the apartment. The sofa, coffee table, fridge—all were the landlord’s original furnishings. Meng Xuehuan had lived here for a year and a half without adding anything. Where had the money gone?!
A truly terrifying thought crept into his mind. Apart from work engagements, Meng Xuehuan spent almost every night cooped up at home. What did he use to pass the time?
Lin Mu’s scalp went numb. “Xuehuan, you didn’t lose it all to online gambling, did you? Stop immediately. If cyber police dig that up, you won’t survive in the entertainment industry.”
“Just got word—because the social impact of an entire film crew being caught buying sex was so egregious, the industry association is taking the lead on a ‘Reform Program.’ It’s specifically for artists with moral blemishes that don’t quite warrant a full ban—things like infidelity or sleeping with fans. No matter how big your status is, you have to do a month of manual labor and reflect deeply. Supposedly, men might get sent to raise pigs; if you’re there because of cheating, you also have to castrate pigs.”
As soon as the news broke, the entertainment industry trembled. A sizable portion of artists came from privileged backgrounds and rose quickly thanks to backing and resources. Making them do hard labor—some would probably just quit the industry outright.
Lin Mu said earnestly, “You really have to cherish your reputation.”
Meng Xuehuan replied, “No. I spent it on building houses back in my hometown.”
Lin Mu: “Building houses, or building a palace?”
Land in Meng Xuehuan’s hometown wasn’t expensive; most of the cost was construction. How big would a house have to be to cost over a hundred million?
Meng Xuehuan answered vaguely, “I built quite a few units. If you’ve got things to do, go ahead—no need to stay here with me.”
Lin Mu: “Alright. I’ll go stake out Lu Xiao’s studio. You stay put and don’t go online.”
Meng Xuehuan: “Okay.”
Lin Mu had just left when someone knocked on the door.
Meng Xuehuan glanced through the peephole. Two handsome young men stood outside, each holding a bouquet of flowers—fresh and dewy, as if they’d just been picked from a field.
“Please, come in.”
The two young men entered and presented the flowers to Meng Xuehuan. This wasn’t fans excitedly offering flowers to an idol; their expressions were calm, as though following a set procedure.
Meng Xuehuan took the flowers, lowered his head to smell them, pressed his lips together slightly, and said, “No work today?”
One was named Lin Xilan, the other Bai He. Both had extremely demanding jobs—on call 24/7 whenever their boss needed them.
They answered in unison, “Yeah. The boss went to sweep graves.”
Lin Xilan set two jars on the table and said, “This is freshly harvested royal jelly from home. Remember to eat it.”
Meng Xuehuan made two cups of honey water for them, then scooped himself a spoonful of fresh royal jelly. The taste was strange, but he swallowed it without changing expression.
Worker bees eat honey; the queen eats royal jelly. Such has been the way since ancient times.
Yes—more precisely, Lin Xilan and Bai He were both Meng Xuehuan’s underlings, carrying the bloodline of the queen bee.
Thousands of years ago, a plague swept across the land. The spirits and monsters that cultivated themselves by absorbing the essence of the sun and moon sacrificed themselves, dispersing into countless specks of spiritual energy to nourish the earth and drive away the darkness.
From then on, there were no more spirits or monsters in the world.
Spiritual energy fell upon the land, making it fertile; it fell upon villages, upon people’s heads—and those people gained the spiritual essence of the spirits.
They were not spirits themselves, but they inherited their traits and excelled at what the spirits once did best.
For example, those who received the Flower Deity’s essence were beautiful as blossoms; those who received the essence of vine spirits had agile bodies and were skilled at climbing.
They hid among the populace and lived normal lives. As generations passed, the spiritual energy in their bloodlines gradually dispersed to nourish the land. By modern times, they were no different from ordinary people.
Meng Xuehuan’s family was one such small settlement that had received the essence of the Bee Deity. Because of bees’ unique social structure, they lived communally, worked collectively, raised bees and farmed, and shared the fruits of their labor. They were an inseparable whole, so their spiritual essence dissipated slowly and still influenced them to this day.
However, times had changed. Beekeeping and farming didn’t make much money, and bad weather often led to losses year after year.
The clanspeople were all quite poor.
In some particularly bad years, farming losses were disastrous. The entire clan scrimped and saved to pool money so those who could study could do so, providing them with generous living expenses.
Meng Xuehuan was the new generation’s queen bee. Becoming the new ruler and expanding the clan’s wealth was his responsibility.
In a hive, the king is the queen.
If the family were a hive, then aside from Meng Xuehuan as the queen, nearly all the other young people were worker bees—followers who would die for their queen.
Traditional labor was too slow to make money, so he took several highly educated worker-bee youths to earn money in the city.
Meng Xuehuan made the fastest and most money in the entertainment industry.
Lin Xilan and Bai He worked as secretaries at Fortune 500 companies. With the worker bee’s natural aptitude for being top-tier employees, they were highly valued and earned decent salaries.
There were also worker bees in other industries. In short, they had worked diligently for nearly three years and accumulated a substantial sum—mostly earned by Meng Xuehuan.
Meng Xuehuan decided that before winter arrived this year, he would rebuild a batch of houses for the clan.
If a three-and-a-half-story self-built villa cost about two million per unit, then one hundred million could only build fifty houses. They had two hundred clanspeople, so the project had to be divided into four phases, completed in batches.
If they couldn’t finish it, then not everyone could get one house each—and that would make Meng Xuehuan a little sad.
Lin Xilan handed over several bank cards and said, with his excellent math skills, “These are everyone else’s salary cards. I’ve tallied it up—together with your assets, the total is 92,133,245 yuan.”
“This is the project budget,” Bai He said, opening a proposal book for Meng Xuehuan to review. Inside were villa design drawings—perfect hexagons, one next to another, a paradise for the obsessively neat.
Both were executive assistants to Fortune 500 CEOs; handling a small project like this was effortless.
Meng Xuehuan trusted them greatly. He skimmed it briefly and said, “That works.”
First achieve a small goal—there were three more small goals to go.
Making money wasn’t easy; the queen bee still had to work hard.
With the project details settled, the serious business was done.
Lin Xilan asked with concern, “Has this morning’s incident been resolved?”
Meng Xuehuan: “It’s resolved. Nothing serious.”
Bai He adjusted his glasses and conveyed the clan’s regards. “Actually, four people living in one house would be perfectly fine. Everyone thinks you’re working too hard. You can slow down on making money—we hope you enjoy life and maybe fall in love.”
When a new queen emerges from the royal cell, the first thing she does is fly out to seek drones to mate with. One successful mating allows her to lay eggs for life. This is a major event for the entire hive.
This process is called the nuptial flight.
Before the nuptial flight succeeds, the queen can only be called a virgin queen.
Meng Xuehuan’s foray into the entertainment industry could also be seen as a nuptial flight.
Meng Xuehuan lowered his head and took a sip of royal jelly. His face was cool, but the tips of his ears were faintly warm.
Ah—this again.
It was his own fault. Two years ago he’d let something slip, thinking his nuptial flight was about to succeed.
Meng Xuehuan felt a little awkward. Every time the worker bees saw him, they brought flowers.
Worker bees build pollen chambers in hopes that the queen will produce offspring.
In other words, when the clanspeople brought him pollen, they were hoping he’d find a partner.
For three years now, Meng Xuehuan had been receiving bouquets made of clustered pollen.
Lin Xilan and Bai He exchanged a glance. Their king—after three years of nuptial flight—was still a virgin queen.
Where, exactly, had things gone wrong?
In truth, they weren’t deliberately pushing marriage or childbirth. After all, at their core they were still highly educated humans. It was simply a habit embedded in their bloodline—whenever convenient, they would present flowers to the queen, just going through the motions.
All three of them wore blank expressions.
Lin Xilan said, “The trending searches say you and Lu Xiao…”
Meng Xuehuan replied, “Just a misunderstanding.”
Meng Xuehuan sighed. I really am past the age of selling a ‘single’ persona.
For someone like him, who had gone out on a nuptial flight and still remained a virgin queen after three years, this was rare in the entire clan’s history—no, unprecedented.
What should he do about it?
The very next second, his manager called. “The producer of Little Mountain God asked you to dinner tonight.”
Meng Xuehuan straightened. “To talk about compensation?”
“No,” Lin Mu said. “The producer wants to try salvaging it—reorganize the team and bring Lu Xiao in as another male lead.”
