Chapter 75: Transmigrated as a Stingy Phoenix Man (75)
Lying on the bed, Yu Xinyu could still feel Cen Yu’s presence beside him.
The man was only about a fist’s distance away. Noticing Cen Yu holding his phone, he felt a bit curious, yet he didn’t dare peek, opting instead to stare at Cen Yu with wide, eager eyes.
At this moment, Cen Yu was instructing the System to steal that set of photos for him and post them across all the online groups and forums.
In an instant, news regarding Cen Yu exploded online once again.
Having finished posting all the photos, Cen Yu noticed Yu Xinyu staring at him. He turned off his phone screen, set it aside, and said, “Go to sleep.”
With that, he switched off the bedroom light.
Once the light vanished, Yu Xinyu could naturally hear Cen Yu’s steady breathing beside him, as well as the scent of the exact same body wash he used.
Excitement surged through him, making it hard to fall asleep. Had he not been terrified of disturbing Cen Yu, he would have tossed and turned, rolling across the bed in sheer joy. He had already mapped out his plans: after this whole incident, Cen Yu surely wouldn’t want to stay here anymore either.
Rather than stepping outside to be pointed and stared at by strangers, it was far better to move to an unfamiliar place and start fresh.
Lost in his vivid daydream, he drifted into sleep before he knew it. In his dream, he and Cen Yu were inside that white two-story house he had bought.
Cen Yu sat by the window, gazing outside.
And he was quietly painting him…
It was only after confirming that Yu Xinyu was sound asleep that Cen Yu climbed out of bed.
With the System’s help, Yu Xinyu was sleeping deeply and wouldn’t wake up until the next morning.
Rummaging through the wardrobe, Cen Yu picked a random set of clothes to change into, grabbed his phone, and prepared to leave… Yet right before stepping out, his eyes fell upon the canvas leaning in a corner of the room, covered with a black cloth.
“Just a quick look,” he told himself.
Holding his phone in one hand for light, he pulled back the black cloth with the other.
Pictured on the canvas was himself, wrapped tightly in thorny vines as if trapped by them. Yet within the wounds sliced open by the thorns grew brand-new feathers.
It was as if, deep down in Yu Xinyu’s heart, he saw himself as the thorns trapping Cen Yu, while Cen Yu was the wild bird he could never keep caged.
Holding up the black cloth, Cen Yu stared at the painting for a moment, then turned his gaze back to Yu Xinyu, whose head was buried deep in his pillow, fast asleep.
“Idiot,” he murmured.
Covering the painting back up, he opened the bedroom door.
Perhaps sensing that Cen Yu was leaving even in his sleep, Yu Xinyu kept endlessly muttering his name in his dream—
“Little Yu…”
Without a trace of lingering attachment, Cen Yu closed the bedroom door behind him.
The sky outside was still pitch black. Cen Yu found paper and a pen in his own room. He had originally thought he would have a lot to say; he figured if it were the original Cen Yu, he would probably break down completely and curse Yu Xinyu for being a lunatic.
Why destroy his future?
Everything had just begun to turn around for him, yet now the name Cen Yu was utterly ruined.
If this were before, back when he hadn’t joined the variety show, hardly anyone would remember who Cen Yu was. With so many people gaining fame online every single day, who would remember a nobody like Cen Yu?
But after joining the variety show, everything changed.
That was precisely why Yu Xinyu had allowed Cen Yu to join the show in the first place—he wanted Cen Yu to become utterly notorious the very moment he gained fame. Yet Yu Xinyu was so ruthless, yet at the same time so soft on him, that he couldn’t bring himself to release the home security footage.
Since he couldn’t bring himself to do it, Cen Yu did it for him.
However, because he wasn’t the original Cen Yu, he didn’t harbor that much hatred toward Yu Xinyu.
Hesitating for a moment, he wrote down a very brief note for Yu Xinyu, then opened the front door and walked out of the apartment.
7:00 AM, at an unfinished, abandoned building.
Not a soul in sight, and the weather was lovely.
Cen Yu stood contentedly at the edge of the abandoned building, looking down at the empty ground below. “This place is pretty good. Definitely won’t hit anyone.”
Who knew Little Red Book’s recommendations could be this reliable!
The fat cat burrowed out, looking somewhat anxious. [Host, have you really made up your mind? The moment you jump, this world will end, and after a brief transfer station, you’ll enter the next world.]
“If I hadn’t made up my mind, could you scoop me back up?” Cen Yu asked.
[…I could give you a push,] the fat cat revealed its true motive. [Anyway, you have to jump! If you don’t jump, I can’t complete my performance targets!]
“You sure know how to act,” Cen Yu said, speechless. “I thought you were going to persuade me not to jump.”
The fat cat licked its paw. [I can help block your pain perception.]
Cen Yu glanced at the progress bar. The task progress had reached 99%, likely because the other key characters’ hatred toward Yu Xinyu had deepened a bit further after seeing the photos online.
Sorry about that, Cen Yu thought to himself.
And the moment he noticed his switched-on phone suddenly vibrating wildly with endless incoming calls, he leaned backward with practiced ease.
Goodbye to this world.
The moment Yu Xinyu woke up and found Cen Yu gone, a sudden wave of panic seized his chest.
Without even taking the time to put on shoes, he threw open the bedroom door and rushed out. When his eyes caught the note Cen Yu had left for him on the dining table, he suffered a total breakdown!
He couldn’t accept this!
He couldn’t accept an outcome where he might lose Cen Yu forever. Without even putting on shoes, he sprinted straight outside barefoot.
Clutched tightly in his hand was the note. It wasn’t until he sprinted downstairs that he stood looking around in complete, utter disorientation.
He had no idea where Cen Yu would go, nor where he even could go.
He wanted to take a cab to the airport, but then remembered Cen Yu didn’t have a hometown to return to, nor did he have any place he could go… Where else could Cen Yu possibly be?
It was exactly 7:00 AM.
It was Tuesday morning rush hour, and Yu Xinyu stood barefoot at the foot of the apartment building, surrounded by crowds of people rushing off to work.
Someone stole a curious glance at him, only to be frightened half to death by his appearance.
No one expected a human face could be twisted into something so horrifying, like a vengeful demon.
Yu Xinyu frantically dialed Cen Yu’s number over and over, desperate to know where he was…
Right at that moment, a sudden gasp erupted among the commuters nearby—
“Holy crap?!”
“Someone jumped off a building?!”
Yu Xinyu looked over blankly. Seeing a man staring down at his phone, he charged forward and snatched the phone straight out of the man’s hands, his eyes catching the messages inside a chat group.
The message in the group was brutally simple:
[Someone jumped off the abandoned building over there.]
Attached below was a brief video capturing a silhouette falling from the high-rise.
Yu Xinyu clutched the phone, his expression completely blank as a deafening roar rang through his head. In that split second, he felt his entire world spinning out of control.
The man was cursing him furiously for being a lunatic, but Yu Xinyu simply gripped the stranger’s phone tightly.
Staring at the familiar silhouette in the video, he recognized that shirt—it was the exact shirt he had ruined the very first time he washed Cen Yu’s clothes.
He squeezed the phone so hard he wished he could crush it to pieces.
“Haha…”
Yu Xinyu let out a laugh.
He gripped the note Cen Yu had left him, which had already been crumpled almost to shreds in his fist.
The note Cen Yu left for him was excessively brief, its message short to a fault—
Bye-bye.
No love, no hate, just like that time they parted ways by the sea.
He had simply offered a nonchalant “Bye-bye,” as if there were still a chance for them to meet again in the future.
