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Breakfast is simple yet nutritious: a sunny-side-up egg cooked to golden perfection, sausages radiating an intense aroma, toast with jam arranged in the shape of a heart, and a cup of milk sweetened with a tad too much sugar, almost cloyingly so.
After sharing a warm breakfast, the clock points to eight. Qi Baicha has to clock in at work by 8:30, while Fu Mingye needs to be at his company by 9:00—although, being the CEO, no one really bothers if he shows up or not.
Given the proximity of home to school and the distance to the office, they usually leave the house at about the same time.
"Would you like me to drive you?" Fu Mingye, now donning his formal attire, exudes the aura of a business elite. His appearance isn't conventionally Western-handsome but epitomizes a kind of oriental nobility: slightly upturned lips and slightly narrowed phoenix eyes that give him an intimidating presence.
However, that intimidating presence only works on others; at home, he is usually the one being intimidated.
"Our paths diverge," Qi Baicha says, finishing his milk and setting down the cup. He wipes his lips with a napkin.
The school is to the south and the company to the north, so they each take their own cars.
Besides, any of the luxury cars Fu Mingye drives would cause a stir if they showed up at the school gate.
This goes against Qi Baicha's principle of keeping a low profile.
Picking up his bag, he heads for the door: "I'm off to school. See you tonight."
"Ahem, ah," Fu Mingye coughs, as if trying to remind him of something.
The hand Qi Baicha had on the doorknob hesitates, then he turns around and walks back to Fu Mingye, leaving a kiss on his lips.
"Good morning."
This has become their daily ritual.
Fu Mingye, pleased with his morning kiss, lets him go: "See you later."
Watching Qi Baicha drive away, Fu Mingye also steps into his Porsche, turns the key, and heads toward his company.
In the garage are rows of expensive luxury cars; he could drive a different one each day for a month and never repeat. Which one he chooses depends on his mood.
Truly, it's all about the mood.
When he's happy, it's the maize-yellow Ferrari; when he's angry, the fiery-red Maserati; when he's relaxed, the sky-blue Lamborghini; when he's calm, the ivory-white Rolls-Royce; when he's irritated, the silver-grey Porsche; when he's sad, the jet-black Mercedes. The ways of the wealthy are indeed grand.
In truth, the Dark Lord himself isn't as ostentatious; all these cars were left behind by the original Fu Mingye.
Yes, the real Fu Mingye is someone else entirely. The Dark Lord doesn't even go by that name.
As a deeply introverted god who had been holed up in his temple for millennia, the Dark Lord arrived in the human realm penniless. He descended quietly onto an utterly nondescript street. The first glimpse he had of the human world was of Qi Baicha helping an elderly woman cross the road.
The young man's soul radiated an unparalleled purity.
The Dark Lord was smitten with this human at first sight.
Initially, it was mere curiosity. But after observing the young man in secret for a while, he confirmed that he was truly a virtuous and pure-hearted individual.
The young man was a gentle and responsible teacher who lived in a quiet residential building, maintaining harmonious relationships with his neighbors upstairs and downstairs. He helped the old man upstairs carry things, assisted pedestrians in catching thieves, fed stray cats on rainy days, and helped them find loving homes to be adopted into…
A Dark Lord, long accustomed to being ensnared by dark thoughts, found himself moved by a glimmer of pure kindness.
His affection for the young man grew, and he became dissatisfied with merely watching from the shadows. He yearned to openly approach him.
According to human customs, if you like someone, you should pursue them—court them to the fullest extent, propose, and then spend a lifetime together.
As a god who had been single for millennia, the Dark Lord wasn't well-versed in this concept. Though he had heard countless prayers tinged with all kinds of human emotions, he himself had never experienced them. But since this human custom existed and the object of his affection was mortal, he decided to proceed accordingly.
However, humans say that courtship requires capital: owning a house, a car, and money are all factors people consider when contemplating marriage.
The Dark Lord had arrived in the human realm with nothing.
It was also inconceivable for him to start from scratch; gods don't moonlight as entrepreneurs.
This wasn't an issue. He could hear countless prayers each day, and anything could be exchanged in response to these prayers.
Among those prayers was one from the original Fu Mingye.
The mortal Fu Mingye, a 32-year-old "phoenix man," was a young and successful entrepreneur—except that he was terminally ill.
On his deathbed, wracked by pain, he made a wish: to exchange all his wealth and status for a healthy body.
The Dark Lord heard this prayer.
The wish itself was quite ordinary and didn't fall within the scope of dark thoughts. It was a mystery how it even reached the Dark Lord, who subsequently checked the man's life story to understand why.
As it turned out, this man started as a poor youth. While he was skillful and cunning, he didn't use his talents ethically. He amassed his fortune through marriage, arranged for a car accident that killed his in-laws, cheated on his wife until she died of distress, and then embezzled her family's assets, finally becoming the illustrious CEO Fu Mingye.
However, what goes around comes around; karma is unforgiving. By the age of 32, he had developed cancer and was on his deathbed.
Cold-hearted and malevolent to the core, his thoughts naturally gravitated toward darkness, explaining why the Dark Lord could hear his wish.
The Dark Lord discerned the man's greedy nature. He would do anything for wealth and status. Stricken with pain, he was willing to exchange these worldly possessions, but becoming an ordinary person with nothing to his name would undoubtedly plunge him into greater agony.
But that was of no concern to the Dark Lord.
The Dark Lord needed a respectable human identity, so he granted this wish.
Thus, the memories of the world were altered.
People no longer remembered a 32-year-old phoenix man who had lost his wife. They only knew of a 24-year-old Fu Mingye, who built his empire from scratch and was without blemish.
The age was set at 24 because that was the age Qi Baicha publicly claimed to be; the Dark Lord wanted to be the same age as the man he was enamored with.
As for the real Fu Mingye, his health miraculously improved. Elated by his newfound good fortune, his life plunged into a new abyss when he discovered he couldn't afford the medical bills.
The Dark Lord had altered everyone's memory but spared his alone.
He became a non-entity, unremembered by anyone. When he barged into a police station claiming to be the real Fu Mingye, he was dismissed as insane. He returned home only to be chased off by his own security guards. When he tried to validate his identity through old TV footage and newspapers, he found that his face had been replaced by another, more handsome, young man.
Who was that?
This man had taken over his identity.
He vaguely recalled his deathbed wish—to exchange all his wealth and status for a healthy body.
A god had heard his prayer.
He had gained health but lost everything else—identity, fortune, reputation, and social standing.
No, he couldn't accept this! The stark contrast between his former opulence and his newfound poverty was unbearable!
So he prayed again: "Oh God, grant me boundless wealth! I am willing to trade ten years of my life for it!"
However, the Dark Lord, who had taken over as Fu Mingye, paid him no heed this time.
Sitting in the office of Fu Corporation, the god skimmed over the desperate prayer for money in exchange for life and chuckled sarcastically, "Humans."
"So insatiable."
When the Dark Lord took over Fu Corporation, it was not as wealthy as it is now. At the time, another richer but ill CEO also prayed to exchange his wealth and status for health. Unfortunately, the Dark Lord did not favor him.
That was because the man had an unfortunate name, Wang Dafu; the Dark Lord had no intention of adopting such a name to approach the one he loved.
Eventually, Wang Dafu passed away from his illness. Once Fu Mingye took over the company's affairs, he swiftly absorbed Wang Corporation, transforming Fu Corporation from wealthy to exceedingly wealthy.
Then, he felt he had gathered enough confidence to pursue the young man he was fond of.
On a sunny afternoon, Fu Mingye drove a maize-yellow Ferrari and blocked Qi Baicha's way home from work.
Lowering his car window slowly, he revealed his divine countenance, extended a large bouquet of roses towards Qi Baicha and asked, "Sir, may I court you?"
This was the method the Dark Lord had settled on after exhaustive research on online dating advice. He had spent a great deal of time meticulously planning this.
The internet said that no one could resist a bouquet of roses, and if they did, just add a Ferrari.
This was, of course, a facetious quip with little substance, leaning on materialism. Most people couldn't afford a Ferrari, so it wasn't a highly feasible plan.
But Fu Mingye believed it because he knew he could pull it off.
Qi Baicha looked at him silently for three seconds, then effortlessly opened the car door and sat in the passenger seat: "What are we waiting for then? Shall we go? Are we going to have a dinner date, boyfriend?"
Fu Mingye: "..."
He sat there, dumbfounded. Was this approach really this effective?
Given how aloof and distant the young man appeared, Fu Mingye had prepared for the long game.
He hadn't expected it to be this easy.
It was almost dreamlike.
He didn't think the young man was materialistic; there was no trace of greed in his aura, and his eyes remained as clear as ever.
In truth, Qi Baicha didn't lack money. Despite his seemingly modest life, he possessed a vast fortune, accumulated over centuries in the mortal realm—a fortune greater than Fu Mingye's. He was merely weary of opulence and sought a different way of living.
His first batch of students was about to graduate and go their separate ways, leaving Qi Baicha somewhat melancholy.
He had long grown accustomed to farewells. Over countless years as a deity, he had known myriad separations: casual acquaintances, lifelong friendships, and everything in between. Those once-close friends now lay in forgotten graves; the scribes who chronicled his imperial reign were themselves a part of history; ancient battlefields had been buried by sands; magnificent palaces were replaced by towering skyscrapers...
The world was fleeting to him; he was but a transient visitor.
True loneliness only began when all the other gods either perished or fell into slumber.
He, too, felt weary and considered retreating into the snowy mountains for an eternal dream.
Having lived for so long, he felt he had experienced nearly everything—except for mortal love.
He wanted to try this last experience before his slumber. Modern human relationships were more flexible than the predestined marriages of ancient times. People had multiple relationships; they married and divorced easily, free from lifelong commitments.
Gods didn't concern themselves with sexual orientation; love knew no gender. Qi Baicha wanted a fleeting romance with someone experienced yet frivolous in love, someone who could easily fall in and out of love without leaving emotional scars.
So when an unfamiliar, handsome man stopped before him in a Ferrari, casually handed him a bouquet of roses, and asked to court him, Qi Baicha thought:
Sufficiently flippant, sufficiently casual; he'll do.
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