novelGetting Rid of that Bigshot (5)
| ← Ch.030 | Ch.032 → |
Chapter 28 - Getting Rid of that Bigshot (5) translator: baumkuchen editors: serefina, glitterypanda
The secretary's head was about to explode, "There needs to be some last minute adjustments made to next Monday's conference......"
Zhou Kai was furious, "When did this happen?"
Not waiting for the secretary's response, he then said, "Wait for me to come back, then we'll talk!" After saying that, he hung up.
Off to the side, Sam heard the entire conversation, but his head was full of thoughts on the mysterious emails he had received a few days ago that he suspected were from Mister Shen.
"...... I'll give you an opportunity. Hope you can grasp it."
Was this the so-called opportunity?
Sam found this beyond belief, but everything that had happened in the past few days made a glimmer of hope surface in his heart.
After rushing back to the company and hearing about everything that had happened, Zhou Kai thundered furiously, "How is that possible? When did you inform me?"
The secretary scowled miserably, "At around 10am. It was you who personally arranged for me to handle all the necessary arrangements to hold the meeting."
Zhou Kai refused to believe it, "Why don't I remember?"
The secretary said, "Without your instructions, how would I dare go above my station and arrange the meeting?"
Zhou Kai still couldn't believe it.
There was nothing the secretary could do. He called over the assistant who had initially informed him that there would be a change in the conference.
The assistant was a young black man. After entering, he gave a courteous bow, showed him the record of his conversation with the secretary, and expressed that he had the habit of recording his phone conversations. If Mister Zhou needed it, he could provide it right away.
Seeing that the visitor was a black man, inwardly, Zhou Kai didn't feel very comfortable.
He didn't like black people. In his opinion, these people were extremely difficult to serve and were both dirty and ugly. However, on the surface, he had to maintain his manners and poise. After all, this was the politically correct custom amongst white men.
He didn't need to hear the recording. He forced himself to nod his head. The assistant made another bow, then left.
His secretary, Frank, had been with him for so many years. It was impossible for him to have privately acted on his own on such a big matter. Adding in all the circumstantial evidence, the ironclad facts were right before him. Zhou Kai couldn't deny it anymore.
Zhou Kai's expression was extremely ugly.
With this kind of gaffe, he would have to give everyone an explanation.
But what could he say? Sorry guys, when you all were waiting for me, I was off golfing?
He argued, "I don't have any impression of this supposed meeting."
Sam, who had been silent the whole time, spoke up, "But you can't explain it like that."
Zhou Kai looked towards him.
Sam said, "My opinion is that this incident isn't a big one, and you didn't waste too much of their time either. As long as you say that your body suddenly felt unwell, so you went to the hospital to have a check-up, and you'll be having the meeting tonight instead, there shouldn't be any more problems."
Zhou Kai thought that his method was feasible. He turned to the secretary and said, "Explain it that way then."
The secretary took his orders and left.
That night, the meeting lasted till 9 before ending.
Zhou Kai was exhausted, but he didn't want to show his fatigue and drove home by himself. When he got home, he didn't even change his clothes before going to see Shen Changqing first.
Shen Changqing laid in bed, already asleep.
Zhou Kai was in a very bad mood today. Seeing Shen Changqing sleeping soundly, he felt even more upset and hot-tempered.
...... How dare he go to sleep before he even came back?
Don't tell him that he was depending on being injured and thought that he wouldn't dare teach him a lesson?
With a sneer, Zhou Kai raised his hand and ferociously swung it towards the sleeping Shen Changqing.
In his eyes, he could already see Shen Changqing's head being slapped to one side as he was suddenly shocked awake, and begging for mercy as he retreated.
But his wrist was suddenly grasped tightly by a hand.
Zhou Kai's eyes widened.
&#k2026;&#k2026;Shen Changqing woke up? Or was he pretending to sleep?
But he clearly saw that both of Shen Changqing's hands were nicely placed in the blankets&#k2026;&#k2026;
Before he could figure it out, a strong gust of wind blew onto his face, dealing a heavy blow to the right side.
He even heard a muffled crack from his cheekbone.
Zhou Kai often regarded others as sandbags, but this was his first time playing the role of a sandbag in his entire life. He was instantly slapped silly.
He lost consciousness and fell backwards, but before he reached the ground, a force seized him by the wrist.
A young man in a white shirt and black pants half-squatted on the ground, protecting Zhou Kai's head and slowly lowering him to the ground before turning his head to look at Chi Xiaochi on the bed.
His breathing was even and he didn't seem to have been awakened by the sound of the beating just now.
061 let out a sigh of relief.
...... It had been really difficult to coax him to sleep early today.
He quietly carried the unconscious Zhou Kai outside, returning him to the car, and then fixed up the scene slightly.
061 thought for a moment. He took the initiative to use Zhou Kai's goodwill points and cashed in on a card, eliminating the last ten minutes of Zhou Kai's memory from when he opened the door.
At one point during the busy process, 061 had thought, if it was the past him who met this kind of circumstances, how would he have dealt with it?
Actually, such questions had been troubling him for a very long time now. Especially after getting reformatted.
After being wiped of his memory, he lay in his room for a very long time, during which many people came to visit him. The first one who came was a white-haired youth and a rather good-looking young man with a mole in the corner of his eye.
They introduced themselves. The white-haired youth was serial number 023, and the youth with a mole was 089.
023 was in charge of managing data transmissions and downloads from every world, while 089 was the random assignment system, specifically, he was in charge of randomly pairing systems and new hosts and randomly assigning hosts to worlds.
To put it simply, one was a webmaster, and one was a lottery.
089 asked, "Do you still recognise us?"
061 shook his head, a little apologetic.
089 wiped at his tears, "What do we do, this child, fuck, this child doesn't even know his father anymore."
As soon as his words fell, he was kicked out by 061.
061 thought for a moment, then said, "We're probably friends."
023 said, "Acquaintances."
089 said, "Father and son."
Then 089 was clocked in the head by 023.
But the funny thing was, 023 was shorter than 089 by more than a head, so in order to hit him, he had to jump. It could be said to have no loftiness whatsoever.
061 felt like this slapstick atmosphere was rather familiar, but there was still something else bothering him.
He said, "I seem to have forgotten a lot of important things....... I seem to have been rushing to meet someone."
The moment he mentioned this, 023's expression turned ugly, "Don't think about it. Don't go to see him again, it was exactly because of that that this time......"
But at that moment, 089 grabbed 023's hand and shook it, signalling him not to say anything more.
089 said, "Something like this, fate, can be discovered but not sought. You having forgotten the past now, is also a kind of fate."
023 gave him a disdainful look.
089 then said, "If it's not fated, it's no use no matter how you beg; but you have your father to help you keep an eye on it. If your fate arrives, even if I have to drag him, I'll drag him over to your side."
061 didn't know what he was saying, just knew he meant well and so, politely thanked him.
Reformatting, to systems, was a catastrophic punishment. 061 could only look through the data, re-familiarise himself with the task flow, and reacquaint himself with all the other systems.
From their attitudes towards him, 061 could see that the him from before seemed to have been polite and gentle to everyone, willing to listen to the other systems' bitter complaints, and hence was rather popular.
Later on, after getting acquainted with them again, 061 learned more things about himself.
A workaholic who wouldn't take a single vacation in ten thousand years, his heart set on finishing his 200 tasks and returning home.
Liked researching all kinds of food, very good at cooking. When they had communal meals he was often the chef, but he himself didn't like eating that much, preferring to watch others eat.
Couldn't make any kind of wisecrack.
Ate ice cream but not the cones.
Rarely expressed his negative emotions, treated people in an amiable and gentlemanly manner, and "please" and "thank you" often left his mouth.
Generally speaking, 061 was a good person but not an interesting one.
Anyway, it wasn't like how he was now. After beating a person unconscious, he was taking advantage of the dark and windy night to fix up the crime scene. Not only did he not feel any guilt, he even felt rather excited.
061 thought, if he'd already become like this after being with Chi Xiaochi for one and a half worlds, how bad would he get in the future?
But when he returned to the room and saw Chi Xiaochi sleeping soundly, 061's heart settled down.
Previously, he was always trying to be that 061 in everyone's minds, but maybe his current mental state was the one that had belonged to the real 061, before he was reformatted.
As 061 looked at the person who was unconscious and unknowing on the bed, he thought, thankfully you came.
This was probably that fate 089 had talked about.
He didn't know how to express his thanks. He just sat by the side of the bed, accompanying him, searching online for books he could read to Chi Xiaochi, only re-entering his mindscape at the break of dawn.
Chi Xiaochi woke up early. After he woke up, 061 told him about last night's events.
At the end, he said, "I used up 8 goodwill points without asking you first, I'm sorry."
Chi XIaochi said, "What are you sorry for? You helped me defend myself, that's the way it should be."
061, "......" The words he was saying were nice, but why were they so uncomfortable to listen to?
Knowing that Zhou Kai was still outside feeding the mosquitoes, Chi Xiaochi, in a good mood, picked up a book and started reading.
061 couldn't help but ask, "Not going out to take a look?"
Chi Xiaochi said, "It's not yet the time for Zhou Kai to get up."
061, "Then sleep a little longer?"
Chi Xiaochi looked at his watch, then gave an irrelevant answer, "Yi Song is getting up soon."
Sure enough, ten minutes later, a faint cry of panic sounded from outside.
When Zhou Kai woke up from being shaken by Yi Song, his first thought was that he had a splitting headache.
Looking around blankly, he found that the car window was open and his right cheek was pressed against the glass, red and green bruises all swollen up.
His car had been parked in the flower garden. His neck, left side and back of his hands had all been bitten by mosquitoes.
Upon moving his body, the ache from his incredibly sore muscles made it so he couldn't help but let out a moan.
After all, his body was nearing 50 years old. It was already unable to bear being like this. He turned to rest his body on the steering wheel. Only after recovering weakly for half a day, was he finally able to get off the car with stiff legs.
Yi Song asked him, "Sir, why were you sleeping in the car?"
Zhou Kai moved a few stiff steps forward and said roughly, "I don't know!"
Yi Song immediately fell silent out of fear.
Zhou Kai restlessly pressed at his temples.
His memories from yesterday stopped when he drove his car into the villa. It seemed that the moment he stalled the car, it completely broke off.
That was too strange.
First of all, he didn't at all remember the meeting that afternoon, happily going off to play golf for two hours, then he slept in the car for the entire night......
Zhou Kai staggered into the villa, shouting, "Shen Changqing, Shen Changqing!"
Soon, Shen Changqing came out of his bedroom.
After all, he was young. After a few days, he was already able to get off the bed and move around by himself.
Upon seeing Zhou Kai's face, it took all of Chi Xiaochi's strength to hold back his laughter.
He cried out in shock, "What happened?"
Zhou Kai stared at Shen Changqing, "What time did you sleep last night? Do you know when I came back?"
Shen Changqing fearfully shook his head, "I don't remember the time...... The clock is broken, it hasn't been fixed."
061 sighed, Chi Xiaochi's response time was so quick.
This was one of the best possible answers.
Right now, Zhou Kai was about to explode, eager to beat someone up. But Chi Xiaochi wasn't eager to be beaten up, so he needed to come up with a plan to wash himself of suspicion.
If Chi Xiaochi answered honestly, Zhou Kai would say, so early? You dared to go to sleep before I came back?
If Chi Xiaochi made up an answer, Zhou Kai also remembered what time he came back, and would inevitably ask "didn't you hear the car".
In light of this, faced with a pervert, Chi Xiaochi had come up with the safest answer in a short period of time.
Zhou Kai looked Chi Xiaochi up and down and realised that he didn't seem like he'd just woken up.
He asked, "Didn't you hear Yi Song's voice just now? Why didn't you come out?"
Chi Xiaochi said, terrified, "I...... It wasn't, it wasn't yet time to get up. Without your permission, I should stay in my room."
061 suddenly understood why Chi Xiaochi wasn't willing to come out to look at Zhou Kai just now yet wasn't willing to sleep.
It turned out he was staying inside and waiting for Zhou Kai.
As soon as Chi Xiaochi's words fell, 061 saw the 8 goodwill points he'd consumed last night rise back up, even rising higher by two more points.
061, "......" It was truly hard to understand a pervert's way of thinking.
And Chi Xiaochi's performance wasn't over yet.
He turned to Yi Song and said, "Don't just stand there, help Mister to the sofa to rest. Contact Doctor Aaron and get him to come quickly; then call Mister Sam and tell him Mister is sick. Today......"
Upon speaking to this point, he seemed to realise he'd overstepped and looked towards Zhou Kai in horror.
Zhou Kai was once again greatly delighted by this appearance of his. His voice even became much gentler, "Today I'll be resting at home, to recover."
...... The goodwill level rose by another 6, 7 points.
Chi Xiaochi said to 061, "See, nothing to eat, nothing to wear? The enemy will supply us."
After saying this, he rather skillfully exchanged the points for a strength enhancement card.
He said, "Okay, next time, take this and knock him into a paralytic stroke with one punch, then add an amnesia buff. It's more cost-effective."
Upon receiving the card, all kinds of feeling welled up in 061's heart.
This was Chi Xiaochi using Zhou Kai like an ATM, and he wasn't even paying any maintenance fee.
The author has something to say:
Zhou Kai: Everyone thought my body had been hollowed out.
sere: lowkey starting to feel sorry for this guy but knowing what he will do in the future makes me not feel sorry anymore baum: 089!! One of my faves!!! Did anyone see what he did there?
also, here's some fanart of our Liu-laoshi that WagahaiNeko dug up (source)
Thank you to joy de vivre for the ko-fi~
| ← Ch. 030 | Ch. 032 → |