A Test of Trust

“He’s really not dangerous,” Yuan Anqing said, trying to comfort the trembling Peng Jingchang. “You don’t need to stay so far away from us.”

Zhuo squeezed into Yuan Anqing’s embrace on the bench, filling the space completely. When he heard Yuan Anqing speak, he turned his massive head to glare at Peng Jingchang, then tried to burrow deeper into Yuan’s neck. “Is it because I look too fierce, Savior? Did I scare your little actor friend?”

He looked as pitiful as a gentle, large dog encountering a person with a severe dog phobia—the person screaming and panicking, the dog standing helpless, not understanding what it had done wrong.

But no matter how convincingly Zhuo played the part of the fragile, unloved victim, Peng Jingchang was absolutely certain that moments ago, this monster had intended to physically rip his throat out. That sudden, brief burst of crimson aura had been truly, paralyzingly terrifying.

“Do I really look that fierce?” Zhuo looked up to ask Yuan Anqing, his red eyes wide.

“You’re not fierce. You’re just… exceptionally large,” Yuan Anqing reassured him, smoothing his hair.

Yet Zhuo still acted as if he had been deeply, emotionally wronged, pressing his head into the crook of Yuan Anqing’s neck. Out of sight from Peng Jingchang, however, Zhuo’s expression was sharp. His red eyes narrowed, and a faint, dangerous glow flickered within his pupils.

Peng Jingchang never truly trusted the monster’s docility. Though he knew Zhuo was legally classified as an ordinary subspecies bodyguard, he was a highly sensitive, analytical man. He could keenly sense that Zhuo was a threat to reality itself. After all, with a muscular physique like Zhuo’s, killing a normal human wouldn’t even require his supernatural abilities.

Fortunately, Zhuo seemed to care deeply about his image in Yuan Anqing’s eyes. After that single menacing threat in the yard, Zhuo had quieted down completely. He reverted back to his submissive, “battered-wife” persona, shrinking beside Yuan Anqing without saying much. At the lunch table, he would servilely ladle soup for Yuan Anqing, and only after Yuan Anqing explicitly told him to eat did he begin to pick at his own food.

While eating, he would occasionally glance at Peng Jingchang with watery eyes, then lower his head apologetically, as if deeply sorry for existing.

Peng Jingchang: “…”

Zhuo looked so simple-minded and pathetic that Peng Jingchang began to doubt his own analytical senses. Had he actually misunderstood the guy?

As Zhuo cautiously watched him, Peng Jingchang observed Zhuo in return. He noticed that although Zhuo was handsome, his simple-minded, insecure expression seemed completely natural. An act? No. It didn’t seem like it. It felt like his genuine, child-like nature.

Peng Jingchang frowned, trying to solve the puzzle. He felt there was something deeply wrong with Zhuo.

But when he reached out with his chopsticks to grab a piece of the stewed goose they had made, still lost in thought, his hand met empty air.

The pile of goose bones beside Zhuo’s plate had already grown into a small mountain.

Peng Jingchang: “…”

Had this bastard eaten the entire pot of goose while crying and cautiously glancing at him in “fear”?!

Yuan Anqing also found the situation awkward. He adjusted his glasses and remained silent.

Zhuo looked at the mountain of bones beside him in sudden, dramatic panic. “Did… did I eat too much? I’m so sorry. I was just a little hungry.”

“No, no, you didn’t eat too much,” Peng Jingchang said quickly, forced to be polite. “It’s my fault for not knowing your appetite. I’ll prepare more food next time.”

Zhuo lowered his head, his shoulders hunching miserably. “I was just a little hungry.”

Yuan Anqing gently patted Zhuo’s back.

Sometimes, Zhuo’s sulking was incredibly childish and manipulative. He wouldn’t even let the host eat a single piece of meat. Zhuo hadn’t been looking at Peng Jingchang out of guilt earlier—he was checking to see if Peng was reaching for the good pieces of goose so he could eat them first. He used a pitiful expression to distract the table, then devoured all the food.

“Do you have anything else to eat?” Yuan Anqing asked.

“Oh… I’ll just soak some plain white rice in the leftover broth,” Peng Jingchang quickly replied.

Zhuo’s tail began thumping impatiently on the floorboards under the table. Yuan Anqing gently nudged Zhuo’s tail tip with his toe, signaling him not to overdo it. They couldn’t deprive the man of plain rice in his own safehouse.

“What exactly did Zhuo do before he met you?” Peng Jingchang asked while ladling broth over his rice. “I’ve rarely seen individuals of his subspecies.”

Zhuo looked like a fully grown adult male, but his behavior was completely childish. Peng Jingchang understood that Zhuo’s hostility toward him stemmed from that one polite compliment he’d paid the Savior. But to hold a life-or-death grudge over a polite remark seemed utterly absurd.

“The authorities prepared Zhuo specifically for the Savior,” Yuan Anqing explained.

“But ‘tools’ for seduction usually aren’t like this,” Peng Jingchang whispered. “They should know when to speak and when to stay silent. They should be professional.”

Zhuo’s red eyes widened in fury. “Are you criticizing my work performance?!”

“No. It’s just that you’re… extremely willful,” Peng Jingchang said. And a manufactured tool shouldn’t have such strong, unhinged possessiveness over its master.

There was something Peng Jingchang didn’t say—he felt Zhuo wasn’t quite human. Not that there was anything wrong with his anatomy, but his behavioral pattern wasn’t like any adult’s. That eerie, suffocating possessiveness didn’t suit a mere romantic toy.

With all these peculiarities combined, Zhuo didn’t seem like an adult who had lived and struggled in human society. If anything, Peng Jingchang thought Zhuo currently acted like a feral child trying to protect its territory.

After Yuan Anqing had explained his “I is I” philosophy earlier, Peng Jingchang realized the Savior wasn’t a malicious master. He did sense a certain profound, icy aloofness in Yuan Anqing. But malicious enjoyment of others’ pain? No. Yuan Anqing was simply too tired to care. He couldn’t be bothered with Peng Jingchang’s life or death. Would such an exhausted Savior have the energy to toy with others?

There were too many questions, too many things he couldn’t see through.

Yuan Anqing seemed to sense Peng Jingchang’s shifting mood and looked up at him.

“He said I’m willful, Anqing!” Zhuo acted as if he couldn’t bear such harsh criticism, leaning his heavy head back against Yuan Anqing’s chest. “I’m not willful! I just love you very much.”

“I know,” Yuan Anqing sighed helplessly, holding Zhuo’s big head and playing along.

“I have no secrets from you,” Peng Jingchang looked at Yuan Anqing, his voice dropping. “You probably know my mind better than my own father does.”

Zhuo’s tail tensed again under the table. “He’s not your dad or mom, star!”

“Of course he’s not,” Peng Jingchang nodded, his gaze never leaving Yuan Anqing’s eyes. “You don’t think my neuroses are a problem, do you?”

“No.” Yuan Anqing shook his head.

“You don’t think I’m… a hollow, terrible person?”

“That’s too vague a question,” Yuan Anqing replied. “I don’t think you’re terrible. I don’t think you’re anything. You are just you.”

Peng Jingchang frowned, his mind processing the words. He didn’t understand what Yuan Anqing had seen, but his expression gradually relaxed. He smiled at Yuan Anqing. “You really are a gentle person.”

Gentle or not, Yuan Anqing didn’t know, but he immediately pressed down hard on Zhuo’s tail to stop him from leaping across the table to bite the actor.

Peng Jingchang didn’t notice the silent struggle. He only felt a sudden, profound clarity. If his terrible reality couldn’t be changed, at least he could make himself comfortable in the present. Those thoughts he’d considered shameful—his weakness, his self-hatred, his neuroses—once fully exposed before Yuan Anqing’s clinical gaze, were deemed unremarkable. Not worth mentioning.

This “disregard” was exactly what Peng Jingchang needed. He wasn’t much better than others, but he wasn’t inferior either. They were no different.

“Strangely, I can actually listen to what you say,” Peng Jingchang marveled.

Yuan Anqing didn’t find it strange. The only reason this man listened to him was his identity as the Savior. That identity added a natural, divine filter to his ordinary words. Given that Peng Jingchang knew his identity, even if Yuan Anqing simply said he wanted plain congee for breakfast, the man would ponder the deeper meaning, compiling a whole philosophy to convince himself of the Savior’s wisdom.

Yuan Anqing himself didn’t think he saw things clearly. After all, there were too many people in this world who had lived for over five hundred years; their minds were incredibly complex. He only benefited from the convenience of his Savior status.

“When exactly will the previous Savior’s remains arrive?” Yuan Anqing decided to change the subject.

“Ah? Oh, it should arrive around ten tonight,” Peng Jingchang said, snapping out of his trance.

Yuan Anqing patted Zhuo’s back gently, soothing the monster.

“We don’t have many parts of the previous Savior’s body,” Peng Jingchang explained. “Our organization isn’t large, and we don’t have any high-level official insiders to smuggle them. So we have to hide like this.” He gestured at the humble farmhouse.

“I see…” Yuan Anqing tapped his fingers on the wooden table.

Peng Jingchang had said they didn’t have many parts. Yuan Anqing had expected a hand or a leg at most. But when the courier arrived at ten o’clock, and he saw the heavily guarded, reinforced box containing only a single, tiny finger joint, he was still shocked.

That’s it?

However, an immense, terrifying aura of desire immediately enveloped the room, confirming to Yuan Anqing’s gold-flecked eyes that the bone was real.

“A single gram of the previous Savior’s flesh can completely contaminate three hundred million cubic meters of water,” the courier explained, handing over the lockbox.

Yuan Anqing reached out and picked up the finger joint.

The violent impact of the dead Savior’s resentment turned his irises completely, brilliantly gold.

IT HURTS!!
IT HURTS SO MUCH! IT HURTS!

The screaming voice of the female Savior echoed directly in Yuan Anqing’s mind, a wave of agonizing psychic feedback. In his consciousness, the face of that female skeleton flashed briefly.

We…
A hand reached toward Yuan Anqing’s throat.

To the onlookers in the room, Yuan Anqing simply fell silent the moment he touched the joint. He stood completely still, like a statue.

After about two minutes, Yuan Anqing blinked. The gold in his eyes remained, but his face was perfectly calm. He looked at the five couriers who had brought the box—a mix of subspecies and pure humans.

“Mr. Peng, come closer to me,” Yuan Anqing gestured to Peng Jingchang.

Peng Jingchang, puzzled, stepped beside Yuan Anqing. He made a point to glance at Zhuo, afraid the monster would shove him. “Here?”

“Mm.” Yuan Anqing nodded.

Then, he looked coldly at the five couriers.

“Zhuo.” Yuan Anqing called his name.

A metallic, grating sound followed as Zhuo’s scales flared. The two guard dogs outside, as if sensing a sudden, apocalyptic threat, began to bark frantically and backed away into the trees.

A colossal red monster rose from the floor of the room, instantly shattering the ceiling boards. The farm poultry outside flapped their wings in panic, fleeing for their lives.

Peng Jingchang didn’t even have time to react before warm, arterial blood splattered directly onto his face.

He looked up, frozen. The massive goat-headed monster released its jaws, and the shattered, headless corpse of one of the couriers dropped to the floor with a wet thud.

From Peng Jingchang’s angle, the full moon hung directly behind the monster’s head, but no moonlight could illuminate those pitch-black, bottomless eyes.

Peng Jingchang wanted to step back, but his legs felt locked in place by terror. Instinctively, he looked at Yuan Anqing beside him.

The Yuan Anqing he had deemed “gentle” showed not a trace of shock, disgust, or surprise at the sudden, bloody slaughter. Yuan Anqing simply reached up, adjusted his glasses, and wiped a drop of blood off his own cheek. “Not bad, Zhuo. Quick reaction.”