Chapter 2: A Deadly Joke – Are You Lost?

“Rusty Nail, is that you?”

Under Fuller’s urging gaze, Louis pinched his voice even higher, trying to make it sound sweeter.

“I miss you so much. I’ve changed into a short skirt now. I’ll be passing a motel soon. I’ll wait for you there. Will you come?”

“I know.”

The man on the other end let out a low chuckle and replied unhurriedly.

“Dy, I promise, we’ll see each other very soon. Be patient.”

Jiang Shulan didn’t understand, but he was deeply shocked.

Even though Louis’s “cutesy voice” didn’t sound like a girl at all, could it be that the man on the other end was actually…

He pressed his lips together, lowered his head, and scooted his butt backward a little.

Fuller didn’t notice Jiang Shulan’s discomfort and instead spoke in a slightly self-congratulatory tone.

“So? Pretty fun, right?”

Jiang Shulan gave a perfunctory nod and rolled down the car window.

Ahead stretched an empty interstate highway.

The asphalt, eroded by years of sun and rain, had turned into uneven shades of gray, with dried weeds growing out of its cracks.

On both sides lay endless wilderness, so desolate it felt like a forgotten corner of the world, where anything that happened would be swallowed by wind and sand without a trace.

It really was a good place, he thought absently.

A place where you could run anywhere… except you couldn’t escape at all.

Silently, he rolled the window back up.

Noticing Jiang Shulan’s continued lack of enthusiasm, Fuller stopped playing with the radio and simply moved to sit beside him.

“What’s wrong? Why are you unhappy?”

“It’s nothing.” Jiang Shulan shifted away slightly, avoiding contact with him. “Maybe I’m a little carsick.”

“Carsick? Alright then.”

Louis seemed to understand Jiang Shulan’s discomfort. He cleanly ended the radio call.

“I’ll stay quiet.”

“Get some good sleep, Jiang.” After saying that, Louis pulled Fuller into the front seat, shooting him a warning glance.

“You too, brother.”

When they arrived at the motel, it was already night, and the rain was pouring heavily.

Fuller went to check in while Louis and Jiang Shulan stayed in the car.

“I’m sorry, Jiang.” Louis released the steering wheel.

“My brother may have said some inappropriate things, but he’s not a bad person. If there’s anything that made you uncomfortable, you can tell me.”

Asian students weren’t very popular at their university, but Jiang Shulan was simply too beautiful.

His admirers came like swarms of moths to a flame.

If they hadn’t met by chance through gaming, Louis would never have had the opportunity to know him.

If he had met Jiang Shulan before meeting Vina, he might have genuinely fallen for him.

And now his own brother was behaving so disgracefully in front of him—Louis was worried Jiang Shulan might end up disliking him as well…

“It’s fine, Louis. I can tell.” Jiang Shulan finally smiled a little.

His blue eyes curved into crescent moons, their light soft and luminous.

“Your cutesy voice is actually pretty interesting too.”

Louis let out a relieved breath.

“Then I’ll practice it again for you.”

The two of them exchanged a smile.

And that scene was clearly seen by Fuller, who had just walked out of the motel.

“f*ck, what is that damn fatty doing!”

Cursing under his breath, Fuller got back into the car and interrupted the slightly warmed atmosphere inside.

At the same time, the car radio suddenly crackled to life.

“What’s wrong?” Louis asked in confusion.

Louis stared out the window for a moment, ignored Fuller, and then picked up the radio.

“Hey, Rusty Nail, I’ve arrived at the motel.”

The man on the other end of the radio seemed to chuckle.

“Room 17. Come later. You know that, right?”

Under the motel’s purple-red lights, Fuller’s face looked almost eerie.

“I’ll be waiting for you. Bring pink champagne, okay?”

With that, Fuller hung up the radio, turned to glance at Jiang Shulan, and suddenly burst into a manic laugh.

“Room 17 is that fat guy’s room. There’s going to be a show tonight.”

Jiang Shulan frowned tightly.

“You shouldn’t be doing this.”

They had already deceived an innocent person, and now they were dragging another stranger into it.

“I shouldn’t?” Fuller’s expression darkened instantly.

His eyes locked onto Jiang Shulan with a violent, oppressive stare.

The rage and brutality in his gaze made Jiang Shulan instinctively step back, but that only seemed to further provoke him.

Fuller’s emotions surged, his voice rising sharply.

“Jiang, do you know what I saw most during the five years I spent in prison?”

Ever since getting out, he had been looked down upon everywhere he went.

Especially now, standing beside his outstanding younger brother, every glance people gave them was different.

He could endure all of that, but why, when he had been the one taking care of Jiang Shulan all along, did Jiang Shulan only smile at Louis?

“Enough, brother!”

Louis couldn’t take it anymore and dragged Fuller out of the car.

Sensing something was wrong, Jiang Shulan immediately opened the door and ran toward the front desk.

[Is the BOSS in this movie Fuller?!]

Strange personality, explosive temper, and constant bullying behavior.

[Sorry, we are not able to provide that information.]

The rain grew heavier and heavier.

The front desk was staffed by an elderly man.

Seeing Jiang Shulan soaked from the rain, he handed him a clean towel.

“Little guy, wipe the rain off yourself.”

The old man spoke softly.

“Don’t catch a cold.”

“Alright, thank you.”

Jiang Shulan was a very polite young man. He clumsily rubbed his head in a messy motion while speaking in a muffled voice.

“Excuse me, how many rooms did that person just book?”

“One single room, and one double room.” The receptionist asked, “You’re together with them, right?”

The receptionist didn’t think the Asian boy in front of him looked like any kind of threat. Instead, he kindly reminded him,

“I noticed those two don’t seem to have the best temper. I’ve given you the key to a single room, if anything happens, you can call me.”

“Alright, thank you.”

Jiang Shulan placed the towel down.

His fluffy hair and blue eyes made him look like a small cat, yet he himself seemed completely unaware of it, smiling sweetly.

As he stepped out with the key, he looked up and saw someone walking in from the right side of the streetlamp.

The man was nearly two meters tall.

His stride was long, but unhurried. Each step landed with weight, boots crushing gravel on the road, yet the heavy rain swallowed every sound.

Wind and rain swept across him, lifting the hem of his jacket.

He did not shrink his neck, did not squint, not even blink.

As he drew closer, his face emerged inch by inch from the hazy yellow light, like a sculptor chiseling features out of stone one strike at a time.

It was an extremely handsome face.

Not the delicate, youthful kind of handsome, but something heavier, sharpened by wind and sand.

His bone structure was almost flawless. His jawline was clean and decisive. His skin tone was neither too light nor too dark, the healthy color of someone who spends a great deal of time outdoors, evenly covering every contour of bone beneath it.

The man looked at him.

Those eyes, buried deep beneath the shadow of his brow bone, swept over Jiang Shulan from top to bottom, brow ridge, nose bridge, lips, chin, then finally returned to those blue eyes again.

The pace of that gaze was neither fast nor slow.

Like someone reading a book they had been anticipating for a long time, not skimming, but carefully, word by word.

“Can you move aside?”

At first, Jiang Shulan had been briefly stunned by his appearance.

But who could withstand being scanned up and down like an X-ray by another man’s gaze like that?!

Especially when this man’s physique was exactly the kind he had always dreamed of having!!!

When he looked down, he could only see the man’s arms.

Not exaggerated like a fitness trainer, but lean, powerful, every inch seemingly packed with strength, as if one arm could take down two of him.

He took half a step back and swallowed.

“Forget it… you go first.”

“Hey.”

The corners of the man’s lips lifted slightly.

Jiang Shulan straightened his back, trying to make himself look taller, and lifted his eyes.

“What?”

His tone rose slightly at the end, nervous and soft, almost pitifully cute.

The man’s smile deepened at his awkward expression. He extended a hand.

A well-shaped hand appeared in front of him, clean nails, distinct knuckles, a faint layer of callus at the web of the thumb, yet still undeniably elegant.

“You lost?” he asked.

“Are you lost, little cat?”