Chapter 23: The Fool Turned Out to Be Me

Under the dense cover of the night, the two figures successfully escaped the villa grounds.

Ye Feng lifted his head from Du Xiaowen’s shoulder, gazing up at the vast expanse of twinkling stars. For the first time since his reincarnation, a genuine, unburdened smile bloomed across his face.

Right now, every single breath he drew was filled with the crisp, refreshing scent of wild grass—or at least, that was what he felt he was inhaling, right up until his eyes locked onto a fresh pile of dog manure on the pavement.

But regardless of minor details, he had finally broken free from his gilded cage. That was all that mattered.

Du Xiaowen sprinted down the streets toward her apartment complex, a thoroughly unhinged, delirious smile plastered across her face.

Even as she sprinted, she was under constant, agonizing assault from Ye Feng’s proximity. That unique, intoxicating scent radiating from his skin continuously invaded her nose, short-circuiting her frontal lobe until her brain practically ceased all logical processing.

Finally, the entrance to her apartment materialized.

Throwing the door open, she burst inside, kicked the frame shut behind her, and violently hurled Ye Feng straight onto the mattress.

“You—”

Watching her advance toward him with a completely warped, perverted grin, Ye Feng initially opened his mouth to say something to salvage the situation. But after a quick mental cost-benefit analysis, he abandoned the thought entirely, relaxed his muscles, and chose to simply lie flat.

He had already mentally braced himself for this specific brand of physical sacrifice long before making his move; now was simply the time to pay the toll.

Yet, the exact second the reality manifested, a wave of profound regret washed over him. The theoretical sacrifice he had anticipated paled in comparison to the actual ordeal. She was far too brutal—infinitely more savage than her initial assault on him.

He was reduced to nothing more than a limp ragdoll, his limbs violently twisted and manipulated into various degrading postures at her whim.

Even then, Du Xiaowen wasn’t entirely satisfied. She desperately wanted to extract sound from her precious little man. Reaching out with a cruel hand, she dug her fingers into Ye Feng’s waist and twisted the flesh with explosive force.

“AAAAAHHH!”

The blinding flare of physical pain triggered his survival instincts, forcing him to thrash against her hold, but her raw strength was far too overwhelming to break.

And once that initial shriek escaped his throat, it was as if a massive structural floodgate had been permanently obliterated; his agonized cries didn’t cease for the remainder of the night.

Thus, a brutal night trickled away.

Though Ye Feng spent every single hour drowning in pure physical agony, his mind remained remarkably active. He couldn’t be entirely certain whether Mu Yuchen would launch a manhunt for him, but the statistical probability leaned heavily toward “yes.” Furthermore, her prime suspect would undoubtedly be Du Xiaowen.

Therefore, he had to hide. He needed to find a secure bunker, preferably as far away from this geographical region as humanly possible.

Meanwhile, on the opposite side of the city, Mu Yuchen had awoken exceptionally early to personally prepare breakfast. A single fried egg and a glass of warm milk—it was a thoroughly ordinary, spartan meal. In truth, she had desperately wanted to craft something gourmet, but her culinary knowledge was entirely non-existent.

Having been pampered her entire life, she had never cooked a single meal, nor did she harbor a personal habit of eating breakfast. This basic spread was the absolute limit of her imagination.

Placing the items on a serving tray, she turned the knob to his bedroom door. But before she could take more than two paces into the room, her entire body froze solid. Her grip on the tray failed entirely, letting the porcelain crash violently onto the floorboards.

The glass shattered into a hundred shards, the warm milk splashing violently across her premium, black-stockinged legs.

Staring at the completely hollow bed and the open window frame through which a freezing morning gale was currently howling, a dark, horrific realization pierced straight through her denial.

Lurking inside her temporary guest room, Mu Yutong had been patiently waiting for her older sister to depart for work. Hearing the violent crash of breaking glass, a wave of perplexity washed over her, prompting her to sprint down the hallway to investigate.

But the exact second her eyes swept across the vacant bedroom, she froze in absolute shock. Her mind instantly flashed back to yesterday evening, when the little man had desperately begged her to help him escape.

Before she could process the timeline, a crushing grip violently clamped around her throat, cutting off her oxygen.

“Where the hell did you take him?!”

“N-No… it wasn’t… it wasn’t me!”

Mu Yutong thrashed her head frantically, her face instantly turning a deep, suffocating crimson from the lack of air. She slammed her fists desperately against Mu Yuchen’s locked forearm, trying to break the stranglehold.

Thud!

Mu Yuchen released her grip, letting the girl collapse heavily to the floor, her freezing, murderous gaze boring into her younger sister.

Mu Yutong shuddered violently under that look. From infancy to adulthood, she had never witnessed her older sister display such a terrifying aura. She harbored zero doubt that if she slipped up, Mu Yuchen would slaughter her right then and there.

Fortunately for her, Mu Yuchen didn’t waste another second on her, spinning on her heel to march straight out of the villa.

After a brief daze, Mu Yutong scrambled to her feet and chased after her sister’s retreating figure. She hadn’t nearly had enough fun with that gorgeous little man yet; she couldn’t allow him to slip away this easily.

“Sister, just use the built-in tracking device! You can pinpoint his coordinates instantly!”

“Tracking device?”

Mu Yuchen, who had fully intended to ignore the brat, abruptly halted her stride. She spun around, her eyes locking onto her sister.

“You installed a tracker inside his body?”

“What? No! Didn’t you install one?!”

“Why the hell would I install something like that? I’ve never touched a device like that in my life!”

“What?!”

Mu Yutong’s jaw dropped in absolute, staggering disbelief. Her flawless older sister hadn’t installed a tracking chip? Wasn’t that standard operational procedure for every single male s*ave circulating through the market?

Whenever a male asset was processed through the underground trading rings, an internal tracking microchip was systematically embedded into their body as an unwritten industry rule. Her sister hadn’t even executed basic asset security?!

Mu Yuchen obviously hadn’t, primarily because she had never interacted with the s*ave trade and possessed zero knowledge of such protocols.

“If you don’t possess a concrete methodology for locating him, then shut your mouth.”

The longer Mu Yuchen stared at her younger sister, the more obstructive and aggravating she found her. The brat was doing nothing but squandering precious operational minutes spouting useless, unhinged nonsense.

“Where are you going?!”

“You don’t possess the clearance to ask!”

Mu Yutong stood frozen as her older sister’s sports car roared out of the driveway. A profoundly bitter, suffocating weight settled deep into her chest—it was the raw, toxic sting of absolute regret.

If she had only known that her sister hadn’t embedded an internal tracking chip inside Ye Feng’s body, she could have easily utilized her own underground network to smuggle the boy out herself, permanently anchoring him under her absolute control.

Yesterday evening, she had arrogantly mocked that little man, calling him an absolute imbecile.

But looking at the reality of the board now… the true, unadulterated fool turned out to be herself! Moving to a definitive conclusion while suffering from a massive information asymmetry wasn’t just foolish—it was textbook idiocy.

But the tactical window had closed, and no amount of self-loathing would rewrite the board. Right now, her solitary hope was that her formidable older sister could successfully hunt down and retrieve their little prize.

Mu Yuchen floored the accelerator, her vehicle tearing straight toward Du Xiaowen’s residential address.

Her mind had neatly parsed the variables: if her younger sister hadn’t orchestrated Ye Feng’s disappearance, then her executive secretary stood as the prime suspect with the highest statistical probability.

Arriving at the apartment complex within record time, she halted outside the locked unit. Mu Yuchen delivered a series of sharp raps against the wood. Receiving zero acoustic feedback, she lifted her leg and began violently kicking the door frame.

The thunderous, structural impacts immediately attracted a crowd of disgruntled neighbors.

“What the hell are you doing?! Keep it down! You’re being incredibly loud!”

The adjacent apartment door flew open, and a remarkably adorable youth with a waterfall of pale-pink hair materialized. Clad in a classic, frilly maid outfit, his face was twisted in pure fury as he shrieked at the woman assaulting the door frame.

Mu Yuchen shot a solitary glance at him, a wave of profound psychological revulsion washing through her gut. A fully grown woman actually parading around in masculine attire… do they possess zero basic shame in this neighborhood?

“Hey! What the hell is up with that judgmental glare?!”

The pink-haired youth naturally caught the absolute disdain radiating from her eyes. Granted, his lifestyle choice was highly eccentric, but being looked down upon with such blatant, aristocratic scorn was deeply irritating.

Mu Yuchen completely deleted him from her focus, redirecting her raw strength back into her leg to smash the door. Finally, right as her foot was beginning to go numb from the impact, the structural integrity of the frame failed entirely, and the door crashed inward.

But the exact second she stormed inside, her vision ran into a complete void. There was no little man. There wasn’t even a microscopic shred of biological evidence indicating a male had been present.

“The individual who resides here… where is she?!”

“She clocked in for her shift at work hours ago, dummy! Don’t you know basic corporate schedules?”

Zhang Jiajia hadn’t intended to offer a single syllable of data to this aggressive intruder, but recalling a specific operational promise he had made to a friend, he was forced to deliver the cover story.

Hearing the response, Mu Yuchen’s fingers curled into a rigid, trembling fist. The variables were rapidly shifting toward the absolute worst-case scenario she had been dreading.

(Author’s Note: Context Clarification: Within the structural lore of this universe, garments like pleated skirts and frilly maid outfits are categorized strictly as masculine attire. Female executive wear and leather suits constitute feminine attire.)

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