“No.”
“And I don’t need to.”
Zuo Shihuan answered coldly.
He didn’t need someone to like. He had never once dreamed of such a beautiful, sugar-wrapped sweetness like that kind of affection.
From a young age, he had recognized reality. Compared to fragile emotions, he would rather hold onto something solid.
The life he imagined was the one he lived now.
Zuo Shihuan’s expression darkened. He urged: “Let’s finish quickly. I want to go home.”
Yu Lizhu was surprised. “So early?”
Zuo Shihuan: “Mm. I sleep at ten.”
Yu Lizhu was even more astonished. Were there still young people these days who slept before midnight?
Since that was the case, things had to be dealt with swiftly.
Yu Lizhu furrowed her brows, earnestly instructing him: “Then let’s do this first… then like this… After it’s all handled, I know you don’t like drinking, but I’ve collected quite a lot of tea leaves—I’ll gift you some.”
“And that black motorcycle in my garage—I’ll give it to you too. You’ve never ridden one, right? Perfect chance to learn.”
Zuo Shihuan’s brow twitched slightly. “I agree.”
Yu Lizhu flashed a sly little smile. “Then it’s settled. Later, just follow my lead.”
For the sake of the motorcycle, Zuo Shihuan obediently replied: “Alright.”
***
First floor of the Black Goat Bar.
“Hey, how come that rich miss isn’t clinging to you today? Ji Shenwen, are you lonely enough to polish glasses?”
A server, Little Cheng, teased bartender Ji Shenwen at the counter.
The story had already spread these past few days: a young lady from the upper city district was chasing after a down-and-out Alpha bartender from the lower city district.
Most people at the Black Goat Clubhouse treated it as a joke, thinking it was just a spoiled miss playing around, a three-minute passion that would fizzle out in no time.
But unexpectedly, she was serious—she had been pursuing him for more than three months. Whenever she had time, she came to the bar to “check in,” ordering only drinks mixed by Ji Shenwen, never drinking them herself, but handing them off to other guests just for the chance to talk with him a little more.
At first, the staff all laughed at her. Later, they genuinely grew sour.
Why should the new guy hog all the attention?
One time, Little Cheng even overheard the young miss pulling Ji Shenwen into the hallway to talk.
She had mentioned wanting to run away, to leave here. But after Ji Shenwen’s long, uncomprehending silence, she eventually brushed it off with a smile, saying she had just been thinking nonsense.
Beta server Little Cheng, relying on his decent rapport with Ji Shenwen, couldn’t resist asking curiously: “Why not just accept her? She’s at least a white, rich, beautiful young lady—a bona fide sugar mama. It’s not like she’d do anything bad to you.”
“Come on, Alphas spend their ruts in bed anyway. Now you’ve got an Omega rich lady seeking you out. Some of the flashy Alphas and Betas here are already green with envy!”
Ji Shenwen set down the glass with a heavy clang, the sharp sound making Little Cheng flinch.
“What’s with you? Hit a sore spot, so you’re venting on glassware?”
Little Cheng muttered, “This is obviously a golden opportunity. Bro, I’m telling you, broaden your mind a little. Besides, the young miss isn’t even trying to ‘keep’ you—she just wants you as her boyfriend. This is your ticket out of the lower city district…”
Then, muttering under his breath: “Honestly, might as well be kept—straightforward, cash on the table, money to be made. Even as an Alpha, it’s not like there aren’t chances for free perks. There are plenty of older Omega or Beta uncles and aunties around here—when their desires flare up or their heat hits, they just pay for a young Alpha with stamina for entertainment.”
Little Cheng sighed, propping his chin. “If only I weren’t a Beta. Worse, a plain-faced Beta without even a pheromone scent. Otherwise, I’d really want to cash in and walk away.”
Beside him, Ji Shenwen, speechless, bared his teeth in a grin: “Forget it, I’m not as sl*tty as you.”
Little Cheng was indignant, slapping his thigh with loud smacks: “How’s doing business called sl*tty? What we’re doing is providing customers with emotional value, just charging a small fee for it, that’s all.”
At this point Little Cheng just wanted to call out his hypocritical, double-standard colleague Ji Shenwen.
Always relying on that flashy, charming face, chatting familiarly with customers, making them laugh until they kept ordering drinks mixed by him.
Plenty of veteran staff at Black Goat couldn’t stand this new guy Ji Shenwen.
Of course, part of it was jealousy from having customers stolen away, but they also thought his bartending skills weren’t much to look at—what he excelled at was flirting and selling his smile. If it weren’t for that gaudy, attractive face, he probably wouldn’t be able to sell a single drink.
Little Cheng took a sip of the transparent green mojito in his hand—mixed by Ji Shenwen. The level was certainly passable.
Though the old employees were exaggerating somewhat, they weren’t completely wrong either.
Some starve while others drown.
Little Cheng let out a heavy sigh, gazing mournfully off in a certain direction: “That fellow who came in the same batch as you—Gu Heng, that icy cold guy. Of all things he had to be born with the best-looking face, yet he went to be a bouncer. What a waste of heaven’s gift!”
“If Gu Heng were to take the floor, he’d definitely be the top headliner of the whole club, even the entire lower city.”
At the mention of that name by waiter Little Cheng, Ji Shenwen’s brow twitched involuntarily.
—To make an imperial crown prince into a club headliner, that really makes a death wish.
Little Cheng thumped his chest: “If it were me—if it were me—”
But that best-looking bouncer was both fierce and beautiful, drawing in waves of customers for months on end. Many came for no other reason than to see Gu Heng’s cold and arrogant face.
“What’s he acting all high and mighty for? Just a fallen noble brat, already reduced to the lower city.”
Ji Shenwen wiped down a glass, put it back into the cabinet, and curved his lips in a faint smile.
—That’s because you’ve never seen Gu Heng when he’s truly arrogant.
So arrogant that all the scions of the Empire’s First Military Academy were beaten into submission by him.
Back then, he was still a pampered second son of his family, not very reliable, but spoiled. He tested into the Empire’s First Military Academy, originally planning to study interstellar zoology. After all, he’d always loved small animals, and their household raised all sorts of pets from different planets. Plus, as the indulged second son, he didn’t have to inherit family business, so he could do as he pleased.
But on the very day he was admitted, he was suddenly summoned by his clan.
The venerable old master of the Ji family wore a grave expression: “There is a mission of utmost importance to the family’s fate, and it must be entrusted to you.”
All his life as the second son, seemingly cherished but actually left to his own devices, he had never once been expected to shoulder such a responsibility.
A sudden sense of family mission welled up in Ji Shenwen, and he immediately declared that no matter how difficult the task, he would do his best for the family.
And then—
He was reassigned to the Mecha Command Department, tasked with approaching and protecting a “civilian” student.
Ji Shenwen didn’t think switching majors was a big deal. He’d chosen interstellar zoology half on a whim anyway. His parents, feeling sorry for him, even gifted him the interstellar pet he’d always wanted—a massive beast called a Kaka Beast.
Its appearance was like that of a giant cat.
Just how big? About as tall as several Ji Shenwens stacked together, with the bulk of a house. Even cleaning up after it required an excavator—the stench was indescribable.
During that period of raising the giant cat-beast, even his doting parents gently urged him to move out.
When the school term drew near, Ji Shenwen had no choice but to send the giant cat-beast to an agricultural planet registered under his name, hiring a caretaker to raise it.
It was rather heartbreaking—later, because of the distance and long separations, the giant cat-beast no longer recognized him, treating the caretaker as its real owner, happily running around the fields every day.
Meanwhile Ji Shenwen could only play the role of a monthly-remittance “poop-scooper,” while he himself had to slog at the Empire’s Military Academy, worrying and tiring himself out protecting other classmates supposedly from being beaten up by “civilians.”
That’s right—protecting other students, not protecting that so-called “civilian” student as the Ji family patriarch had instructed!
Gu Heng needed no protection at all!
To spell it out—the “civilian” was in fact the Empire’s Crown Prince, Gu Heng himself.
Because he had experienced a kidnapping as a child, the Crown Prince was always heavily guarded, with even his name and face being state secrets.
Until he entered the academy, when he was given a new identity and disguised as an ordinary civilian.
And a “civilian” enrolling was hardly unusual.
After all, even in the capital, the Empire’s First Military Academy gathered the elite from across the Empire.
Nobles everywhere you looked, second-generation military brats, bureaucrat heirs… even the more “ordinary” ones often came from families who were the richest on their planets. Of course the academy couldn’t fill every spot with them, so a few civilians from smaller places still got in. But each stratum kept to themselves—the civilians and the scions didn’t mix.
Only “civilian Gu Heng,” upon arrival, immediately stirred up a storm in the academy.
For no other reason than that he was truly arrogant.
Normally civilian students either tried to curry favor with the scions or kept their distance. During assessments or mecha combat training, they would always yield to the scions—since after graduation they’d probably be working in companies owned by those very families.
Only Gu Heng, from the start, crushed every single arrogant imperial scion across the board.
Some unwilling scions tried to suppress him, freezing him out, or during combat training assessments even attempted underhanded tricks—blatant bullying.
Ji Shenwen had tried to intervene, but to those scions he only became a traitor to their circle.
Just like Ji Shenwen’s own life as a pampered second son: on the surface worry-free, not burdened by family responsibility, everything seemed rosy.
But in the hidden arena of fame and power that was the Empire’s Military Academy, being “the doted-on second son” meant nothing. To the scions of power, a second son had no real authority at all.
Many families were no weaker than the Ji family; they didn’t take Ji Shenwen seriously at all, and even joined in bullying him.
At first it was just petty tricks—like making their homework disappear, swapping out their experimental tools, or ganging up to ostracize them.
But it was always Ji Shenwen who ended up cleaning up the mess.
As for Gu Heng, the Empire’s Crown Prince, he rarely showed up at school anyway. As for the trivial antics of those people, he never paid them any mind at all.
That only made those petty types think Gu Heng was scared, so they deliberately provoked him.
By the time Ji Shenwen realized, the matter had already blown up.
A small clique of students had been sent straight to the hospital. Eyewitnesses even said they saw Gu Heng chase down a fleeing accomplice to the dorms, blast open the reinforced steel dorm door with his bare hands, and drag the bloodied accomplice back out.
The least injured of them spent half a month in the hospital; the worst cases couldn’t get out of bed for half a year.
Naturally, the parents of these scions could not accept this, and clamored for that “civilian student” to pay the price.
But the Imperial University’s principal, who knew the truth, simply called Gu Heng to his office. After clarifying the situation and gathering a pile of evidence on those students’ repeated violations of rules, property damage, and framing of classmates—he expelled them all.
All those parents who’d been shielding their brats were instantly dumbfounded.
And under the eyes of everyone, Gu Heng remained calm and indifferent, handing over a leave slip to the principal, saying: “I won’t be around for a while. Since you’re here, I’ll leave the slip with you.”
The Empire’s First Military Academy had extremely strict regulations, enforcing closed-off military management. Even scions, if caught leaving campus, would face severe punishment.
Yet the principal had still smiled and personally seen Gu Heng off.
Back then Ji Shenwen didn’t understand what was going on. All he realized was that since the family had sent him to Gu Heng’s side, this one’s identity was anything but simple.
Later—
News spread of a great victory over the Zerg.
Only then did Ji Shenwen learn that Gu Heng had gone to fight the Zerg.
***
And now—
Deep inside Federation territory.
Ji Shenwen was working as a bartender in a shady club, while his relatives and siblings back in the Empire held high ministerial posts.
But there was one even more extraordinary.
In the same shady club, just a “bouncer.” Back in the Empire, the Crown Prince. Son of the Emperor hailed as the Empire’s God of War.
To put it bluntly—
The Federation government expended endless schemes and means trying to deal with the powerful Empire. But snatching one “bouncer” from this club posed a far greater threat to the Empire than all of that.
At this thought, Ji Shenwen grinned to himself.
Both ridiculous and ironic.
The waiter Little Cheng thought Ji Shenwen was agreeing with him, slapped the table, drunkenness on his face, and said: “Right? What’s Gu Heng got to be so arrogant about? And you too, so d*mn stubborn. When a chance to live off a rich woman’s soft rice lands in your lap, how can you pass it up?”
“That young miss hasn’t come looking for you in days. Looks like she’s given up.”
“Just wait—you’ll regret it!”
Ji Shenwen didn’t take it to heart. For a young miss from the hostile Federation, he had no interest and no intentions.
Still, his motions mixing drinks slowed slightly. Unbidden, a pair of stubborn, bright apricot eyes surfaced in his mind, along with the look of sorrow and disappointment on Yu Lizhu’s face a few days ago, when he had deliberately avoided her.
A trace of resolve flickered through Ji Shenwen’s eyes. He turned his head and laughed lightly, cursing.
“Get lost, you. I won’t regret a thing! Now get back to work—or I’ll complain to the manager you’re slacking on shift and sneaking drinks!”
“Tch, always setting people up!”
They bickered back and forth a few lines.
Then the bar returned to a brief silence.
Ji Shenwen’s face became expressionless again as he quietly wiped down the counter, waiting for the next customer.
“A glass of plain water, please.”
Zuo Shihuan took a seat at the bar.
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