Chapter 93: Meeting X
Shoutout to nyanmaru for the commission!
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Chu Feng watched as X, with a spirited demeanor, wore the Lucky pin and left his Dream City.
—This guy is definitely doing it on purpose!
The Little Xies in Platonic City looked pitifully at Chu Feng. The perfectly fine adult Xies were now affected by the side effects of X’s glass ball prop, unable to plant maple trees, and who knows how long it will last.
Tick tock—
[Brainwave connection has been terminated, you have exited Dream City]
Chu Feng abruptly took off the game headset and returned to reality, feeling a belly full of anger.
He had only speculated before that Regulator X might… have some other intentions towards him because their relationship in the game was not entirely like that of a regular player and a regular regulator.
Now Chu Feng was sure, this person definitely has ulterior motives. He even aimed his schemes at the character Little Xies, restricting their normal married life.
Chu Feng picked up his phone – WeChat, ready to send out the sentence he had just deleted: “Are you doing this on purpose?”
Buzz buzz—
Before he could send the message, X on the plane sent him a message without any guilt:
“Are you going to pick me up?”
Accompanied by an emoji: A corgi puppy with its eyes looking at you.
Chu Feng chuckled in anger, forcefully replied with three words:
“Waiting for you.”
—There are 49 minutes until the plane MF1109 lands.
Chu Feng stood up, ready to go to the airport in person to settle accounts with X.
***
The Lamborghini’s wheels scraped against the highway leading to the airport, the roar of the sports car engine vibrating.
Chu Feng had casually thrown on a piece of clothing when he left. He glanced at the rearview mirror in the car and indeed, this piece of clothing seemed a bit oversized.
Ever since inheriting Xie Shiyu’s company, Chu Feng had been wearing formal high-end suits and shirts in his daily life. Today, when going to the airport to pick up X, Chu Feng was dressed more casually, just wearing a regular black adidas hoodie.
When he was leaving home just now, Chu Feng glanced at the mirror on top of the elevator and found that this piece of clothing… wasn’t his own black hoodie, it was Xie Shiyu’s.
Although Xie Shiyu had been gone for two years, Chu Feng still kept his clothes together with his own, even the toothbrushes were neatly placed in the bathroom, in pairs. He grabbed a random piece from the wardrobe today, and accidentally grabbed the wrong one.
They both had exactly the same piece of clothing, Chu Feng remembered, it was a set of couple outfits they bought during their college years.
Many old clothes from before had been donated to recycling stations by both him and Xie Shiyu, but the couple outfits, no matter how many years had passed, were still neatly preserved in the wardrobe.
With Xie Shiyu’s height of over 1.9 meters, the clothes were a bit big on Chu Feng who was 1.8 meters tall. Chu Feng pulled the sleeves and continued driving.
The car was a Lamborghini, Xie Shiyu’s favorite car before he passed away. At the end of the highway, Chu Feng saw a huge flat building occupying a vast area, amidst the towering skyscrapers of the city, it stood out conspicuously.
The airport, after two years, he came to this place again.
Rumble—!
Chu Feng shook as the sound of the plane’s engines came, he slightly raised his head, a Boeing plane took off from the airport, quickly rising higher and higher, until it reached the clouds, the huge fuselage shrinking into a tiny silver bird, leaving a trail in the blue sky amidst the white clouds.
Sweat formed in the palms of his hands holding the steering wheel. It was a very normal scene of a plane taking off, but Chu Feng felt uncomfortable.
The takeoff of the plane, the roar, all made him feel uneasy, he couldn’t help but think, Xie Shiyu once was from thousands of miles in the sky…
“…very low chance of survival…” “No survivors found…” “The plane was already on fire when it crashed…” “According to the current investigation report, there is no possibility of survival, please accept our condolences.”
Crackle—
Chu Feng suddenly stopped in the airport parking lot.
He paused for two seconds, erasing all the various news reports and messages from international search and rescue teams that emerged in his mind.
He glanced at X’s flight itinerary card, it was almost time for landing. After landing, X still needed to go through immigration, pick up luggage, go through customs, and queue… it wouldn’t be so fast.
Chu Feng slowly drove the Lamborghini into the underground parking lot of the airport.
He took out a cigarette, held it in his mouth, was about to light it, then remembered this was the underground parking lot, smoking was not safe.
The hand holding the lighter retracted, and the cigarette remained in his mouth.
Although Chu Feng had been smoking fiercely for the past two years, he didn’t actually have a smoking addiction, he didn’t like smoking, he just liked smoking the cigarettes Xie Shiyu had smoked before.
He quietly held the cigarette, feeling the slight bitterness of tobacco spreading around his mouth, as if Xie Shiyu was still by his side.
In the past, Xie Shiyu never smoked in front of him, never allowing him to inhale secondhand smoke. But when Xie Shiyu came back after smoking, there would be a faint smell of smoke on his body and in his mouth, which could be tasted during kisses and hugs.
Chu Feng sat quietly in the car for a while. Now it wasn’t the Spring Festival travel rush or the National Day holiday, so there weren’t as many people taking flights, and the parking lot was somewhat empty.
The underground garage was calm and quiet, the dim environment making him miss the scent of tobacco that Xie Shiyu used to have.
Two years ago, he didn’t meet the person he most wanted to see here.
Two years later, he came here to pick up a stranger from a game. Testing an impossible outcome.
***
“Ladies and Gentlemen, we expect to land at H city in 20 minutes…”
X took off the game headset, and the broadcast announcing the plane’s descent sounded on the plane:
“The estimated time of arrival will be 11:30 a.m. and the ground temperature is 27 degrees Celsius… I would like to thank you for flying with us…”
[Chu Feng must be furious.]
X reminisced about blatantly wearing the lucky pin in Chu Feng’s Dream City, smiling to himself.
Thinking about how those arrogant Little Xies in the city couldn’t plant maple trees now, X felt a sense of satisfaction.
He looked out the window, under the clouds were forests, lakes, and skyscrapers, with H City where Chu Feng lived right below him.
X observed the layout of this city, some parts resembling Chu Feng’s Dream City. Of course, the real city was tens of thousands of times more complex, but this kind of real complexity…
Made X feel strangely familiar.
Whether it was the familiarity of a Chinese person returning to their homeland or something else, as he looked at the mountains, rivers, and cities outside the window, it felt much more comfortable than seeing the monotonous waves and beaches in the Pacific island countries. The long-lost X suddenly felt a sense of “returning to one’s roots”.
***
[Welcome to the motherland]
After the plane landed and he came out from the gangway, X saw this sign.
He looked around. On the LED high-definition screens, news was being broadcasted, the host speaking fluent Mandarin, not the French, English, Melanesian, Polynesian, and indigenous songs he heard in the Pacific island countries.
The flow of people at H City International Airport wasn’t very high. X followed the instructions step by step to go through customs and pick up luggage. An hour later, all the procedures were completed.
The marble floor of the airport was bright enough to cast shadows. Walking straight from here would lead to the exit, where he could see Chu Feng.
Knowing that Chu Feng must be angry now, and knowing that Chu Feng was someone who could be soft-hearted at times…
X didn’t go straight ahead. Carrying his luggage, he turned and went into the restroom:
The restroom for disabled persons.
The people queuing up for the men’s and women’s restrooms around immediately looked at this physically fit man over 1.9 meters tall with disdain:
“Why is this person like this, having hands and feet but still using the restroom for disabled persons…”
One minute later, the door of the restroom for disabled persons opened.
A man with bandages tied around him, sitting in a wheelchair, looking haggard, slowly came out.
The people around were stunned.
Completely different from just now, this person’s demeanor had subtly changed. Just a moment ago, he was a vigorous, over 1.9 meters tall man, although it was strange that he had bandages tied around him, he still looked like a healthy person, and even the bandages on his face added a touch of an unapproachable feeling to this tall man.
In just a minute, this big man transformed into a vulnerable and helpless disabled person in a wheelchair, with the bandages on his face highlighting that he was a victim of a major disaster. Like Venus with a broken arm, his whole body exuded a tragic sense of fragmentation, in desperate need of society’s care and assistance.
X completely ignored the sunlight around him, slowly wheeling the wheelchair forward.
The doctor told him that his legs were recovering. He needed to spend some time walking every day, but the rest of the time, he still needed to use the wheelchair. The time for walking could gradually increase, but he couldn’t walk all day at once. Gradually increasing the intensity of exercise would be more conducive to his future recovery.
X followed the doctor’s advice. Now, the time for walking had ended, and it was time for him to use the wheelchair.
***
Chu Feng, wearing Xie Shiyu’s oversized hoodie, was standing fiercely at the door.
He was ready to rush up later, grab X, and ask him carefully if he deliberately placed that prop in the Dream City to deal with Little Xies?
Although it didn’t actually harm Little Xies’ lives, it prevented them from planting maple trees, severely affecting their normal married life!
The overbearing Chu Feng stood in place, staring at the exit, giving every person who came off the plane a baptism of his gaze.
Suddenly, a figure with bandages appeared before him!
Almost his entire face was covered, with only one eye exposed, just like in the game.
—It was X!
Different from X in the game, who was handling guns and explosives, this man was sitting in a wheelchair, moving slowly, contrasting sharply with the surrounding able-bodied pedestrians who hurriedly walked past.
There was no one accompanying X, he had to rotate the wheelchair with one hand, push his luggage with the other, and also make sure that they didn’t collide with each other. He struggled to move forward, and there was no one around to help him.
The wheelchair gradually reached the exit, where there was a raised bar.
Clank.
The wheels of the wheelchair got stuck at the bar, unable to pass. Chu Feng watched as the agile X from the game was now trapped between the confines of the wheelchair, the wheels creaking, unable to move.
Clearly, it was just a half-step distance, lifting both legs would be an easy task, but sitting in the wheelchair made it difficult.
The anger he had just felt vanished instantly. Seeing X’s appearance, Chu Feng’s heart suddenly ached densely, and all the accusations he wanted to make against X were instantly forgotten. Chu Feng immediately walked over. He gently pushed X’s wheelchair and asked softly:
“Excuse me, are you Mr. X?”
X, sitting in the wheelchair, lifted his head, glanced at Chu Feng, and nodded slightly.
Chu Feng looked down at X. Now sitting in the wheelchair, he no longer had the over 1.9-meter height from the game. He didn’t know why X’s eyes looked somewhat pitiful, a bit like the corgi emoji X sent him on WeChat.
It felt like a stray puppy finally being taken home by someone.
“Why is there no one accompanying you?”
As Chu Feng spoke, he pushed X’s wheelchair, while his other hand helped push X’s luggage. The two of them came out of the airport together.
X remained silent and didn’t speak. He actually had someone from the game company accompanying him and a special car arranged for him, but because Chu Feng was coming to pick him up, he refused the arrangements made by the game company.
As soon as X came out, he saw Chu Feng in the crowd, with his beautiful face standing out among the crowd.
Apart from the beauty he felt in the game, X also felt another strange feeling:
Familiarity.
Different from the game, everything about Chu Feng in reality felt more genuine, and even the breath of Chu Feng approaching him, and Chu Feng’s hand on his wheelchair…
Every place, every detail, even the oversize hoodie Chu Feng was wearing, made him feel familiar, more than his homeland, more than this city, making him feel closer.
Observing with his peripheral vision, X noticed a string of letters embroidered on Chu Feng’s black hoodie: adidas. X recalled fragments of his memory, when he and the little boy observed swallows, the boy carried a small blue backpack with a string of letters embroidered on it:
adidas
He didn’t know if Chu Feng had ever carried such a backpack. If Chu Feng had always carried such a backpack when he was a child, with so many photos from that time, there might be one or two pictures showing the backpack…
Before coming to China, Chu Feng had promised to show him childhood photos.
***
“Let’s go, the car is parked in the underground garage.”
Chu Feng pushed X’s wheelchair, heading towards the airport’s accessible elevator.
Ding—
The elevator door opened, and the two of them bypassed the crowded crowd, directly to the parking spot in the garage.
Drip, drip. The Lamborghini’s door slowly lifted under automatic remote control, welcoming its owner and another guest.
X looked at the car. It was an old model of Lamborghini, with a hefty price tag. As he expected, Chu Feng’s financial condition was very good.
But Chu Feng’s clothes today didn’t quite match this luxury car. Just an ordinary black hoodie, like what a college student would wear, and it was a bit oversized.
An old black hoodie. X thought for a moment, it might belong to Chu Feng’s husband.
Taking it a step further, this Lamborghini might have been left by Chu Feng’s husband.
Creak, the trunk opened.
Chu Feng first put X’s luggage in. There wasn’t much luggage, just one suitcase for his long journey home, and it wasn’t too heavy. It seemed like life was very simple.
He originally wanted X to sit in the passenger seat, but it was inconvenient for X to sit in the wheelchair. Chu Feng opened the automatic car system, folded the entire back seat, and helped X and the wheelchair into the car.
X: “Thank you.”
Chu Feng sat back in the driver’s seat, smiled, and didn’t say anything.
In the current friendly atmosphere between them, it wasn’t appropriate to mention the side effects of the prop in Dream City anymore. Moreover, aside from the lucky pin, X didn’t show any inappropriate behavior, and even apologized to him several times, expressing concern about whether it affected their normal married life.
Although Chu Feng still felt that X’s actions were quite profound, on the surface, there was nothing to criticize. As for the lucky pin, it was a common item, completely explainable as a decoration, without any other meaning.
The car started, and the Lamborghini drove forward, leaving the desolate airport behind them.
Chu Feng observed X sitting in the back seat through the rearview mirror. His face was wrapped in bandages, sitting in a wheelchair, physically disabled. Surface-wise, there was no connection to the tall and strong Xie Shiyu.
But Chu Feng felt like there was.
He couldn’t say exactly where it resembled, but the temperament and expression that couldn’t be felt in the game, could be subtly felt in reality…
It was a completely different feeling from that intern who had plastic surgery. Even though the facial features were the same, when Chu Feng looked at that intern, he could immediately feel that it was someone else. But when looking at X, he inexplicably felt… every move and gesture of X seemed to exude a charm reminiscent of Xie Shiyu.
Chu Feng shifted his gaze away from the rearview mirror. His personal feelings were too subjective. No matter who he talked to, he would feel like he was suffering from delusions.
“Is there a place arranged to stay?” Chu Feng asked as he drove.
X retrieved the detailed information about the hotel arranged by the game company from his phone:
“Golden Orchid Star Hotel. Do you need navigation?”
X was about to switch to the map search, but Chu Feng said:
“No need. Your company’s arrangement is good. This hotel is a well-known landmark here.”
The hotel was the most high-end luxury hotel in H City, with prices approaching two to three thousand per night. It had 108 floors, and the rooftop star platform and revolving restaurant on the top floor were famous nationwide.
“It’s almost noon now,” Chu Feng glanced at the watch. “Let me take you to the hotel to drop off your luggage, and we can go out for lunch later.”
X: “Okay.”
The car fell into silence.
For some reason, X felt that talking to Chu Feng in reality was even more natural, with a kind of tacit understanding that seemed like they had known each other for years. Even when they were silent without talking, facing the quiet atmosphere together, they didn’t feel awkward at all.
At the same time, what made X feel familiar was this car.
If the appearance of the Lamborghini sports car was possibly due to advertisements or… simply based on men’s recognition of cars, then the familiarity he felt with the interior of this Lamborghini car couldn’t be explained.
It was very strange, even beginning to constantly confirm another guess in his mind.
The car’s system was playing music. It was an old song: “Sunny Day”.
In Dream City, Chu Feng had once played this song on the piano for thirteen-year-old Little Xie to listen to.
Next to the driver’s seat, there was a cigarette box. It was just below the car’s music system. The brand was one X hadn’t seen before, or perhaps he had seen it before but couldn’t remember now.
Next to the passenger seat, there were three tubes of Mentos candy, vertically arranged.
X had been living in Pacific island countries and had seen Mentos before, but he hadn’t eaten much of it. He observed for a moment and noticed that the three vertical bars of candy were of different flavors.
Chu Feng noticed X looking at the candy on the passenger seat. He glanced over, where Xie Shiyu often placed candy. There were three flavors in total:
Ice blue mint, yellow lemon, and purple grape.
Xie Shiyu would put the mint flavor that Chu Feng liked in the first position, followed by his own favorite lemon flavor, and then the grape flavor that Lin Lan, who sometimes rode in this car, liked.
The order of these three candies was fixed. Even after Xie Shiyu left two years ago, even if the candies were finished, Chu Feng would buy new ones and still wouldn’t change the order. The lemon flavor that Xie Shiyu used to love was now eaten by Chu Feng.
“Do you want some? Candy.”
Chu Feng turned the steering wheel, and they were about to arrive at the Golden Orchid Star Hotel where X was staying.
X shook his head faintly. But Chu Feng unexpectedly insisted:
“Have one, it’s okay. You probably haven’t eaten much during the journey. I’m driving, you can take one yourself.”
Chu Feng slowly stopped the car at the entrance of the Golden Orchid Star Hotel.
He pretended to be serious about parking, but actually, he had been observing X’s movements with his peripheral vision.
Just a piece of candy, and X wasn’t polite to him either. Leaning forward, he reached out his long arm and grabbed one from the groove under the passenger seat door handle.
Faced with the three flavors of Mentos candy, X chose without hesitation: the yellow lemon flavor.
X poured out one from the tube and said thank you, then put the tube of candy back in place.
Chu Feng quietly observed his every move, taking the candy, pouring it out, and eating it, just like Xie Shiyu.
But this “similarity” was just his personal feeling, without any real evidence.
Mentos, as a brand of candy, mint flavor was a classic, and many people would probably choose mint even if they didn’t particularly like it.
But X, who had amnesia, chose the lemon flavor without hesitation.
Chu Feng carefully observed X’s every move. He calmly took X’s luggage down, pushed the wheelchair, walked towards the hotel lobby, and helped X with the check-in procedures.
“Sir, hello, you need to pay a deposit.”
X is currently a foreign national, without a Chinese ID or phone number, unable to use WeChat or Alipay, and doesn’t have a Chinese bank card.
X took out an international Visa credit card: “Swipe the card.”
“Sir, please sign here.”
The card machine printed out a small slip, and X signed it.
The front desk staff handed back two copies of the signed credit card slip to X. Chu Feng, with an extra sense of caution, first took the slip and room card for X.
“Let’s go, I’ll take you up.”
Chu Feng showed hospitality and appeared very enthusiastic. He pushed X’s wheelchair with one hand, and X’s luggage with the other, with X’s signed slip and received a room card in his pocket, escorting X into the elevator.
In the 108-story hotel, there were no buttons in the elevator, just swipe the card. Chu Feng swiped the card at the elevator’s electronic device:
Drip—
The elevator display showed the floor number: 88th floor.
After taking the elevator, they arrived at room number: 8878.
Chu Feng opened the door and inserted the room card into the power panel.
Then he pushed the luggage in, followed by the wheelchair. As for the signed slip in his pocket, Chu Feng didn’t take it out to return it to X. Instead, he casually asked:
“Do you want to rest for a while? We can go out for dinner later.”
X shook his head indicating that he didn’t need to rest.
“I’ll go to the bathroom for a moment,” he said.
X himself turned the wheelchair and slid into the luxurious hotel’s bathroom with automatic frosted glass doors slowly closing.
Chu Feng stood outside for two seconds, making sure X was really inside and wouldn’t come out in a short time. Then he immediately took out the signed credit card slip from his pocket.
X is currently a foreign national, with only a temporary residence permit in China, and he doesn’t even know his Chinese name. The credit card slip was signed with his English name:
Xerxes
Chu Feng looked at the familiar handwriting, and his heart suddenly felt like it was struck by thunder.
Xie Shiyu didn’t give himself an English name, he directly used Shiyu Xie. Many English contracts were signed with this name.
“Xerxes” and “Shiyu Xie,” the two words shared the same letters: X, e, and s. Chu Feng carefully observed the writing of these three letters.
X is the least commonly used starting word among the 26 letters of the English alphabet. Generally, few people would choose X as the starting letter for an English name unless there was some special significance to that letter for X.
The X at the beginning of Xie Shiyu’s name was also an X.
Chu Feng focused on observing the letter X. Generally, in a signature, the first letter would be written particularly large and elegant, and the following letters would be connected together.
Xie Shiyu’s Xie, Xerxes, Chu Feng carefully compared these two Xs, their elegant angles, and the positions of the connections…
For Chu Feng, who had seen Xie Shiyu’s signature thousands of times, it couldn’t be said to be somewhat similar, it was exactly the same.
Chu Feng solemnly put away the signed slip, preparing to hand it over to a handwriting analysis institute immediately after dinner with X, asking them to provide a scientific analysis report.
Click—
The automatic door of the bathroom with frosted glass slowly opened, and X came out from the bathroom.
Chu Feng had already taken the signed slip beforehand, appearing completely nonchalant.
He glanced at X and realized that X might not have actually been using the restroom, but was changing his bandages.
The bandages on his face were as white as fresh snow. Chu Feng thought, perhaps because he was here, X didn’t want him to see the disfigured skin under the bandages, so he went into the bathroom to change them.
Chu Feng didn’t say much either. He pushed the wheelchair to the elevator to go downstairs, and on the way out, he casually took out the room card and handed it back to X, still keeping the signed slip hidden in his own pocket, pretending to forget to give it back to X.
X probably didn’t even notice such a small detail.
***
The elevator descended gradually.
Contrary to what Chu Feng thought, X had actually noticed the detail from the moment Chu Feng put the signed slip into his pocket and hadn’t returned it to him.
Chu Feng’s financial situation was very good, so he couldn’t possibly be trying to extract any financial information from his bill.
So, there was only one reason Chu Feng kept that bill: his signature.
More precisely, his handwriting.
X began to keenly sense that Chu Feng actually had suspicions about him, so he went to the airport to pick him up with a sad heart, and even stole his signature.
Handwriting analysis was also evidence to confirm a person’s identity.
The elevator was about to reach the ground floor.
Chu Feng suppressed the excitement and joy that was difficult to contain.
He observed X’s handwriting, observed his preference for eating candy, and all sorts of words and actions, the more he looked, the more alike they seemed.
But this might be because he had already made expectations in his mind, so he was increasingly inclined towards conclusions that favored these expectations.
The real conclusive evidence would be DNA. X’s DNA must be collected, whether it matched or not, it had to be proven scientifically. If it really wasn’t him, then everything he was doing now would seem like useless probing.
Even though he knew it was useless, he still eagerly wanted to do it. Chu Feng had already imagined how to test X next, how many little habits and preferences Xie Shiyu had, to see if X had any similar ones.
Ding—
The elevator stopped on the first floor, and they headed towards the parking lot.
Chu Feng was planning to take X to the restaurant where Xie Shiyu liked to eat the most.
Just now, X had picked Xie Shiyu’s favorite flavor of Mentos candy from the three tubes. Besides the signature and handwriting, a person’s food preferences were also a criterion for identification.
“You go in first.”
Chu Feng pushed X’s wheelchair into the back seat, then sat back in the driver’s seat and started the car.
Out of some kind of probing mentality, Chu Feng glanced at the Mentos candy on the passenger seat.
The candy was placed in the groove under the passenger seat door handle, and from Chu Feng’s current position in the driver’s seat, it was a little out of reach.
Chu Feng glanced at X in the back seat. As he drove out of the parking lot, he casually said:
“Could you help me grab the candy?”
Chu Feng deliberately didn’t mention what flavor he wanted.
Before leaving the parking lot, they needed to pay the parking fee. At the exit, there was a horizontal bar with a sign clearly saying: “One car, one bar.”
When the car stopped in front of the bar, Chu Feng opened the driver’s side window, and outside was an automatic payment machine with a QR code popping out. Chu Feng opened his phone, scanned the code to make the payment, pretending to be busy with the payment and not having time to grab the candy.
X in the back seat didn’t ask Chu Feng what flavor of candy he wanted either. He reached out, grabbed a piece of candy, and handed it to Chu Feng.
Chu Feng turned his head to look, and X had given him a mint-flavored Mentos candy.
It was exactly his favorite flavor.
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