Chapter 1 The Sound

Dong, dong, dong—

A series of dull knocks awakened Feng Bujue from his slumber.

He opened his eyes and saw a familiar face through the glass window of the game pod.

"What the hell?" Feng Bujue muttered before unlocking the pod from the inside.

After opening the hatch and sitting up, he looked at Ruoyu with a puzzled expression. "What do you want?"

Ruoyu looked back at him, her expression subtle. "I'd say… a normal person would ask 'What time is it?' or 'How did you get in here?', right?"

"It's three-thirty in the morning, and you definitely have a spare key to my place," Feng Bujue stated the answers to those two questions directly, then continued, "I usually don't ask about things that are clear after thinking for two seconds…"

"For someone who just woke up, you're thinking a little too clearly…" Ruoyu's attitude was indeed a bit strange; she looked like she was sulking, but not really angry.

"It's alright… haah…" Jue-ge yawned and praised himself without thinking. "If you compare the human brain to a computer…" As he spoke, he lightly tapped his temple with his finger. "Then the boot-up speed of this one is indeed faster than most." He paused, tilted his head, and looked at Ruoyu. "So, getting back to the point… what brings you here in the dead of night?"

Ruoyu hesitated, seemingly pondering. After a few seconds, she revealed a somewhat troubled expression and gave an answer that even she herself found a bit inexplicable: "Um… it seems… there's nothing really."

"Huh?" Jue-ge responded with a raised eyebrow. He didn't overthink it, just waved his hand, signaling for her to step back a bit so he could climb out of the game pod.

"Heh…" After climbing out of the game pod, Feng Bujue went back to pondering Ruoyu's words and actions, as if he was beginning to understand. He immediately revealed a sly smile and joked, "Came even when there's nothing to do… so you miss me."

"So that's it… you miss me," Unexpectedly, Ruoyu nodded as if she had suddenly realized, seeming to accept this explanation.

"Hey, hey…" This time, Feng Bujue's smile disappeared. He narrowed his eyes and said with a doubtful expression, "Are you alright? I felt like something was off with you when we were in the game."

"You noticed too?" Ruoyu replied. "I only felt something was wrong after leaving the script…" She crossed her arms in front of her chest, frowned, lowered her head, and pondered aloud, "So I didn't wait for you, I directly exited the game and meditated for a while…"

"And… the result?" Feng Bujue asked.

"Although I can't be completely sure, I roughly know…" Ruoyu replied, "There's a problem with the 'seal'."

"Oh?" Upon hearing this, countless thoughts immediately flashed through Feng Bujue's mind. "Could it be… your seal has been released?"

"Not yet," Ruoyu shook her head. "I'm still clear about whether the seal has disappeared or not, but… in some ways, I feel different from before." She paused for half a second, thoughtfully saying, "I estimate… it's possible that excessive mental strain caused cracks in the seal."

"I see…" Jue-ge seemed to be getting interested, and once again revealed a smile. "Eh, do you have any special feelings for me now?"

"Hard to say," Ruoyu replied, "I just suddenly wanted to see you, preferably to talk to you, it doesn't really matter what we talk about."

There was nothing wrong with her words themselves; whether they were romantic or cheesy, that was the content, but the tone she used was still the same tone a killer used when interrogating a victim, making it feel incredibly incongruous.

"Hoh~" But these words falling into Jue-ge's ears undoubtedly caused his penchant for being cheap to explode, and he spoke without thinking, "Not bad~" His expression was as if he had discovered a new toy, and he immediately grabbed Ruoyu's hand. "Come on… let's go to the bedroom and chat slowly."

Unexpectedly, just as Jue-ge's hand touched Ruoyu's hand, an anomaly occurred!

"What are you doing, getting handsy!" Ruoyu seemed to suddenly enter a berserk state, using a yell that a martial artist would only unleash when delivering a fatal blow to an opponent, and at the same time, using a strange strength that Jue-ge couldn't even dream of matching, twisted the latter's arm behind his back and threw him to the ground with an over-the-shoulder toss.

Thud—

A moment later, Feng Bujue fell flat on his back on the ground, his expression like Loki after being beaten up by the Hulk, groaning "Ugh—" from his throat.

"Ah! I wasn't careful…" After throwing Jue-ge out, Ruoyu returned to her usual, relatively calm state. She looked down at her hands and muttered, "Sure enough… what's wrong with me…"

"This matter has reminded me once again…" Feng Bujue stared blankly at the ceiling, the pain from his back and wrists unable to suppress his desire to complain. "Women, what they say, what they think, what they actually do… are usually inconsistent…"

"Um… I'm sorry…" Ruoyu also seemed very embarrassed. She immediately crouched down and wanted to help Jue-ge up.

Feng Bujue also naturally reached out his hand to hook Ruoyu's shoulder, and then…

"Ah—" Jue-ge's scream announced that he had been thrown again with an even more vicious move.

"Eh?" This time, Ruoyu herself was a little scared. "Why…" Besides confusion, her face showed a bit more fear. "I didn't want to…"

As she spoke, she wanted to go up and help Jue-ge again: "Are you alright?"

"Don't come over!" Upon seeing this, Feng Bujue hugged his head and scurried away, "rolling" two meters away, and said to Ruoyu while lying down, "Sis! I'm begging you, spare my life…"

"It's not… I…" Ruoyu wanted to explain.

But Feng Bujue interrupted her: "I know you didn't mean to, I'll accompany you to 'Department Nine' later to ask your grandfather and the others for help." After quickly saying this, he saw that Ruoyu was no longer approaching, and only then did he lie down and breathe a sigh of relief, "Huff… but you have to let me rest a bit first…"

…………

Forty minutes later, Department Nine, the department head's office.

"It's no use asking me…" Gu Chen yawned, looking at Feng Bujue and Ruoyu who were across the desk from him. "This kind of seal wasn't just created by Vincent or Woody's power. As something related to the 'Candidate Game,' your seals are most likely based on the 'Council's' magic system… This is clearly beyond the scope of what we human world ability users can observe and interfere with; in fact, if Woody and the others hadn't revealed this information to Feng Bujue, even I… wouldn't have known about the existence of the seals."

"No way… even you can't do anything?" Feng Bujue wondered.

"That's right," Gu Chen said. "If there was a way, how could we elders ignore it? Even if I didn't care, there's no way Xiaoyu's grandparents wouldn't care."

"Grandfather, is there really no other way?" Ruoyu continued, "The way I am now… forget about work, even daily life is a problem. What if I accidentally hurt Mom, Dad, or Xiaoling…"

"It's simple," Gu Chen was a very reliable person, and he could always give others a "there's a way" feeling, even if it was a desperate measure, he could make it sound very reasonable. "You two should just live together again."

"Huh?"

"Huh?"

Feng Bujue and Li Ruoyu reacted identically at this moment, whether it was the timing of speaking or the length of the trailing sound of that "Huh" word, even the pitch of their voices was exactly the same.

"Xiaoyu, you should put your work at the gallery on hold for now," A second later, Gu Chen nonchalantly looked at Ruoyu and continued, "Anyway, there wasn't much work to begin with, just let your dad manage it alone. If it really doesn't work, he can just hire a female secretary." He paused, then looked at Feng Bujue, his eyebrows revealing a malicious look. "...Having a boyfriend whose work hours are flexible and who's basically on call 24/7 to take care of you is just right, isn't it?"

"I feel like the 'take care' in that sentence means something closer to 'get beaten up'," Feng Bujue said. "So hurting me… doesn't count as a problem, right?"

"It wasn't a problem to begin with," Gu Chen replied in a matter-of-fact tone. "You guys don't sleep together at night anyway, just try to avoid physical contact when you're awake, right? With your Feng Da Wenhao's alertness, if you're prepared, unless you're just asking for it, how could you be so easily beaten up?"

After being said that by him, Feng Bujue really couldn't refute it, because what he said was reasonable…

"This…" Ruoyu then said, "...It's possible." She thought for a moment, "But this is just a temporary measure, it still doesn't fundamentally solve the problem."

"Aiyah~ it's just temporary to begin with," Gu Chen said. "You also said that it should be caused by cracks in the seal; I estimate… this is a normal reaction when years of suppressed emotions are suddenly released. Every emotion has two sides, positive and negative. Looking at your example… those two sides are 'a strong desire to increase the amount of time spent with Feng Bujue,' and 'a strong resistance to physical contact and an instinctive rejection reaction'." He spread his hands. "You don't have to worry too much, humans are very adaptable creatures. If nothing unexpected happens, both of these symptoms will slowly weaken over time, and eventually reach a level similar to that of a normal person."

Having said this, Gu Chen leaned back in his chair and looked up, saying, "In a sense, this accident might actually be a good thing… because judging from your performance, if your seal had really been directly shattered, your reaction might have been even greater."

"Um… that 'greater reaction' sounds pretty exciting," Feng Bujue took the opportunity to make another jab.

Gu Chen continued to ignore him and continued, "Of course, I'm also making assumptions based on the existing information and my personal thoughts. If your situation still hasn't improved after a while… um… we'll talk about it then."

"Are you going to say… 'You two might as well just get married' then?" Even Ruoyu couldn't help but narrow her eyes and complain to her grandfather.

"Haha…" Gu Chen also rarely laughed so happily. "You child, you're smart, but what you said is a bit thoughtless." He glanced at Jue-ge, "Look at the longing expression on Feng Bujue's face after hearing that."

At this moment, the expression on Feng Bujue's face was actually "are you f***ing kidding me."

"Hey, hey… where is the longing in a married life that directly enters an MMA (mixed_martial_arts, mixed martial arts) rhythm upon physical contact?" Jue-ge responded with a twitching mouth.

Unexpectedly, Gu Chen looked at Jue-ge in the next second and revealed even more shocking remarks: "You can tie her up."

Just as the two people across the desk were listening in stunned silence, he looked at Ruoyu and said, "You can also train him to have the kind of physique that makes him happy after being beaten up."

After the words fell, all that remained in the room… was silence.

As the man who was known as the "Winter Name Mountain God of Cars" half a century ago, Old Driver Gu never easily drove fast, but as long as he played a little drift, those young people couldn't even see his taillights.

"Alright, I have to go back and get some sleep, if you two don't have anything else, go back too," Gu Chen didn't have time to explain, so he got on the GTR… no… he walked out of the office, leaving two young men and women who didn't even have time to call the police, sitting there dumbfounded… unable to say a word for a long time.