The Emperor’s Runaway Lover

Quiet days often pass very quickly.

In the blink of an eye, over half a month had gone by.

Fu Yucheng relied on his body’s good health. Within ten days or so, his injury was just about healed. Besides the wound itself and some occasional pain, he had no issues in his daily life.

That day, just after lunch, he was languidly slumped on the sofa, playing with a palm-sized plastic Rubik’s cube. He was almost done assembling all six sides.

He twisted the cube around, but there were always just those few squares that wouldn’t fit together. Even the assembled areas were starting to get messy.

“What sort of crap is this?” Fu Yucheng cursed, discouraged. He threw the Rubik’s cube onto a side table and turned his head to look at the counter.

By the counter, the boy, or as he should call him now, Bai Mo, was carefully wiping a plate.

Transparent sunlight, like a sheer veil, spilled onto the ground through the blinds behind the counter, enveloping Bai Mo’s hair and eyebrows in a layer of warm light. It was making the indifferent and awkward little boy a bit annoyed.

Fu Yucheng thought that the kid looked like a snowman. He barely spoke and he had a cold demeanor, but he had a knack for housework.

As if noticing someone was looking at him, Bai Mo gave him a puzzled look. “What’s wrong, is the wound uncomfortable?”

“Oh, not at all.” Fu Yucheng grinned. “By the way, little Mo, you don’t need to wash things so seriously, you can just rinse them off. I used to save a lot of money before by rinsing it just once, it’s much easier.”

This slob sure spoke confidently. In silence, Bai Mo turned his head and continued to wash the dishes seriously.

" "

Fu Yucheng looked at the thin stream of water coming from the tap, and suddenly remembered something.

It had been half a month since he had picked up the kid from the desert. When he went to take a bath yesterday, he looked at the clean water tank and saw that they only had a shallow layer of water left at the bottom.

Fu Yucheng turned his head to look at the control screen next to the sofa. The red number on the screen showed that the battery level remaining was 9%.

It was time to charge and get water, and also to stretch their legs and move around.

“Little Mo, come here.” He beckoned to Bai Mo.

“Wait.” Bai Mo carefully put the last bowl onto the dish rack, then grabbed the towel next to it, and walked up to the sofa while wiping his hands.

He looked down at Fu Yucheng, and said hesitantly, “What’s the matter?”

“How many times have I told you? Don’t just come in and out all day like a stranger, call me gege.”1 Fu Yucheng glared at him. “Ge and ge, don’t you know how to make that sound?”

“Yu… Yu-ge.” Bai Mo pursed his lips, finally having awkwardly said it out loud.

Subconsciously, he didn’t call him ‘Yucheng-ge’ like the proprietress’ sister, that Xu Youyou, had.

Although he didn’t know how to explain it, Bai Mo didn’t want to be just like everyone else.

“That’s right.” Fu Yucheng was finally satisfied. “You can clean up later. Let’s go fill the car with water and charge it. You have yet to see the big windmills, it’ll be a good occasion for you to expand your horizons and get to know this world better.”

“But, I need to do laundry in the afternoon,” Bai Mo hesitated. “The quilts and blankets also need to get hung up to dry, the bathroom needs to get swept, and the floor-.”

“Okay, I get it, you’re never gonna be finished.” Fu Yucheng was getting a headache, and he raised his right hand, interrupting the other flatly. “It won’t kill you if you don’t do them for one day. Don’t be so stuck up, do what you can and live in the present.”

Bai Mo looked at the man in silence.

He had grown up in a clean and cold laboratory in the Ecoregions. His standards for his environment were almost instinctive. For him, living in Fu Yucheng’s den of rubble was deathly uncomfortable.

He thought for a while. “If it doesn’t get done today, I’ll do it tomorrow.”

Fu Yucheng shrugged. “That’s okay. By the way, there’s a bunch of junk under the workbench, I got it from an abandoned factory last time. Sort them into categories and count them. We’ll go down to the recycling station first to sell these so that we have money for the water and charge.”

“Alright, got it.” Bai Mo nodded, rolled up his sleeves and squatted down, starting the process of clearing the scraps.

Under the workbench, there were piles of things that Fu Yucheng had picked up; a mess of chips, circuit boards, screws, and coils, all covered with cobwebs and dust.

Seeing the boy laboriously sorting out the pile of broken things, Fu Yucheng silently took a sip of water.

He thought to himself that he really wasn’t losing money from picking up this child laborer, in fact, he might actually make money out of it. Deep down in his heart there was a little bit of guilt, but only a very small bit.

Soon, Bai Mo had cleared up the pile of things and placed them in a fabric bag.

“Good job.” Fu Yucheng nodded approvingly. “Time is almost up, we should get going.”

The off-road vehicle drove out of the alley. On the opposite side of the alley was the modified double-decker bus. Standing on the roof of the car was the fat auntie in her sixties, hanging up ears of corn to dry.

When she saw the familiar off-road vehicle, her eyes brightened. She hurriedly put down the corn she was holding and vigorously waved her hands. “A-Cheng, A-Cheng, I heard that you got injured. Are you feeling better?”

“Much better,” Fu Yucheng replied with a smile. “Thank you, Zhou-jie, for sending over the steamed corn cake.”2

“As long as you enjoyed it, that’s great.” Zhou-jie smiled, her eyes narrowing. “I will make more tomorrow. I’ll send over my little granddaughter to get you another portion.”

“Ahem, about that-” Fu Yucheng’s smile suddenly froze. Although the steamed cake was good, he still remembered that said little girl had taken advantage of being sent on the steamed cake errand to talk his ear off all afternoon telling him stories. It almost drove him crazy.

Bai Mo blinked. He remembered that Fu Yucheng had only scooped a spoonful of the steamed cake, and dismissed it as too sweet. He said that it was childrens’ food, and threw it towards Bai Mo.

And the little girl who delivered the steamed cake trapped Fu Yucheng all afternoon to gossip. The man looked so awkward that he seemed to be having a much worse time then than after being attacked by a sandworm.

Bai Mo, remembering about the situation that day, suddenly wanted to laugh.

“You kid, gloating at my misfortune.” Fu Yucheng seemed to sense something and turned to helplessly glare at him. “You eat the steamed cake, but I am the one who suffers. Don’t you have a conscience?”

“Mm.” Bai Mo turned his head to look out the window, with the corners of his mouth slightly raised.

Their vehicle slowly drove around the parking lot and soon arrived at the edge of the valley.

A huge recycling station appeared in front of them.

This recycling station had an extremely strange shape. It was made up of hundreds of old colorful containers stacked haphazardly. Although it looked a bit rudimentary, it was quite spectacular, and it looked like a post-modern art building.

“Here we are, let’s go.” Fu Yucheng picked up the tattered cloth bag, opened the car door and stepped outside.

Bai Mo hesitated for a while, then followed.

Fu Yucheng walked into one of the containers, being apparently familiar with it. The lighting inside was very poor, and the only thing visible were vague outlines of messy piles of junk.

The two of them walked in past the piles of debris. In front of them was a low counter with a figure of a delicate girl on it.3

A loud snoring sound came from behind the counter.

Bai Mo frowned. “There’s someone-”

“Wu, the big boss of this recycling station, is a gaming otaku and a night owl.4 His two loves are sleeping in, and anime figures.” Fu Yucheng shrugged, and dropped the bag in his hand on the counter. “Fatty Wu, business is here.”

“Business is here, business is here!” A sharp voice came from above, startling Bai Mo.

A black shadow descended from the sky with the sound of flapping wings, dropping on top of Fu Yucheng’s shoulder while screaming: “Business is here, business is here!”.

It turned out to be a big green parrot.

Fu Yucheng rubbed the parrot’s head. “Hey Greeny,5 has the fat guy been bullying you recently? I swear, I wouldn’t have left you here with him if I had enough free time.”

“Business is here!” The parrot tilted its head.

Bai Mo stared at it. “Yu-ge, this- this bird can talk.”

“No way, little Mo, you have never seen a parrot?” Fu Yucheng glanced at him with compassion. “Children growing up in the Ecoregions are so pitiful, tsk tsk.”

“So pitiful,” the parrot yelled again, “so pitiful!”

“What’s with all the noise, this boss was taking a nap.” A loud noise came from behind the counter, as if someone had crashed into something. “Ouch, that hurt! Wife, are you okay?”

A big fat man carrying a figure of a pretty girl on one arm grumpily stood up from behind the counter, while rubbing his head.

He squinted his eyes, which were already squeezed tight by the fat, and looked carefully at the guests. He couldn’t avoid feeling slightly stunned. “Fu Yucheng, how come it’s you?”

“Why,” Fu Yucheng raised his eyebrows, “couldn’t it be me?”

“No reason,” the fat man murmured. “You used to come here almost every week, and now it’s been so long that I had thought you died in New Sahara, or got eaten by some big fish in the Devil’s Antarctic.”

“No way, Fatty Wu, you want me dead so much?” Fu Yucheng laughed.

“Hahaha, not at all, not at all.” Fatty Wu scratched his head and slapped him. “After all, A-Cheng, the goods you bring are always first-class. You’re the only one who can get that sort of thing out of New Sahara or the Devil’s Antarctic.”

As he talked and talked, suddenly his eyes lit up as if he’d found a new world.  “Hey, who is the kid next to you? I don’t think I’ve seen his face before. Hey, young friend, what is your name?”

Bai Mo glanced at him lightly, without answering.

Fu Yucheng couldn’t help raising his eyebrows. The brat acted quite cold in front of strangers.

“This kid is so arrogant.” Fatty Wu was weirded out. “A-Cheng, how many coins did you give a wandering slave trader to get him?”6

“I bought him for nothing, it costed me fuck all to pick him up.” Fu Yucheng smiled triumphantly and rubbed the boy’s hair. “What do you think, not a bad deal, eh?”

Bai Mo felt a bit awkward about getting his head pet in front of outsiders, and he tilted his head to the side.

He couldn’t help muttering to himself that Fu Yucheng’s tone sounded the same as when he bragged about the off-road vehicle he had found.

Fatty Wu suddenly uttered “Oh,” and added, “so you found him in the desert? But this kid, he looks different from a refugee.

“He looks pretty white and soft, his face doesn’t seem sickly at all.” Fatty Wu leaned on the counter, stretched out a plump paw, and tried to pinch the boy’s cheek. “A-cheng, someday you will get tired of taking care of him, just hand him over now, be a buddy.”

With a crisp sound, Bai Mo unceremoniously slapped Fatty Wu’s hand off.

His face was calm, and he looked like a frosty snow doll. “I won’t stay with you, nor work for you, buddy.”

Fatty Wu was stunned. He glanced at Fu Yucheng with a slightly embarrassed expression, looking a bit ridiculous. “The kid has a temper.”

Seeing him so deflated, Fu Yucheng couldn’t help feeling amused. “I’ve told you, Fatty, how you’re always wanting to feel up everything you see with your two pig hooves… this time you’ve touched a hot stove.”

He patted the boy’s tense shoulders. “Little Mo, good fight.”

Bai Mo imperceptibly sighed with relief, and his body gradually relaxed.

For a moment, he really feared that Fu Yucheng would hand him over to the fat man like he had done with the parrot.

If so, he’d rather not have been picked up at all.

Fatty Wu was not happy anymore. “Hey, A-Cheng, we have been friends for so many years, how can you be like this? Let me tell you, that green parrot you left me with? I’ve lost count of how many business transactions it has interrupted. And last time I was at the bar, I had just managed to start talking to that girl, but the moment she saw you her eyes were glued to you. Fuck me.”

He started bringing up old grievances, and the list was practically endless.

Fu Yucheng couldn’t avoid an eyeroll and interrupted the man’s complaining directly. “Come on, let’s get back to business, Fatty Wu. Hurry up and check out this stuff, how much currency is it worth?”

“Fine, okay, I’ll take a look first.” Fatty Wu nodded. He took out an odd-shaped microscope and placed it carefully over his left eye before he began to fiddle with the contents of the bag.

The fat man’s fingers were thick and short, but very agile, flying in and out of the pile of scrap like a butterfly.

After a while, he separated a bunch of chips and circuit boards from the stack, and carefully counted them one by one. “Look, A-Cheng, these ones here, there and this one are all pretty good. The rest aren’t very valuable. Oh, this one looks fine, let me take a closer look.”

“Okay, don’t talk so much nonsense.” Fu Yucheng snapped his fingers impatiently. “Take it as a package, how much is the total amount worth?”

Fatty Wu thought for a while before tentatively asking: “Two hundred coins-”

“Wu, you profiteer, are you fucking kidding me?” Fu Yucheng raised his eyes and stared at him blankly. “Hans’ shop would offer me at least 30 pieces more than you.”

Fatty Wu scratched his head, looking a little embarrassed, and politely handed Fu Yucheng a cup of tea. “Hey, the market isn’t good. Alright, two hundred and thirty coins, I can’t give you any more. Even if you go to Hans, he won’t give you a better price.”

He curled his lips. “The Mo family hasn’t come to these stores to take the goods for over a month. Now, everyone is afraid of buying goods and getting stuck with them, so prices can’t go any higher.”

“Why didn’t the Mo family come to take the goods?” Fu Yucheng was a little confused. Everyone picked up scraps here and there and sold them to the recycling stations, and the recycling stations sold them to the Mo family. It had always been an important source of resources for Fort Hurricane’s underground factories. Why would they suddenly stop buying the stock?

Fatty Wu said mysteriously, “A-Cheng, did you just come back from the desert? Haven’t you had time to drop by the bar and listen to the gossip about Fort Hurricane? There’s something going on. Since the death of his wife, Mo Ziwei has been in a bad mood. He killed a worker, and then started a purge within the family. The entirety of Fort Hurricane is a mess, when would they have time to come get the goods?”

“Killing workers and purging, what’s with Mo Ziwei, is there something wrong with his brain? Fuck, Fatty, your tea is awful.” Fu Yucheng frowned while drinking. “In two months, it’s time for another batch of workers. It’ll be my turn to work at Fort Hurricane again. Don’t make trouble, don’t get weird ideas.”

Bai Mo couldn’t stop himself from looking at Fu Yucheng.

So he’s going to work in Fort Hurricane.

Why had he never told him?

How long would he be there?

Bai Mo wanted to find out, but he pursed his lips without saying anything. He was already living under someone else’s roof. How is he qualified to be asking for an explanation?

“A-Cheng, do you know the true identity of Mo Ziwei?” Fatty Wu licked his lips and lowered his voice, “I’m afraid if I tell you, you’ll freak out.”

Fu Yucheng sneered. “Fatty Wu, do I look like I’m scared?”

“The fallen green ghost.”

“Puff cough cough cough.” Fu Yucheng couldn’t hold himself back, and sprayed Bai Mo, who was next to him, with tea.

***

Author’s note:7

A long time later, in the future.

Little Bai Mo, all grown up, counted Fu Yucheng’s eyelashes to entertain himself. “Yu-ge, your nickname, is it because of the color of your eyes? There’s a bit of dark green in the black, how can it be so pretty?”

Fu Yucheng blinked. “Uh, well, actually it’s because I used to wear a green crystal bracelet. The name of the crystals was also ‘green ghost coming.’”8

Little Bai Mo sat up on the bed. “Who gave you that bracelet?”

Fu Yucheng was a little embarrassed. “I bought it myself.”

Little Bai Mo pressed him. “Yu-ge, you never wear these things.”

Fu Yucheng lowered his voice. “I heard people say that it’d bring good luck. Hey, don’t laugh, little Bai Mo, what are you doing, hey-”

The plot thickens~

If you want to support the translation, you can donate here!!

And if you like the story, don’t forget to vote for it on NU here!

Footnotes

Meaning older brother, same as the -ge termination from earlier.Kind of a sponge cake made of corn flour like this. Ah, I’m hungry.The term used 手办 is the same as for anime figures, it’s a small sized figurine.The term used 肥宅 seems a bit memey, it seems similar to discord mod jokes, it’s more derogative than just “nerd”.The parrot also gets the A- prefix treatment, it just looks odd without it being pinyin.The references to coins and currency all use 交易币 which just means transaction currency.Until now author’s notes have mostly been thanks to readers and donors, but when there’s tiny scenes like this they’ll be translated.A type of bracelet made of round beads, apparently, like this.