The Emperor’s Runaway Lover

In the blink of an eye, the birthday of Xu Nana, the proprietress, arrived.

It was dinner time, the locomotive bar was lit up by colorful lights, the drinks were 50% off for everyone, and all sorts of guests were bustling around. The atmosphere was very lively.

As soon as Fu Yucheng and Bai Mo walked into the bar, they heard He Lei’s triumphant voice. “Nana, I think Fu Yucheng, that boy, is too scared to come.”

The two raised their eyes and saw He Lei and his group, sitting in a circular booth in one corner of the bar.

“These fruits are on the house,” Xu Nana put down the fruit plate in her hand. She said helplessly, “Lei-ge, I’ve just been told- can’t you drop that thing with the knife?? I don’t even want to say anything else, you’re not going to listen to me anyway. But I- this is a bar, I’m worried some accident might end up happening.”

“Don’t worry, if Fu Yucheng dares to come, I’ll be done with him in a blink or two, I won’t cause you any trouble.” He Lei glanced at the proprietress. “Or do you feel for him?”1

“…” Xu Nana was speechless. There wasn’t a single thing she could respond with.

Aaron, the baldie sitting next to him, said angrily: “If that Fu Yucheng comes, boss, you must avenge me, and teach him a good lesson!”

“You idiot, you made me lose all my face!2 You have some guts to bring that up!” He Lei cursed him out.

Mr. Wei, sitting on the sofa, shook his head helplessly.

Xu Nana was considering whether she should let her sister run out to tell Fu Yucheng not to come over. However, when she raised her head… speak of the devil and he shall appear.

She momentarily froze, then glared with her almond eyes, desperately winking at Fu Yucheng in order to make him leave quickly.

Fu Yucheng smiled at her and walked past her with a swagger,3 followed by Bai Mo.

He walked up to the booth He Lei and his group were in. He sat down on the small sofa across He Lei. “Boss He, what are you all talking about so happily?”

He Lei, with half a cigarette dangling from his fingers, narrowed his eyes, somewhat surprised. “You must have some guts, to show up here.”

Fu Yucheng presented his hand. “Where is my knife?”

“Your knife, huh.” He Lei slowly puffed a ring of smoke towards him. “I accidentally lost it, sorry.”

Standing behind Fu Yucheng, Bai Mo couldn’t stop himself from frowning deeply upon hearing the words ‘lost it’.

“Oh, you lost it. How did you lose it?” Fu Yucheng’s face didn’t change, but his eyebrows went up slightly.

“Who knows, it’s gone either way. How many trading coins was it worth? I’ll pay you.” He Lei turned his head to look at his thug. “Aaron, get my wallet.”

“I’m afraid you wouldn’t be able to afford it,” Fu Yucheng said with a smile.

“No humility, I see.” He Lei let out a laugh. “Fu Yucheng, do you really think that your lousy knife is made of a blue gold compound?”

Fu Yucheng wasn’t angry. He smiled. “I don’t.”

He thought to himself, ‘My lousy knife isn’t a blue gold compound, my lousy knife is pure fucking blue gold!’

Of course, he couldn’t say that out loud.

Nowadays, blue gold was the only psionic sensitive metal in the world. Moreover, since the explosion in the Fisher Laboratory in the Dyson cloud, there was no one capable of synthesizing the metal anymore, so it could be said to be extremely valuable.

A sentience weapon mixed with blue gold was pretty much the ultimate dream of every manipulator. Generally speaking, just a 1% of blue gold was enough to turn trash into magic, and to turn an ordinary weapon into an unpredictable sentience weapon.4

And a sword made of pure blue gold was simply unimaginable for most psionic manipulators.

However, with Fu Yucheng’s current status, even if he ran into the street and yelled ‘My sword is pure blue gold!’, the only thing people would think was that he went mad.

“In any case, your lousy knife is gone.” He Lei leaned back against the sofa and took a long drag of his cigarette.

Fu Yucheng shrugged. “Since my knife is gone, forget about today’s competition. I have other things to do, so I’ll get going now.”

He Lei was stunned. He called Fu Yucheng out in disbelief. “Fu Yucheng, you’re just trying to use that as an excuse to run away, you’re such a pussy!”5

“But I am unarmed.” Fu Yucheng leaned forward and lowered his voice slightly. “Or is it that you only dare to use your fists, and don’t have the guts to have a knife fight against me?”

He Lei glared at him, almost laughing from how pissed off he was. He immediately turned his head and told his thug, “Aaron, give him the knife.”

Bai Mo secretly laughed at this He Lei. He really didn’t know whether He Lei was innocent or just stupid. With barely a couple sentences, he’d fallen for Fu Yucheng’s ruse and had honestly given him the knife back.

Mr. Wei sat on the sofa next to him and shook his head, speechless. Right at that moment he hated his boss, plain and simple.

The baldie, Aaron, fished out the scimitar and dropped the sheathed blade at Fu Yucheng’s feet, without any semblance of politeness.

Bai Mo raised his head and gave him a cold look.

“What are you looking at?” Aaron snapped, walking back.

“Little Mo, it’s fine.” Fu Yucheng waved his hand, then bent over to pick it up.

He gently stroked the old leather scabbard, and then, in one smooth movement, he unsheathed the blade.

The light of the blue metal gave everyone present a chill in the back of their skull.

“Fu Yucheng, you are kind of funny.” He Lei looked at the dark blue blade and couldn’t stop himself from shaking his head. “You are an ordinary person. Who are you trying to fool by using a false blue gold scimitar? If you were a manipulator, maybe it wouldn’t be a bad bluff to pull off.”

Fu Yucheng glanced at him and smirked faintly. “You’re right. It’s just a way to fool kids who don’t know what they’re doing.”

For a moment, He Lei was taken aback. He felt that the pretty boy’s tone was strange, as if he was mocking him in some roundabout way,6 but he couldn’t figure out what it meant.

He Lei was extremely upset. He stared at the other, and then slowly stuck out his tongue, using the tip of it to put out the cigarette butt with a soft ‘psst’.

Fu Yucheng looked at him indifferently, with no expression on his face.

Bai Mo openly stared. What did he even have an ashtray on the table for?

Xu Nana couldn’t help but roll her eyes secretly. How old was he? This haughty local bully, He Lei, was actually trying to intimidate someone with such an old trick. Was he really so childish?

“Nana, since today is your birthday, we need to do something special. Fu Yucheng agreed to meet up with me a few days ago, and we said we’d do a nice gesture to liven up the atmosphere.” He Lei threw the cigarette butt on the ground, standing up slowly.

“I’m not interested in fighting and killing, forget about all this,” Xu Nana said helplessly.

“No, you have to support us today, and you have to be our referee.” He Lei stared at Fu Yucheng and sneered. “If I lose, I will never pester Nana again. If he loses, he can’t enter the locomotive bar anymore, no matter what leg he uses to step in first.”

Fu Yucheng shook his head. “Your wager is too small.”

He Lei blinked, looking a bit surprised. “You still want to bet your life?”

“Can’t play with fate. I still have something big to accomplish, so I have to keep my life, regardless of my luck. Instead, let’s just bet on a pair of eyes.” Fu Yucheng stroked the scimitar in his hand, speaking in a casual tone.

Bai Mo was dumbfounded and couldn’t help whispering, “Yu-ge, that’s-”

He Lei was also stunned, and then laughed out loud and gave him a thumbs up. “Hahaha, you have some guts after all, how interesting.”

Xu Nana was anxious. “A-Cheng, how can you say that? Lei-ge, let’s just forget it.”

Fu Yucheng ignored her and stared at He Lei intently. “Look at you, Boss He! You don’t dare to bet?”

“Don’t make me laugh.” He Lei glared at him. “That’s it, Fu Yucheng, I’m going to get your dog eyes.”

All the guests in the bar had their eyes focused on the two of them. In this electrifying atmosphere, everyone was so excited, getting ready to watch the show, that they even started to place bets.

“Who do you think will win? Who are you betting on?”

“Boss He, of course. I bet thirty coins.”

“I bet fifty.”

“A hundred.”

“Tsk, tsk, the odds are too unbalanced, there’s no point. Boring!”

“I bet five coins on Fu Yucheng.”

Everyone fell quiet, and then they followed the voice, discovering that it was a boy about fourteen or fifteen years old. His small pale face showed no expression, with gelid eyes, and five trading coins in his open hand.

The group of people suddenly burst into laughter.

“Hahahaha, this kid is kind of interesting.”

“You should use those five coins to buy a lollipop.”

“Whatever, five coins is five coins, write it down.”

There was a small circular dance floor in the middle of the bar, reflecting colorful lights. He Lei’s thugs pushed the guests on the dance floor aside, freeing up a large space in the center.

According to Twilight Belt’s tradition, two people had to greet each other before starting a fight.

Fu Yucheng and He Lei walked into the dance floor one after the other. Each stood on one side, and then bowed as a salute, to symbolize that friendship went first and competition second.

Everyone saw a faint blur before their eyes, and then the two of them, having finished their greeting, took a step back.

The bar fell silent. The only thing that could be heard was a falling drop.

A line of blood slowly trickled downwards, a drop hitting the dancefloor’s solid wooden floor, producing a faint sound.”

Unexpectedly, a bright red cut had appeared on Fu Yucheng’s left cheek.

When the two of them bowed, He Lei had already swung his knife. However, his movement had been too fast. From swinging to sheathing, the only thing everyone had seen before their eyes was a blur.

He Lei patted the scimitar in his hand. “Fu Yucheng, in my opinion, this isn’t even a contest. I only need one eye to look at you, and I can keep the other on Nana’s face. The reward is yours, come grab it yourself.”

Fu Yucheng stared at him quietly, and suddenly smiled. “You think so?”

“Nana, I’ve been telling you for ages, this pretty boy is all looks and no talent.” He Lei looked at the proprietress triumphantly.

Xu Nana opened her eyes wide. “Lei-ge, your…”

" "

Next to her, Xu Youyou covered her mouth, as if she wanted to laugh but didn’t dare to.

Bai Mo was standing by the dance floor, staring at Fu Yucheng with his dark eyes. He finally relaxed a little bit.

Fu Yucheng smiled at him. “Little Mo, I saw you bet five coins. That’s too little, you have no confidence in me!”

“It’s not that I have no confidence.” Bai Mo shook his head. “I only had five coins.”

Fu Yucheng scratched his head. “Ah, right.”

Those five coins were Bai Mo’s pocket money for buying comics and candy. Oh well, in the future, when he got more cash, he should give the brat some more pocket money.

He Lei glanced at them in suspicion, feeling that something was off. He looked at his thugs. “What’s wrong?”

“Boss, your hair,” Aaron said shakily.

Mr. Wei rubbed his forehead helplessly, feeling a little fatigued.

With a blank expression, He Lei raised his hand and touched the top of his left ear. A large section of hair by his temple was gone, and only a thin layer of stubble remained.

The bar roared with laughter.

“Hahahaha-”

Exciting things are happening~ I really want to publish chapter 17 already, you’ll all see~ I hope everyone has a great start of the year!

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Footnotes

心疼 heart ache, can be either pity or love, I feel “heartache” leans way more into romantic feelings in English but the Chinese is more vague hence the rephrasing.Losing face = being humiliated, I think it’s well known enough that it doesn’t need rephrasing but here’s a footnote just in case. We collect footnotes in this house.大摇大摆 which google offers this image for.魂武 Literally soul weapon, but besides not fitting current lore it seems to appear (thank you fox) a lot in videogames (see: Final Fantasy) as a way to refer to weapons with some form of sentience. Given the previous lore about manipulators, I believe rather than the weapon being sentient it uses the manipulator’s consciousness, therefore, sentience weapons. Other games have used terms like ‘ego weapon’ for it.孬 originally, it seemed fitting…指桑骂槐  pointing at the mulberry tree and cursing the acacia tree, I went with the implicit meaning because the literal one seems obscure in English. From Dream of the red chamber (I think).