Laughing at Oneself

§73

Murong Jihua has a keen self-awareness in that his only advantage lies in his wealth.

——So he extends his arms wide as he takes out all eight takeout boxes one by one and opens them, lining them up in a row by the bedside.

Heavenly Braised Fins in White Gravy (TL: I do not condone eating shark fins at all while the harvest is still highly unsustainable and without regard for the sharks)
Paper-Wrapped Chicken
Extravagant Stuffed Chinese Perch
Stir-fried Shrimp and Rice Eel
Fried Mantis Shrimp
Steamed Sea Cucumber in Chicken Soup Basin
Steamed Fried Pork in Lotus Leaves
Smooth Spliced Steamed Pond Smelt

(TL: Please appreciate the hour I spent researching these dishes and thinking up some descriptive but not overly dry English names.)

Mm, a unified, coordinated colour scheme from red to green. Sure is pretty.

Murong Jihua begins by scouring a whole piece of chicken meat full of spicy sauce, and immediately begins sending it into Su Xiaoqiu’s mouth, saying,

“Open your mouth, ‘aa’——The train is steaming through the tunnel.” (TL: Basically what one would do to coo a little child into eating)

Plus the poker face Murong Jihua is maintaining on purpose, Xiaoqiu feels almost like being dragged by the throat by Meng Po who is pouring her Soup of Forgetfulness down his throat.

——The chicken ended up swallowed whole, with the juices on the spoon licked completely clean.
——Not through the mountain tunnel, which collapsed and was not passable.

Su Xiaomo, Xiaoqiu are two equally shocked faces; Murong Jihua’s face is currently of various colours and expressions.

§74

He. Jün. Le.

It’s. You. Again!

——It was he who leaned forward, and took hold of the colourful spoon in Murong Jihua’s hand with his lips and teeth.

Put simply, he was robbing food away.

Murong Jihua, with his throat dried, watched as he extends the tip of his tongue to steal away the last bit of red from the silver spoon.

——And then licks, before putting up two fingers to point at his own lips, remarking,

“Delicious, but oily. Too much meat and spiciness for a patient like Xiaoqiu.”

§75

… So seductive, so handsome, so hunky.

No, wait.

Fuck! He was completely right.

§76

The little bubbling volcano in Murong Jihua’s heart has completely fizzled out, not even a puff of smoke now from the vast tidal wave named He Jünle.

The young man, with his brows in a mocking angle, and his lips in a sarcastic angle, is teasing him coldly,

“Mr Important Shaoye, are you trying to care for him or kill him outright? Tch, I haven’t even done anything yet——
Don’t make me bored so quickly, now.”

§77

So damned showy.

… He should really have just smacked him to death with cash. To save him from all this trouble now.

Of course, not that he can’t do it right now. The game will just be automatically over and he gets his soul dispersed to lay in the tomb with him.

He’s kidding.

§78

And it’s not over yet.

After that, Murong Jihua can only watch as He Jünle takes out the simple-looking lunchbox from behind him, and produces several soft cakes from it like magic, with a small bowl of rice-soup.

He hands the lunchbox over to Su Xiaomo, saying, “I asked the doctor, and these are food Xiaoqiu can eat. I made them all myself. Try them?”

Su Xiaomo nods with watery eyes and begins sobbing in thanks, “thank you, Le-gege.”

“No problem,”

He Jünle responds by leaning forward slightly with a smile. From Murong Jihua’s angle, he can see how lean and slender he is under that white trenchcoat. The conversation continues.

“There is no need for thanks between the two of us.”
“Don’t worry, Mo-er. As long as I’m here, no one can hurt you.”

Murong Jihua “…”
Murong Jihua ‘Should I be lighting up or glowing green right now?’ (TL: The former means being a third wheel; the latter means having his significant other cheat on him)

§78.5

If, at least, just now, he was still feeling a bit——Like he and He Jünle being a couple here to visit the kids, then right now, he only feels like either he is a big lightbulb of extra wattage;
Or the equivalent of the grass fields of Hulunbuir back on his home planet.

He really is a shame to all the bossy CEO archetype characters.

He will have to do something.

Something that only he can do, nobody but him can do, that He Jünle is unable to do no matter what.

Looking around him, he finds his gaze fixated on a small, insignificant patch of spider web in a corner of the hospital.

Thus, he formulates a plan.

§78.9

And the moment he pushes the device on his wrist to call butler Cui on speakerphone,

Before he could even speak, butler Cui has already completed everything he thought of,

“Shaoye, rest assured, the Fourth People’s Hospital has become part of your business empire since five minutes ago.”
“…”
“And also, the eight shops from which shaoye has ordered takeout before have all called to report that they will be able to offer us free takeout services for life.”
“…”
“Shaoye, is there anything else on your mind?”
“…”

§79

Murong Jihua glances over at He Jünle’s expression that could almost be a sneer. Or rather, the sarcasm is completely unmitigated. His face is practically reading –
How badly could you deal your godsend arrangement of cards.

§80

Can he ask, if it is too late now to close the speakerphone he opened to act cool?

Murong Jihua takes a deep breath or three, and finally, orders with his deep tone after it has stabilised,

“… Reserve for me Country A’s royal specialist doctor’s next entire month on schedule. And call for me a double-decker grade S ambulance.
Yes, to transfer to the best hospital in the entire city, the one where I am the majority stakeholder.
With at least a cavalcade of eight teams of bodyguards. I want a patient here to receive the utmost pinnacle of medical care.”

Under Xiaoqiu and Su Xiaomo’s surprised gazes, Murong Jihua decides to bury that ‘Wipe those eight restaurants off the face of the planet’ back into his throat.

He cuts the call off, and then casts a prideful gaze over He Jünle, and raises his chin to say,

“You see?
Being rich, is already cool in and of itself.”

You little outrageous boy can be amazing all you want, but only so much. You can make food for the little Su brother, but can you buy an entire hospital for him?

§81

Su Xiaomo, grabbing the hem of her long, white dress tightly, says while biting her lips slightly, “… I will definitely pay you back the money I owed…”

Murong Jihua sighs inside. Ever since she gave him the ‘good person’ card, the blindingly white lotus has become much gentler and normal as a person.

A bit… obedient and polite.

Naturally, this is without taking into consideration her absurd, cartoonish arrangement and ratio of facial features.

Unfortunately, even if there is no romance between them, neither his character setting nor the plot will allow them to have simple slice-of-life developments.

… He must be unreasonable, domineering, and selfish, in order to ‘grow.’

And she, must deal with it all.

If only he and she aren’t the respective male and female leads of this forced game of Mary Sue, they will probably have it much easier on each other.

But right now…

“Woman, are you implying this shaoye needs that pitiful small change of yours? Before I no longer think of you as an interesting pastime, it is your job to please me.”

Under the charm of money, Murong Jihua has recovered his confidence, and thus has crossed his arms to lean on the wall, declaring proudly,

“A certain someone shall heed my words as well. Whether I like your Mo-er is one thing, but our gamble; our war is another entirely.”

“Conceding, was never an option for any grand CEO.”

——The female lead aside, male deuteragonist delenda est! (TL: Yes, from what I could read in the raws, I am 80% confident this is a reference to that)

Without a rival, could there even be anymore obstacles to their acting?

§82

Murong Jihua will remember that day well.

In the crowded, frequented patient’s ward, there seemed to be a lot of noises, chattering, clamouring, but somehow it also felt like there was no noise. It was all quiet and serene.

He, and the man named He Jünle, between the busily scuttling security personnel and nurses, standing on either side of the east-west corner, are staring down each other with sparks flying between their eyes.

When suddenly, the young man chuckles.

——A highly untimely, and for once, without derision or scorn, the kind of genuine smile that any teenage boy could display when he sees something interesting.
——And thus, a miracle. The whole roomful of suffocating gunpowder, sunk to the deepest corners of a lake, beneath a tall, cold and distant glacial mountain.

§83

“How disgraceful.”

——Murong Jihua knows for sure, that that definitely was not what he genuinely wanted to say.