Chà Chà Novel

Many people had heard Ji Shileng’s name, but most had no idea what he looked like.

He was young. He had neither joined the family business nor gone into military technology with his second brother, Ji Shifeng.

Since he had left home during high school, news of him had become scarce.

Outsiders could only speculate based on his name.

When the private starship landed, Ji Shileng still felt a little dazed.

After all those years with Shang Jianli, was it really over, just like that?

It was certainly time for it to end.

One relationship had cost him his life and left him barely alive.

Perhaps love simply did not suit him.

He was better suited to staying in the Federation, being the family’s cherished youngest son.

At least no one would dare bully him or spread malicious gossip to his face, would they?

“Crying again?”

Ji Shiyun approached him.

Ji Shileng shook his head and answered in a muffled voice:

“There’s no point.”

“No point? I think you have plenty to cry about.”

Seeing him like this only made his eldest sister angry again.

“If this hadn’t happened, would you still have refused to come home?”

“I had already started preparing.”

“Preparing? What exactly had you prepared?”

Ji Shiyun regarded him skeptically.

“I moved the game studio’s core operations back to the Federation.”

He managed a strained smile.

Ji Shiyun fell silent.

During his rebellious middle school years, Ji Shileng had become hopelessly absorbed in gaming. Later, when the game he played ran out of funding, he simply bought it outright—Path to Stardom—and founded Joker Studio.

When he decided to remain in the Empire after graduation, he had relocated the studio from the Federation to the Empire.

Ji Shiyun linked her arm through his and said no more about it.

“The gaming industry is better developed in the Federation anyway. Now that you’re home, stay here.”

“We of the Ji family know how to commit—and how to let go.”

The Empire’s environment did not suit him, and its policies did not support the gaming industry either.

Fortunately, there was nothing that could not eventually be overcome.

Chapter 5: A True Heart for a “True Heart”

The Federation and the Empire were two separate countries.

Unless one of them deliberately created an opportunity, the chances of him meeting Shang Jianli again were almost nonexistent.

Besides, people in the Empire were practically beating drums in celebration of the death of Ji Shileng, the man who had supposedly married above his station.

Through the car window, familiar cypress trees lined both sides of the road. Their spreading branches reached eagerly over it, scattering small, dappled patches of light and shadow across the ground.

“Shileng, welcome home.”

Ji Shiyun spoke to him through the rearview mirror.

This was the Federation, the place where he had been born and raised.

There were no malicious gossips, no clamorous judgments, and no Shang Jianli.

Everything was good.

——

Ji Shileng was gone.

Perhaps the light was too dim. When Shang Jianli looked up, he suddenly could not make out the photograph of them together on the bedside table.

Only now did he fully realize it.

Ji Shileng was gone.

Shang Jianli sank to his knees beside the bed, his fingertips gently tracing Ji Shileng’s face behind the glass.

Without warning, before his eyes, the cotton T-shirt became a neatly tailored suit. The broad maple-lined avenue behind him narrowed into a vast drop with no end in sight.

This time, Ji Shileng was still smiling.

He smiled as he fell from the starship.

Shang Jianli remained kneeling motionless beside the bed until his knees went numb and a belated, dull pain rose in his heart.

As though suddenly realizing something, he picked up his communicator and made a call.

“Chu Wan, how are… his funeral arrangements coming along?”

Chu Wan froze. She had assumed a late-night call from Shang Jianli meant something urgent. She had not expected him to ask about Ji Shileng’s funeral.

Since taking office, Shang Jianli had never asked her about anything concerning Ji Shileng. Many of Ji Shileng’s affairs had been arranged by her.

The watch, for instance.

“General, there is one difficulty.”

Chu Wan spoke frankly.

“Your mother will not agree to have Ji Shileng buried in the Shang family cemetery.”

They spoke of burial, but no body had been found.

They would merely use the clothes Ji Shileng had worn most often to establish an empty grave in his memory.

Shang Jianli carefully put the photograph back. He had always known his mother disapproved of Ji Shileng.

Not only his mother. Most of the Shang family disapproved of him.

An “orphan,” with no family background to match theirs.

Before his exceptional competition results earned him special admission to Imperial No. 1 High School, he had lived in a slum notorious for its filth, disorder, and squalor.

During the long silence, Chu Wan noticed something unusual in Shang Jianli’s manner and quietly asked whether she should choose another cemetery.

She did not think he would quarrel with his family over Ji Shileng.

“Bury him in the Royal Cemetery.”

“Pardon?”

“I said, bury him in the Royal Cemetery as my spouse.”

Shang Jianli’s tone was flat, his emotions unreadable.

Chu Wan hesitated, then spoke carefully.

“General, if this is for the sake of your reputation, there is really no need to bury Mr. Ji in the Royal Cemetery.”

Once someone was buried there, their grave could never be relocated.

As the Empire’s youngest general, Shang Jianli could hardly be expected never to marry again.

“Hmm?”

Shang Jianli stood, signaling for her to continue.

“The rumors about Mr. Ji among the public are not particularly favorable.”

Not particularly favorable was an understatement. His reputation was downright notorious.

“And your father has already begun arranging matchmaking meetings.”

If Ji Shileng was buried in the Royal Cemetery, where would that leave a future spouse?

It was true that Shang Jianli had earned widespread praise among ordinary citizens when he married Ji Shileng, a powerless orphan with no connections.

Over time, however, people had grown dissatisfied with Ji Shileng.

They envied his good fortune, resented his sudden rise in status, and said he lacked the virtue to deserve his position.

But had Ji Shileng truly been fortunate?

“It’s fine. Ignore them. Just have him buried there.”

Shang Jianli suddenly felt exhausted.

In their marital bedroom, where Ji Shileng had lived for so many years, there were remarkably few things that belonged to him.

He had clearly married Ji Shileng to win the support of ordinary citizens.

Reason told him he should not bury Ji Shileng in the Royal Cemetery.

Yet emotionally, he felt that if he did not, the final “connection” between them would disappear as well.

“But…”

Chu Wan still found it inappropriate.

“General, I’ve inspected several other cemeteries. They have very good feng shui.”

“Chu Wan, I owe him. There’s no need for me to remarry.”

After a brief moment of thought, Shang Jianli added:

“After all, whoever becomes the general’s spouse will be criticized.”

He himself would certainly be buried in the Royal Cemetery after his death. If Ji Shileng was buried elsewhere, they would not even be able to meet in death.

Shang Jianli raised his head. On top of the bookcase sat the first gift Ji Shileng had ever given him—a figurine of a game character.

Outsiders had treated Ji Shileng like a thorn in their side. Even the game he played had drawn disapproval in the Empire.

【Jianli, this character is the greatest general in the entire interstellar world of the game. You’ll definitely be just as amazing!】

——

Meanwhile, once Ji Shileng was home, the tension holding him together abruptly eased. He slept so deeply that he lost all sense of time.

When he opened his eyes, he instinctively reached for his communicator to see whether Shang Jianli had replied to his messages.

His hand found nothing.

He stared blankly into the dim room for a long while before finally coming back to himself.

He was home now.

He was no longer the general’s spouse.

After collecting himself, Ji Shileng casually pulled on a white sweater. The moment he opened his bedroom door, both his parents looked up.

His father, Ji Jie, glanced toward the stairs.

“You’re awake?”

His mother, Wen Qin, reacted most strongly. Heaven alone knew how she had nearly stopped breathing when she received that phone call.

She sprang to her feet and hurried upstairs, throwing her arms around Ji Shileng and pounding him several times.

“Did you have to nearly die before remembering you had a home? What were your father and I supposed to do?”

Wen Qin was in her fifties. However carefully she looked after herself, wrinkles had still appeared at the corners of her eyes.

Ji Shileng hugged her back, his expression as gentle as ever.

“Mom, now that I’m home, I’m not leaving again.”

“When we told you to come home back then, you refused. You kept saying you were doing well…”

Remembering the reports about Shang Jianli and Ji Shileng in the Empire, Wen Qin suddenly could not bring herself to continue.

But her tears said everything she had left unspoken.

His shoulder grew wet. Ji Shileng was silent for a moment.

“Mom, I was wrong…”

He had thought his family would pay no attention to the gossip circulating in the Empire.

After all, he was the family’s “disgrace.”

Ji Jie sighed and rose to his feet.

“Are you going to let this go, or is this something you can’t let go?”