“Seriously? A coincidence?” Su Ke stared at him, disbelief written all over his face. “Is there anyone I can yell at? I’ve been in a foul mood lately. I need someone to yell at”
Ji Shileng offered a suggestion. “Post a listing on the Federation’s secondhand marketplace. Offer a high hourly rate. Plenty of people will let you yell at them”
Su Ke remained unmoved, making his objection clear through his actions.
Was it some stranger he wanted to yell at?
There was only one person he had in mind.
“Fine, I’ll pay. Can Shang Jianli just stand there and let me tell him off for a while?”
Ji Shileng: “…”
He suspected Shang Jianli’s recent pleasant demeanor had made Su Ke recklessly bold.
“No” Having overheard their conversation, Shang Jianli simply stepped outside.
The moment Su Ke saw him, his temper flared.
He rolled up his sleeves. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You can’t pay to insult me. Nor will I accept it from anyone else” Shang Jianli turned his attention back to Ji Shileng. “Only you, Shileng. You can say whatever you like”
Ji Shileng had no words. He wanted to find a hole and crawl into it.
He had realized that once someone abandoned all shame, they really did become harder to deal with.
He had made his position perfectly clear, yet Shang Jianli still refused to give up.
People said not to strike a smiling face, but surely there had to be a limit to shamelessness.
Putting an end to the awkwardness started with Su Ke. He promptly stepped in front of Ji Shileng. “What kind of talk is that? All these sweet words—you don’t sound like a decent person at all”
“Buddy, never mind anything else. If you really loved him that much, where was all this back then?”
Neither Su Ke nor Ji Shileng particularly liked bringing up the past.
They preferred to demonstrate through action that they remembered the mistreatment they had suffered—and would repay it several times over.
The problem was that, for now, they could do little to Shang Jianli.
The Empire’s web of connections was tangled and complex, with the Shang family woven deeply into it.
As the public face the family had put forward, Shang Jianli combined exceptional personal ability with a deft command of social relationships. His strengths were so comprehensive that there were scarcely any openings.
“Honestly, if we could bring you down, we would have done it long ago. Having you show up in front of us now only makes our anger feel powerless”
Behind his back, they had cursed Shang Jianli thousands upon thousands of times. Yet whenever they actually faced him, he remained composed, surrounded by people.
Ji Shileng considered this, then gave a helpless smile. Stepping in front of Su Ke, he corrected his wording. “I wouldn’t quite say it makes our anger powerless”
He paused, thinking about how to phrase it.
“Maybe I’ve made peace with it without being able to let it go?”
Even Ji Shileng was not entirely certain as he said it.
But people were complicated, multifaceted creatures.
It would have been much easier if no longer loving someone meant simply no longer loving them, and hatred could remain nothing but hatred.
Instead, love and hate were so often crushed together, stirred into every meeting and every confidence they had shared.
Until the two could no longer be separated.
People said hatred lasted longer than love. But without love, where would hatred come from?
Time could indeed make many things matter less. Making peace with the past worked that way.
Yet whenever he saw that person, everything he had laid down was picked up again.
After repeating the process a few times, even Ji Shileng found it absurd.
He arrived at the reason. “In any case, we should see less of each other. Whenever we meet, I can’t keep my emotions under control”
Good would be rewarded, and evil punished. If retribution had not come, its time simply had not arrived.
Ji Shileng considered that little more than a meager consolation kind people offered themselves.
Often, someone had to act before the wicked received their punishment.
Take Shang Jianli, for example. He had already risen to that position, breaking the Empire’s record for its youngest general.
And although the Shang family produced no shortage of idiots—his mother and Shang Shengge being two prime examples, with a host of lesser fools beneath them—
The family’s position remained rock solid.
Who could touch them?
Even the Empire’s ruler would have to consider countless consequences before moving against the Shang family.
However powerful the Ji family might be, they were still a foreign family.
Listening to him, Su Ke snorted. “And whose fault was it that you rushed off and insisted on boarding the oversight director’s ship yourself?”
If he had not gone then, things would have been much simpler now.
At the very least, he would not have ended up in the hospital so many times.
“You’re going to bring that up for the rest of my life, aren’t you?” Ji Shileng had not expected Su Ke to return to that subject again.
Hearing the words “the rest of my life,” Shang Jianli’s lashes trembled involuntarily.
A lifetime was so short.
And a lifetime was so long.
He did not want to spend his whole life surviving on memories of high school and university. That would be too painful.
“Forget it. You’re still the one to blame” Su Ke looked at Shang Jianli, accusation all but spilling from his eyes.
If Shang Jianli had gone in properly equipped that time, none of it would have happened!
Worst of all was his poor judgment in choosing personnel, allowing Mr. Bai to buy them off and sabotage the entire competition.
Ji Shileng and Joker Studio had endured some abuse, while Path to Stardom had once again been thrust into the public eye.
But all that discussion had also raised the game’s popularity by several percentage points, attracting a wave of new players.
Facing Su Ke, Shang Jianli remained neither arrogant nor deferential. “The problems with this competition were indeed our responsibility as the organizers. I’m sorry”
Su Ke: “…”
Hearing Shang Jianli apologize to him was like having a hailstorm dumped over his head. His anger went out, leaving him frustrated and stifled.
Shang Jianli continued, “I know I was wrong before. I’m working on changing”
Wariness replaced anger. Su Ke’s eyes widened.
He thought: This bastard really knows how to put on an act.
Every lousy man loved saying that.
He had heard it so often at drinking parties with the other rich kids that it made him sick.
Rather than continue trading words, Su Ke grabbed Ji Shileng and turned to leave.
Once they were several meters away, he asked, “Unbelievable. Is he trying the gentle approach now?”
“Honestly, I don’t really understand either” Ji Shileng let Su Ke drag him along at a brisk pace, looking thoroughly resigned.
“Everything he says sounds like a cheating bastard’s lines. How did you ever fall for him?” Su Ke was baffled all over again.
Ji Shileng thought back carefully. Finding that he truly did not know, he answered candidly, “Good question. If I knew the answer, I’d go find a substitute right away”
Who could explain the feelings of youth?
“Then try harder to like someone else. The best way to forget one relationship is to jump into the next pit”
Ji Shileng: “…”
Making peace with something really was different from forgetting it.
He felt Su Ke’s forehead. “No fever. What is it? Have you gone crazy too?”
“No. I’m seriously trying to help you come up with a plan”
Ji Shileng asked curiously, “And what if I jump into the next pit and can’t get out of that one either?”
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