“You thought you could scheme against me?”
The voice above him was vicious.
Yan Yu hit the floor. His forehead struck something hard, and warm blood began to trickle down his face.
It didn't hurt.
[System? Did you turn on pain suppression?]
Confusion crossed his eyes, but no answer came.
Blood ran into his eyes. He blinked, struggling to see. Something was badly wrong with the situation he'd entered.
“Nothing to say?”
Gu Huaizhi seized his chin hard enough to leave a bruise.
“That hurts...”
Tears filled Yan Yu's eyes. Heat spread through the body he occupied; his limbs were weak, his head heavy and sluggish. Whatever he'd been given had left him barely able to think.
He tried to push the hand away, but had almost no strength.
Gu Huaizhi was also suffering the effects of a drug. He stared at Yan Yu's bloodied face for a while, then slowly released him.
The moment he was free, Yan Yu used the wall to get upright and stumbled toward the exit.
The bedroom door was almost within reach when his awareness slipped. His knees buckled, and he fell.
Gu Huaizhi followed. Instead of letting him leave, he restrained him and dragged him back.
“Let me go!”
The plea went unanswered. Gu Huaizhi assaulted him, ignoring his attempts to resist. Convinced that Yan Yu had drugged him, he treated that suspicion as an excuse for cruelty.
There was no escape that night.
By the time the System came back online, Yan Yu's awareness was in system space. He lounged in front of a drama, cracking sunflower seeds, his detached composure at odds with the suffering of the body outside.
A crystal in the corner began to glow. He spared it a glance. “Where did you go?”
The System pulled itself free of its mount, hurried over, and grabbed a handful of seeds.
The white ball of light had no facial features. It reshaped itself until it had something like a mouth, then began imitating him.
“I got locked out as soon as we entered this world!”
It was eager to know what it had missed. Yan Yu brushed the question aside.
“When did you enable pain suppression?”
The missing sensations had made maintaining his performance more difficult. He wanted to know how much control either of them actually had over the setting.
“Huh? I didn't! I was locked out the moment I arrived. T_T”
Trusting its host, the System opened the controls. Pain suppression was indeed active, but the option was grayed out. It couldn't switch it off.
Yan Yu looked disappointed at the limitation.
Seeing his reaction, the System anxiously jabbed at the panel.
[System: Bad panel! How dare you upset my host! Take that! >_<]
Perhaps the main system heard its vehement complaint. The display flickered, and a percentage slider appeared beneath the setting.
The available range was ninety-five to one hundred percent.
It couldn't disable the function, but the System was satisfied with this small victory and moved the slider to its lowest setting.
Yan Yu let it proceed and began receiving this world's storyline.
His identity here was Song Baiyu, who had grown up in an orphanage.
After his college entrance exams, he needed money for the orphanage director's medical treatment. A bar owner had introduced him to a job as a server at the Lanyu Club.
There, customers had singled him out to drink with them. Once he was intoxicated, someone sent him to Gu Huaizhi's room.
After that night, Gu Huaizhi had forcibly kept him by his side.
Later, Gu Huaizhi planned to expand his company's overseas operations through a marriage alliance with the Shen family.
Their daughter, Shen Huanyin, was demanding. Song Baiyu's presence was evidence of a relationship she would not accept.
For the sake of the marriage, Gu Huaizhi cast Song Baiyu aside.
His possessiveness remained, however. He had people follow him.
When he discovered that Song Baiyu had made friends at school, Gu Huaizhi came after him and locked him up again.
Shen Huanyin learned everything and demanded an end to the engagement.
To keep her, Gu Huaizhi had Song Baiyu killed by starving dogs in front of her.
With Song Baiyu no longer between them, Gu Huaizhi and Shen Huanyin's relationship flourished. They became a model couple praised by everyone.
With the Shen family's support, Gu Huaizhi took his company to new heights.
[Yan Yu: Well. What a piece of work.]
He switched off the drama and brought up a view of the world outside.
Studying the sleeping Gu Huaizhi, he shook his head thoughtfully.
“Looks respectable enough. Turns out he's a monster.”
At least this was a target he could turn the tables on without a troubled conscience.
[System: +_+]
In the hotel suite, Yan Yu slowly opened his eyes.
The body was groggy, its memories of the previous night incomplete. The injuries and disordered room told enough of the story.
He sat up with difficulty, then carefully lowered his feet to the floor. Bruises marked his skin, and the effort drew a stifled sound from his throat. Sweat slipped down his forehead as he held the expression his role required.
Behind that performance, the pain-suppression setting continued to shield his awareness from most of the body's distress.
Ninety-five percent. The System had left him only the smallest fraction to feel.